The Longer Loop

This weekend was a long weekend, so while I spent the actual weekend part of the weekend away, I spent Monday with TC! 

After riding a client's horse, I zipped over to my barn and tossed TC in the trailer. I was debating where to go, but ended up at my favorite trail facility anyway.

The views were insane

About a third of the way up the awful hill

At the top of the ridge! You can see over to the reservoir on
the other side

Trees at the top of the ridge

I was determined to do something different though, so we went on our longest trail ride yet. And about half way through, we determined that we are not long-trail-ride kind of people.

There was a giant hill right at the beginning to climb, it felt like it was never ending. By the time we were up that, my left hip was absolutely done with riding horses and my horse was absolutely done with doing anything but standing still. And we were only a couple miles in. So we stood still for a while before slowly (very slowly) meandering back the rest of the like, five miles.

But it was a really nice time even if my left hip and my horse weren't having it. I got to listen to my favorite podcast (which I save for trail rides) and enjoy the amazing views. TC got some good hill work and some time outside the arena.

My left hip is fine by the way, I think this goes back to when I pissed it off jumping off of TC at the beach. I keep randomly feeling it in high volume deadlifts and if I'm in the tack for too long. I'm keeping an eye on it but it's good to know what irritates it.

At least there was some shade at the top

Such a good pony

Hanging out in the shade with a good view

The creek is green in the summer but everything else is dead

Once again, have to say how impressed I am with the horse. He doesn't care about bikes, cows, or hikers. He cares enough about other horses to scream at them but not enough to do anything else. He... he does seem to care a lot about large rocks, but there were only two of them and he merely slid sideways off the path to give them the hairy eyeball.

When we got back to the barn, he got a quick bath and actually seemed to enjoy me washing his face for once. My rule is that since he will be white, he needs to be a good boy about getting his face washed. Sorry pony!

Four Years

I've owned this weirdo for FOUR YEARS where the actual hell does the time go and also why haven't we accomplished more?

Oh well, we've had a lot of fun and plan on continuing to have a lot of fun! He's taught me so much and while Year 4 was not super productive in terms of showing, it was great. Hopefully we're back on track in the dressage and we'll be trotting up centerline soon!

Oh the things he can do with that neck wth

Still fluffy from the winter

There was a lot more turnout pictures and a lot less show pictures
this year, oh well 

Also lots of trail riding pictures!

I miss when everything was green 

Turned 8 this year!

Kept me entertained when I had mono

Best circus animal

I do put him on a pedestal lol

Being a nut at one of our first Tracey lessons 

Trail ride

More trails

Moving to his breeder's

Trail ride, again!

Figuring Second level out

Slowly but surely achieving throughness in canter

FINALLY moved home

Bareback walks

Love this place

Medium trot 

More canter work

Beach trip!

First hack in the double last fall 

Getting fancy last year

 

When I got my new phone and nonstop took
pictures in portrait mode 

I like this one

Halloween! 

Playing with a barrel on a windy day

Winter wanderings

Had to go see the minis

I'm hoping this next year goes even better! I'm so glad to have this horse in my life, he makes me laugh every day.

A Little Bit Sideways

Today TC gets to see the chiro vet! I'm really excited to get his back in gear (his little roach area popped up recently) and then ask her other unrelated questions.

The weekend was relatively light TC-wise. On Friday afternoon, I drove north to move in with Peony for two nights. Saturday was an event (I'm the dressage trainer but I coach at events on occasion, I don't mind) and then Sunday I taught some lessons. The event went well and it was super fun to see Nicole too! We all went to eat delicious dumplings and noodles before going to bed super early that night. Lessons went pretty well too!

This is the cat that adopted Peony, she's really cute!

I rode TC on Sunday night and he felt great. I've been focusing a ton on the quality of the gaits recently and I decided on Sunday to see how some movements rode.

His gaits are feeling really good, I've been working hard on his canter and it's definitely getting easier for him to collect it and transitions in and out, both from walk and from trot, are getting better. And the trot itself is feeling great most of the time. I'm getting pickier about the quality of the throughness and his responsiveness to all the aids and he's stepping it up big time.

I decided to make it a lateral work day at both trot and canter, so here's the breakdown.

View from what we did the next day

Shoulder-in at the trot is feeling good, but it's definitely not as big and fancy as it was last year at times. I believe that it's because I'm asking for a more uphill balance and he can't be fancy and uphill at the same time just yet, he has to stay coiled and learn that impulsion is more than just pushing himself over the ground, it's pushing himself upward too. So that will come, I'm sure.

As an aside, I can't wait to get a passage on this guy because I think it will help us out a lot in terms of the fancy shoulder. But if I put it on too soon, I'm going to lose his hind legs out behind him. He is the epitomy of needing a solid piaffe first before I get the bamboo out. If I teach him passage now, he'll never piaffe.

Haunches-in at the trot felt okay, though he struggles with the amount of angle necessary sometimes. It was easier one way than the other and I can't for the life of me remember which. The biggest issue I'm facing is one I faced on Rico: he struggles to give me the angle so to get it on the tracks I want it on, I'm letting him fall out through his shoulder. This is extremely apparent in the half pass.

He is the best trail horse

He's still very green at half pass, I can count the number of times I've really worked on it. I'm not as strong at half pass as I am at other things (I like to think my strengths are connection and impulsion, also walk pirouettes apparently, maybe I'm wrong) so I can't seriously say what *his* issues are without relating them right back to me. Like Rico, he struggles with the bend in half pass, it feels like it's either a diagonal line or haunches-leading at this point. We'll work it out. Tracey will fix us right up!

None of these weaknesses inspired me to not try the movement at the canter. I find half pass in canter to be a much easier movement for me. The horse does not have any crossover at the canter, it's just pushing the horse sideways during the moment of suspension. So I revved him up and did just that.

He's quite good at it to the right, I think that's because I naturally sit better at the canter that way. To the left, we struggled a bit but we did get some good moments in between him thinking that he might attack the shit out of two pigeons in the corner we were riding it from.

Looking out at the valley

I think this weekend at my lesson, I'll ask Tracey about the haunches-in. I do want to be able to do 2-3 this year if possible, and that plus the counter canter are all that are missing in my lessons. She's given us a ton of info on the shoulder-in, a good lesson on the simple changes, and she told me his walk pirouettes were 8s and I am still on cloud nine about that.

I'm getting excited to show at Second not because it's Second and I wasn't sure if we'd make it, but because I think we might actually do pretty well. My goal is always to walk out with 68%+ and I think there's a chance we may nab that at least at 2-1. But hey, a couple of 8s on the walk pirouttes at 2-3 and I can botch all kinds of other stuff. Like the medium canter, which I am not sure I'm going to actually ride, and the medium trot, which is still terrible.

August Crossfit Post

Alright another month, another below par gym schedule.

My business absolutely exploded last month and the gym is taking a back seat unfortunately. I've blocked out Mondays for my powerlifting class because I love it, but after that, it seems random if I even get to go back to the gym. I now teach on Wednesdays and Fridays, so that leaves Tuesdays and Thursdays to gym, but I keep having stuff to do on those days. I've been supplementing with some work at home and some running at the open space near where I teach, but I don't ever push myself as long or as hard when I'm on my own. Luckily my work gym opened last week so I'll be able to get there sometimes too.

But the powerlifting, I'm loving it. I love Crossfit, don't get me wrong, but Crossfit manages to piss off my wrist with the olympic lifting, the push-ups, the hand stands... but my body loves powerlifting. I mean, I'm not built for it at all and I don't lift anything close to an impressive weight, but my wrist thinks that it's great. And I can't believe how much more fun going to the gym is when there's no nerves that my wrist won't be able to handle the workout.

So my thought for this month is to back off to just dropping in once a week for that class, then supplementing with my work gym at least once a week for lifting and then run, either at the open space or at my work gym.

I've been riding a LOT more (I have two client horses I'm riding right now, plus TC, plus random other catch rides) and sitting TC's trot every day, so I think my fitness can be maintained with less gym work. Hopefully that's true, we'll find out!

From powerlifting this month

For this month, no major PRs because I have just been working to perfect the big three lifts. I haven't PR'd my bench but I have added a lot of volume (so more reps per set, way more actually). My back squat is feeling terrible and my coach thinks that's leftover from mono, so I'm working really hard on form to force my glutes to fire. And my deadlift remains my strongest lift for now, I haven't fully gotten back to my last 1RM because I've been fixing my form, but I did get back up to bodyweight for 3 and that felt great, super easy with the new form.

Fingers crossed that next month goes well for all this. I'm looking forward to doing more bouldering too!

My Lesson Horse

I was always hoping that Rico would remain sound long term so I could offer lessons on him. There just aren't a lot of Grand Prix schoolmasters out there. I ended up teaching two people and letting three friends ride him before he ended up not being sound enough for me to be comfortable putting people on him anymore. Plus, all he wants to do is go on new trails and act feral in his pasture and he gave me enough already so I'm not asking for anything else.

TC has always been a bit of a dingbat. Please enjoy this picture of a dog doing exactly what TC would like to do whenever he sees anything at all:

But over the years, TC has gotten WAY better. This is the first year where I'm absolutely itching to put people on him, not to expose him to other riders, but to expose them to HIM, because he's fabulous.

On Tuesday I had a dentist appointment so I worked from home, allowing me to teach one of my long time students on TC during my lunch break. And it was great! Granted, this one has cantered up centerline on her own horse and has ran around a few prelims, so she's rather capable.

It was so fun to see someone else ride him and help her out so that she could feel all that he had to offer. He isn't strong enough at the movements to give other riders, say, a really good shoulder-in feeling, but he gives a great feeling over his back and in the bridle. He wants his riders to have very forward thinking hands (he shrinks at any backwards rein pressure regardless of the weight in the reins) and to ride from the leg and seat, but he's got a great sense of humor and honestly is pretty safe at this point.

Me describing TC, pictured

He was really good for her at the walk and trot. Aaaand the canter was rough. I haven't let too many people canter him because the canter is so tricky. Sure enough, the canter is still really tricky. I learned SO much about it though.

In trot, she was able to get a really good feeling and I was able to easily help her achieve it. Make sure you stay committed to his large gaits (don't post too small, he trots as big as you post), keep the reins short and hands up (ugh Tracey, this whole lesson was me repeating Tracey's words lol TC makes you ride some kinda way), connect him to the outside rein from the inside leg, touch the inside bit ring with your ring finger, then push both elbows forward from the lats to give him space to connect.

I was finding it easy to see where things would fall apart. The hind legs get behind him if you aren't really committed to the trot with your seat. He curls in a weird way if the hands get too low. He drops his back and runs through the right side when you pull on the left rein. He DOES need to fill the right side more even though it feels like he is running through that rein. His left hind doesn't want to come under as much (and chiro vet is coming next week).

She got to experience his suddenly exceptional trot to walk transitions. At this point you just keep your leg on and close a bit of thigh and he walks. I told her not to pull on the reins unless she wanted him to just throw himself onto the ground. She did once and he absolutely collapsed into a stilted walk, tripped, and then her next transitions were all perfect.

Still looking fab in his new bridle

Canter though, canter is tough. TC just doesn't have a lot of balance and self carriage at the canter. In trot, I can basically just put him where he needs to go and then sit there with all my aids off and he just goes along until I change something. In canter, if I take all my aids off... well, I have no idea what would happen honestly, there's no way I'd try that just yet.

At this point, I've pretty much perfected the art of managed to not be terrible at riding it myself, but helping another rider figure it out was HARD for me. She lost power steering to the left pretty much immediately, and it happened in the exact same way that I used to. The tendency in her, once very strong in me, was to then want to put her right rein over his neck, twist her body toward the inside, and pull back with an opening left rein across her left thigh. ME TOO ME TOO!

This time, getting to see it in real time how poorly those aids work were enough to get me 150% committed to changing the way I ride him (I was previously only 110% committed after lots of lessons with Tracey). The second that left rein got wide (not even back, it was the wideness that fucked him up!), he fell away from it and out his right shoulder, which was only made worse by popping off the right seat bone and twisting to the inside to try to shove him over. I've learned time and time again that you can't shove this horse into anything, he just doesn't respond to pressure like that.

I hopped on him to fix it just so that his last bit of cantering left wasn't running into the fence and he tried it once with me and then I got it all dialed in again. I never worry about him being "ruined" because he's so excited and willing to do whatever his rider says, even if it's wrong. So in getting on him, he basically was like "she told me to do THIS *run sideways* isn't that great?" and I said "no do it this way" and he said "okay that's fun too!!!" I love this horse.

EVERYTHING IS SO MUCH FUN

Cantering right was better, though you really have to keep him in a corridor (vs bouncing him off one set of aids) or you'll lose him laterally VERY quickly, she kept riding him on weird shaped circles and I harped on her about that. You really have to ride both sides of him or he oozes wherever there's space. I didn't realize how extreme it was until I put someone who isn't used to riding such a gelatinous creature on him. I think there's a reason why everything else that I'm riding feels so organized right now lol.

Back in trot, I decided to torment her a bit with some sitting trot. But she managed to sit his trot super well! He's got a giant trot that I find challenging to sit, but he gives such a good feeling over his back that it's worth the effort to try it. I was so happy with how she sat it and so happy that he was so good about it. We did lose power steering to the left again, but this time she was able to dial it in and get a really good circle out of him. Love it.

That was plenty of work for him, so we took him on a walk around the ranch and then I turned him out while I worked in my car for a couple of hours. He came in very happy and very dirty. What a sweet freaking horse, I was so envious that she got to ride him that day.

I got to ride him the next day, I can survive a
day without riding him

It was SUCH a good experience for everyone! Her horse isn't as scopey/loose of a mover and is tricky in a different way in the bridle (too heavy vs too light). TC was a good combination of giving her a really amazing feeling at the trot (I always say he's the most fun I've ever had on the back of a horse) and finding her flaws and putting them on display at the canter. He's a giant tattle tail and I love it, I can see him being an amazing schoolmaster to teach on one day. Though I think if I want to sell him/teach on him as a schoolmaster, we should work on getting him a liiiiittle easier to canter, no one wants to buy something that is going to ram them into a fence if they pull on the inside rein. Because let's be honest, we all pull on the inside rein a bit.

So with that, I'm excited to start getting the canter in that place of antifragility that I have the trot. She's off at college but comes back over Thanksgiving, I think I'm going to have her ride him again and we'll see where the canter work is by then.

Updated Tracey Lesson Notes whiteboard, check
marks are things she isn't saying anymore!

That evening, she let me know that he was helping her a ton with her horse. He gave her the feeling of "forward thinking hands" finally and she applied it to her horse and got a way better feeling and way more suspension than ever before. I can describe that feeling all I want but TC does a way better job of teaching it than I do.

I also texted Tracey to tell her that I'd taught on TC and that I had learned so much about what happens when I pull on the left rein. She said that teaching on him was a great thing for my perspective and probably secretly was like "thank god, hopefully I can stop wasting my breath telling her to stop pulling on the left rein" lol

So yay TC, my new lesson horse!

Bouldering

This weekend was the first one I spent at home in a long time! No teaching, no traveling except to ride TC with my trainer and to see my brother, both are under an hour's drive from my house.

On Sunday, I rode TC bareback around the ranch and then chatted with an old friend who I hadn't seen since leaving this barn a year and a half ago. It was great to see her and so fun to wander around the ranch bareback on TC! Plus, we upgraded our bridle finally. It's an Eponia Frost and it is replacing my 16 year old Vespucci bridle that started to look rather unsafe. I'm super stoked to have it! It needs tons of conditioner but other than that, is really soft and fits TC's weird head really well.

New bridle!

From the barn, I drove straight up to visit my brother and SIL. I had texted them to see if they wanted to go do something that weekend. Brother was free but SIL had to work, so the two of us headed out to try bouldering (rock climbing with no ropes) for the first time ever.

I've been wanting to try rock climbing or bouldering (just want to climb some shit) for a long time now but have zero experience with it whatsoever. My brother has done it once so it was great to have someone there to help me understand. Now, once does not make him an expert, so we were roughly at the same level: terrible.


The levels went from V0 to V8 at the gym we went to. Most of the V0s were very doable, easy to hold on to, relatively straight forward, and not many of them had you climbing up and over like... terrain, or whatever you want to call it. The V1s got trickier and we managed to do one V2 and I only cheated once on that route.

It's freaking HARD. At first I was nervous about the height (you honestly aren't more than 6 feet off the ground, I had to remind myself that I was just as high up when I am on TC and that I had a soft padded landing), then I couldn't figure out how to climb over anything that wasn't just straight up and down. Once I was confident and semi-okay at climbing very straightforward routes, my hands hurt a TON. So that ended up being the limiting factor unfortunately.

We took a short break for my brother to spot me on bench (there were weights too!), I need to do more heavy bench work but it's hard to do by myself. And I also did a few back squats to work on form because that's been a tricky thing for me coming back from mono for some stupid reason.

My brother climbing one of the easier routes

We went back to climbing for a bit and went after the more challenging V1s. There was one that we couldn't figure out for quite some time, we kept taking turns sitting and yelling at each other where to put our feet, until I finally did it! It felt awesome to accomplish such a tricky... beginner route lol, but it made me realize that it was similar to riding - an athletic endeavor that requires problem solving skills. I love lifting and crossfit, but the more technical movements are the ones that hurt my wrist, so I don't do a lot of problem solving + physical activity except when riding.

Once our hands were too beat up to continue, I convinced my brother to get froyo with me (it wasn't difficult) and then we headed back to the house to play some video games. Climbing and video games, makes me sound like a bro, even though they were both my idea (my brother hasn't played co-op Portal 2, what a travesty). After that, we spent the evening at the ranch going through our old childhood stuff. I will spare you a picture of a quilt my brother's high school girlfriend made him with pictures of them. My SIL thought it was HILARIOUS.

We found the breyers and beanie babies of my
childhood in boxes. Keeping both for my
future niece!

But climbing was SO much fun though and I can't wait to go again. If the climbing gym near my work didn't have such a weird membership contract, I'd be signing up immediately. I'm still considering going a few times there to see if it's something I'm cool with signing a weird contract for. It's a really good upper body workout, for me at least, and for how I'm doing it, which is something I'm lacking in my current programming. I really don't need any more hobbies, but I do really like this one!

And it's always fun to spend time with my brother, we're both super busy so don't spend tons of time together anymore, but we're already talking about going bouldering again!