Ironing It All Out

We interrupt this Mary Wanless week of posts to talk about TC because he's a GODDAMN GENIUS of a horse and we had a great lesson last night. Also, my last Mary post is about the canter mechanic and I need to compile a TON of videos, so that's my Sunday project this weekend. Keep an eye on my instagram to get a sneak peek, I'm sure I'll be sharing there first.

Thursday afternoon, I headed back over to ride with Tanya! Her homework last time was basically to address the issue with TC's accelerator and also to work on his suppleness. We came out guns-a-blazing and she had to tell me to freaking half halt before I bombed around in medium trot the entire ride. Excellent.

I was a little concerned about my SI recovery, so I warned her that I felt wobbly and that I might need some help with that. But the entire ride, it didn't bother me at all, I was occasionally unsteady, but that's what bearing down is for. So I'm super pleased, I will hopefully have another PT appointment next week so we'll keep working on it all.

Being so cute after the lesson

We started out talking about some of the stuff that Mary had said. The biggest thing Tanya took away was tucking her boards into her horse's shoulders. If you're unfamiliar with Mary's boards, here's how she describes them: a sophisticated way of working with asymmetries. Instead of dividing the body into halves, we divide it into thirds, taking lines which follow the line of braces but which continue right down to the bottom of the torso. It is as if a board joined the rider's front to her back along each of these lines. Keeping her spine vertical is very much easier when those boards are firm.

Okay so you take your boards, and you ask yourself, if I can extend those forward, would they be tucked in behind the horse's shoulder blade, or are you losing a board outward? I definitely lose my right board outward away from TC's right shoulder.

And thus began an entire lesson on straightness!

Happy pony

TC has always wanted to duck out his right shoulder, which is where I leave a door open anyway, so he's honestly well within his right to do that. When that happens, his haunches fling themselves left and his nose gets pulled left too (erm, to clarify, I pull his nose left). Tanya pointed out that when I go to straighten him, he often just flings his entire body left, so it discourages me from riding him straight because then I can't keep him on the rail. She put us in renvers to the left and had me make sure that he kept his haunches on the rail while I pushed his withers into the left rein.

We also played a bit with riding shoulder-in in each direction. To the left, I needed to essentially ride more renvers to get him to stay stepping into the left rein and to actually bring his withers to the left (vs his favorite, a neck-in). To the right, she wanted him to flex more right. He's very happy to bend his neck and body right, but he stays a bit stuck in his poll and doesn't really come through. That's caused by him, again, not stepping into the left rein. I sense a theme.

Hi, do not want to connect to left rein, no thanx

In canter, Tanya was happy to see him actually really forward. She had me get on his case about the connection, getting him more INTO the bridle to the right. She wanted him to stand more upright, which she had me address by getting a better feeling from my right leg to my left rein and insisting that he not only bend right, but he shift his weight left. When he did this, he felt so much BIGGER and way more upright, almost narrower. Like everything squished together and got taller. Tanya said it looked like he dropped some weight (he isn't fat, but he is big boned, literally, you can feel his ribs, his knee joint is the size of my head).

To the left, we rode a diamond, which one of the other long term Mary participants had Tanya do on her horse at the workshop. It was really fascinating, and very hard for both of us. I essentially rode him in renvers again, pushing his withers to my left hand and not backing off the contact. Tanya was on my case about that, she said that her guess would be that he's a bit too light. Understatement of the century, Tanya.

Once again, his canter TRANSFORMED. I've never felt him like this. It was amazing, I had him completely underneath me and he gave me so much access.

At the end of our canter work, Tanya wanted to see the changes! With this new, more upright TC, he was ON IT and showed her the two best changes (one in each direction) that he's legit ever done in his life. She seemed excited about them. I told her he was super easy to put them on but that he was still green, of course. She said there was a lot to like - they're clean, they're uphill, they're on my aid, and he doesn't dick around in them. She wants me to hone in on being able to keep him straighter so I can just shift his weight and change (right now it's a lot more of a change-the-bend, so they jump a bit sideways, not too much, but I certainly am not on the exact same line), as that is going to be key for tempi changes. But that for where he's at in his training, she's very happy! YAY!

I need to take more pictures of this animal so I don't constantly
reuse them for this blog. 

At the end of the lesson, we talked a little about TC as a whole. TC scored very well at Training and First but we chatted about how he's just really flow-y and I'm not in his way and the high scores came from what a nice picture we gave. He was a VERY good First level horse and I know how to ride a good First level test. But a good First level horse doesn't make a good Second level+ horse. And that's what we're after now. I did point blank ask Tanya if she thought he could do the upper levels, she said yes, that she wouldn't give up now. I had an inkling he could do the upper levels, but it's nice to hear from my trainer that I shouldn't sell him as a lower level horse and get something more talented.

But TC needs to give me more access now and he's a little bit unsure of that, especially in canter, it's a lot of effort on his part. In addition, when he gets to the place he needs to be, he feels like he's about to launch me. I've spoken about this before, so it's just more of that, I need to ride him in a way that's on the edge of my comfort zone. That's excellent! But it's hard.

Overall, it was an absolutely fabulous lesson. I love how he's feeling these days with Tanya's training plan. And it was great to see how much access my new wobbly SI joint gave me. I need to work harder in my riding than I have in the past, but I can actually do everything Tanya is asking now! Hopefully tomorrow we continue to build on these concepts, I'm so glad I signed up for two lessons this month.

Learning to Sit Down

Last night I had my first lesson in over a month! I have been trying to take two a month since I started riding with my new trainer, but I clearly failed in August. As I wrote about last week though, the Soloshot has been allowing me to be my own trainer, so it hasn't been so bad and after last night, I think that Tanya and I are totally on the same track with what we want TC to be doing.

Still, I love lessons, so Monday afternoon I hitched up and took TC over to M's barn (a 5 minute drive away). I've been wanting a lesson at home, just because TC is so different there, but hauling out is always a good idea for him. TC seemed to miss hauling out, since he nickered at the trailer as he walked in, pretty good for the horse who used to have absolute meltdowns off the property.

What a pony

TC was much more chill at M's barn in comparison to the first time he was there. Tanya asked how things had been going and I couldn't help but to say something like "WELL I MEAN WE HAVE BEEN WINNING EVERYTHING" and she asked whether all my scores were in the 70s. Oh... no they weren't, only two of them were. This is the year of 68-69%s, boo. But she said she was impressed with my ability to keep TC in the court when he tried to leave, so that was nice to hear. Not like I've had practice with him trying to nope out of the court before...

Moving forward, I told her that I was kind of thinking about either Second level or a First level freestyle. Part of me wants a few more 1-3 tests under our belts this fall (preferably to snag a few more 70%s) and next spring while we also show 2-1. The other part of me is pretty sick of 1-3 even though we've only ridden it twice (successfully) in the show ring. We rode T3 a lot more.

But the main goal was to be able to go 2-1 and 2-2 at the schooling show in October and not look totally out of place. I know that we're not ready (inb4 someone says that scoring in the 70s = ready for the next level, he gets 8s on things that aren't at Second, turns out the levels all have different movements lol), but we can still put in a respectable test for a schooling show.

The soloshot makes my horse seem so downhill sometimes,
excited to get a new tripod at some point...

Tanya was on board with that, though seemed to have a preference for us moving up vs doing a freestyle. We started working in trot, just warming up. She had nothing but good things to say about us warming up- TC looks great, steady and out to the bridle, active behind, straight. Cool! I also didn't get nailed for any mechanics, but that's because I wasn't sore anymore. All these pictures are from my ride on Sunday night when I was still pretty sore. 

Once in canter, she had a lot more to say. TC is now ready for a true collected canter and I am NOT here for that apparently. I ride him too low in front and I need to get his neck up and out and then put his butt down. She told me to bring him up... more... even more... no he's not off the bit, bring him UP MORE. Okay just bring him OFF the bit then. Yes that's good. No don't put his neck down. That's good. No he's not off the bit.

I rode him down to the mirror and saw the canter I had and was like HOLY SHIT. This is a horse who had a lateral canter at 3 years old. Yes he does need to be ridden up and out like that. It gets his front end out of the way of his hind legs so they can come under further.

Like up here, which feels off the bit but instead of putting his
neck down to get him rounder, I need to bring him up in
the shoulder

The left lead needed to be a bit straighter, so we schooled that down the long side and on the circle with a bit of renvers. The renvers really helped get him straight and I could feel a huge difference in the quality of canter. It was much more on round wheels and it was almost like TC took a deep breath like oh phew she's letting me go straight. Sorry pony!

Tanya had me do some canter to walk transitions and walk to canter transitions on the circle. The upwards were good, TC still needs confidence in them just because he does tend to stutter a little bit. Like oh you... oh the canter, you want that gait? okay... wait, yes, cantering? And that just takes time for the horses to get confident. The downwards though, they were on point. Turns out when the horse is not diving onto his forehand, the canter is able to collect to the speed of the walk, and that makes for some good downward transitions.

We played with a pseudo-school canter, bringing TC nearly on the spot and then addressing the issues that this caused. Like many horses, TC wants to get a bit stacked up and prop with his hind legs rather than sit. Tanya wanted me to send him out of it to quicken him and get his inside hind leg further under, then ask again. She also wanted me to stay a little back in my upper body since I climbed forward when he would prop. That alone made a huge difference. And we had some really nice moments where TC was essentially on the spot but still super soft through his topline. Tanya said that he was pretty naturally talented at the collection at the canter (!!!). I hope this means the pirouettes will be easier to put on him than on Rico!

I can see now how much this horse is going to need to come up
and out at the canter but it's hard to ride because it feels so bad

Back in trot, we did a really fun exercise. Tanya wants TC's lateral work in trot to be a bit more connected through his whole body. He tends to get a little bit tight and loses cadence, especially in the haunches-in. So we stayed on the circle and did shoulder-in to haunches-in to renvers, focusing on making sure that his trot stayed big and loose and he didn't get too locked in his neck. It's so funny, when Rico would lock up, it was really unpleasantly heavy and I'd want to fix it right away to avoid that feeling. TC locks up and he just feels slightly less good, so I haven't been quick to correct it. I need higher standards!

The circle exercise felt AMAZING. I could really feel him step into both reins and his trot got much harder to sit. My abs were killing me, especially because in my power lifting class on Friday, I had done our cash out of 100 sit ups without stopping since I had to get going. I was still a bit sore (just in my core) on Monday... so more sit ups for me. But still, we're definitely doing this exercise again. I've never felt his haunches-in so cadenced.

I was so so sore during this ride that I was struggling with the
posting trot mechanic, ugh

To end, we did some walk pirouettes. Tanya was super happy with the mechanic, but wants him quicker. TC is a very deliberate horse. If you ask him for something, he wants to do it right so sometimes he slows down and really thinks about it. This leads to him being a quick learner, but it also leads to him losing impulsion in some movements, such as the lateral work. He really wants to slow down and scootch through it. But man this horse was easy to put walk pirouettes on, clicker training for the win!

To quicken the walk pirouettes, Tanya had me put him on an endless walk pirouette again and push him a step forward if he slowed down. She also wants him generally more buzzy in the walk work. That makes me feel slightly unsafe, but this is Second level and I'm going to feel unsafe. That's how much he needs to be ON.

I'm glad we got some stuff to work on in them, I kind of just take for granted that they're always good for the level we're at. But honestly, why not have walk pirouettes worthy of PSG when we debut at Second? So we'll be doing a lot more of them from now on.

That tail is just ridiculous

In the end I wanted some answers about lead changes. I've put changes on my fair share of horses, but I want to get better at it and that means learning from someone who has put them on WAY MORE horses. I told Tanya that we'd been playing with them maybe once a quarter for a couple days at a time. He very clearly knows the difference between counter canter and lead change, he does not anticipate the change (have I mentioned how much I love this horse lately?), he does it on the aid when I ask. He is, however, not reliably clean at this time. So I haven't been doing them very much.

I asked what her prerequisites were. They were the same as mine, which is great! But she said that she wanted me to teach him to change out of the more collected canter. And that was news to me. I've always taught horses out of a... not a less collected canter step, but something that has more power over the ground. We talked about that and I revealed that the vast majority of horses I'd worked with were much smaller movers than TC. And that was it, TC's canter is huge, he needs to learn out of a much much more collected canter. And for that, he needs to be very comfortable in his almost-school canter.

He's the coolest

Tanya also wanted me to work more on the counter canter. She said that she typically doesn't want the counter canter "perfect" before introducing the changes, since that can make life difficult. But TC has already been introduced to the changes, and that means I can get that counter canter pretty perfect now.  So it's a fall/winter of counter canter, collecting the canter, simple changes, and me getting used to riding him up and out at the canter.

She didn't give me a timeline, but depending on how winter goes, I'd like to have them on in the early spring. I want to give him about six to eight months of doing them well at home before I ask in the show ring, and we're on a very tentative track to debut at Third at the end of next year. I dunno, there's so much that could go wrong before then.

He's such a grown up these days

Overall, as always, it was an AMAZING lesson. Tanya remarked how far TC and I had come this summer. I only started riding with her in May. We've gone from scoring a 61% last year at 1-1 to a 73% at 1-2 (and a ton of scores 68%+). His gaits are totally different and every single lesson I walk away wondering how I managed to own such an amazing animal. More on that later with this new blog hop going around!

I told her thank you for believing in us. It's so refreshing to have a trainer who really believes in us, especially him. He's such a cool horse!

Not As I Intended

Wednesday morning of this week I went out to ride TC. He was in a great mood and I was feeling really eager to push him along. Whenever I have too much time to think about him, I always start thinking about the future. It's nearing the time where we'll be laying the foundation for some of the upper level movements and I've been thinking about how I want to introduce them.

Checking out the sprinklers

I've thrown a flying change in here and there, but his fundamental understanding of the movement is lacking. I need better simple changes and a better collected canter before we really start working on them. So I keep thinking about schooling those. I already wrote about what we're doing for the collected canter, but I could really use some work on the simple changes too.

The other movement I've been thinking about is piaffe. The piaffe should come on well before the passage, especially with a horse who likes to open his pelvis rather than close it. I love passage, so I was wondering when I'd get to play with that. And that's an easy question: when he has a good understanding of what piaffe is.

Putting on piaffe starts with a few things. Half steps, obviously, which TC has in that he'll slow his trot way down but doesn't have in that he isn't yet really sitting in them. And then I also like to teach them to pick up their hind legs when you touch with the whip. TC has started this briefly in the cross ties.

Better canter required for flying changes

So Wednesday I go out and I'm really on it. I want to do simple changes and I want to see what the half steps look like. I also keep meaning to really start working on the half passes and the medium trot.

I got to riding and got myself immediately distracted. TC wasn't reaching evenly into both reins because at any given point, he was glancing at a tractor in a strange location. I focused on getting him into both reins evenly for our warm up.

He was also not quite committed to being IN the bridle, which has been his recent tendency. He seems to have finally figured out what curling is and is really obvious about it. Like you're going along and if he's not totally committed, he randomly flings his nose downward and inward and I'm like... bro... stop. So knowing that was a possibility with the slightly-too-light feeling in the bridle, I sent him into it.

Morning rides are my favorite

After trot warm up, we went to canter. It was feeling pretty good, except a bit behind my leg and not as much coming up and over his back as much as I wanted him to. So for that, I sent him forward and I got a splat rather than a rounder canter. He hasn't quite figured out the whole medium canter thing where he actually takes rounder steps in addition to longer steps.

I spent basically our entire canter workout adding energy to the canter and then telling him he's the best pony for doing it. I got to the end of it and realized that I'd just cantered for like 10 minutes without working on the simple changes... Um, okay. But I'm sure that getting them out of the canter we ended with would have been much better than the canter we started with. Now to get him doing that canter ALL the time.

He's getting so uphill!

I told myself I had to sit the trot for the rest of the ride. Doing stuff while sitting the trot is the ideal situation for me because it distracts me a bit. So I decided to start with shoulder-in and then look at the half pass.

I picked up the trot and he felt great! But my seat was driving rather than organizing, so I spent a few circles and walk-trot transitions fixing that. I started feeling like I had it, so I started the shoulder-in. Because of all the straightness work I've been doing, I'm much more in tune with his lateral balance, and I found that he was losing a bit of throughness on the outside rein in the shoulder-in. One of my favorite exercises to fix that is to slowly turn the shoulder-in into renvers and then go back.

To the left, this wasn't actually all that bad. I think it's because he'd much rather have his left to right forces on anyway, so both shoulder-in and renvers are good to go that way. The renvers slowed down a bit and lost cadence, which reminded me that I need to work on this in his leg yield too. After riding the shoulder-in to renvers that direction, I put him through a few leg yield zig zags and they were quite good!

Definitely the best job in the 1860s! Galloping
along the mail train

To the right, the shoulder-in was harder, and the renvers, even worse. I worked hard to bear down, even when changing the bend, and started brainstorming how the Mary stuff could be utilized in the lateral work, since we didn't talk about that much at the clinic. I made a few positional changes, made a point to kneel more, and really pressed him into the left rein and things went much better.

Some leg yields that way and we had run out of time for our ride. Both in that we'd already done our 15-17 minutes of trot and 10 minutes of canter that he's doing right now, and I was out of time and had to get off and go get grain before work! So we stretched, hacked around the field, and then we were done.

Eventually have to sit this IN the show ring, boo

Sooo we didn't really do anything I wanted to do, nothing really new. But this is how so many of our rides go. If I just skipped all the stuff we worked on in order to hustle him along, whatever I was hustling was going to be bullshit anyway.

I wanted to write about it because so much of the time I feel like my blog comes across like TC is just the best and we're on this steady path upward and there's no back tracking because we're both so good at not making any mistakes. Nothing I did on Wednesday was all that new to him. It's just a matter of digging around and finding holes and filling them in.

This weekend I'm going to Horse Expo on Saturday with Peony (let us know if you'll be there!) and then probably hanging around at an event on Sunday! Horse weekends = the best weekends.

Out of the Way

Things continue to go well with little TC. This last week we've had good rides every single time I've sat on him, which is very unusual. I think he's settling into living out in his big paddock (apparently he plays with his neighbors constantly and runs around too) and it's helping with his ability to just go to work. And I love his love of work.

My main focus, as I've said previously, has been to dump movements on him. I spent a long time doing the basic training this last summer, and it was great for him. And in the last couple weeks since I've been riding him again (before that he had a week off because he pancaked my foot), he's really shown me that he's ready for more. He really thrives on learning new things.

He's ready for his rider to stop looking down

That doesn't mean we're abandoning the basics though. Training scale wise, we're still working on straightness, and this I can see being an ongoing thing. Not because of him, but because of me. I just love pulling on the left rein. And his weak left hind wants to stay out behind him and to the inside, which makes me feel like I'm being propelled right (because I am), which makes me want to pull even more on the left rein (which I shouldn't). So a lot of our warm up is spent doing lateral work at the walk and riding figures at the trot and canter with the main focus of keeping him up to the left rein and not bending him at all that direction.

It's hard. But boy when he gets it, he's a different horse! And then he breaks. Oh well.

I'm also making engagement and activity in his hind end a priority. As his shoulders get less tight, he's learning to use them more (he stretches them himself in the cross ties as he gets his front leg as high up as he possibly can and just leaves it there, he'd love to be in the SRS) and he's moving bigger in front, but the hind legs need to catch up. I'm struggling with how to do this- he's already so short coupled and I feel like his legs go under him enough for where he's at training wise. He's got that baroque type in him (but I wouldn't really consider him totally baroque) that produces that big front end and slower hind end. Gotta speed up those hind legs, but without adding tension.

He's like riding a bouncing ball

On Saturday I managed to get some pictures (on this post) and video (coming when I can get it uploaded, ugh) of us! There were some things that I was really happy to see, but obviously with any media, there were some things that I really wanted to change.

He's still not looking as strong or fit as he was last year, but he's getting more comfortable with his balance and that's showing, especially in the canter. There were a ton of pictures to choose from at the canter, and not as many at the trot, which really shows how much it has improved. And actually I ruined most of the trot pictures (and so many canter pictures too, gah), not him. I texted Kate that it looked like Carl Hester had let some peasant ride one of his fancy young horses. She had to remind me that I did kind of make the horse. I forget that.

Oh yah, he didn't do this when I started with him

In addition to the basics, on Friday and Saturday we schooled some movements. They were mostly from First level, though I am absolutely drilling the haunches-in, renvers, and half pass at the walk and starting it at the trot too. I've been using test riding to kind of test out how these movements are going, and I've been really pleased with how easy he is to test ride.

With Rico, it was always the tests holding us back, not the movements (meaning we could do each of the movements but not string them together), and maybe that's just the FEI levels since the tests are so so long and difficult. But I'm really appreciating TC's attitude toward work and how developed his baseline gaits are, both of which help in test riding (and were Rico's weaknesses). During tests he doesn't need much adjustment or influence from me. There's not much prep work for any movements and when you, er, make a mistake and have to pull him into a movement, he just complies. No questions asked. As if that's just how you're supposed to ride (luckily he doesn't know that your rider shouldn't be going oh fuck I think we're supposed to lengthen here, go go go!)

The baseline gaits make all the difference. In no test did I have to remind him to stay on the bit (except early on he was coming a bit hollow in the canter transitions, that's gone now), stay forward, stay bending, stay focused, etc. He just does it. The more out of his way I can get, the better he goes. Sometimes it feels like I'm only there to cause problems and make mistakes and that if I just got off, he could do the test much better.

"Lengthened" canter, it's not as lengthened as he can go, but tbh,
I'm kind of afraid of his actual lengthening

I really expected First level to be too much for him, because the canter lengthenings are tricky and the leg yields and the smaller figures. But no, actually his 15m canter circles are more like 12m and his canter lengthenings are bombing as long as his rider lets him GO. Which I don't want to do. It literally feels like I'm galloping them and he's barely moving.

The leg yields are really easy in 1-2, and I'm only just starting to school the zig zag for 1-3. I have schooled some counter canter and I guess he had enough time on the wrong lead as a baby (so frustrating lol) that he feels totally comfortable in counter canter. Only occasionally will he boing up and swap (and honestly, it doesn't happen in the counter canter as much as it happens down the long sides), but I can't really complain about that right now since I have asked for changes recently. Woops.

He's so fun, even if the trot isn't as strong these days

It was a great ride and I'm really glad to have the test riding to help me understand where he's at. We're definitely going to do more test riding in the future (unless the rain keeps us out of the dressage court again, boo) and still picking away at the engagement, quickness of the hind legs, and my inability to ride him straight. And just enjoying the horse, that's been really fun recently.

Getting Organized and Then Getting Stupid

Saturday morning I zipped up to the barn to get TC out before my afternoon plans started. I had figured out how I was going to transform this big empty (except for shelves) tack locker into something organized and accidentally got distracted putting it all together. By the time I looked at my clock, I only had 45 minutes left to entertain my horse! Luckily it was one of his scheduled days off, so I decided to turn him out.

Tack locker! Next project: replacing that saddle
rack with one that doesn't cut into my panels
And obviously that's chai in my travel mug!

I don't like turning my horses out, mostly because I'm scared that turnout = injury, as it would if I was turning Rico out. But TC is young and I have a feeling that if he doesn't get a chance to play a little sometimes, he'll play with me. I don't want to play with him. Plus if he launches me, he's likely to leave and be frantic so he'll probably be MORE likely to hurt himself than if I just turned him out.

But there were horses being ridden in the upper arena, so no turnout. Yay! I opted for some ground work instead. It actually went really well! TC longed over the two tarps, and did all the ground work stuff that I know, which is pretty limited. I could get him to back up, turn on the forehand, leg yield, shoulder-in, and change directions on the line. Fun!

Hi mom, why are you so impressed that I'm
standing on this toy?

The cutest

Sunday morning I had a little more time with TC before spending time with my whole family, who were driving through my town and into the central valley to visit my brother and future SIL's wedding venue. I opted to tag along, such a beautiful place, I can't wait for a year and a bit from now!

Given that I hadn't made any poor decisions lately, I decided that it was high time that I put too much trust in my four year old. Bad decision #1- I didn't longe him, I just jumped on... after a day off. Bad decision #2- I decided that this would be a good time to trail ride him (and bad decision #2.5) without riding in the ring first. Bad decision #3- I decided to take the trail that goes through the back pasture, which has tons of horses in it.

It actually wasn't bad until it was really bad, and even then it wasn't as bad as Rico's first trail ride. And now Rico is the best trail horse ever. I found myself chanting that as I led TC back to a safe place to get back on him. He didn't dump me FYI, just put both of us in a situation where I was safer on the ground than on the horse given what he was doing and where.

When things were still going well and I was really
happy with how quiet he was

Oh well, we'll try it again later

I got us back to the arena and did some dressage in there. Now I say dressage, but I'm using it as a loose term for what we did at first. He was super tense, short in the neck, and generally just distracted. That's the norm these days, but it was made worse by bad trail experiences and my frustration with bad trail experiences. I started with the basics, a nice figure-8. But he's so good at figure-8s now that he can do them whilst taking off and whinnying.

So I made the exercise harder. Fine, if you have so much energy that you can so such impressive things as taking off, changing directions, AND whinnying, then you surely can do shoulder-in at the trot.

Yes he fucking can. And he's awesome at it. He gave me the most amazing shoulder-in at the trot! Granted it was still a bit tense and retracted in the neck, but it hardcore existed. Even through that tension, I could feel the engagement and collection that is deep within this horse. He was incredibly steady both in bend and angle. He felt downright laterally supple, again even through the tension. When I get my horse back... I just can't fucking wait.

Wandering around the barn

Totally willing. Someone needs a mane pull but won't let me do
more than a few pulls at a time before stepping on me

Well with that, we may as well tackle all of Second level, right? So off we went in renvers, which was actually not bad, and haunches-in, which was excellent to the right and acceptable to the left. I rode all the trot patterns through Second, even throwing in the 1-3 pattern of a leg yield zig zag and the 10m circles riding across the ring E-B between them (no halt though omg I was not about to stop to let him use his brain for evil).

So on top of the shit sundae that he's been giving me as rides in the last week, there's a tiny bit of delicious progress. It may not be the progress I was expecting to be making (like um relaxation and lengthening of the frame), but the lateral work is the cherry on top of the massive pile of shit that he has been giving me recently. And I fucking love cherries.

At least when I do finally get my sensitive, relaxed horse with most of a brain back, he'll have all the lateral work through Third. Perfect timing for a debut at Training level!

A very scientific graph of our progress. And I have
a statistical model that will predict the level of
crazy at any given day, excellent. 

Rain Dancer

My pony had fun today after it sprinkled (I hope this video works...).

I decided not to stop him, the footing is good out there, he was being super light on his feet, and he's quite strong these days so I'm not as worried about his tendons (but we'll see what they look like tomorrow...).

Surprisingly, the ride was excellent despite his silliness in the paddock before. He was a touch spooky but went right to work in the arena.

Some recent instagrams!

We worked on the basics- connection, energy, straightness- first and then played a bit with transitions and that shoulder-in to renvers movement from Second test 3. The transitions were great, he's really understanding the canter to trot transition (I tend not to do them, woops) now and after a bunch of trot-walk transitions, he was super through.

The shoulder-in to renvers is something I wanted to play with because of the weakness in the half pass. Sure enough, the renvers was questionably on the bit at first. Eventually he got much better- supple and round. Such a good pony!

One of my many end-of-Rico's-career projects: trying to get my
ribbons displayed in a better way than shoved in a bag

We then worked a bit on the two tempis. I didn't want to try any ones just in case we do them tomorrow, but the twos were excellent.

Yeah I don't have much to say about today on the Rico front. When he's good and we aren't doing hard stuff, the rides are quite uneventful, which isn't a bad thing, but it makes for a boring blog post. Tomorrow I have my final lesson with Heidi before the show, that will be more interesting!

In the hills

In other news, I took my bike down to the bike shop to fix it- the brakes are too tight (I guess) which basically means that I'm on a resistance bike while I'm trying to have a leisurely ride. I was getting so tired after only a few miles, ugh. They called me tonight and said it's done! So I'll be picking it up tomorrow after my lesson. Hopefully the weather gets better so I can actually ride it.

Rogue Hands

It's becoming more and more apparent that I have little to no control over my left hand. I'm starting to become concerned that one day it's going to commit a felony and I'll be blissfully unaware of why I'm schlepped off to prison.

The last couple of days have not been as positive as the days before them. It all started with a ride on Friday where my left hand made it impossible for my horse to connect to the left rein, so he barged out the right side and I was quite frustrated, having no idea what was possessing him to do such a thing. The lack of connection and serious heaviness on the left rein continued through the weekend and on Monday I gave up keeping him on the bit so that I could stop all the pony wrestling and have a nice ride.

So I went to my lesson with Tracey and told her that I was having problems with heaviness and crookedness again. He's leaning right, he's pulling on the left rein, he's not responding to my right leg... It turns out that only one of those is Rico's fault. Of course he leans right and feels heavy on the left rein, she said, you would be too if someone was pulling on the left rein. Damnit! My vow to never have a lesson working on the same thing twice has been broken. I've already had this lesson.

Luckily Tracey had a plethora of new exercises to address these recurring problems so I didn't have to have a repeat of exercises. Most of these exercises were aimed at addressing the underlying problem of Rico being unresponsive to my right leg which is what leads me to feel that pulling on the left rein is a good correction (surprise! It's not).

To address the straightness issue, we tracked to the left on a large circle that I kept making smaller. Even after this lesson, I still don't understand a hundred percent what exactly I'm doing and how to fix it.  All I know is that I'm pulling on my left rein. So I threw my left hand forward and dropped the connection. That was wrong, obviously. Tracey said to keep the connection and move him forward into it.

What... If I didn't know Tracey well, I'd think she was nuts. She wants my horse, who felt more like a burlap sack of bricks that I was lugging around that day than a dressage horse, to connect to a rein that he is pulling on? Oh wait, who's doing the pulling? Hmmm.

Once as I kind of figured out what to do with my left hand to avoid being scolded (still unsure, need more lessons), we did some walk-trot transitions and then worked on shoulder-in on the circle to the left. From the shoulder-in, which perpetually needs less bend because I pull on the goddamn left rein like it's a rope at the end of which my family is dangling off a cliff, we rode into renvers. Wow is renvers difficult on a circle. To the left, Rico needed to really connect to the left rein without me pulling on the right rein or crossing the right rein over his neck to get him to do it.

After the left, we tracked right which I thought was going to be easier. I was wrong. It turns out that because I pull on my left rein like it's a door that says push ends up really screwing up the bend to the right, causing my horse to lean inward. When he leans inward, my first response is to pull more on the left rein because pfft that fixes everything. We rode shoulder-in, which was a challenge in itself since Rico is a little unresponsive to my right leg. Once as we got an acceptable shoulder-in, we transitioned to renvers. All hell broke loose, I essentially did it by yanking on the left rein like I was trying to start a chainsaw which then threw him onto his right shoulder and in on the circle which Tracey said was not renvers, despite how much I wished it was.

After doing this exercise on the circle, we did the second level movement on the straight line where you transition from shoulder-in to renvers. I struggled with not creating the renvers by leaning back and hauling on the left rein, which was my answer in both directions.

Stepping into canter, I was immediately told to let go of the left rein, in response to which I invited Tracey to follow me around for two weeks and yell the same phrase at me over and over again as I rode various horses. The canter seemed to go okay to the right, I was able to ride a pretty decent half pass in that direction as long as Rico stayed off my right leg and into my left rein. To the left, however, I could barely ride in a straight line.

I had to go back to walk several times to get the feel of it, but by the end of the lesson, I was quite a bit more coordinated to the left!


After my lesson I loosened Rico's noseband and girth, then sat down on the mounting block to watch the next lesson. I was only planning on staying for the first few minutes of the lesson but Rico is the most patient horse ever so he snoozed in the corner the whole time without moving. What a good pony!

I was walking back to the trailer and chatting with the rider who rode after me when Rico reached around to itch his side and then started yanking me toward the trailer. I didn't think anything of it and pulled back on him but realized quickly that something was very wrong. It turns out that he got his curb chain hook stuck on his girth! He didn't panic, but kind of just turned in circles slowly, obviously confused. I tried to pull the girth away from the hook but that didn't work and Rico started to lay down. I knew that if he laid down, he'd probably break his neck, so I ran to the other side and undid the girth, pushing the saddle toward his face.

Thankfully everything ended up okay, except that his curb chain hook is totally destroyed and his neck is sore. My project before the weekend is to go get another one and figure out how to make it a breakaway one...