I Used to Jump

Today is my last day of class EVER. NO MORE CLASS EVER. I have lots to do, so enjoy this post I wrote two weeks ago (look at me acting like a real blogger, setting up content so I don't go too long without a post).

It's hard to tell with all the DQness that goes on around here, but I used to jump!

I've actually jumped for a lot more years than I've done dressage. I've been doing dressage since 2004 (so 11 years) and I jumped from 199something to 2010 (at least 15 years). I did a little jumping in 2012 when I took the paint horse on, but he severed a tendon in his hock before we could actually do anything fun and then had a year of rehab before he could jump again. By then I was competing at the FEI levels and in grad school so no fun eventing horse for me.

Obviously I'm better at dressage than I am at jumping. Much of my jumping training was from not-so-great trainers at a low level and half of my dressage training has come from big name trainers at a high level. I also never put as much effort into my jumping as dressage. I find dressage really fascinating and I find jumping cool, but the level of fascination isn't strong enough to actually want to sink time into it. Maybe one day I'll have a horse that is SUPER fun to jump and I'll actually want to do it. Most of the horses I had (save for the paint horse) were slow off the ground and lazy to the fences = lots of leg. I love those horses on the flat. I hate them over fences.

Whatever horse I end up with though, I want to get some jumping lessons on eventually. I'd love to compete at Beginner Novice in eventing and maybe do a few schooling shows (hunter jumper shows are so confusing to me, I'd have to have one of you guys help me fill out the entry). I do like jumping, especially cross country. Just that on any given day, I'd rather be doing dressage.

Pictures!

Rico and I jumped together in 2007-2008

Rico wasn't the best jumper at first...

Dillon and I jumped a little in 2012, he's a pepperpot

I evented at Rancho Murieta in 2003

A combined test in 2004

Rancho Murieta in 2003, I stuffed him at the base and jumped
up his neck, quality riding right there! *note the difference in
me between 2002 and 2003, that is what a horse change for the
stronger and a trainer change for the worse does to you. 

This was in 2001 or 2002, I did the jumpers on Stretch

Stretch and I never did an event (he went lame) but we schooled
a lot of cross country for pony club

These were in 2007, I was schooling him before one of my clients
took him out in the field

He was so fun to jump, he always found the exact perfect distance

Quest in early 2000, he was great when he wasn't bucking

Pony club camp in 2000

2000 on Quest, note the devil horns! It was our Halloween show
and this was me getting him back for bucking me off all the time

1999 or 2000 on Dandy

2000 I think on Dandy

2002 on Stretch again

2003 I think, I show jumped a Gypsy Vanner!

The cutest connemara pony in 2003

I've shown a picture of this guy in the past on here- Novice at
Galway in 2010

His first event early in 2010 

Legitimately Sideways

Yesterday I really wasn't feeling it. I wasn't feeling it Saturday either. I was a lot more irritated about Wednesday's ride on TC than I had expected. It's just getting old that he is such an idiot in literally every other arena except his home one. Especially the neighbor's, where he's been regularly for months now.

It feels like a let down every time I ride elsewhere, I'm so used to feeling that amazing connection he gives me, being able to work on fun things like stretch circles and lateral work. Then we go anywhere else and it's just meh, he's tense, spooky, and I very much dislike being run away with, even if I was capable of stopping it immediately.

At least he's cute?

So yesterday I decided that I was going to ride in the good arena again, just to remember why I enjoy this horse, why I'm sinking my precious time and eventually money into working with him.

And damn he showed me how great he really can/will be.

I decided to do all of our walk work first, including leg yields and shoulder-in. He is getting pretty good at the leg yields at the walk, it takes a relatively light aid and he stays pretty straight. I'm starting to ask for a quicker response, since he tends to slow down in them. The shoulder-in is just excellent, no complaints, he finds it very easy.

He picked up an amazing trot right from the get go, that feeling in the bridle? I've never felt anything like it on a horse this young and dumb. I wish he'd do it you know, like anywhere else.

I want to know what he looks like now, this was a few months
ago! I know he's longer in the neck but hopefully more active
in the hind legs too

At the trot, we schooled figures, mostly just circles, riding across the diagonal, and figure-8s. He fell out a bit over the right shoulder, but I'm able to reconnect him now, which means that we only fly sideways for a few steps instead of into the rail, which is progress I guess.

I've been working lately on getting him to let me sit his trot. He's not ready for a LOT of it, but I want to be able to sit maybe 4-5 steps at a time and not have him change in the bridle so that when I do introduce sitting trot all the time, it isn't a big ordeal. Yesterday he did really well with this, letting me sit it for quite a bit of time while staying relaxed. Weighted situps be damned, this horse has a HUGE trot and it's not easy to sit. But my seat is pretty decent so I know that I'm not adding to the tension by gripping or tightening anything, so that's good. He has gotten smoother in the last few weeks, so I'm not concerned that he'll be impossible to sit in the future.

At the canter, I decided that he was ready for me to take charge a bit more, now that he's had quite a few weeks of getting comfortable cantering without my help. I basically sat with a little more oomph to help him with the rhythm, and rode him a bit more INTO the bridle rather than over the ground. He surprised me by coming up in the back and staying balanced much better. To the right, he was on the bit the whole time. To the left... well it's a work in progress.

See that paddock? Mini horses live in there,
including little Ollie (the baby cyclops mini)

Back to walk, I introduced haunches-in, which went well. He was confused but happy to try for me. We also attempted a bit of half pass the good way. It didn't look like or feel like half pass, but he tried and that's good for now! He doesn't need to school third level juuuust yet.

I let him end at the trot with what I thought would just be more figures, working on the connection and lateral balance. As I came around the short side tracking left, he was falling out over that damn right shoulder again, so I reconnected him on the right rein and he turned a bit too soon, putting us on about the 1/8 line.

Automatically, I asked him to leg yield to the rail and he did it! Like a legitimate leg yield. It made my motherfucking day. It was like this beacon of lateralness that let me see that this horse isn't only good for being a jackass in arenas that aren't at home, he can actually go SIDEWAYS AT THE TROT. I can't explain why it made me so happy. It wasn't even from quarterline.

I did walk him over to the neighbor's after, there were cows in our regular arena so we went into the indoor and just did some lateral work at the walk until he calmed down. Overall it was fine, he was kind of spooky and whinnied a lot, but he did do his job and that's all I can ask for.

TC is weary, he will be even more weary now
because Ollie was galloping around there
yesterday and spooked the hell out of him!

I came home and was feeling both excited about that stupid leg yield and irritated that he was still kind of an idiot at the neighbor's. I decided that I needed a good ride on Rico, I needed to feel what an upper level horse felt like, hell, what a horse who steers feels like.

I tacked him up and took some time to figure out why I was suddenly so frustrated with TC. I kept telling myself "ugh when he's five and at first level, then he'll be fun and we'll actually get to work on fun things" and then I stopped.

I used to do that kind of thinking all the time with Rico. When we were at second level, all I wanted was a third level horse. I just wanted to do lead changes and ride in a double and blah blah blah. I finally made it to third but all I could think about was fourth, I wanted to work on pirouettes and tempis. This blog picks up when I was riding at fourth and almost every post is talking about me wanting to go PSG. How much of an ass Rico was in the zig zag and the tempis, how hard the pirouettes were.

Once Rico was at PSG, all I could think about was going further. There I was, on my FEI horse, bitching and moaning that the full pirouettes were too hard, that he was such an ass about doing the zig zag, that he was so lazy so crooked so frustrating. Some of my barn mates used to tell me that I wasn't allowed to complain about him because he was an FEI horse, I wanted to hit them sometimes.

I miss him

So as I was playing with Rico, who gave me piaffe, passage, a couple of ones, and jumped the crossrail in the arena a few times, I had the epiphany that I've had so many times. Realizing that no, I am never going to be consistently happy and excited about the horse during every ride. No matter what the level.

There is always going to be something that drives me up the wall and makes me question why I'm doing it, that's just who I am. That's just what working with a horse means. It doesn't matter if I'm working with an idiot four year old who can't keep his shit together in a different arena. It doesn't matter if I'm trying to get my stupid Grand Prix horse to not leap into the passage from the piaffe. It's stressful, frustrating, and irritating.

But sometimes there are days like yesterday that make it all worth it. Sometimes that stupid baby horse gives you the world's shallowest, crappiest leg yield but it happened at the TROT for the first time and that's so freaking amazing.

I hate horses.

Rico is an Asshole

Since I have owned him (all ten years), Rico has never lived out with other horses or been turned out with other horses. He's certainly lived next to them, but never lived with anyone.

Currently, he lives in a stall with a huge paddock and gets turned out into a 1 acre (or so, maybe closer to 2) pasture in the morning for 3 hours and in the evening for 3 hours. My dad's TWH gelding, Riot, gets turned out with Rico.

Riot, the sweetest horse ever

Rico, a horse I thought was sweet

I was curious to see how Rico would handle living with other horses. He's always had kind of a dominant personality to me. Very confident, not spooky, willing to push me around, won't back down from a fight with me, etc. But he's such a sweet, caring horse, he cuddles with me and nuzzles me and has generally been pretty friendly to other horses. When I've gone on trail rides or trailered him with other horses or just generally handled him around other horses, he doesn't make mean faces and only nips playfully.

So cuddly and sweet!

All the dog cuddles!

Well, with Rico now living in pasture with other horses part time, I've gotten to know what he's like. 

And he's a huge asshole. 

He and Riot get along pretty well generally, but Riot is pretty submissive so Rico has learned that he can boss him around. If Rico wants to move to another part of the pasture, he goes over to Riot, sneers and nips at him, and Riot heads over to where Rico wants to go. Sometimes Rico just wants to move Riot around because he can. Jerk.

Stretch is also pretty dominant, Stretch goes out with Dandy sometimes and has been known to harass him a bit. Stretch also lives next to Rico and they rear and play over the fence at each other (and get yelled at to stop). I asked my mom one day why we didn't turn them out together because they would probably love to play and maybe Stretch would stand up to Rico.

Dandy: my mom's retired 27 year old QH 

Rico and Stretch (my retired hunter/jumper horse and my
mom's current trail horse) were bffs on the trail!

We did it one day while I was there to help. It didn't go well.

Rico went out into pasture alone and then was suddenly joined by Stretch, which pissed him off. Rico went after Stretch in the same way that he went after Riot, but Stretch wasn't having it and double barrel kicked at him. He didn't make contact but Rico was PISSED. Rico chased Stretch around (now, remember that my horse is 1. very fat and 2. very dressage-y, so chasing involved a lot of porpoising haha) and around the pasture.

Imagine this boingy canter chasing an innocent paint horse around the pasture

Poor Stretch finally made it into the paddock where Rico had intended to herd him. Rico then took off all over the pasture, whinnying. When Stretch tried to come back out, Rico charged him.

My horse is an asshole.

So Stretch won't be going out there to be terrorized anymore. So much for standing up to bullies, right? Riot won't stand up to Rico and just lets Rico push him around, so I think that's why they get along. But last time they were out together, Rico herded Riot into the paddock and left him there a few times.

Jerk!

In other news, the world's most submissive horse in pasture (TC, who zips away from other horses when they walk toward him) was very good on the trail yesterday. He got to gallop a bit (this time on a straight line and not away from anyone so it was more pleasant for me) and had a lot of fun. This week will be a light week for him so I can try to let him down a bit fitness-wise. 

Backfire

TC would really like to inform everyone around him these days that he is, in fact, the shit.

Enjoy some spring pictures from a couple
years ago at the ranch, everything is
brown now

He suddenly has the biggest ego and it's driving me up the wall. I think it's due to a combination of things- first, he's special enough to be brought in every day and given a flake of hay and a bucket of rice bran and cool calories for lunch. Second, he was so brave on his first ever all-by-himself "trail" ride (down the road about mile and back). Third, he's been being ridden more (4x per week rather than 3) and that plus the food means that he's quite fit. Too fit. I never want horses to be more fit than they are trained. He is too fit for how little training he has.

Today I headed over to the neighbor's place to ride, thinking that it would be a good way to prep for our show on Saturday, which is actually canceled, boo, but I didn't know that at the time.

Every spring, we get our neighbor longhorns back!
They come eat down our neighbor's pasture and then
go home for the fall/winter

We call these birds mockingjays. Obviously they aren't,
but my whole family has read Hunger Games

It was the very very first time we've ever gone over there to work alone. Last week when I went over there, I was thinking I was alone but ended up riding with Ali the whole time. But this time, so alone.

He was fine about it and I was so happy. Until his barnmates came down the trail and passed by the arena. Then he lost his fucking mind. He never does anything really bad (bucking, leaping, rearing, etc), but he was charging around and not steering and going rigid in the bridle. That drives me nuts. I can handle spooky or charging but the whole rigidity in the bridle is really annoying.

He goes from being one of the lightest horses in the world to being exceptionally heavy, that plus the charging means that I get a really nice demonstration of what it would be like to be dragged down a hill by a large boulder.

I don't like it.

I put him on a circle and got him back to me about 50% or so. He started to relax a bit more so I ended with the trot work. It's so hard going from working on fun stuff (leg yields, geometry, connection, straightness) at home to working on baby stuff (steering, relaxation, generally not being a fucking maniac) just a quarter mile down the road. He literally can see his pasture from this arena. Like he's only maybe 100 feet further away from his pasture at the neighbors as he is in his own arena.

This is the alarm cow, she moos incessantly 

So many birds at the ranch

The trot work ended up being okay, so I decided to canter him there for the first time. He's cantered in their other arenas, but I've been riding outside (oh the HORROR) because the footing is better.

The canter wasn't bad but it was FAST. Like too fast. I'll say it, I'm not an UL event rider, I don't get any sort of thrill being on the back of some psycho 4 year old who just discovered that he had more gears.  He feels like he's going to fall over when cantering and also is afraid of things that he's passed without a problem for the last 30 circles.

At the same time, I'm thinking that I don't want to tell him that he can't go forward. I just spent the last four months convincing him that he SHOULD go forward. Totally backfired on me today. So I just let him go and checked him back occasionally and tried to remember if I had told my parents I loved them in the last week and wondered why I was wearing my crappy helmet instead of my newest one and considered how I would get on stage at graduation if I broke my leg falling down with this galloping asshole (because if I'm going down, I'm taking him with me).

We were cruising pretty well when a horse moved (OH MY GOD) in the pasture to the right of him and I felt what my future racehorse dressage horse was really capable of. He ducked his left shoulder, tucked his tail under him, and I felt INSANE power. More power than I had felt in a horse in a long time and that's saying something because I just finished competing Grand Prix last year on a very powerful horse. Rico has got nothing on this horse. TC loaded his hocks and BOLTED with me.

An avian interpretation of TC's bolt

Such happy cows

Now I say bolt and mean that he grabbed the bit, downshifted, and gave me 4 huge strides before I stopped him with my right rein.

In the moment, I didn't give a shit whether we were going down. He was horrified that I would throw him so off balance. And just like when he thought bucking was a good way to solve things, I showed him that I didn't give a single fuck if he hit the dirt and he immediately stopped and regained balance.

After that I let him have it (work-wise, he didn't need more than a strong pulley rein hah), he was on 10 meter trot circles with his nose between his knees (exaggerating, but he was quite round). He started to relax and I actually got some really nice trot work out of him.

I returned to canter and he quietly cantered twice around in each direction without any consideration of bolting. I quickly walked, pet him, and we were on our way back the long way to the barn.

But he was still reveling in the power he must have felt in that 4 stride bolt because he proceeded to strut out of there like he was king of the world. Normally I can't get this jerk to put any energy into his walk! But there he was, strutting around and spooking at everything. He spooked at a sign, then when he tried to take off trotting to get away from it, I turned him into the fence, which he spooked at. I had to duck under trees so he started trotting, then spooked at absolutely nothing and stopped again.

Rose garden 

A bovine interpretation of TC's bolt

Back at the barn, I decided that he needs a few extra days off this week and less time in our rides to reduce his fitness.

Taking a couple days off this week was actually planned anyway because I have five kids showing in a show next weekend so I'll be using the extra days this week to pack up all my things and move away before the show teach extra lessons and then be on site at the show ALL DAY ALL THREE DAYS. Worst ride times ever. I basically start the day and end the day all three days. Gross. Good luck, kids that ride in the afternoon, not with your riding, but with dealing with your trainer.

ONE more day of school left until I'm done forever with school, second interview went exceptionally well, and I'm currently grading my last set of statistics papers EVER and haven't yet failed anyone... yet.

The ranch has some weird things randomly placed around it

Continued Improvement

I've been struggling through my final presentation for my neuroscience class tomorrow. I definitely started it today and by toDAY I mean toNIGHT. I enjoy my studying most when I put something on in the background, typically a boring TV show or music (although it has to be the RIGHT music and it takes me too long to find something that isn't boring or annoying so I typically throw the TV on). Today I found a *boring* documentary on math. Right? Math. That can't be interesting. It was fucking amazing. For the last hour, I've been only partially paying attention to my powerpoint. Fucking math, guys. So amazing.

Now I'm blogging. Eventually this thing will get done, right, it's not like I'm going to stand up in front of the class with a blank powerpoint yelling "I GRADUATE IN TWO WEEKS, BITCHES" for twelve minutes and then three minutes of questions.

Anyway, I rode TC both Sunday and today, Monday.

Sunday's ride was good. We rode out in the field and he settled down faster than I had expected. We did some really great trot work, but my main goal was to use the big-ness of the field to canter.

The canter felt AMAZING out there. He actually got going pretty fast, which I've been encouraging, but decided to put on a half halt for safety purposes. Now that he's getting fed a lot, he's been a lot more energetic and I think I may create a monster if I'm not careful. A big powerful dressage monster with an incredible extended canter. Sounds nice!

We primarily just did big circles and worked on quality, because I'm hell bent on getting rid of any remnants of lateralness in his canter AND he's kind of still a nut in new places (so no Training level debut any time soon), I'm going super super slow with the canter. Mostly just getting him to stay in front of my leg and actually enjoy cantering. He definitely loves it now, especially out in the field.

Back at the walk, he decided that this one corner was going to MURDER him. And I got into a bit of a fight with him before I was like "wait, he's four, any fight I have with him is my fault" just like Louis CK says about arguing with his 3 year old daughter. So I backed off and just made him walk in circles on the bit next to that area until he chilled out about it.

In the end, we did some little jumps. He's super cute to jump, but I think I'm going to just pop over the tiny logs with him until I get BFF (a high level event rider) to help me. He just doesn't think he has to JUMP anything once as he's done it the first time. I'm becoming increasingly impressed with the size logs he can trot over. There was one covered in cavalettis that made it about a foot tall but 2-2.5 feet wide and he literally trotted over it. There's no doubt he'll have a nice extended trot! Eventually I made him actually jump it but, like the jumping bean of a friesian I used to ride, it took a bit of spur off the ground.

After our ride, we watched a plastic bag flap for a while, then went down the road and back.

Today, I didn't have to go into one of my jobs because my boss was at a conference and my other boss is out of town so I got to enjoy a whole day off (well, I have to do this damn presentation, which I will drag out all night and ruin my night off).

I headed out to the barn and it was a bit hot for the field so we stayed indoors. Guys, this horse is so unbelievably pleasant to ride in that stupid arena. I can't wait until it translates to everywhere.

I got on and he was pretty good about standing still, he kind of sucks at being mounted because he's so excited to walk in circles (??) that he starts zooming away and I have to jump on. I've been making him stand still several minutes after I get on for a couple weeks and it's helping a lot. Once on, we started with turns on the forehand, which is against his routine. He really let me know that we don't start that way. Sorry baby horse.

Look at this neighbor cow!

We then trotted and the turns on the forehand in the beginning made a big difference in how easy he was to get on the bit in the beginning. He immediately started stretching into contact and ahh it's so nice right now. He's very comfortable keeping his neck down and it stays so long and reaching the whole ride.

I mostly worked on figure-8s to work on switching the bend and not falling in the new direction. The bend to the left was pretty damn good during that, which is his difficult direction. He's starting to bring the left hind under him a bit better and he's understanding the right rein as a place to be but not bust through.

During our walk break, we worked the leg yields, which are much straighter. I also introduced shoulder-in a few rides ago and he's pretty damn good at it. I think I might have him start lateral work in the trot in shoulder-in rather than in leg yield because of how it helps him engage. He seems to understand it better than the leg yield. This isn't surprising, I've found that most horses understand shoulder-in better. I also read about starting the leg yield by going across the diagonal and pushing the haunches a bit over so I might try that too. I don't want to do it along the fence because I think he'll just get short in the neck.

And this one! I love them

The canter out in the field made a big difference on our canter in the arena. The right lead is pretty damn good, he bounds forward and stays relatively well connected. I'm working to add bend in this direction now and he's struggling to turn off the outside rein now. He'll figure it out. Still, ah it feels great even if steering is at best 50% reliable.

The left is tough but isn't feeling so much like we're about to fall over. Now it's just uncomfortable. We're also working on bend that direction but it's tough because it has to come from him picking up his withers FIRST rather than just bending into the lean.

Speaking of shitty canters, I had a funny conversation with my client, who is about to debut at 3rd level on her own horse. She hadn't ridden a lower level horse in a while and I was teaching her on an OTTB who she has been working with, he was quite undermuscled. He was cantering well, but a bit off balance/leaning in- to be expected given where he is in his training/conditioning. I was happy that his tempo stayed steady and that he wasn't too hollow. But she was like "Megan he feels like shit" after I said "Great, use your inside thigh to support him" and I just laughed and we talked about TC. I said that her mare made her expect too much in terms of balance in the canter and to embrace the shit canter on the TB.

Is he looking like a real horse yet? I swear he doesn't always
stand like he's about to fall on his face... but I guess he does.
Luckily he paws a lot so maybe that will help him learn to reach
and be loose in his shoulder.

At the end, I ran through our test. I keep forgetting that I should test ride with him. At the FEI levels, the tests are so long that we rarely just *throw in* a test ride at the end of a ride, it's a big, planned ordeal and usually I wouldn't even try to test ride in the first place. I've actually only ridden Intermediare I ONCE and that was at a show. Luckily for TC, my test riding skills are good enough where he doesn't typically make any mistakes (also, how do you make too many mistakes on 20 meter circles and walk-trot transitions?). But that doesn't mean that test riding isn't helpful. So I'll be trying to run him through a few tests each month.

We headed out down the road again, this time heading out on the short trail that takes us behind this huge hill, which blocked his view from any horses. He handled it really well until we turned around. I think he was excited to eat and see friends so he tried to trot. I don't want him to be barn sour, so every time he trotted, we turned around and walked about 20 meters back away from the barn. After a few desperate whinnies, he figured out that I was going to do this EVERY time he trotted and then he quieted down.

On the right is the road to the winery where I take Rico, too bad
that the gate up on the right to get there is locked

Good pony!

Now back to my presentation and eventually... the dreaded thesis. The introduction is now almost 20 pages long and I'm maybe half way done with it (intro, not thesis), I haven't even considered how long the discussion will be. Kill it with fire. My advisor is known for inspiring theses of insane lengths.

I found this and thought of Austen and Nicole
(if I remember correctly) and anyone else
writing their thesis/dissertation!