The Last Lesson

Rico's shenanigans yesterday didn't appear to do any damage to his fragile legs, so this afternoon, we headed out to Heidi's for our last lesson before the show this weekend. This lesson had the potential to be our last dressage lesson EVER.

Soon hopefully our last (dressage) show (at this level) ever

Our lesson wasn't until four, so I went to crossfit this morning (and have a new PR for squat cleans woohoo) and then drove an hour to a tack store and back to procrastinate doing my homework. I'm looking to replace my jumping saddle once and for all. My current saddle is WAY too small and doesn't fit Rico at all. I'd love to get something to play over fences and go on trail rides in. No luck for me over there, but I got to drive on highway 1, close enough to see the water so that was really nice.

When I got home, I gave Rico a bath, he was super gross and my mom came to take some video today so I didn't want to be riding a dust ball! Unfortunately we didn't cross paths at the barn so I don't have them quite yet. I'll post some when I get a hold of them, maybe tomorrow evening if I decide to ride.

Beach! I wasn't this close...

One of my clients was taking the lesson before me. I love it when my clients ride with people I know/ride with so we can collaborate. This is a particularly sassy young horse, so it was nice to talk to Heidi about a plan for the winter to turn some of that sass into better throughness.

Speaking of sass, Rico was on FIRE today. He took off with me twice and spooked at a guy with a hose during warm up. We started with tempis and I warned Heidi that he might kick.


First, let me say that I can't do threes to save my life anymore. Ugh. So those were shit. We then did the twos and they were great! Only once did I have to zoom him out of them for getting behind me. They were much straighter than normal too. Yay!

Then we did the ones... We started with SEVEN! SEVEN ONES!!!!!!! SEVEN! Seven is the most magically powerful number after all and Rico is pretty magical so there you go. Then I fucked them up a bit, then got seven AGAIN! The plan is to try to get seven twice in a row. But I have a feeling that we may get more... I only stopped at seven the first time because we were closing in on the wall, we could have done more. Oh my god to have anything more than that would be amazing.

I kind of want to keep working on them after this weekend even if we get my score to see if I can get fifteen eventually... but then the other part of me influenced by Rico's laziness says nah.

This is what six ones got him... seven ones got him a blanket
tonight so he wouldn't freeze his pony butt off

We then played with the piaffe and passage with Heidi helping by tapping his hind legs with the whip. She forgot that Rico is an escape artist so as she asked me to turn across, Rico took off sideways away from her. She was like "WRONG HORSE WRONG HORSE COME BACK!" which I thought was hilarious! I really hope there is a video of that...

With her help, the piaffe and passage was brilliant! He can really piaffe on the spot when someone is behind him. Such a talented pony. The passage just feels great all the time, but it was especially uphill and powerful with her help.

Passage from our last test

Then we started the test! Everything was great until the halt, I kind of walked into it. Rico knows the damn test (how did he memorize it so fast? It's taken me so long!) so he stopped early and I just let him ooze over to C before finally stopping. Not okay. The rein back was great, medium trots were perfect, but the piaffe in the first tour was complete shit. But we redid it and it was MUCH better. The next tour was VERY good, a little forward moving in the piaffe but nothing too exciting.

We stopped there to take a break for a bit and then tackled the zig zag. I did the zig zag once and it was perfect. 3-6-6-6-3. Heidi counted for me and then stopped me and asked me if I did it right. Apparently it looked too easy so she thought we skipped a 6. Nope! We're just getting really good at it! Again, Rico knows the fucking test (UGH), so he just DOES that movement. All I have to do is steer and keep him cantering. It will be a nice resting place for my cortisol filled brain.

Rico has extremely low levels of cortisol at all times

Next we did the pirouettes. They were... okay. He was a little hollow because he's trained me to not touch his face during them. He makes up these rules about him getting lazy. Don't make me go round, or I will stop. Don't make me be straight, or I will stop. And I abide by them like they're laws. Since when does he make the rules? I decided to change the rules and he was actually really good about it. We had a really great pattern after that.

Finally, we ended with the final tour up centerline. We had to do it three times, ugh. First, I let him just jog at X in the piaffe so that was a no go. Then we passaged around the first turn instead of having a good transition. THEN it was good. Phew.


Let me just say that riding at this level is exhausting both mentally and physically. It really is terrifying. It's so cool to say that I've done it, but nothing about actually doing it is all that fun in the moment. After I do a good tour or a good pirouette or zig zag, yeah it feels great, but as I'm doing it, I want to just jump the fuck off the horse and run into the bushes to hide.

I find that crossfit is the same way. I bitch and bitch and bitch during workouts about how much I hate -insert skill here- and then at the end I'm like "that sucked, great workout! See you on Thursday!" What the hell is wrong with me?

I think what I really like is the progression. I love that a year ago, we were just figuring out the Prix St George zig zag and the Grand Prix zig zag was so daunting... now it's our easiest movement. I love that my horse has doubled his one tempis in like two weeks, what is that?! I love that two years ago, I was gearing up for 4th level test 1 at this very show, our first show back in three years, and despite forgetting my test and adding in a bunch of stupid changes, we got our highest score at that test. I love that. Tangible progress.

Whatever it is, I'm certainly looking forward to a low key winter full of trail riding, thesising, and crockpotting. I found a chai latte recipe ahhhh.

Can't wait for more of this

edit:  I just had the funniest conversation of my life. I was telling boyfriend about my lesson and about how my cortisol has spiked because of the show coming up. This has lead to a lot of "what if" thoughts and I ran out of the normal ones like what if I don't get my score, what if the pirouettes suck and have started on the weird ones like what if he breaks his leg and what if we get hit by a car on the drive over there. I was going on and on about my what ifs and boyfriend adds what if he turns into a bunch of tootsie rolls to the mix. YES WHAT IF HE TURNS INTO TOOTSIE ROLLS AND I NEVER GET MY GOLD MEDAL?!

Seven More Days and Six More One Tempis

First let me just say that Rico got his THIRD body clip in SEVEN WEEKS yesterday. He was perfect as usual to be clipped and then pissed when he realized how naked he was. Maybe the other horses make fun of him? I dunno, he's always in such a mood afterwards.

It made for a really good ride yesterday after he was clipped and a really great lesson today (aside from some sass in the beginning). 

For entertainment, some artsy pony pictures

Once again Rico started off a little stiff at Heidi's and we both had a minor WTF moment before he cantered and then worked immediately out of it. That's just him now, I guess. He trots like a pony in hobbles for the first few minutes, then canters and back into the trot we go, this time as a Grand Prix horse. WTF indeed. 

Today started really amazingly well though. I had a little extra time for warm up so we walked a lot. One of the ladies that rides there was sitting and watching (not unusual since people who board there often watch lessons after they ride). She called me over and told me how wonderful I had looked at the Grand Prix test a few weeks ago. She said she was shocked to hear it was our first one and went on and on about how great Rico looked. How he was relaxed and it looked like he really enjoyed his job. I was so pleased to hear that :) what a great start to my lesson!

Rico decided to ruin that by being a twit. Apparently right pirouettes are now easy, while left pirouettes are suddenly extremely difficult and he can't possibly do them. After we worked through that bullshit, Heidi was pleased with both of them in that they both look more rideable. She noted though, that he doesn't really keep cantering very well in them. He kind of bounds up and down and loses a touch of rhythm. 

My task then, was to keep him in as much of a three beat canter as possible (actually rhythm loss is appropriate in the canter pirouette- they lose the moment of suspension and get four-beat-y, but Rico takes it too far). As we all well know, I'm not the most coordinated in pirouettes so I found that I couldn't possibly do all of those things at once and started messing them up. Soon they were just fucking enormous. Like not even canter pirouettes, just small circles. I did eventually get it but boy did it take me a while. 

The best pony nose

We then worked on the two tempis, which were good, except that I need to school nine in a row more often. For a while we weren't, but now Rico doesn't think that nine is a very good number. Five seems much better and after that he was just slipping into threes. Damnit! These are supposed to be good!

The highlight of the day was for sure what happened next: Heidi said "show me some ones" and I just went for it. I put him in the same place he was in the draw reins (slightly low and covering more ground) and just started swapping my legs. We did SIX AGAIN!! Six one tempis! So Heidi said to just quit and next time we do them (probably Monday or in my Tuesday lesson), try seven. 

She said ideally we could do seven and eight and have it look like I just miscounted once. I'm thinking we're more likely to do six then four then five or something. But Heidi said that six to start makes it look like we ACTUALLY know what we're doing and that I'm just kinda dumb about counting, so that's great!

Such a cute pony

We then did the zig zag twice- I need to start it MUCH earlier. Heidi says that this problem is normal- you come out of the corner and want to prepare for it so much that you eat up 15 feet and then have to smash it in. She said come out of the corner and just go into it even if it's shitty. I can always make it up later. 

Finally, we ended with the piaffe and passage. The passage was excellent, and so was the piaffe after Rico learned that he STILL couldn't halt in it. Poor Rico, he's ever the optimist. We had our best tour (trot to passage to piaffe to passage to extended walk to collected walk to passage to piaffe to passage to canter ugh omg) yet and we ended immediately with that. 

We're one week away. In one week from right now, I could have my USDF Gold Medal. Rico could be in his pasture for the first time in years and years. This has been such an incredible journey and we're just so close to the end. It feels so unreal.  

Can't wait

For now though, I need to do some homework, since real life hasn't really let up at all. 

Sideways

Today Rico and I headed over to Heidi's barn for our third-to-last lesson before our next show! We hadn't seen her in a while, which always makes me a touch nervous. I always think he's doing great and sometimes she quickly proves that wrong.

Luckily she was pleased with how he's been going. The one major complaint was that Rico has managed to convince me to let him be a little lazy. It happens primarily in the canter (most of our work is in canter and piaffe/passage so we don't trot too much), but what he'll do is negotiate with me that if I don't nag at him with my leg, he will keep cantering. The problem is that the canter he's giving me isn't that great... But I'm so pleased that he's being so good, I let it slide. Apparently I need to not do that. Just a couple more weeks, Rico.

We worked on the zig zag first, just the Intermediare I one. During the zig zags, I've been told not to go too sideways since one of his half passes isn't as steep as the other. If I really push for sideways, I go off center and it's hard to make the turn at the end. However, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't practice them steeper than I'll ride in the test. So we did the Intermediare I zig zag a couple of times working on getting him over. He was great! He's always so freaking great these days.

D'aww and he puts up with me

After the zig zag, we attacked the pirouettes. Heidi was happy with my work in the draw reins because he was MUCH better staying round and thus, both pirouettes were much better. The left one she said was a solid 6.5 and even a 7 with some judges. Nice! There's still this moment of do-we-have-to in one of the steps every single time. It's the one after the half way point. Like he realizes that he has to do a FULL pirouette instead of a HALF pirouette and he just stops caring for a second and then goes fine.

The right pirouette is still rocky but for different reasons now. I've been working the pirouette canter on a circle because I like using bend to help him collect. Woops, this has apparently made him a little crooked. Instead of going shoulder-fore before the right pirouette, he throws his ass into the bend and then steps sideways into the pirouette. When asked to do shoulder-fore, he pitches a bit of a fit. So we have homework. But the very good news about this pirouette is that we finally have the turn down! I can control his shoulder really well within the pirouette and it's now the right number of steps. Now all we need is the entrance to the pirouette and we'll have a GOOD right pirouette, incredible.

Instead of this monstrosity... Which was actually one of our
better pirouettes at PSG last year

We finished out our canter work with some one tempis. I've been starting with four now instead of two and it's helping a LOT. I have a theory that he only has so many ones in him in a given day and that we waste them by doing two at a time, then three a few times, then finally getting to four and he poops out. We were able to get four in a row three different times today! Heidi said to start playing with five now. We'll see about that.

The twos were good too. The problem in the changes is that he slides a bit sideways, it's probably what makes the ones so hard because he cant. He kind of jumps across the ring to change rather than staying straight. We worked this into the mirror and I'll be pulling out my poles this week to work them in a shoot. My issue with keeping him straight (which I AM capable of and need to remember that) is that I can't keep him straight without keeping him VERY into the bridle and I can't do that without him stepping up to the bridle. Unfortunately when I take a hold of his face, he backs off, so it's either straight and behind my leg or crooked and forward. I'm curious to see how the shoot of poles helps us.

This is from 4-2 in June 2013 but you can see how wide he gets
behind and how that means sideways. You can also see how his
rider does not help at all by twisting in the tack.

Finally, we ended with the piaffe and passage. Both were excellent today. No stopping in the piaffe and the passage was powerful. We struggled a tad with the turns, Rico knows the pattern now so thinks he can just dart sideways when he knows a turn is coming. I'm going to set up some cones in my ring and turn around them a bit. He'll have no idea what hit him.

We worked a tad on the centerline pattern. You come up centerline at the very end of the test, passage at D, piaffe at X, and passage til G where you halt. That damn piaffe is hard. Especially because I tend to wait until X to ask for it, so I only get a few steps of passage out of it before halting in the judge's lap. We worked on that and I'm planning on looking at the court at the show and deciding where to piaffe.

Rico says no thanks to piaffe on centerline

After the lesson we talked a little about me as a rider, which I almost never think of, being so focused on this goal and having ridden the same horse exclusively (well, client horses don't count) for a couple of years now. Heidi said she'd be curious seeing me on other horses, that I ride Rico incredibly well and have trained him really well- getting to Grand Prix on a horse you've trained yourself is obviously really fucking cool. But he's one type of horse. She's like "you've perfected the art of riding the lazy horse."

That's how I've been feeling lately. Give me a horse that gets behind the leg and off the bit and I'll turn that sucker into a Grand Prix horse apparently... what about a horse that is hot and ducks behind the bit? A few years ago when I was an assistant trainer to an event trainer, I rode a LOT of horses- hot, lazy, sensitive, dull... and yeah there were types of horses I was better at riding than others (usually yeah the lazy ones and the ones that *no one* could get on the bit). That being said, I feel like ten times the rider level-wise now (I had ridden at fourth level when I started there) but Heidi is right, it's on one type of horse. Maybe I'll get the chance to ride some other types this winter so I can calm my seat down a bit.

This one was hot and spicy sometimes and I loved it :) 

This conversation got me thinking about the difference between riders/trainers who are "one hit wonders" so to speak, as in they did well at a very high level but it was only on the one horse vs those who are truly masters of the sport where they do well at a very high level on a multitude of different horses. I think that there is a difference there and that Heidi is right that I should try to ride some other horses to get that ability back. However I'm still young in this sport (28), so I still have time to prove myself on a different horse if I so chose (I do NOT choose though, bring on my desk job and trail horse!). Makes me really think about what to look for in a trainer though. Interesting.


In other news (crossfit news), yesterday I finally hit my bodyweight in my deadlift. This isn't that impressive, most people can easily lift more than their bodyweight in a deadlift (my coach can literally lift 5x my bodyweight). But for ME it's really exciting because my lower back has had several serious injuries and has always been a weak point for me. I'm feeling stronger and stronger these days and have plans of riding regularly without my back brace for the first time in ten years starting after this show. Yay!

Real Pirouettes

I had a lesson with Heidi today which went swimmingly! Enjoy some more Big Sur pictures while I go on about it.

Long exposure on the river

At first, Rico wasn't on board with taking a lesson. He wanted to explore. The horse is on a serious trail binge right now- I let him explore in my neighbor's pasture yesterday and he was pretty convinced that if he walked fast enough, I wouldn't notice that we were rapidly increasing elevation. Sorry horse, no steep hills for you for at least a month!

View from the top of our hike

Today we were sent to go get Heidi's assistant in the outdoor so Rico got to do his favorite thing- leaving an arena. Only to enter another one, drat. But then leave it again, yay! But then enter the first one again, ugh.

He started out rickety. He was kinda uneven behind and not really connecting and spooking at this one place on the rail where a huge amount of nothing was happening. I finally just cantered him around in some lopsided circles and then walked. Heidi was like "uhh he doesn't look so good" and I assured her that he'd most likely work out of it. I hoped.

Sure enough, Rico resigned himself to working and we started.

At first I wanted to work on the canter to the left. The connection has been questionable. I told Heidi the problem and she was like "poke his ribcage away from your left leg." And then all of our problems were solved. Basically Rico was crooked in his ribcage and therefore able to pop his right shoulder without connecting to the right rein. Ugh. One of my clients' horses does that and I never let her get away with it. I wish I had mirrors!

Love the burned trees (well not love) with the little sprigs
coming up underneath

River!

After that, we worked on tempis. Heidi said that she trusted us now that I could for sure get the required number of two tempis in the show ring. I'm not too concerned myself. What she wants is for him to be a little rounder and a little straighter, so we worked on starting the twos really round and straight, then when he got a hollow and/or crooked, I'd fix it before doing the twos again. They were much better after that, yay!

We then played with the ones. Ugh the dreaded ones. After getting to four and failing (again), Heidi and I talked about my theory that Rico has a limited amount of changes that he wants to do per day. I said I didn't think it was mental, probably physical, but that he simply stops doing them after a certain number. We talked about quickly making our way up (normally we stay at three for a while until they're good, then four for a while... by the time we get to five, he's done).

The good news was that Heidi said, slowly but surely, I'm getting better with my timing. She says that hopefully with the new way of schooling them and my new ability to ride them, we'll have five in a row soon.

River! Stream?

Next we did the trot work. Now, I've been sick for the last week, and the week before that I had a minor shoulder injury. Both of those means that I haven't been to crossfit in two weeks (UGH). Evidently, crossfit is HIGHLY NECESSARY to be able to sit Rico's trot. So I had to keep stopping the whole time.

Heidi was like "well I don't go to the gym." Yes Heidi, but I ride one horse and then sit at a desk all day, you ride A MILLION horses and then teach lessons. I didn't need the gym when I was riding horses all the time, but I sure as hell need it now! So funny, I love my trainer.

Despite wheezing the whole time and needing lots of breaks, the trot work was great! Until the mediums... I still shoot him across the arena without paying attention to the hind legs. I need to trust that he has a lot of power, despite being lazy, and balance him rather than just run him into the ground.

Good thing we didn't climb that mountain...

The trails we hiked were all just smushed into the mountain

We then played with the piaffe and passage and it was SO MUCH BETTER! Not once did he try to stop in the piaffe, NOT ONCE! This is insanity. Who is this horse?!

Heidi gave me a new exercise since he now makes her nervous that he's going to stop coming out of the piaffe. We are to do seven steps of piaffe, then do a medium trot, back to passage, seven steps, medium trot, etc. We want Rico to think that he has to medium trot out of the piaffe all the time so whenever he piaffes, he's thinking oh shit I might need to really move it soon.

It was muggy and we were above the clouds but that's the
Pacific Ocean!

Last, we looked at the canter pirouettes. Heidi had given us an exercise- school the pirouette canter in draw reins to teach Rico that when I half halt and bring him back, he needs to stay round. He tends to hollow as I bring him back, which then means that as I'm asking him to go rounder and stay collected, he stalls out. I was only able to do this exercise once since I only have my crappy short draw reins rather than my nice ones (getting those back soon from a client), but once seems to have done us some good!

First we just schooled it the canter on a circle and collected him. He was MUCH better both in that he didn't try to get as hollow initially and he was much easier to get round without shutting him down. After fixing my straightness problem (I need to bring my left shoulder back in the left pirouette more), we did the actual pirouettes.

The right one was a locally grown, farm raised, GMO-free, organic pirouette. Heidi said it actually looked like a real pirouette rather than a -waving hand gesture- which was whatever I was doing before. The left one was really good too! We ended on those and I was very pleased.

Top of the mountain!

My favorite picture so far

Nothing like a good lesson to get me back on the right path. I've got some good exercises (piaffe-medium, draw reins for pirouettes, fixing the two tempis, getting more ones) to do over the next week and I'm super stoked for our next show in FOUR (and a bit) WEEKS!

Tomorrow Rico gets a glorious day off and this weekend he gets another trail ride. Hopefully I can get out to a new facility on foot to see how steep one of the trails is. My mom said that one of the trails starts out kind of steep but then is very mellow the rest of the way. If it isn't too bad, Rico gets to go this weekend. If it is... well, we'll do it in a month!

I climbed up on this rock! 

Trail Rides as Prescribed

Rico and I hauled out for our first lesson since the show. Everyone was super sweet at the barn, even people I don't really know (basically everyone since it's hard to make friends when you just haul in and out) were congratulating me. But we aren't done yet!

This happened today!

We worked the two tempis, pirouettes, and piaffe today.

The twos are decent, I got a seven on them, but when we really work on the straightness in the twos, the ones get better. I like it when we work on them at Heidi's, since I can ride straight into the mirror and really see the straightness. It's bad. It's worse in the left to right change than the right to left, but both are bad. Heidi said to really focus on my new outside rein to straighten him, but doing this within the twos without schooling it in the single flying changes was uh... challenging. So I'm going to be doing that at home in the single flying changes and then work my way up to twos.

We didn't school ones, I'm going to do those during my next ride and I'm loading up on sugar. For every set of ones he does, he gets sugar. He's quite food oriented (remember when I put passage on in a DAY because I gave him sugar?) so I'm really hoping this last resort works. We have plenty of time before the next show (six weeks or so) so if I mess it up, we have time to fix it.

Food = Love

The pirouettes were much better thanks to a hula hoop. Heidi said she once had a client who threw a fit because she was told that she pushed the haunches in too much in the pirouettes (like I do). Heidi later was at the store and saw a hula hoop, bought it, threw it in the arena and told the lady to pirouette around it. Several broken hula hoops later, the lady believed her. I didn't break any hula hoops, but it did show me how much inside leg and outside rein the pirouettes take.

During the actual pirouette, the mechanic was better, but we talked about another problem: Rico hates being round.

He is probably one of the few Grand Prix horses out there who could do the entire test off the bit. Roundness has always been an issue- he wants to generally look and act like a llama at all times. Heidi said it was ridiculous that he made it to Grand Prix without actually needing to be on the bit.

Old pirouette picture! He doesn't lean like this anymore :)

We're going to break out the draw reins and the snaffle and school the pirouettes like that. I know draw reins are controversial, but I don't really give any shits about addressing all the pros and cons of it and giving reasons for why I would use them. I actually haven't used them on Rico in five years. Anyway, what we're after is that Rico tends to get more hollow as I ask him to collect, and in order to get him to come rounder, I have to use my reins which then shuts him down energy-wise. We're hoping the draw reins will do the roundness work for me and I can focus on keeping him energetic.

The piaffe was good! But it was because Heidi was chasing us. She gave us an exercise to play with- trot to piaffe to trot transitions. THIS IS SO HARD. I would be trotting then we'd halt, then I'd tap him, then he'd hop, then piaffe, then boing out into a passage-y trot, then trot. Uh piaffe is trot on the spot with no moment of suspension. It's TROT. So my homework (which I came up with actually based on an exercise I use when creating a collected trot in a horse that really has no business having a collected trot) is to make the trot slower and slower until he gets behind me, then go out of it and come back into it.

Old piaffe picture! He sits so much better now

Finally we talked about Rico's condition. He's still out of condition, how annoying given how hard I work at this shit. We want to at least maintain him, but we're concerned that with more and more work, we risk his soundness. So Rico has been prescribed a trail ride in leu of work one day per week. So we're taking him down to four days per week of hard dressage work (4x8m sets of work in addition to 5m of warm up- so 38 minutes total work not including rest breaks), one hour long trail ride on the bit and marching, and two days off.

We'll be out here soon, but it's a lot less green

From his first trail ride after his long rehab- he was so happy

Lucky animal.

Pretty Rider, Not Effective, Needs to Chill

I had another lesson with Heidi today. I was hoping that Rico would be more forward now that he's clipped, and I guess he was a bit better.

For picture entertainment- some recent instagrams!
Rico's new BFFs

We kind of overdid the warm up. I understand the pressure to get my clients to end on a good note for each movement in warm up. I'm not about to send a client into the show ring with a shit leg yield when I'm pretty sure they might do that in front of the judge. I like to give them confidence by letting them do all their movements in warm up and telling them YES LIKE THAT or NEEDS MORE PUSH or whatever else trainers yell at their clients. Sometimes I go on auto pilot where I ignore what's coming out of my mouth and think about other things.

I'm also not one to send myself into the show ring if I don't feel like I can get a good piaffe or pirouette or whatever, but Rico is a big challenge. He's got only a few good piaffes in him until he really shuts down, same with pirouettes and really everything (hah). So the biggest challenge is to set him up so the best work comes in the show ring, not right before. Unfortunately today, we overdid it and his best twos, piaffe, and pirouettes were the ones right before the test riding. He was very tired.

That being said, shitty Grand Prix is still Grand Prix, right? So the test.

The view from Juniors

The centerline was kind of awful, he wanted to change the whole time so we got a 6.5 (oh did I mention Heidi brought a scribe to my lesson?! I did my best to remember what we got). The first extended trot was AMAZING oh my god this is what a GP horse feels like, he was on FIRE coming out of the corner and now I just need to regulate him when he does that. We got a 7 on that and on the first half pass (right). The second (left) could only be a 6 because I let his haunches fall out, shit. That can be better.

The halt and rein back Heidi thinks can be a 7 but she said I need to chill a bit in it because I made it look tense by being a complete dingbat for a 6.5. Then the medium trot was good, a 6.5 for rushing at the end (more chilling necessary). The first piaffe passage tour was kind of shit. Well, the passage was good for solid 6.5s the whole time but the piaffe was a 4, he stopped. Woops.

Extended walk needs more overstep for a 6 or 6.5 but his medium walk is a pretty solid 7. The walk to passage transition was good but she said he started to get tired so that meant the passage was more like a 6. Second piaffe was a 5, he kept going but he moved forward a lot. The canter transition which is always so good was shitty so that was a 6. It should be a 7. IT WILL BE A SEVEN.

On the trails with Riot

The twos weren't to Heidi's liking (or mine), again I think I got my best line of twos right before the test. He was kicking (UGH) because he was tired and I was flinging myself around. I got a well-deserved 5.5. The extended canter was actually the best he's ever felt, but it's still not a real extended (how much faster do I have to go oh my god I am not on a race horse) so we got a 6.5 or something. Then a 4 for the change because he basically trotted through my half halt, ugh. He was sooooo tired at this point.

The zig zag was good! But good for us is a 6. It was accurate but lacks bend and sometimes the haunches lead. The ones sucked, obviously, for a 4. The left pirouette was semi-decent (I thought I got a better one earlier) for a 6.5, but he flung himself across the ring in the change so that was a solid 5 or 5.5. The right pirouette wasn't a pirouette or even cantering. It was a reining spin for a 3.

Our trot transition was a 7 and the next medium a 6.5 since he was losing steam and got low in the bridle. Then it was solid 6.5s the whole way up to a 6 halt on the last piaffe/passage tour up centerline.

The cutest

Collectives were as they always are: 7 on gaits (judges love the horse because the horse is perfect, obviously), 6 on impulsion, 6 on submission, 6.5 on rider. Heidi is so funny. She was placing blame at first on him saying he's not forward enough and because of the mistakes his submission is going to be low. Then she hesitated on the rider score. She's like "well I'd give you a 6.5 but it could be lower... uh... I'd probably circle position and write... um" and I'm like oh let me guess: Rider sits well in the tack but isn't effective with the aids. I literally get this on every test.

For the last ten years of showing Rico, that has been written all over my tests. Pretty rider, needs to learn to use aids effectively. Nice position, rider could be more effective. Beautiful seat, could communicate better with horse. Rider sit nicely like statue, need to use legs and maybe hands sometimes? Every single freaking test. One day I want to compile a list of all the different ways it's been said to me.

Heidi said since she's ridden Rico now, she understands that I'm working my ASS off the entire time, but she said it won't matter to the judge. I just look like I'm doing nothing and when the horse isn't doing anything either, it's obviously my fault (I mean, a lot of it is, but some of it is him)

Haul from the farmer's market + my parents' garden

Overall I thought it was shit. But if that's my shit, I'll do alright! Score came out to be a 59.7. Boy I'll be a little let down if that happens, I need a 60! Hopefully the judge this weekend is easier than Heidi (I said that and both Heidi and the scribe laughed so I'm hoping I'm right) and hopefully I can get my shit together so we don't botch the movements we should have gotten better scores on (come on a 3 on the right pirouette? the twos? the fucking lead change, a lead change Rico, it's from third level).

Both Heidi and her scribe (who is a BEAUTIFUL Grand Prix rider herself oh my god) thought that I would pull a 60. Even my best friend said "you keep a lot of nice things up your ass, including a 60 at Grand Prix." We'll see. I just hope that it's better than the test today. Improvement is all I can ask for, right? I just need to CHILL.

 From a bike ride last week

Labor on Labor Day

Rico and I had our second-to-last lesson before the show yesterday!

I got off work a tad early so had time to bathe him beforehand (he is in a perpetual state of dirtiness which I sometimes feel embarrassed about enough to wash him). As I was bathing him, I noticed a LARGE amount of hair coming off of him.

Oh god. It's coming.

Rico has the thickest winter coat I've ever had the unfortunate experience of clipping. Suddenly, overnight it seems, he is growing hair like he was doused in rogaine. IT'S STILL AUGUST! When Rico gets hairy like this, he gets overheated and sometimes I can't even finish a ride because he's dripping in sweat and can't catch his breath. We can't go to this show all mammoth-style.

I asked Heidi if she thought I should clip him before the show. At first she said maybe wait until Tuesday to decide. But then she said yes once as he was dripping in sweat and his respiratory system wasn't recovering very well.

So tomorrow my labor day is going to be spent clipping a certain horse bald so he can actually get through his test this weekend without passing out. Whyyyyyy.


Alright so we did still ride despite being so furry. We're kind of just doing ALL THE MOVEMENTS at all of our lessons these days, so my rides at home are turning into basics rides, working on throughness, energy, and straightness. That's all fine and dandy for me since I do struggle in my small arena to do the movements correctly.

My first and only Grand Prix on Leo May 2011!

We started with trot work and Heidi was happy with how the half passes looked! I'm learning to use the first corner by K and start the right half pass before the letter (since the judge really can't tell and one extra step before the letter REALLY helps me. The right one was really good this time, Heidi even said 7! We made it to B well before the letter so the changeover happened right as we passed it, perfect. The left one isn't as good, it's always either haunches leading or haunches trailing. Unfortunately I face the judge, so no mirror, but it's still a decent half pass and I'm hoping to grab a 6.5.

Look how the half passes have progressed!
This one June 2013 at 4-2

Woops, June 2013 at our second 4-2

October 2013 PSG

August 2014 Intermediare II (look how much better I sit!)

Then we played with the passage and piaffe. We wanted to come up with a technique of keeping Rico going through the piaffe and I think we found one. I've been using the whip in rhythm with the piaffe to get him to keep going, but I can't just tap him 15 times in that movement... So we tried the leg. No go, he keeps thinking passage. So I tried lighter and lighter spur aids and found one that works really well. I kind of have to bounce and move around on top of him to keep him going, which is kind of annoying, but if it works, it works. Heidi said solid 6.5-7 for the passage and ideally 6-6.5 for the piaffe. If he keeps going...

Passage August 2014 Intermediare II

We started the canter with the zig zag. It's good. But it's only good if I remember not to shoot off sideways in the good direction. Before I even get on at the show, I've been told I have to go look at the ring and decide how sideways I want to go. If I get in there cold, I zig around way too much and my zags can't make up for it. She said it COULD be a 7 but it's probably more like a 6-6.5 because of the lack of bend sometimes.

Then we played with the twos and extended canter. I'm not nearly GOING enough in the extended and I tend to come out of the corner counter bent (so he may change) so I'm going to play with the geometry at home and hope for at least a 6 with the comment "conservative." The twos are okayyyy. They aren't as straight as I'd like them to be and he needs to be pretty forward to make them decent, but we got a 6.5 on them last time so I'm hoping to maintain that as long as I remember to count!

Hopefully this show is not as sproingy

After that, we tackled the ones. They're bad. By the time we got to this point, he was tired. I have a theory that when his coffins are sore, he doesn't want to do them (they involve a lot of pulling with the front feet weirdly enough). This is why sometimes at the beginning of rides when he hasn't done a lot, he's more likely to do them, and why drilling the ones doesn't work with him. No matter what, after a certain number of ones, he refuses to even do lead changes. We kind of got to that place yesterday.

We schooled more medium trot than we normally do, lots of medium canter, and lots of twos. So by the time we start the ones, he's barely doing two in a row, let alone three. Heidi's technique is to start with two, then go three, then go four, etc. But the problem is that by the time we're even trying four, his tootsies are sore/tired/etc. I dunno. We both agreed that it would take a legitimate miracle to put 15 on by next week, so we're going to attack them after the show and hope for a 4 on them this show. I think I'll pull another 3.

Finally, we did the pirouettes. They are MUCH better than they used to be (especially taking into account that he was already very tired by this point) but I struggle in the set up. I always push the hind end too much in and then lose his shoulder. I push the hind end since when I try to straighten him, he wants to do changes. So my homework is to fix the set up. I'm to come up centerline, set him up in a shoulder-fore, do about eight steps of pirouette canter, then go forward, change, and set him up for the other one in a shoulder-fore with eight steps of pirouette canter. Heidi said solid 6.5 on the left one, and that if I ride the right one like I did yesterday, 6!

Left (good) pirouette June 2013 at 4-2

Right (bad) pirouette October 2013 at PSG

Left (good) pirouette June 2014 at Intermediare I

I'm obsessive, right? So I put in all of these scores into an excell document. 61.5%. I even put a 3 in the ones instead of a 4 and the right pirouette a 5 instead of a 6 since I think we're being silly to think I can actually execute those movements at their best in the show ring. This score is really going to depend on getting 6s on the piaffes and the transitions. We'll see...

I have hope! We have one more lesson before the show, and at that lesson we're going to try out my warm up from Greenville. Heidi said we should plan on doing all the lateral work at the walk instead of the trot and canter to conserve energy. She also agreed to no ones and no pirouettes. We're doing a few minutes in walk to get the half passes aligned and pick out how the zig zag will ride. Then a little trot and canter to get energy. Passage and one piaffe to get my legs doing their job. A couple of small canter circles and a line of twos. That's it. Then the test. That's terrifying.

I'll be incredibly happy to be done!

But to be honest, it would be terrifying even if I was given several months in the warm up ring.

Picking Up Points

Rico and I had our first lesson after I injected my tuition into four of his joints.

The last couple of days I've been taking it relatively easy on him, not wanting to push him, but I knew that we were getting back into it today because we're only a few rides out from our next show and we're feeling the pressure.

For funzies- some of our first months back to dressage after
his "career ending injury"

Between now and this show, we're working on picking up points wherever we can. It's a lot more about coming up with a plan on how to get through the movements without losing points rather than how to perform the movements better. Sometimes you have to take a step back to improve, but we're not doing that until after the show. Right now, we're focusing on each individual movement and how to get the best out of Rico and I given what we can do currently.

The first ride

We started with the trot pattern (minus extended paces since we shouldn't be doing lots of those). After the first extended trot, you half pass from K to B, then from B to H, then halt at C, proceed trot, and do another medium into the passage.

The half passes are STEEP. We DO them, but they're not great. Today we discovered several things. One is that his right half pass is a lot less steep than the left. Meaning that I'm hitting B late and having to make up time. Unfortunately if I hit B after a certain point, I can't make up that time. We also discovered that the whip REALLY helps, so I'm planning on having my whip in my left hand to hurry the right one and then the left one will be fine.

The halt, rein back, and trot on is perfect. Heidi was impressed. Little does she know, the horse HATED rein backs when I got him. He soon realized if he reared, he didn't have to rein back since eighteen year old Megan wasn't all too thrilled with a horse that stood up. We worked the SHIT out of this on the ground and he now rein backs VERY well. You literally just sit lighter in the tack and squeeze your hand and he shoots backwards. Nice.

Yeah I didn't have a saddle anymore so I had to ride bareback

We skipped all the extended paces and went right into the passage, first from the trot, then schooling the second tour which starts from walk. It helps SO much that my lessons go in the order of the test for the most part, since then I can work on memorization (because this shit is LONG yo). I'm so intimidated by the test that I can barely keep it memorized so this really helps.

The walk to passage was downright good. I need to remember to use my corner better, so that I can plan. I also shouldn't be telling stories as I ask him to passage since I apparently don't multitask well. The passage was great today, he's much more even behind but he still has a tendency to not snap that right hind up so I need to tap his right hind. This means that between the half passes and the passage (one short side and a medium trot), I need to switch my whip!

The piaffe was pretty good today. This week we can really push the piaffe but next week I'm going to do the minimum to let him recover. I think we drilled it too much before the last show and that's why he stopped. We have to do 12-15 steps per piaffe (3 of them) this show so I want to make sure he's feeling good.

A year or so later, trying to teach him to passage with ghetto
cavallettis- unsuccessful

After all of that, we did the half pass zig zag at the canter. We came up with a way to remember it (start and end on the left lead) and I was much better about keeping it even. Once again he wants to push his haunches right all the time so I'm going to leave the whip in the right hand for this movement.

Finally, we ended with the tempis. First with some threes which I totally fucked up because I'm kind of stupid and then doing some twos. The twos were good but kind of sideways so we worked them into the mirror. At the very end, we did some ones. The ones were great! He did FIVE of them in a row again! Heidi thinks that part of it is the sideways issue and that working the straightness in the twos made the ones better.

I want to believe it... but part of me thinks that his legs feel better and he's had a lot of time off from the ones to relax about them. So I'm pushing for minimal ones between now and the show.


Overall I'm SO HAPPY to have this horse back after the scare we had last week. Even if we just do this one show at Grand Prix, and even if we score in the 50s (or 40s whatever, I'm not putting any limits on how shitty we're allowed to be), it has still been an amazing journey with this amazing horse and I'm grateful for whatever happens next.

Can't wait for winter at the ranch :)
Green grass for the retired Grand Prix horse