Passage?!?

So TC is up to about 20 minutes of trot on his weird little fitness schedule. It's been nice actually, to have a set amount of time to walk, trot, and canter each day. Really helps me organize my rides. 

I've been taking it relatively easy this winter. I was unhappy with how he was going over the summer and have been using the winter to take the pressure off and focus on the basics, try to find the horse I had when he was at First level. It's amazing how responsive he is when he's not under as much pressure. The dressage gets more playful and he seems more into it, his tempo has slowed down and he's developed a lot more loft to his trot. So I think a training change is coming in 2021, more on that later as it develops. 

Trot looking much better

We see Tracey next week again, and I know that she is wanting me to "slow down" TC's trot. I decided I didn't want another lesson being told to slow down, and with TC being more responsive and forward, I figured now was the time to start bringing back the half steps and the creeping gaits. 

I hadn't sat the trot in a while though, but we've done a TON of work on responsiveness to my seat lately, so when I sat down, I immediately felt new access to him. 

We played with the trot a bit, bringing him back to the creeping trot and sending him forward out of it, over and over again. Then I asked for half steps and he gave them to me surprisingly willingly! We did that in both directions and he got told how great he was. 

Such a smart pony

One thing I noticed was him getting a little stuck in the half steps and wanting to walk rather than push out, so I started to emphasize the push out. 

And that's when TC went "LIKE THIS" and gave me a passage for the first time. 

I looked at it in the mirror and made some tweaks to the way I was sitting and my aids to shape the response, as his first passage was a little tight and hollow. I still remember going by the mirror, half halting and touching him with the whip and he suddenly sat down in it and I could just SEE him in the FEI ring. 

I can work with this, yep

I think this winter has been big in the "listen to your horse" department. I loved so much about my training situation this year but the one thing I couldn't shake was that TC just didn't feel softly responsive. He seemed to enjoy what we were doing because he likes learning new things and is a cheerful guy, but there was more... force... in our training than I felt comfortable with. But there was just so much belief in us, in a horse I sometimes struggle to believe in, so I stuck with it. 

Then this fall when things kind of fell apart with the smoke, I revamped how I was riding him, making it much softer and aiming for riding more through my seat than I had been. Him being off the bit wasn't a problem, him being on the forehand wasn't a problem, I just focused on praising the right response and just ignoring the wrong one rather than getting on his case about it. 

He tries so hard

And his response made me decide that enjoying every ride was more important than our goals. I haven't written much about it because I don't necessarily think that my trainer is wrong, I just think that I want to go down a slightly different, but hopefully fairly parallel, pathway.

Up until this ride, I've felt like I've thrown dressage out the window and am just being silly about riding him the way I've been riding him. But now, I feel way better about everything. I just need to find a trainer to help me down this pathway and give us the same kind of confidence with a different methodology. 

By no means perfect but I don't hate it

We are obviously taking this work slowly and until we can start trail riding and climbing those hills, I think it's going to be a bit weak. I don't want to push him in it and create more of a weakness, and I certainly don't want to ruin his actual future passage. But again, just the fact that I have this much access is pretty cool! We'll see how things develop this spring with being back in full work, access to more hill work, and hopefully with a training situation that works for us! 

Not Feeling His Age

During my four day weekend, I hopped on Rico of course. This time I was smart and put on the reactor panel saddle so my lower back didn't hate me so much.

All he wants to do is stare at stuff. He looks so young in this
picture :)

I'm kind of digging this saddle. It's not the right size for me and I think that if I were going to spend the money to actually buy one, I'd get one with a better rise for me in addition to a different seat size and block. It seems to fit Rico quite well, and the coolest part about the Reactor Panel saddles is that you can fit them to anything AND the even cooler part is that they can do remote fittings for $75 plus supplies. So they send you everything you need and then you get someone to basically do a live video (she has skype, facebook, whatsapp, anything really) and she walks you through the fitting. I'll be sure to post about that when it happens.

There's a large part of me thinking of switching over to these saddles when I finally save enough money to justify buying a new saddle (not holding my breath, remember how I just moved back to the bay area? lol). I love my custom but being able to adjust the fit myself (and for so little, I pay like $350 if my saddle needs its tree adjusted) sounds amazing.

It was such a pretty evening at the ranch

Anyway, after I tormented TC on Sunday, I headed over to the ranch to ride Rico. I brought my equisense (and TC's girth, which fits Rico better than Sunny's pony size girth) to keep track of what he's doing. He's really not doing a ton, but I do feel a difference in his abilities. Whether it's that he's actually getting fitter or that I'm just delusional, I don't care. He does look like he's putting on the tiniest bit of a topline again, his butt is just a bit rounder. I dunno. Maybe I really am delusional.

We started out with a walk down the road and he was AMPED. He kept wanting to prance and had his head straight up in my face. Then he'd stop dramatically and stare at a cow before snorting and prancing off again.

In the arena it was more of the same. He either wanted to zip off with me, yank me out of the tack, or stare at nothing. He didn't really want to do anything in between. I had to kind of poke him with the spurs and push him around a bit to get him to pay the fuck attention to what I was asking him to do, which was a riveting... trotting in circles.

The canter feels really good when he isn't trying to yank me out of the tack with his "bucking" behavior that he thinks is a good time. Like I've said, TC is a nice horse and everything, but Rico has like a 9 canter. This horse can fucking canter. Just his natural, under-muscled, arthritic canter is way better than TC's canter. He's definitely gaining strength in the canter and even gave me a lead change! His first change in a long time.

Seriously, I got basically no other pictures

The equisense, which I used on Sunday, thinks that he is sound, which is nice to see. It makes me low key question the equisense, but you know. He's feeling serviceably sound, and he does feel a little better every time I get him out. Either that or I'm just getting used to him feeling like crap. I'd like to think that as he gets stronger, he'll be able to support those arthritic joints a bit better, but we'll see.

Monday afternoon, I grabbed Kate, Riot, and Rico and we all went on a trail ride! Rico was feeling great, super sound and was offering piaffe and passage everywhere because he was a bit wild (for him). At the end I swapped with Kate so she could play with it too! I'm so glad he's doing well, lots more trail rides and arena rides in our future.

Flashback

On Sunday the rain let up for about half the day and I was able to go get on Rico! I didn't think that with all the rain, my parents' arena was going to hold up, so I hopped on him bareback. I walked by the arena and it looked good... so I went out there and, damn. That arena holds up! There was not a puddle in sight, the sand was just well saturated and some of it was making its way down to the creek.

Rico is a bit too wide OR a bit too bouncy. He's wide enough where he puts a little extra pressure on my hips and SI joint, and if he were super smooth, that would be fine. He's also bouncy enough where he puts a little extra pressure on my lower back, and if he were a bit narrower like TC, that would be fine. I figured whatever, Rico needs to do some cardio, I'll take one for the team.

Work it, Rico, sorry about your back, Megan

He was AMPED though, we walked down the road a bit and all he wanted to do is passage. He hasn't offered me any passage at all since I started riding him again. My main goal in riding him again isn't to get him in shape for dressage as much as it is to get him in shape for life (to just try to keep a little more muscle on him in his retirement) and for some trail riding this summer. But if he wants to passage, he can, so I took him in the arena and let him play a bit.

My back was bugging me immediately so I figured I should just canter him. But Rico thought that was a ridiculous idea and thought he'd rather buck. He can't really get much air, but he certainly can yank me onto his neck when I have no saddle.

He was pretty offended when I opted not to canter him anymore, he got all head shaking and prancy. Prancing is similar to piaffe, which Rico hasn't done since before his pigeon fever. It's a movement that requires a lot of collection, which, I mean he's certainly fitter than he was a month ago after being ridden like... five times by me, but in the same way that I'm closer to being a billionaire because whenever I ride Rico, I plug my car in for a little bit of time to save money on gas.

But hey, he seemed enthusiastic and he's the sort of horse who isn't going to offer something like that without meaning it. So I asked and he did it! Kinda!

Slooowwwwly drawing him on the spot

It was yet another movement I wasn't sure I'd ever feel out of him ever again! I mean, again, we have to remember he's now 23 years old, had nearly died just two years ago, has arthritis up the wazoo, and not a lot of muscle on him. I don't usually ask him to do anything fancy when I ride him because of all of those things, but if he's game, I'm game.

He's doing so well and it's only February, I'm really hoping I can keep this at-least-once-a-week-hopefully-more riding schedule through the summer. It will get way easier when it's lighter later and I can come by after work on the days I don't do crossfit. He obviously is way low on my priority list with new clients starting soon, keeping TC going, keeping my fitness up, and my actual job lol, but I love how much time I've been able to spend with him lately!

Not the Last Passage

All through Thanksgiving break I wanted to ride Rico, but I kept putting it off. I think I was just worried. I'd ridden him just a little bit since he was sick and none of those rides had gone well. He's always been a bit on the lazy side and that coupled with being weak made the rides really unpleasant for both of us.

Part of me thinks that I should cherish any rides he gives me. Even if they're just me coaxing him down the road and asking him to do a little bit of trotting sometimes. But the other part of me thinks that there's no reason to torment both of us. I always leave the barn feeling like I'm having to beat an old horse who gave me everything through a ride just because it lets me relive our glory days (and does nothing for him other than annoy him). The thing that I love so much about TC is for the most part he loves his job and wants to do stuff. Rico was never that horse and maybe being with TC for so long makes me extra sensitive to it.

We look so dorky

So finally on Sunday morning I decided to just make myself ride him. I was prepared to just sit on him and let him give me a pony ride, then get off.

I took him into the arena and he was surprisingly forward. As we walked around he spooked a few times and then stopped and stared at the cows. Like... the cows he's seen every summer/fall for many years. I asked him to keep going, but he wasn't having it. I really urged him to at least walk forward and finally annoyed him enough where he then stuck his head down, shook it as he pushed into walk, jigged a step, then stopped suddenly to stare again.

I finally kicked him out of it and he was BESIDE himself at how rude I was being, not looking at the cows. But he finally walked on, with the occasional head toss at me.

I wanted to do like... a couple laps of trot and maybe canter him. My mom reports that he canters in and out of his pasture every day, so it's not like he's not cantering him. But last time I cantered him (as he was coming back from his illness this winter), he fell with me. So I was nervous about that. Still, just trotting around would be fun.

He was itchy under his neck

We picked up the trot and I instantly regretted not putting a saddle on him and forgetting my back brace at TC's barn. Without really being able to put him on the bit, his trot is quite bouncy. It's nothing in comparison to TC's, but you don't see me doing more than walk TC quietly around bareback.

Rico seemed to hate me bouncing on him as much as I did. Poor guy, he's like "dude I put up with your shit for years and now you won't let me look at cows and insist on bouncing around on my back when I jog around with you?" I hear you, buddy.

He tossed his head at me and kind of struck out for a step, and that felt much smoother, almost like passage. And really, a lot of my rides on him bareback would substitute the trot for the passage.

But I gave up years ago that I'd ever passage him again. Certainly after his illness.

Right as he went into it

Thinking that maybe I could entice him to smooth his trot out a little bit, I asked for it. And he gave it to me. No questions asked.

It wasn't anything in comparison to his passage in the past, but it was SO MUCH FUCKING FUN I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN.

I immediately felt a tightness in my chest and water in my eyes. I couldn't believe it. This horse had two raging bacterial infections earlier this year and was diagnosed with severe neck arthritis. Granted, he gets prevocox, and it was cold outside, and he's been cantering around in his pasture getting himself fit enough to do it. Plus I mean he was quite talented at it to begin with... but I seriously didn't think I'd EVER feel him passage again! It actually made me sad when he got sick because I feel like I couldn't remember the last time we passaged, the last lead change I rode, the last piaffe.

Now at least I have the last time I rode passage on him, and it was awesome. I'm so glad he was able to give that to me, somehow.

Obviously not to be stopped, I asked him to canter at one point. He didn't really want to canter to the right, not sure if that's a neck thing, a strength thing, a coffin thing, a hocks thing, or simply that I asked him to do it going away from the cows and that's unacceptable. But I wasn't going to push it either way. The left though, we got some good canter steps (going toward the cows) and it was super fun!

His canter is so much like a rocking horse. TC has been cantering a bit baroque lately (I think he keeps bucking his SI joint out of whack) and is not as loose through his back in the canter as Rico is naturally. It made me miss Rico's canter so much. And just Rico in general. He's such a good horse.

TC is good too, don't get me wrong, and in a lot of ways, TC is better than Rico. TC is a bigger mover with more presence, TC is more forward, TC has a better feeling in the bridle... but Rico is Rico. He's talented but safe, willing but not over eager. He's just the best horse.

And I got to canter him! And passage him! And now if this is the last time I ever get to do those things, I have it written down. And on video. And that's quite enough.

Does What He Wants

Saturday after my long day I still managed to ride Rico. I sort of had to convince myself to do it though. Nothing like the Fitbit hanging over my head, reminding me that I spent the majority of the day sitting to motivate me to move.

I rode him after dinner and it was an awesome ride. Rides have been hit or miss in the last couple weeks with Rico. Whether it's his joints/neck pain, the fact that I've had more not-Megan-riders on him lately, or just me being a crazy person, I don't know. But he's been a little extra lazy and he occasionally throws in unclean changes, which is very odd.

But Saturday he came out to play and I was happy to have my horse back.

Rico's new best friend came cantering up to us

One thing I did do is use the BOT quickwraps for tacking up. I'm planning on using them with TC- basically putting them on the moment I get to the barn and leaving them on until after I put the saddle on. So I figured Rico could use them too, he's getting the star treatment until the dumb baby horse comes home and takes all his stuff.

I got on and let him zip past the arena and out to the road like he always tries to do. We came back to the arena after walking around the corner, but he got to have a moment of victory.

In the arena I mostly wanted to work on my position. We're only a little more than two weeks away from my first rides on TC (YAY) so I'm hoping to really work on myself leading up to that. I actually have now put my stirrups down a full two holes since I started riding TC, one hole since this fall. I raised them in the first place because on young big moving horses who buck, I need shorter stirrups. As he was better about being round and not darting randomly around the arena, I was able to lower them, but I never got them down to where they once were.

And when I got back on Rico, I was so used to the shorter stirrups that I was riding with short stirrups on all horses. So they're back down to where they belong! I'll still probably put them up a hole when I ride TC for a few weeks, but I'm hoping to be down on hole 13 permanently fairly soon.

So cute!

As always, we started in canter. He felt super good in the bridle and right on my seat, although not super forward. We did a few single flying changes and they felt good. The left-right change tends to get real crooked/kicking and so we worked a little on that in warm up.

Then we played a little in a forward-moving piaffe. I don't want him to have to do it on the spot too much anymore since it puts unnecessary pressure on his hocks. Piaffe is fun but it's not my favorite, I mostly do it to get him engaged and thinking more collected, and an on the spot piaffe isn't necessary for that.

Passage though, that is my favorite so we did a little bit of that. He lost the walk to passage a little bit, he takes a trot step before really getting the height. And with a couple of non-Megan rides, the tempo got a bit too fast so I brought it slower, which he seemed to appreciate actually. I think people who haven't done the pi/pa a lot struggle with how SLLLOOOWWWW the passage is. It really doesn't cover a ton of ground, and the tempo is quite slow.


And as much as the piaffe and passage are two of Rico's best movements, the reality is that he learned to passage in November of 2013 and then we stopped really training it in October of 2014. So he only has a year of training on them. This means that riding it poorly results in him changing the way he does it, vs say a shoulder-in that he's had on him for most of his dressage career so you can fuck that up all you want and I'll still be able to get a good one out of him without working on it.

But I don't mind, I'm not trying to compete this horse anymore and honestly the look on peoples' faces when they first sit his passage and hearing my friend tell the rest of our friends at dinner the other night how wonderful and trained my horse is makes rides like this where I sort of have to pick up the pieces totally worth it!

They were all cuddly, so cute!

Back in canter I mostly worked on my position, getting my leg to be a little longer, which is hard for me since it wants to creep up to the block. Rico is super about letting me drop my leg down, as it makes him collect more since that's how I would always work on collection. So we played in a few different canters while I made myself stop tipping forward with my left shoulder (a new-ish issue I noticed while riding a horse at my new barn that has mirrors) and worked to not sink into any sort of rotation with my hips. Sometimes I get a little hula-dancer-y at the canter. Inside seatbone forward, emphasize the forward and back, don't fucking wiggle.

We also did the tempi changes and for the first time in a while, Rico was kind of a shit about them. Not in the old-horse-losing-strength way, but in the way that used to drive Tracey and I nuts. Here's how it would go:

Tracey: show me the threes
Me: rides a line of threes
Rico: throws in a two for funzies
Tracey: Megan, there was a two in there, do the threes
Me: I'm trying
Rico: bahahaha
Me: goes back across the diagonal
Rico: starts the twos before I even ask for any changes
Tracey: MEGAN NO, THE THREES DO THE THREES
Me: I AM TRYING I AM NOT ASKING FOR TWOS
Rico: lol

So I headed across the diagonal and rode the threes and he ended with a two. I thought that my aid was probably off so I came around again and he STARTED in twos. I don't want to get after him, I mean no one cares now whether he's doing twos or threes. I kept laughing, but was also mildly frustrated with him. Damnit Rico, I talk about how trained and perfect you are and then you pull shit like this.

So cute

In the end we walked down the road and visited Rico's new best friend. It was such a fun ride. We don't get rides like that all the time, mostly because I don't think I've quite determined how many rides a week and in what order I can do to maximize rides like this. Too many rides a week and he gets lazy, too little rides a week and he gets unfit. Trail rides make his coffins hurt so I limit those. It's a balance that I haven't put much effort into figuring out. But when things come together like on Saturday, he's super fun.

Ponies and Beer and Tacos

On Monday, it turned out that L was going to be just a little bit up the road from Rico and I, so we made arrangements for her to come by the ranch! It actually worked out well that I've been riding Rico more, since now he's at least fit enough for a fun shortish ride vs a quick pony ride.

One of them had more fun than the other

When she got there, we went right up to get Rico, no time to waste!

I had been nice and told her to bring her saddle. Having ridden Ramone both in my saddle and hers, I desperately preferred mine- not because hers is uncomfortable, but my knees feel like they were up by my ears- I could imagine it'd go the other way. Nothing like riding a horse trained in a completely different discipline AND having to fight my saddle's blocks at the same time.

Luckily her magic saddle that fits all horses fit Rico, and after throwing white polos on (for optimal dressage fanciness), and the pelham on my snaffle bridle, she hopped on.

Rico can be ridden in any bit, but he goes really well in the pelham and always has. I don't have the wheymouth he likes, and as I said on Tuesday, he actually is going well in the one he doesn't like but he gets behind the leg easier and I knew he'd be lazy for L no matter what. He goes well in the snaffle too, but you really have to get on his case about lightness/roundness and I just felt like this ride was more for L playing with Rico's tricks and less about making her trot on a 20m circle and get my dumb horse off his forehand.

Rico the jumping horse?

The best horse

L has been the first person to come see/ride Rico from the blogosphere, meaning she first "met" him on my blog, which is interesting. I was really hoping Rico would be good for her, not that he's ever bad, he's just sometimes lazy. I was also interested to get her take on him. He's quite trained and very willing, but he's a totally different ride than Ramone and Carlos and trained in a totally different discipline.

The first thing she said when she swung up on him was that he was SUPER wide and called him an overgrown Thelwell pony. That is super accurate. The horse has withers but his lungs spring like no other. You'd think that'd mean there was lots of room for his lungs but the way the horse breathes when he works a little bit, it's very likely that his stomach takes up much of that room.  And his heart, awww. 

Tempis!

Expressive upward transitions

We wandered around the arena and Rico immediately knew that an educated butt was on him. Rico tries to decipher who is on him to determine how much he can get away with not doing. He's always willing, and that's what I adore about him, but he wants to know right away whether he can slack a little bit.

I told L just a few things about him- first, if you teach him that you'll nag him, you'll have the same problems I had two years ago where he'll randomly halt in your work. Second, if you trot before you canter him, he will feel like a broken down crippled horse.

So after the walk, we cantered. And that's when Rico was SUPER confused. L's aids were slightly off for him because of the stirrup length I think so he had no idea what she wanted and kept offering passage instead of canter. He's like I know you're educated and want me to do things but I don't know what you want so here, have this shitty passage.

Finally she cantered him around for warm up and we did a couple single flying changes. Rico has great changes so it's just a matter of keeping him forward before and after and keeping his neck on straight so that you get the response you want. He'd rather do changes than counter canter, so he waits for an aid that sort of seems like a change aid and he's on it.

More tempis, Rico would like to do them as slow as possible

Cantering really helped Rico figure out L's aids, he's a smart horse and does want to be good so he tries to adapt himself to other people to the best of his ability. He still keeps the effort minimal, but he doesn't actively work against his rider, which is something I just adore about him. I feel like it speaks the tiniest bit to my training as well that someone else can just hop on him and school a bunch of the Grand Prix movements.

Back in walk for a bit we talked about piaffe and passage.

I had brought down my driving whip and bamboo to help L get the feel of it, and to get Rico putting a little more effort into them. He's a little uneven in the passage these days and isn't sitting much in the piaffe, which is totally fine, but it'd be nice to improve them a tiny bit whenever I have a good rider on his back.

We started in piaffe and Rico mistook the aid a little bit and reared (woops, but his rears are small and L rode it without a problem) before settling into a pretty good piaffe. The passage was fan-fucking-tastic with the bamboo helping him out and L lost a stirrup because it was so big and we both dissolved into giggles agreeing that the passage is the most fun ever. I never want there to be a time where I don't have a fucking awesome passage to ride. Like, TC had better step up his game as Rico edges closer to full retirement. But for now, Rico's passage will do. And it's a great one despite the unevenness right now.

Piaffe, Rico's favorite part is getting told he did a good job

Next up was piaffe and passage transitions, which she rode without too much of my help! Rico isn't easy to ride those on because some dumb person trained him to walk in them because they kept taking their leg off. I told L not to take her leg off but to slide the leg back to piaffe and then forward to passage. She rode it basically as well as Rico was capable of doing it and he complied easily.

After we finished up with that work, we headed into canter again. I told L about the tempi changes- all you need to do is keep him forward and straight in between the changes and he'll do them. She got some 3s and 4s and even got a 2! We also did some school canter, Rico can't quite canter on the spot anymore but he can still get close.

School canter sorta

We finished up with a walk pirouette and some general trot work, where Rico offered his fancy trot (trot + a little passage feeling to get him up in the shoulders). Rico was only a bit sweaty, so we wandered back to the barn and I grabbed Riot in my dressage saddle so that we could walk down the road and back.

Along the road is a wild plum tree, which hasn't managed to kill me yet, so we stopped for some plums and it felt like the ultimate Saddle Club adventure!

After riding, we tasted some of my dad's beer (he's a chemist and he home brews) and then headed out for lunch. I'm not much of a beer drinker but man a cold beer on a hot day after riding was amazing.

Passage

A bit more passage right before a canter transition, he was a bit
uneven so the video didn't turn out that great

For lunch we went to the local seafood place and surprise, ran into a couple of my friends from my new barn. They opted to join us for our lunch. We talked ponies for a LONG time and realized what a small world it was, all of us knowing some of the same people from various times in our life. It's amazing how getting horse people together always turns even the most introverted of people into the chattiest people.

It was such a great day, we're definitely going to have to do it again! And hopefully go on more Saddle Club Trail Ride adventures too. 

Off His Pedestal and On a Trail Ride

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I tend to put Rico up on a pedestal because that's where he belongs. It only got worse when TC was acting up. Rico is perfect and always has been and therefore TC acting up is so much worse than anything Rico has ever done. That's extremely false. He proved that to me a bit on Wednesday when we went on a trail ride.

He ran to the end of his paddock to avoid me, would
not come in for food

On Wednesday I decided to haul Rico out to Harvey Bear. I'm down to the last month and a bit of TC not taking over my life, and who knows when I'll get a job and be ridiculously busy again. I really want to go on some adventures with Rico while I still like horses and still have time.

When he saw me getting the trailer ready, pulling it out and putting shavings in, he walked quickly to the end of the paddock. I brought him a little bit of bute, something we've been doing for trail rides to help calm his coffin joints down (avoids the need to inject them since they only bother him on trail rides). He still refused to come in. I had to go get the halter. After that though, he was super on board with going somewhere.

He bullied me on the way to the trailer, trying to get me to move out of his way so he could rush in. On the way out of the trailer, he started screaming and staring into the hills, seriously thinking about biting me while I tacked him up at the facility. I had to double check his color and teeth to make sure I had the right horse, and hadn't unknowingly switched him and TC out at some point. Nope, this is my twenty year old very well trained dressage horse who was pawing and screeching at me.

Whinnying to no one

Omg we are at the trail ride place

Stop taking pictures of me and tack me up damn it
I think he's looking pretty good for being twenty and sort of neglected
since last summer

We headed out to the first gate and Rico immediately picked up a trot on the way. We got there, went through the gate, got past a few people hiking and then he picked up a canter. Eventually he stopped and tried to turn around. I kicked him forward and he picked up a trot. For a while he was like this- he wanted to go fast, but then he'd get tired and want to go home. Why can't you just walk, Rico?

I had my camera on me (and lost my lens cover, boo, had to order another one) so got some really cool pictures. I also got a bunch on my phone too (these pictures since the ones off my camera go into my massive editing queue). And I did enjoy the scenery as well. It was such a fun trail ride, especially since Rico was super into it.

Any time he was pointed up a hill or was on flat ground, he wanted to trot or canter. On the one hand, I love that he's feeling so good and having such a good time. On the other hand, slow the fuck down I did not ask you to do that you asshole and you are making that hiker you're following so closely nervous.

YASSS TRAILSSS

Second gate

Taking the "this is not a trail" trail

We saw a herd of cows about halfway through, which was fun. As was seeing that the little pond the cows were all enjoying was basically full! It's been years since that pond had any water in it, let alone been anywhere near full. I'm sure the cows enjoy that, and I know a hippo who would have dragged me down the hill to get to it.

Throughout the ride, we saw a few people. No one on horseback, but a few mountain bikers and hikers. Rico is so freakishly solid on the trails. I love being able to assure people on bikes that they can zip by us without a problem, like don't even slow down or give us any space. With TC I can't help but to try to prevent disaster, at least by shortening my reins and putting my heels down. Rico stays on a loose rein and I remain completely distracted by the scenery, my camera, or my phone.

Yay water in the pond!

Everything the light touches is Rico's, also everything the light
doesn't touch

He dragged me down this not-a-trail too

Loves cows

I had initially wanted to ride all the way to the top of the hill to see the lake on the other side, but chose not to because Rico isn't that fit.

I chose wrong! On our way down, Rico got more and more amped, with more and more random canter transitions on any sort of flat ground he was presented with. When we were almost back to the trailer, he zipped out along another trail.

For a while I was pretty convinced that this was because he didn't want to go home. I later found out that it was because he found two horses to follow (we hadn't seen any other horses out there). He got really obsessive about catching up, trying to trot and canter downhill to get to them. Because of his coffins, I avoid doing anything other than walking downhill. And he usually doesn't even want to walk very fast downhill.

Eventually we caught up to almost-creepy levels of following. At this point he was all worked up about them, whinnying and prancing. So I asked him to piaffe and passage along the trail. And he did, better than he does in the arena! All this after a nice long trail ride.

When we passed them (they stopped), he immediately tried to slow wayyy down to hang out with them. Until he saw the horses tied next to the trailer and then wanted to get to them as fast as possible. Seriously Rico!

He put his head down to snort at the shade

Cow!

Wouldn't get back in the trailer

It was super fun to be out and about with Rico again. I think we're going to go on some more adventures over the next month so that I can really try to enjoy the good horse before the bad one comes back. Although the good one sort of lost his place way way up on that pedestal.

Next up I'm hoping for another beach trip with him!

Back on the Favorite

Now that we're down to the last two months of TC's rehab and my vacation from riding challenging horses, I'm really eager to get in shape for his return.

I joined a gym on Tuesday and immediately suffered. I was running late so missed a class and just decided to take it easy on the rower. My plan had been to do some back squats afterward but the weights were being used. And honestly, after 2x 500m, I was toast. Like my back was burning, shoulders were aching, I felt like death. I used to be able to row a 5k and then do a second workout and go riding later that day. 500 meters was the warm up of my warm up in crossfit.

I went again on Wednesday and Thursday, and have plans to go tonight. Death, I feel like death. 

But the gym is only one piece of it, I need to be riding fit too. You know who else poops out after twenty minutes of work? This guy.

I gave him a haircut and he looks so much younger!

In addition to me needing to get in shape, I want to get Rico going a little bit more. I have a student showing Fourth who wants to move up to PSG this year (I will have an FEI student yay) who needs some practice with her tempi changes. I also want to get my SIL riding him more and have a few people I've offered rides to and I feel bad pulling them off of him after 15 minutes. 

Luckily Rico has been moving waddling around, he and Riot go out every day to the pasture and they trot/canter both in and out. So it's not like he's been sitting around like I have. My main goal is to get a bit of muscle on him and ask him to work for longer periods of time so that I can actually teach a lesson on him. I feel bad charging for a lesson if the horse I'm providing isn't fit enough! And I don't want to put Rico at risk. 

Hi animal

I've ridden him a couple times since I last talked about him. The rides tend to be the same but I'll describe one of them (the day that I'm writing this post).

At first, I worked primarily on the quality of the gaits. Rico has lost a bit of his trot because he hasn't had his joints (hocks/coffins) injected in a year and a half. We've talked about doing the coffins (I want his hocks to fuse) for my mom so that Rico is more comfortable on the trails, but that hasn't come up yet. Maybe this summer sometime.

But with a little passage injected into the trot, I got some really great steps. His default canter is also not as collected as it used to be, so we worked on that as well. I forgot how freakishly sensitive this horse is to my seat. You can collect him just off the seat (in fact, if you try to use your reins other than for the connection, he splats into the ground, fun!) and he turns exceptionally well off the outside thigh. It sounds weird, but sometimes even FEI horses can be tricky to steer, BFF sometimes takes a good tug and crowding him with the outside leg. 

I took that feeling into the trot and did a bunch of figure-8s. Rico wasn't as willing to track right (and afterward I saw that my girth had rubbed him- sorry about your fat armpits, pony!) as he was to track left. He really wants to dump onto the right rein, tipping his wither right, so I did some spiraling out to connect him better on the left side. It helped, but you know, he isn't super even (and honestly never has been). 

Diving for grass

We did get to the tempis, I want to make sure that the threes and fours are solid, and they are not. I think being in the hackamore was probably a bad idea since I struggled to keep the straightness.

The first line was a clusterfuck of changes. Some were clean, some were shockingly not. For a horse who basically anyone can get clean change out of, well, woops. Part of the problem was that the day I'm writing about, I forgot spurs. Never forget your weapons when going into battle with the laziest animal.

I straightened up and rode the hell out of the next line of threes and they were good. We then played with the fours, which I've always been kind of terrible at. The twos have a great rhythm, as do the threes. There's just too much time to fuck up in the fours. Accurate representation of what goes through my head during tempi changes:

Ones; OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD
Twos: one-change-one-change
Threes: one-two-change-one-two-change
Fours: one-what is life anyway is there any real point to it other than ponies?-OH NO THREE- CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE DO IT NOW DO IT NOW

Sorry horse, you may get the perks of retirement, but you still have
to work! (before the mane pull)

I did manage to do a solid line of fours by the end. Once as the tempis are fairly automatic, I'm planning on hauling over to the covered ring across the road to school more of them. Unfortunately the arena at the ranch is only a short court, so I can only fit three changes across the diagonal. I'd like to be able to let my student school five (and not have to squeeze them in), since I think for some riders, having to plan for five changes can be challenging.

It will also let me school a bit of the zig zag too! We did get to do some lateral work in the short court though. He's definitely not as supple as he used to be, although I was pleasantly surprised that everything seems to be surviving his retirement fairly well. 

His shoulder-in is still fairly awesome. It's really great to the right, he basically just plops right into it and stays there with minimal input from me. To the left he does the same, though tends to weight the right shoulder too much, which makes the shoulder-in feel downhill. The outside front leg needs to really reach and take a big step forward, he feels a bit like I'm trying to put the movement on a low level horse.

The haunches-in was okay, I really just never got a good haunches-in on this horse. He still gets stuffed into the inside rein and doesn't step into the outside rein. I definitely want to school more haunches-in on other horses. For some reason, Rico just brings out the refusal to use the inside leg in me. Ugh. I had the same issues in the half pass, though the canter was much better than the trot, as per usual.

From last weekend

I didn't do a lot of piaffe/passage. I'm thinking that if I want to ride him more, I should cool it with the pi/pa work all the time. So I'll be limiting that to once a week or so. I just really don't want him to break down too much faster than he already has been.

I'm also not schooling pirouettes for a long while, if not ever again. I just don't like doing them on him, they feel difficult and labored, as they always have, but there's no reason for him to do them anymore. He's not great at them, like he is at pi/pa and the 2s/3s/4s, and he still negatively affects my riding in them, making me anticipate, lean forward, and pull. So it's best for both of us if I get my pirouette work in on other horses and he can preserve his hocks a bit longer. I feel the same way about the ones.

He is so cute

Overall I've had some really fabulous couple rides on him. I'm super stoked to have my horse back at a reasonable weight. As we were cantering along and he was super light in the bridle, collected, and turning completely off my upper leg... it just felt like home. Hopefully more rides will happen this weekend! 

Getting Stronger

Dover post tomorrow for coordination's sake.

Sunday I had to teach all afternoon so I got up early to ride Rico so I could sit on something other than a fence all day!

I really think that the tea place I like down there should open earlier than 10, since I had to stop on the way out from Rico rather than on the way to Rico, terrible. I also think they should close/move before I move TC down past there, since then I will be quadrupling my tea consumption every week. No.

The fuzziest horse

Unfortunately I got caught up playing with my parents' dogs, who gave me the BEST greeting when I walked in, that I didn't have much time with Rico. Poor Rico, but Rico doesn't give me awesome greetings like the dogs do. I opted to ride bareback in the hackamore, not because I wanted to, but because of the time. Rico was totally okay with this.

All of the horses are shedding, but Rico really has never embraced his California life and continues to grow a winter coat that would not look out of place living outdoors in Germany (or the North Pole for that matter). I tried to brush him really quick with a regular brush, but that just seemed to create MORE hair so I grabbed the shedding blade and cleared a spot for my bareback pad.

Rico also had a TON of mud packed into his feet so I continued destroying my wrist by picking them out. I say continue because on Saturday night I went to the gym to run but then got bored after a mile (hey a mile is good for me) and did kettlebell swings but went a little too heavy and it flipped over backwards and my wrist wasn't too happy about that, woops!

If I were a horse, I would own me.

Rico wondering why, just why

I finally jumped on and did a bit of canter work while I was trying to post a picture of him on Instagram. He was not happy with my distraction (he is NOT appreciative of being the subject of many an instagram post) so he kept trying to break. Eventually I got him going pretty well when I put the phone away and actually used both hands on the reins.

We did a bit of piaffe and passage. The piaffe was excellent but the passage was a bit lazy. He definitely felt iffy on the right front- he's been doing a lot of running around in the pasture and given the number of rocks I found in his feet (and the farrier said that his toes were a little thin these days), I didn't blame him. He was sound, just not wanting to pound on those feet in passage.

The canter was great, he's feeling really strong in it these days, which is fun since over the summer he had felt kind of weak and I was worried that he was on a fast track to full retirement. We mostly just worked on changes at the canter. He was falling onto his left front leg and I had major flashbacks of his crookedness from years ago. For a long time he weighted the left front leg and it was super hard to get him to bend left. The techniques I used to get him off that left front (namely pulling on the left rein lol) made him fall out and become even worse to ride.

It was almost fun to have him back where he was so many years ago where I found him SO difficult to ride, since it was an exceptionally quick fix. Connect the outside rein, inside thigh lifting his wither, outside leg engaging right hind. Done. Soft and light on the inside rein/front leg, no pulling necessary. All those lessons really paid off, can't wait to take more this summer!

Roses + green at the ranch!

I then just trotted around and worked on my sitting trot. My goal is to get my seat back to where it was a year and a bit ago so that I can feel really confident when TC comes back. Rico is perfect for this- just bouncy enough to make me work my abs but not so bouncy that my hip wants to get tight. I really worked to loosen up the hip flexors that have been so tight since starting my job and not riding in sitting trot as much anymore.

I felt as close to my old seat as I could have been (and later that day rode my favorite paint horse and was FOR SURE back to normal- I felt so strong, phew). And Rico gave me some great half pass and shoulder-in just for entertainment so he didn't have to trot around like a lesson pony.

We ended with some stupidity. So grateful to have this horse while TC is at rehab. I love riding other horses, but Rico is one of the highlights of my week every weekend. This coming weekend I'm at the ranch both weekend days (and Friday night, I might ride him in the dark) so Rico will get as many rides as I can squeeze in. Poor Rico, hopefully one of those days will be hauling out to the trails though.

The best horse