WW: My First Horse Shows

I ran across some old pictures! These are some of my very first schooling shows on Shawnee, my dad's old horse. He was a 15.3h arabian x quarter horse cross and he was an absolute saint.

First show, I was ten years old here, turning eleven the next
month. That saddle was the worst!

Same show as above

This was later that year, I won a bunch of perpetual trophies
and then the show stopped happening so I kept them! My mom
says that this show made me think I was way too good lol

Third show I think, it was the following spring so I was eleven

Bonus picture- I was older here, maybe 14-15, for some reason
we brought Shawnee to our house and I got to sit on him in the
front yard! Fun fact, this house is now worth 2.3 million dollars,
it is a typical suburban 3br/2ba but it's located in the bay area
soooo yeah.

Shawnee in the pasture where my parents kept their horses before
they bought the ranch (and sold the above house for much less
than it is currently worth). He died in 2013 at 36 years old I think.

First Trail Ride of 2018

Despite my ride on Friday being a bit... exciting... I decided to take TC out on the trails on Saturday. I remember deciding not to trail ride him in January because he hadn't been off the property since early November when he was kind of an idiot. My reason was "I think it'd be best to take him somewhere to work him before going out on the trails" and then I promptly forgot about that until he was shooting out of the trailer screaming at the top of his lungs at the trail facility. Huh. Okay.

Trail ride!

My goal, as it is on all trail rides with this horse since his injury, was to make it around alive and have him be sound the next day. TC is super good on the trails, he's really not afraid of much out there (bikes are okay, dogs are okay, people running probably have treats and let's intimidate them with friendliness) but he just gets AMPED out there. I think if he had his way, he'd gallop the whole time. I think he overestimates his abilities and how paranoid I am about his suspensory.

So I, on the other hand, like to walk on the trails. I mostly like to play games on my phone while my horse plods along. I also really like taking my DSLR out there and taking prettier pictures from behind the ears than I can with my phone. So basically I want a mobile tripod out there.

A lady with a white horse was in the parking lot when we pulled in and my horse came screaming out of the trailer. TC, being rather dark for his age, convinces people to say hilarious things like "it's so great that you're taking your three year old out on the trails, its really good for him" and then I have to say "um no he is coming seven, he's just a bit emotionally stunted." Everyone also thought he was an Andalusian. No, he's too bouncy to be one of those. I was told that I should find a good chiropractor.

Climbing the first hill

TC pranced all the way to the first gate and then most of the way up the first hill. I had to lecture a cyclist who was going to pass me without warning me, which sent TC leaping off the trail. I don't expect people to not ride their bikes or walk their dogs or hike out there, but giving me a warning when you're going to zip by me is really helpful. That way I can make sure TC has good bicycle experiences. And sure enough, by the end of the trail ride, he wasn't spooky at all with them.

We finally got a quiet moment as we finished climbing the first big hill. He stopped at the top and I took it in. I am riding my horse on the trails! This view is so beautiful! He finally settled! We're going to have a great ride!

Then I turned him to keep going down the trail and he said no, so I literally just barely touched him with the whip. And he jumped straight up into the air and launched forward into a leap-y canter. I stopped him and got him settled, then he started getting all nutty again so I hopped off for some ground work. It seemed to do the trick and he was pretty settled for a long while.

I never asked him for those minutes
of trot or those 4 seconds of leaping ugh

Hello silicon valley (well, a bit south of there)

We made it over the bridge that TC sometimes hates pretty easily. He was fine going onto the bridge but thought about not walking off of it for a second. Silly animal. We then passed a couple with two dogs. They told me my horse was beautiful so I said their dogs were cute. They said "trade you!" and I said "he's been bad so be careful, I might take you up on that." TC must have heard because for about 45 minutes after that interaction, he became very pleasant.

There were cows in the next field, we passed a herd of them while walking up the hill. As we began the long walk back down, we passed some more people and a couple of them on bikes. By this point, TC couldn't give two fucks about bikes or people. He did give a small fuck when a cow moved and he realized that all the rocks/mounds he was seeing were actually alive.

Whoa, cows!

All seemed very good. Then we saw a horse way ahead of us. TC decided that screaming his face off and catching up to that horse was very important. I told him no, and to calm his tits. He didn't agree with me and let his tits run wild. We wrestled down the hill until we got to a short uphill part and he was about to absolutely lose his SHIT. So I got off and we did some ground work. It was the safest thing to do because there were a TON of people on the trail hiking all around us and he didn't seem to give a shit about mowing them down to get to the horse.

After a lot of ground work, he was feeling better and for about five minutes I had a really good pony who walked on a long rein. Then we got passed by a horse going the other way. This actually worked out well for us, because TC knew there was a horse ahead of us and behind us and he didn't know what to do. He got agitated but he just kept walking pretty quietly, as if he was trying to figure out whether to gallop off toward the horse ahead of us or spin and gallop to the horse behind us. It held him in a bit of limbo until he calmed himself down.

The views up there are so beautiful

Hello work, across those mountains in the distance

Finally we made it to the end of the trail ride and he was marching happily back to the trailer. By the end I had enough fun to make me want to trail ride him again as soon as possible. As annoying as he can be out there, he's fundamentally pretty good on the trails. Not spooky or nervous, just excited and I mean, it's not his fault that his excitement makes me want to drop him off with the herd of cows and hike home. Once as it becomes a more normal thing for him to do, I'm sure he'll chill out. Just like he has in new places.

So hopefully Friday (which I have off) and maybe Monday (which I also have off yay), I'll get him out on the trails again. And every time we go out, he'll get a little bit better and soon I will have my mobile tripod who I can ignore while I play on my phone and take pretty pictures. Until then, it's just miles.

An Epic Battle

Friday morning TC was a bit of a nut. I don't have a ton of time to get this post ready, so I'm just going to copy the facebook post I posted about it. Two birds and all that. Er many birds.

At least he's cute

It's a warm summer (spring? winter? what season is it?) morning and our hero, TC, is ridden into the covered arena. All seems to be going well as he carts his rider around until he notices out of the corner of his eye, a shadow moving from one side of the grassy field to the other. He strikes out with anger, his arch nemesis is back, previously thought to be defeated! The winged demon lands in the far side of the arena and TC sees that this time he has back up, a whole flock, TC slides to a stop to get a better look and gets a bad feeling in his stomach unrelated to the thumps on the side of it by his imbecile side kick... this is going to be a battle to end all battles.

TC comes around the circle again and several winged rats begin to advance on him. Not wanting to alarm the half wit on his back who is trying to get her left oblique to stay engaged, TC delivers a warning to the gang- a snake of the neck and an evil glare- back off if you know what's good for you. His side kick, clearly unable to comprehend the danger of the situation, warns TC not to do anything stupid. "They're just birds, TC! What is your issue?" she exclaims.

The gang ceases to disappear in a cloud of feathers in response to his warning, so TC is forced to engage again the next time he comes down the long side of the arena. He turns toward them and finds the door open on the right side of his body- left there frequently by his stupid rider. TC takes his exit and the battle begins. There are more of them than TC thought, he might be outnumbered! All he has is the idiot on his back who, he could only assume based on her attempts to turn him away from his enemies, was trying to sabotage him!

TC is no dummy, he has been preparing for this all his life. He knows how to stop her AND intimidate the group of feathered foes: he leaps through the air and goes in for the attack. Hooves and feathers fly; squawks and the words "what the fuck TC?" are all that was heard in the moment where our triumphant hero defeated the demon birds, sending them back to the rafters where they belong.

Back home, TC eats his grain and reflects on his morning. He knows that he has won the battle but not yet the war, and that the demon birds will return sometime in the future. And when they do, our hero will be ready. Though perhaps, he thinks, he'll replace his side kick with someone who understands his plight. This one seems only good enough for bringing him his grain and while that is very good, perhaps it is not worth the handicap in battle.

Disclaimer: no birds, horses, or riders were harmed during this ride.

With Joy

Tuesday I went out to ride TC before heading to the dentist (late, sorry dentist) to get a filling refilled. I wasn't too enthused about it, but at least I got to ride. I always try to make my appointments be around 10am so it doesn't make sense for me to go into work before hand, meaning I get extra horse time.

Freshly dragged arena!

I've been focusing so much on how my riding has changed that I really haven't talked much about TC lately, but TC is doing super well. Both of us are really loving the spring weather... in February. I'm not complaining in terms of riding, but I am annoyed that it's been too warm to get pho or tofu soup (though I did finally break down and go to my favorite Korean place with Kate on Monday and get tofu soup, even though I was kind of sweating the whole time while eating it).

TC had Monday off and that was good for him. I know he needed it because he came out ready to work but not crazy on Tuesday. We walked around the ranch and I saw that one of the outdoor arenas was open and it had just been dragged! Yes!

We haven't been able to ride outside much, surprisingly. The arenas tend to open soon enough after rain, but then don't usually get dragged until a few days later (because if they got dragged right away, they'd be a soupy mess). TC was overdue for shoes so I have been avoiding riding in anything but absolutely perfect footing. But Tuesday we had perfect footing outside, so instead of walking back to the covered, we went into the outdoor.

I was expecting TC to be a nut, but he actually buckled down to work pretty well. He hates this one long side of that particular outdoor, despite that he literally walks on the other side of it every single day on our walks. But he just kept an eye on it while we worked. I'm fine with that, he can look at whatever he wants as long as he's staying with me.

EVERY TIME, please don't itch my very old
bridle, TC! It needs to last another season or two

We warmed up in trot and he immediately felt really good in the bridle. He's really learning how to reach for the bridle in a more solid way, and my leg now means that he steps even more into it instead of just going faster. He gives a really cool feeling in that work and it's just so fun!

We're still really struggling with the left side. It makes sense now, since I'm so unstable that way in comparison to the right. Luckily for me, I think it's actually his easier side, so as long as I'm really focused on my left oblique staying strong and me bearing down, he's quite good. It's when I let things slide out of alignment that he starts to fall apart.

So to the left, we were walking after a break and I got really prepared to trot him. I plugged in with my right seat bone, I shortened my front line, I focused on my bear down, put him way into the bridle, then asked him to trot...

and he squealed.

He didn't do anything but pick up a trot, a really lovely trot over his back. He normally squeals when he's having too much fun, like when we're cantering and he sees a bird shadow and is like FUCK YES MUST POUNCE or when he's trotting and I ask him to canter and he's just so beside himself because he REALLY WANTS TO CANTER. But a walk to trot transition? Really, TC?

Thinking about itching his face but instead just
sniffing his saddle pad, good pony

It reminded me of a post I wrote back in May of last year about TC being a party animal. That post was based off of a conversation I'd had with Kate about how expression in dressage could be elicited by either play or fear responses. Here's a quote if you don't want to read it all:

Dressage is all about enhancing the natural movements of a horse, and these movements come out in two different situations in the wild- when a horse is playing and when a horse is scared. I've seen TC cover some serious ground in an extended canter when he is afraid, I've seen him arch his neck and strike out at butterflies when he is playing. The idea of training then, is to incite this play response from the horse, rather than the fear response. It's easy to see in the horse's eye as they are working- are they expressive because they're having fun or are they expressive because they're scared.

I think that I could really go on and on about this idea since I've had some really interesting conversations with people about it... But perhaps later on. For now, I think that it was really fascinating to see TC find joy in even something as small as a walk to trot transition.

I think maybe that I've been low key blocking him in those and that it was a touch hard for him to comply with my ask when I'm a little bit in his way. So by taking away that block, he had a very clear path forward. And that plus a little extra energy on a warm sunny day meant that when I asked him to trot, he might have been feeling like HELL YES I CAN DO THIS and squealed.

He came way over his back like he was arching his body to strike out at a butterfly. But instead of being ridiculous, he picked up a big powerful trot. And I stayed with him as I've been working on lately and he maintained it until I started slipping out of my position. Poor guy, I probably deflated him.

I love ranch wandering

I just love how much this horse loves to work. We had another moment of excitement where he took off with me at the canter squealing and swapped leads. I went with it and we worked on the quality of the counter canter before transitioning to walk and picking the correct lead back up.

Obviously TC needs to not feel so much joy that he takes off with me or makes a bunch of noise, but I also feel like if I let him slowly develop out of it vs punishing him for it, he'll maybe keep that joy a bit longer. And I want him to think that dressage is the most fun thing ever, it's what is going to give him that expression in the show ring that I so want him to have, that I feel as though I have only ever achieved with force in the past. This time, I choose joy.

Rico's First (and Last) Combined Test

So, when Rico hurt his poll in 2006, I decided to jump him. The vet had said that flexing at the poll could be painful, so we mostly did hack-type flatwork and I started him over fences. He was reluctant to jump at first- even going over poles was really tough for him. His first instinct was to stop at them, but I figured that if we just kept pressing on, things would get better. And they did. Soon he was okay jumping fences with no filler, but filler was always really tricky for him.

In early 2007, I had him going okay over small fences and decided to take him to a show. It was a combined test, so we did the easy walk-trot dressage test and then went in for our tiny little stadium round. Let me tell you a story in pictures.

In the warm up things went well! You can see that the jumps
were so small that he could step over them and there was no filler.

He was downright chill over the first fence! Good boy, Rico.

Got a bit of a funky distance to the next fence, but that's okay

Definitely not touching jump three

Getting pretty into it now!

A bit close maybe

For sure not touching that shit

This is reasonable too, good boy Rico

But then... 

Rico sees the most terrifying thing

We are NOT jumping that

Missed him standing up, then I turned around and tried again

Okay maybe we'll go this time

Wait wait wait no maybe not this time

Rico says hell no

Let's go this way instead

Wherein I basically just spur the shit out of him

Okay I guess I have to jump this

Oh no it's happening

Gotta keep an eye on it in the air though

I withdrew after that. The last fence was that plank cross rail that he had spooked at earlier and I wanted to make sure we ended on a good note.

Rico went on to be a good jumper later on... he always had issues with filler though. 

He figured it out though

An Uptick in Confidence

I was going to add this post to yesterday's post, but I was too excited about how things had changed that I wanted to separate them. I'm also doing this thing where I get most of my posts written for the week by Sunday/Monday so that I actually only have to write one or two posts (usually Thur/Fri) in the middle of the week.

TC's face when I walked him through the gates of hell. Er...
around the ranch

There's been an interesting thing happening now that I'm working on my position- I am a THOUSAND times more confident. And TC has been testing that recently, I think he has a bit of spring fever with the weather being so nice. On Saturday I think he accidentally scared the crap out of my barn owner. He got set off by the pasture horses and was being a huge dork so I had to hand walk the rest of our warm up walk. He settled and I didn't really take him that seriously. I got on and we were having an okay ride, but he was being really reactive to stuff (he's a very spooky horse but his spooks have gotten mostly pretty manageable). I was focusing on my position and then we were positively LEAPING through the air.

Like, I've never been so close to the ceiling of the covered arena. He landed off the first leap and I remember laughing and saying "my god you've gotten athletic, haven't you?" before he took off into the second smaller, but still very large, leap. My barn owner, who is a very capable and generally really confident rider, told me that he cleared four feet and asked me if I was going to jump him. He's the literal worst at jumping, so nah. She told me that it was a good thing I was sitting back because if I'd been tipped at all forward, I would have fallen off.

The next day, Sunday, I got on no problem, wandered around the ranch no problem, had a great ride with one incident where he overreacted to a cat (seriously? there are like twenty cats at my barn) and nearly ran out the arena gate. I rolled my eyes at that too, you can't get out of work by leaving the arena, TC.

TC says "lies!"

A year ago, a day like Sunday would have set me into a downward spiral. A day like Saturday? I probably would have been in tears the rest of the day and been feeling terrified for my ride Sunday. I would have gotten on him and been nervous, which would have set him off (pretty sure that me being kind of pumped full of adrenaline as I confronted the Phantom Grainer on Saturday set him on edge to begin with, so when the pasture horses took off, he was beside himself), and made him even worse.

This time, I just... went back to work. I felt like my position was so strong and so stable that nothing he did would unseat me. Nothing would scare me. It's such a safe place. Getting that thought of heels-down-stretch-tall out of my head and thinking more about bearing down and shortening my front line really helped me.

And really, at this point I know his game. Nothing he does is dangerous. It's just... obnoxious. And like my BO said on Sunday when we were chatting about him, TC is a LOT of horse. His obnoxious is quite dramatic. But his excellent mind really helps balance out his reactivity and the power that he puts behind everything he does.

Earned a spot next to the best horse in the world finally

Last year when I could barely ride him, TC was very spooky. TC is still spooky, and I think he will always have a spook in him. He is never going to be a super chill, stoic horse, or if he is, it's going to take a while. The difference between this year and last is pretty drastic though. While in the past, TC spooking almost always lead to him downshifting and running away with me, unable to be brought back down to the real world, now he mostly spooks in place and is immediately back to normal.

Lots of things have changed that have nothing to do with me. The horse is living in a MUCH larger paddock, our relationship has improved with another year of work/time, and he is getting older/more mature. But looking back, one of the turning points was me changing from being an "up" rider to being a "down" rider. In the past, I used to be able to light any horse up. This came in handy when I schooled the lazy types and with Rico, who did best with a rider who could light him up a bit. For a long time, I couldn't control the tension in my hips, and then along came TC who you couldn't light up willy nilly.

More crappy screenshots

Finally what really ended up working was me kind of just slopping around in the tack. Banging him with my legs a bit, being a bit floppy, slouching a bit. My thigh came off the saddle, my seat got heavy, and I sat as far back as I could (it wasn't very far back). That made a huge difference for both of us. TC is very in tune with his rider- he'll light up if you light up and he'll get lazy if you get lazy. Overwhelm him with aids and he balks, don't give him enough structure and he bolts. Knowing this now, it makes sense that when I relaxed, he relaxed. And that, plus a lot of ground work to help him understand that leaving wasn't the only option, caused him to get a lot better.

But my position was, well, fucked. I didn't care though, I could actually ride my horse. Over time I put my position back together, always quick to go back to that down place if he got tense, but for the most part, looking like a normal dressage rider. It did become my tendency when either of us got nervous though, and while it worked, it's really not something you want to do in the middle of a test while your horse is spooking.

Mary wanted us to take the idea of relaxation out of rider biomechanics, and replace it with the idea of structure. So when I went back to practice on the first day, I ignored TCs spooking and just put myself in a more structured place. And TC calmed down. Now, a large part of this is of course what I mentioned before- he's becoming more emotionally mature and is finding stability in his work. You can really see him turn to me/his work when he gets spooky, and that's amazing because he really used to work himself up.

Smile TC!

But there's a lot to be said about the structure in my position helping him stay centered and with me. Not only does it give me more confidence, I think it gives him more confidence. Both in that I am much more steady and strong in my position, and also that I feel confident. It's an upward spiral this time! I think this is going to be really crucial for this year's show season. I'm really excited to see how things continue to progress!

Breakthroughs

The week following the Mary Wanless clinic was a tough one. I'd be riding along like I always did and then would get overwhelmed by all of the things she said, try to implement them all at once, and then get frustrated that I couldn't do them all at once or get taken off with because I wasn't paying attention. Do not recommend this implementation style.

When did my horse get replaced with a bouncy ball? Lol this was
the only part of the arena I could get good crappy screen shots

So over the week, like I said in Friday's post, I decided to just find a couple of crucial things to fix over the next month or two, then come back and reread all of the posts from last week and find a few new things. That's far less overwhelming and I'll probably make better progress doing that than trying to think of everything at once.

At this point, my goal is to find some equilibrium where I feel like I can ride my horse again, and we're definitely getting to that point.

Luckily, for the most part, TC and I are in a great place right now where I can actually devote a lot of my mental power to working on these things. Winter has been really mild this year (coulda used that last year omg) so we've been plugging away in a bit of a reduced workload, less due to weather at this point and more due to the shifted schedule to morning riding. Though I did make a conscious effort to reduce his fitness so it wasn't a big deal to miss a few days of riding, which paid off during the clinic and when everyone came back to school the week before that.

So I might be way overcorrecting my right seat bone (it will be
DOWN) but can I just have a moment to admire this trot?
This was not the trot he was born with, let me just tell you. 

Sunday I took a bunch of really crappy fence video. I haven't had any new media because I can't yet afford to have someone follow me around recording my life. Also I tend to ride at times where normal humans are doing other things, like sleeping or watching the football game.

It was really great to see, even just for the little bits where I could, what we looked like. I obviously have mirrors, but I do like slowing it all down and seeing what is going on.

A lot of good things are happening and a few bad things too. As expected, I'm way overcorrecting a few things. I'm so dedicated to being on my right seat bone that I'm pretty much hanging off the right side of my horse, so that's cool. He's not thrilled with it but he's a tolerant fellow (or he will be when I'm done with him) so he can deal. And I'm really struggling with the stability in my position tracking left, which is going to take me a long time to fix. I think it has something to do with my SI injury, and I need to see a doctor to figure that out.

The sitting trot is AMAZING. I noted the changes last post, but this time I could see them. The quality of trot has improved so much, especially when I can be coordinated (not often, yet) and really bear down AND put my leg on at the same time (pretty sure that's impossible). He's naturally so much more into my hand and so much more active. I played a bit with increasing the power coming from behind but also rebalancing him a bit more uphill with a half halt and I could really see the difference in that. And all the work in the bridle this winter means that adding positive tension like that doesn't send him into negative tension. I can really press on him (not in a mean way, he wouldn't do well with that) and get great work out of him.

New position who dis?
Sorry, it's late on Sunday night and I'm delusional. But damn.

To me, the canter feels like the change of a lifetime, though the video showed that it's still in the beginning phases, though there have been some significant changes. I was convinced I had achieved the collected canter I want for Second and... I know lots and lots of people content to take a canter like this into Second level, but I am going to be dissecting collection in a post at some point (complete with gifs of my GP horse vs my Training level horse) and I will go more into what I'm wanting him to do.

What I can say with confidence is that a) his throughness is a thousand percent better and b) he's definitely traveling in a more uphill balance, even if those hocks aren't as bent as I'd like them to be in the stance phase to call it collection. I'm pretty pleased with that. Throughness has been an absolute battle in the canter. The horse is just not built to do it. When I see Rico cantering in the pasture (well, get videos from my mom), he naturally has a round canter. TC's natural canter is a horrifying disaster that I never want to sit on again, let alone see.

So he's really come a long way since even a year ago struggling with it. But it's going to take a lot longer to develop. I'm very happy to keep plugging along with it. If this is how much I can change just by sitting in a slightly different way, I wonder how much things are going to change in the next year!

IS THAT UPHILL BALANCE IN THE CANTER I SEE?

So pretty much every day we're making really good progress. It was enough where I had a couple of people ask me who I was riding with. MYSELF through mirrors, overwhelming auditing experiences, and crappy fence videos. I do want a lesson, but that will have to wait a bit longer. For now, we're just going to keep plugging along on the first toolkit (though I slipped into second toolkit the other day and did some leg yields and shoulder-in within the new sitting trot and they were great!) and keep making steady progress.