Letting Go

Monday and Tuesday were interesting days, they sort of contrasted each other a bit. On Monday, we had a great ride in the round pen, then a not as great ride in the dressage court. On Tuesday, we had a not so great ride in the round pen, but a great ride in the dressage court.

He's getting so light :( do not want a white horse!

TC has started this new thing of bucking when he gets hit with the whip. Let me clarify that I say hit but I mean tapped lightly. TC classifies the tapping as being beaten and kicks out at it, then eventually bucks and bucks. He's really not very good at kicking or bucking, he hasn't figured out how to do two in a row, nor has he discovered that putting his head down gives him more leverage. So luckily, while the bolting unnerves me, I don't mind the bucking or kicking. Actually could he just quit bolting and only buck/kick please?

He gave me a bit of that in the round pen on Monday, but after that was quite good. We had some excellent walk trot and trot canter transitions, and his old owner (well, he had like three owners, this one owns his half sister who is also boarded at the barn) came by and told me how amazing we looked. It's not saying much because the last time he saw TC, TC was just barely four.

He was quite good until we were cantering to the left and the horses in the turnouts exploded. TC wanted to stop to look at them- he got rigid in his body and stuck his head up. I was so happy my trainer was there, since I probably would have been a bit slow on the uptake to get him back to work. Nope. Keep working. He needs to really understand that if ANYTHING happens around him, he has to keep working. I'm not all too good at doing that though, but hearing keep pushing on him, bend him, make him go forward, etc helped keep me on task.

TC eventually took a deep breath and came back to me! I love that we got to that point. Even if I get frustrated that we're still playing in the round pen each day, at least I know 100% that it's a place where not only I feel confident just riding around, I feel like I can handle anything he does in there, and therefore I feel like I can improve, rather than just make things worse, when things go wrong.

Kittens are getting turnout each day to get used to being outside!

After that, we wandered out to the dressage court. There were two other riders in there and TC was VERY interested in what they were doing. I'm fairly certain that TC thinks that all horses within 500 yards of him need to check in with him about what they're doing and where they're going and what their life plans were. He was drawn to them like a magnet, making our perfect 20 meter circles lopsided.

Aside from him leaning in their direction, he was totally fine in the arena until they left. Then he went completely rigid on me and I backed off and it was going to be bad. I knew I could get through it, but as my trainer started helping me, I totally pulled out my ammy card (erm, not actually an ammy here but I'm a dressage trainer not a crazy baby horse trainer) and asked him to ride through it.

It's really nice to be able to do that because it gives me a visual of what his acting up looks like and how far he will go. My fear on TC doesn't have anything to do what TC has done in the past, it's more a fear of the unknown. So seeing what he does with BRH trainer and how he gets through it is really good. When we switched, TC did bolt, but only once before he got put to work and then all he did was whinny and get rigid in his shoulder. We talked about how TC gets against his rider sometimes, especially on the right side. When that happens, he gets unrideable and that's when he can really get away.

Setting up jumps while my expert jumping horse grazes on dead
leaves and sticks

The key to fixing that is to keep him soft, and this is where I make a mistake. When he gets rigid, it's like he's not listening to me anymore, and instead of yelling louder (putting him to work with louder aids if necessary), I just give up and freeze. Not good. It was nice to see that BRH trainer could just put him to work and only have one small issue vs what in my head feels like it might be a huge fight if I put him to work in that moment. I think this stems from Rico's propensity to act up worse when I made him work harder, so he taught me to release all pressure and get out of the way. TC needs the opposite. So hard to adjust! And why am I much better at this on client horses?

I hopped back on at the end and trotted a bit. He was fine, still a bit on the muscle and rude, but he stayed with me and I gave that to him.


Tuesday we had a really questionable time in the round pen. Because of the footing (which was weirdly deep, this footing confuses me, sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's deep... most of the time it's great though), we stayed slightly off the rail onto a 15m circle. I figured that would be good for him, but it sort of magnified the bucking issue. We had more bucks, even at the trot. I had it out with him tracking left when he wanted to fly out to the rail, I blocked him from doing that, so then he started bucking. So he got told not to do that and then gave me some decent canter in each direction.

I mostly worked on my position, straightening up a bit, looking up (say it ain't so), and carrying the loop in my reins, which is something Olivia mentioned at her last clinic and I have tried to embrace a bit more. I'm starting to get really frustrated with my position, so being able to work on it for a bit was really nice, gotta do a little bit every day.

Rico was super fun to jump when I remembered
to keep my leg on... weird. 

After the ride, we headed out to meet BRH trainer at the dressage court, which was empty. I was talking to him about Monday saying that I was choosing to believe that the issue the day before was just about the horses, not about the dressage court. And it was, because TC was great out there!

We not only did our figure-8, we did a SERPENTINE. And it was so good! Definitely challenging, especially when the middle loop was to the left since it's hard to put him up to the left rein in such a short period of time. We also did some short diagonals (since bend is our friend) where I let TC lengthen once or twice. Those were good, although lengthenings off the right rein are so much easier than off the left rein. And we did some leg yields. They were quite bad (they were fine, just not 8s). But they were leg yields and were about the steepness of the 1-2 leg yields, which I think is pretty good since I was posting and we haven't really been working on them.

After all that trot work, we cantered! Everything went great to the right until he broke, got stiff in the shoulder, ran sideways as I asked him to canter again, and erm... jumped out of the dressage court. Future dressage star right there. Luckily he didn't care about that (it might have happened a few times in the past...), so he just stopped on the other side and I walked him back in, picked the canter back up, and continued to ride around.

So cute

The left was REAL drunk and once again I was so frustrated looking back at my position and how I was riding. I feel like we're spiraling down a bit, even though it actually has been improving. Trainer did his best to get me to let go of the left rein, but I used the same excuse I used to use with Tracey (who didn't let me make excuses, I could hear her echoing in my mind) and that I'll use here- it feels like I have no control if I don't hold the left rein, it feels like he'll just run off to the right if I don't hold on to the rein. Is that true? NO IT IS NOT. Am I holding onto that excuse like I hold onto my left rein? YES. If I keep pulling on the left rein, will TC keep falling right? YEP. Does the horse pop his shoulder as bad with my trainer on board? Nope. Fuck.

So we'll be working on that. Definitely going to be a major goal for Q4 I think. Other than that though, I was SUPER pleased with him in the dressage court. It's easy to get frustrated about the crookedness and how TC can't handle horses leaving the arena, but hey, at least he's doing it in the dressage court! I love riding in dressage courts.

Being a Light Bulb

Friday and Saturday, Tanya Vik came to teach a clinic at my barn! Like... no travel required, just got off my horse and walked over to the dressage court and was at the clinic. That and that my regular dressage trainer comes in every week and some weekends makes me so happy to be where I am, even if I can't enjoy this sort of instruction just yet.

Unfortunately with the baby horse still on rehab and me still on limited income, I couldn't ride with her, but I did clear my schedule for the weekend and got to audit both days.

Lucky me, there was a slot open and so my friend and I took it on her horse, who I ride for her sometimes. It was SUPER fun, Tanya is a great instructor- really nice and supportive, but also quite demanding of each rider (I might have been sore for several days after, TC doesn't take much strength to ride). I learned so much over the two days both watching and riding. I'll turn it into bullet points, some from my lesson, some from others.

No pictures from the clinic since I didn't ride my horse, but here
are some random ones from recently

Bounding Lead Changes
Tanya agrees with me (okay she just said this and I agree with her) that lead changes are awesome and fun and one of her favorite things. The rider was having trouble because the horse would be under-powered and then be late to the aid or late in the change. Tanya said that people often struggle with finding the correct quality of canter, since good changes are relaxed, yet expressive. People will want to run their horse into them thinking that forward = energy and expression, but then the horses get too fast. So then people think quiet and collected and under-power the horse and bam, late or no expression. She told the rider to think about bounding forward in the canter, and to land from the change and GO somewhere.


Quicker, not Bigger
The horse I rode was a bit behind my leg and she described him as feeling like a hammock in his back, which is the best way I've heard of describing that feeling. For me, I always felt like I had to shoot him across the ground to get him feeling like I got him forward and connected. But by pushing him bigger over the ground, his hind legs slowed down and I had to go much much bigger than I should have just to get him stepping under. I was so glad when Tanya addressed that since I was feeling like I wasn't very effective at warming him up.

The idea was that in order for me to get enough horse in the bridle, I needed more energy going that way. And sure running him over the ground throws more horse into the bridle but... I could also just quicken his hind legs. Which proved to be REALLY hard to do. But also had an instant light bulb moment and we had a GREAT ride. It reminded me of my lesson with Tracey on TC last year when she said to connect TC wherever I could (even in retraction), then fix the connection once as there was something to fix, even if it's not perfectly correct. Because at first I felt like I was cramming this horse together, but then once as I got him connected, I could soften and let him reach out a bit. So half steps and taptaptapping with the whip from now on.

He's getting so beefy

Lateral Work Shortens
Another issue the horse I rode had was that he tended to lose rhythm slightly at the canter. Again I've been adding energy with medium-collect-medium transitions, so we started by making his canter quicker. Then we put him in haunches-in to shorten the base while continuing to make the hind legs quicker. Oh. Yah that makes perfect sense. To be collected, he needs to shorten his body. I can do that by taking back on him and sitting him down, but he has a tendency to get retracted in the neck and drop his shoulder. Instead, I put him slightly haunches in, which shortens the space between his front and hind end, and that helps him collect while still allowing me to maintain bend. Not something I'll be doing with TC any time soon, as he's incapable of that and has crookedness problems, but it worked super well with this horse.


Topline as a Pipeline
In several lessons, she mentioned that the horse's topline was like a pipeline with energy. Resistance comes when the pipeline gets clogged. Horses get a kink in the line when not straight enough or not supple enough, horses get clogged when they drop the shoulders/back, and so on. In the one lesson I really listened to on this, she urged the rider to bend the horse to break up the clog in the pipeline. This and in another lesson her mentioning that the thigh was like an emergency brake, gave me a really good visual of getting horses through.

So cuddly

Positional Changes
She had a lot of really interesting ways of describing position. I didn't get much of that in my lesson, because we really focused on my friend's horse. But people got some really good things said to them, I wrote some of them down:

- If you have a bucket of water and a basketball, push the ball down, meet resistance, lift the hand slowly and ball comes up, but don't let it fly up. Same in sit trot with the down beat. That's how you can develop the passage (I've heard of changing the way you sit to develop the passage, I've never had luck with it, but I'm also absolutely no expert in putting passage on. Must experiment more).

- Don't push down in the stirrups so hard when posting, carry more weight in seat and thigh in the upswing.

- You can have firm abs and be curled in the back so think less about strong abs and more about a strong back. Be like the lady on the ship (you know those mermaids or whatever at the front of ships).

- In the sitting trot, sit down into the trot to bring the back up, when you put a saddle on the horse for the first time, they don't go hollow, they bring their backs up to buck (this was interesting to me because I've always sat lighter to bring the back up. Unfortunately sitting deeper on TC made him hollow, but I'm going to experiment with client horses some more).

- When getting a horse forward, don't land a kick and hold, bounce the leg off the horses side. Holding and driving with the seat just irritates horses. Don't grip with your hips. (like CD says- lazy horses ride with the legs off).

- Keep the hands on either side of the horse, especially when the horse wants to fall out over one shoulder (guilty as charged).

- Think of the thigh as a brake, take the thigh off to go forward and the thigh on to stop. On a lazy horse, all of you needs to tell the horse to go- keeping the thigh on just a little bit will cause a lazy horse to get lazier (I found this to be quite true with Rico, any thigh on that horse was like an emergency brake).

- Imagine you've got strings attached to the horse's hind ankles and as you post you're pulling them up (I love that imagery for TC because his hind legs sometimes get lost behind him).

- My favorite imagery ever: Imagine that you're a lightbulb and you have to glow quite bright.

Some riders (me) tend to ride a little soft sometimes. I've really struggled with this and with my looking down, which doesn't give me much presence as a rider. Some riders trot into the arena and you're like DAMN THAT RIDER IS GOOD. And that's not me. I sort of go around soft in my core, looking down, and I'm easily missed. The lightbulb imagery made a ton of sense to me. It's like riding with presence, carry more muscle tone (but without bracing) and keep your core strong. Definitely going to be working on that. I've got a horse with a lot of presence, now I need to have some too.

Super fancy horse, rider could be fancier

Overall it was an AWESOME clinic and I'm super stoked for her to come again, hopefully later when TC is ready for a clinic. She was so nice to look at his video at dinner on Friday and said some nice things about him. He's not the fanciest horse in the world, but I think we can do some good things with him, and hopefully she'll be in my repertoire of trainers that I ride with.

Growing Up

On Friday and Saturday there was a clinic at my barn. I audited the whole thing (report on that coming, it's been hard to organize all of the information) but rode TC beforehand. I had initially wanted to do some work in the dressage court, but the footing was all pretty for the clinic so I didn't want to ruin it with my lopsided circles.

I love him! Pictures from Kate's visit!

He was kind of a derp in the beginning, I asked him to trot and could tell that he had a lot of energy and wanted to play, but knew he shouldn't, but wanted to. So I dumped him into canter and got up into half seat to let him canter it out, but all he did was crow hop and buck for a circle or two. But after that he was super good!

We mostly just hacked around, not working on anything special, other than just the normal steadiness in the bridle and please-don't-throw-your-head-in-transitions work. Even after two years of not work-work-working on Rico, I often feel weird to not be constantly working on something. Sometimes I just get on, walk trot and canter on the bit, then hop off and we're good. No thinking about shows or movements. But my trainer is a huge fan of that, he says that TC just needs a lot of riding time. Lots of time just trotting and cantering on the bit, learning that this is what he needs to do every day. And we're still building muscle. As good as he looks now in comparison to two months ago, his topline is still quite weak for where I want him to be in his steadiness in the connection. We're getting there.

Not terribly downhill for the downhill moment in canter

Kate came down to watch some of the clinic and showed up as TC was settling (then helped bombproof him by sitting on the rail lol). She was so kind to a) bring me a chai (quickest way to win my love is to provide me with chai), b) take video and pictures of us, and c) be subjected to me jumping off and being like WANT TO RIDE HIM!?!?

So she rode him! And they were both so good! TC was super for her, now that I've let more people (well, two friends, a student, and my trainer) on him, he's a lot more tolerant of other riders. He seemed to genuinely try to figure out what she was asking for and got better and better the more she rode him. In the beginning he might have smooshed her leg against the fence, which is something he has done with me too. And he did his obnoxious anticipation of the canter thing, but other than that, it was great!

It was SO fun to see someone else on him (I love watching my trainer ride him, but I'm used to him). I mean the first reason is because he's real pretty right now- he's finally looking like a real horse vs an awkward baby horse. It was also just really cool to see him go as a horse that I trained. I taught him to go on the bit! And now someone else can just jump on him and put him on the bit too! It shouldn't be surprising right... I mean I'm a horse trainer... but something about starting from the very beginning, and having it be my own horse, makes it that much more special. He's like a real live grown up horse who can be ridden by other people (who I mean, is a trainer herself, so it's not like throwing a beginner on him) and everything!

Wow I need to take a dressage lesson on this horse soon. But for
a canter that was once so ground covering, I couldn't canter in
this ring, damn. 

Saturday I watched the clinic in the morning, then had plans to ride TC in the early afternoon. I started feeling sick about half way through the clinic, and by lunch I was feeling real bad. I ended up just feeding him and heading home. Eh, TC can have a day off here and there.

After a rough night, I woke up Sunday morning still feeling horrible. But the fear of riding the baby horse on Monday after two full days off made me drag myself out of bed, meds on board, to go longe him.

I guess the barn just makes me feel better (of course it does), since I was feeling less sick when I got to the barn. I pulled TC out of his stall and threw him in the cross ties. As I was haltering him, I realized his bridle path had gotten out of control. Horse grows hair like no other. TC stood perfectly still for his bridle path to be clipped, which led to me wondering if he had been drugged or been running around in his paddock all night. Because he really is quite obnoxious (usually) when the clippers get anywhere near his ears. He even let me clip the little poofs of hair coming out of his ears. Weird... who is this horse?

If he got any rounder he'd be a beach ball

I threw his longeing stuff on and we wandered all over the barn in hand, including out to the field, where we hadn't been since he had been nutty. We even walked over poles in the jumping arena, which he thought was really fun. Either that or he was thinking about rolling, he kept sniffing at them as he walked over. He was totally quiet, it was almost a bit unnerving.

In the round pen, he was just as quiet on the line. No bucking, bolting, snorting, nothing. Granted, it was warm (not that warm though, I think it was in the mid 70s) and no horses were being silly in turnout, but still, a day off and some wind in the past would have made him at least bolt once. 

I hopped on after that, just planning on trotting a bit. Unfortunately the trot, which felt really good, made me feel sicker, so I popped into canter thinking it might feel better. And, actually, the canter felt AMAZING. To the right, when he picked it up, he stayed on the bit. I haven't been pressuring him too much about that recently, but it was a nice surprise. I think as he's getting stronger, it's easier for him to pick it up without the head toss. He's got such a big front end, he tends to throw it around sometimes rather than use his hind legs.

I love how much he lifts the base of his neck

The right lead felt super accessible. One of those canters where I'm pretty sure that I could ask him for anything and he'd just give it to me (except not because he's not trained yet). I started playing a bit in the canter with the uphill balance just by changing the way I'm sitting on him. He really stepped up to the plate and I felt like he was cantering much more uphill than before.

The left was shockingly good. The left lead has been feeling mildly out of control basically the whole time I've been riding him. His canter was kind of scary to me when he was three, I was worried we'd never make it past First level actually (now that fear has been squashed a bit). Very much on the forehand, hollow, running, covering way WAY too much ground. Even in the last few weeks, even just on Friday, his left lead has been really hard- lots of muscling him around lest I get smashed into the fence, just for a few good moments here and there.

But Sunday, his left lead was downright... nice... to ride. I felt like I could influence it with my seat for the first time. He actually stayed straight without me having to manufacture it for the first time. And you know what, I truly think the left lead is of better quality than the right. I actually got him more uphill with the change in my seat once as he gave me access to his back that way. Mind blowing.

A little retracted at first, I also was riding poorly in the beginning.
Probably not related, right?

After that, I let him stretch both ways and then be done. I really wanted to go in the dressage court and ride, but by then my illness caught up to me and I was quite done. I walked him on a loose rein for a bit, then hopped off to walk him back home. Right as I was opening the gate, three turnout horses lost their shit and started galloping. TC startled and then just stared at them until they stopped, no bolting, no spinning, nothing. Then he put his head down, flopped his ears to the side, and quietly walked behind me to the cross ties. Seriously, whose horse is this? He certainly isn't my nutty baby horse. Are we... are we growing up?

In the Court

Wednesday morning I had to get up and out real early to ride the pony before my afternoon stuff began  . When I got to the barn, I parked right near the dressage court and saw that the footing looked amazing, so I was really determined to get in there and do some work.

I love this picture, holy crap is that my horse?

I hopped on TC without a longe, as I had the day before, but still headed to the round pen. It was extremely tempting to just do the whole ride in the court, but baby steps.

In the round pen, we worked on some transitions, as well as TC's obnoxious habit of thinking that he knows everything there is to know about dressage (I been doin' dressage before you were BORN, creature). He has started jigging in the walk just because he knows that every time we walk, we're going to trot soon. And he's started just picking up the canter from the trot whenever he feels like it, because we're probably going to be cantering soon, and now seems like a good time. He's also decided that breaking is fine, since I used to let him get away with that when he was just coming back, but now he has to keep going until I tell him it's time to stop.

This is very hard for him. BRH trainer called him arrogant, which made me laugh. He's definitely less obnoxious about this in the big arenas, I think because our routine is different every time, but he's right about the round pen. There's not much to do, we just trot around, do some walk trot transitions, do some trot canter transitions, and go the other way, rinse, repeat.

In between the moments of anticipation, we got some really good quality work. The canter feels better every day and the throughness of the trot is there every step of the way. All we're doing now is getting me to stop making minor adjustments because the tiniest movement of my hand makes him move his nose around thinking it's an aid and not just that I have no control over my left hand.

Retracted but LEFT LEAD

We headed out to the dressage court after that, my idea being that BRH trainer could ride TC around there, and then maybe on Thursday, I would ride him out there.

But TC was super quiet walking out, so I walked him around the arena with BRH trainer on foot. He talked me through staying relaxed and keeping my nerves to a minimum, since TC is so much more confident with him. He said that TC really defaults to me (when anyone else is riding and I talk to him, he ignores them lol he has to stop doing that), so even the tiniest bit of nerves on my part makes him nervous. To me, this means two things: first, I need to work on controlling what I'm communicating to him, while on Rico I could tense up (like when Rico would quietly walk across the busy road while I'm twitching about the big rigs zipping by) and it wasn't a big deal, on TC I need to channel my inner zen master. Second, I need to recognize when I am going to affect him negatively, and remove myself from the situation. No more trying to be a hero, just get off and longe or change arenas or do something different.

But with BRH trainer there, I felt confident and content to ride him! Since TC was so good, I picked up a trot!

And rode the first twenty meter circle in a dressage court in quite some time! It was surprisingly good! Because we were going right. The footing was all soft and perfectly dragged, so I could see our perfect little track to the right in the sand. Changing directions, I could see how freakishly wiggly we are that way. It felt better than I thought it would, but I totally ruined our perfect little circle. I know what my first Tracey lesson is going to be on... geometry. Damnit.

TC offered some stretching (in an arena he hasn't worked in for a year and a half??) so I let him go down. The ride was just so damn good.

This is him breaking from canter, but look, he looks like he has
a piaffe that doesn't sit at all!

Thursday I came out eager to get back in the court. We started in the round pen with no longe and I started left. Starting left is always questionable because of the straightness and anticipation. Whenever I get him straight, he thinks he should canter, so we had it out about that. But I eventually just threw him into canter, got up in half seat, and cantered around until he begged to trot. Then we had some really nice trot work. BRH trainer said that sometimes when he has too much energy, TC gets way way ahead of himself and it's better to just let him go rather than have a long discussion with him about waiting when he's too energetic for his own good.

We did the same thing to the right, burn off some energy by cantering. About two thirds of the way through the canter, two horses got turned out next to us and started to play. Because we were already cantering, I got to address that as an issue of mine. I tend to want to slow down and stop when stuff happens around us, but BRH trainer kept me going and it actually ended up being super good for me. As long as we were moving and TC was allowed to look, he was fine. I KNOW that keeping him moving is key in all of this, since then if he wants to bolt, he's already going forward and I can just direct the energy rather than all of a sudden have it burst forward in whatever direction he wants. But it's hard to ride him positively forward when all I want to do is slow down and spook at it as well.

He was super good about that, and we had some of the best right lead canter we've had in a long time. I even played a bit with what will eventually be a lengthened canter.  Such a good smart pony.

STRETCHING I mean it isn't a 9 but it's a huge change
for him

The trot work felt great, he was so soft and so steady. BRH trainer pushed me to get him even more over his back, which I honestly didn't think was possible. He felt so good at that point. But there was this whole new looseness in his shoulder when I got it. Craziness! This horse is super fun, I need to remember to push for more, go for the 9 instead of what feels like a solid 8.

After we had such great work in the round pen, we walked out to the dressage court again. A whole lot of stuff was happening around us- someone was having truck trouble so was turning the thing on and off again, making lots of noise, people were tacking horses up in the rarely-used cross ties near the arena, there was a tractor in the fields next door, someone was having a lesson in the trail course. So basically stuff going on on each side of the arena.

But TC stayed with me the whole time! I put him right to work on the twenty meter circle and he was great. Even from the day before, I felt like to the left, I could keep him on the circles so much better. And obviously the right was super easy. I turned the circle into a figure-8 as I usually do in a court. The changes of direction were seamless. Like good enough where I really probably don't need to do so many figure-8s. But still, never had so much fun riding on 20 meter circles.

His trot is getting real fancy

We did enough work where I just let him be done after that. My friend/client with fear issues and I talked about the importance of not pushing it and making little doable goals. So while I really want to be cantering in there and test riding, I used a lot more of the arena this ride and that's still progress.

I told BRH trainer that my goal was to practice all the Training level tests and maybe some First level tests by the time winter hits. Mostly because I may end up showing him over the winter or next spring (maybe before the rains stop), and in the winter we have no court to ride in because the court doesn't fit in the covered arena. Working on some test riding this fall will be helpful so then over the winter we can focus on surviving the left lead canter.

An Influx of Kittens

Monday morning I was teaching a bit at my barn and had a childhood dream come true. I was standing in the arena and look to my left, and a herd (well four) of ADORABLE kittens is mewing and trotting to me. Obviously I yell "OH MY GOD KITTENS" and immediately picked two of them up.

This one was the first one to run to me!

All four! The furthest gray one is a little nervous about people

They were so friendly and so sweet. As BRH trainer came over to see what I was yelling about, we ask him if the barn got kittens, because by now I had one in my arms and the other three were crawling under the barn's truck and trailer. Poor BRH trainer, he had NO idea what we were talking about, so he told me to grab them all and we'd put them somewhere. One of the guys helped me. We caught three fairly easily, but one was more feral than the rest (the little solid gray one), so the guy gave me the one he had caught (making my total THREE ADORABLE KITTENS to hold) so he could crawl in to get the other.

We put them in a little pen at the barn that we covered with plywood and gave them some food. One of the ladies offered to go get kitten food, but they were starving so we threw cat food at them and some water (they got kitten food later that day). Poor kittens.

We're still not sure where they came from but we think they might have been dumped or came in with the hay. Luckily, someone from the barn needs barn cats, so they are going home in a week or two!

So cute! The other black and white one was
not a fan of me

This one is so adorable, sat in my lap for a while!
Reminds me of little J

So basically everything that happened for the rest of the day was terrible, because can you really beat finding a herd of tiny kittens and cuddling three of them at once? I thought about just going home.

But I had the silliest little horse to ride. He had been screaming at me all morning. Why would your best friend come to your house and then just ignore you in favor of playing with kittens and making money so she can pay your rent? Wtf indeed.

I got him out and arranged to have BRH trainer help us. We went to the round pen and TC was so good on the line. He is getting a little frustrated when we change directions that he can't just pick up the canter right away and canter forever. He's been really bad about anticipating things these days, especially the canter. So we had a short discussion about WAITING to be told that he can canter and then cantering. This horse is going to be completely obnoxious to teach lead changes to.

Pictures from Tuesday's crappy fence video!

I hopped on and again headed right, he's sort of training me to do that. Woops. I need to stop letting my horse train me. The right felt really great. He felt super in the connection, though sometimes a little bit curled because he needs to push a bit more.

The walk-trot transitions are still rough, he really doesn't like staying on the bit in them. We worked on that and it did get better as my timing got better (weird) and eventually we had a couple of really good ones. The canter transitions are actually getting fairly good. TC is learning how to canter with his hind legs first instead of pulling himself into the canter with his front legs. The canter itself gets better every day, I got up into half seat and let him stretch out a bit, then back to trot for the stretchy trot.

Changing directions, we worked again on the straightness to the left. He's SO much better about that after working on square turns. BRH trainer reminded me that Tracey was going to come after me if I didn't keep my left hand still. Yet again it was doing shit it wasn't supposed to do when I thought it was being still. It tends to send him way off to the right, which is his natural crookedness anyway, ugh. But it got better and better.

Dude this is the left lead canter

After the round pen, we headed into the covered and had some excellent work there. He was foot perfect, no bolting or spooking. Every now and then he'd pick up his neck and look at something, but then back to work. I got to play a little bit with the quality of his trot, something I haven't done much of. I mostly just harassed his hind legs to get under him a bit more, but the result was some really amazing work out of him.

We took a short break and BRH trainer was happy to see that TC was breathing so hard. I think we're finally at a place where I can actually get him tired enough without stressing his leg or brain. Excellent.

After a canter break, we can get real fancy

I had asked about just walking around the dressage court, but there was a tractor in there so as we walked out, I said that we could just try again later this week. But then I realized no, I'm in training for a reason, so I hopped off and put my crash dummy trainer on. BRH trainer just exudes confidence so while TC was nervous about the tractor as we walked toward the trail course, BRH trainer just stayed quiet so TC relaxed. I need to learn how to do that...

They did a little walking and trotting in the trail course while the tractor was RIGHT next to them. TC watched it but generally handled it well. He looked like he was having fun trotting around in the trail course (which does have footing and get dragged, phew). BRH trainer would time it so that when the tractor was near us, he was trotting TC away from it, sort of baiting him to bolt. But TC was fine!

After the tractor left, we headed to the arena. I leaned against the fence and played with my phone as my horse quietly walked around the outside of the dressage court. So happy to have him in training!

Cantering, yay!

On Tuesday my thesis was due to my adviser, so I forced myself to turn it in before I went to ride. I had planned on having it done by Monday, but had turned on a movie (just for background noise) that I thought was supposed to be funny but realized too late that it was a very sad movie, and I spent much of the evening sobbing rather than working on my thesis. Erm. Woops.

So thesis was turned in (YAY OMG) and I headed off to the barn. I had sort of been feeling like crap all day. I think I'm slowly getting sick and also I had been working on that damn thing for so long, that having it lifted off my plate even just for a week or so while my adviser rips it apart was a very strange feeling. And celebrating by getting froyo made me feel even more sick, I used up all my brains on the thesis I think.

He is so fun

It was so hot though, that I didn't feel like longeing. TC stood snoozing in the cross ties and generally looked like he was about to pass out. 

I decided to do a bit in the round pen, then go to the covered arena. Let me say now, that we did make it into the covered arena for like ten seconds before the tractor came into drag. So the whole ride ended up being in the round pen. Boo, but we had really good work. 

We started with one bad walk trot transition, and that was it, great transitions after that. Phew. When those things are ugly, they're real ugly. The trot itself felt good, though very quiet. He always starts out quiet and gets more animated as he loosens up maybe? I think he's in a perpetual state of slightly sore muscles and it takes him a bit to work through it. Or he's lame.

Stretching down, both of us, ugh

I've been trying really hard not to think of him as being green. I mean he is, but if I keep treating him like he is, he'll never not be green. So he's not green. I was in walk after our trot work to the right and went ahead and just asked for canter. And TC just picked it up. I mean it was a little off the bit but it was clean, no trot steps. Mmmkay not green. Schooling a little Second level now I guess. 

The feeling of greenness comes mostly from the issue in the straightness to the left. I can't help but to think a horse is green when they go flying sideways out through their shoulder. But to be honest, he really doesn't even do that anymore. He's getting quite rideable to the left, even going on the bit in the canter that way. Damnit, my thinking needs to catch up to my horse! 

To the left he felt great, we had a couple of moments where I had to get on his case with some square turns. After that, well, you can see in the video stills that we ACTUALLY GO ON THE BIT TO THE LEFT. It's still so retracted, and he's not using his back, but we're going left and he isn't throwing his face in my face anymore.

He looks like a normal fucking horse to canter, so weird!

I still have to put him there, which I no longer have to do to the right. He comes off the bit in the transition that way but then he's nice and round. It's one of the things I really love about this horse- roundness is so automatic with him. We just have to get that left lead in gear and then we're all set!

This video was the first one I took where I was SUPER excited to see how far he's come. He sort of feels the same day in and day out, but then I looked at the video that L had taken in early August, so just a month ago, and to the left he's just all over the place. Now, he's rideable, just a little wiggly.

As rough as some of our rides have been with the bolting, and as much as I'm NOT looking forward to winter, I really truly love riding this horse. He just keeps getting better and better!

Adventures in Ground Driving

By Sunday I was feeling back to normal for the most part with TC. But he had worked hard all week and I wanted to figure out how to get him to do enough on his "day off" to make it less like a day off and more like work. If he gets a day off, then the next day has to be hard because he needs to blow off steam, then the day after that he gets muscle sore. I've found that although I'd rather do 5x/week of dressage and 2x/week of days off or walking around the ranch, it's better to do 6-7x/week of dressage. He stays less muscle sore and much happier that way.

Go pony!

But Sunday I just wanted to play with him. I had acquired long lines at one of my Dover trips and decided before TC came back to work that I wanted to teach him how to long line and ground drive. I need him to be used to in hand work so that I can take him to Alfredo one day and put on piaffe and passage. I also just like to fuck with my animals.

Rico was an excellent teacher for me, since he is extremely tolerant and was a previous driving horse. But I'm still not so good at it.

I threw the surcingle on TC and grabbed my long lines. We wandered around the ranch in hand at first, then ended up in the round pen. He seemed really chill, so I just threw him into the deep end and put the long lines on through the surcingle and attached them to the bit.

Out and about!

TC is really tolerant when it comes to me doing stuff to him. BRH trainer today told me that the horse is very clearly MY horse, which is funny because I still kind of don't feel like he's mine, but he certainly thinks he is (it's weird that I've owned him for a year because he still feels brand new to me just with how much he's changed since rehab). So anything I do to him, TC thinks is the best thing you could do to a horse.

I thwapped on him a bit with the long lines, swinging them over his back, running them behind his butt, er... dropping them several times. He was fine, just stood still and kept his ears on me.

It was awkward getting him going, but then he was so good at ground driving! I really have nothing to say about it. We went in both directions, turning across the middle. He was fine even when I totally dropped a line and had to run to get it. We worked on halt transitions and reining back. He really likes to halt and turn in to face me, but I was behind him, so he got really confused and wiggled a lot. The reining back was so good because I could see his feet a lot better and release the aid in the right timing.

Heading to the dressage court

I transitioned to long lining him and did a bit of trot work. He was really good, though I couldn't really get him on the bit, he kept retracting his neck and even the weight of the long lines was too much of a backwards feeling on the bit I think. So we didn't do too much trotting.

After about fifteen minutes, I was bored, so decided to take him in and do something else with him. I decided to ground drive him back to the cross ties because he always walks that path so quietly. And he was great! Soooo we kept going. We went once all the way around the barn and he spooked maybe once.

Hey TC, can that neck get any fucking shorter?

I've been hand walking him a lot in the dressage court, and he's been pretty good about it, so I decided to ground drive him in there. MAN it's hard to steer sometimes. Like props to the combined driving and driven dressage people because we were real drunk in there.

But he was great! We just went once around and then I took him back and put him away. I think he really liked it. I told him that if I simultaneously won the lottery and injured my back so much that I couldn't ride anymore, I'd put him in driving training. Dressage is for sure his favorite thing to do, but it was fun to force some variety on him a bit.

In the dressage court!

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

Last week had so much fun stuff that I sort of neglected talking about the baby horse! But we had a minor set back so I'm glad I had other things to post about than just complaining.

It's now been 60 days today since TC has been back in my life full time. Two months feels both like a very long time and no time at all. Really though, it's a very short time.

In that time we've gone from me not being able to ride him without longeing and having my trainer on him first, not being able to ride on my own, and not being able to ride outside of the round pen to being able to ride him around the ranch, work on my own, and ride in the covered arena. So as much as I want to complain that we had a setback in my confidence in him after that bad bolt last Tuesday, the truth is that it's been a very short time and we've come a long way.

Sunset at the barn

I wrote about the bolt on Wednesday of last week, unaware of how it affected me. On Wednesday and Thursday, I was unnerved. I decided on Wednesday that I'd longe the horse first, then ride. He was fine on the longe line, just a couple of little bolts.

When I got on though, I rode terribly. Every little noise (despite blasting music at myself) and every movement made me halt him. He was fine, and actually we did get some really good work done on straightness and throughness to the left. BRH trainer found me and asked if I wanted to take him behind the riding school again and I said no, that I needed regular lessons from him for a few rides.

Thursday I rode too late for a lesson since I had been trail riding Rico. I told myself that he'd get a day off, but then decided that it was a bad idea for either of us to have a day off. We went in a new round pen and I worked him on the longe line in the chambon + side reins, which made a huge difference in how he carried himself on the longe.

He bolted pretty bad twice and we had a long conversation about him not being allowed to just do whatever the fuck he wants. I made him stand, rein back, walk on the line (normally I don't like walking in side reins but they're not short and desperate times, you know), and just be perfect. Undersaddle he felt good but I was still riding him underpowered and was nervous when someone walked out of the barn and TC's head popped up to look at them. Ugh.

Being patient

By Friday I was kind of feeling like shit. I helped a my friend who also has fear problems and a horse with a scoot like TC's  (I mostly seem to be afraid of my own horses vs client horses- horse trainer brain takes over I guess). She was nervous in this one arena so I hopped on, rode the horse around, and she got back on and had a great ride.

We talked about how doing things like that is okay. With fear, it's easy to get caught up in what we SHOULD be capable of doing and push ourselves too much, which causes more fear. It was okay that she had me get on, because then she had a really fun, positive ride and when she comes back out to ride in that arena, she will have that positive experience to think about. It was okay that I spent two days in the round pen petrified of pushing my horse forward.

I reminded her, and myself, that negative experiences are more salient than positive ones. One bad ride has to be eliminated by ten good rides. One REALLY bad ride might take more than ten good ones, depending on how salient the experience was. TC's bolt wasn't horrific, I didn't come off or get hurt, but it was enough to set me back a little. And that's okay. Riding in the round pen for a couple of days is okay.

Not being patient

Once as I had accepted that, I went to watch BRH trainer work with a young horse, only 45 days undersaddle, and then asked for a lesson both Friday and Saturday, possibly Monday and Tuesday as well. The nice thing about part time training is that I can kind of stack lessons up a bit like that to get my confidence back and then take time on my own when things are going well. I swing wildly back and forth thinking that I can do this completely on my own (when he's being good) and wanting to have lessons every day (when he's being bad). So part time training is a good thing.

And I'm glad I did that because both Friday's and Saturday's rides were spectacular and I'm not nearly as nervous as I was.

We warmed up with the same longeing contraption, with BRH trainer and I talking about my issue in the covered arena. We decided to take it slow- on Friday we did all of our work in the round pen and then just walked in the covered. On Saturday we did more.

TC was perfect on the line, no bolting, no naughtiness. I hopped on and we had the absolute best ride we've ever had.

He was just THERE for me in the contact and off my leg. He was straighter than he's ever been. It was like he was constantly asking if he could stretch at all three gaits. I was beaming for most of the ride, and people at the barn who have seen him around stopped to watch him. My farrier was there, who had once told me that was I sure TC was good enough? His butt is very small. And even she was like WOW HE IS SO NICE, when she saw us go in the bad direction. He even gave me the best stretchy trot we've ever had- trotting for three full circles in each direction after the canter.

After the ride in the round pen, BRH trainer and I walked to the covered arena, I just wanted to ride a walk circle in there undersaddle to build trust again. He was good so I hopped off and then spent some time with him giving him a bath.

Love that I can sometimes walk him on a loose
rein around the barn... sometimes

Saturday was another wonderful day. We started with the same work in the round pen on the longe, where TC from the future visited me and showed me how good the canter transitions were going to be. As I was longeing, BRH trainer told me that Tracey had told him that initially she wasn't sure about my horse, but after seeing him on Tuesday, she said she really liked him, said he had a good canter. That gave me a boost.

On him, TC felt amazing in the contact. At this point, we're only having maybe one or two bad walk to trot transitions before he softens and stays on the bit the whole time. The canter to the right felt downright great. I got up in half seat and let him really stretch down in a stretchy canter, which used to be a Second level movement (but you did it sitting, not in half seat). I think it's good for TC to let me move around a bit up there, and he uses his back so nicely when I get off of him, and maintains it when I sit down again. Not really part of my normal dressage training, but I like BRH trainer's input as a racehorse trainer.

Coming back into trot, TC immediately started to stretch. I like that he is sort of teaching himself to do that, since one of the hardest things about some of the Training and First level tests is the placement of the stretch circle after something like a trot lengthening or the canter work. Because of how hard it is conformationally for TC to stretch, he basically gets to stretch whenever he wants to. So if he wants to after the canter, go right on ahead.

The work to the left was okay, made much better by BRH trainer telling me to turn my circle into a square and ride some square turns. Once TC was aware that if he didn't turn, I was going to hoist him around or leave him to hit the fence, he got really soft in his shoulder and was so much more maneuverable. I'm soooo excited for that, since our fake shoulder-in (shoulder-in != haunches out, but I'm riding it like haunches out right now) will be fixed soon.

Topline, slowly but surely!

After the round pen, we headed to the covered ring, where I put TC right to work. No bolting, no bucking, no naughtiness, just good quality work. He felt great in the contact, stayed with me the whole time, and got to stretch in there for the very first time. I saw it in the mirror!! It needs work to be show ready (since in general he tends to get his hind legs out behind him, which is made worse by the stretch), but it's ACTUALLY STRETCHING.

I was beaming as we rode out of the arena and back to the cross ties. Even though I spent a couple days in the round pen, a couple of good lessons later and I was back in the covered feeling so confident. And the extra longeing with the chambon + side reins made a huge difference in TC too. So from now on, I'll just take any bolting that unnerves me (most of it doesn't) as a good chance to give TC a boost in his training on the longe line.

As much as I was upset about the setback, it didn't put me back to the very beginning. I didn't feel scared to ride on my own, I didn't need my trainer to get on him first. But I did confine myself to the round pen and did more longeing than normal. I think that's the definition of two steps forward, one step back. So we're still moving forward. And I'm really excited about that.