Ten Things About TC

I record a lot of what TC and I do on this blog. Like, that's the point of this blog. But I realized that there are a few things I don't mention often, if at all, that are actually things that I do want written down at some point.

So here are ten things about TC that I find interesting or cute or whatever. Just wanted to write them down.


1) I really love TC's weird facial expressions. At first I really didn't think he was a very attractive horse, but his adorable personality really has taken over and convinced me that he's the cutest animal. Well, behind Rico and Jade, sorry TC. He sometimes has this look on his face of bewilderment, and he definitely knows how to be adorable when begging.

When he saw sprinklers (that he's seen before)

2) TC and I have this weird little banter when we walk back to his stall. I have his grain in my hands and then just drape the lead rope over my shoulder and he kind of follows me. The rule is that if I stop, he has to stop, but other than that he can do whatever. Except steal grain. But he definitely begs when we're walking. If he's feeling quiet he'll just look at me with big sad eyes and I always give him a cookie. If he's sassy, he'll get a bit close and I'll poke his nose with my finger to get him to stop. Sometimes this results in him snaking his neck and very occasionally he'll strike out. It's all very controlled but it's sassy and I think it's hilarious.


3) For the most part, TC is really social. He always hated it when he got left in the arena and always screams at other horses even during our ride. He'd be a terrible coworker. I've really felt bad for him that he has been pretty much not allowed to get close to his neighbors since the end of 2015. But it's been super good for him. He is now as close as he's been, and he's still separated by an electric fence. He has two neighbors who I thought he'd be attached to. One of them definitely gets a whinny if he sees him out and about, but the other one is OBSESSED with TC and it cracks me up because TC thinks he's too clingy and doesn't give two fucks about him. TC, do you realize that this is how everyone else feels about you?

Now I'm more his person, we even wear the same scarves

4) TC has two vices that drive me nuts in the cross ties. One, he chews on the cross ties themselves, which are chains, and two, he wants to stand in front of the railroad tie that encloses the cross ties, despite this looking very uncomfortable. He knows that I will tell him to stop every time and he still does it. So rude.


5) I've mentioned this in several posts before, but it's worth mentioning again. TC is really enthusiastic about his job. This usually makes him SUPER fun to ride. He's super game for everything and as long as you really take the time to explain what it is that you're asking, he tries his heart out. SOMETIMES this makes him super ANNOYING to ride because he will really tell you when you unlock something... by squealing... and leaping through the air. For a while I couldn't even get my sitting trot in the right place because he'd immediately squeal and canter when I got it. But it's such a good canter like... what are you going to do? He also squeals and does changes sometimes, and again, what am I going to do? So I just mostly ignore it.

Please be faster at tacking me up

6) It's well documented on this blog that TC is a spooky horse. He's actually spookier at home than he is in new places. I think he's just mostly pretty observant of his world and likes things to be the same. It really doesn't seem to affect him elsewhere. Like out on the trails he doesn't care about anything (except other horses but that's a different problem). One of my favorite spooks was when TC saw a cat walking across the lawn. The cat decided to run up the tree nearby. TC slammed himself to a halt and was like WHAT THE FUCK. I mean, to him it probably looked like a crazy demon tree sucked that cat right up into it. He's been very cautious of the lawn ever since.


7) This horse loves people. I mean he loves them. All last year I was so grateful that we had lots of people coming up to him after shows, because he now knows that shows are where he gets to go show off for people who then come up to him and give him pets afterward. It definitely helped with his confidence. The downside though, is that he seems to be ready to ditch me for just about anyone. We'll be out on the trails and if I'm not careful, he'll deposit himself in someone's backpack and leave with them. He thinks Kate is the best person ever, and would probably like to go home with her instead. Definitely not the most loyal animal in the world.

Wants to know where his bffs are after finishing his test

8) TC hates being ridden bareback. He's fine at the walk, but every time I ask him to trot you can just see it in the look on his face. It goes from happiness to the look that a half dead unamused lesson horse wears. He's just like "oh god why, why this" whenever I flop around on him. He will NOT go on the bit and will barely jog a few steps before being like "fuck off man" and slamming himself into the walk. The one time I made him canter bareback he was okay until we broke to trot and I flopped around, then he decided that I wasn't allowed to canter him anymore. Oh well. We'll stick to walking then.


9) Ground tying has never been a problem for TC. He likes to be the center of attention in general so why would he leave me when I'm there giving him attention? Watching him in the cross ties I always thought he'd never ground tie because he stands there like he wants to leave the whole time. He paws and stretches and bows and chews on the ties and wiggles around. But the moment he's not tied, he's totally fine hanging out.


10) TC loves to be groomed and scratched. I know I can always give him a big reward by leaning forward and scratching his chest and neck, he thinks that's great. He really likes the insides of his hind legs (basically up between his butt cheeks) scratched. Sometimes he'll pick up his hind leg to give me better access to his cheeks. He's also a big fan of having his belly scratched too.

Loves scratches

Some Current Work

This week has been really busy at work as I wind down my employment at my current workplace. I'm really excited to move on but I am dreading next week because I have three (!) going away party things to go to and I think I'm going to cry at least at one of them. And probably on my last day. And probably while driving to my new place even though I'm super excited about it. And probably at my new job. I can't help it, even good change makes me a crazy person.

The horse though, has been absolutely impressing me lately. He's been super quiet and sweet to me, though today it's supposed to start raining, so we'll see. But up until today's ride, he's been so good this week and last weekend. 

Okay so side note, he will walk down this road just fine, not
spooking at the trees, but if he is in the arena on the other side
of the trees, the trees are terrifying. Horse logic is stupid.

Finally on Sunday we had a really stellar ride after a couple of tense ones due to the rain. We've been drilling the walk work a bit more lately and the walk pirouettes felt excellent that day. He still really struggles to keep the walk active, but luckily he's not the type to stick. I've done a ton of walk pirouettes on him (always facing the mirror so I can watch his legs) and he's only stuck once.

I've also been working a bit on the halt and rein back, just from walk. He's just kind of terrible at it. I don't blame him and I'm not worried about it, Rico went through a period of time where every time I tried to back him up undersaddle, he stood up. So TC wanting to take baby steps back with his head in the air is totally absolutely fine in my book. Take your time, bud. On the couple days we skipped out of riding due to the storm last week, we did some work in hand with the clicker and that seemed to help him understand the whole going backwards thing with his neck down. 

He saw a giant bird that he thought about going
over to

Then this week due to being busy, we've mostly just been putting in the miles. I figure if I only have 20-30 minutes to work him (vs 45+), we'll just put in miles in a good connection with good transitions. His connection in the trot is feeling great lately. I'm a bit annoyed with myself in that I feel like it's a conscious decision to get him really INTO the bridle. 

I'll get a few minutes in and I'll think he feels good and then I look in the mirror and see that he's not really coming up through his shoulder. So then I put leg on and really press him into it and the shoulder comes up, but it annoys me I won't do that immediately. I'm going to not have mirrors soon (but hopefully Peony will video me sometimes! And I'll be taking a TON of fence videos) so I'm paranoid that he's suddenly going to backtrack without the mirrors there to tattle on me. 

The canter transitions definitely feel better than they have. It was kind of a wake up call to realize that they're better on the long lines than undersaddle. If that doesn't scream rider error, I don't know what does. The issue really truly stems from the sitting trot not quite being there yet. It's SO MUCH BETTER but it definitely isn't perfect. 

He's super good about ground tying these days

The biggest thing has been to focus on my back line through my glutes actually, which seems weird. For some reason just thinking about that gets my back line engaged everywhere else. In addition to all that, watching Kate's lesson with potential new trainer helped me a lot too. Trainer described staying with the motion of the horse like staying up on the crest of a wave. And that helped me a lot (especially because it makes me want to get my chest forward, which is a main problem). When I get it, I can really feel his trot get much better. And that trot is addicting as fuck. 

It just feels SUPER loose and like it's a half halt away from passage. It is not. It is nowhere near passage and the horse is not trained to passage, but it feels like that. The only complaint, that I mentioned earlier, is that he really doesn't stay into the bridle when I go to sit the trot. I think this is 95% a problem that I don't ride him well into the bridle in the sitting trot, and maybe 5% of it being that because his trot changes when I go to sit it, it's harder for him and we need to build muscle. 

So much of it is me, I can feel myself not wanting to put him into the bridle because that's tiring. Sitting the trot in general with my new position is tiring enough, adding weight into the connection is way too much. But it's necessary, so I've been working hard at it. I think it will get better with time, and hopefully some lessons too!

Wandering around

Fingers crossed that today's ride doesn't go terribly in the rain. Either way I don't care. I'm just really enjoying this animal right now and I'm excited to move barns and start figuring out my training situation. I've done and redone my budget to include two lessons a month in it permanently. This is the year of lessons!

Hail No

One of the things that I used to struggle with when riding TC as a young horse was that once something set him off, he often wouldn't be able to calm down. Basically his brain would fall out, he'd freak the hell out, and then just be nuts the rest of the day. It became more about survival than actually working on anything.

On Saturday it wasn't raining when we got on, but the clouds looked ominous. I figured we'd have five or ten minutes to walk around the ranch (I am so not a lead-your-horse-to-the-arena kind of person, I love wandering around for ten or fifteen minutes before and after working) and then we'd go hide in the covered arena while it was raining.

Take me back to the days of outdoor arenas being open, wait
maybe they'll be open today... I should stop complaining

I was almost correct, it started dumping on us just as we were rounding our second to last turn toward the arena. It didn't rain though, this was hail. TC seemed okay for a second, but then all the other horses FREAKED about the hail on the tin roofs around them. TC, who doesn't always give into peer pressure but did this time, also freaked out. He started trotting a bit and I was going to just aim him into the arena and ride, but then he slammed to a halt and I knew that I wasn't going to make it to the covered arena in one piece.

This is what they teach us the emergency dismount for though, so I flung myself off of him as he went up and he landed and spun around me, in pure panic mode. I put my whip in front of him so that he wouldn't drag me and we walked to the cross ties being pelted by hail and he was really scared, standing there trembling. I don't blame him, horse was born in a drought and last year we mostly just got rain. It really doesn't hail very often.

He stood in the cross ties and I put his cooler on even just to give him a little bit of protection (since the hail was coming in a bit sideways) and he slowly calmed down with me petting him and telling him that he was okay.

Rico in the winter... One day TC will be like this. Then I will
sell him and take a three month road trip.

After the hail turned to a light rain (it wasn't very long), I walked him to the covered arena and led him around once before getting on. The moment I was on him, I could feel a huge hump in his back. He didn't feel like he could go forward at all, his back was so tight. He was super nervous, spooking a lot and he felt dull but explosive to my leg, if that makes sense. We walked around and I had to give myself a pep talk before we trotted.

It took a long time. We trotted for a long time. He really didn't want to come through and relax, but we slowly worked down into a stretch, for which he got a ton of scratches and good boys. Slowly he started to reach for the bridle and slowly I felt his back relax and him start swinging through it a bit more.

By the end of the ride, he was totally chill, even though it had rained a few more times (horse hates rain and apparently ESPECIALLY hates hail) and even though the five western riders were all having a chat riding abreast on the rail (so basically taking up half the arena, gah). We got some really good canter work- I rode an exercise Kate had done in her lesson that I watched earlier that day, a little haunches-in and a little shoulder-in at the canter to get TC to be more accessible laterally- and ended with some stellar leg yields.

Some places are pretty when it rains... 

In the past, I really don't think I would have gotten him as relaxed and through. I honestly probably wouldn't have ridden him, or if I did, I would have been taken off with a lot. I think it's a combination of him being more mature, me having more influence over him due to better training, and me trusting that I CAN get him back to me after he gets worried.

Even though he turns seven in a few weeks, he's still a bit spooky and reactive, but the reactivity is getting less and I can get him back to me 99 times out of a hundred. I definitely wouldn't have said that a year ago!

The New Barn

There was no great barn hunt because I had a short list of barns (two) that I'd want to move to, and one of them had an opening in February, so I held the stall even before I interviewed, thinking that it'd be worth it for peace of mind.

The barn is where Peony keeps Spot, and Peony is just as picky, if not pickier, than I am when it comes to her boarding situation. I knew that the care would be exemplary and I really liked the facility.

TC and Spot wandering around, there are so many paths!

Obviously my favorite thing about this barn is that Peony rides there! We are so excited to be able to ride together (and we'll both hopefully have more media!). If anyone remembers, TC stayed the night at this very barn when we went to ride with Jeremy last August. Peony and Spot showed us around and it was SO FUN! We've already planned on doing clinics together, going on trail rides, and riding together at home. Plus we are going to get to hang out more often! Audit clinics, work out at the same gym maybe, and watch FEI TV/Mary videos/obnoxious horse tv shows all the time.

There are other amazing pros to this place as well. TC will be going into a 12x12 stall with about a 48-50 foot paddock. The stall has squishy stall mats, shavings (TC will be STOKED, he hasn't had shavings in over a year), and a fan. Every horse in the stalls gets put on the eurocizer 4x per week, and you can pay for extra days. I figure that 4 days a week to start is great, and if I am gone for a period of time or find that I want him to have more time, I will bump him up.

I get a cute little tack locker, nothing in comparison to my giant tack room at my current barn, but Andy will hopefully help me make it storage-friendly, and I can always keep things in my house (a loft on site!) and eventually in my future trailer.

My hippo gets to hang out in a water complex EVERY DAY
if he wants to! (he wants to)

There are two riding arenas, one covered arena the size of a long dressage court, and one ENORMOUS jump arena (it's a whole acre). Both arenas have jumps in them in the winter, but in the summer the covered is clear of jumps. I'm curious to see how I feel about always riding around jumps, but we'll see. The covered arena has lights for evening riding too.

Surrounding the property, there is a long gallop track that the owner keeps dragged, and a really cool cross country field. TC obviously won't be jumping out there, but he loves the water complex and I think that trotting around in the open every day/week/month would be SUPER good for our relationship.

The only cons with this barn are that TC will be in a smaller paddock than his current barn (though eurocizer will help with that, plus TC could potentially move into a giant private pasture one day if I stay there), there are no mirrors (there is a barn with mirrors nearby that I could probably talk to the owner about hauling into sometimes, and the owner of this barn has wanted mirrors so may put them in soon), and the footing is a little shallower than TC is used to (it's GGT footing though so hopefully this is acceptable for him, if not then I'll talk to the farrier about putting pads on or something).

I also am probably not allowed to bring in a trainer to ride with, but I'm kind of used to that since my current barn rarely allows trainers to come in. That's fine since I'm hopefully going to be in the market for a trailer by the end of this year (hopefully much sooner, gotta get my business set up), so it's just this year where lessoning might be difficult, but Peony has a trailer so hopefully carpooling to lessons will be a thing!

Following Spot to the cross country feild

I'm so excited that I get to move to a barn where I already have an instant barn friend. It's going to make the whole moving experience far less stressful! When I moved TC to his current barn, I had already boarded Rico there so it was low stress, but the barn before that I really had a hard time with. I'm definitely more stressed than I was when I moved him to his current barn, but it gives me peace of mind that I'll be living on the property and have already been there a bunch with Peony!

Onward and upward!

To the North

When I broke up with exbf at the end of November, I freaked out a bit, like you do. My whole life felt like it had been taken from me. But that's super dramatic, and while I do have a tendency to make a big deal out of small things at first, but I recover quickly and was immediately making plans a week later to figure out my life.

Going to miss this place like I miss these ears

It's intimidating to have a lot of choices, but I immediately cut those down. First and foremost, I love riding and so giving that up isn't an option, I needed a place with barns I'd want to board at. I also adore my job, so I wanted to be able to continue to at least work in this field. My field doesn't pay super well, certainly not enough to live comfortably (as in, not having an hour long commute, which I am totally burnt out on) in the bay area and have a horse. So I knew I'd have to leave the area.

I knew I wanted to be driving distance (so ~8 hours) to the bay because my brother and SIL are going to start having kids and I want to be part of their lives even just to infect them with the horse bug and run off cackling. I knew I also wanted to stay in California because of my pension. I also wanted to be somewhere where I already had friends. Moving by myself is really scary and I didn't want to get to a place and be incredibly lonely. I don't do as well with roommates (too introverted) so I needed people I'd want to go out of my way to hang out with.

This left the Monterey area (south of the bay area by about an hour or so, so I could still see my friends in the area), the San Diego area (L! and one of my SIL's best friends is moving there too), and the Sacramento area. Unfortunately for L, I was also priced out of San Diego. Monterey is nice, but I was going to have to board too far away from where I was living and working or wouldn't have access to a trainer. So that left Sacramento. Nicole and Peony live nearby, the barns are pretty affordable, the housing is pretty affordable, and my job wouldn't pay nothing (literally it pays more than I make right now in the bay with quite literally half the price of rent).

I will not miss this commute, even if it is pretty

I was up visiting Peony for the Jeremy clinic in December when I told her I'd be moving up there sometime in the next year. I figured it would take me 6 months or so to find a job, maybe longer. She expressed wanting me to move there sooner and although there are lots of colleges in the area, finding a job would take one opening, me applying, me interviewing, and me getting it. I showed her on Indeed that there were no analyst jobs open in the area.

Except that there was one. Posted two hours before. I freaked out. I made a lot of lists. I applied by January 8th, heard back from them on January 26th, had my first interview on February 8th, had my second interview on February 23rd, heard that I got the job on March 1st and will be starting on March 26th. It all went so fast. So it wasn't quite six months. From deciding that I wanted to move (December 10th) to moving (March 17th-ish), it was pretty much three months.

This weirdo is coming with me so I won't miss him, I will the
opposite of miss him

I'm really excited. I feel like I have the blogosphere to thank for this. There is no way that I would want to move to a brand new city all by myself without some kind of social structure. I am just not that person. I really depend on my people, and most of my people already live where I currently live or in places I wouldn't want to live.

I am so excited to be in the Sacramento area. The job seems absolutely perfect for me and my new boss is downright giddy to have me. The barn is AMAZING and I get to ride with Peony all the time because it's the same barn that Spot is at. There are some really good trainers who come to the area, including the one I skipped out on riding with on Friday. There are teaching opportunities for me. My favorite coworker recently moved to Sacramento too. A truck and trailer may be in my future sooner than I thought. And I will be back in the bay all the time to visit my friends (especially Kate who I am so sad to not see all the time anymore), see my family, and hang out with Rico. It's not a far drive, I did it a ton in February while I was interviewing.

But I never would have been able to do this move without the blogosphere. Because I would have had no social connections up there drawing me. I wouldn't have been going to countless clinics thinking "damnit I want to board here" and freaking out when Peony told me how cheap it was to live up there. None of that would have happened if I hadn't started this blog and began reaching out and meeting all of you people.

Best blogger friends anyone could ask for! And 3/5 will soon
be living in Sac/Davis, now to convince the other two...

So even though it's a small apartment, please let me know if you are ever in the Davis/Sacramento area (not like it's a hot location to visit, but it's really nice!). Would love to meet even more people, you never know what doors will open.

Storming

We've had a really weird winter here in California. For most (all?) of February, it was warm and sunny, like spring. Everything bloomed and I had a couple days of allergies, which was SUPER weird for me.

He was pouting the WHOLE time I had him in the
cross ties yesterday

Today though, it's going to rain. And it was absolutely pouring rain yesterday. My horse hates rain. And we have a lesson this afternoon. Sorry, a doctor's appointment. Well, we did. I decided to cancel it for a number of reasons, mostly that I just don't plain feel like riding in a lesson with a new-ish trainer when I know my horse might be a huge dork. I don't need help with how to deal with my horse being a dork I get a lot of practice with that, I need help with the dressage part. She's not a zero toolkit trainer. And I don't know if we'd get to the other toolkits that she's actually adept at teaching. I should be able to ride with her very soon again, so it'd be better if she saw me then. And I'll get a ton out of auditing and talking with her!

Lucky for me, Kate was ready and willing to take my slot from me and I think it's for the best. Kate has been working super hard with Mox and this trainer, so I was really happy to hand her the slot so she can take two lessons instead of one. And the organizer was super happy that we dealt with this on our own rather than emailing her and having to cancel last minute.

But I think my doctor's appointment still stands. Instead of riding in it though, I'll be auditing and watching, so I'm super excited! This trainer is one that I'm sure will be on my list of trainers to ride with in the future. And hopefully she won't hate us when she does see us!

Who wouldn't be excited to see these guys???

Orrrr okay sometimes we're fun to hang out with (honestly I'm
just impressed he can lift his heavy tail like that)

Meanwhile TC and I have been doing some ground work. Yesterday we did some fun stuff in the covered arena, teaching him to follow me when I ran and making him do a lot of reining back with his neck DOWN since his favorite thing undersaddle is to tell me that he can't possibly rein back without stuffing his ears in my nose. It was really fun and totally low stress since I decided to cancel the lesson. I will probably ride today and he'll probably be totally fine and I'll wish I had taken the lesson, but the stress wasn't worth it when I can see her again in just a couple of weeks if I want to.

Creating Work Ethic

One of the biggest things that I wanted to make sure I was developing in TC when I took him on as a project was his work ethic.

I struggled for a long time with Rico in this department. Rico just didn't want to work for me. This could be seen in his laziness, in his lethargy, even in the way that he looked away from me when I came in his stall. Such a lazy horse, I wanted something that wanted to work. I thought I had to buy the work ethic or luck out with it.

Then I read this damn book, Academic Horse Training, which I keep mentioning but don't link to, so I'm sorry. And I realized that the problem wasn't that TC inherently has a better work ethic than Rico, work ethic doesn't exist in the way we think about it in horses. Horses respond to reinforcement. Instead of blaming it on Rico being inherently lazy, how about we flip the table.

Not lazy, just had a crappy rider for a while

I gave Rico no reason to want to work for me. I would use my leg, he would go forward, and instead of letting him, I got nervous and pulled on his face or I got off balance from his big gaits and pulled on his face. Soon he thought maybe leg does not mean go, so I got spurs and poked him, the same thing happened. Soon he learned to ignore my leg.

I put pressure on him to do things that he wasn't ready for and then got intimidated or didn't have the balance to support him in them. I didn't reward him, certainly not in the way the horses like to be rewarded in (primary reinforcements = scratching on the withers, which lowers heart rate, and food). And I made work hard for him to do.

Rico was lied to. Rico was told that he was bad when it wasn't his fault. Rico was put in bigger bits by my trainers and I was told that this was because he didn't "respect" the snaffle. Rico was made to do work that was hard for him because I skipped the basics and I didn't often know what I was doing. I wasn't doing any of it on purpose, I had no idea how to create work ethic.

He and I did have a really good relationship by the end <3

Like with this guy, I might look annoyed
but the reason why he's looking at the camera
is because for all of his shows the first year, I
had people come up to him after he did his test
to make a big fuss over him. Result: loves
showing, um... a bit too much

In my current office environment, I have two supervisors. One makes me want to work for them. They make work fun and every meeting we have together I leave laughing and feeling valued at the office. More times than I can count, this person has sung my praises in front of other people, offered to buy me coffee, and when I make a mistake, I'm not afraid to talk to them about it. I find myself thinking "how can I make so-and-so's day easier," I find myself doing stuff I wasn't asked to do. I have brought this person beer a few times because they let me know that the brewery my brother works for is their favorite.

The other supervisor isn't mean or rude or terrible to work for at all. I have never been yelled at, told I wasn't a good employee, or really had any negative experiences with them. But the job is very much just a list of things they want me to do and my only reward is my paycheck and a relatively rare thank you. And that's totally fine. But when this person asks me to do stuff, I don't jump at the opportunity. Never have I wondered what I could do to make this person's job easier or even really gotten to know or care about them all that much (I mean I'm not a monster, but if/when I leave this job, I will not be staying in touch with them). When I make a mistake, I'm a lot more nervous about approaching them about it, even though I don't tend to get too much of a lecture.


So when I'm riding, I think now about being the sort of rider the horse wants to work for. Work is fun, work is easy, I am appreciative of my horse's work, even if it's not perfect. When he makes a mistake, he doesn't get punished, I break things down to elements that he understands and try again. And it has been AMAZING how much I love riding so much more. I literally NEVER fight with this horse. Ever. Period. No beatings, no fights, no "showing him he can't get away with that," nothing.

In contrast to Rico, TC comes out and knows that every day he will be successful. That I will give him clear aids and give him scratches and breaks (and sometimes clicks and cookies) when he is a good boy. I'll never ask him for anything I'm not 100% sure I'm asking for, and I will never ask him to do anything that I'm not 100% sure he can do. TC is very rarely lied to. He knows that every time I move, I am asking for something, so he never "ignores" me. Because I have never told him anything that he has then been told by me to ignore.

Sometimes enjoying his work makes him act like a basilisk

So every time I ask TC to do something, I ask myself what I want out of him and evaluate if he's ready and if it's appropriate to be asking. If he can't do it easily, if it takes me too much pressure/force, if it inspires me to want to slap another bit on him or stick him in draw reins, he's not ready yet. I need to break it down further. I need to build his strength better. I need to reevaluate my own riding and aids.

Putting on movements should NOT be a fight. If every time the rider asks for a new movement, there's a fight, the horse will immediately get nervous/tense/defensive/angry when asked something new. That's not something I want him to learn, I want him to be curious and excited for another opportunity for praise when I introduce a new movement.

I ask myself what aids I am using to convey this information to him. Am I forcing him into the movement or am I aiding for it? I also ask myself if I am in a position where I can seamlessly transition from what we're doing now to what I'm aiding for him to do. If I ask him to trot am I going to get left behind? If I'm punishing him for doing what I ask, I'm lying to him. And it's going to be really quick for him to learn that I don't really mean it when I ask for things.

I ask myself what will he earn when he does it right, and sometimes it isn't a big long break with lots of scratches and sugar. Sometimes it's a "good boy" that I pair with a small scratch on the neck, sometimes it's just a change of what we're doing to something else with a release of pressure. And yeah sometimes it is that big reward with scratches and snuggles and cookies or clicks. It's amazing how enthusiastic he is about going back to do that movement again after a big reward like that. I've been using it to put our halt and rein back on and it's been coming on extremely fast.

So many pets, I love that he smashes his ears forward when he
is happy :) 

There's no harm in breaking something down further, there's no harm in taking a little longer to explain a concept. There is no harm in taking another few months to build up the horse's strength so they can physically do what is asked of them. 

There IS harm in pushing a horse beyond what they can do strength-wise, they will stop trusting the rider to have their backs when asking for something. There IS harm in slapping on a leverage bit or a double too early, they will not trust the contact and will give a false feel to the rider who will then push them too far too fast. There IS harm in being an unbalanced rider, this rider cannot stay with a horse and will be more likely to lie to the horse.

Changing the way we interacted is the number one reason why
we ever got to the GP level.

People are so quick to decide that their horse has a poor work ethic. I definitely was like that. Instead, answer the question: if you were the horse in this situation, would you want to work for you? What is the incentive? What does the horse get out of it?

If it's only to avoid punishment? It's not good enough. That doesn't inspire the kind of harmony that doing this sport well requires.

Rico came so far in the last few years when I stopped riding with trainers who encouraged me to fight with him. From my first lesson with the new trainer on my barely Fourth level horse, Rico and I debuted at Grand Prix eighteen months later. It's amazing what I was able to get out of him when I stopped fighting with him and started working with him. I can't wait to see how TC develops from such a low level with this mentality.