Mandatory Shelter In Place

As of last night at midnight, my county, along with several other counties in the bay area and beyond, put out a mandatory shelter in place.

If you're not aware (I wasn't and definitely initially thought that meant mandatory homeless shelters, which I was supportive of), this means that all bay area residents have been instructed to not leave their houses for any reason other than absolute necessities.

Every morning I feel like I have a mild panic attack reading
the news, ugh

When it was announced, I was working TC in hand. We had stopped to take a break and I'd taken off his side rein and we were just chilling. Immediately upon figuring out what it really meant, but not reading much further, I had a pit in my stomach. The one shining light in this horrible horrible storm of COVID-19 has been the barn. It's the only place I feel normal, the only place that the world doesn't seem to be collapsing in upon. The threat of that being taken away was one thing, but then a horse got cast and panicked, thrashing around, and I very nearly lost it.

It reminds me of several articles I read on chronic stress in the brain during grad school. Underlying stress, such as the stress of housing insecurity or food insecurity or even just living a life where scarcity is a big part of it (paycheck to paycheck) takes a major toll on the brain. Brains don't work properly under stress. It's why you see the rich chastise the poor for buying unnecessarily or not making good financial decisions. Decision making and self control are not easily accessible when under chronic stress.

And so while a horse being cast and panicking (horse was fine, by the way, got up and standing on all four legs just fine) normally would make me a little worried for the horse, it now sent me into near hysterics. TC was also nervous, but he immediately recovered when the horse got up. I needed a bit longer to stand there and tell myself it was okay, giving him a hug while he stood with a foot rested, begging me to start training again so he could get clicks and treats for doing his fancy prancing.

Hah, not even

We did go back to work and had a great in-hand session, then had a good rest of our ride after that. I did some lead changes and pirouette canter and then we called it a day. I might have definitely kept riding him around the ranch a little extra while getting on my conference call. Every day we get to ride right now is a gift so I'm going to take advantage of being at the barn for as long as possible each day.

Reading between the lines of the mandatory shelter in place policy, it DOES look like it's okay to go take care of people and animals. Would my horse die without me coming down to brush him, hug him, ride him, and feed him? Absolutely not. Would I suffer mentally so much that I might commit homicide? Um, decline to comment. But at this point, a lot of bay area riders (myself included) are choosing to interpret this as us being allowed to continue to ride. But some barns have already shut down even to boarders...

My barn owner walked around and told everyone yesterday that the barn would remain open. I figure it will as long as he's in charge of that decision, so for now, we are okay. Whether things will progress, well, we'll see in a week, or maybe even in an hour or two.

Hey it's me, also the rest of us

My job in academia has transitioned to full remote and we've all admitted that work seems so silly right now. It's a good distraction though, so we are starting some fun new things to help our faculty and staff access data off the network. Teaching, as far as I know it, is still happening. I've had one client decide to do remote lessons, as they are at a private facility and need to limit people coming into the property. More power to you, I'd do the same if I had my horses at home and could control that. I haven't yet heard from my other clients, so we'll see what actually happens, but I am not going to be the one to decide not to teach, at least not yet.

I'm luckily okay without my business income right now due to the SO and I combining forces housing-wise. I can't show or take lessons or do anything fun without it, but those things are off the table anyway. It'll be tight, but I'm okay.

That being said, I'm bored as shit and it would be nice to be able to do some of the things to help small businesses like buying gift cards and all that. So I'm opening up remote lessons (variable rate, please inquire), video lessons ($40/lesson), and video test riding ($10/test, I'm still in training so I figure this helps me too). If anyone is interested, please message me on IG (@alchemy.dressage) or shoot me an email (alchemydressage at gmail).

Kate and I are talking about having some zoom meetings where we just chat about biomechanics or what she's learning from her amazing groundwork person or what I'm learning from the L program. It won't be very structured or anything, but we like to think we're entertaining when we chat on the phone about this stuff. We're going to talk more about it and then if we do decide to do it, we'll make some kind of invite for people, stay tuned if you want entertainment.

Literally the SO was like "do we have enough oreos??"

Fingers crossed that the barn remains open indefinitely and that we are successful at flattening the curve. So far I've had a slight fever last Saturday evening that only lasted a few hours and was gone. I immediately canceled my clinic on Sunday and spent the entire day inside mildly freaking out as my temperature stayed normal all day. Monday I went back to normal (lol "normal" what does that word even mean right now) and I've been feeling fine since.

Hope you are all staying safe and staying at home to the best of your ability. We haven't yet seen the worst and without testing anyone, we don't know how much our efforts are working.

Even More Traveling

On Monday, the last day of my four day weekend spent torturing TC, I tortured TC even more.

While TC has gotten way better about traveling, he is still kind of iffy. He mostly stays rideable in different places, but I want him to get off the trailer and be totally chill in new places. He is not.

So of course, in my weekend of dragging TC, kicking and screaming (quite literally), toward being a better horse, we had to go somewhere. As I've said, the ranch is the perfect place. I have control over a lot of elements, the footing is good, it's always vacant, it's fifteen minutes away, and there's no ring fee.

It also sometimes looks like a national park

After a combined eight and a half hours of pawing and rearing this weekend, TC was ready to be a good boy on Monday when I took him to the ranch. He unloaded downright relaxed and only pawed a bit while I tacked him up. I led him to the arena and while he was very disturbed by the garbage cans out for garbage day (something he almost never sees since I usually can only bring him over on the weekends), he was pretty good leading him around.

Then I got on and he would. not. walk. So I clicker trained him on walking a bit until he settled down. It didn't take too long to get him to take a breath in the walk. Then we had a very tense trot for a while until he settled down, and the same thing happened in canter.

But that was all it was, just tension. He didn't bolt or buck or anything truly bad, just got tense and strong. I'm so okay with that. That I can work with. And so we did!

The happiest little dog also lives there

I'm on a big half pass kick right now with him. He has such good lateral work, his leg yields ended the year with 8s last year. I want lateral work to not be an issue and I for sure have that damn GP zig zag in mind. The trot half passes are SO steep and the canter zig zag requires so much control. So I'm kind of poking at it right now to make sure that it's developing in that direction.

I haven't touched it at the canter very often. Just a few times last summer and it was bad. The thing about tense TC though, is that he is very rideable. I want him to be relaxed and rideable, but we sometimes get one or the other. There's a balance because his breed dictates that he's a very low tone horse and his buzzy mind indicates that he is a very high tone horse. He can swing wildly back and forth.

The sunset was really pretty that night

The rideability that comes out when he's tense is kind of fun though. So when I picked up the canter, I felt like I had every movement at my fingertips.

I kind of had a moment where I'm like "uhhh wtf do I do?" in the canter. The arena is a bit small for the counter canter patterns I want to ride on him, I don't want to school changes out of a tense canter (= tense small ugly changes), and the simple changes are fine in this canter. I realized that I should probably extend my half pass kick into the canter, so I went to ask for it.

And he just went over. Like he's been trained to do it. But he hasn't. I had a few ugly biomechanics moments, as I haven't retaught myself to do canter half pass in my new position, but it was quite good outside of me feeling kinda questionable. He's so damn fun.

She's so cute

We stopped for a while and I was going to let him be done, but then he screamed his face off and refused to walk again. So we went into canter again. I did a bunch of ten meter canter circles working on keeping him upright and then pushed him to ride a few voltes... and then a working pirouette. His right one is downright GOOD, especially once I address the corkscrew. His left one sucks. Hey, Rico started out that way too. Uh. Can't possibly be my issue finding his right edge and keeping my skewers right... yeah, definitely a coincidence.

The pirouette work was so so fun even though he's still very green in it. I feel like the minute I get a solid change on him, he'll be schooling PSG, which is WILD to me. I mean we just established that this horse makes a good attempt at pawing himself to death when left in the cross ties... he's also somehow casually approaching the levels where dressage becomes way more stressful than fun for me.

But for now, we are just going to keep plugging away at more basics. It seems to be paying off with his patience (it took less than an hour tied at the trailer before he rested a foot) and with his dressage work too! We see my trainer in a little less than a week, and this weekend we have some super fun adventures too.

Typical Behavior All Around

Saturday afternoon after driving almost three hours in the morning, I got home and figured I hadn't driven quite enough that day (regrets, so many regrets).

So I hopped in the car and headed an hour south to see my favorite.

I was still feeling terrible, this is the never ending plague cold, but man is Rico just the best pick me up, even if I could barely ride him.

I didn't leave my house from Sunday night until Wednesday
morning so I did the most crazy-cat-lady thing ever: cat photoshoot

Lucky Rico has been out on pasture all day for over a week so unlucky me had to pick out his damn feet, which were packed with mud. I had to grab a screwdriver, but managed to get his feet all picked out. Then had to go sit down and catch my breath.

He wasn't as disgusting as he was the last time I had to brush him, which was a welcomed change. He is shedding like it's his job though, so I got a lot of his hair off of him. TC is also shedding, though smells much better as they keep him bathed. Rico's worst nightmare! And TC's by the sound of what he's been doing about the wash rack.

I actually put on a saddle, bridle, and polo wraps (glorious bright blue camouflage ones too, gotta be fancy sometimes, Rico) on Rico, and real boots with spurs on myself. I even grabbed the stock whip just in case he needed some more motivation (he did but only twice). That horse was going to work! If I could just... stop... coughing.

so cute!

Rico was great to ride. We started with some canter to warm up and he felt downright strong in the forward-and-back exercise I played with. Just wanting to make sure I had access to his different canters from the get go- especially without him getting crooked, which is what he tends to like to do.

I read back through all the lessons I took on him (you really run out of internet after 2 days in bed) and straightness is such a theme in every lesson. This gives me hope for TC since that had been one of the main things I focused on all last year. I'm excited to take some lessons on him this summer with Tracey to get him all straightened out so that we don't have as many issues as Rico and I did. Reading back through the lessons made me appreciate that, while I didn't want one to begin with, having a hot horse means that I won't be so focused on forward. Because that was another theme.

I gave Rico a nice break after warm up to hang out before starting the piaffe and passage. The piaffe was pretty good, although leaning on his left front, which is pretty normal these days. His right hind has the ringbone and has always been weaker (maybe because the ringbone was developing? unsure). The passage felt powerful and not as uneven as he usually has been. We even did some transitions between piaffe and passage, which I haven't done in months and months. I love coming out of a good piaffe into a really powerful passage, that feeling is so fun!

the best model, she was staring at birds

At the canter I schooled the changes, which were surprisingy obnoxious. Rico usually has really good changes, and even when they're not, they're always clean, which they were on Saturday. But they were what I would consider labored. The twos took a lot more effort than usual. I mean he's the sort of horse you point across the diagonal and swing your legs wildly and he just sighs and does two tempis. So effort means that I actually had to ride them, oh what horror is this that I actually have to ride? But I at least got the single changes pretty easy.

We also did a couple of pirouettes. The right one fell apart and the left one was good. Sounds about right. I realized that I have a lot more anxiety about pirouettes when I'm in the saddle with all my weapons than when I'm on bareback with just a set of western reins to smack him with. Interesting.

Either way, I think I'm going to put a hold on schooling those, he just doesn't feel strong in them and I don't want to ruin his soundness for a movement that I don't particularly enjoy. Passage is one thing... pirouettes? Meh.

Pfft clean apartment before taking pictures of cat? nah

I lasted about twenty minutes and then was exhausted. To make matters work, I stubbornly agreed to dinner that night with some family friends and basically spent the entire night coughing and feeling like shit. Then drove home late, couldn't fall asleep despite copious amounts of nyquil and woke up the next day extremely sick. Just in time for the horse show, which I barely got through physically.

But my student did well and trainer friend scraped a 60 and change at Grand Prix despite winning the warm up. And I spent the entire show leaning against things and taking pictures that I *actually* managed to edit on Monday because I spent the entire day in bed feeling like shit just in time for another day (Tuesday) spent in bed feeling like shit. Maybe next week I'll be able to work an entire week. Boo.

I'm back at work today though and feeling as normal as I've felt in a couple weeks! Which isn't saying much... but still!

Working on Stillness

Saturday morning I got up and decided to drive most of the way down to possible future far away barn and see Rico. I had texted my mom the night before to let her know I was coming and sort of jokingly said "add horses to my list if you want" and I was assigned all three horses.

Such a fun Saturday

Up first as always, was Rico. I love riding Rico. He's just a breath of fresh air sometimes.

Most of my day with Rico was spent brushing the caked mud off of his body. He was super gross. It took so long that I just threw the bareback pad and hackamore on him again. No point in taking the time to put on riding boots and a saddle and a bridle.

It was warm, so the ride was kept short. He let me play with the pirouettes again. I don't know why he's letting me. It's either that he thinks he has no choice, or he realized that they're easier than they were because I'm letting him do them a bit big and crappy. Once again the left was great and the right is blocked by his right hind not liking to take weight- most likely due to his new fun ringbone that I found a few months ago.

So unnecessarily dirty. Also this is Rico with no muscle, still
better than TC with no muscle!

I played with twos, and once again he offered me ones so we did a few couplets. I noticed that since I had been schooling changes on my students' horse, I was not as invisible with my aids/body as I usually am. Rico couldn't give less of a shit about what I do on him, but I like to use him to fix me up a bit. It's nice to be able to work on myself sometimes.

So I did a bunch of transitions just working on my upper body staying perfectly still throughout. It's something Tracey taught me that I assume she learned (or maybe not) from Mary Wanless because Mary does it in this video. I worked really hard at the walk canter and canter walk, only getting slightly in front of him a couple of times in the canter to walk. And not at all behind or ahead in the walk to canter, woohoo. Then we went on to the changes and my body was completely still. Yay!

If TC moves to the barn near Rico, I totally want to ride Rico twice a week (if I'm not totally exhausted from the commute, which I probably will be) so that he can stay in a bit better shape. It's been so fun to work completely on myself and just play with the fun movements. I'd love if he stayed a little fitter so I could really ride him.

So hairy

Riot was also on my list. We had fun working on transitions between what I can only describe as a makeshift collected running walk and extended running walk. I really want to get him covering more ground in the running walk and then being able to slow down without pacing.

After that he was really leaning on my left rein, as he always does, so we did some leg yields and spiraling out, then tested the bend on a figure-8. I had a lot of control over where we were going and in what bend, which is not something I could have said at the beginning of the ride.

We kept it short and sweet, because afterward, I dumped Stretch off my list (Stretch thanked me for that) and stole my mom's dog, Ruby, to go on a run!

The worst running partner

The last time I was on that particular trail was when I had a very sound baby horse over Thanksgiving. Luckily trail running with a dog hell bent on chasing squirrels is quite enough to take my mind completely off of the baby horse.

We did the shortest loop, which is 4 miles. We clocked in at just over an hour, which I thought was good since most of the time I was walking and wheezing and then stopping to take pictures. I did run probably 1.5 of the miles though, mostly on the flat ground or when it sloped slightly downward. Too steep uphill and I couldn't make it more than a few steps but too steep downhill and my joints were hurting.

Come about 3 miles in and Ruby was super done, she laid down in the grass to take a nap. Uh no. She was a sport getting back though. That's totally going to me when I can get back to running. Officially signed up for the 5k yesterday so the money is paid and it's happening.

Check out my rescue baby friend! She's two and has a really
nice shoulder if you ask me... Once as she can be handled, I want
to see how she moves ;)

That night I bribed L with a ride (so my entire weekend of driving wasn't entirely boring) and we headed up north to get delicious Thai food with Nicole, Peony, and Andy!

So much fun, we need to do these things more often.

Pushing Buttons

Saturday I taught a lesson and then spent the day with my SIL in the city. It was so fun! We went to Superbowl City, which, for two people who could not care less about football, was really awesome. The bay bridge had a light show and fireworks, so that was a blast. Then we packed onto the train like sardines and made it back to my town for tofu!

By Sunday, I was itching to ride a pony SO BADLY. I hadn't ridden in almost two weeks because of one thing or another. My initial pony riding plans were foiled by my friend's illness (she's fine), so I scheduled another lesson last minute and then headed down to ride Rico and Riot. I wanted to ride a pony, damnit.

I got to the ranch and saw that my mom was turning Rico and Riot out in the front yard to eat down some of the grass. It has better footing than the pastures and it means that no one has to mow. Nice!

He's pretty unkempt these days

I ruined Rico's day of eating by taking him out. But then I trusted him too much to stand ground tied and he got loose. He just trotted out to the grass and as I hurried over to grab him, I could tell that he was thinking about galloping around the property, but I caught him before he could act on his idea.

I just hopped on bareback with the hackamore, it was a little late to ride two before dark so there was no time to really put effort into tack.

The arena footing was surprisingly great and Rico felt as good as he's felt in a long time. He's been cooped up a bit, so I expected him to be stiff, but he really wasn't at all. He was actually super game... for Rico. So not putting in 100% effort to get out of work, probably just 90%.

We started at the trot but then almost immediately started the canter. I immediately got on his case for his laziness. He's proven time and time again that he isn't some old crippled horse, so he had better move when I asked him to. I need to get on with some spurs... and maybe a saddle next time. Instead I had my mud boots and the end of a pair of western reins. Good enough.

I groom my horses so thoroughly

We schooled EVERYTHING through Grand Prix for the first time in a long time. We started with a little piaffe and passage, then schooled some two tempis. The piaffe was pretty good and at first the passage was flat and terrible, but I motivated him and he gave me a lot more. The twos were foot perfect and he even dumped some ones (three in a row! whaaat) into them accidentally.

He gave me an ugly zig zag in trot and canter, but that was my fault. He got ahead of me in the half pass like he always does, and then kind of took advantage of me being a half step behind him. Woops. Not used to riding that anymore as all the horses I've done zig zags on recently have been pretty simple. We also did shoulder-in, which was probably the best shoulder-in I've felt in... exactly one year and two months.

I totally made him do canter pirouettes, just one full one in each direction. The left was downright GOOD- six solid steps right on the spot. Like I would have taken him into a show with that shit. The right was to be expected, he did it but it was hard to keep it small. Just like the good old days.

He kept offering passage after that, so we did some more of it, playing with the elevation in the collected trot with passage-trot-passage transitions. That's probably my favorite thing to do- work on the quality of the trot using passage. It's so fun to feel the difference in elevation and cadence. I didn't want to stop riding him ever. I love riding that horse (when he's actually excited to be ridden, which is almost never).

So dirty

It was SO fun to have this kind of ride on him, he's been so meh lately, which I thought was our norm now. I never thought I'd feel him do a canter pirouette again. Love it.

And the icing on the cake is knowing that I like riding TC so much more, I'm so excited to get him back (back to focusing on the positive after my kind of depressing post yesterday!).


Riot was next, and I just threw the same tack on him- bareback pad and a hackamore. The wind was howling (it even hailed on my drive home, craziness!) and Riot was spooky, but the most he ever does is just splay his feet and snort at stuff.

My main goal is to get him into running walk, which is so much easier now! I told my dad that he was doing a good job and he said that he watched my last ride and was practicing what I was doing- spiraling in and out, then doing transitions from walk to running walk trying to eliminate the pacing.

The pacing was only there at the beginning, so I worked on getting him to cover more ground (extended running walk? lol). It was a blast to ride him around, and we only had one big spook at the gate closing. I always forget how fun he is.

Love the green hills

Here's a question for you people- has anyone ever had a horse click (not grind) their teeth while being ridden? When Riot is in running walk, he seems really relaxed, but his teeth click. It's almost like he hangs his mouth open (in the hackamore- no bit in his mouth) to relax and the head nods (part of the running walk) so his teeth click together. Nothing I did seemed to help it- I couldn't figure out a pattern. He is absolutely not stressed or upset- he lives an extremely easy life here. It doesn't bug me that he does it and we probably won't try to stop it, I'm just curious if anyone else has had experience with it.

Canter Pirouettes

I once heard that a canter pirouette feels and looks like you're trying to ride a dinosaur out of a tar pit. I think that's a pretty accurate description.

Come on, dinosaur, don't give up!

Pirouettes were probably the toughest movement for Rico and I, other than the one tempis. We never really did get the hang of one tempis. But I know that was primarily his front feet- his coffin joints couldn't really handle the pounding that the ones create. In the ones, the horse has to really grab the ground with their front feet and pull themselves forward, so coffin problems are never welcome when training those.

But pirouettes, pirouettes plagued both of us for no real reason other than that they were HARD. I feared the pirouette apocalypse and Rico didn't help by figuring that if we were already going that slow, we may as well be walking.

Ever since working with Rico, I'm starting to re-prioritize when I put movements on. I plan on introducing TC to very basic piaffe training within the next year, and starting clinics with Alfredo Hernandez when he is six years old to get piaffe and passage on him. I also want to get pirouettes on when he's at early Third level, despite them not having to do them until mid-Fourth level. Why? Because they fucking suck to put on and I want to take my time. So let me go through what my steps are to create this:

Full pirouettes on centerline at Grand Prix

*as always, my theoretical posts are based on my experience as a dressage trainer/rider and the lessons I've taken. They are not designed to be the end all, be all of dressage training, just a way for me to share what I've learned. Please take this post with the largest boulder of salt. 

Types of Canter Pirouettes

Alright so what are pirouettes? There are a few different types that show up in dressage tests, so let's go easiest to most difficult, as if any of this is easy:

School Canter (aka "very collected canter" in the test)
The first inkling of a pirouette starts at 4-1. In this test, you ride a 20 meter circle at C, then collect the canter more than normal for a few steps over centerline. They're primarily looking for a difference between the collected canter and the very collected canter, as well as increased sitting while maintaining connection, rhythm, energy, blah blah blah.

Quarter Working Pirouette (kinda)
This is new in 4-2. I think I like it, but I haven't ridden it yet. I last rode 4-2 in 2013 and it's new this year. I've used quarter pirouettes in training (and actually find that they're harder than half pirouettes!). They take 2-3 strides, maybe a bit more. See why below.

Half Working Pirouette
This is now only at 4-3, they used to have them at 4-2 but they changed that out for the easier quarter working pirouette. Working pirouette means that they are not on the spot, regular pirouettes are as much on the spot as possible, the hind feet hopefully land in an area no bigger than a dinner plate. But working pirouettes are bigger, I believe you get about a square meter to work in. This is why they actually take more steps than a regular half pirouette. The number of steps usually varies by the horse and how educated they are.

Half working pirouette at 4-2... Definitely a dinosaur in a tar pit

Half Pirouette
This begins and only exists at Prix St George. The half pirouette is 3-4 strides. Again, the half and full pirouettes (not working) are quite tight, the hind feet need to stay under the body and in a very small place, think the size of a dinner plate, maybe slightly bigger.

Full Pirouette
This begins in Intermediare I and continues through Grand Prix. A full pirouette is 6-8 strides. Again, very tight. These things seem to go on forever. Seriously time stands still while you're piaffing and while you're pirouetting, at least on Rico.


A few random facts:
- The pirouette canter is actually often 4 beated with no moment of suspension, that is to say that the rhythm breaks down.
- The pirouette should maintain activity in the hind legs, when the hind legs either swap out or stay on the ground (sticking), the pirouette is not considered correct.
- Pirouettes are hard

Full pirouette warm up at Intermediare I

Training a Pirouette

Heidi broke the pirouette down into incredibly digestible chunks. There are three steps:

First, canter.
Second, collect.
Third, turn.

That's it! Okay post over, have fun pirouetting!

Our last big school at home after earning my Gold Medal

It sucks that dressage isn't so simple, but Heidi had a point.

Canter

The canter refers to having a very rideable, quality canter. Can I go forward and back on seat and leg alone? When I go from medium to collected canter, does the horse bend their hocks or slam on the brakes, lowering the front end? Do I have the horse even on both reins? Can I ride shoulder-in, haunches-in, and half pass easily? Can I do those three movements on a circle? Can I counter canter? Can I do simple changes through the walk? Are all of those things very easy?

The canter needs to be high quality and the horse needs to find the regular collected canter is easy. The horse needs to stay in front of the leg, even in the collected canter, without the threat of breaking. Transitions forward and back need to be seamlessly uphill, while lateral suppleness and maneuverability need to be just as easy.

Full pirouette at Intermediare I

If I were to pick two things that I want 100% in a horse's collected canter (assuming that the horse already meets the requirements for a collected canter- uphill, collected, balanced, and through) before we start working pirouettes, it's these two:

Lateral Suppleness
Shoulder-in, haunches-in, and half pass on a circle. Those are the big three exercises I want to be easy and seamless. I want to be able to go from shoulder-in to haunches-in, spiral in using half pass, spiral out within haunches-in, transition seamlessly to shoulder-in, and back again. Over and over. Maintaining the quality of canter, the uphill balance, and the longitudinal suppleness.

Longitudinal Suppleness
Before we can even think about the school canter, the canter required for pirouettes, the transitions within the canter at the *easier* canters need to be easy. I want to be able to seamlessly ride from medium to collected canter without a change in balance or thoroughness. Forward and back is really the only exercise I have for this, but it's really important. I'd also throw canter to walk transitions in here too. If you can't do those while maintaining an uphill balance, the pirouette isn't going to happen. Why? Because the canter you need for pirouettes is even more collected and requires more control than the canter you need to do a canter to walk- so those better be damn good.


Needless to say that during these two let's say types of exercises, the quality of the canter and of the collection, thoroughness, and connection, need to stay the same and the work needs to remain easy. Just because you can wrestle a horse through these exercises, Megan, does not mean that they are ready for pirouettes. Doing half pass, haunches-in, and shoulder-in will be easy for a horse who has the coordination to do a canter pirouette. Riding medium to collection will be easy for a horse with the strength to do a canter pirouette.

Full pirouettes on centerline at Grand Prix

Collect (School canter)

Collection in this sense means school canter. The school canter, or very collected canter, or pirouette canter, is the gait that is used within the pirouette. Like I said above, this isn't as canter-like as you'd think. The rhythm breaks down, there is a loss of suspension to an extent, and it becomes four-beated. People always talk about "maintaining the rhythm" in the pirouettes... that's not quite correct.

I work on three things when working the school canter: the in, the out, and the school canter itself.

The downward transition (the in) from the collected canter into the school canter should be rideable. The biggest thing for me is to be able to make this transition off of the seat and leg alone (or close to it). The rein causes the hind legs to shut down and the wither to drop, so too much rein in a downward transition does not translate to balance and collection, both of which are necessary for pirouettes.

Schooling full pirouettes before Intermediare I

The upward transition out of the school canter should also be rideable. You don't want to rocket out of the pirouette like I always wanted to. We'd be close to being done and all of a sudden ABORT THE MISSION, LEAVE THE PIROUETTE and we're half galloping out. Ideally, at the end of the pirouette, you'll finish on the spot, then go one step forward and straight within the school canter before seamlessly transitioning out. This means that while schooling the pirouette canter, working on being patient while leaving is important.

The school canter itself should feel rideable (theme, much?) and forward. You're going to eventually be turning this boat around, so you need to feel like you're able to turn that shit. You also need to feel like you can maintain the school canter, but not for long. The thing about pirouettes is that they only take a few steps. So you only technically need to hold the school canter for ten strides at the most. One coming in, eight at the most to do a full turn, one leaving.

Half pirouette at Prix St George

Turn

Then you just turn around! Hahahaha.

Remember the shoulder-in and half pass at the canter that we played with earlier? This is where that pays off. The set up for any pirouette (even walk pirouettes) is a bit of shoulder-fore, and being able to isolate the shoulder is important as the turn starts.

Once again I like breaking the turn down into three steps. The start of the turn, the end of the turn, and the pirouette itself.

The start of the turn is probably the hardest part, for me at least. Getting that first step sideways is hard. A lot of horses and/or people want to push the haunches to the inside first, then pull the shoulders around and this is incorrect (ask me how I know). First, it means you're off your line, and second, your pirouette will then be bigger and therefore take more steps.

So being able to get that first step is a tricky one, and one that I really worked the most in the walk with Rico, since the mechanic is similar. If the walk pirouettes start with haunches in, there's no way the canter pirouettes are going to start correctly.

Half pirouette at Prix St George

Continuing the turn is probably the easiest part, if you could call any part of a pirouette easy. The biggest thing with Rico, and with most other horses I've worked with, is controlling the step. Some horses have a lot of resistance to the turn, so it takes them longer, others figure out what you want (Rico) and try to get shit done and turn way too fast. Control, or if you'd prefer the nicer term "influence," is the name of the game. Always school only as many steps as you have complete control over, then GTFO.

The major takeaways for the end that I got from most of my education on these are that you need to maintain that control coming out and be patient. Rico would sometimes swap out or become labored or get crooked. Control the step and be patient. Two things that took me a long time to really understand.


So there you go, three simple steps to full pirouettes! Uhhh yeah.

Full pirouettes on centerline at Grand Prix

Overall

The canter pirouette itself takes a few years to put on, but I find that working on ladder to get to the pirouette, even if you're on the lowest rungs, will help the quality of the canter for any horse. This is why I start putting pirouette canter on ASAP, why I really push the lateral and longitudinal suppleness... because a pirouette isn't going to happen without a good quality canter, but even if you don't make it to the actual turns, thinking pirouette while riding is extremely helpful.


Hopefully one day I'll be able to reference this post for TC! For now we're at the very very beginning. Just figuring out how to canter on the bit. But every single horse who went to Grand Prix was, at some point, at the level we are at right now. That knowledge makes me feel better sometimes.

Because at 4-1, this was our school canter! Not... quite. 

Ruining Rico's Retirement

After I rode TC on Saturday, I had a little time before heading out to dinner, so I rode Rico. Poor Rico hasn't been out in a while and hasn't actually had a bit in his mouth in probably six months. I typically hop on him in the halter, bridleless, or the hackamore.

And then we go hang out with goats, Rico lives a rough life

I just recently sold my weymouth to a student and because of that, I have to order a new one (or put on the medium port that Rico hates). My new one isn't here yet because I don't really need it, so I threw Rico in the only snaffle bridle I had put together- TC's bridle.

Now, in the past, Rico has been a trickster in a fat snaffle like the one TC goes in. He takes it as a wonderful invitation to lean. It seems like all I had to do to get him super light in the snaffle is not ride him for months! I'm also working through my issues with rigidity on TC, so it's translating well to Rico too.

Hi mom! I'm going to yank out your shoulders
if you get on me because of reasons

I'll even lean on this dog!

I both love and hate (dislike is a better word) riding Rico these days. Obviously I love him to death, but riding him always makes me feel both greedy for the horse I had a year ago and sad that he's only serviceably sound. It's no fun to feel your horse struggle, even a little bit.

He does well, but he needs his hocks done obviously (last time was over a year ago). But to hell if I'm injecting a semi-retired horse's hocks so I can ride him every now and then for fifteen minutes. He's still happy to work, he just can't be ridden every single day for 45 minutes at the Grand Prix level. Fine, neither can I, my back sucks right now and my wrist is basically useless.

Back when we both were fit and awesome

This one time, Rico had abs

Rico was SO good for me the other day and genuinely seemed excited to work a little (A LITTLE). What a change from the horse who said NO to almost everything I suggested (okay to give him credit, he would argue that it was my fault for suggesting such terrible things like being forward and being straight).

We started with some trot work, playing in the lateral work and the quality of the trot. His regular trot is flat and short, possibly due to the pretty epic waddle he's developed after being just kind of fat for a while. But I was able to spice it up with a little passage. It got pretty impressive for a horse whose greatest accomplishment in the last nine months is not eating himself to death. The lateral work on that horse was so damn easy once as he was loosened up a bit. He just does shoulder-in, no body contortion or praying to the lateral work gods required. Weird. Half pass was not as strong but still so easy. I gotta get TC on the lateral work train.

I need to get on the lateral work train too

At the canter, I played with flying changes. Rico's changes are auto for a dressage horse even at this point. Set him up, swing your legs, try not to pull on his face. He threw in some two-tempis for funzies. I threw in two half pirouettes for funzies. He didn't think that was funzies and grunted the whole time. Pirouettes are fun! I miss playing with a school canter. TC just kind of runs like a maniac. Maybe one day we'll have a bit of collection in there somewhere.

Piaffe and passage still exist, with piaffe holding up better than passage. The passage is fine, it's just a bit uneven and flat. The piaffe feels just as good as it always has. Wtf indeed. This horse can piaffe for days.

It was extraordinarily fun to get back on Rico and play. There's something about a horse who is just completely yours, you know? Like for better or worse, I trained that animal. He knows all those tricks because of my hard, yet often misdirected and sometimes completely wrong, work. I'm so happy he retired sound enough to still go out and do some fun stuff.

The horse can piaffe. Not too enthusiastically, but he can do it.
Wow I never noticed but the shadow on his butt in this picture
makes it look like his loins suck, they don't

Sit! But don't stay...

In other AWESOME news, my brother happened to notice that one of my/our favorite comedians was coming to the area (not my area, my brother's, but they live in my old old town) in early November for a new show. On a weeknight. Starting at 8pm. An hour and a half away from my office. So I said fuck it and told him to get tickets for us. I'll be real tired at work the next day, but it's going to be SO WORTH IT. I just hope no one expects me to do anything other than write terrible unusable code that day. Maybe I can work from home and by home I mean my brother's couch. And by work I mean sleep.

November's 10 Questions

Thanks Viva Carlos for giving me some writing material! Not riding full time makes this blog kind of boring.

1. Have you ever owned a horse?

Yes! On my records, I've only owned Rico (since he's the only horse I've owned since I was 18). In the past, my family has owned a few more for me including Stretch, Quest, and Tammy. I also rode my parents' horses, Dandy, Shawnee, and now Riot. Stretch, Riot, Dandy, and Rico are the horses at my parents barn now. Shawnee and Quest died while we owned them (Shawnee living to 36 and Quest into his mid 20s). Tammy was a naughty pony that was way way way too much horse for me as a 12 year old so we sold her. 

This one is my favorite though

2. What is your favorite aspect of your discipline?

I love how I can throw my type A personality into it and it actually pays off. 

3. What pet peeves do you have concerning your discipline?

Uh how about how trainers are allowed to school horses MINUTES before their client gets on and goes in the court. 

4. Do you do barn chores?

Yep! Rico is at my parents' ranch so I help out as best I can when I'm there. Typically I'll just clean his paddock and make sure all my stuff is tucked away. 

5. What is your least favorite barn chore?

I don't really have a least favorite but I will fill wheelbarrows up to their very fullest capacity before I'm walking that shit down to the pile. 

6. What do you consider the worst vice in a horse? 

Rearing isn't great, although it depends on the rearer. Rico reared a fair amount as a young horse, but with Rico, I trusted that he would never flip over or put me in danger, so that ended up being fine. With a stupider animal, I'd be scared. I really hate horses that twisty buck. I'd take an intelligent rear over a twisty buck. 

7. What saddle brand is your favorite? 

Custom for dressage, Devoucoux for jumping. 

8. Do you ride with a quarter sheet in the winter?

I have my fleece one for especially frigid days when he's full clipped and a rain proof one to either get to a covered arena or, these days, just ride in when it's raining.

For rainy days

9. Does your horse wear boots? What kind?

Yep, always in front and sometimes behind. He typically wears PE cross country boots in front (I have the hinds too for jumping) but sometimes I'll throw on fleece dressage boots or polos if we're trying to be fancy or I want to keep his legs warm. 

10. Full seat or knee patch breeches? 

Full seat, even over fences, I struggle a lot in knee patch. I used to do full seat for dressage only and knee patch over fences but after doing dressage exclusively for so long, I can't jump without them. 

Hanging out with Rubis

I rode Rico dressage yesterday. We did a bit of trail riding out in the pasture next door where I let him run, then came into the ring for a 30 minute school. 

He's definitely getting rusty in the movements now. My once super responsive and sensitive horse is kinda dull to my aid and making more mistakes than he used to. Meh. We still made it through the entire PSG canter pattern, the I1 zig zag, a bunch of piaffe, and even some walk-passage transitions. He's still fun, just not AS fun. But doing dressage for 30 minutes once a week is a very different work schedule than doing dressage for 45 minutes 4x per week. 

It was funny, I kept thinking "gah, he's not doing XYZ, I'll bring that up to Heidi" and then realizing that I would never take another dressage lesson on Rico. That kind of isolation was kinda scary! I haven't been out of regular lessons since 2012 and I struggled a lot then. I'm twice the rider now than I was at that time though, and it doesn't matter how shitty our dressage gets, so we'll be fine. 

Not going to be this fancy again though

I am struggling with the serviceably sound thing. Rico wants to be ridden, he wants to gallop on trails and jump fences and do dressage. But yesterday we had no fancy trot because he was a bit sore in his front feet. Not lame, but on hard ground in a tight circle at the walk, he definitely struggled. Undersaddle he felt sound but just not wanting to let those front feet do very much work.

I have an email into my vet asking if I should just leave him be or if I should bute him after/before I jump or trail ride or just ride in general. He certainly doesn't need bute to be sound enough to ride or anything. He's a lot sounder than Stretch who I don't bute to ride. But I worry about causing inflammation in his feet- I don't want those coffin joints remodeling themselves. I also don't want to rip up his stomach either, or have a horse that I'm constantly medicating if he doesn't need it. 

This is all new to me having a serviceably horse in semi-retirement! He's having a blast though.

Hanging out in pasture, he loves those trees behind him

Who Cares?

I rode Rico this morning before the rain set in. He had two days off in a row so he was REALLY eager to do something. He was less eager when I put on the dressage saddle. Poor horse, he figured his awesome vacation was over. Which it kind of was since he now has a couple of lessons to teach next week and I wanted to get at least one school in on him before he had to do that. I also warned my clients that he might be lame-ish since the last couple of times I rode him he was *okay* but not great.

I got on him and immediately felt like something was missing... it was! My back brace! This was planned, I'm going to begin riding Rico without it and soon hopefully only break it out for the babies or particularly long/difficult rides where I may fatigue.

I've been working really hard with my weighted sit-ups for the past couple of months to get my core ready to ride without a brace and today it felt GREAT. I didn't feel any sort of weakness and I actually think my position was better than it has been in the past with the brace. I got some pictures (but they're way down my editing line so those will come out later) and I think they support my theory.

More show pictures! Forgive me if they're repeats, I don't keep track

Anyway, back to the horse! We walked down the road to the second set of cows and he was excited to be out (it was cold and windy). He was just as enthused to turn around, which seemed odd.

We went into the ring and I wasn't sure what to expect. He had been so uncomfortable at the show that I had really been second-guessing whether he'd be sound enough to even trail ride. After my rides earlier this week I had faith that he'd be okay for trail riding but questioned his use as a lesson horse. But today changed my thoughts.

Such a good pony

HE FELT SO AMAZING! He felt better than he felt at the show for sure, and even better than my last lesson. Mentally he was ON, a little spooky but very forward and easy to collect. Physically he was SUPER sound, only his normal rickety self for the first couple of minutes before the canter. His passage was excellent, piaffe was better than he's been EVER, his pirouettes kind of sucked but who cares.

That's right, WHO CARES?! My new mantra for riding him. He kind of fudged a few transitions and gave me the world's shittiest left pirouette because he wasn't on the bit or in front of my leg... I went to make a correction and then realized, who fucking cares? He'll never be shown at this level again, he'll never be even ridden that much at this level, certainly not by anyone else but me. So who gives a flying fuck if that one pirouette sucked?

He still does all the "easy" stuff that I need him to be good at to teach my students (the lateral work, lead changes, walk-canter and canter-walks, walk pirouettes, etc), but fuck the canter pirouettes and fuck it if his piaffe is moving forward and fuck it if his passage isn't even or elevated enough. Fuck it! Who cares?

The only thing I care about is that jacket and his tail

Rico was super on board with the who cares mantra. He only got corrected for being behind me or not on the bit.

Afterward we wandered a bit and then I went through a bunch of my stuff to set aside a bunch of it to donate to the local handicapped riding school (they love us haha).

His tail is so wild!

I was feeling like I hadn't ridden enough (since it had been two days off of riding for me and then a light-ish dressage school in comparison to what we're used to), so I took the weird gaited horse out.

I love calling him that. If you remember, my dad used to ride when he and my mom were younger and his horse (who lived to be 36) died a couple of years ago. My dad got bit by the riding bug again and my parents bought a horse this July. His name is Riot and he's our very first gaited horse- a Tennessee Walker. I've never ridden a gaited horse so he's teaching me almost as much as I'm teaching him.

I popped on him bareback and took him into the neighbor's pasture. He was great! We did a bunch of running walk all over the pasture and then went up the big hill. He's such a good guy, and kind of hot so he's good for my seat.

Setting up for our first half pass

Rico tentatively teaches his first lesson on Tuesday depending on the footing and how scheduling works out. I'm going to try to get him out one more time between now and then. I'm really excited to see how my kids do on him, the one coming Tuesday has been working SUPER hard recently for not too much reward (difficult young horse) so I'm excited to get her doing some cool stuff.