Fowl Shenanigans

As TC has grown up, external stimuli are bothering him less and less. What once set him off is now something to be ignored... as long as my right thigh is clamped on him.

There are still some things that set him off... evil feathered things. And my ride this morning was hilarious, so hilarious that I'm using my fifteen minute break to write about it real quick. Then I forgot to post it. Ah, blogging has been tough while living out of a box and actually having real work to do at work.

He's so brown right now, so dirty!

I got up late, having been up late hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law (it's so nice to be close to them again!), and was only able to put in a 30-40 minute ride (I try to stay on him for an hour). TC looked sleepy in the cross ties, he wasn't even pawing. I figured it'd be fine to hop and and just ride him instead of doing the ground work I've been doing at the new barn, since the only longeing arena isn't, IMO, TC-proof. Ground work does the same thing.

I hopped on and felt a hump in his back, which quickly deflated when I put my thigh on him. I do like that about him, you can really call him on his shit with your biomechanics.

The only other dressage rider was in there (wee DQ day) and so we chatted for a while about care of an older horse, rider biomechanics, and trainers in the area. I warmed TC up and he immediately was kind of lazy. Tbh, I don't usually like him when he's lazy, but I legit have not been able to put my leg on this horse for a while now, so I enjoyed it.

We did some leg yields with a focus on the corkscrew, rode some circles with a focus on my left thigh drawing him rather than blocking him, and generally had a nice relaxing ride. He was so good over his back and in the connection that I actually got to pump up his trot for the first time in a long time and oh man, there's a passage living in it now. I'm not going to put the passage on before the piaffe of course, but it's cool to be able to increase suspension when I want to.

When the turnouts are empty, I'll happily walk
him around there, but when they're full of horses,
we kind of avoid them

Everything was going well in trot, so I took a short break and figured I had about five minutes to canter before I needed to walk him out and put him away. I chatted with the other rider for a bit, watched her horse trot, then went to pick up TC to canter. Right about then a horse in turnout positively went GALLOPING across the turnout. For a while. TC watched curiously but didn't do anything.

What a grown up! Granted, had I had him cantering, I don't know if he would have been as good, but he was clearly not afraid or even all that impressed with that horse. Good boy!

I waited for that horse to graze (because like I told TC, I didn't have time to deal with any shit that morning, I was already later than I wanted to be to work) and then picked up the canter.

We got maybe one circle before TC squealed and bolted, not from the horse but from hearing a bird squawk overhead and then fly by the arena, creating a bird shadow (TC's arch nemesis). Then when I went to stop him, he erupted in bucks. I've gotten pretty smart about this behavior (self preservation at its finest I think). I can sit the bolt just fine, it's the bucks that will sometimes get enormous and if you stop him too fast when he's bucking, you'll pull him up into a rear. I managed to get him slow enough where I could feel the front end come up, then I turned him and kicked him back into canter. I was pretty proud of myself for how chill I remained about the whole thing, as I was talking to my dressage friend.

Back into work we did some counter canter, which he's super good at on the left lead, but on the right he just wants to change. Makes sense, he's so opened up on the left side of his body that the change is just right there. The right side is so shut down that he couldn't change LR if he wanted to.

To the left (on the right lead), we just worked on holding it. To the right (on the left lead), I worked on setting him up for the change without asking. I want him more even on both reins and on both hind legs before we touch that again. And honestly he doesn't really need them on until the end of 2019. I want to talk to Tanya about them I think. What I really want is mirrors.

covered on the left, turnouts on the right

Overall it was a good ride, though I was late to work due to canter shenanigans... thanks TC. Or should I thank the damn birds.

An Epic Battle

Friday morning TC was a bit of a nut. I don't have a ton of time to get this post ready, so I'm just going to copy the facebook post I posted about it. Two birds and all that. Er many birds.

At least he's cute

It's a warm summer (spring? winter? what season is it?) morning and our hero, TC, is ridden into the covered arena. All seems to be going well as he carts his rider around until he notices out of the corner of his eye, a shadow moving from one side of the grassy field to the other. He strikes out with anger, his arch nemesis is back, previously thought to be defeated! The winged demon lands in the far side of the arena and TC sees that this time he has back up, a whole flock, TC slides to a stop to get a better look and gets a bad feeling in his stomach unrelated to the thumps on the side of it by his imbecile side kick... this is going to be a battle to end all battles.

TC comes around the circle again and several winged rats begin to advance on him. Not wanting to alarm the half wit on his back who is trying to get her left oblique to stay engaged, TC delivers a warning to the gang- a snake of the neck and an evil glare- back off if you know what's good for you. His side kick, clearly unable to comprehend the danger of the situation, warns TC not to do anything stupid. "They're just birds, TC! What is your issue?" she exclaims.

The gang ceases to disappear in a cloud of feathers in response to his warning, so TC is forced to engage again the next time he comes down the long side of the arena. He turns toward them and finds the door open on the right side of his body- left there frequently by his stupid rider. TC takes his exit and the battle begins. There are more of them than TC thought, he might be outnumbered! All he has is the idiot on his back who, he could only assume based on her attempts to turn him away from his enemies, was trying to sabotage him!

TC is no dummy, he has been preparing for this all his life. He knows how to stop her AND intimidate the group of feathered foes: he leaps through the air and goes in for the attack. Hooves and feathers fly; squawks and the words "what the fuck TC?" are all that was heard in the moment where our triumphant hero defeated the demon birds, sending them back to the rafters where they belong.

Back home, TC eats his grain and reflects on his morning. He knows that he has won the battle but not yet the war, and that the demon birds will return sometime in the future. And when they do, our hero will be ready. Though perhaps, he thinks, he'll replace his side kick with someone who understands his plight. This one seems only good enough for bringing him his grain and while that is very good, perhaps it is not worth the handicap in battle.

Disclaimer: no birds, horses, or riders were harmed during this ride.

With Joy

Tuesday I went out to ride TC before heading to the dentist (late, sorry dentist) to get a filling refilled. I wasn't too enthused about it, but at least I got to ride. I always try to make my appointments be around 10am so it doesn't make sense for me to go into work before hand, meaning I get extra horse time.

Freshly dragged arena!

I've been focusing so much on how my riding has changed that I really haven't talked much about TC lately, but TC is doing super well. Both of us are really loving the spring weather... in February. I'm not complaining in terms of riding, but I am annoyed that it's been too warm to get pho or tofu soup (though I did finally break down and go to my favorite Korean place with Kate on Monday and get tofu soup, even though I was kind of sweating the whole time while eating it).

TC had Monday off and that was good for him. I know he needed it because he came out ready to work but not crazy on Tuesday. We walked around the ranch and I saw that one of the outdoor arenas was open and it had just been dragged! Yes!

We haven't been able to ride outside much, surprisingly. The arenas tend to open soon enough after rain, but then don't usually get dragged until a few days later (because if they got dragged right away, they'd be a soupy mess). TC was overdue for shoes so I have been avoiding riding in anything but absolutely perfect footing. But Tuesday we had perfect footing outside, so instead of walking back to the covered, we went into the outdoor.

I was expecting TC to be a nut, but he actually buckled down to work pretty well. He hates this one long side of that particular outdoor, despite that he literally walks on the other side of it every single day on our walks. But he just kept an eye on it while we worked. I'm fine with that, he can look at whatever he wants as long as he's staying with me.

EVERY TIME, please don't itch my very old
bridle, TC! It needs to last another season or two

We warmed up in trot and he immediately felt really good in the bridle. He's really learning how to reach for the bridle in a more solid way, and my leg now means that he steps even more into it instead of just going faster. He gives a really cool feeling in that work and it's just so fun!

We're still really struggling with the left side. It makes sense now, since I'm so unstable that way in comparison to the right. Luckily for me, I think it's actually his easier side, so as long as I'm really focused on my left oblique staying strong and me bearing down, he's quite good. It's when I let things slide out of alignment that he starts to fall apart.

So to the left, we were walking after a break and I got really prepared to trot him. I plugged in with my right seat bone, I shortened my front line, I focused on my bear down, put him way into the bridle, then asked him to trot...

and he squealed.

He didn't do anything but pick up a trot, a really lovely trot over his back. He normally squeals when he's having too much fun, like when we're cantering and he sees a bird shadow and is like FUCK YES MUST POUNCE or when he's trotting and I ask him to canter and he's just so beside himself because he REALLY WANTS TO CANTER. But a walk to trot transition? Really, TC?

Thinking about itching his face but instead just
sniffing his saddle pad, good pony

It reminded me of a post I wrote back in May of last year about TC being a party animal. That post was based off of a conversation I'd had with Kate about how expression in dressage could be elicited by either play or fear responses. Here's a quote if you don't want to read it all:

Dressage is all about enhancing the natural movements of a horse, and these movements come out in two different situations in the wild- when a horse is playing and when a horse is scared. I've seen TC cover some serious ground in an extended canter when he is afraid, I've seen him arch his neck and strike out at butterflies when he is playing. The idea of training then, is to incite this play response from the horse, rather than the fear response. It's easy to see in the horse's eye as they are working- are they expressive because they're having fun or are they expressive because they're scared.

I think that I could really go on and on about this idea since I've had some really interesting conversations with people about it... But perhaps later on. For now, I think that it was really fascinating to see TC find joy in even something as small as a walk to trot transition.

I think maybe that I've been low key blocking him in those and that it was a touch hard for him to comply with my ask when I'm a little bit in his way. So by taking away that block, he had a very clear path forward. And that plus a little extra energy on a warm sunny day meant that when I asked him to trot, he might have been feeling like HELL YES I CAN DO THIS and squealed.

He came way over his back like he was arching his body to strike out at a butterfly. But instead of being ridiculous, he picked up a big powerful trot. And I stayed with him as I've been working on lately and he maintained it until I started slipping out of my position. Poor guy, I probably deflated him.

I love ranch wandering

I just love how much this horse loves to work. We had another moment of excitement where he took off with me at the canter squealing and swapped leads. I went with it and we worked on the quality of the counter canter before transitioning to walk and picking the correct lead back up.

Obviously TC needs to not feel so much joy that he takes off with me or makes a bunch of noise, but I also feel like if I let him slowly develop out of it vs punishing him for it, he'll maybe keep that joy a bit longer. And I want him to think that dressage is the most fun thing ever, it's what is going to give him that expression in the show ring that I so want him to have, that I feel as though I have only ever achieved with force in the past. This time, I choose joy.