Unwinding Ridden Work

As I mentioned yesterday, I bought a saddle and rode TC in it! Actually, I've ridden him in it twice now and I'm genuinely looking forward to riding him in it today. 

I was glad that on the first day, I was able to grab some video. And I was also grateful to be able to send those videos to Kate and get her opinion on them. It's really hard to see my own horse with fresh eyes and I am really struggling with looking at this situation objectively. It's been a mix of emotions where I feel really horrible that we got to this place, and really frustrated (both with me and with him a little), and because of that, I can't really break things down as easily just watching the video by myself.

I have no horse photos but I took a day off on
Tuesday to both go birding by the coast and to go
to TC's breeder's Celebration of Life

The few things I noticed were:

- We are both really defensive of each other, it's like I'm preparing for him to balk and he's preparing for me to stuff him forward. I look very hesitant in my riding, but in the same way you're hesitant when you're super frustrated but trying to remain calm. Like there's a hardness living inside of my hesitation. 

- He's not letting me in, I feel like I'm sitting outside of him and if I try to sit into him at all, he gives me a warning about balking. I described it as when I'm helping someone write code who doesn't have a basic understanding of the language, so I'm like, half asking them to write it and half literally spelling it out for them. And then I see what they've written and I'm like... I mean technically that will run but that's... just weird. 

Kate saw all of that as well, but also pointed out a mechanic he's fallen into with his hind end, where his right hind sweeps under his body but not in a carrying way, it stiffens straight and then his left hind kind of pole vaults over it. That was a really huge realization and I think will change things for us. But I've got to give it more thought and try to feel it a bit better before I write about it. 

His breeder was quite the character,
I will really miss her, I've had a few
losses recently and while this one
was not completely unexpected, it was
still a loss of a very influential person
in my (and TC's) life <3

There were good things too - for the most part, he had a pretty pleasant expression on his face! He looks sound and happy enough to do his work. And he hasn't been bolting or balking much. 

And while I've got some weird stuff going on in my pelvis, I still maintained quite a good mechanic! It's funny, I think the pelvis thing is the fact that I rehabbed my hip injury all this year. I feel great, I did physical therapy and now I work with a personal trainer who helped me come up with a very effective program that has allowed me to avoid surgery! But now my hips are quite a lot looser. Stronger yes, but much looser. And I think a lot of my riding mechanic depended on my hips being a little tight. So now there's this slightly odd twisty thing I'm doing with my hips in my posting mechanic. 

I see my trainer for a private session (I normally do groups with my gym buddies since it's more affordable and more fun that way!) soon, so I need to really take inventory of what is going on so that we can talk about it and get me a bit better stabilized for riding. But it's progress! Even if I'm a bit wonky right now, my hip hasn't hurt at all while riding and I'm really not as unfit as I thought I'd be.

It was a nice day to just wander along the coast
with friends and family, and then go celebrate her

On the second day, armed with some of Kate's exercises (who I am very thankful for, since I seem incapable of doing any critical thinking about the horse right now), I decided that I wanted to try to improve the connection. This is the purpose of me riding him - because I have more influence over it, so if I can't get him well connected, we may as well go back to long lining. 

Back in the day, this horse had the dreamiest connection, he was tough to get there, but once there it was like I could draw him into the work I wanted him to do. We lost that along the way, and I think I'd really like to get him back to that place. Especially since showing is not really a huge goal of mine (like obviously I will show him a little if he comes back since he loves it, but it's not the primary driver), so we can take things slow and we don't have to stick within the confines of a test. I do think that's what happened, slowly but surely he had to do a thing NOW and my trainers were in my ears making that very clear. I don't think that's bad, I just think that it caused a loss of trust. But now I get to do it my way!

Meanwhile Christmas exploded at my
workplace and I sat next to this festive
pillow the next morning for breakfast

The first half of the ride was me battling with the frustration of his warm up - he just takes longer these days and I'm trying to figure out what the right balance is between hustling him a little bit forward during it, and leaving him completely alone (which feels like reinforcing him being behind my leg). I do think it's probably better if I longe him through it, but I've been skipping that because I'm greedy and want to ride. 

Side bar- this reminds me of a client I had whose horse would take exactly twenty minutes to warm up, regardless of what you did. When I rode her, I'd get up in my half seat and just do trot sets, then she'd be ready to work. But my client would come to me each week with a new theory that if she just does X exercise (which took her twenty minutes to discover) it worked super well. Then she'd start with that exercise and wouldn't you know it, the horse wouldn't immediately warm up and the client would be frustrated. 

Then, the middle part of the ride was me fighting the urge to just put him on the damn bit. He was floating above and away from me and would give me his nose, tucked nicely like the little faker his friesian breeding encourages him to be, but I had zero access to his back or the base of his neck. I resorted to pulling on the face since that's a tried and true method (that doesn't work but it FEELS like it works. It's like using an AI assistant at work, feels like progress but at the end of the day, it just produces spaghetti code that sure, you've tested a lot, but still doesn't work - lots of work metaphors today). During this part, I was working on some shallow loops, and we were absolutely all over the place. 

And then finally I took a moment to use my brain (very hard right now) and decided to go back to something Tracey used to make me do - hold onto the tab on my saddle pad to give me an idea of how steady my hands are (or are not). I did it enough when TC was younger that it kind of puts us both in a better place. And I'm also so unbelievably out of riding shape and practice that the moment I did it, it made me realize how loose in the tack I had gotten over time, and with this new flexi-hip. 

We also had our year-end social and
they had this random candy bar

Slowly, over the course of a few trot sets, he started to really come onto the bit properly, not just faking it, but I could feel and see in his neck/back that he was much better connected. And I finally got that same feeling I'd had years and years ago, that I could just draw him through the exercises. We rode our shallow loops without them feeling so drunk, and I could feel him start to tune in like "oh this is interesting" for the first time at the very least since last winter, if not longer. And, when we went back to the barn, he had a little hypertrophy in his trapezius (both cervical, and I could convince myself thoracic too), which has only really happened on trail rides so far. 

I kind of couldn't believe it? Our second ride back and by the end of it, we got to a place where I'd be super happy to stay indefinitely? 

Anyway, we have a LONG way to go, this could have just been a fluke, we could still see the same pattern happen next summer where he begins to feel terrible again, I could just be making this up as I careen into the end of the year after a really stressful half... but I'm relishing in the fact that this is the first time I'm genuinely looking forward to riding my horse in quite a long time. 

Tackling Rideability

This weekend I had a ton of stuff on my to do list. And I got almost all of it done! On my list was certainly to ride TC, and we had a couple of really great rides.

Friday's ride was... exciting. Like I said last week, TC isn't a fan of the rain, so he gets a bit tense and zippy in it. He also gets tight when he's not been out for a day, and when he's tight like that, he bucks a bit. I think it's honestly that he's trying to loosen up, which he needs to find a better way to do, but it's not him being bad.

So Friday it was raining and he was bucky, so we did a lot of that and a little bit bugged the other riders in the arena. It's not worth talking about, since Saturday's ride was so phenomenal!

I made him take selfies and this one is so silly

We started in walk and really focused on getting him stepping forward and into the bridle. He is really figuring out how to cover more ground at the walk, which is really nice to feel. He's always had a really good walk, but it's always been like he's walking through molasses. Saturday he perked up quite well and we rode some leg yields and shoulder-in within the walk, before playing a little bit with the turns on the haunches.

Despite wanting to do them very slowly, he's got the mechanic down at this point. There is no stepping out and there is only sticking if I accidentally turn him too tight. All but one was great on Saturday though, and I started to get fussier about making sure that he's still reaching for the bridle, getting him a little quicker behind, and adding a titch more bend to it all to prepare for turning them into real pirouettes.

The trot is always great from the start when I take my time doing a nice long walk warm up with a lot of lateral work, and sure enough on Saturday, it was pretty good from the start. We started with some figures, working on getting him reaching to the bridle and stepping off of my aids. He's been super in the bridle lately, and my goal now with the connection is to continue to make it a bit more robust and continue to build strength within it so that he doesn't ever feel like he needs to retract his neck to regain balance. So that's a good thing to work on in warm up.

Trying to get as much ranch wandering in as possible before it
starts raining again

We rode some leg yields in warm up and they were great! He still steps off my left leg a thousand times better than he steps off my right. Kate had the opposite experience, so I'm wondering if something is going on in my position that is making it hard for him to step off the right leg for me. So that will be a good question for whoever future trainer is when I can finally grab a lesson. We worked on continuing to improve the cross over in the leg yield left and keep him a bit more upright on the outside in the leg yield right. He stayed really well out to both reins in each leg yield, which is great, since he tends to either not connect to the right rein (when LYing left) or busts through it (when LYing right).

The sitting trot is for sure coming along and I'm so happy with where it's at. I know I still have a bit of the Pac Man abdomen going on but my backline is ON and it's getting stronger. I find that focusing on getting the backline turned on as it passes over my butt is really helpful. For the most part, it wants to stop at my mid thigh, so focusing on inching it further has helped a lot. His trot isn't feeling too bouncy anymore, but I know it is because I'm sore quite literally every single day I ride him.

From there we did our canter work. I'm starting to tackle the rideability in the canter quite a bit more and Saturday was no exception. The throughness at the canter is finally coming along okay. Still not at the level of trot/at the level I want it to be at, but he's actually really coming over his back a lot of the time. Until, that is, we have to go in a straight line. To the right, it's not bad at all and I can usually get him going totally straight into the mirror. To the left, he really struggles to keep the right side of his body up. He legitimately feels like he's going to fall over it.

He's not a fan of selfies

To fix this, I did some shallow loops. To the right, they were really great. He's super rideable in them, doesn't threaten to change, I can actually ride the canter instead of feeling like I have to hold it all together. To the left, it's really hard to get him to make the turn at the top of it. He'll come off the rail fine, but then when we go to turn back, he feels like he has to lean hard right to get back. It looks fine in the mirror, but the feeling isn't great and the throughness goes away. The exercise for sure exacerbated what I was feeling on the straight line. It's honestly all about the right rein, remember in the leg yield how he either falls away from it or through it? There's no INTO it involved. So I redoubled my efforts to ride him INTO the right rein as I came around the corner and we had a much smoother movement.

Still though, that shit is hard! To end, we came back to trot and played a bit with transitions within the gait. I really need to get my shit together with the mediums in trot and canter. I feel like I can't ride them quite yet in canter because of that right rein business, but the trot is very ready to begin to develop it. The lengthening is fine, but it can get a bit unrideable, where it feels like I slingshot him across the diagonal and hope for the best. I mean, I rode them like that for many years on Rico, and I'm not too worried about First level, but beyond that, I want him a bit more rideable. So we started with just adding power to our collected trot and seeing what happened. He got real fancy and I let it out a bit until I couldn't sit it as easily, then brought it back.

At the end, we wandered around the ranch and he got lots of pets and cookies. He can be kind of a dingbat sometimes (see: all the rides last week in the rain), but I really am having a ton of fun with him at this stage. He finally feels super accessible and it's just a matter of improving the throughness and collection, and maintaining all of that good stuff through new movements.

Thanks, TC

The culprit

Unfortunately we couldn't replicate the ride on Sunday. I came out to the barn to ride and TC had blown up a leg. I really wish it hadn't been the suspensory leg, but it was. The swelling was further down than the suspensory, kind of in the middle of the leg, and only on the inside. It wasn't hot and it was squishy. There was a small cut right at the top of the swelling, and he was totally sound, so here's hoping that he was just dicking around and that his leg decided to go nuts over a small cut. It happened recently on the other leg too.

We did a lot of walking and then a short ride just to keep him sane. By the end, his leg looked much better, so I gave him a gram of bute and we'll see what his leg looks like today! Really hoping that it's nothing serious.

Shallow Loops and Lengthenings

This week started off really crazy. Monday and Tuesday were the dressage days of the Western US Championships for USPC and I had students in it. Everyone did really well and it was super fun to see the variety of horses and riders, especially when musical freestyles were required from everyone and everyone was under 25 (I think). So fun!

Except that I was up at the crack of dawn every day. Monday I got home early enough to ride TC, but Tuesday I was at the show into the afternoon and then taught into the evening. So Wednesday I woke up feeling kind of exhausted, but happy to see the baby horse.

My view from just outside the warm up. Note ominous clouds that
dumped a small amount of rain on us.

Once again, he was pretty awesome. I wonder when I'm going to just think this is normal. We headed to the neighbor's and got to work. He started out a bit slow, but quickly got on board with the forward that I've been requiring lately. The really nice thing about this horse is that getting him forward is a catalyst. He's basically unrideable until he GOES, but that's really all you have to do- once as he is forward, he is easy to bend in both directions, once you have bend, he is connected. Cool.

We did a lot of changes of direction, since I knew I wanted to play with the Training 3 loop. I really want him to be able to differentiate between changing the bend and changing directions. I do this by riding straight while changing directions, insisting that he change the bend first, THEN turn. This way I can seamlessly change the bend without him falling onto the new inside shoulder and losing balance. There's nothing like a loss of lateral balance to make that T3 loop look like your horse got into the liquor cabinet.

The one on the left

He was a little sticky into trot, but I don't hold him to any standard in his first transitions, not yet. The connection was excellent, but he did get me nagging (woops). I actually shortened my stirrups a hole because I realized that he was bouncing me out of the tack a little, which was causing my ankles to come up, and when my ankles come up and I balance on my stirrup, I can't use my calf properly. So up my stirrups go until I can control that! I remember having to do that on Rico due to his big trot, mayyybe indicative that TC will have a big fancy trot one day?

Once as that was taken care of, he was nicely forward (and therefore bending and connected, nice!). I opted to canter early, since he's always so much better connected and forward after canter. The canter was great, I primarily worked on keeping him first and foremost round, and then working toward getting him to turn a little better (related to our straightness woes) and getting him better through.

Look at this guy! He's almost horse-like!

In both directions now, I know I can get throughness for at least a few steps every time we circle/go around the ring. I'm still riding on extra large figures because I love what it's doing to his canter. Eventually we'll spiral those in and get him stronger on circles that can actually fit into a dressage court. I haven't talked about the downwards lately, but they're basically amazing. He realized that I would be there for him after the downward transition to help him balance so when he sets back to prepare to trot, he seeks contact automatically and stays connected through. Sometimes the balance is a little off, or he'll set back too much and almost walk, but he's just right there. I used to have to work harder to get him back to me.

Back in trot, he was just great. We first rode some leg yields at the trot (which were excellent! He slows down in them still, but he does not come off the bit anymore) and some lengthenings across the diagonal. I've said how much I don't like doing long diagonals in practice, but he seriously struggles with the idea of lengthening on the diagonal. Once as we did them toward his favorite gate, he understood. They aren't big or fancy yet, but he truly understands that he must take larger steps vs quicker steps. I'm going to let these lengthenings grow slowly over the next year and hopefully he'll have pretty excellent ones before we get to First.

More baby cow pictures because I can't resist his cuteness

Getting a bath

To introduce the loop, I first rode serpentines and made sure he was changing the bend while I kept control over his shoulders and therefore his lateral balance, just like in warm up. Then we rode the loops. Hot damn those loops are easy with him. I feel like I finally know exactly what they're supposed to feel like, since it's been ages since I rode them myself.

But obviously there are places we could improve. He's a little easier to bend right than left, so I had to keep a nice hold on my left rein without letting it get rigid. If I had to choose, I'd say that he was easier tracking right than left. To the right, he naturally wants to bend so all I had to do was assure that he was stepping into my right rein and not falling over the left (which I do automatically) in order to switch the bend. To the left, the beginning was good, and the first switch of bend was good, but maybe twice he fell over his left shoulder rather than changing back to the left bend. I threw in a couple of steps of leg yield at the end on the second attempt at this and that cured him of it.

He is so funny

I'm pretty pleased. I didn't deal with the straightness head on (there are so many other things to do!) but I did have it in mind throughout the ride. I'm hoping we can look at that at the clinic this weekend, but he may not be relaxed enough. I mean if he hasn't gotten the first few rungs of the training scale down, we'll probably deal with those exciting issues. Like tension and retraction and rigidity. All the stuff we've eliminated at home, fun. But I can't expect him to be like he is at home at another facility. He's not Rico, as I keep having to remind myself over and over again.

On Friday, Ali said she may want to do a trail ride, which I think would be great for TC just before the clinic, which is on Sunday. It should mean that he's nice and relaxed!

Give me bread!