Trainer Ride

Heidi got on Rico in my lesson on Thursday!

Rico hasn't had a trainer sit on him in five years. The last time a trainer was on him, I was wildly unhappy with how he was ridden and actually pulled him out of full training, never to return to a full training situation. Tracey always mentioned that she wanted to sit on him, but her health wasn't great while she was teaching me, so that never happened.

In these five years, I've had a handful of people ride Rico, only to be severely disappointed with how he went for other people. I'm certainly not the greatest rider ever, but Rico and I mesh pretty well together. He's not a ridiculously hard ride, he's actually quite straightforward, maybe too much so. You HAVE to be able to get him round and you HAVE to be able to get him forward. After that, you're golden. However, he kind of tries to trick you because he really doesn't want to work hard. He'll zoom off with his head in the air, or he'll go super round, get behind you, and stop. So there's this balance you have to find between making sure he's staying round and then covering enough ground where he's connected but not so much that he's running.

I took more night pictures using the bulb setting!
These are star trails at a 15 minute exposure

Heidi had no problems, OBVIOUSLY. She got on, put him right on the bit, activated him, and they were off! He never once tried to get behind her (he knew she meant business! And he's been very good about that recently).

The point of her riding him was to get the ones. She started right off the bat with twos after getting situated at the canter. He was a little confused, but immediately figured out what she meant (I've probably got six inches of height on her so there's a big leg difference there! We had to wrap my stirrups for her).

She tried the ones and he was just confused. She managed by the end to get three good ones in a row and told me that she thought he just didn't quite get it yet. We're going to back off training the ones. He gets this weekend to think, and then we'll really start next week. She says he doesn't understand the biomechanic, he just climbs up above the bit and physically can't do any more. Poor pony.

Light painting on the barn!

Then she played with the piaffe and passage. Again the aid was off but they worked it out quickly. I was happy that he went around and held the passage for so long. He LOOKED like a Grand Prix horse at times, like for reals. But I can see that he gets very uneven behind sometimes and it doesn't feel like he is. This is totally normal, most horses don't have an even passage for a while. It's so much power from behind that whatever hind leg is strongest takes over and one leg stays on the ground too long. Rico's right hind is the obnoxious one, so of course this one stays on the ground way too long. What a jerk.

She touched the trot but decided it was fine. God he trotted so nice with her. I feel like he just kind of ho-hums with me bouncing around. She sat so still and he had SUCH a nice cadence. Ugh, time for more sit ups.

When I got on, we played with the piaffe, passage, and ones. The piaffe was better, but I still think I get better piaffe at home. The passage felt great! The in from the passage to piaffe was fine as usual, and coming back into passage was better but not perfect. She says he looks much smoother in the transition, but that now we need to really attack the unevenness.

Coming from piaffe to passage you really notice it, and it's the reason why the transition is rocky. He pushes way off of his left hind, then lands on the right and stays there too long. So coming out, I'm to tap his right hind.

"In all my years of judging and riding in shows, you'll never ever ever get a comment 'horse too active behind' so tap him!"

I'm going to take that to heart but also remember what Alfredo said about not going for BIG and overfacing Rico with a gait he can't handle physically.

Milky way over the barn again, I'm obsessed

We have another lesson this afternoon and Heidi is going to hop on him again and try more ones. I'm not sure how successful it will be, he's been struggling a little lately and I think he's a bit burned out. Time for a trail ride! 

Rico Called Shotgun

I have a lot of things to talk about this week! My posts will probably disappear for a bit when I start my second year of graduate school in ten days but for now, on with the post.

This week, Rico has been SUPER FORWARD! He's suddenly very interested in staying in the front seat. It's been about six or eight weeks since we started really working on getting him reliably in front of the leg and it's really paying off. I've had some of the best rides I've had this year over the last week and it occurred to me yesterday that I was sitting SO quietly and he was cantering very collected and round without me having to do a thing. I hope this NEVER goes away. 

This week he's also getting a bit of piaffe boot camp. The show was a good example of why we need this- the piaffe is not reliable in the show ring. 

It's one thing that his ones suck, his ones suck at home too. But his piaffe is GOOD at home! So why did we get a 4 and a 5 on them? Rico isn't quiiiiite convinced he has to do it in the show ring. 

How to fix it? Make it even better and 100% reliable at home and desperately hope that it translates to the show ring. 

One really hot day, boyfriend and I went to Moss Landing

The problem in the piaffe is that he just stops. Really what it is, is that he has a really quality piaffe but doesn't like working hard. So he starts off great and then goes "mehhhhh a halt is basically the same," and stops. It's not the same, Rico, a halt is very different than a piaffe.

It frustrates everyone involved that Rico has a SUPER piaffe and yet doesn't want to do it when asked. It especially frustrates me that I've heard from multiple people that it's easily a 7 in the show ring. A 4 is not a 7, Rico. 

Piaffe is also a double coefficient. There are three of them in the GP test. So there's that. 

So pretty

On Tuesday I decided that I wanted to work him in hand. He learned to piaffe in hand and I can kind of wedge him against my arena fence to get him to do it. This helps because then I can see his activity, sitting, and how even/diagonal his steps are. Those things are hard to determine undersaddle without a mirror. 

I started asking and he just stood there, so I swatted him and he charged through me. Ah, there's the problem.

We worked on it a bunch in hand and voila! He's MUCH better in the piaffe undersaddle. 

Beach!

Yesterday I did the same thing. Right away he was on board in hand to do the piaffe when aided and it translated beautifully undersaddle. 

I worked on transitions in and out of it from the passage and he was great into it, but as Heidi noted at our last lesson, he kind of poops out half way through. She has me trot out of it when he does that but I took it to the next level and made him gallop out of it. I basically told him that he can piaffe a couple more steps, or he can gallop around my arena. It was 85 degrees. He opted to piaffe. 

A boat!

Soon we had the BEST transitions in and out of the piaffe and the BEST piaffe we've ever had. The passage benefited too, I had more steps where I wasn't using my spurs than when I was. I really want to school both without spurs so that in the show ring when I put them in him, they mean something.

I really want to get at least 80% of what I got today in the show ring, it would give me so much confidence! 

Such a nice cool day  

I leave for my lesson today in an hour and a bit. Today Heidi gets to ride him to see if she can get more one tempis out of him. Fingers crossed!!

Even More Conditioning

In my last post, I mentioned revamping Rico's conditioning schedule.

I've struggled to keep him as fit as he needs to be, since I don't actually know how fit he needs to be! What I do know is that he wasn't quite fit enough at the last show. Well, he was fit enough to do the I2, but by the end of the test he was itching for a break and with moving up to GP in the next month, I need him much fitter than he is now to get through that test, since it's quite a bit longer.

Milky Way over my barn! Finally got to edit these pictures

Currently, he's been sitting pretty at the following:

3-4x/week- dressage at home
1-2x/week- lesson with Heidi
1x/week- day off
1x/week- light day, trail ride, hack, etc

Dressage at home means:
15-20m walk
5m warm up
1m break
4x8m work sets with 2m breaks in between
10m walk

Toward the neighbor's house

I like what I'm doing each week, it works for my schedule (I desperately need a day a week where I don't see a horse) and I feel like it works him enough but not to the point where he's really tired and we risk injury.

What I do want to change, is what we do in our rides. Eight minute sets are great, but he needs to do more. I'd rather have him be used to more work with fewer breaks so that in the test when he gets a walk break after four minutes, he's like WOOHOO instead of thinking he deserves it and that it's about time.

So we're moving up to TEN minute work sets rather than eight for the next two weeks and after that, he'll move up to TWELVE minute work sets.

I'm also going to make a point to ride when it's hot. We take lessons in the middle of the day and don't get to pick our ride times, but at home I always try to ride early or late when it's cool. Yeah it's easier on both of us, but it makes us ill-prepared for shows and lessons which are then MUCH harder on us. So we're riding as much as possible in the 90 degree heat doing all of this work. Ugh.

Such a pretty place

I'm also getting fitter! This is my sixth month doing crossfit and the other day I took up cycling. Boyfriend now lives near a paved trail, so we (plus his roommate) went out for a ride. We ended up doing about 7 miles! I expected to be sore afterwards since I haven't ridden a bike since March when I did four miles and was sore for five days. I was not sore. I wasn't even tired. The next day I just got up early, went to crossfit, rode two horses, and ate my weight in whatever I could find in the kitchen that had protein in it.

It's really helping my riding, I can out ride Rico easily. Now he needs to get on my level :)

Milky Way!

Intermediare II Photo Dump

I'm almost done editing pictures from the show this weekend!

Afterwards, I love this picture! Rico looks so tired though

I'm actually standing in the barn right now, these pictures took a while to upload so I got Rico ready to ride while I was waiting.

Today we're starting our new conditioning schedule- we were doing 8 minute sets of work and now we're moving up to 10 minute sets. Today I'll just do three, but ideally I want him doing four each day. This show made me realize further that he needs to be even MORE fit! When he's done with this schedule (in four weeks right before the Grand Prix), he'll be up to almost 1 full hour of trotting and cantering not including breaks. Yikes.

On to the pictures!! Once again my computer is questionable with its display so they're probably a lot more vibrant than I wanted them to be, but I make no claims to be a professional photographer. COLORS!

I'm nervous! Rico couldn't care less

Up centerline

He's so much more forward now!

Medium trot! My shadbelly wanted to all be on the right side... ugh

Half pass, look who's sitting straighter??

Extended canter

Coming into the right pirouette, note the
fear in our eyes

After the ones, almost done!

Final passage on centerline

SO happy to be done, SO HAPPY

I'm still feeling really great about this show, but the pressure for the Grand Prix in LESS THAN A MONTH is starting to set in. And it's manifesting itself in different ways.

For example, you should have seen the ridiculously long email I sent to my boyfriend today about camping dates. It was crazy. Boyfriend just responds with "whatever you want" and "you pick," he's a keeper... and is in for it for the next few months as we're comping at the highest level.

Future Grand Prix horse right here!
Who is now pawing because I'm taking too long :) 

Just Barely!

WE GOT A 60.7% AT THE INTERMEDIARE II TODAY!!!

First let me thank those of you who commented on my last post- I was REALLY nervous for this show and all of those comments helped me SO much. So thank you guys!!!


We had the best warm up we've had at a show since maybe 2009. He was forward, on the aids, happy to do his job, and generally just responsive and receptive. I kept it to about fifteen minutes.

That was stressful. We did the following movements: piaffe, passage, and two tempis. We also did small circles at the canter, but no pirouettes. I primarily wanted him to be forward and round. So there was no half pass, no one tempis, no extended paces, and none of the little movements- canter-trot transitions, walk-canter transitions, canter-halt transitions, etc.

It was SCARY to go into the court being like "huh, I hope we have one tempis today, I didn't check" and "huh, I hope he goes sideways since we did NONE of that." But the plan was set: do as little as possible and trust that the horse is trained.


Turns out that he IS trained! Weird, considering who his rider is ;)

It was green, very green. The judge said "Good effort, still green in some movements but shows promise for the future."

For where we're at, I was VERY pleased. He gave me fantastic pirouettes (although the judge disagreed), great half pass at the canter, his passage was on point, and the extended paces were better than they have EVER been. However, we lost the piaffe in the test, he didn't actually give me many steps, so we got a 5 and a 4 on them. We also had no ones, we got a 3 on that movement.

But overall we earned a lot of 6s and 6.5s. Here and there were 7s (passage transition, canter half pass left, collected walk, a single change at the end of an extended canter) and one 7.5 (walk to canter transition). We also had some 5s (both pirouettes, even though the left one was good!) and then that 4 and 3 for piaffe and ones.


We came out with a JUST BARELY 60% and a second place out of two (whatever). I'm glad we did it! The judge is known for being a bit tough so I'm so happy that we got a decent score.


Onto the Grand Prix!! Just 29 days...

Will post pictures soon :)

Test Riding at Intermediare II

Rico and I had another lesson with Heidi this week! We decided to go through the whole Intermediare II test to see what it looked like. I haven't ridden a test for practice in YEARS. On Rico, the last time I practiced a full test in a regulation court was in 2009. I usually just wing it.

We didn't exactly do the whole thing, we kind of broke it down and stopped part way through to address the problems in the second half of the first pi/pa tour. But in the end we did do all of the movements, along with a metric fuckton of piaffe, passage, and pirouettes. Poor tired pony got a shower and the promise of a light ride tomorrow night.

Let me go through it for memorization purposes.

1. A enter collected canter
X halt
XC collected trot
- We're sticking with left lead this time, and I'm not allowed to touch the right rein lest he change, the asshole

2. C track left
HXF extended trot
FA collected trot
- These are getting SO GOOD! We might actually NOT get a 5 on them this show.

3. A down centerline
DG 3 half passes, 5 m to either side of centerline, beginning/ending to the right
C track right
- Heidi said that this would be a 7 with the comment "needs cadence"

4. Between R and B transition to passage
- We're planning to transition early since Rico sometimes is a step late so we don't want an ambiguous transition after B

5. BV on diagonal in passage
- I WILL keep my leg on through corners, it's possible

6. Crossing centerline piaffe 8-10 steps, 1m forward permitted
- The last part is key, let him go forward because we tend to stop if he doesn't keep going

7. In/out of piaffe (transitions)
- Yep, a separate score for transitions which is a big fuck you by the FEI to my horse in particular since he's taken to leaping out of piaffe right now

8. From piaffe VKA passage
- Turning is key here, we need to make it through the turn still passaging

9. A piaffe 8-10 steps
- Samesies

10. A transitions in and out of piaffe
- Ugh

11. AFP passage
- Almost done...

12. PS extended walk
- Rico's favorite

13. SHC collected walk
- Cue panicking riiiiiiiight now

14. C proceed in collected canter
CM collected canter
- And the hellish canter work starts

15. MXK medium canter
K collected canter and flying change
KAFP collected canter
- I have to remember to do the change on the diagonal, not in the corner

16. PX half pass left
X on centerline
- These are the steepest freaking half passes! I never noticed on Leo since he could basically do the splits but Rico thinks they're insane!

17. I pirouette to the left
C track left
- This was downright GOOD today, oh my goddd

18. HXF extended canter
- Flyyyyy Rico

19. F collected canter and flying change
FAKV collected canter
- That's what I'll be saying about now, FAKV!!

20. VX half pass to the right
X on centerline
- This one isn't as bad, he's got a decent right half pass

21. I pirouette right
C track right
- UGHHH this movement is only pirouette-like at the moment. Goal: get through it and don't lose confidence for the 2s

22. MXK seven two tempis
- This WILL be a 7 if I can do anything about it. Which I can. I need to remember that.

23. FXH eleven one tempis
- This will probably not happen so I just need to toss in eleven changes somehow and hope that some of them are ones

24. C colelcted trot
MXK extended trot
K collected trot
- This fucking downward transition is always so bad, today he just stopped. I had to pony kick him into trot, which he did off the bit with his head way off to the left as he spooked at something.

25. CM collected trot
KA collected trot
(also transitions included)
- They just want to let me really feel the shitty transition in my score, huh

26. A down centerline
Between D and L transition to passage
LI passage
- This has got to be a good score, but we'll be so tired.

27. I halt
- IT'S OVER!!


Overall I'm VERY nervous. I'm feeling confident in most of the movements, but I'm 100% sure that the ones and the right pirouette will get us. We'll see how reliable the piaffe is in the arena. I feel like we might have overdone it this week to be honest. Today he was just so tired in the piaffe.

I was thinking about scratching, I'm having problems with my left shoulder/elbow from pull-ups, and I'm just feeling like a bad score might blow my confidence a bit. However, Heidi said that there's definitely a chance I'll score in the 60s and honestly, what's the big deal of grabbing a 58 at this level? It's still motherfucking Intermediare II. On a horse I trained myself. On a horse who had surgery four years ago for a career ending injury that he wasn't expected to come back from. It hasn't even been a year since our Prix St George debut. The fact that we COULD score in the 60s is good enough for me.

Whatever happens this weekend, I'm happy to have this wonderful horse back from those injuries and cantering up centerline. Hopefully this time he won't add two tempis to it...

Basic Problems with Upper Level Symptoms

I haven't posted in a bit! Everything is going a little nuts over here as August is rolling in. The grad school crazy is coming, we all can feel it, but we have another couple of weeks before it really sets in. Meanwhile, I've been running around quite a bit. Boyfriend moved, twice actually. Once from his last place down to my place for two nights (country livin' for him!) and then into his new place. I was a good girlfriend, using the strength I've gained from crossfitting for these nearly five months, and helped him move both of those times.

I want this shirt

THEN boyfriend's car broke down. Luckily the new place is really close to public transportation and a bunch of stores, but I've been trying to make myself somewhat available to help with errands.

I'm also helping my parents out with the new horse. We're trying to find a bit to use for him- he came in this super long shanked western bit, and my dad is a strong/big guy so Riot keeps getting way behind the bit.  I put my dad in a myler comfort snaffle yesterday but that seemed slightly too mild for the trails. We're going to experiment with snaffles but my mom wants him in something with leverage to give her peace of mind, so I suggested a short shank pelham or a short shank western bit. I don't know much about western bits but I do know shanks and mouth pieces so there you go.

I get to ride him today! My mom and I are going to trailer out for the first time. My dad wanted to go, but just in case we have problems, my mom wanted me to ride him first. Thanks mom, I'm forever the crash dummy. 

I can't exactly crash today since Rico and I have a big week ahead. That's right! Besides keeping busy with work, boyfriend, new horse, and various other projects, I have this awesome FEI horse to ride every day. Oh how my life is going to change when he retires. What will I do with myself?!

I know what's on Rico's to do list

Rico wasn't great over the weekend. We got in a fight about the one tempis. It hit me that I had only a few more rides until the I2 and we need eleven one tempis. ELEVEN. We've only ever gotten five in a row and that resulted in me almost causing him to break to trot afterward because I was so shocked. It became apparent that we're not going to be anywhere close to eleven.

So I kind of lost my mind a bit. He's been a little lazier because it's been hot, which makes everything harder. That coupled with the lack of ones made me get after him a bit too much and we lost the changes for a day. It was so hard to just stop the workout after not only ruining the ones, but ruining the single flying changes that he's normally so good at, and just putting him back and apologizing to him. 

The next day we had changes up to the couplets and at my lesson yesterday, he gave me three in a row, but we're no where near five and certainly not capable of eleven.

Heidi had a few good things to say to me yesterday:

- There are three movements that can be absolutely ruined by tension and getting after a horse for doing them badly: the halt on centerline, the piaffe, and the one tempis. No matter what, under no circumstance am I EVER to do anything more than a tap in any of those movements. He does not get in trouble for them, he only gets encouragement. Why? Because relaxation is absolutely necessary to even perform the movement. So I get after him, he gets tense, we lose changes. 

- The problems we're having are all basic problems with upper level symptoms. It all boils down to this: if Rico is forward and stays through, he's a Grand Prix horse. If he doesn't, he won't make it through the test. The problem is this: I tend to ignore the forward/throughness until we're in the middle of a pirouette and it's a problem. All these years we got away with him being slightly lazy and slightly hollow. He is talented enough to get through even the Intermediare I test while he's behind me and still score okay. This isn't okay anymore. We've been prescribed twice per week basics rides where all I do is run him over the ground with his head between his knees (exaggerating...).

- I have to chill the fuck out about the one tempis. Rico WILL get them, he just doesn't understand it yet. I'm further confusing him by trying to get after him for doing them wrong. He doesn't do them well because the mechanic isn't right yet- he climbs up and gets hollow, then physically cannot perform the movement. Once as the mechanic is right (and I get this by doing small amounts of couplets and sets of three while encouraging him to stay rounder and bound over the ground), he'll do fifteen no problem. Don't ruin the ones by trying to beat eleven out of him. This weekend doesn't matter.

I'm glad I have Heidi to help me with all of this, I feel like she's quite realistic but still stays optimistic enough where I don't feel like she's discouraging me. She knows we have a deadline but isn't willing to sacrifice the basics to get there.