Taking SNS Activation Out of Forward

So, over the years, TC went from being a chronic bolter to being a bit of a balker. Not balter, although that's also somewhat accurate. 

If this doesn't describe my horse... 

I've long thought that many forms of riding put horses chronically behind the leg. I have some theories on why, but for TC I think that while some of it had to do with the dressage, some of it definitely was me telling him "under no circumstance are you to go as fast as you damn well please" throughout his youth. 

Honestly, I can blame it on his suspensory, so I absolutely will. When he was very young, I dealt with his tendency to bolt by letting him run. I let him run in turnout, I let him run up hills, I let him get it all out of him and then he was happy to do his job. My rule was that there was a time and a place for running and he could let me know when he needed to run and he could absolutely run and then when I said okay no more running, he had to come back to me. It seemed to be putting us on a really good path. 

But then he got hurt. And by hurt I mean he ripped some of his suspensory ligament out of the origin site. For a solid year at just barely five years old, he could not do anything with his body other than stand around and paw (and if we could have stopped that, we would have) that wasn't completely guided by humans. He could not trot, he could not canter, he could not chase bird shadows or run up hills or gallop all of his baby horse feelings out. He had to stand in a stall for 23.5 hours a day and walk with a tiny bit of trot for thirty minutes a day. I'm so glad that the rehab facility had a swimming pool, I think that was the only time he could really move his body in the way he wanted to, but he was... swimming. 

Honestly, I don't know how we got through it. As an aside, I still feel so bad for him/really guilty that he had to go through that. I don't regret it, because I firmly believe that taking the time it took to do the rehab right is why he's able to live such an amazing life out in his giant (he got more room recently) pasture. 

Even after the stall rest period, during undersaddle rehab, he wasn't allowed to do anything other than what we dictated was okay for him to do. But he started to resist this. You can't bolt in a swimming pool, you can't bolt in a eurocizer; in both of those cases he couldn't really run through the front door. But undersaddle he could and he did. So I trained him and that shut the metaphorical door. 

So then he started leaping to bust open the front door. So I trained him not to. And soon I had this really amazing horse who didn't bolt or leap. And then the balking started, can't go out the front door, may as well try the back door. 

The most perfect creature

It got worse at the same time as some specific but generally well respected and accepted training methodology was coming into our lives. Was it simply that? Maybe. Or was it that the horse never really truly learned to go forward in balance undersaddle because when we finally started to be able to work on that after, you know, learning to steer, he had to go through years of being told not to go so fast to protect his leg. I don't know. 

So that leads me to this: I am teaching this horse how to go forward undersaddle right now. Really forward. Not forward in a "wooden" way, not forward in a put together medium canter way, not forward in a stressed out frantic way. Forward for the sake of the fun of being forward and of letting your body feel good going over the ground, not having to wait for the end of the arena where we half halt and turn, not having to be chased by a spur or a whip, not having to be running from something. 

I'm essentially treating the horse like he's three and four again. Before the suspensory. Before the dressage training. Before we started putting timelines and limitations on things. Before I gathered the reins up and told him where to put his body and what to do with it. I think I mentioned that I'm not actually riding him on contact right now (except for the occasional half halt if he's not with me). 

Go TC! We are not fast lol

And look what results, wow is he looking good
since I started doing my own thing instead of trying
to put my square peg of a horse into any sort of 
dressage training (modern or classical)

You may assume that TC is taking this well, and he is. He's also having to learn that there is a difference between galloping WITH me and galloping AWAY with me. My SNS is also having to learn that difference. Go with the horse. Don't resist the horse. What feels like bolting is a story, do not tell stories, just feel things and accept them. 

So for a while now, it's been me asking the horse to go until the horse GOES and then my body saying oh god oh god oh god. I am pretty good about not asking him to stop with my reins or my leg or my seat even, but my pelvis starts to close due to SNS activation, and then I feel him come back to me too much and get sticky. 

HMMM, but I won't elaborate, but this could lead to such an amazing discussion about how much of the way riders are typically taught (even in the most correct of Mary Wanless' wonderful ways) puts them into a state of fight or flight and how being in SNS activation closes a person's pelvis and how horses have the most mirror neurons of any animal and what do you think happens to THEIR pelvis and they have the stay apparatus in there too that becomes activated due to the SNS okay I need to stop, this is not the place to have this discussion. Another post one day maybe. 

The other day I took Flounder out on the polo field with a friend and let him gallop a bit. Flounder is the world's safest fish and so I felt really safe other than a mild head toss and the fact that he can somehow gallop sideways without it being like... darting... he's the wiggliest horse even at what he would consider a dead run. I breathed and I thought about how the saddle felt under this one very specific part of my thigh that somehow is able to bring me out of SNS activation, and I felt my pelvis open a bit and with that, he went on more. 

I just adore him

Getting a moment of suspension back, even if we
need to revisit a more natural (vs collected) balance
to do so, it's worth it. He is having to fight through my
SNS activation though, gah

I brought that back to TC a couple hours later and when TC went to bolt with me, I said yes let's go, I'm with you. There was no SNS activation and he really took me. He even went to leap through the air and I just kicked him forward. 

He honestly has no idea what to do with this kind of forward though. He's like a three year old again. He has no ability to emotionally regulate in that place. So that's our project for the winter. Can I get him to be truly carrying me forward, not dragging me forward with a short neck being chased by a spur, but really carrying me, on a loose rein, over the ground with no SNS activation in either of us? I think we can get there!

The ranch is so damn beautiful

And yes, we will be going to the polo field some day soon. But I'll be putting my cross country vest in the trailer and ordering a new helmet before then. Horse is ENTHUSED. 

WW: Road Walking

As much as the words "road walking" used to be accompanied by a lot of fear, now I know that it means that I get to see how beautiful the road is after the rain! Also some fear, given that TC has been a bit wild on the roads lol chill out, TC. 

How is it SO beautiful out here?

Maybe it's just my phone's fancy camera

Either way, wow

Refuses to Wear Clothes

So last week it rained and the horses were locked in. TC had a couple of days off and I spent a lot of time at the office hanging out with my coworkers, surprisingly enjoying the rain and winter weather. 

Then I went to the ranch and TC ruined my day by having a leg swell up.

He hasn't fucked up a leg (except due to like, a cut) in SO long. I was honestly surprised. Especially because the report from the winter weather was that all of the horses just chilled on their porches. My best guess was that he'd banged it while pawing, but apparently he hadn't even been pawing. Wow. 

It was legit super hard to take pictures
of, it was way bigger than it looks in
reality

Hand walking because WHY, horse
asks, why not ride the horse who is
totally calm and definitely not going
to do anything PROMISE

It was weirdly hard? I guess? I don't know, it was fairly warm and wasn't too squishy. Definitely not pitting edema either. Honestly, it kind of surprised me with how weird it was. 

I took him out of his stall and then proceeded to try to trot him out. He thought this was a really fun time to leap through the air. But during the moments that his feet were on the ground, he was *unbelievably* sound. 

I took him on a walk down the road and back and the swelling had gone down about half way. It was still warm though. 

Being good on his hand walk, also
being dirty lol

Sweat wrap

I decided to see whether TC would be okay with having it wrapped. He hasn't been wrapped since he was five years old and back then, he took off his wraps all the time. In fact, the last time he was wrapped, he actually ripped some of my favorite wraps and I decided that he could go fuck himself (I was so unhappy and he was in his 5 year old year, don't judge me) and that I'd never wrap him again. 

So I didn't. And I think the fact that he used up most of his lameness days (an arbitrary measurement I've made up that all horses need to be lame for a certain amount of days in their lives, Rico saved all his for the middle of his life) when he was young kept him pretty safe from needing to be wrapped. 

After the sweat bandage, definitely better
but not perfect yet

Pawing, well buddy, if you don't like
wraps, don't smack your leg up!

This time though, I put a sweat bandage on and then finished my work day. He shockingly kept it on, so I thought he'd finally matured. I took it off at the end of the day and the swelling looked about the same. Eh. Okay. He got a normal wrap over night, a gram of bute that night, and one the next morning. 

I was fairly confident after he kept the sweat on that he'd keep normal bandages on overnight. I was half right. He kept the bad leg's bandage on but he took the other one off and deposited it where he pees. Great. I was afraid for it at first, but he did somehow manage to take it off without ripping it. THANK YOU. I will take that kind of maturity any day of the week. 

Rude, but not torn

Looking good!

I took the other one off and his leg looked great! He still had bute on board, so I gave him the rest of that day off. 

We rode the next day and he honestly was super sound and the leg hadn't swelled since that initial day, so we did a regular workout. I backed him off to like, 30 minutes of work and about 30 minutes of walking earlier this fall when I knew that the rest of this year was going to be tough to maintain consistency in my riding. So it wasn't a huge amount of work. But still!

And he's totally held up since then. No lameness, no heat, no swelling. Coincidentally, the day after I wrapped him was when he got back into his pasture. So maybe he just wanted to be out in pasture and thought that banging his leg up was the best way to get it? I dunno. I don't care. I'm just glad he's good! 

Another Leadline Adventure

The kiddo did her second ever leadline show this weekend and it was again, SO ADORABLE. 

This one was a small, very casual show hosted by the resident pony club at Kate's barn. I didn't pay much attention to the main ring, I wasn't riding, but it looked really well run and everyone had a blast!

I did, however, pay attention to the trail class, which doubled as the leadline class. It was all set up in a small ring with seven obstacles. The first was to weave through cones, then to pick up a bean bag and put it into a muck bucket. Then opening a gate. Picking up a flag and putting it in a cone. Taking a letter to a mailbox, halting and reining back in a line of poles, and standing on a tarp. 

TC would have dominated. And by dominated I mean destroyed half the obstacles trying to make everyone laugh. Glad he wasn't invited. He'll do an obstacle show in early April! 

How unbelievably cute is the show outfit?

Miss Kate was very kind to lend us Elrond, who was far more suitable to the class than Sunny Horse who has honestly been mildly neglected by me this fall due to being busy at work. He is getting a much deserved winter off from being ridden by the kid as well, she is riding double with me sometimes but I'm trying to let him chill a bit. He thinks she's a *lot* to deal with. 

Elrond thought she was great though. The worst thing she did was practice her posting, which is still a bit erratic and overenthusiastic. And all he had to do was walk incredibly slowly and decide that standing on the tarp was unacceptable despite standing on it earlier when one of Kate's kids took him through the course to make sure he would do everything. Best day ever. 

Walking over to get her borrowed pony

And it was for her too! She got a RIBBON. A rainbow ribbon. And she was once again the star of the show with everyone wanting to talk to her and ask her what her name was and how old she was, to which she'd say things like "I drove here in my black car" or "this is Elrond, Miss Kate's pony" or "I have bows" which are at least true, given that at the last show she told everyone that Flounder was her pony. 

My brother and sister in law (and littlest niece) had the best time too. They asked how many of these we can do a year and when the next one was. I said well, the show season is over unless you want to winter in southern California or Florida, which seems a bit much for a leadline kid. But we'll definitely be back in the spring. My littlest niece (4 months old) thought the whole show was a blast, I've never seen her smile so much! Pony kid number two, excellent, my master plan is slowly coming into effect. 

First Storm of the Season

Work has been a bit much recently, but I'm on the other side of some really difficult projects and feeling much better! Obviously the moment that I get any ounce of free time, the rains are starting. But that's really great news for the environment. And theoretically this means that we made it through fire season without having to take any significant time off due to smoke! Woohoo, no lung damage this year! 

This will be our second winter at the ranch. Last year life was throwing a lot at me, so I decided to not pursue moving TC to a barn with a covered arena. This year life is also throwing some stuff at me, so I'm also not going to put him at a barn with a covered arena. It just doesn't seem worth it given that he's got so much space at the ranch even when it's raining vs at another barn, I'd have to go get him out every day. 

Plus, we have nothing real on the calendar next year, so he can have another light winter and then we'll come back in the spring.

As much as I don't love not riding, I'm
really enjoying the winter weather!

TC also was overdue for shoes for a while, so it ended up working out okay for him to have a few days off during this storm. Today is my insane meeting day and also the day he finally gets shoes, but then I have Friday off and hopefully by then my ring will be dry and we'll get back to it! 

It has been mostly just doing leg stretching rides working on improving our aid system and doing some of my favorite exercises. 

Super pleased with how he's looking

Learning to be a little longer in the canter

One of my favorite things to do is to do a bunch of transitions one after the other with counted strides in between. So doing 10 strides of canter, then 10 strides of trot, then 10 strides of canter and so on. Once that is perfectly on the aids, then you start reducing the strides until it gets too hard. It requires the horse to be on the aids and to remain balanced throughout, at least in order to have the transitions occur exactly as the rider asks (and not because the rider knows to ask on stride 7 to get the horse to do the transition at stride 10). 

With Rico, I got him down to doing 2 strides of trot, 2 strides of canter, and so on. TC and I have managed 6 pretty easily, so I'm sure that he's capable of doing the smaller numbers too. He stepped right up with the only issues being a minor straightness problem to the left when he had to pop sideways to get the canter and was delayed by a stride or two. Other than that, it's downright easy for him. 

My headphones falling out always make for better
posture from the horse lol

Probably need to not do weird shit with my arms
but I haven't had a biomechanics less in ages sooo

The other thing I've been doing is putting the flying changes back on. I had stopped schooling them because they were clean but not well balanced and I wanted to go back and fix some of the problems we'd been having. 

The other day I decided to ask and they were surprisingly not too rusty. After going more than two years since really schooling them, it showed me where some of the holes are that were hidden by how he was going at the time. 

He definitely struggles to jump through the change and instead finds it easier to prop a bit. They're still a bit downhill, but I'm kind of riding him more on the forehand deliberately right now (more on that later) so that wasn't surprising. I'll do some brainstorming on how to improve the changes and keep plugging away at them. 

Lucky to have a safe horse to road walk

Hopefully this weekend we can head out to the trail facility and just do the bottom loop, I haven't really taken him very many places this year and I really miss it! But with the rain, we may be delayed. 

WW: Morning Trail Ride

On Monday I went on a trail ride before work and for some reason it was freakishly beautiful out!

I love this view

It just felt very Halloween-y to me

Definitely need to ride in the mornings more often

Or even earlier than this to catch a
bit more of the sunrise

So pretty

I Quit

At the horse show I had a lot of time to be thinking about what I want to do with my horses. The truth is, and I've been coming to it for a long time, is that I genuinely am not enjoying the sport of dressage anymore. 

What started it all was when my horse looked miserable, felt miserable, went miserably, and still scored in the 70s at Third level with S judges in the rated dressage ring. 

It ended with me having more fun than I think I've ever had in my life... in the jumper ring. 

I still have fun doing anything with this guy though!

I came back from the show and immediately had to prep for a dressage clinic with a new trainer. I went to pick up my saddle, which is now fitting me and TC quite well, PHEW. I did some lateral work and some transitions, and mostly just looked up at the hill and down at the cavalletti blocks wishing I could do something, literally anything, else. 

We went to that clinic and it was... completely and utterly acceptable. I didn't really learn anything. I mostly got told where to go and what movements/gaits to perform when I got there. TC's balking had come back and we mostly just worked on getting him more forward. It was totally fine. Didn't get yelled at, didn't get told to yank on his face or kick the shit out of him. I was told that he was talented, to not give up the dressage on him, that the lateral work came so easily for him and that he had nice gaits. 

I got back from this lesson and immediately was like well that's it, I quit. I don't know what I want to do with this horse, but I do not want to do dressage. It just isn't fun on him. It isn't that he's bad at it, it's that the sport as it scores well in the show ring makes him feel miserable to ride. 

More of this and less "shorten your reins and kick
him into the contact" please

How much of the fun I had at the show
was due to squeezing the shit out of
Kate's little parkour champion? Lots.

I definitely want to do some obstacle shows. That seems to be the most fun I can have with this horse without totally investing in another horse/discipline. We don't even need to practice all that much, he's just brilliant at everything. 

I also do want to see if he wants to join me in some very low level jumping just at home. If I could do a little poles course or pop him over some cross rails, I think that'd be really fun for both of us and wouldn't stress his suspensory or his feet too much. I have no inclination to really JUMP him because I want him to be sound and I also don't want to die. The horse is not lacking in enthusiasm. 

And I do want to do some dressage. But I want it to be on my terms. I want to do it the way I want to do it and not abide by any sort of rules or guidance from the USDF. I don't really want to have another lesson where I'm told to shorten up my reins and intimidate my horse when he doesn't jump off my leg. 

I like riding my horse like this, which looks so off
the bit after being around so many dressage horses!

I also just want to enjoy my horse. Not put any pressure on to get him out every single day and keep him super super fit so that we can do clinics and shows and lessons. I want to trail ride just to trail ride and not to cross train. I think I have this feeling of "oh god what do I do with him" so the obstacle shows will give me a way of feeling like I'm "doing something with him" without really needing to work hard/take lessons/stress myself out over it. 

I feel like I'm in this constant battle of why I do dressage. Like, I'm *good* at dressage, I have the medals and the scores to prove it. It's nice to do things you're good at. But do I do dressage because I love it, or because I'm good at it? Am I super passionate about dressage, or am I just a perfectionist who doesn't want to start from the bottom of another sport? Do I get joy from cantering down centerline or do I get joy from having the judge tell me that I was the best one who cantered down centerline? I honestly don't know. 

And I think I won't know until I take the pressure off of myself. I have to test my hypothesis. I feel like I have to quit the sport, quit trying to get back into the show ring, to really find out if I actually like it anymore. 

Wise words from work (I work in our Star Wars
themed building lol)

So many trainers have wanted me to shorten my
reins and to that I can now say, nah

I can absolutely see myself returning to the sport one day, even on TC! But I need to rephrase how I'm thinking about this sport. Right now I feel like I'm just constantly pushing my timeline out of when TC and I will return to Third level. Instead, I need to just throw that timeline in the trash and enjoy my horse. And if enjoying him leads me back to the show ring, so be it. If it means that I ride him bareback on the trails and teach him silly tricks and go to obstacle shows, that's great too. 

The only thing is... what do I rename this blog if I never return to the sport??