Spreading Like

On Sunday afternoon, I was riding in the covered arena when I saw smoke pouring upward from just a couple of properties away from the barn. I stopped TC and watched as flames engulfed the hillside by the barn and begun to spread rapidly.

Flames on the hillside next to us, there are
mountains behind that smoke

The good news is that the fire ended up passing our barn while we all watched with bated breath and talked about what barns had room for the horses and made sure enough rigs were hooked up to begin evacuating. We were all glad we were spared from having to evacuate.

It was pretty terrifying, watching the fire spread in real time, seeing the flames so close and leaving nothing but black hillsides behind it. But let me tell you, Cal Fire is absolutely incredible. Literally seconds after I noticed the smoke, they were dumping red flame retardant on it from planes and the firetrucks were whizzing down our road ready to fight it. If only our publicly funded police were as good as our publicly funded fire departments.

I have to say that my horse is an absolute trouper, I had a decision to make when the fire began, do I finish my ride or do I just get off. I chose to finish my ride and he handled the sound of planes, helicopters, and sirens blasting overhead and down the road by the arena just fine. I then walked out and he let me video and take pictures of the fire from his back.

The fire started over there, view from the covered
arena

Even though we didn't need to evacuate (this time), I still wanted to put together a fire plan and print it out for my trunk. It's been a long time since I lived this far from my horse. Honestly... I can't remember being this far from my horses ever. But the SO needs to live on the peninsula and other than the barn situation up here, I like it way better than living down near my horse. So I'm a solid 45 minutes door to door to the barn. That's a bit scary when I watched this fire cover so much ground so quickly. If it were only up to me to get him evacuated, I might not make it.

Luckily my rig is hitched up and at the ranch, so even if I'm not there, my rig is and TC gets in that easily. So any one of my barn mates could snag him and another horse. However, my truck keys are in my locked tack room, so I think during fire season, I'll find a different place to put the keys. When I figure that out, I'll write that into the fire plan, as well as any directions for how to use my truck.

My next step would be, where to take him. My parents place currently has an open stall, so when the fire broke out, I told my mom to brace for the most obnoxious monkey horse to come stay for a while. In my fire plan is going to be the address to my parents' place, the gate code to get in, both parents' phone numbers, and I'm also going to print out a map with directions just in case.

My parents know what he eats well enough to take care of him and even if I'm not there, I will probably be on my way and able to meet them there. But I'll probably print out care instructions for him to leave at my parents' place anyway. Just on the off chance that the SO and I are somewhere without signal, it's good for my parents to know how to take care of TC without me being there.

The amount of smoke was insane

One of the things I'm very happy about is how easy TC is to trailer. The fire made me realize how unbelievably important it is to have a very easy to load horse. I have another slot in my trailer and access to three additional rigs for a total of 13 horses that can be taken off the property. Obviously my helpfulness has a limit, it'd be silly to waste 45 minutes trying to get a horse in the trailer when others will load right up and it would hopefully not come to that, but it could be life or death, right? The easiest to trailer horses are the ones who are going to leave the property first. I'm glad that mine is in that group.

TC self loads easily, even under pressure, even if someone has no idea what they're doing. You point him at a rig and say the words "load up" or even just gesture toward it, and he hops right in quietly. I'll be putting directions in the fire plan to help people know how to put him in and to assure that he loads easily so he is not left behind.

Headed away from us, phew

Generally it was a bit scary, but knowing I had a place to go, a hitched up trailer, and a horse who loads easily gave me such peace of mind. I knew I could be off the property in ten minutes if necessary.

I'm so grateful that it didn't come to the barn, but it's still such a bummer that it happened at all. So far, no one has been hurt and only two structures have burned. We watched it get dangerously close to two houses in those hills but it passed them both. Not sure what happened on the other side of the hills as it moved south. When will people learn that fireworks are illegal in this county FOR A DAMN REASON.

Do I Have His Core

Oops, it's been a while. Life is a bit stressful right now, nothing crazy, just stressful. Anyway, last week, I drove over the hill for another lesson! I've been easing TC onto some LMF Gold ever since Tanya said "if he's best after two days off and in the wind, why not put him on some higher octane grain?" And I described how I did that once and he bucked his way through an entire horse show. But TC is two years older now and so I'm adding the LMF Gold back again to see if he's ready to carry more tone without it turning him into an asshole.

He came out of the trailer snorting and I immediately thought he might launch me. We snorted our way up to the arena, snorted our way around the arena, and then when I asked him to use some of that tone for good, he said nah and I had my low tone, lazy horse back. More LMF Gold I think.

I'm way happier with his posture here, it's not perfect, but he is
looking way more compact and through than he has been lately

I warmed up a bit before our lesson to drive home the forward energy that we sometimes lack at ASH. He was quite good in warm up, though we're still struggling a lot with the connection.

Anne asked what I wanted to work on and I essentially wanted to figure out how to build fancy gaits that score well out of the posture we've been working in. I feel like I'm working on two different things sometimes - the forward inflated gaits that get us 70%s in TC's first Third level test and the smaller, collected gaits that give me the feeling that TC has the Grand Prix living inside him. I want to have those collected gaits be super fancy but I know that it takes time for horses to get strong enough to carry themselves that way.

We began with some walk-halt transitions, where Anne got to see TC's habit of basically wanting to immediately paw with his left front foot. She challenged me to see if I could halt him where his right front foot was the last foot to stop. That was TOUGH and something I've been doing a lot of after this lesson without all that much success. Horse is obsessed with stopping with his left front last and then pawing with it.

Having to recalibrate my feel with his connection, so I'm taking
lots of very boring video of us trotting around and me checking
the video and rinse, repeat until I'm happyish

The other issue in the halt was that TC ducked behind the vertical. I've since discovered that he's really not loving the french link that I put him in, so now he's back in the KK ultra with bit guards and two new eggbutts coming from Dressage Extensions for us to try. If he hates those too, I'll get him an eggbutt KK ultra and be done with it. So that's part of the problem, but he does act like he's been draw reined to death, which he has not.

In the trot, we played with a few things. In my own position, I sit slightly left when tracking right. It was pretty amazing the changes that occurred when I shifted my weight back to center. First, TC got way more elevated. Second, my right SI complained. Anne said that was normal! There was a reason I was sitting like that and it was to protect my SI apparently. I am to work on it slowly and when I can get back to PT, I think it'll be completely fixed.

Here's what he wants to do, you can see the overdevelopment
of the muscles in the front third of his neck, ugh

Another thing we played with was to pick up a little trot from the creep walk, then to build that forward until he lost his balance. I realized here that it was really hard for me to tell the small changes in balance (so literally all of my students are getting this lesson right now, I am not leaving the same holes in my rider that were left in me). He doesn't make it obvious by leaning on me or becoming really disorganized. He just shifts slightly. I played with it at home and realized that the change is that when he's balanced, I have him on my seat, and he slowly dislodges himself when he loses balance.

One of the big things I took away from the lesson was asking myself whether I had TC's core engaged, which if I look back on the lesson, was just a passing question by Anne. She actually first asked me if I had both long back muscles and I said that I didn't think I did but according to my feel, yes. Then she thought for a second and asked whether I had TC's core engaged. Nope I did not. That was a really interesting moment that I'm taking away for my teaching for sure, for many different reasons.

The way we got his core engaged was through lateral work, playing with renvers and shoulder-in on a circle in trot. With that exercise, I felt like I had more horse under my seat and less behind it. Like I had a strap around his hindquarters attached to my hand or hip and that I can hoist his hind legs more under him as we go along. Now when I'm riding, I always ask myself if I have that feeling.

Getting better, blurry, but better

In canter, TC was rather lazy, but the kind of lazy where everyone thinks he looks fine except I'm getting more and more frustrated. (omg side note, why does it annoy me so much when people on IG message me trying to educate me that "running is not the same as being in front of the leg" like yes it turns out that I'm aware of that) We went to do a change and he kicked out and I had to stop and explain the canter issue. If the horse looks like he isn't borderline taking off with me, he isn't in front of my leg at all. So Anne and I chatted about my previous issues with other trainers telling me to get over him feeling behind my leg.

Her opinion was the same as mine, which was a relief: if it doesn't feel good, it's not right. So we did some mediums in the canter which fixed him right up and the changes were much better. He still stalls a bit, but that's okay for now, we'll smooth them out. By the end, we had a change that Anne said would easily get a 9 at Third level! That was pretty exciting.

When we try to go to more collection, he goes to this place,
he's still working out how to stay lifted through his back and in
his core while in the collection

Generally, the lesson was great! I'm really happy with how he's coming along with this additional help from Anne. Tanya is wonderful at pushing us along the levels and insisting that I get him in front of my leg way more than I think is needed. Anne is the help I want in between, dissecting small issues in my understanding, my position, and TC's way of going.

I feel very spoiled in that I have yet another lesson with Anne tomorrow! Then Tanya comes next Thursday, then I'll ride with Anne again after that and Tanya one more time (with the Pixem, more on that later) before our next show.

2020 Q2 Goals Review and Q3 Goals

Alright, we're halfway through the worst year of all time. Fabulous. I made some goals in early April without knowing whether I'd even be able to ride during this time!

Skeptical of something or other

Q2 Goals (April, May, June)
* assuming that I can keep riding

TC
- stay sane and sound
Check

- make progress on the changes
definitely way better! So much better that we showed with them

- solidify the canter half pass
Yep! Definitely solid for Third level, we need a little more steepness for Fourth though

- make progress in the piaffe in hand
We got to the point where it was basically perfect and then I stopped because I thought that was contributing to his poor posture, I think I need to do it undersaddle for a bit to help him understand it further, but we have no ground person

- if I can get a ground person to help, start the piaffe undersaddle
Not yet, oh well

- help TC get more comfortable in the collected canter
Definitely way easier for him!

- solidify the square halts
Well, all of ours in the show ring were square, I haven't worked on it a ton though

- install the trot half pass zig zag for real
That's pretty easy for him without even working on it

Very happy to be brushed

My Riding
- keep working on being more DOWN in the up beat of the canter
It's hit or miss

- stay plugged in during the changes
This is really hard, I need a full lesson on this I think

- keep working to organize my hands, as usual
Yep still working on it, organization is hard


Teaching
- continue teaching as much as I can remotely
Yep! I went back to teaching in person in June too, so that's been super helpful.

- continue setting up the online lectures
That's been on hold for a while but that was going really well for a couple of months.

- stay afloat financially through the pandemic
Surprisingly doing just fine, I was very worried about this and March and April weren't great but May and June are back to normal, phew

Ready to walk off the moment my foot is in the stirrup, which
is really annoying

Msc
- start lifting again when weights get here
I did but then things got stressful

- cardio 2x/week
I've been hiking once a week, but that's it

- when I can, go back to the gym
Nope

- for the duration of SIP, make art every day (mostly drawing on my iPad right now)
I haven't been doing that as much, but I do a creative thing nearly every day, whether it's writing in this blog or drawing or something.

- for the duration of SIP, stay connected with family and friends
Definitely good here, I've been "seeing" friends and family regularly.


Bonus goal achieved: debut TC at Third level and GET A 70%! Not bad for pandemic times. Here's what I'm hoping for this next quarter.

Staying in flexion pattern without tipping forward is tough

Q3 Goals:

TC
- stay sane and sound
- work on lengthening TC's neck, especially in the collected paces and lateral work off the right leg
- continue to solidify the changes
- work to get the canter half pass more upright
- work on the piaffe undersaddle
- continue improving the collected paces
- finish up our Third level scores for All Breeds

My Riding
- be more comfortable riding in a flexion pattern
- continue working on getting my upper inner thigh more plugged in

Teaching
- get everyone on a more regular schedule
- work on being better about billing clients (insist on remote payment for some if necessary)
- teach at least 2 new riders

Msc
- work toward getting on a better workout schedule
- get out in the wilderness more
- continue meal planning/trying to eat better
- maybe go back to PT for my SI joint?

Hopefully this quarter is a little less stressful!

My Horse Isn't Green Anymore

After the show, I gave TC Saturday off (and ran out to teach a clinic), then rode Sunday and Monday, then he got Tuesday and Wednesday off because the SO and I ran up to the mountains to get away from society for a second (more on that later). Then on Thursday afternoon, we had a lesson with Tanya!

Maybe not the best scheduling of my life, I really should have put the lesson on Friday, but it was a weird week.

I was a little concerned when I got to the barn and it was really windy, then more concerned when I decided to put TC in turnout and he and the horse next to him exploded. I took him out and flew him like a kite as we walked around the property a few times, then I put him back and questioned my life choices.

But TC is just the best, man do I love the 9 year old year, so when I got on him, he was energetic but ready to work rather than ready to launch me.

He's so cute

Tanya and I chatted about the show, I told her we didn't get very many comments about the movements themselves, those were all solid except for some green mistakes, but that we got a lot of comments about being short in the neck. I told her that I just wanted to fix that during my lesson.

My goal for comments is to avoid any "red threads" going through my test. The same comment over and over and over again. I'd much rather have small critiques of movements, such as him needing a little more angle in his shoulder-in or a little more bend in a half pass. Something that isn't "there's a basic that's wrong here and let me tell it to you 19 different ways."

Being a huge dork about biting my foot

She had us warm up and pointed out that I don't quite get him committed enough to the bridle, he comes out with just a tiny bit of push back that definitely comes out later on when we're doing more challenging things. I wish I had my soloshot charged that day, because I don't know what he looked like when we got him where she wanted him. He felt a little low and probably was a little too deep, but he did feel more committed to the bridle, so that's good.

From there, we jumped into some leg yields and Tanya found the hole. In lateral work, TC does not remain committed to reaching for the bridle. This makes SO much sense. The 3-1 starts with lateral work, so from the get go, we were retracted in the neck. The 3-3 starts with a medium, so that got him more reaching and that's probably why I felt like he was more rideable in that test.

We worked really hard to maintain the reaching to the bridle in the lateral work and we finally ended with some really good shoulder-in in each direction with him reaching forward and downward to the contact while letting me position him.

Hi this looks delicious

In canter, we played with the same thing. Tanya had me put him into a medium canter and noted that his outline looked the most correct in the medium. Then when I brought him back, he pushed back at me to come back rather than staying out to the contact, so we worked on that quite a bit and I finally felt him stay out there when I went to collect him back. I was to goose him a few times a circle to keep him under himself and make sure that when I did that, he didn't push back at me to respond.

We then jumped into canter lateral work. The haunches-in is getting much better and from there, we did some half passes from the rail to the centerline. Tanya's main critique was that I was allowing him to sweep too much laterally rather than insisting he jump through. I had to block him on the inside side with my inside aids and encourage him to be more powerful. This was tough for my "my horse is green" brain to comprehend because I didn't want to discourage him from going that direction.

But again, TC and Tanya just work together in the lesson and I'm just there being surprised about how good he is as they laugh at me together. So he stepped right up and gave me some REALLY quality half pass despite the inside leg not letting him sneak through.

EXCUSE ME SIR

To end, we did some changes on the rail, which blew TC's mind. TC is used to doing them on the diagonal, across the middle, or on the rail from counter canter, but not on the rail into counter canter. We had a discussion about how in my hopes to not have TC anticipate the change, TC doesn't understand the process of setting up changes and then responding to the aid. He's frequently surprised by my aids. So when I asked for them on the rail, he was like WHAT??

Tanya and I spoke about where I need to put him and over how many strides - I need to get him into the new outside rein so that I can give the new inside rein in the change (this is what causes his changes to be late in front) and I need to ask within three strides of changing things so he understands when they're coming.

It was pretty cool to be working on this stuff! With this, I think we'll be doing tempi changes this fall, which is really exciting!

He's the weirdest

Generally, I was really pleased. We addressed everything I wanted to (the shortness in the neck, the changes, and the canter half passes), TC felt amazing, and I feel like I am starting to be able to replicate it at home a bit more.

But unfortunately it does go a tiny bit against what Anne wanted in our lesson. Tanya is very much a hind leg person, get the hind leg active and then he'll get pumped up through his topline and I can rock him back. Anne wanted me to get the hind leg active while keeping him shifted back. So basically Tanya says the hind leg comes first, Anne says the weight shift comes first. The end goal is the same though, a highly active, uphill horse!

So I've been basically doing both, but more on that later.

The New Protocol

I let myself have a bit of time to be excited about the scores, then got to work on the comments of the tests. The "red thread," as my L program organizer (and S judge) likes to say, was TC getting short in the neck.

I've known this for a while. It's the reason for his lack of topline in a few key places and it's why I lose influence sometimes. TC's conformation is the primary culprit, though I'm not fully innocent, obviously. He is built to have his neck jammed back at me, so when work gets tough, that's where he goes. I know it needs to be fixed and I know what needs to happen to do it, especially after riding with Anne last week.

Tooooo short in the neck, TC

Essentially, the moment you touch TC's face, it's all over. His neck feels like a collapsible paper lantern where I almost have to hold his bit away from him to get him in the right posture. That's hard to do when my seat is not enough to support him and he rams through it and into my hand. This happens most when riding tough movements. I can ride him all day long with his neck way out if I don't care what balance he's in and what he's capable of doing while riding like that. The horse loves his long and low after all.

Basically the problem is that I don't have the horse enough on my seat. When he isn't on my seat, he runs into my hand. If he were built differently, he'd be an exceptionally heavy horse. But he's built like he is, so he stays light and instead the lantern just collapses and he finds his balance by ramming into my hand and shortening his neck. He leans into his chest and knee action rather than shifting his weight back to his hindquarters.

His extended paces are getting way more educated

What I'd like to be able to do is to help him hold his body up and back, away from my hand, thus allowing the lantern to stay unsquashed. It's tricky because the horse is generally on my seat in the traditional sense. He steers from my upper thigh, all the lateral work is fully dependent on the way I sit, and I can stop him on a dime with my seat and thigh. I don't pull on the reins, he isn't heavy in my hand, he isn't non-submissive in the bridle. But the reason why he gets short in the neck is that I'm missing influence in his balance from my seat. It's primarily in the trot, I can half halt him to put him on my seat in canter, then let go of the reins and he stays there.

To add trickiness, because he naturally goes with his hind legs back behind him, feeling the weight shift backward is nearly impossible because I almost never feel his hind legs anyway. So it's easy to get on and feel the lightness and the rideability from your seat and assume that he's moving in a good balance. I can't tell you enough how different the horse looks from how he feels.

He makes me look so tiny

Anne's solution was to essentially put him back on his hocks until I could feel the hind legs, then release the reins, if I lost the feeling of his hind legs, I'd put him back there and release them. I've done this a lot on a variety of horses, learning this exercise on my very first Tracey lesson back in the day with Rico. Like I said in my post about my lesson with Anne, I had been using it primarily for horses with tricky connections and those who were heavy, not TC who is too light in the bridle. So we've obviously been doing a lot of this and TC has begun to offer piaffe if I ask in a way that makes sense to him! He, of course, has piaffe in hand but I was not going to put it on undersaddle until this fall. But hey, may as well let him play with it if he so chooses.

In addition to Anne's work, Nicole gave me a really cool PDF about horse posture and proprioception right after the show, so I've been doing the exercises it suggests before we start working in collection:

On the ground:
- rein back 30 steps on the ground with a level topline
- turn on the forehand 3 full 360 degree turns in each direction
- manual, lateral stretch of the poll

Undersaddle:
- proprioception poles, put poles up in a box with edges raised and walk over them in small circles
- rein back 8 steps, step forward 8 steps, rein back 8 steps
- turns on the forehand, one full time around then walk forward
- transitions long and low

It's been super helpful!

Finally got some square halts in the ring, phew

TC thinks it's really hard, but I feel a major difference in how much I'm feeling his hind legs when I'm riding him. And that, I think, is the first step toward making these postural changes. If I can feel his hind legs, it means they're both active and underneath my seat, which means that they're in the right place to take weight when I shift him backwards.

All the work from what I'm now going to be referring to as Nicole's PDF has made it way easier to feel whether I have his hind legs or not, and then doing Anne's creep exercises have been how I've been getting him back on them. Those two together are our answer, at least from what I've gathered so far. He's even confirmed that I'm right by giving me some of the best quality piaffe undersaddle I've ever felt from him. This horse can sit... when he understands that this is what I want him to do.

I think we're in for a long road ahead on this stuff. And I'm not sure yet how to reconcile it with what Tanya is having me do, which is why our scores were so big and fancy. I have a lesson with her on Thursday (after he gets today and Wednesday off because the SO and I are going camping) and I'm basically going to tell her what I've gathered after showing him. The movements are easy, we don't get any "needs more bend, needs more angle, geometry incorrect" type comments. What I do need help with is getting his neck out. I'm sure Tanya will have another layer of exercises for me. And then it's just rinse, repeat until we see Anne again, hopefully next week!

An Absolute Professional

I spent much of last week feeling a little anxious about showing. I think it was for a variety of reasons: it was a new facility for TC, the facility was known to be spooky, it was our first show since October, it was our first time at Third level, and obviously the underlying stress of showing with COVID-19 overstaying its welcome.

All dressed up and TC is getting impatient

I had nothing to be worried about. TC is an absolute professional at this point.

We hauled in exactly an hour before my first test, a requirement of the show, then had our temperatures taken, had to fill out extra release forms, had to answer questions about our health, and had to promise to contact USEF if we tested positive within 14 days after the show. Masks were required at all times when unmounted, show facility was set up all weird to allow for social distancing (including a scary, according to TC, plastic thing in between the judge and the scribe).

But honestly, the virus part of the show wasn't a big deal. I'm a haul-in-and-haul-out kind of person anyway and we live close enough to that facility where that was what was going to happen regardless. Plus, the masks and social distancing has just become the new normal at this point so it wasn't stressful.

All four off the floor in some kind of medium or extension

I took TC for a walk and he was really spooky, this facility is known for being spooky, even Rico was a spooky asshole there. But TC was kind of half-assed spooking, he kind of just walked around snorting. He had been SO EXCITED to get braided, pitching an absolute fit in the cross ties when I left him to go grab the rig and then charging into it when I finally let him in. So he was thinking yeah, I'm terrified that I'll die, but at least I'll die showing so it's cool.

I then hopped on and we headed into warm up. I was a little disappointed that the warm up was a bit hard, TC definitely told me that he wasn't a fan, so we did our best, but I didn't do as many balls-to-the-wall transitions within the gaits that it usually takes to get him going well. I was concerned but he gave me two big clean changes in the warm up so I hoped those would potentially carry us.

One of my favorites, look how white I got
his tail!! It also might be the camera

TC makes friends wherever he goes, so we befriended both ring stewards (one who knew him as a baby!) and one of them walked us over to the show ring when I told her that he might be nervous. She said not to worry because she had a calming effect on horses and that he could clearly see her aura. I wasn't going to tell her that TC will climb in just about anyone's lap (he's befriended my former barn manager whose shoulder he puts his chin on every morning AND he's also befriended one of the workers who just adores him and took a picture of him all braided up).

Once around the ring, TC was very spooky but held it together. Most of his spooking in the court looked like him just being a bit tense and ducking a little in the corners. I did get the feeling he was a bit borderline out of control, and that carried into the show ring.

The 3-1 was quite forward and elastic, apparently, but I just didn't have the rideability I have at home, especially in the canter. This is the test where I feel like I can actually RIDE him in it, vs the 3-3 where things often fall apart. So having him unrideable in that test really sucked. We had kind of a crappy walk tour (but good walk pirouettes), the half passes weren't as good as they were at home, the bad change randomly jumped sideways (but clean) and the good change was late in front because he got too eager. There were good moments though, including a stellar extended canter at the end of the test, where I actually let him GO until I realized that we had no brakes and he swapped behind and trotted coming out of it.

I obviously didn't know what we scored, so came out a bit disappointed. But we'd survived and I was determined to at least school the 3-3 canter pattern in the warm up to see if I could get him to do it without blasting through my aids. Sure enough, haunches-in at the canter has gone from being a very difficult movement to something that is absolutely required in warm up to get him on my seat I guess. Because we went back into the show ring with a more relaxed horse who I could actually RIDE! Unfortunately TC had made my back sore in the 3-1 so all my trot work was a little shittier, and even though we'd drilled the canter half passes, they're still too green to be truly decent in the show ring.

TC makes BFFs everywhere

When I got the scores back, I nearly cried. Our first test was a 70.5%! We had earned an 8 and a 9 on the walk pirouettes, 8s on centerlines, shoulder-in, and the 10m canter circles. And the most exciting thing (except maybe the 9 on the one walk pirouette) was two 8s in the collectives. He got an 8 on impulsion (with comments saying that he was a lovely forward and elastic horse) and I got an 8 on my rider position. We won that class out of three and I got a little glass with the name of the show on it.

I went over to the scorer and she said she had my other test too. I saw the 68.5% and was a little bummed only because it FELT so much better, but it made sense. The canter half passes are double coefficients, everything was a little diminished (still an 8 on rider position but a 7 on impulsion and 6.5 on rider effectiveness) because I was riding a little more conservative with a harder test and my back being a little sore. We still won the class out of two.

The best horse

It was kind of weird feeling like the tests didn't ride great and then earning my two highest ever Third level scores (previous highest was 67.4%). I'm just kind of sitting with the weirdness now. There's so much more I want to do to get him more confirmed at this level. I don't think we'll score this high in July, just because this judge is known for being a bit generous and I think we've got some back tracking to do to get him in a better posture for the FEI levels, which are my end goal with him of course.

I have a lesson with Tanya on Thursday. I'm going to talk to her about the shortness in his neck (which was our main comment) and see what we can do to fix that, then get some more practice with the half passes and changes, which are currently our most hit-or-miss movements. Then in early July I'm going to ride with Anne again to continue that work, and hopefully I'll have a new saddle around then too! I've worked my *ass* off in June to save for it, teaching almost as much as I've ever taught now that in-person lessons are a thing again.

Downshifting after a change and I'm like "pls stay here" so his
neck gets short, we gotta fix this

So while these scores are really exciting and I'm so glad to put them on my record, and I promise I celebrated (I got boba, posted about it on IG and FB, got excited at the SO a bunch even though he was there), I'm mostly excited about continuing to work with this amazing horse on our end goal. And I think that's what it's all about, the journey. These days are just icing on the cake.

Changing TC's Posture

Yesterday I had a lesson with a new to us trainer! And I realized it was the first time we'd hauled out to work since early March, which is good because we're showing in just a few days. I'm happy to report that the horse gave no fucks and even showed off his very fancy changes (which continue to get bigger, I can't understand how we'll ever string together tempis in a space as small as a dressage court).

Anne is my physical therapist (and very accomplished CDI rider and dressage judge) and I had mentioned to her back in February that I did want to take lessons from her at some point. But then the pandemic hit.

I reached out to her because I couldn't get my shit together with my remote lessons and I wanted another perspective on TC's weird topline issues and throughness/rideability. Anne has a lot of experience working with very different types and her mom actually trained several Ideal babies so she's familiar with this type. She's also so so so good with the biomechanics and I was certain that was part of it.

TC being amazing, me not sure what to do with my body in
this place

I warned her that we have a show this weekend and that I was fine to just have this be an introductory lesson where she can get to know us, then we could do more later. I then told her that I couldn't get my strings on him and couldn't get his withers up. She told me that some horses break strings and you need to be more like the terminator and think of it more of a machine with hydraulics attaching to the horse. I liked that visual. But the fact obviously remained that I just couldn't get him up under me.

We started with some warm up trot and canter, and TC was a bit strung out, but he was stepping nicely into the bridle and was quite forward off my leg. Anne's first impressions were that he wasn't engaging his pecs enough and that he was just a little out behind and on the forehand. Yep, that's my horse! She made sure to tell me that he was absolutely where he needed to be for Third level and I shouldn't worry, but that these tendencies will affect the feeling that I don't have any influence over him. She also very kindly reminded me that Third level is designed to introduce a lot of the upper level movements and that in her R judging program, they told the judges to not expect a lot of clean tests at that level with it being the first time horses are doing changes and half passes in the ring.

This is TC's natural way of standing, no wonder he is so tricky
to put together, my god horse, look more like you're going to fall
on your face. 

She had me do a little work in canter on a smaller circle, saying to let exercises collect him so I can add leg to get him to sit. That did work quite nicely and he showed off a beautiful change to swap directions. We then walked and I told her that canter was my strong gait and that the trot was rough for both of us, which is funny because he's built to trot. We discussed that TC loses the explosive power when he collects his gaits and then she asked whether I'd ever worked in "creep"

Tracey had me ride Rico in creeping gaits (basically extremely short strided, but very active gaits). This put Rico firmly behind the leg and so I've tended to only use it on very forward horses to great success. TC is not particularly forward in the collected gaits, therefore I have not used it on him.

I was a bit concerned but figured I'd come out on Wednesday and do an entire ride in a working gallop if I had to. We began in walk and she had me slow him down. My concern grew. But Anne made sure that he stayed in front of my leg, that is, after all, part of the purpose of the exercise. Something that had not been emphasized nearly enough when I was riding Rico (and one of the reasons why I went to Heidi momentarily to snag my Gold medal)

Working my damned hardest to stay in a flexion pattern and
I just fucking cannot, but also my horse has never made this
shape with his body so something is working I suppose

Our main goal was to get him to shift from his chest down posture to a more upright, pecs engaged posture with his hind legs stepping further under his body. To do this, he needed to be active behind but shifting his mass back, so we started with the mass and then activated the hind legs. Frequent transitions out helped him understand that he needed to be ready to go at any moment, but coming back could be difficult because I find it so easy to push horses, not to encourage them to carry.

I had to stay in a flexion pattern in my body, which I tend to lose. Anne pointed out that when I go to trot, I drop my knees down a bit (cannot wait to have decent blocks on my new saddle so I can actually notice this) and this causes me to let go of my flexion pattern the most. She wanted me to imagine wearing bike shorts and yanking them up toward the block at the seams in the middle of my thighs.

I was shocked at how difficult this was. My core burned as it always does (this horse's gaits, y'all) but this was in a very different way. More of a crunch than a stabilizing hold, so I fatigued quickly. My inner thigh is still burning today, and my hip flexors feel weird.

Working so hard and yet, still in extension in my upper body

But TC's posture fully changed. I could feel him shift his mass back, it always started out with a slight resistance in the bridle, then a falter in his gait, then I could finally feel his hind legs. Anne asked a lot of questions, can I feel him slipping left, can I feel his mass shift back, can I feel both long back muscles. I had to stop and tell her "what I'm most excited about in this moment is the fact that I can feel his hind legs for the first time EVER" because it was true. I knew exactly where they were because *shocker* they were under my seat.

When we got this posture right, Anne encouraged me to soften my hand and see if I could hold it. This was not new information, I literally use this lesson to deal with horses who lean on the rider's hands. I can rattle off a ton of people who have taken this exact lesson from me and probably assumed this was coming next. BUT I haven't ever done this with TC because he is the type of horse who needs to be much more INTO the bridle, right?

Well, Anne said yes but no. She said that he was approaching Fourth level and needed to be able to carry himself, obviously. The lightness in the bridle is just his conformation, I have to determine self carriage in other ways, such as when I give the reins, does he drop his back vs when I give the reins, does he lighten up. It was interesting. I gave the reins and he sought contact as he always does, but sometimes it was in the posture we had put him in and sometimes it was because he dropped his wither down. We schooled it a bunch and by the end, got a few steps here and there where I could get his neck out without losing that posture.

So hard to get him into this place and tell when he's there, now
we will begin working on my posture lol

I was SO pleased with the lesson. It was mostly walking (we only cantered for like 3 minutes because I told her I couldn't ride his trot), lots of talking, and just working on a circle. But it was exactly what TC and I needed! All the walk work translated into the best quality trot I've ever felt and a canter where I felt like I could ride a canter pirouette if I so felt like it. Transitions in and out were stellar too, sometimes I feel like I have to drop him into trot and just hope that he stays with me, this time I had complete influence over every limb, so I could decide when to put him into trot.

I'm super excited to ride with Anne again. I think she's my missing piece in TC and his training plan. I adore Tanya but I see Tanya as a trainer who pushes me along the levels. She's the one I'm going to ride TC's first canter pirouettes with and TC's first tempi changes with. Then I go to Anne and work on the basics, work on the details, figure out how to help TC stay under himself while doing the movements Tanya has us doing. They know each other well and both have a biomechanics background, so I'm certain that they won't work against each other (the biggest issue IMO in riding with multiple trainers and why I haven't ever done this in the past).

I think I'll see Anne again in early July. This Friday we have our show, then the SO and I found a cabin to rent at a campground nearby for a night next week so that takes away two riding days, then Tanya comes in and I go teach a clinic, then I'm hopefully getting a saddle (at least one on trial). I'm hoping to get Anne's opinion on the saddle (it will be too late for Tanya), so that'll be early July. I think depending on everyone's schedule and the show schedule, I'd love to ride with Tanya once a month (as I have been) and Anne twice a month, then for my fourth lesson a month, I'll either do a remote lesson with Tanya or add another Anne lesson, depending on what TC and I need.