Responsive

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

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

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

Pivo doesn't record very well during lessons oh well

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

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

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

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

Trail rides have been fun lately

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

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

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

We both appreciate the shade though

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Achieving Our Goals

TC and I continue to have just the best rides. It warmed up a bit this last week and even though TC got a little quiet in the heat, he still came out ready to work. Even if he insists on me dragging him into the arena each time. 

I set up my Pivo a couple of times because I'm really struggling to figure out what he looks like vs what he feels like. That's always been the case with him - he'll feel really connected and he's actually super short in the neck, or he'll feel off the bit but he's actually pleasantly in front of the vertical. 

The happy ears are the best part!

Still has a ridiculous tail

The first video I took led me to shorten the reins quite a bit in the second video and actually put the horse together. I think I mentioned it a little bit ago, I kind of forget how to ride right now. Between being super out of shape, kind of primed to think that anything he does is fine as long as it's not balking, and not having many lessons in the past six years, I'm a bit of a mess. 

But there was something about the second ride where I just... remembered what the actual hell I was supposed to do. 

I think it was the canter. I've always been a much better canter rider than trot rider and because his balking happened so much going into canter, I didn't get a lot of time riding the canter poorly, because we just weren't doing it. 

Because of that, when I put him into canter and he slowed a little, I bumped him with his leg and he went. And after that, I was like cool, I can put my mechanic into him then, and that's what we did. 

He seemed to be really happy about it! I think he's figuring out that he can actually canter again, and I'm sure that me putting my mechanic into him helped him find his balance and straightness a bit more. 

Excuse me? I had no idea what to do with this

This was more the balance we were in, which is
also great and more appropriate for his fitness level

The lateral work is a bit tough for us right now, I know we need to deal with that, but I've decided that it'll be Kate's problem. So rather than work too much at it, I decided to do something I was good at, which was to put him on quarterline in a bit of a shoulder-fore and do some walk to canter transitions.

He's quite crooked in canter like a lot of them are and this is one of the exercises that I think helped the most. He's pretty motivated to do a walk to canter for some reason (I think he thinks they are fun and very special) and will find his way into canter even if I'm blocking a lot of the directions he'd rather go. So all that is left over is to canter in a straight line. 

And damn, it worked so well! He really sat down and was able to strike off into a much better quality canter. 

I'm so impressed with him

Don't worry, I got a new phone so the screenshot
quality is about to get much better

The day after we did these canter transitions, I decided to do the same thing in the walk to trot transition, which was much harder for him. But he still tried SO hard at them and we got some really good moments of him picking up trot from a bit of a shoulder-fore!

I negotiated with him and let him school over some poles in between, so that kept him happy I think. He did keep trying to guess at what we were doing, so I had to keep telling him he was wrong, which he doesn't love. But he could take even thirty seconds to consider what I am asking him to do... 

I can actually half halt him now

He feels so good!

Again I'm so tickled that we have something real to work on!! 

I remember having a conversation with Kate about my goals with TC. Like I can't expect him to come back to work as if nothing happened, zip back up the levels, take him out at Fourth level and then move him to the PSG. He is fifteen years old this year and I'm also not really in a place where I can or even want to focus on climbing the levels again. 

I do love riding his canter

I came up with these goals:

1. I want to be able to ride him and actually work on things, not just fight with him about being forward

2. I want to keep him fit enough to feed more and go on trail rides/do fun things (like obstacle clinics)

3. I want him to look nice while I ride him so I can take video and not be like ew why does he look like that

And I think I have achieved all of those things! We'll see how things go through this summer because that's always a tough time for us. But I never would have thought that we'd get this far even during the time of year where things are easy for us. Onward and upward!

A Great Ride

I had probably the best ride of our rehab so far yesterday so I wanted to document it! 

For context, the last three rides looked like this:

Thursday 12/18 - I posted about that in my last post

Friday 12/19 - We went on a trail ride for about an hour. He was really good and didn't have any spooking/balking. I did some lateral work on the hills, specifically working on strengthening his left hind leg. 

Saturday 12/20 - We had an okay ride, I was glad to get some video and I really noticed that he seemed plenty forward when watching him, but I know he felt behind my leg. He had a couple of small hesitations (I wouldn't even call them balks) but outside of that he was compliant. At the end of our ride, I finally got annoyed and really hustled him along, and then we ended on a good note. But in the video he was 

THEN I took him on the tracks and he seemed perky, so I let him pick up the trot on the back lane (a long, wide, slightly uphill section that spans almost the entire length of the property behind the pastures) and then had the idea that maybe I could let him canter out there. He picked up canter really easily and loped up the hill until he got a little tired. 

Our last day on the trails for a while, bummer!

I figured that we should do the other lead, so I walked him back down to the bottom of the back lane and then asked him to canter again. This time he really went for it, so I got up in half seat and let him go. He was gaining speed though, and I'm like... pretty aware that my vet called him borderline neuro last time we went to see him, so I asked TC to maybe keep it contained. TC took that as an invitation to leap into the air, so then I kicked him forward and decided that I'd just lean back a bit just in case! 

Finally we were getting to the normal spot where he poops out, so I sat back and was anticipating him stopping. He did not stop, he again took that as a cue to leap even HIGHER into the air and I almost came off. I was hanging off the right side of him and somehow managed to yell "well, don't lose me!?!" and he scooped me back up. I then made him continue cantering all the way up the steeper part of the hill when he finally stopped.

It did kind of scare me though, so I forced the poor horse back down the back lane to do it AGAIN, and this time we did a very controlled, easy canter for maybe eighteen strides before I let him walk and cool out. Looking back, it was super fun! Fun to feel him so enthusiastic about moving forward. 

Sunday 12/21 - I gave him and myself the day off, he was locked in for the day because of the rain, but was then let back out on Monday morning. 

He's such a good trail horse

So then yesterday I drove down to the ranch over my lunch break, and I was glad to see that my arena was useable! I dragged it and then went to get TC out.

I started to target train his right hind leg - I want to ask him to step toward the target, specifically taking a step away from his body with his right hind and aiming to touch his gaskin with the target. He didn't really understand it at first, but we did get some good movement. I think it'll take a few days. This is mostly because his right hind is stuffed up under his body ALL the time, even in the cross ties. And as he's (slowly) putting on muscle, I'm noticing that his right hind is lacking muscle just above the stifle in comparison to the left hind. Anyway, hopefully this can help him!

Love this spot looking down on the ranch!

We then started our ride by walking down the road, which I've been avoiding doing too much for his feet. He does love it though, and he got to see all his horse and cow friends. I tried to show him the new pig that the neighbor got but it was too far away and he was focusing on something else. 

Once in the arena, I had decided to be more structured with my ride. Using my interval timer, you'd think I'd be coordinated in general, but I haven't been. So for each of our eight 2 minute 15 second intervals (4 sets of 1 interval + 1 minute rest + 1 interval each and then he gets a longer break) I had a plan going into them. 

Set 1: Warm Up

I warmed TC up with large figures, working on establishing a connection and bend in each direction. We also worked a little bit on just being responsive to the aids. I didn't care if he maintained it or if he was just being a little more forward, just that he responded at all. He got lots of praise! I also asked him to very briefly canter in each direction for 3/4 of a large circle. Not caring if he was on the bit or anything, just wondering if that might loosen him up.

Set 2: Lateral Work + Lengthenings

On Saturday I had played with an exercise where we'd do some lateral work down the long sides of the arena and then we'd straighten, counter flex, and lengthen on the short sides. I figure that this will help him with his straightness, as well as give him confidence that when I ask him to go forward I'm not going to just chase him endlessly. And it works well with my plan to not ask him to do as hard of work when he's moving forward and to ask him to work a little harder if he's moving slower. 

Set 3: Shallow Loop + 15m Circles

For this exercise, I really wanted to test the connection and the coordination of his hind legs after priming him to be more aware of them from the second set. We did shallow loops down the longside and then every other loop, we'd ride a 15 meter circle at the top of the arena. It was a good way for me to really focus on the way that he used his hind legs and not to just shove them around, and it was good to see how he used himself on the 15 meter circle too. We also did a couple of long diagonals in a lengthened trot, since he was starting to kind of feel himself during this exercise and he seemed to think those were fun!

Such a fun day

Set 4: 10-10-10 Canter Trot Transitions

I decided to take a bit of a risk and do more cantering this ride. In the past, the canter was a source of a lot of balking. About half the time I asked last year, he'd either buck in place, run sideways, kick at my leg, or just stop and stick his head straight up in the air. So throughout this rehab, I've avoided cantering him too much. 

However, one of his favorite exercises (and mine too) was this 10-10-10 exercise I love for unresponsive horses. You trot for 10 strides, then canter for 10 strides, then trot for 10 strides, and so on. The goal is to get EXACTLY ten strides, no more no less. With Rico, and TC in the past, I'd then start to lower the numbers, so trot for 9 strides, canter for 9 strides, and so on. Rico was able to do this at like 2-3 strides, which is CRAZY to think about now! TC would consistently be able to do maybe 6? I forget to be honest. 

He super lit up in this exercise, and so did I. I actually had to half halt him at the trot, and sometimes he'd even slip into canter early. To the right, we were dead on accurate, but to the left he was a little reluctant to do all 10 canter strides. I made it a rule not to get after him about that, just to bring him to trot and start the counting again. 

I didn't have him do this the entire 2 minutes 15 seconds in each direction, I ended up doing maybe 3-4 of them and then keeping him in trot, mostly just working on large figures and enjoying how forward he was (and praising him for it!). 

The ranch is so casually beautiful

It was the best ride we've had in SO long! I felt like we could really work on things the two of us together rather than it being me against him trying to convince him to be forward and him trying to convince me to not make him be forward. 

The best part was how much he seemed to enjoy it too. Not just the last set, but the entire time he seemed really mentally engaged with the work. I can't remember when he was last like that with dressage work. During our foray into jumping last winter, I felt like I had that back, but then things got bad again. Hopefully this can be maintained through the winter and into next year! 

TC got to meet the neighbor's new pig after our
ride and he was SO excited (he actually scared
the pig at first by charging up to it)

I'll ride him again today and hopefully we can replicate some of this good work. And then Christmas Eve I'm planning on doing some groundwork in the barn (maybe targeting his butt cheeks again) since it will be raining all day. And Christmas Day I'm at my aunts' house all day which is convenient because it's going to rain all day again. I think it's alright if he gets a couple of days off after all of that work! 

My plan is to still get his neck injected and maybe talk to the vet about how he uses his right hind. I'm kind of thinking that an SI injection might not be a bad idea? I want to figure out how many joints is possible with what is leftover after the initial injections last month and prioritize them. We can always pull more blood but again I'm trying to take this slow! 

A Long Time Coming - Our First Dressage Lesson Back

Oh wow it's been a minute. I've been insanely busy at work and loving it, but have let the blog fall to the bottom of the to do list. 

TC is doing fabulously well though! He's actually feeling really amazing in my (real) saddle, which I got back a couple of weeks ago, and we started the collected work again and that's going SUPER well for basically the first time ever. 

Because of that, on Sunday, I took TC over the hill to ride with a trainer I've ridden on and off with for years. This was our first real dressage lesson in about a year and our first lesson with her in 1.5 years. It went SO well. I'm so glad we went and I definitely want to go back. 

Working a TON on the collection, this is from a
week or two ago, working on walk pirouette to
canter and learning to sit down a bit better

I got to the barn kind of early and it was cool, so TC walked out of his stall on his tip toes snaking his neck because he knew we were going somewhere. I decided that not dying was more important than being on time, so I let him play in the arena. He rolled a few times, ran a bunch, at one point he grabbed a small plant out of the ground and galloped around with it, flinging his head like a dog with a rope toy. Also not letting me grab it out of his mouth like a dog would. Then I finally did get it and then later, he galloped by it and snatched it up again, only to accidentally step on it and yank it out of his own mouth. Absurd. 

This paid off because at our destination, he was quiet but not too tired. He warmed up beautifully! I always forget that in better quality footing and in an arena that's actually normal size/shape, he moves SO much better. We had so much suspension and he was just RIGHT there under me. 

Don't steal my stick - TC

At the beginning of the lesson, I explained that we hadn't been doing *real* dressage for about a year, that we'd been focusing more on just having fun and trying to change the way that TC uses his body. She noted that this was good, but that he was probably going to be who he was going to be due to his conformation. Challenge accepted. Well, mostly I'm kidding, but it's a good reminder for me to remember that he does not have to be perfect. 

We warmed up and she was quite complimentary of where he was at. She noted that I'm riding him QUITE long in the neck, which she understands given how he went before but she wants him to now find a happy medium. 

There were some minor position changes, which I made sure to note: watch that my left hand does not prevent him from connecting and watch that my right leg doesn't stay too far back. These are very typical for me, but I'm always happy to hear them again!

He was paid well in cookies, believe me

The main theme of the lesson was using transitions to bring more tone into his body to help him with the collection and connection. I was SO unbelievably proud of him. He was so obedient and really stayed true to his spinal integrity for most of the lesson. The only times he slipped up was in the left canter, which is a challenge at home still anyway. 

This is a horse who has, in the past, just willingly contorted his body to do whatever I ask him to do, to his detriment and to mine as then we don't really get the result necessary. It felt like he said multiple times "I can't without compromising myself" and I was able to say "that's okay, do your best" and he was able to do that. 

I have the TCS to thank for that, it really drew my intention to the spinal integrity and I feel like I was able to call him out very early on him not maintaining it. As he got stronger, it feels like he was able to understand that yes, this indeed feels way better. 

Anyways, I figure I'll go through each transition in more details! 

He is so silly

In the walk, he needed more power and tone to stay in front of my leg. I've been told not to run him off his feet, so I've allowed the walk to be smaller and more deliberate, but I've gone in too much that direction. He is to practice his "quite good walk once he actually gets going" regularly and not "plod along as if he's on a trail ride" all the time. 

Once we had that, the walk to trot transition was actually quite good. We have done a TON of work in the creeping walk to the creeping trot, working on keeping him in his body/more like a rectangle. His tendency is to basically lean forward until he's about to fall over, like a rhombus, and then his legs pick up the trot to catch his balance. But in working on this, we lost the big, brilliant medium walk he has. He is now ready to do both, go from a prowling medium walk to a collected trot without compromising his balance in either. 

Slow walking = trail ride only

I also needed to keep his neck long but my reins shorter, the length of his neck coming from the base lifting, not from the reins being long. Right now I put him so far out that he has no choice but to keep his neck long at the base, which has been helpful for getting him uncoiled. But he does need to continue to lift his neck at the base as he shortens his frame, since that will be required for collection. 

At first I was like... I do not want to shorten his neck... but luckily the barn has mirrors so I kept looking over and what I felt was borderline too short was actually SUPER WEAK AND LONG. So that's good for me to note. It now feels much shorter than it is. 

Still though, there were moments where this felt precarious. I don't want to go backwards, so I'll be taking video and experimenting a bit. What is the optimal rein length to maximize him lifting through the base of his neck? We'll find out! 

Neck is quite long lol, I like it though! But I get
what she was saying

In the trot to walk transition, I was to keep him in front of the leg and up through his thoracic sling and poll. I have a tendency to basically let him stop the hind legs and dump a bit into the walk with his poll low. The fix was to keep him in a state of higher tone, which was tricky given that he's not carrying a lot of tension (positive or negative!) in his body. 

To me, this has been the main point of the last year. When he was in biomechanical failure, any tone became negative tension since it would just perpetuate that cycle due to the problematic movement patterns and which muscles he found easiest to carry tone in. Fixing it required me to take all of the tension out of him first, then to address the movement patterns so that he would understand what to engage when moving, then to build those (good) muscles up so that they were stronger than the (bad) muscles he was using before. 

Now though, we need to add tone in order to encourage collection in the trot. And we did! Every time we'd go to walk, if he didn't keep the tone, I was to push him out of it. This generally is one of my favorite exercises and we have been doing it quite a bit at home, but I was held more accountable for my tone and my timing. I can't just drop my tone as we go to walk, I have to hold the quality of the trot in my seat and core. In addition, keeping my core engaged also helped him stay out to contact, something that was an excellent test for whether he stayed balanced enough in the transition or not. 

So absurd

The trot to canter transition was probably our best transition. Honestly what the fuck? I mean, it hasn't been all that great at home necessarily, but it has been our main focus in the TCS so maybe that finally paid off. Or maybe he was like oh thank god if we canter, she'll stop wheezing in the sitting trot. Either way, there wasn't much to be said about it other than to watch that he wants to fold sideways to the left and pop his right shoulder.  

The canter to trot was also not bad. But different on each side. The right lead canter is so much more rideable for me, I think because the spinal integrity is so much easier for him, I don't have to manage it for him. He 

More where we want him, but to me I want his neck
the tiniest bit longer because of course I do

I was SO happy by the end of the lesson for so many reasons. 

First, TC feels AMAZING. He felt so good in his body and so good in his mind. He felt genuinely pleased to be out and doing the thing again, going for a trailer ride, having a human sitting in a chair telling me to ride better, being told he was brilliant, and going home again. His gaits have never felt better, like they've been bigger but they've never been more supple or more cadenced. We will develop the big gaits, but this time he'll be more rideable and happier than he was the last time we had the gaits amplified. 

Second, our relationship is unbelievably rock solid at this point and I didn't realize how palpable the difference was to me until we were put back into a location we'd been before we did all this work. The last time we were at this facility taking a lesson, I was a mess and he was a mess and we were completely disconnected from one another. In this lesson, it felt like we were completely connected and so much more in tune with one another. 

Still time for Friday night music even
with my crazy schedule

Third, it was so much fun to get someone else's eyes on him, a judge's eyes, and to see that I'm not insane. In the last year, I've had just a few lessons, and the vast majority of those have been on the bodywork-type stuff, not real nitty gritty dressage. I sometimes wonder if I've really gone off the deep end and if what I'm doing is even recognizable as dressage, but having her verify that he actually looks really amazing for a dressage horse was great. What I'm working on is right on track with what he needs to be comfortable in his body AND to be a good dressage horse. I didn't realize how much I needed that validation to keep going with my weird shit, but I did! 

Fourth, it was really nice to chat with someone about the prospect of showing again. I feel like I'm so far away from showing at this point. Both because we literally have been doing like... Training and First level work for so long that we have probably lost our changes and many other movements, but also because I feel a little weird about it. Being able to talk to her about showing and why we show was so nice. I left with the feeling that if I do show again, it'll be for the ritual, the experience of preparing for a show, practicing my test, braiding, showing, unbraiding, and going home. She reassured me that the comments don't have to be accurate, the score doesn't have to be what I think it should be, that there are other reasons to show. 

Reasons to show: the horse loves it

We'll definitely be going back! I don't know when, since it's a solid 3/4 day to get over there and back and ride the pony, but it's definitely worth doing at least once a month I think. And now we decide what to do in the mean time... I'm rather afraid of momentum since that's what got us trapped before. But I think I've got a good idea of how I'm going to implement some of these changes into the work I'm already doing that is working so well. Stay tuned! Or, well, stay tuned and also hope that my job allows me to post more! 

Transitions Transitions Transitions

Since the vet appointment, TC has felt great! I rode him on Tuesday and Wednesday, he got yesterday off, and then I'm heading out to ride him today. 

On Tuesday he was wild, obedient, but wild. He had Sunday off, then the only thing he did on Monday was get hauled to the vet to be checked out and then hauled back home. So by Tuesday, he was really needing to DO SOMETHING. 

We basically got zero things done that day because it was all I could do to keep most of his feet near-ish to the ground. So that was a bust. 

He looked WAY better than he felt that day

Wednesday was a stressful day at work, we had federal reporting due and I thought it was finished but I had a bunch of it pile up. I finished it before my ride but I was pretty twitchy and my boss messaged me like 5 times in the first 15 minutes of my ride and I kept worrying. TC couldn't handle my shit so I got off of him and hand walked him to the covered arena, turned off my phone notifications, and took a deep breath. 

He luckily recovered immediately because he's the best and we had a fabulous ride in the covered arena (which is our comfort zone currently). 

Buzzy pony

As I said yesterday, I noticed in my last lesson with Tracey that TC's transitions were probably a huge part of why he isn't going as well. He's always been rather difficult to ride through transitions. Obedient most of the time, though he will sometimes get stuck in an upward transition and refuse to go anywhere. But he loses tone through them. Tracey had us practice a few, but on Wednesday, I came out wanting to do a bunch of them. 

Just like Anne and Jec discovered, the more you throw at him, the better things go. I have a very bad habit of just going around and around, and I put a limit on myself with how often I had to change something. TC got better and better, the transitions slowly improved, and he looked (and felt) really good in the mirror. 

That neck can get so short when he's not under 
my influence ugh

I want to come up with a good warm up for TC and I think for a while, it will involve a lot of transitions. Once he was thinking about sitting down, being on my aids, and keeping his tone up, he was way easier to ride. His gaits felt better, he was sharper to my aids, he felt easier to ride. 

One of the kids I teach has a very strict warm up and I keep adding new things to it and taking out things that the horse comes out doing perfectly. I think it really helps set both them and their horse up for success each day. The horse knows what to expect and the rider can use the warm up to determine if anything is off with their horse. 

I didn't think much of it until I realized that my warm up on TC could be summed up with "walk around the ranch, trot and canter around in working gaits, get to work" while my rider's warm up includes transitions, lateral work, and lots of figures. So I'll be adding transitions to TC's warm up, and maybe some other stuff too! Anything to get him feeling as good as he felt on Wednesday every day. 

Schooling the Flying Changes

TC had Monday off after the show, just a hand walk and he got to roll in his favorite spot: the trail course. I remain mildly terrified that he's going to go down while I'm on him out there (because he's a giant pony), but so far he hasn't.

I made the executive decision during my ride on Tuesday to start back with the changes. I've been thinking about when to put them on and I just fucking want them on early this winter. I figure that now is a good time because I know he's going to anticipate and buck a lot, so I'd rather do that now when the weather is okay vs waiting until the spring when it will affect my show season.

And I don't want another show season where I'm delayed. By the time spring hits, he'll theoretically have them on and be ready to be told to do them only when I ask. I usually give it six months of not saying no to change offerings. Six months from now is about when I'd start showing again.

He's not as strong as I'd like him to be just yet, but he is getting
there slowly but surely! 

We warmed up in trot and I'm noticing more and more that he wants to peel off the left rein. So much that while tracking right, he wants to duck in and track left instead. I'm not sure if he's always been like this and I'm just slowly recognizing it, or if this is new.

The trot felt good though, and we did some walk-trot and trot-walk transitions to work on him staying up and in front of my leg during them.

From there, I picked up the canter to warm up, which felt good, and then we started on the changes.

He's so cute, I don't hate the bonnet either

TC has schooled changes on and off. I wanted to make sure that as a young horse, he knew that changing was a thing he'd have to do. So he's familiar with the concept.

I set us up on the diagonal so that I could see in the mirror whether he was clean or not. We schooled them more than we have ever schooled them and he got more and more confident. With confidence came anticipation, because what is more fun than being ALLOWED to jump into the air when you've been told not to do that for a long time. So he started to want to run sideways and with that came some hollow and croup high moments.

My idea is to just put them on how they're going to be put on (obviously I'll put them on clean, I just mean that it's okay if he gets a bit crooked or croup high), then fix them later. When he knows what he's supposed to do, changing how he does them is easy with the clicker. Again what is crucial at this point is to get them on clean.

My left hand is being it's normal annoying self, but he's cute at
least! 

And he did have mostly clean changes! His tendency is to get his haunches left and his shoulder right, so in the LR change, he wants to get late behind and the RL change he wants to get late in front, but for the most part, they were at the same time. I don't mind something late in front because my timing is good enough to fix that right up, but the late behind isn't cool. With more straightness and collection will come better and better changes.

Generally I'm pretty pleased with them at this point, I think he just needs miles and to get less excited about doing them. I figure we'll school them at least once a week for a while to see if we can clean them up before I have to admit to Tracey what I've been doing. That's honestly the hardest part about putting movements on horses for me!

Halt, Not Stop

On Saturday morning I had another lesson!

With how tough the last lesson had been on me, how hot it was that day, and giving a clinic the next day, I decided to finally tell Tracey what I had been saving for a day where I needed an easy lesson... TC's halts are terrible.

There are a few reasons why they are terrible:

1) I don't work on them
2) He had a bolting problem so I taught him to stop quickly, not well
3) I really don't ever work on them
4) He is just a very front-end oriented horse who wants to get over his chest, so keeping his hind legs under him in general is tough
5) I can't emphasize enough how much I've ignored them

How TC would like to halt: in a heap but looking cute

We started with some trot to walk transitions and she had me essentially kick him back into trot every time he became a bit unbalanced. This led to some really great transitions where he kept himself engaged, ready to trot off, into the walk and then the walk was a much higher quality too.

From there, we schooled the halts, but they were predictably terrible. Tracey said it was fine to teach him to stop, and to still use that for when he's being rude (she says she appreciates a good e-brake for horses that run off in tempis, for example), BUT that there's a big difference between stopping a horse and halting a horse, and TC needs to learn to halt.


We then got sidelined into a conversation about thighs, because I was apparently using too much calf again even though it felt like I had my leg only resting lightly on him. She really wants it OFF of him. So I told her that I was struggling with that. She said I needed more internal rotation, I said that I felt like I was squashing his back with my thigh when I was getting a significant enough internal rotation to get my calf off, so then he can't move as well.

TC is built like a teardrop, so he's very narrow by my hips and gets wider as he goes down. Right where my calf lays is his widest part.

I explained that and Tracey and I talked briefly about how great narrow horses are (because she and I both have narrower builds), then she mentioned that she doesn't really want me into my thigh at all on this horse.

My leg position before Mary

Decent alignment and tone, but not a lot of internal rotation

Ever since the Mary clinic, I've been working on getting my thigh ON horses. I had a habit of riding on my hamstring and riding with my thigh a bit loose off the horses, especially on Rico because he was so lazy.

With TC, it paid off when he was so bolty, but now he's not and it's squashing him. I've ridden plenty of horses who take a lot of thigh, he's just not one of them now.

BUT Tracey wanted me to maintain the internal rotation while getting my thigh off by engaging my abductors (pulls the thigh out) and letting go with my adductors (pulls the thigh in). I tried this for 20 seconds before having to stop because my right hip was immediately fucked up. I stretched it out and tried again.

It made a huge difference in his trot and I could actually sit the Ms quite a bit better. From there, the halts were way easier. Still tricky though, and it's because TC is rather low tone. Tracey said that I'm a very high tone rider, which she likes, but that TC is one of the lowest tone horses she's seen. Disagree, only because I know of a certain potato with her own gravitational force that drags the tone out of you. TC doesn't drag tone out of me as much as he just doesn't have many strings inside of him holding him together. And when we go to do a downward transition, all the strings he does have fly out and he crumples.

More tone in the downward transition, but not so much tone that there's tension where it ought not to be. Dressage is hard.

Actual video of TC doing a downward transiton

Into canter, Tracey seemed pleased with how much I was able to take off my calf and not have him stutter. She liked our transitions in and out of walk, but the downwards are still him landing a bit in a heap.

She said for Second, totally fine. They're clean and not a total heap. Honestly with Rico, I felt like his canter to walks didn't get good until way beyond Second level. They were always clean like TC's, but he also felt like a heap. Pirouette canter makes for good canter to walk transitions, and I keep comparing TC's now to Rico's at PSG+ when he was able to sit way more than TC can now.

Overall I had such a great time! I like getting harped on for the little things that seem to make all the difference. And it was a great way to spend such a hot day, doing light work and learning a ton. My confidence remained for the clinic yesterday, which I so enjoyed, and today I practiced what I learned both on TC and a client's horse (who did fabulously well, although he wants more pressure on my thigh, they're all so different).

It Will Be Worth It (Right?)

I had a lesson with Tracey last Friday and it was great! A lot of it was a bit of a repeat from last time, and I expected that. I like when there's clear overlap in my lessons, it's not that I like paying for the same lesson twice, but I do like knowing that there's a clear pathway and that Tracey is helping me walk down it. And that's what it felt like.

I got WAY less harping on about my hands, which made me happy. There wasn't NO hand harping, but it was way better. Phew, even with all the weirdness about how different TC is at her barn vs when I ride him at home or at the ranch, I did manage to get better at riding.

He's like "uh, could we maybe go on this trail
instead of doing the fancy prancing?"

Walk Work

We started off walking, using the whole arena. Tracey immediately got on me about pushing him a bit more forward, which is something we talked about last time. She actually told me that she was being nice to me last lesson and that she wasn't going to stand my lazy walking bullshit (my words, she wasn't that mean) this time. He's just NEVER behind my leg anywhere but this barn (at least not right now), so it requires an immediate adjustment.

As I got him more forward, in the back swing in walk, my hands were coming back over the pommel and I was instructed to not let them get back that far. I overdid this and then got told to bend my elbows. There is just no winning in dressage, right? No there is not.

TC also needs to step into the contact a bit more willingly at the walk, he has a very good walk but I won't get the 8s on it that we should be getting without him being a little more confidently marching into the contact.

I stopped by a tack store over the weekend and
met the most concerned little doggo

Trot Work

Into trot along the rail and we looked at my corners. I haven't ridden corners since... last fall. How ridiculous. So I was told he needed to yield his rib cage better in the corners. This was especially true to the left, which makes sense, as that hind leg has been difficult to get under him in the past.

We looked at the quality of the trot first. She mentioned last time that we needed to start really getting on his case about more collection. His gaits are just too big to not be collected all the time. I just kind of really like feeling his gaits when we're at her barn because he's so relaxed there... so I've been riding a gigantic trot around with a big stupid grin on my face while Tracey shakes her head at me. So I got my shit together and half halted to bring the trot more vertical and his hind legs more under him.

That made a huge difference in rideability and I had a lot better feel on the outside of his body. But then he lost a bit of tone in the collected work. This is apparently a friesian thing. The hind legs want to trail and the front end gets big. So I need to be able to make his trot smaller while maintaining tone. I think this is what Alexis was seeing in the videos I showed her, but the way Tracey described it just burrowed itself into my brain a little bit better.

To play with this, we did some spiraling in and out. I needed to get his outside shoulder to come around a bit better in this exercise and to keep him upright (vs motorcycling) while tracking right. I got a nice pat on the back when Tracey said that while TC wasn't totally upright (since all horses lean one way or the other), he was quite upright for a horse at his level. That was good to hear! He certainly felt good.

This is Kate's dog and also an accurate depiction
of how she feels about me

Canter Work

I'm pleased to say that the canter work was way way better than last lesson. I mean, it's still an absolute dumpster fire, but I'm hosing it down with water now rather than with oil.

The transitions are trash. At home they are rather explosive, where he will anticipate the transition, get sick of waiting, squeal loudly, and take off into them. To combat that, I've developed an obnoxious habit of snatching a rein when I feel him go to pick up the canter. It works at home because I can prevent him from really getting away from me. At Tracey's barn it just brings him off the bit.

I basically had to grab mane, like a tiny child (and also almost anyone who rides with me is instructed to do this lol), to keep my hand from coming back and retrain that pattern. It was stupid difficult.

In addition, and I find this even stupider, my aid was way too big for the canter. This has been an issue for me. I don't know if it was years riding lazy green horses or that I can't get my shit together generally, but I really go for it with swinging my leg back. This is especially apparent to the left. I did it with Rico and got harped on by Tracey at the time too. Oh well.

The canter itself felt like crap in comparison to Thursday's glorious canter. It's just that his engine there is lacking. I'll figure that out later though, the canter was better than last lesson and I'm hoping that we'll be able to start really focusing on it once I have all my shit together.

This is my dad swinging in a swing that my
parents got for their property and it fills me with
such joy lol 

We chatted a bit about the issue with his home barn. She is in favor of moving him too. I told her I wanted to move him to her barn for a few months but there was no room and she said she'd check with the owner as well.

Then we got on the topic of him in general. I told her I felt like I always struggle with his canter work. She said of course I do, his canter is enormous and disorganized, but that there are good moments where he really connects, he just needs some more time in it. According to Tracey, TC in general is a very difficult ride and she commended me for taking my time to help him work against his conformation/tendencies.

He is big, both in his body and his movement, and it's harder for him to package himself up, that plus he generally wants to keep his hind legs out behind him makes dressage really hard. I'll step in and say that it is way easier when he isn't in that quiet trance he seems to get into when he's at her barn, but he packages himself with tension at home so there's really no winning I guess.

It made my ego feel good that she thought he was a difficult ride, because I do feel like I've struggled with him more than on any other horse. Everything else I ride feels way easier than he is. I told her that I was happy to have him and to learn from him, even if I was planning on buying something a little less difficult next time around. He still gives me the best feeling I've ever gotten from a horse, and I also think he's fucking hilarious. Worth it.

She did say that she was happy with where he's at. Even though she was on me about various issues, she did say that he's going very well right now, that she's so pleased at how much he's calmed down (he used to be very spooky, poor Tracey has seen some shit with him), and that she likes his attitude with the harder work - nothing seems to piss him off or scare him, he just tries harder when I ask him for hard stuff.

Dressage court wandering before our lesson

I'm so happy to be back in lessons with her! Tracey is one of my favorite instructors in the world and I'm glad to have such excellent help. I can't wait until we're back to where we were last year so that Tracey can push us along toward the upper levels. It will take a very long time to gather up this giant horse and organize him, but it will be worth it.