Just Walking

The smoke cleared on Wednesday and we were in the green for air quality for the first time in about a month! It even rained, which was really nice, just enough to moisturize the ground, not enough to make the roads really slippery or anything. 

Lots of people have been riding on and off this whole time but as you know, I just gave TC time off. From having to evacuate to me being on vacation, I couldn't be consistent anyway, and more vet articles are coming out about the importance of allowing the lungs to heal. As I've said before, with TC struggling a little after the 2018 fires AND the fact that I'm trying to have him perform at the highest levels one day, I want to give him that time. 

So we restarted the two weeks minimum of walking on Wednesday. In two weeks, we are going camping again for a few nights, so he will actually get almost three weeks of just walking before I start trotting again in October. 

Even though we are just walking, this
view can't be beat

I have been riding every day since Wednesday. I think it helps TC, he loves being ridden and was getting visibly annoyed with all the hand walking. And it helps me too, something about walking around on a horse that makes me feel better mentally and physically. 

So our routine is to brush him first, then hand walk with the nebulizer, which takes 20-30 minutes. Then I bring him back and tack him up and we walk in the covered arena for a while before I untack him. He even got a little sweaty yesterday, so I gave him a bath afterward. 

Walk work can be boring, but I think I've got some good things to work on. 

He loves to smush his face against the
mirror in this weird way

First, we've been continuing to work on TC's posture. He tends to fall through his thoracic sling and this is especially bad in the walk to halt transition, so we've been doing a lot of halting while both of us hold our tone and I encourage him to close up the hindquarters behind. The moment he falls through his thoracic sling, he gets pushed forward again. It's been fascinating and he has been much better about holding his body in that posture. 

Unfortunately, it's tough to remain forward and loose while holding that tone, so we are working on having a more normal collected walk rather than a creep walk while working on it. I think it'll be good for us to develop a more appropriate collected walk while we are stuck in the gait. 

Second, I've been disappointed in our half pass scores. They seem to cap at 7. Everything else, I've gotten an 8 on or see a clear pathway forward for an 8. But the half passes, especially in trot, just haven't scored as well (not that I don't appreciate 7s, don't get me wrong). Our ONE negative comment in the 3-3 test at our last show was that he doesn't wrap around my inside leg in the half passes. 

So what I've been doing is essentially restarting the half pass from scratch with an emphasis on the inside leg to outside rein connection, something I haven't been as obsessive over this year. It was the number one thing that helped Rico's half pass, so we've been doing 3-4 half passes each way with that in hopes that we'll both have that positioning down by the time we can go back to real work. 

Rico and I came a long way in our half pass work

It's crazy the progress here, about a year apart

It's boring and I'm envious of those who were able to mostly stay riding this last month. But it's okay, we will rebuild and come back, hopefully stronger than before. When we start trotting, I'll be restarting him on his LMF Gold and the muscle builder Tanya wanted him on and I'm currently working once a week with a personal trainer (so much cheaper than gym memberships are around here), so hopefully we will literally both be stronger than we were before. 

Fingers crossed he comes back well. He's been breathing okay, occasionally breathing a little fast and deep when the nebulizer is on, but I'm thinking that's because he's enjoying it. If it continues or if his breathing seems a little iffy, I'll call the vet to have a chat about it. 

Hopefully It's Me, Part 1

I was debating whether to go to my lesson on Friday because of how TC was going. But I ended up doing it anyway so that I could get non-crazy eyes on the situation.

Tanya is a very no-bullshit person and listened to me, looked at his condition, and told me not to throw too much money at him because she essentially said Megan, he's a third level horse, not a Grand Prix horse, and he's an off breed, not a warmblood. Initially I was a bit concerned, but I made the decision earlier this year to commit to one trainer and she's it and all her horses look fabulous and score well and her riders ride beautifully. So I sucked it up and gave TC a pet and told him that this would be the one ride before the chirovet came out that he'd have to work his ass off.

Making sure the camera is getting his good side

And sure enough, TC and Tanya worked together through me and by the end, TC felt absolutely fabulous. It was as if TC was like "yeah she's being really ineffective and I'm trying to tell her to get her shit together but she's just a mess right now" and Tanya came in like "I can see that, let me see what I can do to get her going a little better for you" because a quarter of the way through the lesson, TC stood up straight, came way up through his back, and was having an absolute blast carting me around the arena while trying to pounce on bird shadows. Meanwhile I'm like "but do you think he's lame" and she and TC probably laughed together about that.

Before I go further, I will tell you all that I'm keeping my chirovet appointment and my regular vet appointment, I'm also definitely still revamping his nutrition (Tanya told me about a specific muscle builder - body builder? Haven't looked it up yet) and for SURE I need to figure out the saddle. Tanya told me that my thigh was too long for my saddle and it isn't doing me any favors. So I'm still listening to my gut, but the results of this lesson showed me that at least 50% of what is going on is me. That's awesome. I honestly hope I'm 100% of the problem, that's the cheapest solution.

Looking like a fancy pony

We covered a lot of ground, but here were the highlights:

Walk Work

Wow, turns out that not putting my leg on in the walk is NOT a solution to TC's jigging when I put my leg on. She thinks it's two issues: one is that he just simply isn't in front of my leg in general, two is that he will not step laterally off my leg. Basically his response to any leg in walk is just to jig, prompting me to take my leg off. By the end of two walk sessions, I had him more connected in walk than I'd ever felt!

Quality of Trot

This led to Tanya telling me to legitimately get a bucking strap to hold myself in the saddle if I needed to, but under NO CIRCUMSTANCES was I to slow the trot down or make it ANY easier for me to ride. Great. But let me tell you, this horse can fucking trot.

So, the trot work has been tough recently for us, it's where I see the most issues. What it feels like to me is that he's plenty forward and pumping him up through his back means that he just runs on the forehand, leading to him dropping his wither and curling in the contact. Tanya had me not put him as low in the poll, she said that was causing the wither drop (vs I was hoping he'd stretch into contact and then I could pick him up). Instead, she wanted him to step into the contact, however ugly it looked, and then we'd pump him way up from there. Contact first, then what I initially thought was energy but then realized was impulsion. He has the energy, but it's not directed anywhere, so he drops the wither. 

Such cute photos the SO took on Saturday

Tanya compared his topline to a long skinny water bottle, she said that if I kick him forward in a level balance, the front of the water bottle will fill with water and then drop down. If I first pick him up into an uphill balance, the water stays in the back of the bottle, weighting the hind end, and then I can add power without losing him onto the forehand. It worked. Really well. So well that on Saturday, I was very sore.

Trot Lateral Work

He needs to be way more supple laterally, like I mentioned before. His lateral work is high quality, with Tanya saying "well that's an 8 for sure" to his shoulder-in and half pass. The half pass right is absolutely perfect but the half pass left gets a bit underpowered at times and he falls through his left shoulder, so he loses the angle. To fix that, she had me open my outside rein to help show him that there was room for him to stay up and out to the outside rein and reminded me that half pass involves a lot of inside leg. My solution in the past had been to basically over bend him to the left and she reminded me to keep his ears focused on where I was aiming the half pass.

The shoulder-in was picture perfect after a couple of schoolings. Around this time in the lesson, I decided that I needed to only go to shows that Tanya was going to, because I genuinely think that she can add 10 percentage points to my score. When I schooled the tests by myself, I felt like they were solidly in the 60-65% range. With her magic, it's definitely over 70%.

Love this horse!

I wrote this whole post out with all the canter work too and it's shockingly long, so tomorrow I'll talk about the canter work and what I took from the lesson overall!

Bitless Week

Yesterday evening I hit 70 pages on my thesis. It is so brutal right now, I feel like it's actually killing me. I can't wait until it's over. It doesn't seem like it's ever going to end though. My adviser has canceled or postponed our last three meetings so I'm kind of flailing with very little guidance right now (we've only met maybe three or four times this YEAR, I need help). Cue panicking in about 2 days when I get down to the wire on finishing this thing before I move/start my new job.

So much of my thesis has been written like this- sitting in my
car between lessons at the preserve

The horse situation is a bit boring this week. I have one more ride (today) where TC gets ridden without a bit and I'll be using the Zilco Flower Hackamore. I want to express my love for Riding Warehouse, as their free overnight shipping to California meant that I got to try out the hackamore less than 24 hours (on Rico, TC had already been ridden) after I ordered it.

I will write something about it after today's ride in it on TC, but the way Rico went in it suggested that TC will like it a lot. So far I love that it's so easy to change where the reins are (I need english clippy reins, which I will pick up soon). But I did notice that when it's on the leverage setting, the flowers sometimes tilt in a weird way, if I notice that again, I'll get a picture of it. I think if you're really going for a lot of leverage though, you'd probably want a mechanical hackamore.

Rico loves the new rescued mare/foal along the road

Tuesday was my second bitless day. I got the new hackamore that evening, so Tuesday's ride was once again in the makeshift side pull that I created by taking the reins off the normal part of my mechanical hackamore and putting them on the loop where the curb chain attaches.

I've been pretty happy with him like this, though not willing to take him anywhere but our home arena because he does have a (waning) propensity to bolt in places that aren't his home arena. 

We have been somewhat productive despite the lack of a bit. Some horses go well without a bit, you basically can't tell the difference on Rico in a hackamore vs double bridle. And some horses, TC it seems, don't go well without a bit. He really likes to seek contact and has been kind of annoyed that there is only pressure on his nose when he tries to connect. He also continuously puts the curb chain in his mouth when I bridle him. But honestly re: bitless bridles allowed at USDF competitions. I don't care. I really really don't.

He's pretty stylish

But yes, productivity. My vet (who did TC's vet check) has a lot of knowledge about fitness and he told me that TC was undermuscled and didn't appear very fit. Well yes, he is four years old and only being ridden for 30 minutes 4x per week. That's only two hours a week that he's working, maybe a little more if you count walking to the arena and back work. One thing that stuck with me though, was that my vet wanted me to really address the lateral suppleness because it's good for his neuro-coordination or however he phrased it. In essence, I think he meant that he wanted TC to feel more comfortable on his feet and with his own balance. 

So that translates into a LOT more lateral work. 

It's not like I haven't been doing lateral work, but I haven't really drilled it since this spring when he was just learning to leg yield along the fence. My current rides have been mostly transitions and bending on circles rather than leg yields and shoulder-in. The lateral work, if I do it, is placed randomly throughout, mostly if I accidentally turn early. 

On our evening hack 

So this week has been lateral work boot camp at the walk, as I want to avoid too much trotting and cantering around off the bit. 

He's gotten pretty good at leg yielding. I can get him to step over just by shifting my weight now. He's still a bit slow about it, but the angle is fantastic. He can nearly side step now. 

Shoulder-in is also a thing that we do now. He's really good at it. That makes sense, since (1) it's one of my stronger movements and (2) he has a good amount of lateral suppleness. So those paired with his full understanding of the leg yield means that I can put him in shoulder-in pretty easily now. 

Haunches-in is a struggle. He will do it, but it gets leg yield-y. That makes sense because it's one of my weaker movements and he is definitely a lot more movable in the shoulders than he is in the haunches at the moment. That will get better! 

More snakes in the house! This one was so small in comparison
to the one that came in last year

We did trot and canter, mostly working on responsiveness in transitions and geometry of our figures. Kinda not much to talk about when he can't do anything other than flail around. I guess that's what happens when a horse has been ridden on the bit since 30 days undersaddle. He really struggles to be ridden off the bit (goooood muahaha).

Today I'll ride him in the new hackamore and hopefully get more done. Then tomorrow we're back in the fat snaffle and I get to legitimately ride my pony again. Yay! Until then... thesis panicking. 

Whispering

So I thought I had my start date all set up, but apparently I did not (it was written all over my application)! So when the hiring manager asked when I could start, I said I COULD start on the 24th but that housing was being a bitch (not my exact words) and that it'd be ideal to start the 1st. He said yes. PHEW. So I get an extra week and a Monday to figure out where I'm going to live. I think I found a PERSON to live with, now to find a PLACE to live, which is arguably more important, no offense to my awesome future roommate.

This also gives me more time with my thesis. Which hasn't made much progress because my cortisol levels are so high that they are making it difficult to read. I had a glass of wine and watched a chick flick last night so that I could get this post proofread! But too much wine and too stupid of a movie to make any progress on my thesis, oh well.

AND most importantly, more time with my pony being normal before he goes crazy when he's told that he has to live in a new place and in a stall/paddock and by himself. I think new trainer is going to hate us for a few weeks.

Whinnying because he forgot how stalls work
and that food was outside while he was inside

Speaking of the best baby horse, our ride yesterday was amazing. He got trimmed in the morning by his current farrier. We spoke a little about putting shoes on him. Apparently his foot is so big that the farrier said they may not make aluminum shoes big enough for him. He said that some farriers can make them, but it's tricky. I have six weeks to find a farrier though, so I'll be calling a LOT of farriers asking them LOTS of questions. I'm going to measure his feet today or tomorrow and figure out how big they really are so I can tell future farrier and see what their reaction is. Ugh, complicated animal.

So I tacked him up (he stands still to bridle and ground ties to be fly sprayed now!) and we got out to the arena. He was in a really good mood. I think he was just so happy to be home and back in a normal routine after his crazy day on Tuesday.

So happy for food

We started with a lot of walking, I need to get in the habit of a long warm up if he's going to be in a stall vs a pasture soon. We did leg yields, free walk, and small circles. He's so fun on the small circles, he's going to have a ridiculously great walk pirouette on him one day because he's just so damn maneuverable when he wants to be.

The leg yields were good, I just need to make sure that I ask with as light of an aid as possible. It's funny, he'll leg yield off a normal leg aid with a little spur, so then I ask without the spur and he goes over too... and then I just shift my weight and he's moving over. So why use the spur at all? Old habits die hard, Rico always needed a little spur for lateral work to be cadenced enough (he'd do it with just a shift of weight but it was slow). Light and responsive is my new (well, continuing) motto- I need to whisper my aid, not say, yell, or shout it.

Those ears are just ridiculous

The trot was excellent, the more he walks on the bit, the better the trot is. We did spiraling in and out in both directions. The left was absolutely perfect, he spiraled in and increased the bend easily through his whole body, then leg yielded out and was much more supple on the larger circle.

The right was not great, but it wasn't the worst. First, there was another rider that got in our way a bit so that really affected my ability to go where I wanted. But really, he's just not maneuverable that way. He's stopped leaning on the left side as much (thanks Barbi!) but he still darts around a little. Not particularly noticeable if I want to go on a normal sized circle, but the second I went to change the size (as in spiral in or out) he'd take it way way too far. Again I need to be careful to use light aids, because he responds nearly equally to both. In the case of the spiral in, lighter aids made for a more refined shape of circle. I need to whisper the spiral aid, just hint that I want it, because he'll dart inside and I need to not play ping pong with his body.

Pure bliss

The canter was pretty good, I feel it plateuing again, probably due to lack of muscle right now, which will be remedied soon when he's in a stall and gets hill work 2x per week instead of 2x per month. He's round for about half of the canter though, and the other half he's on the muscle. I need to buckle down and fix it, but with how stressful things are for me, and how stressful things are going to be for him, I'm giving it a month before we really buckle down at the canter again.

He is improving in the transitions though, both up and down. He easily picks up the canter both ways with just a light leg aid. The downwards I'm really proud of. Despite not being totally round and on the bit at the canter itself, he is always round coming into the trot and stays with me easily.

Oh and he totally gave me a stretch circle in both directions at the trot in the end!

I was super pleased with myself in this ride too, I worked really hard to keep my hands incredibly soft all the time. It's funny because I feel like the more I post about his rigidity and my struggles with it, the more I feel like it seems as though I'm this rider with incredibly hard hands who is just totally braced on this poor horse all the time. In reality, I'm a pretty soft rider with an incredibly soft horse who goes from being super soft and light to rigid in a matter of milliseconds and my first instinct is to match the rigidity (as I think most people's instincts would be) rather than stay soft. It is definitely improving though, and I'm glad that he's making me a better rider!

Dusk at the ranch

Back at the barn, Ali had the vacuum out! I didn't realize we had one, so obviously we tormented TC with it. He's never seen it and after a couple of cautious snorts, he was ALL about it. He was leaning into it and really enjoying it. He even let me do his ears and his forehead! Then he played with it and got his lip stuck in the vacuum, which he thought was a hilarious game.

I went through all of my barn stuff last night too. I have my trunk totally packed with all of Rico's old stuff. I also have a first aid kit now, and grabbed a bunch of weird stuff that my mom had left over from when she was the perfect pony club mom and got prizes for our annual PC show- stuff like Cowboy Magic Green Spot Remover, which she doesn't use but I was going to try spraying in his brown tail to see if we can get any of the stains out. It's all ready for moving, whenever that will be.

Today we are hitting the trails and then Friday I'm driving up to look at apartments all day while TC gets his teeth done! I also have tentative plans to do an awesome last (or second-to-last) trail ride with Rico on the beach this weekend if all goes well. Damn I miss riding that horse.

Introducing Straightness

I've added almost ten pages to my thesis since I last complained about it, which means that I'm closing in on 30 pages. Most of it is still notes, and sure, one of the pages was a table of contents with hyperlinks because this mother fucker is getting hard to navigate, and yeah another one of the pages is a second page of references (which will be expanded even more soon), but STILL. probably fifty pages left or so, too bad I'm not only going for page count.

Before even touching it today, I headed out to the barn (and am writing this blog post... and I might go make food... and don't I need a new saddle pad? From a tack store about two hours away? Wasn't I supposed to be half way to Canada by today? Thesis may need to wait).

Enjoy more pictures from our last ride- I can't remember/am too
lazy to go see what I posted last post so sorry about repeats

The baby horse had made me pretty happy by giving me about 80% of his home awesomeness at the neighbor's arena last time I rode so I had high hopes for today.

Once again, I was disgustingly looking forward to riding there because of how energetic he is when we're there. Just two weeks ago I felt such dread thinking about riding there.

We started at home again. He was still so sticky and fussy in the bridle so I ended up dropping the reins and just getting him to go forward without any restrictions. After he experienced life without connection, he realized that I was actually there trying to help him and started stretching into contact. We had a couple of nice loops around at trot and canter, then headed out.

He's starting to look more steel gray than black, yay

I opted for more walk work than usual when we got to the neighbor's because I wanted to get him stretching down again. He's been so reluctant to let go of the tension in the base of his neck. We got a REALLY nice stretchy walk all the way around the arena both directions before heading into trot. I was so glad that he was quiet enough to actually do walk work for once- normally we get over there and he starts screaming (screaming still present today though, he is so shrill) and ends up getting himself all in a tither before I let him trot it out.

Into trot, he was perfect. Not 80% of what we get at home, this was 95%! Still ever so slightly tense, but I could attribute that to his loss of confidence over the last week rather than us riding at the neighbor's place.

So we did a lot of figures, serpentines, figure-8s, some spiraling in and out. He was great through all of that so we did some trot leg yields (they're bad but they're good enough to be referred to as leg yields) and actually managed a shoulder-in in trot to the left!

Such a good baby

I also started playing with working on the straightness and throughness in the walk-trot transitions. He tends to wiggle and kind of throw himself into trot, and I thought this would be a good way of both a) cleaning up the transition and b) getting him to engage his hind end where it's HIS idea rather than me slowing him down so much.

At first he was confused, but he's so energetic over there that he wanted to trot so he figured it out quickly. None of them were perfect, but there were a few that let me see where they were heading.

Once again, we cantered, and this time we cantered for a long while. I'm starting to put more pressure on him to be round, even if it's not necessarily perfectly correct, at the canter. It's been about four or five months since he started cantering undersaddle, so I think it's time to start cracking down on this concept. He readily accepts contact to the right, but the left is harder for him. I'm primarily just asking him to bend more, and sliding the bit a tiny bit on the inside rein- enough to get a response but not so much to throw him off balance since I do like the balance he brings in the canter.

One day he will relax the base of his neck!

One of the main issues I'm now realizing that we have is straightness. I'm getting paranoid because it feels quite pronounced (although when I watch videos, it isn't as obvious) and I know that crookedness can be caused by a weak hind leg which can be caused by hock spurs or arthritis or whatever other problems may arise that would cause him to fail the vet check and me to lose him.

He essentially falls over his left shoulder all the time. It makes him easy to turn to the left but easy to bend to the right. He struggles to pick up the left shoulder, hence why the left lead canter is better than the right lead- it forces him to pick up that shoulder.

It's bad enough where I notice it while picking his feet- he won't let me pick his left foot for very long before he starts leaning backwards so I drop it or trying to paw it out of my hand. I think normally I wouldn't have noticed that it was specific to one foot (because let's face it, picking feet is an uphill battle with a horse that doesn't stand still while tied and paws like it's his meaning in life) but I struggled a LOT to get him to pick up his left shoulder while riding today so was sensitized to it.

He's so fun

I don't know whether his crookedness is:
a.) totally normal in young horses and will go away soon if I make it a priority in his work

b.) a product of my own crookedness (which makes no sense because Rico was crooked in the OTHER way so you'd think I would encourage horses to be that kind of crooked)

c.) not normal in young horses and indicative of a problem or future problem in his right hind (will definitely tell the vet at his vet check and flex/x-ray his right hock)

d.) mostly all in my head because I'm in tune to riding 3rd level + horses right now who are very straight so the slightest bit of crookedness is very obvious to me while someone else who is not as sensitized to it wouldn't notice or care

So I'm obviously thinking that it's because he's lame and simultaneously because I'm crooked too. Because why would I think that it's just normal for even a young horse to be one sided or that I'm now a good enough rider to feel exactly what is going on under me?


After careful analysis, I helped him out a bit by working on bend and a little haunches in to the left and getting him better connected on the left rein to the right. He definitely improved, and I think it will get better with time. Unless, you know, his right hind leg simply falls OFF of his body.

We walked back to the barn the long way down the trail by the busy road and the whole time, he was on a loose rein! What a grown up baby :)

Also very grown up cantering at a place that isn't his home arena

This weekend is a relaxed one and next weekend is a potential second show for us. But I'm not sure if it's something I want to do or if I just want to go to school. I have until midweek to decide!

Burning Abs and Other Side Effects of Dressage Lessons

Rico saw the chiropractor on Saturday and his back is all better! He was just a tad out in his pelvis and lower back, plus a little sore in his under neck and lower back- all very normal, according to my chiropractor, for a horse at his level. It was nice to hear how good Rico was looking too! I think he looks great but I'm a tad biased. 

I was able to work on the pirouette exercise on Sunday, then did another stretchy snaffle ride on Monday before my lesson tonight. 

The lesson was BRUTAL. Upon hearing that my back was okay to sit the trot (I sat on Monday and it was weak but not painful), Tracey proceeded to demonstrate over and over again that despite the level I'm riding at, I have NO idea what I'm doing up there. 

It's all a lie up there... 

Lies! 

First was attacking my position. I've always been a *pretty* rider, not always very effective, but I always sat pretty in the tack. Because of this, no one really taught me HOW to sit in the tack, especially at the trot. I told Tracey this and she said that a lot of trainers neglect the trot biomechanics on people who aren't actively against the horse. I can see how that happens, I certainly don't spend weeks and months improving the sitting trot in my riders who don't need it. But at this level and as we're moving (albeit at a snails pace with a lot of obstacles in front of us) toward Grand Prix, I need to sit perfect in the tack.

So today I had one of my first lessons on the biomechanics of sitting the trot. 

I tend to get behind the motion slightly. Tracey said that the front of my body from my collarbone to the saddle and the back of my body from my shoulders to the saddle need to be the same length. I was shortening the back of my body and lengthening the front of my body which would then lead to my reins being too long and Rico being folded up slightly behind the vertical as I'm essentially waterskiing behind him. 

Instead, I needed to pull my seat back in the tack (which is made harder by the riser pad under my saddle that I don't think I need anymore) and push my chest forward, not by arching my back, but by bending my hip. This allowed me to absorb shock better and VOILA my legs stayed still! I've been being harassed by Tracey about my legs for a few months now and no matter what I did, I couldn't keep them still without tightening my entire body up. 

She then insisted that I sit like this for the remainder of our lesson (uhhh what?). Despite my intensely burning abdomen, it was MUCH easier to ride once I was in the correct balance! Rico was a lot more forward and much better in the connection. It was also a lot easier for me to focus on the quality of the trot once I could actually feel the cadence better. 

We did some lateral work at the trot, playing with maintaining the cadence I had gained by sitting correctly, and also maintaining the lateral suppleness in the right half pass and shoulder-in. Rico tends to suck back away from the left rein, which means that in his lateral work to the right, he gets a bit tilty in the poll. 

After trot work, we briefly rode some walk pirouettes which reminded me that I needed to spend more time in walk. I struggle with feeling what is going on underneath me at the walk and can't aid effectively enough. Sigh...

We then played with the half pass at the canter. The right is fine, but the left is BAD. SO BAD. We spent a lot of time on it, but what we realized was that I am so crooked that direction that I don't know what a real half pass feels like. I'm always shoving him more and more sideways and more and more crooked that when he's doing it right, it feels bad, and when he's struggling and doing it poorly, it feels fine! 

So my homework is to stare at the mirror until I sit better and can half pass effectively! 

In other news, Rico's 18th birthday is TOMORROW!! 

Eighteen?!

AND guess who we see in a couple weeks?

Back to Alfredo!!

Champagne Makes for Good Pirouettes

Last night I had a fantastic lesson! Rico gave me the best pirouettes of his life and I felt so coordinated within them, able to move him out one stride if he got sticky and then continue around. We also had some great walk pirouettes and pretty good canter-halt transitions. 

Or... it could have been the alcohol. It was Tracey's birthday on Monday so all the ladies came out right before my lesson and gave her a card, presents, little cakes, and we all had some champagne.

After a half a glass of champagne, I got on Rico and warmed up. He felt pretty good, especially considering that for the last two days, we've been taking it very easy. Those two easy days seemed to have done wonders for how coordinated I felt in the left lead canter, something I've been struggling with recently. Phew, maybe Prix St George isn't the dumbest idea I've ever had.

We started with the walk canter transitions and some canter walk transitions as well. Rico stayed, for the most part, nicely uphill into the canter, but I struggled with the quality of the downward transition. It goes back to my previous training where simply doing the movement was enough. See, no matter what I do, Rico will walk from the canter. He's just that lazy. I could drop the reins and leap off of him and he'd do a walk transition. It isn't a quality transition in the least. However when you're racing through the levels like I was, simply doing it was enough, we'd get a solid 7 on our simple changes at second level so I didn't care.

Once as I figured out how to properly prepare for a canter walk transitions, we worked on the pirouettes. Tracey had me start with haunches-in on the circle without letting him fall over his shoulder or back off in the forward energy. Almost immediately afterward, she sent us down the longside to the other end of the arena to ride the pirouette pattern. Yikes! My first pirouette to the right was horrendous. I came in completely crooked, leaned to the right, and he almost trotted. Tracey had me ride out of that one. The next one was PERFECT! Except that he was so balanced upon leaving that he did his change in the corner rather than at C. The one that followed was perfect AND he waited in the change so we went to the left.

I can now understand what Tracey means by saying that my left pirouette is biomechanically not as good as the right. Sure I can make it smaller than the right, but I sacrifice quality of the canter. So I rode it a tiny bit bigger so that I could have more activity which worked quite well. Whether or not I'll get that on Sunday, I'm not sure.

We then worked on a few centerlines. I think I'm going to ride the centerline on the right lead, although my project this week is to experiment with both leads. The first centerline made me think that Rico had also had some champagne. We had just come off the pirouettes so he was a bit distracted. After a few drunken wobbles, we had some decent halts from the canter. Tracey noted that I really just need to prepare the right amount of strides. Too many strides and he goes crooked, too little strides and he falls on his face.

We ended with some walk pirouettes, which I had made a spectacle of earlier in the day. I just really need to remember to not come in horrible. If I come in even straight, the inside hind leg steps away from his body and it becomes very large.  The left one was okay, but the right one was terrible! Once as I got the right feeling, it became much better and we ended.


I'm nervous for Sunday, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the last three lessons with Tracey have made me feel a thousand times more confident for riding this test.

Tracey told me I just had to do it, get the first one over with and then my anxiety will be better for the shows in October and November. Next year is the time for chasing scores and qualifying for championships. This year was about making an FEI horse, and he's SO CLOSE!

His first day out of what I thought was a permanent retirement

I received ride times last night- I ride at 11:40am, which is perfect. My client who is coming with me rides at 9:30 and at 10:00, so it gives Rico plenty of time in his stall there to hang out and eat some food. I'll start braiding just after her second test and get on at 11:15. I'm still figuring out what to do for our warm up, but I have a feeling that half a mimosa may be in order!! They don't drug test riders, right?

"I've Seen Worse"

I have an announcement... Rico and I are going to show on June 2nd! And we're riding 4-2!

At my lesson last night, I was on top of my shit. I came into the lesson with questions about showing, to which Tracey said "well I haven't seen you in a while..." and I said "yeah but WHAT SHOULD I DO?" Poor Tracey.

I argued my case and asked her to look at the pirouettes so that she could make my decision for me we could figure out what to do. She first gave me an exercise to set him up for them that was basically just riding in and out of pirouette canter without him getting too slow. It turns out that in my hopes of getting him collected, I allow him to slow his canter down but not actually take shorter steps. This means that my discoveries from this weekend were true- the pirouette needs to be more about short, active steps, and less about the big rock back into collected work.

When will I 

get it through my thick skull

that this horse

does not

need to be more collected?!?!

Rico was great to the left, stayed up in front of me and through his back, and gave me a decent pirouette. To the right I struggled to sit still. I didn't know I moved so much, I look way too far ahead, pull on the inside rein, and basically fall to the inside until Rico has to scoop me up. And then I call it a pirouette, blame him for why it's weak, and go on with my life. Needless to say, when I actually sat still, my horse pirouettes just fine to the right. What a concept. He's essentially known what I want for months now, but has just been fighting me.

So then, so then! We stop to start talking about the show and Tracey says "I've definitely seen worse pirouettes at Prix St George, I think you'll be fine." That from Tracey is quite a compliment since she has the highest standards in the world. She's actually seen worse at a higher level! She thinks I will be fine!

We didn't want to over school the pirouettes, but she described some good exercises to do this week:
- Work the quarter pirouettes, half pirouettes are hard on him, and it's all about maintaining him active on short steps in front of my leg, it's much less the turn
- Work the transitions from collected canter to pirouette canter and back, lots of short transitions so that he doesn't get stuck. Pirouettes are 6-8 steps, half pirouettes are 3-4!! He just needs to be on his hocks for 5 steps at the most so there's no reason to school 15 steps of it.
- Work the square turns to get him to use his inside hind leg toward the midline, I tend to push his haunches too far in, so this is really good for me to learn to sit still and ride him straighter.

After that I confessed that I had never been taught how to ride an extended walk properly, and that I thought it was a dumb movement to not get a 7 or 8 on. I should save my shit scores for the pirouettes and the extended trots, not the walk work.  So I now know that extended walk is merely free walk with a bit of contact and have been instructed to ride lots of transitions into it because "Fourth level tests go so fast that the judge needs to make up their mind on the score and the comment about half way through the movement." Good to know! The first several steps of a movement count a LOT. Unless something spectacular or horrifying happens in the movement, the score usually stays the same.

We still had time left, so we did a bit of trot work after I talked to her about the energy. I said that I felt like my seat stifled him, she disagreed and said that my seat was nice. MY SEAT IS NICE. But we did a big serpentine, steep leg yields in each direction, then some walk-trot transitions within shoulder-in. I wasn't quite sure what was going on until the shoulder-in when I realized that his trot was enormous and he was sooo supple and easy to ride in that movement which has always felt a tad awkward. Lots of serpentines focusing on putting him into the new outside rein from the inside thigh and lots of steep leg yields focusing on his responsiveness laterally. Then walk-trot transitions in the shoulder-in to increase engagement in the upward transition.


Overall, I'm STOKED! We have a tough two and a half weeks ahead of us, Rico needs to be fit and so I need to force myself to have time to ride him every day (twice per day when I can). I also need to do a lot of without stirrup work and learn to ride forward in my tiny arena. I'm putting together a conditioning plan to get us in gear and ready for this show which I will post soon!

I can't believe we're actually moving up. We're moving up!!! Yay!

Stir Crazy

Rico is going a bit stir crazy with this week off. I attempted to longe him yesterday morning to see how he looked and all he did was bounce around. Amidst the bouncing, however, he was completely sound which was great to see! 

At least he enjoyed some delicious front lawn this week!

The leg started looking pretty bad on Tuesday, it was puffy and hot, so I called my vet and made an appointment for this afternoon. I felt like a little kid pouring out a piggy bank and trying to see if the coins inside could buy a toy, or ice cream, or an ultrasound for a ridiculous horse. I can definitely afford the ultrasound, but it would have made a nice dent in my graduate school fund (hah, who am I kidding? my horse show fund).

To my relief, and my bank account's, his leg was back to normal yesterday morning. I still want to be careful, but I think I'm going to avoid a big vet bill unless it really takes a turn for the worse. My vet said that if it shows any heat, swelling, or sensitivity, I need to call him. Last night it wasn't swollen, hot, and my horse is never very sensitive in any aspects of his life, so I feel pretty good.

After his antics on the longe yesterday, today I decided to take him on a ride down the road and then do some walk work in the arena. I'm a big believer in making the *easy* stuff, such as all the walk work, very good. However, I seem to rarely practice what I preach. Upon entering the arena, it was immediately apparent that we need to spend more time at the walk. He was quite behind the leg, and once as that was fixed, I noticed that he was very crooked.

Tracey is always on my case about keeping my hands on either side of his neck, behind the bit ring. I tend to open my left rein and use an indirect rein on the right side. I always thought that this was my problem, but when I focused on keeping my body very straight, Rico still leaned on my right side. I found that I couldn't really turn left without neck reining on the right side. Hmmm, I wonder if his leaning right has ANYTHING to do with how difficult the right pirouette is... Yes this definitely should have been addressed earlier, I take full credit for how crooked my horse is.

One of the only half decent pictures of the right pirouette...
Notice how much he's over that right shoulder? Hmmm

After some strong half halts and bops off the spur on the right side, Rico was a LOT more rideable. I then went to work on the walk pirouettes, which weren't the greatest. He's probably still a bit rusty, and in the last week I've only done them on two client horses, both green, so I probably screwed myself up. I then went on to some lateral work and realized that he leans right in the half passes too! Gah! So we have some work to do this week...


In other fun news, I met with my new advisor for my MA program that I start this fall. The program isn't too bad, it's 30 units plus a thesis which means I'll only be taking 2-3 classes per semester. This is quite helpful for my work schedule; at this rate, I should be able to graduate without debt, which is insanely cool.

My first semester is going to be pretty doable, I take a general seminar with the program administrator where I get to start work on my thesis proposal, I take a statistics class with my advisor, and another class. For the last class, I can really choose anything available. I think I'll try to knock out a difficult class, like neuroscience or cognition, so that I can save the classes I'm stronger in for the spring.


Anyway, I'm stoked to be almost done with school, only 5 more weeks of class until finals! Except that my senior honors thesis hasn't exactly been started so that's fairly horrifying. Time to get down to business and start researching motivating operations! Which also happens to be the topic of my master's thesis too, so I feel like I'm killing two birds with one stone :)

Being done with school also means summer!! Which means not-as-foggy beaches