Long Lining

This week is injection week, but I've made some changes that I wanted to document prior to that. 

Since getting the BOT wraps, TC has been getting used to wearing them. I put them on the moment he's in the cross ties and then I take them off after grooming. He still thinks they make gravity a little stronger, but he's tolerating them well. I feel bad that he's in a bit of bootcamp right now, but it's good for him. 

Unrelated, but we have a tree down on the trails
right now, hoping to get it cleared soon so I can
ride up there again, it's great hill work!

One thing my vet noted last week was that he needed more muscle... this is something I continuously have heard from vets for YEARS now. Literally half the time I've owned this horse I hear that he needs more muscle. It's tough because they aren't wrong, he DOES need more muscle. But I see this as a symptom and they see it as something I like, maybe haven't considered doing. 

But I took it as evidence that maybe his current plan (longeing) is not working for him as well as my vet would expect given that he's feeling better. So last week I decided to look into some other options.

As he loses weight, he looks worse unfortunately

Mostly I won't fit this to a saddle

When longeing, I have TC in his rope halter and he holds quite a nice posture. He is not hollow and running on the forehand, he's nicely lifted through his thoracic sling, is tracking up, and is lifted in his trunk to the point where I can see his little abs working. 

But at the same time, he's also not working through any resistance. Not in a behavioral way, but when I ride him, I ask him to step into the contact and I'm also a person on him adding weight. 

I decided to see about riding again, but this time in a saddle. Unfortunately his back is still too undermuscled to support a real saddle, and I'm wanting to avoid the TCS because I can't afford to hurt my back before my trip to Uruguay in January. 

I ran out of horse pictures so here's a bird picture,
this is a White-crowned Sparrow by the way

One of my friends suggested long lining, so I broke out the bridle and surcingle and decided to give it a go. With the surcingle on, I also grabbed his equibands and decided to at least have him warm up at the walk with them on. 

The moment I put his bridle on, he started chomping at the bit. He's done this for a long time and it's only in the cross ties (never when working, he's totally quiet in the mouth) but it was really annoying me, so I decided to use my longeing cavesson instead. 

The bit thing I will address later, I think it's a good idea to try some bit flexions and get him holding it quieter in the cross ties, but it was a very tough week last week and I was not going to deal with it then. Not only am I having to head up the technical side of this absolutely nutty migration at work, we ended up losing Ruby, my parents' dog over the weekend. She wasn't my dog, but boarding at the ranch means I get attached to all of the animals there because I'm there so often. She was the very best dog and I miss her so much. 

All of that meant that I had limited bandwidth, so I was hoping that long lining in the cavesson went well, and it did!

This is a Say's Phoebe, we get them at the ranch
here and there

TC hasn't been long lined in a long time, and he hasn't been long lined without clicker training I think ever. But he's the most patient, perfect creature, so he let me fumble a little bit to start. 

I noticed with long lining that while he held the same posture, I could really get him to step into the contact. I dunno if that's going to lead to a lot more muscle building, but it did feel like the next step toward getting him comfortable undersaddle. 

He maintained his forwardness, which I've been harping on him more and more about, and I was even coordinated enough to have him go through the trot poles we've been using. 

Here's a horse and bird picture,
Rico watching a Great Egret fly
into his pasture!

I think we'll continue with the long lining in the cavesson. But we'll be taking a break because tomorrow TC gets injections! Hopefully they go well and he starts feeling much much better. 

Long Lining in the Meantime

This last weekend I got the EQ Saddle Science measuring kit so I measured TC and sent the measurements to them. So now it's just the waiting game until they bring me a saddle to try for two weeks. It's fine to wait IMO, my burnout is getting better but I'm still trying to do a little less and take the pressure off myself and that includes with riding too. I feel bad because I think TC really misses being in full work. He had about a week where he was like "go away, I love my pasture" but now the pasture seems to be less interesting than I am. 

This is where I'd like him to be all the time

This is where he likes to be right now, which is
fine, he's still IFV and tracking up, it's just lower

I've been doing a lot of stuff with him though, but very limited dressage until the saddle comes. In the mean time though, we've been doing bareback rides with the equibands, bareback trail rides, and long lining! 

The long lining has been really cool because there's nothing restricting his shoulder AND I can see him. So I can encourage him to change his posture, know that he can do it, and reward him immediately for trying. 

My main goal is to get him lifting through the base of his neck, as that was the main issue last year. I figure if I reward him for doing it on the long lines, that he'll become strong enough where that's where he wants to be. I am also giving him a voice command ("up") and trying to pair the two so I can say that undersaddle too. 

Such a good boy

He went left first and then right so the right ended
up being better

I was pretty surprised by how quickly he caught on what I wanted him to do. Soon he was pleasantly in front of the vertical with his neck lifted and then I could send him into it to get him to flex his lumbosacral joint. I did a bunch of bending exercises too and the more supple he became, the easier it was for him to really lift through his back. 

He was able to get that in canter too and I could send him on without him coming against me (an issue we have in the canter undersaddle). This was cool because it unlocked a whole new canter! He looked SO good in it that the first time I saw it, I didn't even let him continue for a stride longer, I clicked on the first stride and he halted to get his treat. After that, he surged back into canter to try again and then I had him hold it for a few strides. 

By about 30 minutes in (15 mins each direction), he was so tired. He took a nap when I hosed him down. But I could SWEAR that three days later he had another layer of muscle on him. 

Look at that neck and reach with the inside hind!

Also teaching him to set back on his hind end with
a hand on his chest

I rode him yesterday in Rico's weird bareback pad with stirrups, which I know 1000% isn't the right thing to ride in because bareback pads with stirrups are bad for backs. But I was super curious to do a short ride and see how he felt. I stayed out of my stirrups and mostly supported myself with my thigh (like I'm supposed to lol). 

He felt absolutely fantastic! So much better in the contact and so easy to maneuver. I was chatting with my friends last week saying that TC used to feel like he was an extension of my own body and just like moving myself around, I could just think about moving him and he'd move. Over the last year and a bit though, he's become more foreign to me and I think this is because of the saddle fit issues (among other things). 

We still aren't 100% back yet by any means, but this was one of the first rides where I got glimpses of what used to be. I could get my suction on him well and make changes with intention rather than aids. 

No One Ever Had to Sell Me On How Nice a Fire Smells

TC has been improving in the brakes department, which is really great, though it's obviously been pretty hard on both of us. Him because he had his world flipped upside down, me because he hasn't woken up one day and just been like "yeah brakes, sounds good" and been perfect ever since. One of us is unreasonable and it isn't the one who wants to attack bird shadows.

For the most part, he starts out great and then as he gets more and more internally pressured, he gets worse and worse. Starting Thursday last week, I decided to address the issue on the long lines before getting back on him. I've still been riding on the trails though, of course. It's not a safety thing, it's a frustration level thing (for me, mostly).

By the way, this title is a lyric. The whole lyric is "if the price of life is hell, well, no one ever had to sell me on how nice a fire smells" and I kind of love it.

From Sunday, he had so much fun out there, I'm trying to swing
a weekday trail ride when I can too, get out there twice a week,
which I think will help break up the difficult work

The long lining gives me a different perspective. Well, the long lining itself allows me to see him on his own, which is helpful because I don't have mirrors, sure. It's the clicker training that gives me another perspective. I think I have this issue figured out and it all goes back to the very beginning, stimulus control, and pressure aversion.

Essentially, TC has always been a very pressure averse horse whose primary response to pressure is to get away, even if it involves busting through things. This is apparent as far back as when he was being halter broke and someone cornered him in a field and he went through the fence to get away from them. It's apparent in his bolting behavior, his go-to response for spooking is to leave. It's apparent even in his weird shit with gates where he sometimes rushes through them. Pressure = GTFO. Always.

Over the years, I've addressed it with external stimuli. We've done bombproofing clinics, we've done tons of ground work, lots of traveling, I've shook more things at this horse than is probably appropriate (plastic bags, bags of cans, flags, balloons, pool noodles, etc). His go-to response remains, but it also has become muted over time. You can stop him from bolting, he spooks in place WAY more now, and we're still working on instilling curiosity rather than flight. It's been a long hard road, but he's so much better.

There's been so much rain, but the trails aren't
so bad! 

The other thing about TC is that he's sensitive. He may look chunky and low tone because of the friesian in him, but he is what I'd consider a sensitive horse. Maybe not hot in the traditional sense (I ride him with spurs and a whip), but emotionally and physically sensitive. He's always been insanely light in the bridle and very in tune with rider biomechanics.

Knowing those two things is key in deciphering his recent behavior.

Alexis, who I plan on giving a hard time to for breaking my horse, suggested that TC need to carry more tone if he's going to do Second level and beyond. I took this upon myself and decided to pump him up a bit more. In the past, because of his zippiness, I've praised relaxation the most. But mental relaxation required physical relaxation, which turned into me underpowering him in order to keep him mentally chill. Alexis, who is not at all to blame but we're friends so I can give her shit, was right, he was underpowered for the work I wanted him to do.

When I added power, I added internal pressure. Makes sense.

We know how TC responds to external pressure: leaving. Turns out that he responds the same way to internal pressure too. He leaves. The only issue is that by leaving, he doesn't relieve the pressure like he does when he nopes out of a situation with a bird or a leaf blower. So he just keeps leaving.

Sleepy cows under my favorite tree, one of them got up while
we walked by and TC was like "friend?" 

I'd notice this more if TC was a very dull horse in the bridle, but for weeks I didn't realize that he was trying to leave because of how light he is in the bridle because the weight in the reins was enough to hold him back. All that I could tell is that the connection felt crappy. He was taking more weight in the reins (a good thing IMO, he felt comfortable going to the bit, nice!) but he was also feeling less good in the bridle.

Eventually I realized that not only was the connection feeling like crap, I had no brakes, and thus this whole ordeal started. When really, it started years ago when TC discovered that running away = pressure release. Rather than becoming connected to the bridle when I added more pressure, I was basically holding him back from trying to relieve the pressure by running off. I can't emphasize enough that the weight in the reins of me holding him back is as light as Rico has ever been in his life. It just doesn't take much to hold him back. Until he finally busts through the barrier (bolting).

Enjoying the views!

So fast forward to now. This has to be fixed. I've decided that showing doesn't matter, lessons don't matter (though I will be taking some), what matters is this and only this. And it is not going to be a quick fix. This is me asking a coming 8 year old horse to fundamentally change the way he addresses pressure. In much the same way as the bombproofing clinic, I must put him under internal pressure and then praise him for not leaving. Over and over again. This is HARD undersaddle because I sometimes literally can't stop him. So to the long lines we go.

My main goal on the long lines is to be able to say the word "whoa" and have TC halt (responding to an aid vs physical pressure on the lines). My secondary goal is to have him stay back on his hocks at all times, never letting his chest start to pull him along, which dumps him onto the forehand and gets him thinking of blowing through the bridle with his chest. I'm also looking for him to respond (not react) to the aids in a productive way.

So far, TC seems to start out pretty chill and low tone, happy to walk quietly around, halting when I ask him to halt and trotting when I ask him to trot.

Eventually, and more often to the right than left, TC becomes internally pressured and can't handle his shit. This is when he starts reacting badly to the aids. He seems to think that he can't go forward at all, so he resists and resists my go aid until he BLASTS through the invisible barrier, gets told he can't go there, runs backwards and sometimes tries to flip around the other way.

Back down the hill

I've been working to get him to this place where he's more prone to panic, and then that's when I click for fucking anything that isn't refusing to go forward or blasting off. I want him to be able to carry more tone without panicking.

This fucking sucks, let me tell you. It sucks to have to bring him to a place where he finds it so unnerving to be. He gets a lot of praise, the work is easy, and I try not to do it more than two days in a row (he gets a fun hand walk day or a trail ride in between). But it is important. I want to make sure that as I bring him up the levels of dressage, I'm not having to put his mental health in such a precarious place in order to get the scores I want. 

So, we'll see how it goes. He's already improving a lot. He's also moving outside this weekend, which should reduce that 0-60 panic switch when he goes from low tone to high tone. I think he'll be way happier! He's also getting chiropracted soon (already had his teeth done and his saddle fit) and I'm considering CBD pellets if those two things don't work for him. Adequan is also in the mix coming up. I just want him to be happy in his work. And then we'll go from there!

Just a Few Things

Things have been going well the last week and a half since our last lesson. We've been plugging away at Second level and are signed up for 2-1 and 2-2 this weekend at a schooling show. Hopefully that goes well!

A few random things have happened that don't warrant full posts. I figured I'd just list them here!

Grabbed some video of our new canter!

Canter to Walk Transitions

We had a great breakthrough with these. Basically, if I feel like I'm having to work to get the transition to be smooth, the quality of the canter isn't there. When he's really well collected and sitting down properly, the transitions are easy. That's a very "no duh" breakthrough, but feeling that they can be so so good when the canter is good has made me very determined to have that quality of a canter all the time. So we're working on that!


The First Rain

We had a very brief rainstorm on Tuesday morning and TC and I were caught in it. I had gotten on and we were going to just ride in the misty rain when it just kind of opened up on us. TC flipped out and I was sore from CrossFit the night before so I just figured I'd long line instead. TC was nuts on the long lines so he got worked a lot harder than I thought.

This horse remains the fucking worst about rain. It's like he's never seen rain before EVERY SINGLE TIME.

My right side is so weak gah

Deadlift Progress

I posted on Tuesday that I was hopeful that I'd get my body weight deadlift soon and I got it on Monday night! I was so excited. We were doing a 5x3 at 80% of 1RM but I'd been putting in so much effort at 50-80% of my previous 1RM (calculated at 129lbs) that I wanted to at least hit body weight (125lbs) for this. As I was warming up, I told myself I could jump to 125 to hit the PR. If I could do it for 3 reps, I could keep it for the workout. And I could! So I did! And that's how I ended up doing a 5x3 at bodyweight. New 1RM calculation says it's 137 :)

And then I weighed myself on Tuesday and I now weigh in at 130, which is good because it means that I've gained quite a lot of muscle in the last few months, but it's bad because now I'm not at body weight yet!! Next time. I'm sure I can do 130 easily.


Winter Musings

I'm thinking about doing another light winter for TC. He's been bucking quite big recently and I'm not a fan of riding him in the cold/dark/rain when he's being insane. It may be a good idea to do more ground work/basics this winter and then bring him back in March for the late-April shows. On the other hand, I feel like if we put in a solid winter of work, we'll be guaranteeing that we could get to, if not finish Third level by next fall. And that'd be pretty cool. So I figure we'll play it by ear. If he starts scaring me or being an idiot about weather, he's getting some time to chill.

I'm also throwing around the idea of switching barns for the winter. I love having him at my house but the reality is, the footing in the indoor gets chewed up by people longeing in there. There's really no other weather-proof area for people to longe so having people not do it isn't an option. If I want to keep him going, moving him to the dressage barn (about a 20 minute drive though) may be the better option. I don't know how to approach my landlord/barn owner though :( if we're just taking it easy, I can just choose to ride him on days where I can ride outside.

He's so beefy

Looking Ahead

Next year, CDS/Regional Championships is in northern CA again. It switches back and forth between being in LA (this year, it just happened last weekend) and being in my backyard at Rancho Murieta.

I don't think TC is ready to do championships. It's a lot of atmosphere for him. Plus, we'd be doing it at Second level, since I doubt I can get him ready to be scoring in the 70s at Third. I think that our plan will be to do another two years just qualifying for All Breeds and wait until 2021 to try for Championships. By then we'll be at Fourth, if we're thinking one level per year, or maybe even ready to do it at Prix St George. I don't know. But I think TC at 10 (wow) will be able to handle the atmosphere better than TC at 8.

BUT I am not ruling it out. It costs an extra $10 per 2-3 to get qualified, and we need to do five of them. That's fifty dollars (and really, the cost is going to be coming from all the shows we'll have to do to get five 2-3 tests in), so I think I might put in for it anyway.

The right lead is definitely harder (and it was getting dark)

Regardless, I'm really excited for TC's progress this year. I can't believe that we're showing at Second level this weekend! Even if it's just a schooling show...

A Long Fun Weekend

This weekend was a four day weekend! I had both last Friday and yesterday off for President's day and it was a really great to have some time off without anything to do. I decided to not do anything, really, just hang around at home, get some stuff done, see friends, and ride horses. So many times I try to pack my weekends with stuff that I don't really get to just hang out.

Also media, I love having media

Friday I mostly just caught up on stuff. I tend to have to do most of my chores on the weekend because with riding, my commute, and work, I don't have tons of time during the week. So Friday was dedicated to running around and doing stuff. I dropped some stuff off at the post office, I got my car over to the shop for an oil change, I did a whole bunch of laundry, and then I went to the barn.

At the barn I rode, and then did a bunch of barn chores. TC got a bath and I got to put bluing in his tail, which has been my go-to tail whitening stuff for a while now. It definitely helps keep it slightly less... yellow... I feel like it's only a matter of time though. While that sat in his tail, I cleaned all my tack, which I've been trying to do every weekend and it's really helping to keep my stuff from seeming toooo disgusting.

Also let him graze for a bit, happy pony!

Saturday I rode TC and was able to wrangle my mom into coming to take pictures of us. She hadn't seen TC in a long while so it was fun for her to see his progress. Unfortunately she didn't get to see that, because despite it being a totally warm pleasant day, TC was an absolute nutcase that day for some reason. I was really impressed with my mom though, not only was she not afraid of TC or afraid for me, she kept yelling to me that she was getting GREAT pictures of his antics. Cool. I would have really preferred a boring ride with pretty pictures but I'll honestly take any media of me riding at this point.

From the barn, I zipped up to the peninsula to teach a few lessons. I've been kind of randomly teaching this winter while I figure some things out, but teaching is always super fun. It does make me envious of people who take lessons (even from me lol) because I am so missing having lessons right now. On the way back from the peninsula, it turned out that Kate was driving toward me and we were going to pass each other, so we figured we'd stop and get dinner!

Catching a picture of me laughing to my mom after my horse
nearly bucked me off. See my lost stirrups? Totally obnoxious.

On Sunday, my aunts came to the ranch, so I spent the morning with them and my parents as they looked for birds. The aunt who is my dad's sister is SUPER into birding. She knows so much about birds and she and my other aunt/her partner have traveled the world finding birds. My other aunt is maybe not aaaasss into it as my dad's sister, but she totally puts up with it and they're a great birding team. My dad is kind of getting into it too, so it was fun to hang out with them and borrow their binoculars to see all the birds at the ranch. I had to leave shortly after lunch so didn't get to see all the birds, but apparently they saw 20 different species of birds! I guess that was less than a few weeks ago when they saw 27 species, but I guess the wind makes the birds not want to hang around to be seen.

I zipped out to TC and found that I wasn't in the greatest mood. Unfortunately work has been a bit stressful so I found myself thinking about it more than I usually do on the weekends. That plus being super annoyed that TC hasn't woken up as a coming 7 year old and decided to become a brand new horse with no bad behaviors... I decided to just long line him. I wanted a positive interaction with him. The long lining/clicker training helps so much because it gets his brain working and it's also really structured so I don't tend to feel very frustrated/annoyed during that work.

Long lining is my favorite

I have a few posts dedicated to my Monday with Kate, but a quick rundown. Monday morning Kate met me down at my barn and rode TC with me! I was super excited to get Kate back on TC, every time she rides him they both are a bit better, and sure enough, this was the best ride yet. After that, I put him away while she went to teach and then we went to get poke together! From poke, we went up to ride horses at her other barn, where she actually did a realignment with me. It was amazing to have some feedback about my position and the horse I rode, Tango, is a much smaller mover than TC (but I wouldn't call him super smooth or anything) so it was nice to be able to totally focus on myself.

I will post a bit more about Kate's ride on TC and my ride on Tango featuring the first steps toward fixing my sitting trot later. For now I'm just getting ready to go back to work after four fun horse-filled days. TC gets a day off and I will probably work a bit longer hours to catch up on stuff. Then back to trying to sit the trot properly on Wednesday! This time on a gigantic mover, gah.

Remote Workday Musings

Wednesday morning I had a meeting that I was "in charge of" and so didn't have much time to do anything significant with TC. So I put him on the long lines for the first time in a while (in the outdoor round pen which was open until it rained yesterday).

I always feel like long lining might be boring to him, but he's ALL about it, mostly because I usually use the clicker. He seemed very eager to do his work, but not to bring his back up and track up. We were going left and when we switched right, he was definitely a bit sticky on the outside hind leg. So his left butt cheek was definitely sore from the day before, when he spooked at a chair every time we went by it so he had to canter by it a lot, and probably in a more collected canter than he's used to.

This used to be par for the course for this horse. I think the first six months after he came home from rehab he was kind of NQR every other day. He just got sore. After I put him on the MuscleUp supplement, and after he got older I'm sure, he stopped getting sore. So luckily I didn't freak out about it. And he was totally sound and normal on Thursday morning.

The fog was so ominous, but it was sunny at the barn

On Wednesday evening, I had talked to my unofficial boss (who really should be my official boss, this school is so weird) who has been very encouraging about me working from home once a week. It REALLY saves me on commute time and how many miles I'm putting on my car. I get a bit annoyed when I have no meetings scheduled and I end up just sitting at my desk all day and talk to no one. I get even more annoyed on days like Wednesday where I was trying to work on my presentation and it seemed like my desk was the place to be for everyone and their mother. So working from home is really nice.

My official boss is less enthused about it. Part of me doesn't care all that much. But I do have to get it "approved" so I sent an email on Thursday morning and she got back to me with what I considered to be a tiny bit of attitude about it. Dude, do you know what it's like to drive 3 hours a day every day? It is not fun. It was still approved, but I was a little bit annoyed. So poor TC had to work harder than normal because of it. And that got me thinking.

I've been considering what my future with him will be lately. I'm thinking a lot about the future. I had my life get turned upside down when my plans to move across the country fell through. For a second I had NO IDEA what to do with my life and kind of freaked out. But I'm a planner and relish in the act of planning, so I'm feeling as good as I've ever felt about the future.

So things may be changing in my personal life, but I do want to see some changes happening in my life with TC. The last few years have been a period of catching up financially. Putting money into retirement accounts that I hadn't been able to, saving a hefty emergency fund and extra money for what I was going to use for moving costs (instead that's just more emergency fund at the moment). Every single financial decision I make is heavily weighed and I stick to a very strict budget.

After he was bad the other day, he didn't think it
was unwarranted 

This means that I rarely take lessons. And at first it was totally fine. TC was too young to be in that hard of work, he was then injured, and I've taken so many horses beyond where he's at that I don't *need* lessons on him. But I WANT to take lessons.

I took maybe five or six lessons in the last year and I think this year I want to get a bit more serious about my education with this horse. I feel bad for him on days like Thursday when he had to work hard and we had a few minor disagreements (you can't prop your butt up in a walk to canter transition, leg yields from the wall DO exist and you can't stick your head up in the air and slow down to do them, you can't just run away from my outside leg at the canter). I know he needs to work hard, but it's nice having someone confirm that this is the way he SHOULD be working hard.

That may sound really confusing since I've trained horses to the FEI levels myself where I was the one who was making all the decisions. But I don't want to take TC on the path that I know. Because I want TC to be better than any horse I've trained before. And that means having someone guide me through the process a bit more regularly. Maybe not once a week, since there are no trainers who come to my barn (that I'm willing to ride with) so that means hauling out, but maybe every other weekend. This probably won't start until at least February, I'm doing the Mary Wanless workshop in a week (!!!) so that ate all my would-be lesson budget for January.

Wandering around the ranch

My next problem is finding a trainer to ride with. My first instinct is to ride with my actual trainer. She's the best trainer in the area, she gets his type, she isn't scared of him (despite knowing his behavioral problems which IMO are rapidly disappearing), she is fair to him, he likes her barn, I am not totally useless turning the trailer around there, etc. Money-wise she's not outrageously expensive.

But there are some downsides, I've had trouble with my own confidence riding with her because she knew me on Rico and likes to compare current me to past me (and kind of ignores me when I'm like dude, I used to pretty much be brought to you by Crossfit and now I'm brought to you by sitting on my ass for 10 hours a day). I also struggle because she has trouble being on time, and hauling over there, taking a lesson, and hauling back is already a 3.5 hour journey, then add in having to wait around... and it really digs into my weekend.

I audited a trainer recently who is really nearby (like take 3.5 hours down to 2). She has her Gold (but has only competed at GP on one horse and hasn't taken anyone to GP) and she's super nice. But I can only describe her lessons as... dressage porn. She told the rider what to do, and then praised them for it. So like instructions were to go down the long side, do a circle, ride a leg yield. And then more positive reinforcement than I'm used to (yah, that's nice, good job, yes!, that's it, praise him). Sometimes there'd be something helpful like having the rider bend the horse more or do a transition again if it wasn't good. But I'm used to a constant stream of intense theory and instruction. And this just seemed like the kind of trainer I'd argue with over something like over-bending. I do not like over-bending.

There are others in the area. Obviously the trainer who actually got me my Gold is around, but she's a bit more crank and spank than TC needs (he needs 0 crank and spanks). There's two other trainers who are close-ish, one I haven't even heard anything about and one Kate has ridden with and no longer rides with (in favor of Tracey). Soooo I feel a bit stuck. In an area surrounded by Gold Medalists, you'd think I could find someone easily!

At least I know that my trainer's track record is good!

My whole life may move soon anyway, I have some job applications out in a few different places, so I don't really need to solve this problem any time soon. But I think just reworking my budget and getting two lessons scheduled in February (unless it pours rain, both TC and I hate rain) would be a good start!

Back to Work

Yesterday I went to work for a few hours and then went to the barn after my early afternoon meeting. The good news is that although I feel very out of shape and am coughing a lot still, I feel mostly normal. The bad news is that now I have a CRAZY horse to deal with. Despite having a week off here and there all year with me traveling to PA so much, the weather has made this last week off MUCH harder to deal with.

It rained a ton on Monday and quite a bit on Tuesday so that coupled with the rain we got the week before means that TC's paddock is a mud pit. TC is also pretty wet and muddy himself. Gross.

I'm not impressed with how TC's stall and paddock are holding up. His stall definitely gets a bit wet inside, though he can get out of the rain. His paddock is terrible though. He has two mats coming out of his stall (there are two entrances to his stall) and one near his water, but other than that the whole paddock is basically just... mud. TC is luckily smart enough not to run around like a maniac in the mud and hurt himself (well, so far, am not holding out hope), but that just means that he's really nuts now.

I think one of the reasons why he's been so good this winter is because while it's been a bit cold, we haven't had rain, so he can trot and canter in his paddock a bit. Now there's no way for him to self exercise. Right when I stopped exercising him.

This pathway was so much muddier the other day

When I went out on Monday, I took TC for a short walk and then did some ground work in the covered round pen. Immediately when we got in there, I regretted every time I had turned him out in there. TC thinks that this round pen is where you go crazy. It doesn't help that he's always thought this round pen was where horses came to die at the barn. It's got really tall sides and is tucked against a scary building, the bathroom, and a house, so it's not like all the other arenas/round pens where we can walk around the outside of it.

So it's really spooky. And I've already set the precedent that he goes in there and goes crazy. So now facing a winter of being stuck in either there or in the covered arena where I am not allowed to long line, if I don't want to ride, I am stuck in the round pen. Where TC is crazy. Oh good.

I for sure couldn't ride on Monday. I probably could have on Tuesday, but on Monday I was determined to change the way TC thinks about the round pen.

I headed in there on Tuesday armed with the clicker and long lines and it was basically a shit show. Looking at what worked, I probably should have done a few things in different orders. First, do not allow him to be insane in there. I thought that maybe letting him trot around a bit would cause him to settle. It did not. He did not settle (he never has, once as the hamsters are off their wheels, you have to get him stopped), he just kept getting himself worked up and would go faster and faster. Second, I should always always always be working on this horse's brakes when he gets like this. Because again, he will work himself into a frenzy and just drag me in circles. Third, how many times do I have to learn to REMOVE ALL MOUNTING BLOCKS FROM THE AREA when I want to long line.

So was this horse, much muddier

So after making those mistakes and then seeing with my own eyes him work himself up, me not be able to put pressure on the bridle quick enough, him freak out because of that and then take off.... I finally used my brain (we only had maybe 3/4 of a brain between the two of us it seems). I managed to get him stopped and first reinstalled some real good brakes. We had to do a lot of backing up in all this, but soon he figured out that when I said WHOA, he needed to get his shit together and just stop. No matter what was happening around us.

Then I tackled getting him to stay out on the rail. We worked in small circles on the one side of the round pen that he kept avoiding, then slowly spiraled out into the larger area. After that, we started to trot just in the 3/4 of the circle that he'd stay out on, and then I'd ask him to walk and then step out in the quarter he was nervous about.

Soon he was as good as he was going to get in there. It's still not good. It's very tense and tight and nervous. But at least obedient.

Still, I kept thinking to myself, is this worth all the hassle? I mean it's nice to have a place for him to get exercise when I'm not on him. I wish my barn let people longe in arenas because it'd be really convenient to just pop him on the longe real quick on days like this one, but it doesn't. But also does he really need a longe or a long line? Certainly not if it's just going to freak him out and make his back tight.

I think the answer is to mostly ride when the outdoor round pens are closed and maybe tackle the indoor round pen at the walk until he really learns to settle in there. I don't know how I feel about him trotting around and around, however obediently, with his back completely rigid and his little legs going up and down. It seems completely counter to what we've been achieving and I do think it will have a negative effect on him until I can fix it in there. I'm a big believer in not practicing things badly. It's the same thing with his changes, when he would only offer me unclean ones, we did not practice them. You do not practice bad movements. I do not want him to practice trotting around with his back tight.

Always been skeptical of this round pen... 

Either way it ended up being a good day, though I was as frustrated as I have been in a while with him. It wasn't his fault, I'm just kind of done with the stupid young horse phase. He's coming 7 this year and I don't like that he's still so emotionally immature.

At the same time, I acknowledge that if I had continued along the path that we were on when he was 4 (instead of him getting injured and me having to take 1.5 years off of doing anything with him), he'd be a lot further along by now in that department. So the answer is just to keep trucking and acknowledge that just like last year, in the spring I'll be very glad that I didn't kick him to the curb this winter. Or maybe the answer is to move to the desert where it doesn't rain ever. I think every winter will get better though, either that or he'll start getting every winter off for real!

Clicks for Trots

Wednesday morning of last week, I was running late from the start of the day. It's one of my 10am meeting days, so I tend to not have much time at the barn anyway, and this just made it worse.

By the time I got to the barn, I had about an hour. Not enough to ride. But things had gone so well over the weekend (clean changes!) and on Monday (super connection!), that I wasn't too worried about him having a light day. So I decided to long line him.

Last time I tried long lining him, I got ran away with and dragged around the arena for a while as he galloped frantically in circles. When I finally stopped him, I took him to the round pen and really worked on installing the whoa aid with the long lines. Then I went to two back to back conferences and the horse was slightly neglected.

Oh no so neglected :(

Wednesday morning I decided to tackle it again. May as well. It's on my list.

I've been talking to Nicole and Kate a lot about clicker training, and you know that this has been working out well for us with the spooking and making the whoa aid more effective. One thing that Kate needs to revive her blog and write about is how she's training her horses to go better undersaddle with clicker training. The idea is really simple- click when they offer a response that is desirable, then give them a treat.

I decided to try this out on the long lines because 1) TC sucks at long lining and has a crappy teacher, 2) I could see the effects vs just feeling them undersaddle, and 3) if any major problems happened, I was on the ground and safer (theoretically).

TC is pretty tight on the long lines, he likes to retract his neck, drop his back, and generally impersonate a cart horse. I know people have good luck with long lining, but I'm not that great at it. I could long line Rico super well, but he was a combined driving horse before I got him and therefore was pretty immune to my poor timing.

Storm rolling in last week

No sooner had I started with him than he dragged me out to the edge of the rail. This is a problem in the larger arena (and I want to be able to long line him in there eventually, doing figure 8s and fun stuff) because there is no convenient rail so it means that he falls out and gets going real fast.

I gathered up the reins and counter bent him, then opened my inside rein (I had just attached it to the bit vs going through the surcingle because he needs an out) and then asked him to bring his inside front leg toward me. It took him a second but the moment tha the did it, he got a click and a bit of grain (I upgraded from the cookies so I could do more, also got myself a very embarrassing fanny pack to hold the grain so I didn't hav eto carry around a bucket and the long lines and the clicker). Soon he figured out that aid and was an old pro at staying in on the circle.

Once as I had more influence on where he was going, at both walk and trot, I just waited. When left to his own devices, TC will sometimes stretch his neck down and then pop it back up. I wanted him to get his neck down so I could click when he went there. Soon, he blew his nose and his neck went down, so he got clicked and immediately stopped for some grain. Some people will ask (like I did), isn't this just teaching him to stop all the time. No, because he doesn't get food unless the click comes first, so sure he will stop when I click, but only then. This work actually made him less likely to be slow because he was eager to get back to trot after he got the grain.

Soon he figured out that if he snorted then he'd get a click, so I waited until he did it without snorting (by this point he was trying to figure out where he had to be for clicks). Once as he got him stretching down, I asked him to hold it for longer and longer until he was just there all the time.

Wandering on one of the days I actually rode

The next step was to get him a bit more forward. When TC pushes from behind better, he swings his back and his trot gets bigger, he also comes over his back better too. So I sent him forward and waited until he had a moment of really pushing, then clicked. Soon he was offering this trot from the moment he picked it back up after getting food.

Unfortunately, that was the end of our work because I had to get to my own job. I was super pleased though! It worked so fast! At the beginning, I had a horse who I couldn't really steer very well and who was super tight and short in the neck. By the end he was taking bigger steps, swinging through his back better, and had his neck out and long.

I can't WAIT to do this again with the long lines, and possibly try it undersaddle too. Hopefully I can get him a bit more into the bridle and keep his back swinging while I'm on him too.

This winter has been super fun already and it's not even officially winter yet! TC and I are enjoying having less pressure on both of us and I can already see how working on non-dressage things is going to help our dressage get so much better next year!