Responsive

TC was really great in our last lesson! And it was such a good lesson. We'd been schooling a bunch of the Second and Third level things from our past and I was pretty pleased by how he was feeling in the half passes, and I had started really drilling the half steps and the canter to walk transitions. 

But coming to Kate with those things felt very... this lesson with Tracey in 2013. Wow, blast from the past rereading that. I think I might have glossed over this part in that post, but I vividly remember going into that lesson talking a big game about how we were schooling X and Y and really needed to work on Z in order to move up to Prix St George. And then she brought us back to the basics. 

Looking good! My left hand remains like this,
but that's fine, we'll work on it

Pivo doesn't record very well during lessons oh well

Thirteen years later, I've learned my lesson. Because when Kate and I talked about what to work on in this lesson, I mentioned two things:

1. I think TC waits until I'm about to get after him for not responding to my leg... to respond to my leg. So he's late off the aid and even if I do a bunch of transitions, he seems to know when I'm about to swat him. 

2. He reins back SO SLOWLY oh my god, he inches backwards like a snail. 

Neither of those things are hugely problematic, they don't feel all that related to the half pass or the canter to walk necessarily, but responsiveness is a huge issue with this horse that I want to address. I'm not looking to go back to where we were before, with him feeling kinda blah and me having to like, drag him through movements. 

Trail rides have been fun lately

Sure enough, the exercises we did got him so responsive and easy to ride that clearly the movements I was struggling with were not going to be the issue! 

We changed how I was asking for things first. I rode on a square with quarter turns on the forehand at each corner and I was to ask him for the turn first with my seat, which I had not been doing. Do less with my leg, so then when my leg does come on, he's had ample time to at the very least prepare to do the movement. Then I was to ride a full 360 degree turn if I didn't get the response that I wanted, steadily adding a bit of pressure with my whip (light taps getting harder) until he was really moving around. Then go back to the quarter turns. 

The same type of increasing aid in my transitions to trot, ask with my seat first, then slowly close the leg, then slowly adding harder and harder taps until he was really moving, then settle into a trot that was more appropriate. This made a huge difference for me, because I get pretty emotional about any sort of blah feeling moving forward because of our past, and having to really smack him for it is a no-go for me mentally. But by the time I've gotten to a true "smack" with the whip, he's had so much time to get his butt moving that it's like brother, you could have avoided this. And we really didn't have to get to anything close to that. It was like he thought I could increase forever and he was like oh shit she just doesn't stop, I gotta go. 

We both appreciate the shade though

As we were doing these walk to trot transitions, we inevitably had to do trot to walk transitions, and I got called out on those pretty immediately. I let him die in those transitions. I really didn't think I did, because he stays pretty well up to my hand and stays nicely under himself, but what he does is he kind of braces against the back edge of my aid. So sure physically he's right there, but my aid is doing a lot of the heavy lifting to keep him there, vs him being more in self carriage and on my seat. 

So we explored slowing down very slowly, verrry slowly asking his trot to get smaller and smaller until he was in walk, and sometimes pushing him out of it. Which I thought I was already doing pretty well, but I needed to be even pickier about it. There's a slight pushing back he does when he's like, quietly dislodging from my seat to predict that we're going to walk, and since I'm actively asking for walk, that just feels like obedience, but it's not! 

This girl has been okay, had a bad
reaction to her chemo pill but is
recovering

After working on those transitions, we did some reining back work. The idea was the same, take about four seconds to go from zero aid to the perfect rein back aid, then slowly tap on his shoulder, increasing slowly and steadily with taps until he is reining back in the way I want him to. And then we took it a step further and went into second gear reining back (even faster) so that I knew I had it. 

He was so funny, at one point I started to set up for the reinback and he got himself so balanced that he decided to offer a jambette, silly boy. We talked a little bit about his posture - he tends to curl a little in the rein back and we do want to fix that. But I'm focusing a lot on the responsiveness, which does depend on the balance, don't get me wrong, but I figured that I'd address the curling once we got the responsiveness down a few days in a row. 

Having a pet with cancer is brutal,
but with complications it's even worse

We did a bit of trot after this and he was QUITE forward, it was so much fun. He was almost... too forward. He kinda left a few times, not in a bolt, but definitely too far out in front of me. And that's when we started talking about how, he's kind of like a stereotypical mediocre white man in corporate america. 

He kind of thinks my ideas are not worth acting on, except then he'll take my ideas (e.g. being forward) and propose them at another time and I'm supposed to just go along with it because I guess I did want him to do that. 

He's annoyed when I'm late (e.g. I get left behind when he zips off) but when he's late (e.g. to my aid), I'm rude for pointing it out.

He complains endlessly about having to do his job (e.g. being slow into the arena, trying to get us to turn to the trails instead of the arena) and then still expects a promotion (e.g. cookies, I frequently have to say "you haven't DONE anything").

And maybe he's a bit red-pilled, because he thinks that I should stop trying to "lead" and let him "lead" but he's a terrible leader because all he wants to do is stand in the shade and ask for me to give him cookies. 

Anyway, my homework is to start bullying him a little more like I already bully (in a professional way) the men at my job. My ideas are good, we should act on them now, we will both be on time, you are to follow my lead on things where I am the subject matter expert (he doesn't know nearly as much about dressage as I do). 

Excuse me, I haven't once said the
word synergy

We touched on the canter and it was a bit more of the same kind of thing, keep him on my seat. And then we had a bit of time left and I asked Kate about how TC likes to fall out to the right when tracking left. It's super manageable, way better than it was before, but again it's like he's leaning on my aid. From the outside he looks straight, but I have to work to keep him there. Better than him flying through the aid, but not good enough. 

She had me imagine that there was a squishy piece of foam between my right rein and his neck, and that by pressing my rein into it (so not actually touching his neck), I could push him around on a 15 meter circle. If he didn't turn, I was to do the increasing taps on his right shoulder, and also focus on drawing him in with my inside rein to show him that there was room there. We alternated between circles and then riding down the long side, and it felt WAY better. He was much easier to steer and I didn't feel like I had to do so much management!

I had to screenshot this because it's applicable even
to this silly sport

It was such a great lesson and then I immediately went out of state! But my rider (who also rides with Kate) rode TC twice over the weekend and she does such a nice job with him. I can't wait to get back on and ride him and work on this stuff! 

Also, so cute, I didn't get pictures, but I let Rico out in TC's paddock when I was riding TC and he rolled in TC's sand pile (but not his? ugh) and then sniffed around the whole paddock. So I think I'm going to do that more often! TC was beside himself but too bad, so sad, Rico gets whatever he wants. 

Some Current Work

This week has been really busy at work as I wind down my employment at my current workplace. I'm really excited to move on but I am dreading next week because I have three (!) going away party things to go to and I think I'm going to cry at least at one of them. And probably on my last day. And probably while driving to my new place even though I'm super excited about it. And probably at my new job. I can't help it, even good change makes me a crazy person.

The horse though, has been absolutely impressing me lately. He's been super quiet and sweet to me, though today it's supposed to start raining, so we'll see. But up until today's ride, he's been so good this week and last weekend. 

Okay so side note, he will walk down this road just fine, not
spooking at the trees, but if he is in the arena on the other side
of the trees, the trees are terrifying. Horse logic is stupid.

Finally on Sunday we had a really stellar ride after a couple of tense ones due to the rain. We've been drilling the walk work a bit more lately and the walk pirouettes felt excellent that day. He still really struggles to keep the walk active, but luckily he's not the type to stick. I've done a ton of walk pirouettes on him (always facing the mirror so I can watch his legs) and he's only stuck once.

I've also been working a bit on the halt and rein back, just from walk. He's just kind of terrible at it. I don't blame him and I'm not worried about it, Rico went through a period of time where every time I tried to back him up undersaddle, he stood up. So TC wanting to take baby steps back with his head in the air is totally absolutely fine in my book. Take your time, bud. On the couple days we skipped out of riding due to the storm last week, we did some work in hand with the clicker and that seemed to help him understand the whole going backwards thing with his neck down. 

He saw a giant bird that he thought about going
over to

Then this week due to being busy, we've mostly just been putting in the miles. I figure if I only have 20-30 minutes to work him (vs 45+), we'll just put in miles in a good connection with good transitions. His connection in the trot is feeling great lately. I'm a bit annoyed with myself in that I feel like it's a conscious decision to get him really INTO the bridle. 

I'll get a few minutes in and I'll think he feels good and then I look in the mirror and see that he's not really coming up through his shoulder. So then I put leg on and really press him into it and the shoulder comes up, but it annoys me I won't do that immediately. I'm going to not have mirrors soon (but hopefully Peony will video me sometimes! And I'll be taking a TON of fence videos) so I'm paranoid that he's suddenly going to backtrack without the mirrors there to tattle on me. 

The canter transitions definitely feel better than they have. It was kind of a wake up call to realize that they're better on the long lines than undersaddle. If that doesn't scream rider error, I don't know what does. The issue really truly stems from the sitting trot not quite being there yet. It's SO MUCH BETTER but it definitely isn't perfect. 

He's super good about ground tying these days

The biggest thing has been to focus on my back line through my glutes actually, which seems weird. For some reason just thinking about that gets my back line engaged everywhere else. In addition to all that, watching Kate's lesson with potential new trainer helped me a lot too. Trainer described staying with the motion of the horse like staying up on the crest of a wave. And that helped me a lot (especially because it makes me want to get my chest forward, which is a main problem). When I get it, I can really feel his trot get much better. And that trot is addicting as fuck. 

It just feels SUPER loose and like it's a half halt away from passage. It is not. It is nowhere near passage and the horse is not trained to passage, but it feels like that. The only complaint, that I mentioned earlier, is that he really doesn't stay into the bridle when I go to sit the trot. I think this is 95% a problem that I don't ride him well into the bridle in the sitting trot, and maybe 5% of it being that because his trot changes when I go to sit it, it's harder for him and we need to build muscle. 

So much of it is me, I can feel myself not wanting to put him into the bridle because that's tiring. Sitting the trot in general with my new position is tiring enough, adding weight into the connection is way too much. But it's necessary, so I've been working hard at it. I think it will get better with time, and hopefully some lessons too!

Wandering around

Fingers crossed that today's ride doesn't go terribly in the rain. Either way I don't care. I'm just really enjoying this animal right now and I'm excited to move barns and start figuring out my training situation. I've done and redone my budget to include two lessons a month in it permanently. This is the year of lessons!

Lost in Excellence

When I got out to the barn on Friday, it was muggy and gross. I thought that was kind of ridiculous because at my house across the little valley, it was actually nice. But apparently the less-than-5-minute drive took me into an odd pocket of nasty weather. We actually heard thunder a few times! Back at home it was nice again. Weird.

Because the weather was so odd and he had been so good on Wednesday, I opted to do another "jumping" ride with him. I put out our three poles in the same place as last time and we got to warming up.

Love the pony even if he is rather brown these days

Enjoy some really random pictures from this week.
First = baby cow!!

He was super super good in the contact. I'm finding that the longer the time I take to warm him up at the walk on the bit, the better he is going into trot. I mean, it's almost as if they are related. Once we trotted, he was right there for me the whole time and I kind of regretted dragging out the poles because I kind of wanted to just play with this. But then we trotted through the poles and he utterly failed at them. He kept drifting and tripping over them.

It was not made better by cantering them either. He was overconfident and leapt the first one, then the others backed him off and he ended up basically halting over the last one. I got him through eventually but I was SO not in the mood to train a horse to jump that day. I gave up and we just trotted through the poles while we worked on dressage, which he was pretty enthused about doing anyway.

TC longeing at the show! That chambon is doing NOTHING.

Siblings who refuse to pose together

He was excellent the whole ride- super in the connection and much better forward than he's been in the home arena for a long time. The combination of energy and connection on this horse is so magical. He was very accessible. I felt like I could put him absolutely anywhere, though did not test this theory in fear of being incredibly wrong.

The canter was amazing. Both directions we had moments where I felt like I really got him connected and over his back. He's never felt over his back at the canter. I was able to be so soft and steady with my hand and I could actually follow his neck oscillation pretty easily at times.

After the canter I had this moment of oh my god he's being so good what do I even work on when he's like this, since most of my rides are all working to achieve this.

Neighbor cows up close and personal

Not sure if curious or scared

I decided it was a good day to do some leg yielding and some halting, because both of those back him off and he was so forward anyway. The leg yield is actually getting to be something resembling a leg yield now. He does it pretty well at the walk and gets a little over his shoulder at the trot, but it's something I'm okay with for now, especially as both sides are even, which I never thought would happen. I feel like he's getting more responsive to my seat in the leg yield and is happy to move over the second I think about it.

The halts were pretty good too. I'm working on sitting into them, which is hard because he pulls so much into the halt and my back is still iffy. I'm 100% sure it isn't me that is pulling, since he halts completely off the seat and leg. He just starts reaching forward to find something to brace on. I tried moving the inside bit ring right as he did it and it got better.

We also played with rein backs, which are basically the ugliest things ever. It feels like I'm some psycho wrestling a dolphin into a small van so I can steal it for my private aquarium. I would ask him for a step and he'd flail a bit, take a step back, then I'd have to stop and put him back on the bit. Then ask for another step, flailing, then back on the bit. I think I'm going to school them in hand, maybe in the chambon, to help him understand. I think it's strength that he's lacking, since he is willing.

Love cider- at one of my brothers' events

Then we put together an exercise! It was very basic- we'd go down quarterline and leg yield to the rail (short court and inflexible baby horse, so no centerline leg yields),then we'd go down the next long side and halt, possibly rein back depending on whether he was balanced or not, immediately trot, and go down quarterline again.

When I wanted to switch directions, we even played with a baby lengthening across the short diagonal. He wasn't sure what to do. Whenever he isn't sure what to do, he tilts his face to one side and stares at me. So he would basically zip across the arena with one eye on me and get more and more hollow. Um. We'll work on that.

Overall, I was super pleased. Especially because he gave me his best free walk during our breaks, but mostly because he's really stepping up and trying to be good. Unlike some horses I used to ride.

Rico got a running braid, muahaha

I love her eyes

This week (Monday/Tuesday for me) is USPC Champs so I'm coaching a ridiculous number of kids again. My reward for that is a clinic next weekend with a local-ish S judge. Fingers crossed it goes well, she's known for being tough so it will be up to me to stand up for TC if he needs it. I'm going to emphasize our greenness so he isn't pushed too hard. I mostly want to talk to her about him and see if she sees any holes in his training so far. Plus get some good ideas on what needs to happen before he goes Training.

The next weekend (Aug 13-14) is another clinic that I want to audit in Watsonville with one of my favorite clinicians who I may try to ride with in October if I'm still nearby.

I SENT THIS SHIT IN ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON. Halfway
done with this damn thesis.