Connect & Collect the Horse

I have two lessons this week, which is kind of unheard of for me. Last year I took a record breaking 17 lessons and I regret not taking more of them. That's like, a little more than once a month. This year, my goal is to take 40 lessons, which means I need to hustle given that last week's lessons were the first of the year. And we're now in a monsoon of rain for two weeks so probably won't be trailering anywhere.

My first lesson was Wednesday with Tracey and you’ll find out about my lesson on Thursday with Jec tomorrow! 

The trot is still so hard

I haven’t ridden with Tracey for a while. First, TC had his lungs looked at so we skipped two lessons, then we had one that was all trot in 1.5 minute intervals, then COVID came to my barn so she didn’t come out. Then TC decided he needed more trail rides (we go out tomorrow) and I pulled him from her schedule last time. Last week we were finally good to go! 

We started by showing her how he was in warm up and she seemed happy! That’s good news, the only major comments we got in warm up was that he could slow down his tempo so he didn’t get so much over his front legs, something I was working so hard on before his stifle and then ignored afterwards, and the other comments were about his flexion at the poll in our warm up leg yields, which I also haven’t been working on. Cool! Not a bad starting point. 

I expected Tracey to slaughter me for basically bringing her a “Third” level horse who was off the bit, but she did say that he was looking much better and had put on muscle (she said it in her Tracey way where she also said that I needed to now USE that muscle, but I’ll take the compliment!). But I knew I swung too far and so she emphasized the need for him to stretch to contact. Not just telescope his neck up and out. Yep, agreed, he no longer stretches all that well to contact. 

Stretching to contact here though!

But wow, all that work really has paid off in that when I slotted that last puzzle piece into the connection, he felt AMAZING. Previously his go-to maneuver was to get short in the neck or retracted or whatever, even that hesitation, like "are you sure you want me to flex at the poll a little?" gave me the ability to keep his neck inflated. He felt so good in the contact. 

Then he got too low and I gave away the contact and Tracey was on me about that. I'm hoping that this year we'll be able to do a bit fitting clinic so we can see if there's some way to convince him to stay out to contact juuuust a bit more but for now I just need to keep the contact and keep pushing him out there without letting his neck get short or giving away the reins or letting the stride get longer or the tempo increase while rubbing my belly and patting my head and doing complex math problems at the same time. 

We started working on some lateral work and he needed to be simultaneously straighter and more bent at the same time. Basically he folds at the base of his neck, takes his entire neck out of his inside shoulder, but then when I went to straighten that, he counter flexed and pushed his ribcage into my inside leg and she didn't want him to do that. So he needed to be straighter at the base of his neck, more bent through his ribcage (side note: I know the ribcage does not bend, it shifts outward, but it's easier to explain that way), and flexed to the inside. That was TOUGH for him and for me as well. 

When I did get it though, the lateral work felt way better. We even got to school some half pass (for the first time in months, I haven't really played with many movements) and Tracey noted that he wanted to bulge his inside shoulder to the inside, so we did some half pass to leg yield and worked to get him filling the outside rein a bit better and wrapped around my inside leg. That's just not a natural thing for either of us and I know it's going to take a while to get it right, which is fine! 

OKAY TC

We stopped and I thought we might be good but then the lesson that went after me wasn't going to happen, so we decided to look at the canter to walk transition. My reason for asking about this, even though he isn't going to be doing those in the show ring ever again, was because they are a great lie detector in the collection. 

I've always been a bit of a claustrophobic rider in the collected work, especially in the pirouette canter. Knowing that TC is a year, or hopefully less, away from beginning to school the canter pirouettes, I need to address my issues with the collection before I put them on him. Doing the canter to walk transitions is helping me learn to sit into the collection and relax there a bit. I want to give him confidence to sit down and stay there so I, myself, need to feel confident in the collected canter. 

The transitions went well although my timing wasn't great, my issue is typically that I ask too early because I'm like OMG MAKE IT STOP but knowing that was my issue, I did the opposite and kept him in it for too long. He felt good though and it gave me a REALLY good feeling for where he's at in the collection so I can ask him to get to about 80% of that more regularly. 

Not unhappy with this except that he takes so much
frontline activation that I then lose my backline ugh

Generally it was a pretty fabulous lesson and good way to start back up in doing dressage in a normal way (aka not riding my horse off the bit anymore). Since then, TC has still been struggling to not fold his neck and curl a bit when asked to really connect like we did in this lesson, so I'm taking it slow and making sure that first and foremost we have a correct outline and THEN asking him to connect within that. He had acupuncture yesterday so we'll see how much that helps him again, it made such a difference last time that I'm hoping he'll feel better in the contact soon. 

Just Walking

The smoke cleared on Wednesday and we were in the green for air quality for the first time in about a month! It even rained, which was really nice, just enough to moisturize the ground, not enough to make the roads really slippery or anything. 

Lots of people have been riding on and off this whole time but as you know, I just gave TC time off. From having to evacuate to me being on vacation, I couldn't be consistent anyway, and more vet articles are coming out about the importance of allowing the lungs to heal. As I've said before, with TC struggling a little after the 2018 fires AND the fact that I'm trying to have him perform at the highest levels one day, I want to give him that time. 

So we restarted the two weeks minimum of walking on Wednesday. In two weeks, we are going camping again for a few nights, so he will actually get almost three weeks of just walking before I start trotting again in October. 

Even though we are just walking, this
view can't be beat

I have been riding every day since Wednesday. I think it helps TC, he loves being ridden and was getting visibly annoyed with all the hand walking. And it helps me too, something about walking around on a horse that makes me feel better mentally and physically. 

So our routine is to brush him first, then hand walk with the nebulizer, which takes 20-30 minutes. Then I bring him back and tack him up and we walk in the covered arena for a while before I untack him. He even got a little sweaty yesterday, so I gave him a bath afterward. 

Walk work can be boring, but I think I've got some good things to work on. 

He loves to smush his face against the
mirror in this weird way

First, we've been continuing to work on TC's posture. He tends to fall through his thoracic sling and this is especially bad in the walk to halt transition, so we've been doing a lot of halting while both of us hold our tone and I encourage him to close up the hindquarters behind. The moment he falls through his thoracic sling, he gets pushed forward again. It's been fascinating and he has been much better about holding his body in that posture. 

Unfortunately, it's tough to remain forward and loose while holding that tone, so we are working on having a more normal collected walk rather than a creep walk while working on it. I think it'll be good for us to develop a more appropriate collected walk while we are stuck in the gait. 

Second, I've been disappointed in our half pass scores. They seem to cap at 7. Everything else, I've gotten an 8 on or see a clear pathway forward for an 8. But the half passes, especially in trot, just haven't scored as well (not that I don't appreciate 7s, don't get me wrong). Our ONE negative comment in the 3-3 test at our last show was that he doesn't wrap around my inside leg in the half passes. 

So what I've been doing is essentially restarting the half pass from scratch with an emphasis on the inside leg to outside rein connection, something I haven't been as obsessive over this year. It was the number one thing that helped Rico's half pass, so we've been doing 3-4 half passes each way with that in hopes that we'll both have that positioning down by the time we can go back to real work. 

Rico and I came a long way in our half pass work

It's crazy the progress here, about a year apart

It's boring and I'm envious of those who were able to mostly stay riding this last month. But it's okay, we will rebuild and come back, hopefully stronger than before. When we start trotting, I'll be restarting him on his LMF Gold and the muscle builder Tanya wanted him on and I'm currently working once a week with a personal trainer (so much cheaper than gym memberships are around here), so hopefully we will literally both be stronger than we were before. 

Fingers crossed he comes back well. He's been breathing okay, occasionally breathing a little fast and deep when the nebulizer is on, but I'm thinking that's because he's enjoying it. If it continues or if his breathing seems a little iffy, I'll call the vet to have a chat about it. 

Semi-Conductor

Last Thursday, I had another lesson! I’m really loving all these lessons, I feel like I’ve nearly figured out why things have been so iffy this year.

First, Tanya helped me out with the Pixem. I believe I have it working well enough to take a remote lesson *when* I figure out how to get audio to me while I’m on the horse. Bluetooth headphones decided not to work, so I need to figure out something else. In the mean time, my SO has agreed to be my ground crew for any technical difficulties and he'll let me use his phone for the audio. So thanks to him and to Tanya for helping me out!

Screenshots from my lesson! 

When we got started, I told Tanya that I’d changed three things since our last lesson: TC got his saddle reflocked, he got his bit changed, and I started him on LMF Gold. She liked these changes, saying that he was much more forward than he had been and approved the bit. So we’ll potentially be buying a NS turtle top soon.

I talked to her a bunch about the conductor theory, that I just hoist him along too much at home and that I’m trying to fix that. She barely had to tell me to get him in front of my leg, having to actually tell me to slow down and rebalance a few times! At one point she had me really half halt him in trot and he sat right down and gave me that fancy floaty trot, which she got really excited about.

We played in canter with the half passes and we still have a significant weakness in the left one. She prescribed us leg yields in canter (from outside leg to inside rein, not the “normal” kind that she had us do several years ago) and haunches-in down the long side. I’ve been doing haunches-in on a circle, but that’s not cutting it anymore.

This is where she wants him to be so that he puts on more
muscle, I'm not unhappy with how he's looking here even if that
damn friesian neck btv-ness will haunt me forever

We also started riding the half passes all the way across the long diagonal to make sure TC was at that level of commitment to the sideways so that approaching centerline, he wasn’t too excited about stopping. Then we held the counter canter and discovered that his changes are STILL hit or miss.

It’s gotten to the point where I just barely school them. I need to get over it, but they just don’t feel good sometimes and I’m paranoid about ruining them. Tanya had us do them and then pointed out that TC doesn’t stay on the bit during them. Yeah, I know that, but apparently this is now the reason why they are so hit or miss! I was being lax about it thinking that he needed to get a little hollow to make them work (typical in training) but really, he can’t jump through them as effectively. So once I kept him rounder, he was much much much better in them. I was really excited about that!

We finished with some trot work. The shoulder-in is pretty spectacular these days, so we focused more on the half passes. Again, he needed to have more activity in his right hind in the left half pass, so she had me really press him for that. He gave me a really really good one by the end and we let him end on that.

Collected and engaged, hallelujah! 

I was really excited about the lesson, mostly because it didn’t feel nearly as far off as what I’ve been doing at home. The more I insist on being the conductor, the better TC goes.

Tanya and I chatted about TC’s remaining issues and she wanted me to order him a new muscle builder. She said that he just doesn’t have the muscle tone that she’d expect of a horse at this level BUT that he’s half friesian and will take longer to put on muscle than normal horses. She said under no circumstances does she want me to back off or not ride him as much, that’s obviously not what is going to put on muscle.

I ordered the muscle supplement and will try it for a month. If I think it works, I’ll pull him off his normal one and just leave him on this one. If it doesn’t work, oh well! It was worth a shot. Also next on my list is to get the vet out to do his teeth, it’s a bit early but may as well. And I’ll have her draw blood and do a blood panel while she’s at it. I’m thinking he might be a little low in vitamin E or he might be slightly anemic if anything. May as well try it out. I’m thinking that we’re about to begin schooling the FEI level work and I have the time/money right now to figure out what he may need to help him out there.

My Horse Isn't Green Anymore

After the show, I gave TC Saturday off (and ran out to teach a clinic), then rode Sunday and Monday, then he got Tuesday and Wednesday off because the SO and I ran up to the mountains to get away from society for a second (more on that later). Then on Thursday afternoon, we had a lesson with Tanya!

Maybe not the best scheduling of my life, I really should have put the lesson on Friday, but it was a weird week.

I was a little concerned when I got to the barn and it was really windy, then more concerned when I decided to put TC in turnout and he and the horse next to him exploded. I took him out and flew him like a kite as we walked around the property a few times, then I put him back and questioned my life choices.

But TC is just the best, man do I love the 9 year old year, so when I got on him, he was energetic but ready to work rather than ready to launch me.

He's so cute

Tanya and I chatted about the show, I told her we didn't get very many comments about the movements themselves, those were all solid except for some green mistakes, but that we got a lot of comments about being short in the neck. I told her that I just wanted to fix that during my lesson.

My goal for comments is to avoid any "red threads" going through my test. The same comment over and over and over again. I'd much rather have small critiques of movements, such as him needing a little more angle in his shoulder-in or a little more bend in a half pass. Something that isn't "there's a basic that's wrong here and let me tell it to you 19 different ways."

Being a huge dork about biting my foot

She had us warm up and pointed out that I don't quite get him committed enough to the bridle, he comes out with just a tiny bit of push back that definitely comes out later on when we're doing more challenging things. I wish I had my soloshot charged that day, because I don't know what he looked like when we got him where she wanted him. He felt a little low and probably was a little too deep, but he did feel more committed to the bridle, so that's good.

From there, we jumped into some leg yields and Tanya found the hole. In lateral work, TC does not remain committed to reaching for the bridle. This makes SO much sense. The 3-1 starts with lateral work, so from the get go, we were retracted in the neck. The 3-3 starts with a medium, so that got him more reaching and that's probably why I felt like he was more rideable in that test.

We worked really hard to maintain the reaching to the bridle in the lateral work and we finally ended with some really good shoulder-in in each direction with him reaching forward and downward to the contact while letting me position him.

Hi this looks delicious

In canter, we played with the same thing. Tanya had me put him into a medium canter and noted that his outline looked the most correct in the medium. Then when I brought him back, he pushed back at me to come back rather than staying out to the contact, so we worked on that quite a bit and I finally felt him stay out there when I went to collect him back. I was to goose him a few times a circle to keep him under himself and make sure that when I did that, he didn't push back at me to respond.

We then jumped into canter lateral work. The haunches-in is getting much better and from there, we did some half passes from the rail to the centerline. Tanya's main critique was that I was allowing him to sweep too much laterally rather than insisting he jump through. I had to block him on the inside side with my inside aids and encourage him to be more powerful. This was tough for my "my horse is green" brain to comprehend because I didn't want to discourage him from going that direction.

But again, TC and Tanya just work together in the lesson and I'm just there being surprised about how good he is as they laugh at me together. So he stepped right up and gave me some REALLY quality half pass despite the inside leg not letting him sneak through.

EXCUSE ME SIR

To end, we did some changes on the rail, which blew TC's mind. TC is used to doing them on the diagonal, across the middle, or on the rail from counter canter, but not on the rail into counter canter. We had a discussion about how in my hopes to not have TC anticipate the change, TC doesn't understand the process of setting up changes and then responding to the aid. He's frequently surprised by my aids. So when I asked for them on the rail, he was like WHAT??

Tanya and I spoke about where I need to put him and over how many strides - I need to get him into the new outside rein so that I can give the new inside rein in the change (this is what causes his changes to be late in front) and I need to ask within three strides of changing things so he understands when they're coming.

It was pretty cool to be working on this stuff! With this, I think we'll be doing tempi changes this fall, which is really exciting!

He's the weirdest

Generally, I was really pleased. We addressed everything I wanted to (the shortness in the neck, the changes, and the canter half passes), TC felt amazing, and I feel like I am starting to be able to replicate it at home a bit more.

But unfortunately it does go a tiny bit against what Anne wanted in our lesson. Tanya is very much a hind leg person, get the hind leg active and then he'll get pumped up through his topline and I can rock him back. Anne wanted me to get the hind leg active while keeping him shifted back. So basically Tanya says the hind leg comes first, Anne says the weight shift comes first. The end goal is the same though, a highly active, uphill horse!

So I've been basically doing both, but more on that later.

Hopefully It's Me, Part 2

This lesson went over so much that I had to break the post into two parts. Here is the second part! We moved into canter after addressing the walk and the trot.

Smile, TC!

Quality of Canter

Tanya really wants TC to canter a certain way and after seeing the videos, I also want him to canter this way for the rest of his life. She emphasized the shortness in his body and how quickly he responded to my go and whoa aids. She wants me doing a ton of work in school canter, especially going from medium to school canter. He's got an okay medium to collected canter transition in that it happens! Which is saying a lot for a horse who once thought that the moment we were in medium canter, I didn't want a slower canter. But she wants it like, aggressively accurate. Just a couple of strides.

With that work, he gave me this absolutely magical collected canter and I got another lecture about how throwing my reins away is not going to get his back up. Until I have his back up and him sitting down, I have to keep the contact, THEN I can soften my hand forward and let him reach to contact while his mass is back. This is a place that TC loves to get, I can feel him getting really excited when we reach that canter. At one point Tanya said "bump him up again" and I just yelled NO I'M SCARED because the canter is SO powerful and he feels like he's just about to launch me at all times. He isn't, he's just so ON. It's something I need to get comfortable riding. Note taken, Tanya.

Then I left him alone

Canter Half Pass

Once we had the quality of canter we needed, Tanya had us school the haunches-in at the canter and then the half pass. As per usual, because I hadn't practiced too much, TC's right canter half pass was an 8 and his left one wasn't so great. I feel like to the right, I can just sit a certain way and he flies laterally. To the left, he gets really confused still.

We didn't spend too much time drilling it, she just told me to make sure I do my homework this time around. The one major highlight of this section of the lesson though was that she had me straighten after my right half pass and canter straight down centerline. Both her and my barn friend who was watching were shocked. Tanya said it was the straightest centerline at canter that she'd ever seen. We kind of laughed at how far TC had come in his canter, because it was a legit nightmare for so long. That's what happens when you put a canter rider on a trot horse I guess! Now for me to stop fucking up the trot.


Flying Changes

I first have to say this, at the end of my lesson, Tanya gave me a brief lecture about trusting myself and my training and to stop stressing so much about his progress. She said that what I've done with this horse is impressive, not least because I've managed to get quality changes on a friesian cross. I thought that was funny, I have heard they are difficult to get clean changes on!

The changes on the diagonal are super quality. She noted that he was no longer kicking at my leg and I said yes, I've worked my ass off to make sure that was gone. She liked the right left better than the left right, saying that he stays way better through in the former and gets flat and fast in the latter. I think I still just don't trust the left right change.

After doing a few on the short diagonals, Tanya gave me an exercise that I haven't ridden before on a horse this green to the changes, a four loop serpentine with changes over centerline. Four loops on THAT horse in a dressage court is VERY tight. I had to be super organized and the changes naturally disorganize him who naturally disorganizes me. It was such a challenge, but we did get through it without any issues.

I loved it because I'm super eager to get tempis on this horse. That and the passage are the two movements that I really miss riding on Rico. I loved just skipping across the arena on him for funzies, doing them on circles/figures. But TC disorganizes quickly after the change, so it's impossible to ride real tempis on him just yet because I don't have a reliable canter after a change. Rather than potentially ruining the tempis by stressing us both out doing them (we've done them once and they were fine, but it'd be nice to not do them until they're going to be good), we can have the same challenge to our organization with this movement that will never be shown.

This was apparently two years ago today!

Overall

It was such a fabulous lesson and gave me a lot to think about. Like I said, I do want to still address his program to make sure that there's nothing in his way, but I do need to stop comparing him to Rico at Grand Prix. Rico is a purpose bred warmblood who in retirement still has a fabulous topline. TC is not purpose bred and both his parents are very low tone horses. Ideal had some muscle on him, but stallions have testosterone. I don't think his dam has muscle as much as she is just made of jello and cuteness. In addition, TC at Third level, even when I think he's looking like crap condition-wise, STILL looks better than Rico at Third level. So maybe I need to take a chill pill.

But still, to do right by my horse I want to listen to my gut, the chirovet came out yesterday to check him.  I also have my FeedXL subscription this month, so I'll be evaluating his diet and making some changes according to that. And then in early July at least, the saddle fitter will be here, I'm going to try to get someone out before then though. Covering all my bases but it's nice to know that Tanya thinks I'm nuts here.

Speaking of Tanya, watching the videos made me realize how much she and TC just get each other. I have a pixem on order but it'll be a while before it's here because they're out of stock right now. So over the weekend, boyfriend and I began working out how I could start remote lessons earlier. More on that later, but I think we've got it nearly figured out.

Hopefully It's Me, Part 1

I was debating whether to go to my lesson on Friday because of how TC was going. But I ended up doing it anyway so that I could get non-crazy eyes on the situation.

Tanya is a very no-bullshit person and listened to me, looked at his condition, and told me not to throw too much money at him because she essentially said Megan, he's a third level horse, not a Grand Prix horse, and he's an off breed, not a warmblood. Initially I was a bit concerned, but I made the decision earlier this year to commit to one trainer and she's it and all her horses look fabulous and score well and her riders ride beautifully. So I sucked it up and gave TC a pet and told him that this would be the one ride before the chirovet came out that he'd have to work his ass off.

Making sure the camera is getting his good side

And sure enough, TC and Tanya worked together through me and by the end, TC felt absolutely fabulous. It was as if TC was like "yeah she's being really ineffective and I'm trying to tell her to get her shit together but she's just a mess right now" and Tanya came in like "I can see that, let me see what I can do to get her going a little better for you" because a quarter of the way through the lesson, TC stood up straight, came way up through his back, and was having an absolute blast carting me around the arena while trying to pounce on bird shadows. Meanwhile I'm like "but do you think he's lame" and she and TC probably laughed together about that.

Before I go further, I will tell you all that I'm keeping my chirovet appointment and my regular vet appointment, I'm also definitely still revamping his nutrition (Tanya told me about a specific muscle builder - body builder? Haven't looked it up yet) and for SURE I need to figure out the saddle. Tanya told me that my thigh was too long for my saddle and it isn't doing me any favors. So I'm still listening to my gut, but the results of this lesson showed me that at least 50% of what is going on is me. That's awesome. I honestly hope I'm 100% of the problem, that's the cheapest solution.

Looking like a fancy pony

We covered a lot of ground, but here were the highlights:

Walk Work

Wow, turns out that not putting my leg on in the walk is NOT a solution to TC's jigging when I put my leg on. She thinks it's two issues: one is that he just simply isn't in front of my leg in general, two is that he will not step laterally off my leg. Basically his response to any leg in walk is just to jig, prompting me to take my leg off. By the end of two walk sessions, I had him more connected in walk than I'd ever felt!

Quality of Trot

This led to Tanya telling me to legitimately get a bucking strap to hold myself in the saddle if I needed to, but under NO CIRCUMSTANCES was I to slow the trot down or make it ANY easier for me to ride. Great. But let me tell you, this horse can fucking trot.

So, the trot work has been tough recently for us, it's where I see the most issues. What it feels like to me is that he's plenty forward and pumping him up through his back means that he just runs on the forehand, leading to him dropping his wither and curling in the contact. Tanya had me not put him as low in the poll, she said that was causing the wither drop (vs I was hoping he'd stretch into contact and then I could pick him up). Instead, she wanted him to step into the contact, however ugly it looked, and then we'd pump him way up from there. Contact first, then what I initially thought was energy but then realized was impulsion. He has the energy, but it's not directed anywhere, so he drops the wither. 

Such cute photos the SO took on Saturday

Tanya compared his topline to a long skinny water bottle, she said that if I kick him forward in a level balance, the front of the water bottle will fill with water and then drop down. If I first pick him up into an uphill balance, the water stays in the back of the bottle, weighting the hind end, and then I can add power without losing him onto the forehand. It worked. Really well. So well that on Saturday, I was very sore.

Trot Lateral Work

He needs to be way more supple laterally, like I mentioned before. His lateral work is high quality, with Tanya saying "well that's an 8 for sure" to his shoulder-in and half pass. The half pass right is absolutely perfect but the half pass left gets a bit underpowered at times and he falls through his left shoulder, so he loses the angle. To fix that, she had me open my outside rein to help show him that there was room for him to stay up and out to the outside rein and reminded me that half pass involves a lot of inside leg. My solution in the past had been to basically over bend him to the left and she reminded me to keep his ears focused on where I was aiming the half pass.

The shoulder-in was picture perfect after a couple of schoolings. Around this time in the lesson, I decided that I needed to only go to shows that Tanya was going to, because I genuinely think that she can add 10 percentage points to my score. When I schooled the tests by myself, I felt like they were solidly in the 60-65% range. With her magic, it's definitely over 70%.

Love this horse!

I wrote this whole post out with all the canter work too and it's shockingly long, so tomorrow I'll talk about the canter work and what I took from the lesson overall!

Test Riding 3-1 and 3-3

Sunday we finally got a break in the heat and I could finally ride outside again! So I obviously forgot the micro SD for my soloshot... All these days I've brought it down ready to go and had to ride inside because of the heat, of course this time I have no SD card!

I decided to test ride because the dressage court footing was pretty decent. It's been weirdly deep some days so I've been riding in the covered or one of the other outdoors. So when I saw it was ready to go, I immediately wanted to test ride.

With shows potentially beginning again in June, and with studies showing that we'll likely get a second wave in fall and therefore possibly get shut down again, I've been debating what to do. Do I show in June and July and quickly snag my scores for All Breeds at Second? Or maybe Third? Do I just get one score at Third on his record to make sure it gets put there and then plan to go out in fall if there are shows? Or do I just wait until me feeling ready and shows being available happen at the same time?

These weeny pictures brought to you by
the fact that my soloshot wasn't charged
enough to track

I decided to try the 3-1 and 3-3 tests because those are the ones I'll need for All Breeds and see how good I could get them before my next lesson. Then see what Tanya thinks. Then decide about what to do in June. I feel confident the 3-1 is showable right now, it's such a basic test, but I didn't know about 3-3 where everything requires much more accuracy and collection. There's tons of down time in the 3-1 and not too many movements, it's hard to get it wrong if you've got all the movements on. But the 3-3 leaves less room, and I'm on a large horse. 

The 3-1 went beautifully at first. The trot work is beyond easy for us, it flows well and I can focus on the quality of the gaits rather than holding things together. I noted that I needed to do more reining back and endless walk work to get him to stop wanting to jig, but those were just little things. Walk pirouettes solid, medium canter solid, right canter circle solid, change from right to left solid.  

Extended canter went well but I could feel him getting more and more amped. It was honestly nice, he's been the sort I've had to hoist through tests and I was appreciating having him on but not acting up. I thought "is this going to be a clean test??" because we have them so rarely. Then he bolted out of the canter circle to the left, and bolted through the change, I came back around and we did the same thing but sub the bolting for bucking. Eventually I got a good pattern and we ended well, but man that'll teach me to think good thoughts! Still, solid test! Just need to do it a bit more and keep managing those extended paces so they don't reduce rideability like that.

His half pass is looking like a half
pass right now though!

I went into the 3-3 skeptical but determined. I just wanted to see how the trot work rode because the half passes were steeper and everyone fucks up the two half circles in trot. I definitely need to ride those more but the trot work was so fabulous! Again, it just flows so easily for him.

I went to start the canter work and he stalled out but picked it up. The canter work went shockingly well! The half passes aren't too steep for him, the changes happen easily, and I rode the extension at the end conservatively but the whole test was clean!!! 

It's not feeling too rideable though. The canter is tough, he's the most rideable when he's amped up but then he's more likely to lose it mentally. It's an issue we have only in tests because I can feel him getting to that point in work and just change what we're doing and he calms down. Sounds like I need to push him for longer and get that comfort zone moved out a bit more.

Also pleased I'm not doing weird
shit in it like I used to

Still though, I'm so pleased!! He's such a cool horse, I never would have guessed the third level work would be so easy for him. His canter will forever need developing and I think it'll take me some time to be able to ride him on edge like I need to in order to keep him rideable... Add into that being in a new place and in front of a judge and all. But all the pieces are there! 

So we'll see what happens this summer with shows. Tanya is coming back at the end of May so I might get her eyes on the 3-1 and then sign up for a show in June to just do that test once or twice. Then if he scores well and handles his shit, I can dump him into a bunch of shows and get my All Breeds scores, if not, then I'll fix what needs to be fixed and we'll stick with 3-1 until he's ready for 3-3. That test is no joke! But we have one clean test under our belt and that's pretty exciting. Just keep swimming. 

Schooling All of Third Level

On Friday evening, I had a lesson! It was the first lesson since early March, where if you remember, TC bucked through the entire two rides with Tanya.

I think Tanya was happy to see that TC bucked zero times in our ride. He did, however, get so amped that he bolted out of the dressage court with me. I don't blame him, it was windy and he'd had a day off the day before and the girth debacle the day before that.

The lesson was fabulous as usual, sometimes I feel it's Tanya and TC working together and I'm just there paying for it and trying not to get in their way. Not because she's riding him or anything, but because he gives me the feeling of being like "SEE JUST DO IT THAT WAY MOM, thanks auntie Tanya, I've been trying to explain that to her" but he's so sweet I can't imagine him sassing me like that.

Baby TC turning from this into something that can be ridden
in canter half pass is amazing to me. Also look how big I look
on him here! 

We began a little late because my Soloshot decided that despite working perfectly for months and months, it wanted to low key film the trees instead of me. Then I got it sort of working and TC bopped it with his nose. Of course he did. So it recalibrated again and then refused to take any video of me the whole lesson. Great.

Because I had only walked when Tanya got there, she had to see what she immediately thought was a very ineffective warm up.

I tend to warm TC up on a long rein because he loves stretching, then we canter on a longish rein and then I pick him up and we get to work. I figure it's good for him to stretch down because it was such a hard thing for him, good to warm up his muscles. Tanya wanted me to do a more aggressive warm up though, which is fair. She had me doing steep leg yields, both shoulder-in and haunches-in and did some pretty intense shortenings and lengthenings. I do have to admit, when we popped into canter, his initial quality of canter was much better than normal.

Seriously this canter has taken a very long time

She had us canter left first, I usually canter right because he's just trickier to the left. Sure enough, he was pleasant at the canter left but then she had me ask him to do literally anything else and he came back against me with his neck. She was not pleased, she cited the submission part of the collective marks and basically told me that he wasn't through if I couldn't put my leg on or turn him on a smaller figure without him backing off. The way I was correcting it wasn't effective enough and she had me essentially bend and keep him bent (vs my annoying new tendency to bend him and then lose the outside shoulder, so then I straighten him, and rinse, repeat, it's not great), then follow through on the outside side to push him up and over into contact.

Once I did this, TC was like "yep sure" and everything felt way way easier. He almost seemed to take a deep breath and settle into work much easier. She then had me change directions through the walk and we looked at the much higher quality right lead canter. She was happy with where that was at and we just did a few things to rev him up and get him a bit straighter.

From there, we chatted about where TC was at. I said we were schooling canter half pass and that was going okay but not show ready yet. I also mentioned the changes were rough and she said she was expecting that. I told her about the kicking change too, but she said she didn't really mind kicking changes. I explained that the fact that TC and Rico are the only two that have ever done it to me was making me insane and she's like "yep that's enough to drive you crazy, but try not to worry about it" and we were off.

His typical left lead canter, just not quite through

We started working on the half pass left by heading down the long side in haunches in. TC immediately got stacked up and tried to break, Tanya noted that he just didn't seem to understand what was expected of him. We came back on the circle and she had me put his haunches in there, which helped a little bit, then she had me draw his shoulder out to help him understand the positioning. That caused a bit of a breakthrough moment and our half pass was way better.

Still though, he really struggles to understand how to move from right to left at the canter on the left lead. So she had me go from H to A, put him very straight, then put him in a counter positioning and basically push him sideways toward centerline. This worked FABULOUSLY well and she told me to do it until it was easy, continue the haunches-in on the circle until that's easy, then combine the two and I've got a canter half pass.

The right half pass was fabulous out of the gate, she just wanted to make sure that I kept the collection in the half pass rather than let him get long. Great!

A much better left lead canter, much more lifted through his
body and responsive to my aids

We kind of randomly put in changes throughout and she had some complaints. First is that I sometimes walk him after the changes and she told me that if I keep doing that, he won't learn to jump through the change and that's an environment ripe for kicking. I loved that thought. I tend to walk after the changes sometimes for two reasons: 1) a reward for TC being a good boy and 2) to prevent him from thinking that he can get strong and use the change as a way to take off with me. He's confirmed enough now where both of those are unnecessary.

We ended with going down the long side, doing a half circle at E/B to X, then half passing to H/M and immediately doing a flying change out of the half pass. He's never done that but he took to it okay, except the kicking change was on full display!

Tanya blew my mind with this. As a reminder, I rode with a lot of trainers who couldn't figure out why I caused Rico to kick at my right leg. We just chocked it up to him being old and this being a habit that was caused by who knows what early on. Then TC started kicking at that same leg in the same way and I began to go crazy.

Both are improved from this canter before

Tanya told me two things: first, I keep my right leg too far back in the left lead canter, especially in the half pass. The half pass aid is not the outside leg behind the girth, it's the outside rein and outside thigh. THEN she said I don't keep my internal rotation on the right leg especially as it goes to swing forward... causing my spur to graze his barrel on the right side.

She had me go back and keep my right leg quite forward and she told me not to move it an INCH as I asked for the change, just to swing my left leg. I did and he gave me the best left to right change he's ever given me.

I brainstormed afterward with Kate. Rico is exceptionally wide in his barrel, so I was a tiny flea on his back even though he was only 16.2 and I'm 5'6 with long legs. I wore big spurs with him because he was lazy. TC is not wide at all, but he has a deep girth, so I look like a tiny flea on him too even though he too is only 16.2. I wear big spurs with him because I had those in my locker and I'm a good rider with good body control, I can keep my spur out of his side. And I can... mostly.

Other horses I've put changes on/ridden changes on have been either smaller or narrower than my two big bodied horses. So it was all just a coincidence that MY horses were kicking at my leg when others weren't. It was just the size and shape of their barrel.

So now this is my project, I'm going to work to get control over my right leg and fix it before doing too many more changes with TC. If I still have this issue, I'll switch spurs to something smaller. I love my spurs and how he goes with them in every other bit of work we do, but I am NOT going to be dealing with a kicking change anymore.

Rico's left to right change was always quite good

You can see him kicking at me and also see why, DAMNIT how
did NONE of the trainers I rode with for YEARS not figure this out

Just that last thirty seconds of help with the change was enough to make me SO HAPPY with the lesson, let alone having a huge breakthrough with the canter half pass and throughness to the left. And I was in the lesson getting a little frustrated with my lack of collection in the right half pass and realized... we're doing canter half pass in a lesson! This is so exciting! He's schooling all of Third level now and it's so fun!

Installing Canter Half Pass

Now that he has changes (although lol I broke the RL recently, I'll expand on that later, it's all good), TC has all the movements for Third Level Test 1. We've run through it once and it rode well, it's a fairly easy test though.

My thought for shows this year is that I want to get his changes solid enough to do tempi changes before doing them in the show ring. I just don't like going in a show not feeling confident in the movements. Tanya said that changes normally take a year to get solid, and we started in October, so I'm thinking that August would be our first Third level tests.

I'd love to be able to do 3-1 and 3-3 in the same show though, maybe even snag the five All Breeds scores I need just for funzies (gotta make up for not doing it last year, right?) in a few shows. But 3-3 is a MUCH harder test. And it involves... canter half pass.

Unimpressed with me telling him to not itch
his fancy bridle on his boots

We've done a bit of lateral work at the canter, but mostly shoulder-in and just a small amount of haunches-in and half pass. I've been really obsessing over getting TC's canter more rideable, I really want to get the pirouettes on him next winter so this year is all about preparations for that. That also involves canter half pass. So basically, it's time to get a canter half pass on this horse.

Tuesday I discovered that it turns out that when you have a good quality canter and a horse who is committed to being in front of the leg and responsive to the leg, you have a canter half pass. So we just... did canter half pass and he was really good about it. It also helps that it's one of my strongest movements (canter half pass, the changes, and the walk pirouettes are the easiest movements for me historically) even though the trot half pass is one of my weaker ones. Why is dressage so weird?

It's not a perfect half pass, and I did it in the covered arena so I didn't know how steep it really is. Wednesday, I decided to find out, so I headed out to the dressage court to see what it was like to set him up and ride it out of the corner, which would give me an idea of steepness depending on where I landed on centerline.

Thinking about the many ways he might try
to jump out of the court this year

So Wednesday, I discovered how mostly decent the canter half pass is! His left one is stellar, like, showable. The right one is fine, he just needs to get more comfortable with it. To the left, I can put him on a line and easily keep him on it but the right he staggers a little bit on the line. Nothing else is really wrong with it, it's just clearly harder for him to get his legs to do the thing.

Aside from the canter half pass, we had an awesome ride! TC thinks that the fancy trot is really fun, so he keeps offering it and he gets really excited to pick it up to the point where most of our walk work after warming up involves a lot of squealing and the high pitched "eeeeeeeeee" that he's loved making since he was a baby. Then when I do ask him to trot, he bombs around without giving a shit about me, it's my job to stay on him basically. But everything is there, you just shift your weight and he does lateral work, he's figured out that diagonals are mediums so he gets himself all pumped up in the corners just in case. He's just ridiculous.

But yes, canter half pass, it's a really good start! I can't wait to teach him the zig zag, I think he'll love it!

Actually Schooling Third Level

TC and I had such a good week/weekend since I got back from Seattle! In fact, boyfriend said "he's always good" when I told him for like, the seventh ride in a row, that TC was really good.

He's just awesome, okay?!

He's now schooling all of Third level, which is *insane* to me. We still have more to do for Second, but I have all the Third level movements on him and let's chat about them.

He was so glad to wander around in the sun and
so was I!

The main movement is obviously the lead changes. Those are coming along SO WELL. They are both clean and they're becoming ENORMOUS. Jesus Christ, this horse can freaking jump through the change. And he isn't even as through and round as I want him to be in the future. I'm mildly afraid of what those changes are going to be like and also how am I going to fit all those tempis across the diagonal.

At this point, I'm still mostly doing them across the same diagonal and they're not quite always on my aid, they're happening mostly when I set him up for them. I'm pairing that with the aid, so I'm sure he'll figure that out eventually. For now I'm just VERY happy they're clean and straight, so I'm rolling with it.

He's been the most low drama, easiest horse I've put changes on. When I started putting them on, one was unclean, it took me two weeks to fix the canter and then it's been clean ever since. Now we're just putting in the miles doing them and soon they'll be confirmed! He's so chill about them too. I mean sometimes he wants to bolt out of the corner and get to do them sooner, but I think he likes doing them! He never seems to get frustrated, anticipating, or burnt out about them, he just gets better and better.

My trainer friend at the barn saw us doing them yesterday, we were schooling them in the outdoor so I'm never certain if they're clean, but I figure he hasn't had an unclean one in a while. She came up to me afterward and said "all those were clean! Like good and clean, they look really good" so that made me smile.

This is the most TC thing I've ever seen

I've also taken my time introducing the half passes to him. His trot half pass is quite good, surprisingly good actually. He's flowing super well to the left, but the right is still a little haunches trailing. Weird because I would have assumed they would be opposite. I'm the *actual* worst at riding half pass, so I don't blame him for being a bit confused. He'd probably ride it really nicely for literally anyone else.

His canter half pass is still a bit shit but he's got such a giant moment of suspension that he's able to get quite sideways, he just blows through my inside leg a bit. The canter feels FABULOUS even when he blows through my inside leg so I'm really pleased with how the movement is developing his canter a bit more. Eventually I'll be able to clean it up into a show-worthy half pass, but for now, he's understanding moving laterally at the canter, so that's great!

Mom y r u so bad at haff passers?

I touched on the trot medium the other day. I'm still avoiding riding too many canter mediums/extensions because of the... uh... control issue we have in it. We do some work in medium canter to help him understand responsiveness to my leg, but I generally don't let him go balls to the wall. I'll try that in the summer when I've had a shot of whisky or something beforehand or something.

I've avoided the trot mediums because they've been kind of terrible. He also makes himself a bit sore doing them, so Tracey told me to avoid doing them too much until he's stronger. He's definitely stronger now but I still have been avoiding them. But I pushed the button and it has improved quite nicely! I figure as long as it's getting better, I will happily avoid doing it. Mediums are a lot of wear and tear on joints, horses only have so many mediums, so I'll be doing a lot of exercises that build the same muscles/ability that won't piss off his hind legs.

His face is so cute, also still love this bit

Things are going well this winter! He's still in the nathe and hasn't been bolting much recently (other than getting overenthused about the changes, but he hasn't gotten away from me). He's just loving his job and doing it well. I'm so excited for the year! I wish we had more time to show, but I think we'll squeeze in enough activities this year.

A Little Bit Sideways

Today TC gets to see the chiro vet! I'm really excited to get his back in gear (his little roach area popped up recently) and then ask her other unrelated questions.

The weekend was relatively light TC-wise. On Friday afternoon, I drove north to move in with Peony for two nights. Saturday was an event (I'm the dressage trainer but I coach at events on occasion, I don't mind) and then Sunday I taught some lessons. The event went well and it was super fun to see Nicole too! We all went to eat delicious dumplings and noodles before going to bed super early that night. Lessons went pretty well too!

This is the cat that adopted Peony, she's really cute!

I rode TC on Sunday night and he felt great. I've been focusing a ton on the quality of the gaits recently and I decided on Sunday to see how some movements rode.

His gaits are feeling really good, I've been working hard on his canter and it's definitely getting easier for him to collect it and transitions in and out, both from walk and from trot, are getting better. And the trot itself is feeling great most of the time. I'm getting pickier about the quality of the throughness and his responsiveness to all the aids and he's stepping it up big time.

I decided to make it a lateral work day at both trot and canter, so here's the breakdown.

View from what we did the next day

Shoulder-in at the trot is feeling good, but it's definitely not as big and fancy as it was last year at times. I believe that it's because I'm asking for a more uphill balance and he can't be fancy and uphill at the same time just yet, he has to stay coiled and learn that impulsion is more than just pushing himself over the ground, it's pushing himself upward too. So that will come, I'm sure.

As an aside, I can't wait to get a passage on this guy because I think it will help us out a lot in terms of the fancy shoulder. But if I put it on too soon, I'm going to lose his hind legs out behind him. He is the epitomy of needing a solid piaffe first before I get the bamboo out. If I teach him passage now, he'll never piaffe.

Haunches-in at the trot felt okay, though he struggles with the amount of angle necessary sometimes. It was easier one way than the other and I can't for the life of me remember which. The biggest issue I'm facing is one I faced on Rico: he struggles to give me the angle so to get it on the tracks I want it on, I'm letting him fall out through his shoulder. This is extremely apparent in the half pass.

He is the best trail horse

He's still very green at half pass, I can count the number of times I've really worked on it. I'm not as strong at half pass as I am at other things (I like to think my strengths are connection and impulsion, also walk pirouettes apparently, maybe I'm wrong) so I can't seriously say what *his* issues are without relating them right back to me. Like Rico, he struggles with the bend in half pass, it feels like it's either a diagonal line or haunches-leading at this point. We'll work it out. Tracey will fix us right up!

None of these weaknesses inspired me to not try the movement at the canter. I find half pass in canter to be a much easier movement for me. The horse does not have any crossover at the canter, it's just pushing the horse sideways during the moment of suspension. So I revved him up and did just that.

He's quite good at it to the right, I think that's because I naturally sit better at the canter that way. To the left, we struggled a bit but we did get some good moments in between him thinking that he might attack the shit out of two pigeons in the corner we were riding it from.

Looking out at the valley

I think this weekend at my lesson, I'll ask Tracey about the haunches-in. I do want to be able to do 2-3 this year if possible, and that plus the counter canter are all that are missing in my lessons. She's given us a ton of info on the shoulder-in, a good lesson on the simple changes, and she told me his walk pirouettes were 8s and I am still on cloud nine about that.

I'm getting excited to show at Second not because it's Second and I wasn't sure if we'd make it, but because I think we might actually do pretty well. My goal is always to walk out with 68%+ and I think there's a chance we may nab that at least at 2-1. But hey, a couple of 8s on the walk pirouttes at 2-3 and I can botch all kinds of other stuff. Like the medium canter, which I am not sure I'm going to actually ride, and the medium trot, which is still terrible.

Brought to You By Tryptophan

On Friday, I had a lesson on TC for the first time since September!

After my really questionable ride on Thursday, I started feeling really iffy about this lesson. Tanya is more expensive down here and only comes down once a month. The idea of having an entire lesson where all I get told is to sit back and turn him in a circle when he got away from me... ugh.

I know a lot of people appreciate seeing their trainer when their horse is being bad, but when he's bad, I want to see a young horse trainer, not a dressage trainer. I'm also fully capable of handling TC when he's bad so don't need help with that, but there's only so much you can reassure your trainer that "I'm fine, just teach me the dressage and ignore how he's leaping and bucking"

I've never ever ever in my life used a calming paste. I very much value teaching TC to handle his shit in new places without anything helping him out. But I had gotten desperate and grabbed one from the store after TC had been such a dingbat at the ranch with the gunfire. I saw it in my trunk after my ride on Thursday and realized that this was an ideal circumstance to try it out.

I wasn't sure how TC would take it, so I followed directions and gave him the tube two hours before my lesson was to begin. I figured that if it didn't work, no harm done. If it worked too well, I'd just suffer through a lesson where I actually have to use my leg.

Saw us in the mirror for the first time in SO LONG

I arrived at the facility and left TC in the trailer for a bit, and he just stood there chilling out. He didn't even have hay. Then I took him out and he was the epitome of chillaxed. There was no spooking, no screaming... he was kind of stoned. I could see him standing there staring around at everything like "cool, cool, is there food here?" when a lot of the time he comes out of the trailer like he's on fire and trying to put it out.

The same thing happened when I got on him to warm up. He was responsive to me, it wasn't like he was tranquilized or anything, but instead of wanting to attack a bird in the arena, he just stared at it like "huh" and I could feel him give it finger guns like "yeahhh sup bird." So needless to say, if I opt to do this again (thinking of it for our first trail ride), I'll use half a tube.

He was so sweet when we were sitting and
watching a bit of the lessons, he kept like...
hugging me

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't super different, he was just TC without the buzziness, it was summer TC. He felt truly relaxed since moving. His trot was loose and relaxed, his canter was big and rolling when this whole last week, it's been basically on the spot and tense.

I was grinning when we started the lesson, I freaking LOVE this horse, and having him be relaxed and not freaking out about being in a new place or seeing a bird (ducks were coming in and out of the arena) was just great. No regrets, judge me if you want to, but having him feel relaxed and happy off the property for the first time in a LONG TIME was absolutely worth all the "why don't you just train your horse" bullshit I was convinced I might get by writing about this.

TC was like, where did the ducks go?

Alright, so the lesson. I told Tanya that showing was in the air right now but that I've been playing with the half passes and changes and things are going fine. He has been feeling a little... precarious... in the connection lately, but he's also been so freaking tense.

We started with the connection in sitting trot. I hadn't even gotten to do much sitting trot he's been so tense lately, so it was nice to work on it, even if my abs immediately started hurting.

TC was being so good that I kind of let him get away with staring at this big heron in the field every time we went down to one side of the arena. Tanya had a good point in that, if TC was really connected in the way he should, he wouldn't be able to get to the point of looking at it. Again, I was just so impressed he wasn't leaping over to it to attack it or spooking at it that I just kind of... ignored him.

So Tanya talked me through one of her ways of getting a horse quickly back to you, which is to take the inside hand and bring it into a slight indirect rein. It worked quite well and soon TC was with me.

Next, we worked on getting TC a little more over his topline near his poll. TC stays over his back pretty well, but if there's part of him that isn't always on board with that, it's near his poll. It goes back to the precarious connection I've been feeling - he'll stay on the bit, but when I go to change something, he can easily get a little tight near his poll or look at a bird.

Still love this rig! 

From the trot, we went into canter and looked at the quality of it. I think it felt amazing and had so much fun pushing it bigger and feeling the relaxation in his back. Tanya said to not let him get so giant. But... but it's so fun! We worked on the collected canter though, which is good. To the right, things went pretty well and he was able to sit down a bit more. To the left, he was way overstuffed on the right side of his body. Tanya had me ride TC quite straight in the neck and we did a lot of square turns off my right leg (this is a theme for the whole lesson - TC needs to be lighter off my right leg).

After that, we did some of the lateral work. TC's trot work felt great! In the shoulder-in and haunches-in, it's just about getting a bit more cadence, but he's solid in the work. For the half pass right, Tanya wanted to address my habit of grabbing at the right rein and driving his haunches over too much. She had me turn from the corner letter to A or C, ride shoulder-in on that line, then keep the shoulders on the line they are on and sweep the haunches over. It... kind of felt like crap but it looked good. I hate half pass for this reason. I also need mirrors for this reason.

I had mentioned to Tanya that while I hate trot half pass, I actually don't hate the canter half pass. I did not mean it on TC though. She took it to mean that and we schooled the canter half pass, which is predictably bad because he's done it once.

The big takeaway there is that TC is green to this movement (I mean again yeah I've schooled it once) and feels especially uncomfortable moving his haunches to the left off of my right leg. Definitely going to work on it, but I think I have a lot of work to do in other departments before really schooling the canter half pass.

Random gap in the mirrors, he kept seeing ducks
over here

Overall, it was a tough but good lesson. I hate not taking regular lessons because I get really bad lesson hangovers and this one sucks. TC feels so far away from our goals, despite us working pretty much exclusively on Third level stuff in our lesson. I know I can fix it though, so not a big deal. I also think I can swing another lesson this month, but certainly can take two in April (when TC moves to a cheaper and larger paddock).

After the lesson, I stuck around watching for a bit and a saddle fitter came up to me to give me his card. I'd heard of him before and absolutely pounced on him. I had him look at my saddle and he told me it wasn't bad, but it was tight on TC's shoulders. I brandished a check at him and I suppose looked desperate enough for him to fit it on the spot! So now TC's saddle is fit to him and gives him more room in his shoulder, phew, knock that off my to do list.

I'm excited to keep playing with these concepts and to feel how TC goes in his newly fit saddle!