This post is a little bitchy, sorry. But I've littered it with pictures from the Olivia clinic which I forgot to post (wtf!).
Learning how to ride a half pass properly
So cute
I told Tracey about my troubles tonight. That I'm worried that Rico doesn't really have what it takes mentally to compete at the highest levels. That I'm frustrated that Rico seems to have no work ethic, no energy, and gives no shits about whether I have to haul him through movements. I used the "R" word (retirement) several times and was nearly in tears.
Happy picture! Look at the pretty animal!
The good news was that Tracey said that she hit a similar wall with her last Grand Prix horse when moving up from Intermediare I to Intermediare II. She said that it eventually got better, the horse was still lazy but it wasn't to the extreme that it had been in the past. She also said that Rico doesn't look that unhappy. He's not sour to the work, just unenthused.
The bad news is that Tracey didn't have some magical quick fix that I've become so accustomed to. Luckily she gets him in two weeks, but until then, I need to survive.
In the lesson we experimented. First we played a bit with adding the piaffe/half steps into the walk and trot work. That did help, he felt a lot more reliably forward at the trot. Not perfect, as demonstrated by his sudden STOP in his left half pass. But still better. The right half pass was surprisingly steep and wonderful, Tracey was happy with it. The left half pass, not so much, lots of stopping to... rest? Not like that horse had a drop of sweat on him at the end of the lesson though.
The lesson was mostly canter work and so are the pictures
Someone is so fancy
At the canter we did a lot of forward and back, it was better in the sense that he was rounder and the quality of the canter was better, but there was no reliability. Every step felt like he was going to stop. It's like every step was the shutter step before the halt. That's NOT fun to ride.
I understand to an extent. He's a horse, he's not a machine. He doesn't want to do high intensity workouts every day to get to a level that he doesn't give one shit about. I mean I wouldn't want to be a high power athlete like he is... I wouldn't want to compete at the highest level of a sport that doesn't involve a lot of sitting.
I do like sitting
So comfortable
But like I said in my last post, we're trying everything. I'm changing the workout schedule, he gets more days off, more trail rides, more jumping, and less dressage. I'm changing his food, he's on COB and LMF Gold, he gets plenty of alfalfa as well. I'm changing his bits, I ordered a new weymouth and am going to swap his bradoon out.
I don't know what else to change other than to cease our participation in the FEI levels. But I'm not quite ready to give up just yet. We'll see how Friday goes and maybe that will give us both a boost.
I've been out of spring semester for nearly a week and I'm FINALLY feeling like I'm on break.
Last final ended at 2:45, started drinking at 3
This semester was brutal, my multivariate statistics class was both the hardest class I've ever taken and the most fun I've ever had learning something that I once thought was so boring. It made me really want to move forward with a data science career so this summer's project is learning python and possibly R.
Summer break means that I've been trying to do as many fun things at once as I can (that's a 3DS)
The last two weeks have been rough with Rico. I'm battling with his laziness and lack of work ethic right now. As we move up the levels, it's clear that he needs more energy from his food in order to perform the movements. For example, I amped him way way up the other day and um we have really fantastic full pirouettes when he's in front of my leg. When he's even the slightest bit behind me, he stalls out and just stands there.
He's now on copious amounts of COB and LMF Gold, but I had a bad school today so it's obvious that it's not quite right yet. At this point, I'm hoping to get through this Friday's show without stalling out.
In hopes of boosting his work ethic, I've also been trying to do less dressage rides and more fun rides. On Saturday, Rico and I took my dad and Stretch up into the hills across the street for a little trail ride.
My dad talking to me about something while Rico contemplates biting Stretch's butt
Last week, I made Rico jump this:
My version of a corner
(I'm also planning on making a liverpool out of a tarp, making a fake ditch to make my own coffin complexes and ditches and walls, and getting him to jump skinnies, like my mounting block)
But he's still not feeling quite right. I'm feeling more and more like this is going to be the last year I have with him as an FEI horse. I can't see us making it through the winter, and especially not through next spring.
I'm sad, but not that sad. I want to retire him early enough where he'll enjoy his retirement at least serviceably sound. But I don't want to give up on him so early that I'll look back on our time together and regret retiring him when he was still going.
So I thought about it and we're going to push forward through the beginning of September (there's a show then), and if we aren't in a place to debut at Grand Prix, Rico will be put into semi-retirement for the fall, and then full retirement when the rain comes and through my graduation from my MA program. At that time ideally I'll have a job where I can throw him up on the peninsula for the summer and fall to trail ride, then permanently retire him in the winter. This is just the tentative plan.
Such a good animal
In the mean time, we're getting down to business to defeat the huns to show at Intermediare I this week. When Rico is energetic, this test is downright EASY.
The test is actually one I never thought I'd do because fuck all these movements:
- shoulder-in on centerline at the judge
- halt and rein back in front of the judge
- any resemblance of a canter half pass zig zag
- lead changes on centerline facing the judge
- canter to trot transition in the judge's lap
The test is just ASKING for some shitty movements when Rico and I are basically on display in front of the damn judge the whole time. I mean I understand that the point of dressage tests is to have a judge JUDGE them but damn, put the hard stuff in a place where the judge isn't staring down at me.
But it's a step in the right direction for the Grand Prix, so I'm doing it.
After that, we're going to go to the Alfredo Hernandez clinic next week. Then boyfriend and I leave for five days to visit boyfriend's parents at their lake house and Rico gets a couple rides from Tracey that week.
So last night I had all my tack loaded in the trailer, Rico was as clean as I could get him in a few minutes and was loaded in the trailer. Just me left! I hopped in the truck, stuck the key in the ignition, and reached to get my seatbelt on and realized that I had a stow away!
A LIZARD was sitting in my lap, just chillin'. Now I have to pat myself on the back for not completely freaking the fuck out. I calmly opened the door and leapt out of the car. The lizard didn't really care that much, slowly climbed down my leg onto my boot, then I shook it off.
Lizard on my boot!
Perks of living in the country, I guess. I'm just glad it wasn't a giant spider!
After that excitement, I got back into the lizard-free truck and hauled out to Woodmyst for our weekly lesson. We had another minor bout of excitement when a firetruck had to pass us on a VERY narrow road that I could barely pull over on, but the lesson was drama-free.
First, Tracey and I talked about the clinic with Olivia. Tracey was pleased that Olivia was able to explain the half passes to me so well and she said she got after me for the right things. I was glad that the lesson was just different enough from Tracey to not be like I was taking a lesson from Tracey (because I can get those whenever I want for less money), but not so different from Tracey that I felt confused.
I wanted to revisit the canter pirouettes that I had schooled the other day. I explained my problems with the pirouette apocalypse and we discussed how that's related to a lot of apocalypses in my riding including the half pass zig zag. I need to be more patient and it has to be okay that Rico makes a mistake in these movements so he can learn and be more reliable.
It's like teaching the canter on a young horse that wants to break. You can constantly nag the horse forward and "save" the canter but you're creating a horse that needs to be nagged in order to keep going, a horse that you can't trust to be reliably in the canter. OR you can let the horse make a mistake, swat the horse forward and make it obvious that breaking isn't going to be fun, and you have a horse that thinks "boy is breaking a bad idea, I'm going to keep cantering" and now you've got a horse you can trust to keep in front of you.
I GET that. But take that example to the FEI level and it breaks down for me. If Rico thought to break in the working canter? He had better get his adorable little behind in gear. If Rico thinks to break during a pirouette? It's fine! Let me hoist him up and around.
So in hopes of helping with that, Tracey had a new exercise. Part of the reason why Rico feels like he's going to break is that he doesn't stay up to both reins.
[Part of this is that I think Rico is a little intimidated by his weymouth (curb bit). I'm looking into replacing it with something with a lower port. Unfortunately everyone thinks that weymouths should cost about ten million dollars and I have maybe forty bucks to spend, so he may need to suffer a few more weeks with this one...]
We started with some forward and back at the canter and it went well, better than it had been last time I worked on it!
Maybe Rico gets self conscious with a cow audience
Tracey then had us work on an exercise that would allow me to feel more in control of Rico's shoulders on the circle. We started on a big circle, moving him up into both reins evenly, then spiraled the circle down onto 10 meters. I then took him quite straight, almost counter flexed, and asked him to really fill the inside rein with his shoulder while I moved him around with my outside rein and leg. This was NOT easy for the poor horse since his first instinct was to suck back, which I corrected with a sharp kick. Eventually I really got the feeling Tracey was looking for- that he really reached forward and inward with his inside front leg.
We then took it into the half pirouettes. The left ones were pretty good. I still struggle with the size of them, I either make them enormous or too tight, but the mechanic and keeping him up to my inside rein was good. To the right, we struggled as we always do. I tend to over turn in that direction and not leave when shit hits the fan. Tracey really stressed to me that sometimes you just need to get out of the pirouette. Rico doesn't know we're doing a half pirouette, so I should be willing to leave after a quarter pirouette if it's just not happening.
We then took a break before looking at some of the trot work.
Both shoulder-ins were good, but I want them to be a little more expressive as we come into the Intermediare I. They're biomechanically correct but they lack the pizzazz that we need to get our usual 7s on them as we move up.
We have the opposite problem of the pirouettes in our half passes so I have a new exercise to add to my progression for half pass boot camp. Rico tends to fall over his inside shoulder now in the half passes, which is probably a result of me focusing solely on the outside rein moving him over. Instead of staying up to the outside rein and light on the inside shoulder, we're getting a bit of falling sideways rather than propelling sideways. So, our new exercise is riding a few steps half pass toward the centerline, then riding an overbent leg yield back to the rail to get him to step better up to the outside rein.
At first I was just riding a correct leg yield which kept him off of his outside shoulder. That wasn't very effective! Tracey explained again that we weren't looking for a leg yield for first level, we're looking to move him into the outside rein. So I tried it again and it really helped!
Today Rico had to get more spring shots (this time with banamine so I can actually ride him tomorrow), so we went on a trail ride over towards the winery. Rico thought it was way too hot to ride (in the high 90s today!) so he kept trying to turn around, which made it a rather unpleasant trail ride.
The rest of today was spent studying for finals and writing a BRUTAL research paper. I have three pages of references alone and have even bought a book for this damn paper so I could cite it several million times. The thing itself is just thrown together in a way that isn't going to get me a good grade, so tomorrow is all about making it legible enough for other humans to comprehend.
I do love me some Skinner though... and useful for my thesis
Next Tuesday is my last day of finals and I'm THOROUGHLY looking forward to it ending, this has been the hardest semester of my undergrad and graduate school careers and I'm ready for it to be done so I can ride my pony!
And hike in these hills instead of drive up them to tempt myself...
Rico and I headed over to Watsonville this afternoon to ride with Olivia LaGoy-Weltz. But not before Rico was TORTURED this morning.
The horse in his natural state
I've mentioned before that to Rico, being clean is physically painful. However, I was not about to take a disgusting horse to a clinic, so I requested an early afternoon time so that I could bathe him beforehand.
Rico was NOT having it. I don't blame him completely, it was kind of cold out this morning and we don't have heated water here so the poor horse was a little chilly during the bath. Afterward, I tied him up outside while I cleaned his paddock. He was SUPER rude, threatening to pull back and pawing a lot (which made a lot of dust, ugh!) so I let him loose with the plan to tell him not to roll if he tried.
He tried. I said "don't do it" and he FLUNG his head in the air and struck out at me. The same thing happened again. Then I looked away for a second and when I looked back, he was juuuuust about to go down and so I made a move toward him, he saw me and LEAPT into the air and then walked off like I was just too much.
He got to sit in the cross ties the rest of the hour that I let him dry for and he was super pissed. Lots of pawing, striking, and wiggling. Someone is getting cross tie boot camp this summer...
But I wanted him like this because he can be kind of an ass at shows and I wanted to see if it was because of the painful cleanliness and having to stand around, or because he's just sometimes an ass.
He was great at the clinic though! Here's a small compilation of videos my mom took, unfortunately she mostly got the early stuff so I'm still making mistakes in these. I also have pictures but they still need to be edited and I'm not at home right now. I'll post those later.
I got to ride in a full size ring (no court but the ring was enormous) so I requested that we work on half passes and tempi changes since every other movement is doable in my short court.
Olivia was super super nice and had a great eye. She was on my case a lot about energy, that I need to get a response and it needs to go through and then I need to sit as still as I can. She also wanted Rico more collected all the time. In both the trot and canter, I tend to chase him forward because he's lazy, which just puts him on his forehand and he gets flat. So we did some transitions within the trot, adding a little passage feeling to his trot, and then some transitions within the canter. The canter we got out of it was a lot more collected but also a lot more energetic. It felt AMAZING!
So with that canter we schooled some tempis. Tracey was there and we told Olivia about the kicking change, but it turned out that Rico wasn't feeling the kicking so much. We rode a couple of lines of 3s and 4s before doing one line of 2s. Overall Rico was actually really good, I miscounted once and he kicked once but other than that, pretty solid tempis. Olivia wanted me to learn to ride more forward in the count, then collect for the change. She also said that she'd like the tempis to be straighter ideally, but that they were fine for now.
We then worked on the canter half pass zig zag. Olivia asked what happens and I explained that for the most part, Rico knew what he was doing, but that this was the problem. Lately Rico has figured out that when we go sideways, the second I say we should go the other way, he swaps and leaps that way. This means that, while he's doing it well-ish now, I have no control over whether he does it well or not. I've managed to shove him through the Grand Prix zig zag but it's not reliable.
To start, she had me show her some long canter half passes and right away noticed that I tended to rush forward. Sound familiar?
Yeah it's the half pass apocalypse too. I have NO patience with these movements!
We worked the half pass, adding bend and collection which helped me feel like I could actually go sideways in balance. Then she had me half pass from centerline to quarterline and then go straight and switch the bend without doing a change. WOW this was hard. The horse is pretty well convinced that any time we switch bend after half passing, that he should change.
Eventually we worked our way up to the I1 zig zag. First you half pass right from the centerline to the quarterline, then change, then half pass left to the other quarterline, then change, then half pass right back to centerline. This is slightly daunting because the left half pass is so bad!
So I went right, straight for a bit, changed, went left, panicked, accelerated, whipped right, changed, flew sideways, and was told to stop. Woops.
We tried again and this time Rico took over so I just went straight after the left half pass until he was on my aids again, then changed and tried again. The third time was the charm and we FINALLY got it!
He's so fancy!
Overall I was super pleased with Rico today (not with the monster I had in the cross ties at the beginning of the day though). No kicking in a "new" place and we worked through some key issues that are going to really pay off in three weeks at our Intermediare I debut.
So today I realized that if I'm going to make an attempt at Intermediare 1 any time soon, we probably need some full pirouettes... We have semi-decent half pirouettes for Prix St George, but we have only schooled the full ones a handful of times.
The problem these days in the pirouettes is that I get too hasty and lose control of the step while I try to whip him around because I feel like the pirouette apocalypse is coming and that I need to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Pure panic
The first sign of the pirouette apocalypse is thinking that Rico is going to break during the pirouette. If I feel like he's going to break, I start trying to push him forward while simultaneously holding him back (making him more likely to break) and think that I need to get him out of the pirouette quickly.
To address this tonight, I warmed up with a lot of forward and back without my leg on. I need to be able to cue him for the pirouettes without having to get too involved physically. Being physical in the pirouette makes Rico back off even more, which makes him more likely to break.
The second sign of the pirouette apocalypse is when I don't think Rico is going to turn. If I start thinking that, I start MAKING him turn by pulling and then we return to sign of the apocalypse number one where I think he's going to break.
Tonight I fixed this by working on spiraling in and out in haunches in on a circle. It helped me gain control over the shoulders while maintaining my light touch that I developed in the first part.
Rider turning much faster than horse
The third and final sign of the pirouette apocalypse is when I don't think Rico and I are going to get out of the pirouette. Yeah, like Rico is game to keep going and going, pfft. What I tend to do is FLY out of them like a bad out of hell. I kick and push and throw my reins at him like I'm trying to keep up with a racehorse. This causes Rico to LEAP out of the pirouette and run off. Totally conducive to good pirouettes, yep.
Tonight I just told myself to pull my head out of my ass. After working on the energy and the turns, this was pretty easy to fix. Funny how when I have more control over the step and the turn, that I don't think that I'll be stuck in the damn pirouette. Weird how that would work.
Turn, Rico, turn!
We ended with some couplets and a 10 minute trot for conditioning and then I cleaned a bunch of tack because...
In a spur of the moment decision, I grabbed a spot at the upcoming Olivia LaGoy-Weltz clinic this weekend!
Boyfriend and I were going to dinner last night and in a state of extreme hunger and annoyance, I decided that I wanted a change of pace with Rico and that getting him to a new (ish, we've been there twice) barn with a full court was exactly what we needed. I didn't regret my decision after dinner so I arranged for an afternoon time on Saturday.
I'm stoked! Except that I hadn't heard much about this person (since I don't follow dressage very closely) so after agreeing to pay her to teach me, I looked her up. She's young, only a few years older than me, and has been kicking ass over in Florida. I watched a few videos of her riding and I was SUPER impressed.
Oh and did I mention that she's about ten MILLION times better than I am at pirouettes PS: love love love minimal white dark bays <3
So today I wouldn't shut up about the clinic! Apologies to my poor classmates who tried their best not to push me over the railing as we climbed up the stairs to our last class of the day...
I don't usually do clinics on Rico. I ride primarily with Tracey, occasionally with Heidi, and the rest of the time I'm on my own. I don't necessarily like spending money on clinics just because I'd rather ride with someone who knows me and Rico, and I'd rather spend any extra money (HAH) on shows.
But still, a new set of eyes is never a bad thing, and neither is getting an asshole of a horse in a strange(ish) court so he can be tempted to kick at your leg. And if Olivia can teach me to ride a fraction as well as she does, I'll be a gold medalist in no time :)
I can't wait to get back up in these hills when the semester ends!! And soon Rico will be up there with me!
Perfect timing for this Viva Carlos Blog Hop! I've been thinking a lot about how I structure Rico's workouts so I have a lot to say on this topic :)
What are you currently working on in your rides or lessons?
I break up what Rico and I work on into two categories: the basics/gaits, which I work on every day, and the movements, which I work on more sporadically.
We're always working on maintaining his basic training and improving the quality of his gaits. Rico tends to be lazy and crooked, so much of our work in the beginning (10-15 minutes) is establishing response to my aids (especially leg aids) and making sure that I'm not pulling him crooked with my left rein. I also address anything with his gaits. Sometimes he wants to get flat and quick at the trot, so I do a lot of transitions. Sometimes he wants to cover too much ground at the canter, so I do... lots of transitions. We do a lot of transitions.
After those 10-15 minutes of warm up/basic work, I usually choose one of the following progressive workouts for him. I try to not do exercises that are similar too many days in a row. I try to vary them so he doesn't overwork the same muscles. So for example on a Thursday we'd do piaffe/passage day (lots of sitting/pushing), then Friday we'd do a half pass day (lateral work, not much sitting/pushing), then Saturday we'd do a pirouette day (lots of sitting). I also throw in conditioning days and
Here are some of our progressive workouts:
Happy to say the HP has gotten much better!
Half Pass Boot Camp
- start with shoulder-in at the walk, then haunches-in, then half pass
- work on steepness of the half pass at walk
- walk/trot transitions in shoulder-in
- haunches-in at trot
- half pass at trot working steeper
- haunches-in at canter working balance and energy
- half pass at canter (including walk-canter transitions within if necessary)
- PSG zig zag
- I1 zig zag
- GP zig zag
Pirouette at Greenville
Pirouettes
- start with haunches-in at walk
- walk pirouettes
- haunches in at trot, then canter on a circle
- forward and back in the canter
- canter square
- canter square with every other corner a 1/4 pirouette
- half pirouettes
- full pirouettes
Changes at SVE
One-Tempis
- single flying changes focusing on straightness/quality after the change
- two changes on the long side no count
- 4 tempis
- 3 tempis
- 2 tempis
- couplet on the long side
- 2 couplets on the long side
- 3 ones
- occasionally 4 ones!
Boing!
Piaffe and Passage
- start with lots of transitions
- walk to half steps
- bring half steps on the spot
- occasionally in hand work
- trot to passage
- walk to passage
- piaffe to passage
- passage to piaffe
Those are the four main progressions I use right now! Sometimes I'll spend a whole workout on one progression, other times I'll do two of them. Occasionally (like tonight's lesson), I'll spend most of a ride working on what I consider "the stuff too easy to score badly on" such as the centerlines (tonight), halt and rein back, corners, etc.
Rico is also on a conditioning schedule at the end of every work out, so this is a normal ride:
15-20 minute walk down the road
10-15 minutes warm up/basics
20-25 minutes work on one or two progressions
10 minutes conditioning work (either trot for 10 minutes or canter two 5 minute sets)
10-15 minutes walk and hang out with neighbor cows
These stupid things have been the bane of Rico and my existence for a few months now. I've heard people talk about them, that they're not your normal tempis. Normal tempis (4s, 3s, 2s) are just lead changes all in a row. You do a change, and then attempt to contain your sassy horse while also attempting to count how many strides go by before doing another change. Occasionally your sassy horse kicks your right foot clear out of the stirrup, then takes off because he knows you hate that. But they're just lead changes and for the most part once as you have a few tempis in a row, you can basically just keep going. Once as I had three two-tempis in a row, I had nine.
Still loving these pictures from last Sunday
The ones are a different animal. It's basically another gait they have to learn! I had a lesson with Tracey last week (and meant to post about it but instead I got really sick this weekend) and finally asked her to help me with them. I think she tends to think that I'm a little over-ambitious, so I try not to sound toooo delusional when I talk to her, but I really wanted help with these.
We started with single changes and worked our way up to "couplets" which is two changes in a row. She noticed the same thing that Heidi did- that Rico backs off in the ones and gets kind of boingy. She recommended not coming in too quickly, since the reason why Rico backs off is because he doesn't think he can sustain himself through them. So if I come in like a bad out of hell, he'll be MORE likely to back off than if I come in quietly with energy.
This week Rico got his spring shots and Rico is a massive baby when it comes to shots. His neck swells up and he's unrideable, he can barely put his neck down to eat food. I normally give him banamine with the shots but because of his recent struggle with stomach ulcers, I opted out of that. How long could neck soreness last anyway? The answer is too long. He got the shots on Thursday morning before I could ride and by Saturday I still couldn't ride him. So on Saturday I broke down and gave him banamine (along with some ulcerguard) and Sunday we had a fabulous ride.
Canter pirouette
After three days off, the horse was spicy. He spooked a lot on our walk down the road and back and then in the arena he was extra forward (which was awesome). I did a bunch of piaffe and passage first. The passage is something I'm going to have to be careful about- if he feels the curb bit even the slightest, he shortens his neck and then won't passage (I don't blame him, he can't balance if his neck is short!). I dropped the curb and just rode on the snaffle and then he was MUCH better.
The piaffe was kind of shit. He was scootching forward and getting VERY crooked so I jumped off and did some in hand. WOW did that make a difference! He kept trying to bust through me so I'd halt, rein back, then piaffe again. Eventually he had several steps on the spot! Good pony! It translated well undersaddle with him being much straighter and much more on the spot. We even had some really great transitions in and out.
At least he looks pretty while inching forward!
Then I played with the ones for the first time since my lesson. I started with single changes and built up to two tempis, then did a bunch of couplets. He was feeling REALLY rideable in them so just for funzies* I tried to string three of them together. He was GREAT! We've gotten three before, but it was never that easy to do. I did it twice and let him walk. Then, in true over-ambitiousness, I tried four in a row. The first time he did three and then a two tempi. The second time HE DID IT! I made a huge deal out of him, telling him he was the best horse, etc.
*funzies is something that came out of grad school- we were in stats and a classmate asked "do we ever do [statistical procedure]? You know, just for funzies?" and prof says "we NEVER do stats for 'funzies'" and from then on, well, funzies. It's a lot funnier when you're suffering from grad school induced insanity.
After that I played with more single changes- I want to do a lot of them to try to get that damn kicking change to stop. He's been fine at home and at Woodmyst, but I feel like the more good ones I do, the less likely he'll be to do them at shows.
We're starting the last two (and a bit) weeks of my first year of graduate school! Which means that my whole cohort is going completely crazy. I'm lucky that my boyfriend is in the program so he not only understands my crazy, he's right there with me.
It feels good.
This week is brought to you by a (so far) 15 page statistics paper on a three group hierarchical discriminant analysis in which 4.5 of those pages are my results section alone. The paper features six tables and a discussion that hasn't even been written yet, which will likely push it to 20 pages. The syntax and output are also being requested, which is likely to break any stapler I try to use to bind all this shit together.
Next week is brought to you by two presentations that Megan is NOT ready for along with a twelve page research paper that Megan has NOT started.
When is summer again? All I want to do is ride this animal
