A Closer Look: Intermediare I

I much prefer the Prix St George to Intermediare I, but not because there's anything inherently wrong with Intermediare I (like 4-3, that test is still annoying me).

Just like Prix St George, there's no purpose of the levels at Intermediare I. There is a difference in what is required at the levels though, and that difference is simply more. More extension, more collection, more straightness, more suppleness. Everything. You can see it just in the movements that are required. A full pirouette requires a horse to be able to collect more than a half pirouette does.

Rico and I at Intermediare I as I get behind him and kick him

through this test (he was lazy)

Intermediare I

The biggest thing that smacks you down in this test is the addition of full pirouettes to replace the half pirouettes at PSG. They also throw 2-tempis at you, but I feel like once as you have good 3s, you have good 2s.

Your trot pattern starts with yet another extension and then you start a weird pattern that was odd for me to memorize at least. Shoulder-in up centerline (which you did at 4-1 already), volte, to a half pass to the rail. Really not tricky at this level. Then a halt and rein back for 5 steps before you do a half pass to centerline, volte, and shoulder-in again on centerline, all away from the judge. That movement feels a bit odd since the majority of the lateral work is toward the judge in all these tests. The only exception I can think of is 3-1 and 4-2 where you shoulder-in away from the judge.

Getting ready for I1 in 2014

After all that weirdness, you do a medium trot across the short diagonal from K to R and walk from the medium trot. Rico was damn good at that, but it would be a struggle for a horse without a natural tendency to halt and take a break at all times. No walk pirouettes in this test, just collected walk and extended walk before you yet again canter from the extended walk like in PSG before realizing your reins were too long (when will you learn?!) and having to yank them up before turning up centerline.

You get your first official zig-zag in this test (vs just a counter change of hand) at the canter where you go up centerline and half pass to quarterline, change, half pass to the other quarterline, change, and end on centerline with a change. This is a great way to introduce the GP zig-zag. There's no count, so like the tempi changes in 4-1 without the count, you can really focus on the quality of the movement without having to also do math.

Afterward is an extended canter across the diagonal and then your five 3-tempi changes across the next diagonal. The pirouette pattern can be tough. You ride across a short diagonal toward B and do a pirouette at I, then flying change at B and immediately you're on the short diagonal from B to K and another pirouette at L. First, this is tough because your pirouettes now have to happen AT a letter, not "approaching X," which is where they were at every other test. That flying change at B is awkward, because it's at B instead of approaching B, so you're doing the change and doing an almost 90 degree turn.

The good pirouette

After that pattern, you get your seven 2-tempis, which can be tough for people who now have only had one test where they had to do more than three changes in a row. But a lot of people find twos the easiest tempi changes to do, so it's not usually a problem unless you just have tempi change problems in general. Very very very important all the way back at First to have good simple changes through the trot and good walk changes at Second and good single changes at Third and good basics in the tempis at 4-1 before you even think about tempis. So many people get super stoked about the tempis that they forget about the basics and then you get to Intermediare I and you can't do them! Because you can be late behind or late in front or not on the aid and make it through the threes, but the twos? There's just no way.

The test ends in trot with an extension and coming up centerline.

Coefficients are both half passes at trot, the collected walk, the extended walk, the canter zig-zag, and both pirouettes.

Medium trot

Overall

This test is tough. You start having more issues with "fitting" movements into the spaces they give you, which means that you're now reliant on your own brain to help you out (NOOO). Tempis need to be centered over X or you'll run out of space- so you need to make a decision on where to start. You need to hit the spots on quarterline and centerline for your zig zag and have the half passes be steep enough to hit those points or you'll run out of space, so you need to have a half pass that is very rideable to make up for any mistake you make on deciding where to put that. Prix St George lets you get away with ignoring the placement of the zig zag with predetermined places to ride to. Fourth 1 lets you get away with ignoring the placement of tempis by giving you a predetermined place to change.

In addition, there's a huge discrepancy between Intermediare II and Intermediare I so after this level a lot of people hit a wall. They've tried to remedy it with Intermediare A and B to try to bridge that gap but even that is falling a bit short IMO. I'm probably not going to go through those two tests since I have no idea what they're doing with those and I've never ridden them.

Go pony

Because of this huge jump between the levels, TONS of horses and riders max out at Intermediare I.  It was never something I realized because to me, the FEI levels sort of ran together, and once as you were at PSG, it was smooth sailing to GP. Nope, just like a lot of people get stuck at First, a TON of people get stuck at I1. And as a reminder- no matter where you're stuck/struggling, it sucks, so no "well at least you're an FEI rider" comments or I might lose my eyeballs out the top of my head.

While it is a bit of a jump from PSG, the reality is that most horses who can make it around PSG will be fine at I1 with a bit more work. But the Intermediare II is a different animal, keep an eye out for the second-to-last post in this series maybe next week.

Alfredo Hernandez Clinic (and Intermediare I Pictures!)

I finally have pictures edited from Friday! I'm working on a whole bunch more too from this clinic and from riding a friend's horse. It was actually good that poor boyfriend had to work this week rather than us going camping, since I have 300 pictures to edit. Yikes. But anyway, on to the pictures which I'll use to break up a big long post about the Alfredo clinic I went to!

Up centerline 

Such a great horse

All done!

First though, an update on Rico's health:

Welp, I changed Rico's bit, workout routine, my way of riding him, the number of days I do dressage, and how long he works. He's also on ranitidine and a diet with lower levels of grain and higher levels of fat, and...

He's feeling mildly better.

So I'm planning on getting him scoped next week while I'm at the lake with boyfriend's family. I'll have no internet and no phone and my horse will get a tube shoved up his nose and down into his stomach to take a look around and see whether he has ulcers or not. If so, I've decided that unless they're incredibly severe, I'm going to do a treatment. If they come back, he's retired, but hopefully we can keep him comfortable through the fall and then he's retired!

Warm up pictures are significantly better than the indoor
show pictures

More warming up

With this slight improvement, I decided to go to the Alfredo clinic Tuesday and Wednesday. I figured that if he has ulcers, they're feeling better with the ranitidine and change in diet. If he has to be retired, at least this (like our I1) is one last fun thing to do with him. I also figured that if it wasn't ulcers, I'd very much regret not going since Alfredo won't be back until September.

Smiling after he did tempis up centerline

Hanging out with the judge

We still have a questionable medium trot

Alfredo remembered us from November and was pleased to see how good Rico looked in his pi/pa since last time. In November, Rico had his first clinic with Alfredo and it was his first time doing passage ever and first time doing a real piaffe (we had done half steps up until then). Since then, we've gotten a pretty decent passage on him (still working out the kinks), and the piaffe is coming along. He also has semi-decent walk-passage, passage-canter, and pi/pa transitions.

Tuesday we worked the piaffe and passage independently. In the piaffe, I need to insist he does it on the spot now. Not a lot of steps, and in the show ring I can let him scooch forward a bit, but at home, it's on the spot for 5-6 steps and then out.

In the passage, Rico needs more lift, but not that much more. Alfredo warned me. Don't make the horse passage BIG, you do that if you have years to develop a passage. We have several months at the most. He said play it safe and get a six- Rico needs to be reliable and even, but not flashy. I totally agree, I don't want an uncontrollable passage in the ring, I want something rideable and something that I don't worry about being able to steer.

We warmed up with a little passage at the show, it's not big
but it's reliable!

Half pass zig zag!

More warm up passage

Wednesday we played with one tempis and transitions. Alfredo was so funny about me in the ones. He first told me to canter a bit for him and then told me that Rico didn't need me that much. He said "put your reins in one hand and do lead changes" so I did. No biggie, Rico has good changes. Then he said "give me one one!" and I was like hah yeah that's not happening.

But Rico did them, actually better with one hand than with two! Alfredo laughed at me and told me that Rico didn't want me so involved in the ones. Point taken.

Then we did transitions in and out of piaffe and passage, then some walk to passage transitions. My biggest problem was me taking my leg of between the piaffe and passage. That meant that Rico would halt, then do a halt to passage transition. Woops. I fixed that!

More like a reining spin than a right pirouette but we are
making progress!

Better in the arena!

Left one is far superior

Much better than the right

At the end, Alfredo said that he thought our piaffe and passage wasn't too far off from Grand Prix. He said to remember that it's all a learning experience, that I shouldn't worry too much about the score because it depends so much on the judge anyway (he said judges have different opinions on what is a good piaffe and passage, more so than they do with the other movements) and that I should go for the experience and bring him the test next time and we'll figure out how to bring scores up.

I'm with him for the most part. There's part of me who just wants to GO and if we score like shit, say "oh well!" and keep working. But the other part of me looked up my record last night and I have only ever scored in the 50s three times in my life. Twice with Rico (once at first level when I had hurt my back and went off course twice; once at third level when it was so windy that the arena letters fell into the arena along one long side and we had to make due without a long side) and once was my Grand Prix on Leo. Both of the scores on Rico were 59s... So it would be a new-ish experience to score so low on Rico, but I think I'd be fine with that.

More judge chatting

So cute!

But with how things have been going, I'm hoping we will end up making it to Grand Prix this year regardless of the score :) Fingers crossed that whatever is going on (physical or behavioral) is fixable. Especially if it was fixable in time for the first chance at the Grand Prix which is on July 13th, just over a month away- yikes. Second chance is three weeks later in August so we may wait for that one.

Alright, off to do some homework now. Yep. Homework. Didn't I finish my semester a couple weeks ago? Two glorious weeks of break. Now I'm taking a month long Programming in R class. Grad school never ends!!

Parents' new trailer which Rico isn't much of a fan of...

Such a good horse!

Intermediare I

I officially own an Intermediare I horse! Last year at this time, we were gearing up for our first 4-2 at the beginning of June. That's moving up 4 tests (well, we skipped the 4-3) in a year, what a horse :)

My favorite picture from the show last year

He still charges up centerline after the halt

I heard from my vet this morning, he's not convinced that the results were indicative of anemia or ulcers. He says the value that the local vet gave me was merely blood volume and that he could lose blood volume from not having enough water in him (anemia also causes this, hence the diagnosis). Tomorrow I'm going to forward the blood results to my vet (I use a local vet for easy stuff, shots, etc, since they're not expensive. But my vet is a performance horse vet who treated Rico's many injuries so I trust him a LOT) and we'll go from there. He's on ranitidine and will be on it until we figure all of this out, it just makes his tummy (and his rider) feel better.

We got the go ahead, of course, to show today.

My plan was just to head in that direction and if Rico said no to showing, I'd scratch. He was pretty game to show, more forward than he has been (although not back to normal, he was a little not-so-engaged all day), and enthusiastic about doing passage and piaffe, which was great but those weren't required in our test.

I bathed him and braided him, then threw him in the trailer to head off to Dressage at the Gaits. It was VERY windy, since my test was in the afternoon and it's always windy there in the afternoon. I didn't mind. In fact, I would have appreciated more flapping plastic bags and maybe a loose dog, or maybe that kid riding the bike could have fallen and started screaming... Sorry, I take that back. But Rico doesn't care about wind.

All braided and pretty

Our warm up was alright. It included several reining spins instead of pirouettes to the right, a few perfect lines of tempis, and me trying to remember how to ride the zig zag in a court since I hadn't ever ridden it before.

It wasn't a strong warm up, but it wasn't terrible, and I headed over early.

The test itself was... green. We earned a 63.7%, with some good highlights. We got a 7 on our zig zag, which I had just learned to ride several minutes before. We also got a 6.5 on our left pirouette! Plus an 8 on our last centerline, a bunch of 7s/7.5s on our walk and trot work, and some really nice comments noting that Rico is very talented and that I need to get my shit together. Typical.

Had to get a picture of those scores

We had some questionable moments as well. Rico thinks that throwing in extra changes are cool, so we did a nice line of 2s up centerline for a generous 5. We also have a very very unruly right pirouette which was basically two bad half pirouettes (but NOT reining spins though, success!) for a 4. He also threw in a couplet (one one-tempi) as we went across the diagonal for our extended canter. The judge didn't see and we got a 6 with the comment "conservative," yes ma'am I was conservative, my horse wanted to do one-tempis instead!!

But overall, given how things have been going, I was VERY happy. I still think something is going on, we're making more diet changes (over the course of several weeks, I was a pony clubber), and I'm going to see what my vet thinks about scoping him for ulcers or running more tests.

After how happy he was today, I think I'll do at least one day with Alfredo, and pull out of the second day if Rico is clearly not happy. After that...

Kind of overkill for two people

Camping!! Boyfriend and I are going to try out our new tent and all of our camping stuff at a place nearby before we head up to Portland for our summer camping trip.

I'll have pictures from today soon!

Gearing Up for Intermediare I

I've been out of spring semester for nearly a week and I'm FINALLY feeling like I'm on break.

Last final ended at 2:45, started drinking at 3

This semester was brutal, my multivariate statistics class was both the hardest class I've ever taken and the most fun I've ever had learning something that I once thought was so boring. It made me really want to move forward with a data science career so this summer's project is learning python and possibly R.

Summer break means that I've been trying
to do as many fun things at once as I can
(that's a 3DS)

The last two weeks have been rough with Rico. I'm battling with his laziness and lack of work ethic right now. As we move up the levels, it's clear that he needs more energy from his food in order to perform the movements. For example, I amped him way way up the other day and um we have really fantastic full pirouettes when he's in front of my leg. When he's even the slightest bit behind me, he stalls out and just stands there.

He's now on copious amounts of COB and LMF Gold, but I had a bad school today so it's obvious that it's not quite right yet. At this point, I'm hoping to get through this Friday's show without stalling out.

In hopes of boosting his work ethic, I've also been trying to do less dressage rides and more fun rides. On Saturday, Rico and I took my dad and Stretch up into the hills across the street for a little trail ride.

My dad talking to me about something while Rico
contemplates biting Stretch's butt

Last week, I made Rico jump this:

My version of a corner

(I'm also planning on making a liverpool out of a tarp, making a fake ditch to make my own coffin complexes and ditches and walls, and getting him to jump skinnies, like my mounting block)

But he's still not feeling quite right. I'm feeling more and more like this is going to be the last year I have with him as an FEI horse. I can't see us making it through the winter, and especially not through next spring.

I'm sad, but not that sad. I want to retire him early enough where he'll enjoy his retirement at least serviceably sound. But I don't want to give up on him so early that I'll look back on our time together and regret retiring him when he was still going.

So I thought about it and we're going to push forward through the beginning of September (there's a show then), and if we aren't in a place to debut at Grand Prix, Rico will be put into semi-retirement for the fall, and then full retirement when the rain comes and through my graduation from my MA program. At that time ideally I'll have a job where I can throw him up on the peninsula for the summer and fall to trail ride, then permanently retire him in the winter. This is just the tentative plan.

Such a good animal

In the mean time, we're getting down to business to defeat the huns to show at Intermediare I this week. When Rico is energetic, this test is downright EASY.

The test is actually one I never thought I'd do because fuck all these movements:
- shoulder-in on centerline at the judge
- halt and rein back in front of the judge
- any resemblance of a canter half pass zig zag
- lead changes on centerline facing the judge
- canter to trot transition in the judge's lap

The test is just ASKING for some shitty movements when Rico and I are basically on display in front of the damn judge the whole time. I mean I understand that the point of dressage tests is to have a judge JUDGE them but damn, put the hard stuff in a place where the judge isn't staring down at me.

But it's a step in the right direction for the Grand Prix, so I'm doing it.

After that, we're going to go to the Alfredo Hernandez clinic next week. Then boyfriend and I leave for five days to visit boyfriend's parents at their lake house and Rico gets a couple rides from Tracey that week.

Lucky animal!