Some of the Strings Are Broken

I had a super fun day on Friday heading down to Kate's barn to teach both her and her wonderful assistant/working student/generally amazing human who is at her barn. Teaching in person (finally) has been SO unbelievably nice, especially getting to see one of my favorite people in the world (Kate, not her student). 

Kate and I were chatting about her horse and she gave me a really good visual. Both her horse and mine are tricky to get influence on. There are some horses I get on and I think to myself "I feel like if I threw this horse off a cliff, the horse would totally go" and TC is not that horse. I think I've fought tooth and nail to get every ounce of rideability out of him that I could and we still have a long way to go. Kate mentioned that she felt like she had trouble getting her strings on her also very difficult to influence horse and it gave me an immediate visual and a new way of discussing influence. I love it.

So you know those marionettes:

These things

So, if my body is the hand and my horse is the dead looking doll, then my influence over his various body parts are the strings.

Some of my body parts have really good strings attached to some of his body parts. Like I feel like I have pretty good strings from my hands to his mouth, I can put his mouth anywhere with those strings. I have good strings down my left leg. That left leg can make a wall and push him over, it can have good suction and draw him out. I also feel like I've got some good strings in my seatbones at the canter. At the canter, especially when he's all pumped up, I can put him almost anywhere, or at least, that's what it feels like. My strings are strong in canter.

Some times and in some places, it feels like the strings break in certain movements. Like I've got my right seat bone pretty much plugged in and influencing his right hind... except during the half pass left. Then I snatch the right seat bone away from his body and I break the string.

Some places, I have no strings at all. Whether I'm the one not attaching them or he's the one ripping away from them, sometimes I don't know. I have no strings in my right thigh and down my right leg. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I don't have strings really at all down my entire right side. My left side can be moved around in an organized way to move him around. My right side flops around trying to thump him around rather than attaching strings.

The other place I don't have strings attached is to his withers. I have ridden horses where I can literally pull them up in a way that makes me feel like I'm grabbing them by the scruff of their neck. Because I aggressively try to get TC to do it, my effectiveness on other horses has actually gotten way better, other than TC, it feels like there's rarely a horse I can't improve the throughness on in this way (not that I ride 8 horses a day though). But with TC, there's no amount of effort that works, because there are just no strings attached to his withers. It's like me flinging my hand around while hovering it over a stuffed animal. The stuffed animal just sits there, unaware that if I only have strings, I'd be moving it.

Being the weirdo taking pictures in the mirror
while other people are in the ring.

I have a lesson today with a new trainer. She's a Mary Wanless person and happens to be my physical therapist who I can't wait to go back to when the virus is less of a threat. My main goal is to come in, explain my strings to her, and see if she can get me to develop more strings on my right side and to connect my strings to his withers. Because at this rate, the horse is exactly on track for cantering down centerline next year with Tanya's program. Now it's time for me to learn even more about my riding so that I can better put Tanya's program into effect. I really want to wear my damn shadbelly next fall.

I'm curious, does this at all make sense? If so, what strings are you missing?

Planning in Uncertain Times

I signed up for the show next weekend. Who knows what is going to happen, so I figure I'll just do this show and act like the rest of the show season and next year's show season will be good to go. This post assumes that pretty hardcore.

TC played with the mirror a lot the other day lol

We're doing 3-1 on the first day (Friday) and both 3-1 and 3-3 on the second day (Saturday). The idea is to snag at least 2 scores for All Breeds, see how he's scoring at Third, and then decide what to do.

My tentative plan is this:

End of June: 3-1 x2 and 3-3

Mid July: 3-1 and 3-3

Mid August: 3-1 x2 and 3-3 x2

Late August: 3-1 and 3-3

This sets us up for having all of our All Breeds scores and then some. Then this fall (September into October), we take a break to prepare for Fourth level. The 4-1 is an easy enough test, we can do all the movements except the tempi changes, which we can honestly DO at home but I've yet to ride him in a show and ask for a change, so I think the time we take at Third level will let me know how rideable those tempis are going to be. But everything else is pretty confirmed, I just want it all to be stronger and more reliable.

Love these ears

The ideal situation would be to snag a couple 4-1 scores in October and/or November. I'd love to end the year finished with Third level and getting started at Fourth given that my finances often prevent me from showing until May/June anyway (winters as a horse trainer boo) so it'd be good to snag some All Breeds scores this fall for next year and then be able to show a little less in 2021 because I want to pour my resources into lessons preparing for the Prix St George, hopefully by the end of 2021.

That will jump start our 2022 All Breeds scores at Prix St George and that year will be when I decide whether or not he's going to be competitive enough in the PSG/I1 to do the small tour maybe in 2023 or whether I just keep him as a locally competitive FEI horse and move into the I2/GP work. I mean, either way he'll be schooling most of the GP by the time we go PSG just because that's what you do (and a mistake I made with Rico, not getting the GP movements on soon enough).

Who freaking knows. There is so much at play. Are we going to be able to show and lesson enough this year? Is my business going to continue doing well? Is my office job going to keep me employed enough (talks of budget cuts)? Are the bf and I going to find a house that's affordable enough that I don't have to hemorrhage horse money into it? Am I going to buy a new horse in 2022 or 2023 that will limit my funding for TC? Is TC even capable of doing the FEI levels? Is he going to stay sound? Am I going to stay healthy? Is the economy going to collapse? Is the world going to explode?

Sometimes making plans seems ridiculous!

Cavalletti Work

TC and I have been doing cavalletti work once a week and it's been super fun!

I started looking at my schedule with him and parsed out what days I wanted him to work hard and what days would be more for basics or throughness work (aka no collection), and that includes cavalletti work.

This is what I'm roughly sticking to right now.

Monday: off
Tuesday: collected work
Wednesday: throughness work
Thursday: off
Friday: collected work
Saturday: cavalletti work
Sunday: collected work

Cavalletti! 

The purpose of the cavalletti is twofold in my mind. One, it mimics the passage a bit. There's a tiny bit of worry in the back of my mind about TC's old suspensory injury. I was lucky that it happened to a front leg and that my chosen sport of dressage means that the most amount of weight he'd be taking on that injury would be early on in his career (in working gaits), on his own in his paddock (which has good footing), and in the passage. We got through his working gaits okay, he's lived in a variety of paddocks, now the big question: will he stay sound in the passage. So I'm glad to be taking this risk now.

In addition, it gets him fit for passage. I'd like to get the passage on him by the end of this year, although I want his piaffe to be undersaddle first and I want to wait until after I snag my Third level scores to really drill it because I think he's going to nonstop piaffe for a couple months. So that won't happen until September and then I need it confirmed... so we'll hopefully have a passage on him by November but realistically we might be looking at next spring. So until then, we have cavalletti to get him fit for it!

Shorter term purpose would be to strengthen his thoracic sling. Many people use jumping through grids as a good way to address this, but I'm seeing the issue primarily in the trot, so trot cavalletti will help a lot, hopefully.

What is this?? A toy?

We were supposed to begin our cavalletti work with the cavalletti clinic in April, getting help from a professional and chatting with her about what type of cavalletti would be best for TC. But obviously that was moved to June. And now it's been moved again. Ugh. So I just started on my own with some basic raised trot poles on a straight line.

TC is taking to it very well. I mean, he'd rather stand on the poles and knock them down with his nose, but when he's moving, he's a good boy about it once he figured it out.

At first, I've noticed that his trot got really big and flat through them, he'd hollow and cover so much ground that he'd often knock the last one over. I worked hard to keep him more collected through the poles and keep my leg on BUT not let him get so strung out. I rode in the bomber knockoff through them on Sunday (my days got swapped this week) before I realized it needed bit guards, and it went really well.

More support meant that he stayed more collected and came better up through his thoracic sling. I think in the future, I might pair a voice command or something with the elevation the cavalletti are providing and see if I can clicker train his trot to be better after the cavalletti, but I figure that even just doing raised poles once a week, he's strengthening that thoracic sling.

Bitting Experimentation

This Saturday, I experimented with a new bit! TC has always had a bit busier of a mouth than I'd like and has struggled to reach for the bridle, so I'm always on the lookout for something new (but cheap) for him. He's currently in a KK Ultra and that works just fine, but he's always a bit backed off of it.

I was intrigued by the bomber happy tongue bit because of the lack of tongue pressure, but they're expensive and I'm pouring all my resources into figuring out remote lessons right now. But, I found a knockoff and figured that if TC loved it, I'd spend the money to try the official one.

Good news! TC went to the bridle. Bad news, TC went to the bridle aggressively. Extra bad news, it pinched his lip on Sunday. This post is about Saturday though.

I realized that while the connection felt great and he was way easier to get up through his back, after years of riding a horse who won't touch the bridle, my ability to hold our collective shit together when he's basically leaning on me was limited. My arms immediately got sore and I found myself way less willing to ride him positively forward, knowing that he'd only get heavier when I did that.

So much better but so impossible to bring into collection

So while the warm up was just fabulous, he never curled, he stayed positively into the bridle, so much more over his back... the moment more collection was involved and he needed more support, I just couldn't give it to him with this bit. And as such, our canter half passes weren't nearly as good, his changes were questionable, and keeping him collected was a full body workout.

Yes, he should be on my seat, but the moment he got that heavy, I had no stability in my position to ride him on my seat. I had to keep yanking my shoulders down and back, resisting the urge to waterski on my stirrups, and generally he became a way more physical ride.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I want him that connected! I just can't ride him like this and at the end of the day, I need to be able to ride him. Even if he's better connected, if his changes are shit and I can't get him to half pass, that's not the right bit for us. So we go back to the KK ultra and I go back to brainstorming. Thinking of a myler comfort snaffle next, which gives some tongue relief but is thinner so maybe he'll be happy to go to it, but not as aggressively.

I ran through 3-1 to prove to myself that it's an easy enough test to show in a week and a few days and while the test was easy and clean, I just couldn't keep him together as much as I need to and I couldn't get him as forward as Tanya wants him to be. It was a good test, but it wasn't a great test. The horse can be great.

Even connected okay to the right, which is very difficult

All that being said, I'm keeping the bit, I'm getting bit guards then setting it up on another bridle, and I'll be using it on days where I don't ask for collection. There are tons of days that I ride where all I want to work on is throughness or where it's so hot that I just want to do a stretchy ride or something that isn't pushing for the mid levels all the time. And this bit would be PERFECT for those rides.

And maybe by doing both, I can get to a point where I end up fully swapping him over to an actual bomber happy tongue bit (egg butt style) but it's too expensive to buy if I don't think I'll be using it. I think it's a combination of me not being physically strong enough to get him back on my seat when he inevitably falls off, and him not being strong enough to hold himself together without my assistance at times. We may get there, I mean, hopefully we will.

At the end of the day though, I have to remember that the KK ultra is already a really soft bit. TC doesn't have to go in the world's softest bit. Most people are jumping into double bridles at this stage of their training, if not well before it (meanwhile multiple judges I've spoken to have said that they think Third level horses should be in snaffles). And here I am thinking "can I find a softer bit than a KK ultra?" so I need to relax a bit lol!

The Trouble with Trainers

After doing a lot of video dissection and chatting with Tanya and the chirovet, I'm pretty sure that the issues I've seen with TC's topline development stem from 1) TC being built the way he is and 2) Tanya manages to get us to a place where he's working correctly, but I fall short on my own. More on the second part during this post.

It's no joke how difficult this horse has been for me to ride. He's an annoying combination of low tone and disorganized. That, in addition to him being not built to do this sport, makes his instincts often wrong. His redeeming quality, his mind, more than makes up for all of that, he's such a cool horse. He loves his job and loves me (a barn mate pointed out that his ears get all happy when I talk to him while I ride him). But it doesn't mean he's easy for me to ride. He is easy to train, hard to ride, if that makes sense.

Tanya has this way of getting us to where we need to be. This magical place of throughness where everything is so easy. I've never felt like this horse is one where I can just... sit there and direct him, but she somehow gets him there for me, despite never sitting on him (actually outright refusing lol). I've said that my lessons feel like her just riding through me and she and TC are connected, laughing at me as I try to keep up. And this is becoming a problem.

Tanya gets him right there and then I just sit there and try to
get out of his way

When I'm teaching, I don't expect my riders to get to the same place that we get to in lessons when they're schooling at home. But I figure if they get to 80% at home, or even 50%, that's progress! Then we get a little further in their next lessons and eventually what they're getting at home is what we used to get to in lessons.

But because this is a throughness problem, even if I get to 85%, or 90%, I fall just short enough where we are in the wrong place. It feels like getting allllmost there is JUST not good enough. Because if he isn't pumped all the way up before being tied up like a balloon, he's just real soggy and disappointing, like the balloons that Dwight (from The Office) put up for Kelly's birthday.

TC, hanging above the word IT

I emailed Tanya and basically told her that I wanted to start taking weekly lessons. Problem: Tanya's barn is like, a 2+ hour haul and I'd have to haul over a bridge. No thanks, not when we can’t stay overnight due to SIP.

My only option is to take remote lessons, which is totally fine! I've been teaching remote lessons for a few months now and they've been pretty good. I have found fast internet at my barn in the form of my phone’s hotspot in this ONE corner of this ONE arena. I have an iPad I can use and the SO and I are looking to find one with cellular that can be my “barn” iPad (because I use mine at home and I am always nervous about not having things charged or leaving things at the barn and all that) for remote lessons. The problem is that I have no way of having it track me or zoom in and out and Tanya is pickier than I am about video quality and how much she wants me to be in the frame.

I did bite the bullet and have a Pixem on order. I looked at it financially and if I can do remote lessons, it saves me a ton of money and time vs taking in person lessons. Hauling up to Tanya and taking remote lessons cost the same amount, BUT I don’t have to haul 2+ hours each way, saving me time and gas money. It also allows me to take weekday lessons, which doesn’t squash my ability to do clinics on the weekends, which more than make up for the cost of the Pixem over time. PLUS I can do clinics with anyone on the planet, which would be ridiculously cool. There are a few trainers I’d like to reach out to once we get in the groove.

Anyway, enough excuses, everyone uses their resources differently, I realized this when I was chatting with my brother and found out that his alcohol budget is the same amount as my grocery budget (I don’t drink so I have no alcohol budget). The Pixem hasn’t come in yet from France (I ordered from a US company just to avoid any weird issues internationally), so right now I’m stuck taking lessons the regular way once a month or trying to convince Tanya that it’s okay to teach me with a stationary camera.

No, I require tracking - TC

Tanya and I chatted about my options until the Pixem came in (which will zoom and center me in the frame). The Soloshot is a no go, I tried the live video and even at home with our 600mbps+ internet speeds, it still has a 10 second delay. That’s a long time. It’s also just plain not reliable enough to keep me in the frame. It may or may not be for sale when the Pixem comes in... it’s on my shit list for working wonderfully until I need it to work for a lesson/clinic/test riding and then it decides to stare at the trees.

So my options are to find a human to be my zoom and centering person. I have enough humans I can probably reach out to, my barn is opening up a little more so I can bring in a friend no problem at this point, especially if they just park out by the arena and only touch my stuff, which I can sanitize easily. The problem was figuring out the zooming.

Tanya suggested that I get a dongle that allowed the iPad to stream to my computer, basically turning it into a webcam. I said no when I saw the price, yikes. I’d do that if I had to for the Pixem, but I wasn’t going to buy anything temporary. I scoured the internet and couldn’t figure out how to zoom. I downloaded every single video conferencing app and finally figured out how to get it to zoom... using Zoom! You just have to click on your own video and then you can zoom.

Sometimes I get him there on my own but it's very hard

The only thing that is left is doing a dry run. I plan on doing that this week using another rider I think (just calling my SO and then having him creep on other riders while I man the camera). Then it’s a matter of finding someone who is available when Tanya is and can keep me in the frame. My phone will act as the hot spot and I’ll call Tanya from my helper’s phone until I get the iPad with the cellular, or we’ll figure out getting a hot spot.

All this work, just for some lessons. But I really think we’re on the brink of something amazing with this horse. Tanya agreed with me, she thinks he can be a 68-70% Third level horse and didn’t shut me down when I said I’d like to do the 4-1 by October. I’ve never scored that high at that level and I never thought we’d be staring down Fourth level on this horse, who is showing so much promise for the international levels too. I’ve got the horse, I’ve got the drive, I’ve got the trainer... now I just need to invest in a way to connect all those things together. And hope that my clinics continue to fill!

Smooth and Shiny

So this year, I noticed that TC's coat was real shit. His coat has always been pretty smooth, not shiny, but soft to the touch. He's gray, so I understand that it's going to be hard to get him really shiny, but I do like petting him without him feeling like he's one of those wire-haired terriers, you know?

I thought it had to do with the fact that he was clipped for the first time this winter. The clipped coat didn't look great, but Rico always turned a nasty mousey brown color when he was clipped and never remained very velvety for the duration of his clip. His coat always grew back nice and shiny though. TC's did not. 

Not a shiny creature

I tried brushing him and bathing him with conditioner, but while I was scrubbing him, I also remembered that for most of his time with me, he's been on California Trace. It's a hoof (and trace mineral) supplement, relatively cheap, but a bit annoying to get a hold of (aka it's not in smartpaks). Unfortunately I ran out early into quarantine and just ignored it. Quarantine, after all. That was right when TC was shedding out, so his coat came back real ugly.

It took me a couple of months to realize this, but in early to mid May I figured it out and put him back on it. I also put him on Omega Horse Shine for good measure.

I wanted it to work immediately and it didn't, obviously. The first day I noticed it was working was the day that chirovet came, on Memorial Day. I had given him a bath the day before and he'd rolled because of course he did. I didn't want him to be disgusting for her, so I brushed the hell out of him to flick off the dust. Then I pet him and I was shocked at how smooth and soft his coat was. Sure, a lot of that was the bath the night before, but it was just shampoo and he didn't feel like this after his last bath. 

He loves rolling in his paddock, boo TC

So as much as times are crazy right now and I'm still working on getting TC's topline to look like he's actually working as hard as he is, I can at least pet him and not be grossed out by his coat! He's staying on Omega Horse Shine and California Trace indefinitely I think. I didn't realize how much I liked his soft coat until it was gone! 

To Show or Not To Show

Starting today, June 1st, I guess we're allowed to go back to showing. I've got mixed feelings about it all on a grand scale, but the reality for me personally is that there are two shows locally that I could go to in June.

I'm weighing my options. The first show is on June 14th, about a ten minute haul from my barn, and it's a new show facility with this being their debut show. I want them to run more shows. They're by far the closest facility to me and it's SO convenient. I know my situation isn't as rough as most peoples' situations, given that we have essentially unlimited shows within 3 hours, but it makes a huge difference to have them so close. Most of the places I go are an hour or more away and it's a lot. Especially during a global pandemic.

The second show is June 19th and 20th, also local, but more like a 35-40 minute drive, still well under an hour. It's a facility I've shown Rico at and he was a bit of an idiot about it, but I'm thinking that I need to get TC to more facilities, so I need to stop avoiding places that are somewhat spooky. He's pretty good now.

For this post: pictures from our shows together over the years

I ran numbers and financially it's totally fine - cheap even, for two horse shows, because of how close they are. Boyfriend is all set to come with me on the weekend days, as I'm allowed to have my household members with me. I'm not sure about the Friday show on the 19th, whether I'll see if I can bring someone else as a groom to hold my jacket while I warm up and all that. Who that would be, I don't know. My mom loves coming to shows, but I might insist on going on my own because it's just another layer of risk for her, although again she's already had the virus.

As far as being ready, well, do I ride Second or do I ride Third? I think the pandemic killed my Second level dreams. I had been planning on doing Second at the end of March and then a couple shows in April before I'd start showing 2-3 and 3-1 in May and June, then fully be showing Third in July and August. Maybe a Fourth level debut in the fall if I'm lucky and can get enough lessons. As much as it looks like I'm skipping the hard parts of Second level... fuck it, he's ready for Third level.

I practiced 3-1 last week and it rode clean and easy for him. Just minor things like needing to MAKE SURE to get the canter back to where it was when we picked it up. There are so many things that disengage him in that test because the canter work is so limited, so he gets a bit strung out after the mediums and after the changes. I rode 3-3 recently and it's a little harder, but fine to show, as a good friend once said "you keep a lot of nice things up your ass, Megan" which was her way of saying that I test ride well.

TC's last show at First level

As far as how I feel pandemic-wise. Well. I don't know. I feel a lot of cognitive dissonance about it, on the one hand I think we are opening up a little early given that our numbers are still rising. But testing is so far behind that we won't really know, right? Our area is doing well, our ERs are not overrun or anything. I'm definitely pushing the limits of SIP a bit more now, but I'm not going as far as to travel out of state to get my nails done, I dunno.

I like the documents both shows put out about keeping people safe according to the new guidelines. They're requiring masks, have lots of hand sanitizer, and you're only allowed to be there for your test(s) and then you leave. Honestly, I don't think I'll need to get anywhere near anyone else there, it'll be much safer than going to my barn, going on a hike, or going to the grocery store. And I'm only showing one horse and mostly just one test (planning 3-1 on the 14th and 19th, 3-1 and 3-3 on the 20th). I can scratch the second show on the evening after showing at the first show if I get home and go "nope fuck that," just losing office fees, so that's helpful.

First level

So as of today, I'm thinking of just signing up for the June 14th show for one test, 3-1, to see how things go. I'll hold my entry for the next show (which closes the 15th) and send it in if I feel comfortable both pandemic-wise and with my horse.

Honestly, I don't know how many more clean tests he needs to give me at home for me to believe that he's capable of showing at this level. I can just see Tanya rolling her eyes at me while I debate whether he's ready for 3-1, he's more than ready. Hasn't had a bad change in over a month, his gaits are looking fantastic, his walk is actually a walk now, and his trot lateral work should be all 7s at least. Changes will be at least a 6, mediums in trot and canter toward the 7s if I ride them well enough. Walk pirouettes could score an 8 with the right judge. Nothing is under a 6 right now. Except maybe the walk to canter when he wants to jig into it. And maybe the extended walk if he jigs. It's really just about keeping him from jigging.

What will basically be his ONLY show at Second level, just the
one 2-1 test, although he was ready for 2-3, we scratched because
it was SO windy that day, fuck that. Then pandemic happened, so
we just kept training and now he's solidly at Third level so ??

Where do you all fall on the spectrum of how people are feeling about showing? Do you think it's premature? Think we should have kept showing no matter what throughout this time? Think that it'll depend on the organizer/location/layout/etc? I'm curious.