Quality of the Gaits

An alternate title for this post is "At Least He's Cute"

Fair warning, this is a VERY long post. There are gifs though.

I'm warning you

I'm studying for the L program with the materials provided right now and figured I'd post a little bit about what I'm reading. I'll eventually make a master post about studying (sorry I can't post them because they're copyrighted) and link any posts I write that were inspired by it.


The quality of the gaits section is FASCINATING to me, so fascinating that I decided to write an entire post about it and evaluate TC's gaits.

I've primarily been told very basic things in my past about gait quality. When you see a good walk, trot, or canter, you just *know* it's high quality. Good quality gaits take your breath away and bad quality gaits look uncomfortable for horse and rider. But the L program materials really break it down into the biomechanics of the way the horse moves. I, of course, became immediately curious about TC's gaits. He wasn't bred for his gaits and I bought him because of his mind and trainability, and got lucky that his gaits weren't bad.

For this post, I grabbed gifs from TC's first year undersaddle, his highest scoring Training Level test, his highest scoring First Level test, and from his Second Level (! only a schooling show !) test last year. All tests scored in the 70s and all had him at 7s on gaits or above. The Second Level test... we honestly weren't ready for it, so it's kind of Second-Level-Lite. I've also posted some random pictures throughout his time with me.

Look at that hind leg separation, we'll get to that later

Walk

The walk is a four beat gait with no moment of suspension. Because it has no suspension, this means that you cannot talk about impulsion in the walk, it doesn't exist.

When evaluating the quality of the walk, all four beats should be evenly spaced (the horse should form a V under their body on the same side), there should be good freedom in the shoulders and articulation of the joints, the neck should oscillate forward and back, and the horse should cover ground with overtrack. The horse should slink along using their entire body to walk.


Early On 

He was so dark! Okay so here we have baby TC (he had just turned 4, about 6mo undersaddle) schooling in the field at home (he now lives in that paddock you see on the left hand side at the end of the gif lol)

I'm seeing good Vs and good overstep, but a faulty oscillation. Rather than his walk going through his entire body and out through his nose, his nose nods downward and inward rather than forward and back. So if you cut off his body, his legs look like he's walking very well, but there's not the slinky quality that the judges are looking for, there's not enough freedom to it.



Training Level

This is right after trotting and includes some of the free walk.

Here we see maybe lesser quality Vs and overstep, but less faulty oscillation (not eliminated though) and more slink. He's walking through his body more rather than just using his legs, but because his body is so involved, and that is a weakness, I think the quality of the step itself went downhill a bit. Super interesting.


First Level

Okay so this gif starts juuust as I get into walk from a trot transition and you can see that the walk improves as time goes on, downward transitions have always been an absolute disaster with this horse for a miriad of reasons. At the beginning, you can't see the Vs as easily and he's not oscillating as much, though better than he was before for sure. He still has good overstep though. As time goes on, you can see him start to use his body more (esp in the free walk where he gets that freedom of shoulder finally).


Second Level

This is right after the rein back and before the free walk.

Now we finally see the horse moving better through his body, he's got his back involved and his nose isn't nodding quite so badly. He's using his shoulder so much more in the medium walk now too, something I didn't see before. And yet, the Vs still could be more present. And that's what we've been working on these days.


Overall Walk

I like TC's walk. I think he has a pure gait but that his issues with using his back and stretching to contact (stand by lol this is a THEME) have made things tricky. I like where he's at using his body and stepping into contact now, it's completely changed him. But we still have a long way to go to get his Vs more clear and find more slink. We are working really hard to add more power to his walk right now, and I think I know why. In that last clip, he is still hesitant to really let the walk go through his entire body, so now we're pushing him to do that.

There's some inside hind leg under body action, but hey Megan,
whatcha doing with that right rein?

Trot

The trot is a two beat gait with a moment of suspension.

When evaluating the quality of the trot, a horse should be active and elastic without losing the moment of suspension. The horse should reach under themselves with their hind legs and not put their hind foot down with the cannon bone near vertical (not reaching under themselves enough aka sewing machine trot, a term I snagged from an old trainer). The tempo should not be hurried or too slow, causing a loss of balance.


Early On 

So, with TC, I like how springy he is (even if my abs don't), he's got a great moment of suspension and good rhythm in the trot naturally.

The thing I'm going to focus on, which as been TC's main issues are this: balance and hind end engagement. TC's MO has been to rely on his knee action for balance and push his hind legs out behind him, which we can see here. I'm pretty impressed that baby TC does get somewhat engaged, but you can see how freakishly far back his front foot comes under me and how much he leaves his hind end out behind him. There may be the appearance of good swing, but it's very clear that he is pulling himself along on the forehand. That appearance is only there because he's *not* using his hind legs, he's just letting them float along behind him. Of course it's easy to swing hind legs when they aren't carrying any weight.

In pausing and repausing the clip, his front foot often doesn't leave the ground until it's behind my seat. And his hind foot lands just behind my seat as well vs under it. The hind foot stays on the ground far too long as well. This is indicative of him being on the forehand. Even though he's got that big front end to make you think otherwise.


Training Level

Okay this test sucked for trot work so you get it from the side.

The biggest change I see right away is that TC is WAY more balanced. His tempo is under control, he's not flinging himself across the ground as he was. He may not look as fancy, but the previous trot was completely disorganized, while this one is nicely put together in comparison.

His hind legs are still not landing under me at all. If anything, the organization has made him not come as much from behind and that's a common thing I think. Maybe if I were Charlotte Dujardin, I could take the above trot and organize it without losing quality, but it's apparent that we've lost some of his freedom and power by asking him to not be completely out of control. Let's see if I get it back at First level.


First Level

This trot section is just after I finished a leg yield and before going into a lengthening.

Oh hey, some more freedom! I'm loving the change between Training and First for the trot. You can see his confidence within the organization of his gait (steady, slower tempo in comparison to the early years) is rising and with that, we get some more power and elasticity. His lower back is way more free here than it was at Training level.

The disappointing thing about this is that the hind legs have not improved all that much. He is reaching under a bit better, sure, but he's still losing his hind legs out behind him.


Second Level

This is in between the shoulder-ins at 2-1.

Even at Second level, we still see TC's tendency to leave his front foot on the ground too long. BUT it's majorly improved. His front foot doesn't get to the back of my seat anymore, it stops about half way through me. Phew! We also see a huge change in how he's using his hind legs. They still aren't nearly as engaged as they need to be, his hind foot is reaching just under my heel, but I have stopped losing them out the back as much. If you look at how much he's pushing backward in his hind legs during this video vs the very first one, that's a huge difference.

Don't let me get too excited, check this out. If you look at this clip below, which is right after the medium trot, you can see that this tendency is still very much apparent.

Overall Trot 

I've always loved TC's freedom and suspension in the trot, but we're facing some MAJOR issues in the collection as he climbs the levels. He is basically on the forehand, even at Second level where he should be showing a collected trot.

It's not all a disaster though. First, we are trending in the right direction. I have managed to wrangle the hind legs a bit in all the training we've done. Second, it seems like lateral work is really helpful for him! The difference between his hind end after the medium trot and his hind end after the shoulder-in is stark. So we will definitely be living in shoulder-in for days and also being sure to ride several steps of it after any mediums we do, especially in schooling. I already have a TON of exercises in mind to get him using his hind end better

Last fall, lateral work does a pony good, I gotta get back on it

Canter

The canter is a three beat gait with a moment of suspension.

The horse should oscillate between hind and forelegs and the neck should be allowed to shift forward and downward when the horse is on the forelegs. The front legs and hind legs should be well separated and the hind legs should strike the ground before the cannon bones are vertical and all legs should leave the ground right after the cannon bones reach vertical (ESPECIALLY FRONT LIMBS, they do not pass vertical ever).

The canter should show scope, reach, and elasticity. Problems can be a lack of suspension so the horse appears flat (Maryism = not on round wheels), a lack of reach with the outer limbs.


Early On 

Left lead

Right lead

Oh hot mess of a baby horse. First, we see absolutely no (correct) oscillation of the neck and no movement through his back. Again, I started with very much a leg mover, just like we saw in walk and in trot. He does not naturally want to get his back or neck involved.

His inside hind leg reaches well, better on the left lead, and it lands with somewhat decent separation from his outside hind leg. His outside front leg stays on the ground way too long and both hind legs also pass vertical before being picked up. That all indicates that he's on the forehand. Just watching him, it doesn't appear to me that he's all that much on the forehand, time to change the way my mind decides if horses are on the forehand!

Training Level

Left Lead

Right Lead

Things again have improved in that TC can now ride a 20 meter circle without being completely out of control, but with this wonderful organization we see that he's lost some of the power and reach he had as a baby. His inside hind leg doesn't reach as much, though it doesn't fall back behind vertical anymore either. His outside front leg does fall behind vertical, indicating that he's still on the forehand at Training level.

The oscillation/use of his body is better here, you can actually see some neck movement. But like the walk, it starts with more nodding than oscillating (and more to the right than left, guess whose hands are worse to the left), which you can see here. It's good he's doing SOMETHING with it vs being frozen, but you can see how long it has taken me to get him to use anything other than his legs (and even those aren't used well in the canter).


First Level

Left Lead

Right Lead

Trending similar to the trot, we've now gained some power back but still not gotten nearly as much quality back . His hind legs aren't all that separated, though you can see that the inside one is not losing itself behind anymore (except a bit at the beginning of the left lead, which was right after the canter lengthening, which tells me that he's using the front end to push back vs sitting with the hind legs at the end of the lengthening).

Finally we're seeing almost normal oscillation of the neck and he's starting to use his back a bit better too. I don't hate his canter for First, but you can see that he's not at all thinking about collection at this point, and this was just a month before we debuted at Second in the schooling show.


Second Level

Left Lead

Right Lead

Here we're seeing way better reach with the hind legs on occasion. You can see he really wants to put that inside hind leg down early and does a fair amount, but that he is starting to use it to balance himself FINALLY. He's also got moments where the outside front leg doesn't get behind vertical! On occasion, he loses the verticality of the outside hind leg, but I think that one will take the longest for him. 

The oscillation in the collected canter will be less, but we do see that he's using his body way more than he did as a training level (and before then) horse. 

Outside front leg definitely not leaving the ground at vertical

Overall Canter

I think TC's canter has improved quite a lot, especially given that it is a harder gait to improve than th trot. Like I've said in recent posts, it's a REALLY difficult canter for me and I think we can see why. He started out so unbelievably disorganized and on the forehand. Like, if this horse didn't have that big neck, I probably would have fallen right off the front. I remember absolutely dreading working on the canter work every day.

But, the Second level canter gives me some hope. He isn't nearly there yet, but there are steps where he stays engaged and picks up his legs at vertical.

You can just tell that the inside hind leg is not going to come
under his body nearly enough

General Thoughts About TC

This was super fun, but SO ENLIGHTENING.

My first thought in getting to the end of this is: We. Are. Fucked.

After waiting a few days, I think that's me being dramatic.

TC manages to look way fancier than he is, and when breaking down the gaits like this, you can really see what his tendencies are while ignoring the flash that is his enormous gaits. I need to be way more on top of how he uses his hind legs. Way more.

Just like I fundamentally changed the way he used his body (from not-at-all to starting-to-get-there), I must now fundamentally change how he uses his hind legs. Sounds like a good project for this summer, fall, winter, and next spring before we actually go out at Second level, and then hopefully we'll be ready to go Third shortly after that.

Lateral work seems to help him, while the bigger medium gaits destroy any good work I got out of him. This means I can use the lateral work to help him get stronger and that I need to train his medium to collected transition like crazy.

Insanely on the forehand, but Megan, his withers are still above
his haunches, I know... don't buy a friesian

General Thoughts About Judging Gaits

In reading about judging, gaits are IMPORTANT. I knew this, but it was in a way more negative light in my mind. It's apparent that riders can just buy horses with nice gaits and score way better than someone who works their ass off on a horse who moves poorly.

But training should improve the horse's gaits, not mess them up. So this is why horses with freer, more expressive gaits score better. As a judge, you can't just arbitrarily decide how fancy the horse started out and then try to hold that constant.

Judges can only judge you on what they see that day. And if they see 7 gaits, they see 7 gaits, regardless of if you took your would-be-scoring-a-5-without-your-amazing-training horse up to a 7 or if you took your would-be-scoring-a-9-without-your-fucked-up-hands and brought it down to a 7.

I ALWAYS forget that horses can be trained. I need to tattoo it
to the inside of my eyelids the next time TC won't stop squeaking

Here are my major takeaways:

1) Buy the nicest gaits you can to give you a boost in starting point. At the very least, say NO to rhythm problems, especially in canter. BUT make sure you get gaits you can ride. Gaits you can ride are gaits you can improve. Gaits that are too big for you to do more than just cling onto the horse are gaits that you will (unintentionally) shut down.

2) Train the HELL out of the gaits. Movements don't matter nearly as much. You can be a little green in the shoulder-in on a horse you've carefully developed 8 gaits on and still score higher than someone who has a stellar shoulder-in on a horse who has had their gaits stunted by the rider.

3) I have way less sympathy for simultaneously complaining about horses not being fancy enough while also not working toward improving the gaits. Good dressage makes a horse more free, more uphill, more correct. Good dressage will result in better gaits scores. Do good dressage (but ughhhh it's so hardddd).

This last winter, that's a big improvement! I wish I had more
recent video 

I need a break from evaluating gaits, but I DO want to grab snip-its of Rico from an FEI test and look at his gaits. I worry it might make me realize how much I destroyed his gaits with my poor riding for so long.... but I do think it'd be interesting to see what faults he still showed at the highest level.

Ribcage Mobility

When I got back to the area on Monday evening, I was planning on riding. But when I got out to the barn, I found TC covered in dry sweat, dirt, and bug bites. So he got a good brushing, a hose down, and a hand walk (+ some hydroxyzine).

Love how over his back he gets

 Tuesday morning I did ride, though lightly. There's a really enormous fire in the hills nearby. It's not at risk of coming to the barn (Nicole had to reassure me since I don't know the area very well), but there is a lot of smoke in the air over us.

It's not so bad that I don't want to ride him in it, but it is there, so we may as well take it a little easy.

TC had also had three days off. He got walked on the eurocizer on Saturday, then got a full day off Sunday, then got his walk with me Monday night. Riding him Tuesday morning made me think that when I'm gone for longer than two nights, and when that involves a day where he doesn't leave his house, I need to pay someone to walk him or at least brush him/pay attention to him.

He was visibly a bit blah when I got him ready and that carried over to riding him. He did feel much better after the canter, and was giving me a really great trot by the end of the ride! So that was exciting. But I'll be gone for four nights later this month so I think I'll see if one of the college kids wants to take care of both of my animals (because my cat was BESIDE herself about me leaving) so that I don't come home to such desperate behavior. Sorry animals!

Wednesday I was super excited to have a whole day basically to run errands and catch up on things. One of those things was TC, and he was back to his normal self that day, phew.

Ugh my right leg is obnoxious, no wonder he doesn't want to
move over when I ask him to

I wanted to address an issue I've seen come up a few times in our work recently- the ribcage on the right side. TC really would prefer not to move his ribcage/right hind to the left. There are a lot of reasons this could be happening, the number one in my mind is that Rico also had trouble with this and there's one major thing they have in common... I ride them. But still, there isn't much that TC prefers not to do, so I will be addressing this in more ways than just training/blaming myself. Before that though, I figured that a good long lining session would give me information on what exactly is going on.

I haven't long lined at all at our barn because I'm not the world's biggest fan of the footing in the indoor (probably because people longe in there) and there's no round pen.

The moment I started long lining him to the left, I remembered why I love it so much. He immediately went to stretching over his back and I let him do that for a little bit before half halting and putting him up to the bridle a bit more. His trot got real fancy at that point and it was hard to focus on clicking when he was being good because I just wanted to stare at him lol.

I switched directions and took a good look at how he was using his right hind. It looks normal, he's sound and everything, but he is running into his rib cage on that side and can't really swing under as much as I want him to. So I brought him into walk and we did some shoulder-in in hand. He was able to get the angle without really moving his ribcage, so a bit more finagling and some clicks were necessary to really get him to lift on that side.

Clearly it was hard for him, but the horse is so game that by the end, I was able to gesture awkwardly at his ribcage on that side (roughly where my leg goes) to get him to move it out of the way and take a bigger step under his body.

Good pony moving your ribcage over

I hopped on after that because I had time to. Luckily Peony and Andy were out in the arena so I managed to get some video. TC's trot felt amazing, though his canter felt weird. Upon looking at the video, I just think he wasn't pushing enough from behind so it made the canter feel flat and stagnant.

The trot though! Definitely inspired me to long line more often. We started with just me asking for him to move his ribcage over and bend a bit more in each direction. This was way more successful than it had been the last time we rode, and his trot really got much better as we continued.

I'm definitely going to still look into finding him a good chiropractor up here and then do a lot of stretching (he's having to stretch before his grain now). We'll definitely add some long lining and in-hand work to this too. Aaaand I really need to address my right leg again. All in all, a really good day to kind of diagnose what is going on with his right side.

Weird canter? No, just needs leg

After our ride, TC got a bath, including scrubbing his mane. I don't wash his mane before shows because clean hair is harder to braid, but we don't have a show for quite some time (phew).

Until You Can't Get It Wrong

The last couple of lessons I've had have been super awesome. I always felt like I was at odds with my trainers and the level I was at, and to an extent my horse, because I was pushing so hard up the levels to get my medals. It feels really good to feel like part of the team rather than feeling like the person looking at the clock and shoving everyone along.

Since my first lesson, I've taken a step back from my put-on-all-the-movements mentality from the early spring and stepped back into where I was this last summer. I don't at all regret throwing all of the lateral work and a bunch of other movements on him (like he already has started on his changes, which I hope to perfect this fall/winter, no complaints having those started). But I'm really digging into the nitty gritty of the basics and assuring that I set them up in such a way that I don't have to have these little things that seem to follow me through all the levels. I feel like I'm taking on the quote someone said about not working until you get something right, but working until you can't get it wrong.

That tail

There are some key things that I've been working on that I wanted to write a bit about. Mostly because I love going back to these sorts of posts later and smile when I realize that I haven't had that one issue in months.

Connection 
Continuing the great work in the connection that Tracey has us focusing on. This is paramount to First level and probably the number one reason I backed off. He's still uncomfortable out in front of me. I could be ignoring that if I wanted to, and he'd probably eventually be fine out there, but I want him to gain enough confidence where it's not as much of a theme. With Rico the energy and roundness was always a theme, it followed us through the levels and we still got comments on it at the upper levels. With TC I want to eliminate the "behind the vertical" and "curling" comments before we get too far.

This is going to be really important for so so so many movements to be good. He can't do a good counter canter if he's btv. He certainly can't have anything like a medium gait while btv. He is going to have ugly changes if he's btv. He is not going to stay up to the bridle in the pirouettes. And to hell with piaffe and passage if the horse can't get his neck out. So we're going to fix this and we're going to fix it now. 

Obviously this needs work too so we're working on it every day,
definitely related to connection!

Transitions
They are for sure our weak point at this moment. I don't want to have the problem that I've had in the past at First where I still have a horse that walks a step into or out of the halt or at Second and beyond when the horse comes up off the bit for the first step into canter. I love the feeling of a horse that stays completely through in transitions, where the transitions can be used properly to improve the horse. Right now, TC's transitions don't improve him. They've stopped making things worse, and we can recover right away from the transitions if he gets a little braced, but I want every transition we do to create more and more throughness. And that isn't happening yet.

Specifically, here are the transitions we're working on (um it's all of them):

- Walk to trot transition. Need to focus on getting it without retracting his neck and coming slightly hollow. Currently he's not throwing his head toward me anymore, so that's progress. At this point I'm just really insisting that he stay up to the bridle and step into it when we go into trot.

- Trot to walk transition. He tends to want to get dead on the contact in the downwards, which is due to him not bending his hocks. So we're working on doing them within a little leg yield feeling or spiral out to get him to step under more and support himself. He also wants to slow way down in the walk right after the trot, so he's learning how to march after the transition.

- Trot to halt transition, and just square halts in general. These are bad. Not terribly bad, but every problem we have in the trot to walk transition is magnified in the trot to halt. I also once again regret not focusing on trick training the square halt prior to now. So we're slowly starting that now.

- Halt to trot transition. He stays connected for the most part, but we get real drunk coming into the trot. Not only does he need to figure out how to get the trot from the HALT and not from the walk, he also needs to stay straight. And that's hard. We struggle a touch with throughness as well, and I'm sure will struggle more with it once the transition is clean.

- Trot to canter transition. He still wants to get braced/hollow into this, it's MUCH better and I'm drilling it every day and figuring out how to communicate to him that he needs to stay through. One thing that is for sure is that when I ride the sitting trot properly, he is more likely to do it right. Um, duh.

- Canter to trot transition. These can be good or they can be TERRIBLE. He sometimes randomly just walks out of canter, and I know I will regret it, but I kind of just let him. I'm also using the spiral out feeling coming into trot, which gets his hind legs under him better, and Tracey recommended bringing his canter smaller. Sometimes that backfires because he stalls out, but for the most part a good half halt helps him quite a lot.

So good, but so much to do

Straightness and Suppleness
These are going hand in hand right now, as TC is straight when he is supple. This is all so much better- I keep forgetting which way is the hard way. But we're really focusing on getting his right hind better under him and getting me to give a bit more on my outside rein tracking left. He used to pop his shoulder so so much when tracking left that I tend to want to have a death grip on my right rein to prevent it. He's fine now, so I can chill.

I'm also using the mirrors to do some transitions on the long side to work on straightness and doing a LOT of changes of direction/serpentines to work on suppleness. Just keep swimming.


Sitting Trot
Finally, for me, I just need to get some muscle on me to learn to sit his trot. My back was quite painful the other day when I did a lot of it, so I'm trying to take it slow. I've been teaching more so I haven't had time to go to the gym or fit in other rides, so slow is key at this point to avoid me getting injured and having to take time off. His trot is getting easier for me to sit, so there is definitely hope!

Overall I'm having a good time fixing all this stuff. I'm really looking forward to the summer when we're a bit further along, but Training level schooling First (and er Second and a bit of Third) is a good place to be. 

Problems and Solutions

Monday's ride was a rough one. I wrote a post about it and the thing was so negative that I let it fester for a few days and sure enough, I felt much better later on. I will tell you about it though, just briefly, before we talk about Wednesday's ride.

The rough ride was primarily a result of me waking up in a bad mood. Bad moods are NOT okay for baby horses because I tend to expect more of horses and myself when I'm in a bad mood. Baby horses don't need that pressure. It definitely taught me that for the next year or two, if I'm in a bad mood, I should either go on a trail ride or work on something easy/fun (like cavallettis or ground work).

And the last of the new show pictures before I start recycling

So I wake up in a bad mood because I'm a morning person and wake up before 7am without fail sans alarm every single day. And I wake up full of adrenaline. So the likelihood that I can fall back asleep is very low once as I have woken up after 5:30. Even if I had stayed up really late the night before, which I did on Sunday.

I also woke up in pain, wrist pain and back pain together. I'm frustrated that my back isn't getting better, but I take full responsibility for this one. I caught the dumb on Sunday and popped on a client's horse without my brace and sat the trot because the stirrups were too short and I am so so so dumb. I am continuing to pay dearly for my mistake, hello sciatica.

Also, and I won't go into it: job drama, car drama, and my thesis is due to my advisor at the end of August. Stress! Plus, I won't claim that those judge's comments had no effect on me. I understand they were sort of ridiculous, but it doesn't feel good to be told harshly that your horse needs to go better in order to score well AT THE LOWEST LEVEL AT A SCHOOLING SHOW and that you're somehow preventing him from doing so, regardless of how exaggerated those statements were.

He is so cute

Monday morning we went to the neighbor's arena and he was just lazy. We started trotting and I felt my ankles come up and back, which was something I noticed in the pictures and was bothering me. So I pushed them down. So he tried to stop. Ugh. No. I realized I had been nagging again, which made me annoyed at myself for being stupid and at him for being lazy. We worked on that, but then he started getting tense, so I had to step back to get him to relax. Which made him lazy. Ugh. Hate the first two steps on the training scale.

The canter wasn't good. And keep in mind that I say this as a person who seems to expect the horse to get better every single time I ride him and who doesn't seem to understand that horses need time to develop strength and balance. So he actually was just cantering normally. I do still like that I can relax into the canter and put my leg on, but I suddenly desire roundness and more lateral balance despite not actually working on anything other than steering and bend. I didn't do much to address that on Monday because it was right around then where I realized that riding that day was a bad idea. We ended on a good note and I came home to vent on this blog and then not post about it.

Why, legs, why? Well, TC was bulging. Must train pony better

Wednesday's ride was everything that Monday's was not, which was nice because it was my birthday and it's nice to not have a shitty ride on your birthday! I came in with a plan and an idea of what I should expect from him given each problem we had on Monday. Here were my ideas:

Monday Problem: I nag at him to keep him going, this is making my position atrocious and making him lazy.
Wednesday Solution: Put my spurs up on my boot (consider switching to my longer ones to keep leg down) and keep my leg forward under me the whole time with my ankle slightly flexed. Make sure that he is forward in walk first, then go onto trot. Get on his case about being forward but give him LOTS of praise about being forward when he is. Do not panic if I need to nag a little bit. He isn't Rico, he doesn't know that this isn't how life works yet and I don't want him to be reactive.

Monday Problem: When he is forward, he gets tense

Wednesday Solution: I think this happens because of the connection, if I push him forward into rigidity, sure he will be more tense. I decided to first address this at the walk, getting him nice and round first, almost too round, then pushing him forward into the softness. Perfection. This worked miracles. 

Monday Problem: He isn't on the bit at the canter
Wednesday Solution: Ride on larger circles and at a faster pace so I can work on the roundness on a figure and at a pace that he is more comfortable with. Then make sure that I don't buy into the rigidity by aiding every 2-3 steps and making sure that there are moments of softening in between.

Rigidity, but so pretty anyway

Everything played out really well. He started out a bit distracted, lazy, and hollow, so I opted to canter early in the warm up to get him moving. This helped a LOT and I'm planning on doing that for a while. He just isn't the sort of horse who can walk into the arena and immediately go to work. Surprise, Megan, not many horses are and you'll have to get over it. Rico is a freak and I need to stop assuming he is the rule. He is the exception.

So instead of pony wrestling at the trot, I'm going to start tossing him into canter and just work on letting him canter and cover ground in the way he wants to. If we're going to put time and effort into just going around a little aimlessly in the beginning, we may as well be doing it in his weaker gait.

His tail is ridiculous

The trot was excellent at times and pretty mediocre at other times. Most of the time though, he was soft, forward, and supple. Hot damn is that horse fun to ride. I think that is what makes me so frustrated with him sometimes- he gives me a bite of cheesecake and then offers me a shit sandwich. No thanks. Once he is older, he'll be more consistent.

The canter was amazing. To the left, he actually helped me out by spooking and running off with me so he leapt into the bridle. He actually felt pretty rideable and through on that side. The right is still pretty awful. He counter bends when we're away from home and over bends when we're near home. He goes on the bit (kinda) but is tense and retracted in the neck. We got good moments though. He needs to be stronger on that left hind leg.

We ended with stretchy trot, which is less stretchy and more deep right now but it's a change of frame and I'm happy about that.

He wants to be good so much

Then he felt like a powder keg walking home. I gotta be careful what I wish for. I wanted forward and I GOT IT.

Enjoyment at Canter

Good news! The introduction to my thesis (currently hovering around 40 pages of writing- 50 pages including title page, abstract, my own table of contents with hyperlinks because it's impossible to navigate, and 5-6 pages of references) is nearly finished.

I will be done with the introduction by the end of next week and it will be turned into my advisor while I start the rather more difficult analysis portion of my thesis. Luckily a lot of the articles I'm looking at I already went over in my introduction so most of this is just filling in what I already know, categorizing everything into a ridiculously large table (that won't fit on one or maybe even two pages, how the hell is it going to be printed?!), and beginning the arduous process of critiquing the literature and the theory.

I'm torn between feeling like wanting to hug the thing because it's the greatest thing (not the longest thing... yet) I've ever written and/or wanting to print it out and set it on fire just to see it destroyed while I laugh maniacally at it. I may or may not be having a big bonfire after I turn it in. If it ever gets turned in.

To celebrate hitting the "halfway" (hahahaha) mark, some of my
favorite thesis related cartoons

Wednesday I got a late start to the day but it was nice and cool so that wasn't a problem at all. Now if only it would rain a little bit...

TC was back to normal on the ground, stood patiently while I brushed and tacked him up. He also didn't yank his feet out of my hands or try to lay down while I was picking them. Progress! Or just a good day amidst some crazy days.

Our ride ended up being quite fun. He started out a bit resistant because we rode with Ali and TC is obsessed with knowing where her horse is at all times. I had to kick him into gear a few times before he connected and felt great.

This legitimately happened to some of my friends, except they
have to resubmit in the summer! WTF!

He was about even on both sides, which made changing directions really fun. I could put him into the new outside rein easily (well, we had some issues to the left but he responded well to a small circle and spiraling out so that was easily resolved) and he's getting so easy to ride off of my seat and leg alone.

To the right, I've been addressing moving him off of my left rein and leg, mostly due to the issues we've had in the canter. He's easily manageable in the trot and walk, but I wanted him to be even lighter off my left thigh and rein. So I found myself automatically playing with the first few basic points of walk pirouettes. There was no bend and I'm sure the mechanic was wrong, but I wanted him to essentially keep his haunches where they were (without sticking of course) while I moved his shoulders in front of them. I like that more than trying to push his haunches behind his shoulders.

Basically every time I work on my thesis

This helped tremendously at the canter to the right. Actually, both leads were downright FUN to ride. He's been progressing in the canter really well lately and I seem to be keeping track of it by describing in a dramatic fashion how it feels like to ride:

- at first he felt like both of us were going to die at any point, like he was going to somersault over his face and land on my body and murder me while breaking his own neck
- then he felt like we were merely going to fall over, usually to the inside but occasionally on his face, but I would probably live and he may not break his neck
- then he felt like we were only going to fall over in corners but the rest was uncomfortable, corners became something to fear and long sides felt like I was riding a boulder down a mountain
- then he was uncomfortable all the time, like riding said boulder
- then it was just mild frustration at lack of steering and occasional uncomfortableness
- NOW it's getting fun

He's so much more balanced and comfortable. For the first time, especially left, but we got moments to the right too, I felt like I could relax into the saddle. Normally I feel like I'm having to run around collecting his limbs and putting them back on his body before one flies off again and I have to run after it. No time to relax. No fun.

This is the most true thing I've ever read, I'm on
Thesis_Draft_2.3 right now

But it was actually fun. Except when he went cantering sideways after Ali's horse, but hopefully that will go away soon... I let him be done with that, as there no point in pushing him for more.

On the way back to the barn, he demonstrated how much of a good boy he is. After Monday's ride where he took off out of the riverbed, this time he quietly walked out without even thinking of trotting/cantering out, even when Ali's horse was ahead of us. He just wants to be good. He wants to have fun and all, but his main goal in life (right now...) is to make me happy.

Rico's main goal was to do the least amount of work possible, it's kind of a nice change. But don't tell Rico.

This is the sole reason why I manage to keep up with this blog

Trail ride on Friday!! Job interview in 25 minutes!

Mischievous

I think complaining helps my back injury because riding on Monday wasn't as bad as it was Sunday, and on Sunday I complained a LOT. Every now and then I try to stop complaining because it's hardly an attractive quality in a person but I just can't.

Lola, who was born a few months ago, is TC's
half sister (dam's side)

TC was full of it on Monday from the start. I walked out to get him and the second he saw me, he stuck his head straight up in the air and started whinnying at me. I think it's so freakishly cute, but he's starting to condition me out of thinking that because every time he does it, he seems to be saying I was hoping you would visit today and I'm so excited because now you are here and I can try out my many new ideas on how to annoy you.

So there I was feeling all warm and bubbly inside because he really likes me and obviously enjoys his job and wants to come work while he's walking behind me like and then I will run away with her because running is fun and she can't stop me.

I tied him up and from the second he was tied until the second I was wrestling the bridle on him, he pawed and/or slammed himself against the fence. Any time I was near enough, his face was an inch away from my face and he was staring at me in the creepiest possible way. Any time the saddle was on him, the billets were in his mouth. I didn't even try to pick his feet. Yah yah, bad horse owner, but I just knew I was going to get kicked or stepped on or yanked at. No thanks.

She's got some junk in the trunk

I opted not to longe, there was no place but the round pen and I'm trying not to longe him too often because I'm totally paranoid about soundness after Rico. So I just hopped on and we headed next door.

He's getting a little rude about the riverbed we have to go through. He's starting to treat it like a sunken road where he leaps into it and then jumps out at a trot. This time I held him back and he wasn't impressed.

Then he refused to go into the arena because there were THINGS near the gate and those things were scary. Even if they weren't scary the day before. Sometimes things change overnight and people are stupid because they don't realize it.

But I will say this- once in the arena, other than the constant vocalizations of eeeeeeee due to my no-whinnying rule, he was excellent. He went right on the bit and, although a little reluctant to be as steady as he has been previously, he stayed relaxed and with me the whole time.

Baby and mama (TC's mom too! Friesian mare)

We did more cantering than we usually do, mostly because of how much of a brat he had been getting from his pasture to the arena, but also because he needs the canter work. On the large circle (~30-35 meters), the left is getting dreamy, but the second the circle is small it completely falls apart. Because I don't care when we move up to Training (even if we never showed it until next year- the idea of doing it this fall is just a rough plan), I think I'd rather work him rideable and round on the large circle, then start slowly working on small circles. I will continue to longe him once per week on the small circle though, and hopefully that helps him understand his own balance without me ruining it.

The right was better than it had been last time we were at the neighbor's but worse than at home. It's funny- at home we are forced to be on a smaller figure because the arena is about the size of a small court while at the neighbor's, we can be on a large circle because the arena is the size of a medium to large jumping arena.

To the left, TC struggles with longitudinal and lateral  balance but is fairly steerable because he's always falling over that left shoulder. To the right, TC struggles with rideability but is fairly longitudinally balanced for the same reason- he's always falling over the left shoulder. When the circle is smaller (and there is a fence to help us maintain the size), he goes better to the right than to the left. When the circle is larger (or there is no fence to help us), he goes better to the left than to the right.

She is so friendly

Too bad that dressage courts have short fences and he'll probably end up leaping out of the court on the right lead at some point in his career.

The trot felt pretty great, we did some work on transitions, which are getting excellent when he's not leaping into trot from the walk. The downwards are really great for where he's at right now- he stays connected and the transition is off my seat/leg alone.

Changing directions is not such a fiasco anymore, he doesn't always step into the new outside rein with ease but he does know he has to be over there. The trot work is getting very pleasant to ride. Now my goal is to keep it this way while making the figures/transitions a little more complicated AND to further simplify the aids used to keep him like this. The aids are rather simple, but you still need to drive him up into the outside rein tracking left and keep turning the left front leg while tracking right. I'd prefer he just do that on his own.

She loves to be scratched

On our way back TC decided that, while he was excellent in the arena, he hadn't really had enough of bothering me. So through the riverbed we went and as we neared the bottom, I felt him coil. I'll stop there and say this: wow, he is a rather powerful horse when he remembers that he has, indeed, four legs.

So he's all balled up and then he leaps up the other side in one huge step (it's probably about 3' or so) and scoots sideways with the intention of going home. So I ran him into a fence and told him off for that. We walked quietly back and forth through the riverbed until he accepted that walking through the riverbed was possible.

Back at home, he continued pawing while he was eating so much that I ended up sitting near him with a whip. When he pawed, I made a lunge at him with the whip and he stopped pawing from then on. He really does want to do what I want him to. I try not to get on his case about every little thing, but I don't want him ripping up his feet, he's already got a few chips and he's due for a trim next week I think so he needs to hold off on too many more chips.

She is so cuddly and cute