Lucky Pig

I'm really glad I had my arena back over the weekend because after our field trip, it was apparent that I'd really only be able to ride TC at home for the winter! 

On both days, we had truly great rides. I'm starting to think that the neighbor's pig has something to do with it. Ever since we met this pig, we've been having great rides. I've been calling him TC's "lucky pig" such as "do you want to go see your lucky pig?" when we walk down the road.

Lucky pig is not in this pasture but in
the pasture beyond it

Continuing the pattern from the last ride I wrote about, I've implemented the following:

- Have a plan for each work set

- Canter a little bit early on

- Canter trot transitions later on

- Mix of lateral work and bending lines to address straightness

- Address forward energy with my spur (not whip) and to a point where I can half halt him

It's been so helpful, but also challenging, to force myself to come up with exercises for TC to do each work set, but he really does seem to like them. And it's in this specific way that I feel like I have my horse back, not just from a few years ago, but the essence of what made me want to buy this horse. 

I can't find the post, but I remember vividly early on with him where I painstakingly taught him to do turns on the forehand one ride. It was like pulling teeth. He really struggled through doing them VERY slowly and I praised him for them of course but went home thinking that he was going to be SO hard to get lateral work on. 

Then he had a couple of days off and when I got on him next, he dragged me to this one part of the arena (the same part of the arena we were doing the turns on the forehand the ride before). He stood there, almost vibrating under me. And when I put my leg on, he took a deep breath and he did a pretty decent turn on the forehand. That was the moment I knew I wanted to buy that horse. He wanted so much to do the thing I had been asking him to do. 

He says gimme snax

And I ruined that part of him! So much of dressage is making a horse wait wait wait for an aid. I think once we hit the mid levels, we lost that kind of play and fun in learning new things. It was about doing it, doing it right, and doing it right now. Anticipation was the enemy, and it was to be squashed out of him.

I haven't felt him get excited about an exercise in so so long. So these rides where we are repeating exercises and he gets a little giddy because he knows what is coming up next? That's my horse, that's me getting my horse back. 

The 10-10-10 canter-trot-canter exercise is definitely one of his favorites. Feeling him sneak into canter - willingly go MORE forward on his own - has been the best part of it. I've made it a rule now not to care if he slips into canter early or even if he ends the canter early. I count and aid but do not punish if he changes it up on me. 

It's pretty beautiful at the ranch when
it's green

One of MY favorites is one that Kate gave me. It's been a game changer for his straightness and connection, and not too difficult for him to stay forward during.

You start on a figure-8, 20m circles in each direction. Tracking to the right, ride one circle bending to the right, then hold that bend as you change direction tracking left. Ride one circle tracking left but holding the right bend. As you come to the middle of the figure-8, don't change directions, but change bend so that you are now bending left and tracking left. Ride one circle like that and as you get back to the middle, change directions but don't change the bend, so you are now riding on the right circle but bending left. Then repeat. So two circles left, two circles right, but it'll ride right bend, left bend x2, right bend. 

It's been SUPER interesting to watch TC struggle through this. When tracking left, he finds it difficult to keep his haunches out, so when we are counter-bent, he falls inward and makes the circle really small. Tracking right, he actually feels better counter-bent, because all he wants to do is fall through his left shoulder and keep his haunches right. So I've been riding the counter-bent right circle in a bit like shoulders-out, which he finds tricky. In both directions, when we switch to true bend, he feels AMAZING and much better connected. 

I need to find my noseband lol we look
so non-legit right now

In general, I feel like I'm getting him much better connected, much better forward, and am at least starting to address the straightness issues. He's coming out more willing to go to the contact, I'm even getting glimpses of the dreamy connection he used to have. 

I still do feel like there's a slight disconnect, but it's further back along his topline now. When I first started riding him earlier this month, I felt like I had maybe 20% of his neck in my influence and that was it. Now I solidly get 60%, and it's slowly inching down toward his thoracic sling, but I'm still locked out of his back and hind legs. That's fine, I feel like I can get to them via a middleman if that makes sense? 

It's trending in the right direction! And not only that, but I feel like he's starting to trust the work again. I think for a long time, the work made him feel really off balance and and probably physically didn't feel good (or at worst, where it hurt him). For a while that caused him to say no to everything, even things he liked in the past. And now I'm feeling more and more that he says yes. And I think that is the most important part, because with that, we will slowly be able to get back to where I'd like him to be. 

All we need is time and a lucky pig

Another cool thing I noticed the other day is that I THINK he is putting on a little muscle in his neck. He's also put on a small amount of weight (just from the rain I think, being locked in + not being ridden), so maybe that's what I'm seeing. His back still looks like crap, but I can convince myself that he has put on some muscle in his hamstrings and glutes. I think the back will be the last thing to come in. At least, the trapezius was the last thing he developed as a young horse (both thoracic and cervical).

I'll be curious about the vet visit in February, both to see how much he weighs (hopefully getting him back down to the same body condition score beforehand) and to see what my vet thinks of his progress. 

Either way, I'm glad that he's having fun undersaddle right now though. I do think it's helping him, both mentally (he's been happily coming up to me in his paddock) and hopefully physically (I can definitely get him more connected riding him vs long lining him). Only time will tell though! 

Hauling Out During the Storm

Well we just had a big storm here in the bay. My arena did a really good job holding up, it started raining on Saturday afternoon and I managed to ride Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday before it rained all day Wednesday and Thursday. 

That was fine, because it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! But on Friday, it was not raining, but my arena was too wet to ride in. 

I've been really wanting to stick with our rehab schedule, so I decided to try hauling over to the nearest barn with a covered arena and seeing whether I could at least get SOME work out of TC. 

That was a BAD idea. 

I can't remember the last time he stood
at the trailer and reared and reared

This is the same covered arena as the neighbor arena to his breeder's barn. A barn he has not... loved to work in. But he was FOUR at the time. I figured he was a full ten years older now and that he would be fine. He wasn't. 

Honestly, I don't blame him. He's pretty fit right now and he'd just had two days off, locked in on his paddock (vs having access to his 1+ acre pasture). Then I stuffed him in a trailer to go somewhere that wasn't the vet, which he hasn't done in over a year. And then when he unloaded, there was not a horse in sight. 

Then I tried to leave him tied at the trailer to go sign a release form and put the ring fee in their box.

This was how he unloaded

I ended up instead taking him over to the box to drop off the release form and money and that was a bad idea since he then really started to panic. 

After that, I thought that getting him to walk over to where he could see some horses was a good idea. It was in that, once I managed to get him over there, he was the calmest he had been all day. But that wasn't saying much and he still was completely losing it. 

Standing as narrow and as tall as he
possibly can

In the past, I would have tried to work him through it, but I didn't want to risk anything - his potential neck stuff, my safety, the trust we've developed between us again. He's 98% really the most perfect creature, there's no reason to "work through" the 2% of the time where he's losing his goddamn mind. 

I ended up just carefully flying my horse shaped kite back to the trailer and stuffing him into it. He threw himself against my trailer until we were back on the main road, and three minutes later we pulled into the ranch. He stared at me through the window with the whites of his eyes showing, but then quietly unloaded and was totally back to normal the moment he had his feet on the gravel. 

I think he's convinced that we experienced a collective nightmare or something. I got him out a little later that day to brush him and do some bodywork stuff with him. He was super quiet and relaxed in the cross ties, even yawned a bunch. 

I can't emphasize enough how quiet
this horse is generally, this umbrella
flew into him and he was so excited

I think I made the right decision. If this were a pattern for him, sure, I'd have done something about it. But this was a freak thing. 

I do think I'm going to bring Sundance over next time, or coordinate with the trainer there to go on a day where there are quiet babysitter type horses being ridden in the covered arena. The barn is not a particularly bustling place in the winter, so I don't blame him for thinking that I took him to a haunted barn or something. I figured he'd be fine since he's willing to go to the trail facility all by himself, but he's also been there a lot more. 

Anyway, I think we'll stick to road walking on the days my arena is too wet to ride! Luckily for me, the very next day, my arena was fine. 

A Great Ride

I had probably the best ride of our rehab so far yesterday so I wanted to document it! 

For context, the last three rides looked like this:

Thursday 12/18 - I posted about that in my last post

Friday 12/19 - We went on a trail ride for about an hour. He was really good and didn't have any spooking/balking. I did some lateral work on the hills, specifically working on strengthening his left hind leg. 

Saturday 12/20 - We had an okay ride, I was glad to get some video and I really noticed that he seemed plenty forward when watching him, but I know he felt behind my leg. He had a couple of small hesitations (I wouldn't even call them balks) but outside of that he was compliant. At the end of our ride, I finally got annoyed and really hustled him along, and then we ended on a good note. But in the video he was 

THEN I took him on the tracks and he seemed perky, so I let him pick up the trot on the back lane (a long, wide, slightly uphill section that spans almost the entire length of the property behind the pastures) and then had the idea that maybe I could let him canter out there. He picked up canter really easily and loped up the hill until he got a little tired. 

Our last day on the trails for a while, bummer!

I figured that we should do the other lead, so I walked him back down to the bottom of the back lane and then asked him to canter again. This time he really went for it, so I got up in half seat and let him go. He was gaining speed though, and I'm like... pretty aware that my vet called him borderline neuro last time we went to see him, so I asked TC to maybe keep it contained. TC took that as an invitation to leap into the air, so then I kicked him forward and decided that I'd just lean back a bit just in case! 

Finally we were getting to the normal spot where he poops out, so I sat back and was anticipating him stopping. He did not stop, he again took that as a cue to leap even HIGHER into the air and I almost came off. I was hanging off the right side of him and somehow managed to yell "well, don't lose me!?!" and he scooped me back up. I then made him continue cantering all the way up the steeper part of the hill when he finally stopped.

It did kind of scare me though, so I forced the poor horse back down the back lane to do it AGAIN, and this time we did a very controlled, easy canter for maybe eighteen strides before I let him walk and cool out. Looking back, it was super fun! Fun to feel him so enthusiastic about moving forward. 

Sunday 12/21 - I gave him and myself the day off, he was locked in for the day because of the rain, but was then let back out on Monday morning. 

He's such a good trail horse

So then yesterday I drove down to the ranch over my lunch break, and I was glad to see that my arena was useable! I dragged it and then went to get TC out.

I started to target train his right hind leg - I want to ask him to step toward the target, specifically taking a step away from his body with his right hind and aiming to touch his gaskin with the target. He didn't really understand it at first, but we did get some good movement. I think it'll take a few days. This is mostly because his right hind is stuffed up under his body ALL the time, even in the cross ties. And as he's (slowly) putting on muscle, I'm noticing that his right hind is lacking muscle just above the stifle in comparison to the left hind. Anyway, hopefully this can help him!

Love this spot looking down on the ranch!

We then started our ride by walking down the road, which I've been avoiding doing too much for his feet. He does love it though, and he got to see all his horse and cow friends. I tried to show him the new pig that the neighbor got but it was too far away and he was focusing on something else. 

Once in the arena, I had decided to be more structured with my ride. Using my interval timer, you'd think I'd be coordinated in general, but I haven't been. So for each of our eight 2 minute 15 second intervals (4 sets of 1 interval + 1 minute rest + 1 interval each and then he gets a longer break) I had a plan going into them. 

Set 1: Warm Up

I warmed TC up with large figures, working on establishing a connection and bend in each direction. We also worked a little bit on just being responsive to the aids. I didn't care if he maintained it or if he was just being a little more forward, just that he responded at all. He got lots of praise! I also asked him to very briefly canter in each direction for 3/4 of a large circle. Not caring if he was on the bit or anything, just wondering if that might loosen him up.

Set 2: Lateral Work + Lengthenings

On Saturday I had played with an exercise where we'd do some lateral work down the long sides of the arena and then we'd straighten, counter flex, and lengthen on the short sides. I figure that this will help him with his straightness, as well as give him confidence that when I ask him to go forward I'm not going to just chase him endlessly. And it works well with my plan to not ask him to do as hard of work when he's moving forward and to ask him to work a little harder if he's moving slower. 

Set 3: Shallow Loop + 15m Circles

For this exercise, I really wanted to test the connection and the coordination of his hind legs after priming him to be more aware of them from the second set. We did shallow loops down the longside and then every other loop, we'd ride a 15 meter circle at the top of the arena. It was a good way for me to really focus on the way that he used his hind legs and not to just shove them around, and it was good to see how he used himself on the 15 meter circle too. We also did a couple of long diagonals in a lengthened trot, since he was starting to kind of feel himself during this exercise and he seemed to think those were fun!

Such a fun day

Set 4: 10-10-10 Canter Trot Transitions

I decided to take a bit of a risk and do more cantering this ride. In the past, the canter was a source of a lot of balking. About half the time I asked last year, he'd either buck in place, run sideways, kick at my leg, or just stop and stick his head straight up in the air. So throughout this rehab, I've avoided cantering him too much. 

However, one of his favorite exercises (and mine too) was this 10-10-10 exercise I love for unresponsive horses. You trot for 10 strides, then canter for 10 strides, then trot for 10 strides, and so on. The goal is to get EXACTLY ten strides, no more no less. With Rico, and TC in the past, I'd then start to lower the numbers, so trot for 9 strides, canter for 9 strides, and so on. Rico was able to do this at like 2-3 strides, which is CRAZY to think about now! TC would consistently be able to do maybe 6? I forget to be honest. 

He super lit up in this exercise, and so did I. I actually had to half halt him at the trot, and sometimes he'd even slip into canter early. To the right, we were dead on accurate, but to the left he was a little reluctant to do all 10 canter strides. I made it a rule not to get after him about that, just to bring him to trot and start the counting again. 

I didn't have him do this the entire 2 minutes 15 seconds in each direction, I ended up doing maybe 3-4 of them and then keeping him in trot, mostly just working on large figures and enjoying how forward he was (and praising him for it!). 

The ranch is so casually beautiful

It was the best ride we've had in SO long! I felt like we could really work on things the two of us together rather than it being me against him trying to convince him to be forward and him trying to convince me to not make him be forward. 

The best part was how much he seemed to enjoy it too. Not just the last set, but the entire time he seemed really mentally engaged with the work. I can't remember when he was last like that with dressage work. During our foray into jumping last winter, I felt like I had that back, but then things got bad again. Hopefully this can be maintained through the winter and into next year! 

TC got to meet the neighbor's new pig after our
ride and he was SO excited (he actually scared
the pig at first by charging up to it)

I'll ride him again today and hopefully we can replicate some of this good work. And then Christmas Eve I'm planning on doing some groundwork in the barn (maybe targeting his butt cheeks again) since it will be raining all day. And Christmas Day I'm at my aunts' house all day which is convenient because it's going to rain all day again. I think it's alright if he gets a couple of days off after all of that work! 

My plan is to still get his neck injected and maybe talk to the vet about how he uses his right hind. I'm kind of thinking that an SI injection might not be a bad idea? I want to figure out how many joints is possible with what is leftover after the initial injections last month and prioritize them. We can always pull more blood but again I'm trying to take this slow! 

Slowing Down + Adding Lateral Work

TC has been pretty good this week! I'm still kind of experimenting with things to get us on the same page. After watching the last video I took (trying to take them every week), I noticed that when I thought he was forward enough, he was borderline running past his balance. 

He's always looked different than he feels to ride, which has been a struggle for me in the past (and now!). He looks more forward, more active, more responsive than he feels, and I've had instructors tell me to slow down when he feels like he's barely moving. 

I know a lot of this comes down to responsiveness, and in the past I've basically just added tension to get that responsiveness, and I'd rather not do that this time around.

TC likes to stop to say hi to Rico

Another big part of why I want to run him off his feet is the balking. The big thing I'm looking to feel is a commitment to moving forward without having the feeling that in the back of his mind he's waiting to stop. One way I was able to combat this when riding him before was to run him off balance so that it was harder for him to stop, then he felt like he was forward! Because he couldn't not be forward. But that was not conducive to collection and that's where things started to get really hard for us. 

And I think this is really making the balking worse because he is probably uncomfortable being that off balance, so he wants to slow down to catch his balance, and then I say no I need you to be forward. It's also not fully accepting the aids if the horse literally has no choice but to do the thing. Like if you slap a horse in draw reins, is he actually accepting the aids? Or is there no other choice? I need to give him the chance to balk in order to fix the balking. 

His neck looks great!

So in my recent rides, I've been challenging myself to ride slower. At the walk, I've been playing with some lateral work, asking him to take slow, deliberate steps. My goal is to make the steps more active, but for now I'm not working on that so much. We do straighten and march forward, but in the actual lateral work, I'm not hurrying him. 

Then in the trot, we trot slowly, but we trot slowly and we do harder work, like some lateral work or smaller circles. Then we straighten and we go more forward and he gets a LOT of praise. And then we slow down again (my choice) and he has to work harder, not super hard, just a little harder. 

In my last ride (yesterday), it did seem to help a bit? He definitely got to a more rideable place a little faster than usual, although I did ride earlier in the day. We were able to do a few fun exercises. The first was to do haunches-in at the trot to the right, I'm really working to get him comfortable bringing his right hind away from his body and to engage his left hind and he gave me some really good steps! Nothing too fancy or carrying, just mechanically good steps. And then to the left, we worked on some shoulder-in to renvers (again just like, the smallest amount of angle) and that was great. 

Rico did come over, TC was more
excited than he was though lol

As things got better in the ride, we did a little lateral work down the long side in a slower trot, then on the short sides, I'd counter bend him (not too much, just enough where his body was straighter than the line he was on) and ask him to lengthen his stride a little bit. 

We DID have two balks though. One was tracking left during a walk to trot transition, this was a really popular balking moment for him in the past, so it was not unexpected. I've been really fair (I think) about asking him to trot. I first ask with my leg + voice, then wait, if he doesn't trot, I ask again with my leg + voice and wait. Then if I have to ask a third time, that's when I escalate with my tiny spurs until he goes. 

When I do escalate, I make sure that he's MOVING but then I half halt back to the trot that I had wanted in the first place (vs continuing to chase him) - essentially he has to work much harder to get to the trot I was asking for than he would have had to if he'd just picked up trot. That time to the left, I got to the second ask and I felt him suck back. So that's the start of the balk, not just him ignoring me or taking his sweet time trotting. But once I escalated, he got moving pretty quickly after it, so not a bad balk like before! 

The lighting was weird, but TC is so
cute with him

The second one was during trot in another classic area. To the right in this one corner of the arena, we turn to go "uphill" and by uphill, I mean that my arena is a 1% grade, it's not actually truly uphill. This is a place where he likes to stall out and start hover trotting, so as we came around the corner, I asked him to please move a bit more forward. Instead, he threw himself through his right shoulder and darted inward, and when I put my leg on, he sucked back and went more sideways. This is pretty classic setup for a balk for him - I ask for forward, he contorts his body and then becomes ANGRY with me for expecting him to go forward from such a crooked place. But if I block him from becoming crooked, he balks really hard (head straight up, refusing to take a step forward) and becomes ANGRY with me for blocking him because obviously he's really just trying to go forward and needs to shift his weight to do so. 

For that one, again I escalated and then he was totally fine. I do think the spurs are a much better choice than the whip. I wish I'd switched a while ago. The whip sometimes would cause him to buck and that's something he can do... while balking. So I think I'm going to keep the spurs and just carry the whip for lighter aids like asking him to remember that he has hind legs. 

This is what I feel like at work AND
with TC right now lol

I was a little disappointed with the balking (although it really wasn't bad), and of course I considered overthinking it. But I did make a conscious decision to ride him slower and put him at risk of balking. I do think that's the right call. My hope is to give him confidence that I'm not going to run him past his balance, and to get me recalibrated to develop the feeling of forward from a more appropriate stride length. And unfortunately there will be times where his muscle memory takes over. 

And maybe there IS pain there, I will be scheduling him for injections again in February and we'll do the last things on our laundry list. But so far I feel comfortable pushing him a little bit up until that appointment (which is only like, three and a half weeks of riding since I'll be gone for a lot of January - and at least one of those weeks it will be pouring rain so it's pretty minimal work) to find out whether we can get through this. 

But by the end of the ride, he felt great. He was happily pretty forward (for him), we ended on a fabulous note of him doing some lateral work with me being able to actually half halt him to rebalance him, and he was super pleased at the end of the ride with his ears forward and happily marching out on the tracks to go home. 

WW: Photography (No Birds I Promise)

I have a LOT of pictures I haven't shared on this blog since I haven't really been around. I thought I'd share some of the non-bird photography I've taken in the past couple of years since getting my camera in this post. 

Sensorio

Went to a show to watch some friends compete and
we made it over to this amazing light... garden?

So cool how it was set up

It was so beautiful

Yosemite Firefall

I was SO lucky to get invited to the Yosemite
firefall last year with some coworkers

Maybe I'll get to go again this year! Although I
might be traveling while it's happening

Around the Ranch

When I got the camera I took some pictures at
the ranch

I really love this tree

The barn is so pretty too

Black Background Photos

He made this so easy, he is such
a ham that he loved having his
picture taken AND he is white so
editing him is way easier

This was also when he was so fat

Obviously smiling

This guy was so annoying, no
offense Rico, but he was not into
it, but I got this cute one of me
giving up and just standing with him

And this one of him looking pissed
off that I made him do a trick
(even though I didn't make him, I
think he just realized I wanted him
to do something)

Palo Alto Baylands + Shoreline Lake

Where I normally go to find birds, but early on I
also took landscapes there too

There's an airport nearby, it's where all the tech
execs keep their planes lol

And the lake, did you know that Silicon Valley had
a lake like, minutes from the Google HQ? I didn't
until I followed some birds there

Michigan - Houghton & Marquette

I loved Houghton so much, especially this bridge

It rained so I went into town and wandered around

The bridge again

I really like this one

Then some pine needles in Marquette

Marquette again, I love this place too

And the bridge over the lagoon
that leads to Lake Superior at
my dad's cousin's place in MQT

That's probably quite enough! And I really don't have much else aside from some landscapes I took at a photography workshop. I really do mostly take pictures of birds. 

Crooked Pipe Cleaner

I rode TC a few times over the weekend and it went super well! And now that things are actually happening, I feel like I have more to say on this blog. 

Today I want to talk more about TC's hind end mechanic that Kate pointed out. I had more time to think about it and ride him through it over the weekend and it has really connected the dots for me. 

On Saturday we went on the trails!

As a recap, TC has this odd mechanic in his hind end where his right hind will sweep inward under his body, stiffen against the ground, and then his left hind "pole vaults" over his right hind and appears to be stepping short as he unloads his right hind early. 

There are three other things that I think are relevant to this: 

1. When TC pees, he cocks his left hip rather than stretching out evenly on both hind legs.

2. TC has had a "weak" left stifle, where if he doesn't get enough hill work for 4-6 months, he will go hopping lame on his left hind (stifle ultrasounds clear + hasn't happened in a long time)

3. When grooming, TC often lifts his right hind and wants me to scratch it in a location I clearly am not able to reach (I've long thought this was sciatica)

In addition, TC has the following kind of odd patterns undersaddle:

- Lateral work has been historically difficult for him, especially haunches-in (in both directions, but especially in one direction but I can't remember which one)

- He wants to fall out over his right shoulder, especially tracking left, if you block him from doing this, this is when the balking is the worst

- He struggles more to bend to the right, he would rather fold his neck in at the base than really bend through his body, if he can't fold at the neck, he'd rather bend the other way

- When tracking right, if he thinks we might change directions and go left, he throws his right shoulder aggressively inward, shortening his neck so that he can look the other way 

- His left canter has been tougher to pick up, but his right canter has/had this weird dropping/retraction of the base of his neck in the downbeat that is super odd to me 

Not into the view that day

One of the things I've been thinking a lot about is like... I don't necessarily have to know why it happened, I just have to see the pattern, recognize the pattern, and change the pattern. I tried to figure out the WHY behind my hip injury, but that didn't really help me at all in recovering. Instead, we figured out what made it hurt, what didn't make it hurt, what structures were weak (so I could strengthen them) and what were tight (so I could loosen them). And now I'm much better, and 0% closer to understanding what caused it. 

So for TC, I don't want to chase the why, I've spent a LOT of time doing that. I think all of the above are related, certainly. But I don't care what caused what or if there is a secret other thing that caused all of it. I care about fixing it. 

It's hard to get him to stand still for conformation
shots generally, but this is where he is right now

How to fix it though. Well, I'm starting with where we are at now - sweeping the leg, stiffening it, pole vault. And then considering where I'd like it to be - taking weight more evenly behind, lowering the right hip when tracking right, reaching with the left hind. And finally, trying to connect the dots so that it's a clear path forward for both of us. Mostly to prevent me from asking for too much too soon and him from getting defensive. 

My first steps I think are to get him tracking straight in a straight line and in order to do that, I need him stepping up into both reins evenly and willingly. That will help me gain more influence over him and start to feel where the weaknesses are in his body. 

After that, I think my goal is to address the bending weirdness. Normally I'd want to address that in a circle, but given how much he can pole vault on a circle, I decided to stick with the shallow loops Kate had suggested after our first ride. This way I can work on my feel for when he does this, since I really have no feel for it after all these years with him doing it. It just kinda feels like him. 

I took video with Pivo in the corner, the video
quality is TERRIBLE so I'll be looking into a
different location. My goal is to take video once
per week to check in

From there, we can move onto circles, and also some bending exercises. Eventually I want to reintroduce lateral work in a way that encourages him to take weight on his right hind and to also encourage him to step through with his left hind. But I think all of that right now would be way too much for him and it would be counter productive. I think if I make the work too hard for him, he's going to immediately fall back on old patterns. I mean, same, it literally took me 9 months to rebuild my squat, and most of those 9 months were spent with the 45lb bar and a band around my legs. But hey, once I could squat pain free like that, I packed on the pounds way faster than I thought. 

And I think that's why the connection piece is so important - I've got to have more influence over him in a way where I can actually feel what is going on. And he's got to give me some of his body to actually influence and learn that it will be fun and not excessively difficult. 

He felt better than he looked, but he looked better
than he did on Monday

Anyway, we've started this protocol, mostly working on the connection to start, and it's going well! I definitely felt some progress over the weekend, with the connection piece coming earlier in our rides and more consistent. And our shallow loops feel much better and more controllable laterally. My primary mantra has been "even into both reins from both hind legs," focusing more on the channel between his left hind and left rein and his right hind and right rein, rather than imagining an X over his body (left hind to right rein and right hind to left rein) which I think is too sophisticated for us right now (and would encourage the pole vaulting). 

When turning right, I've encouraged his hind end to stay a little to the inside of the turn, since he tends to fall in with his shoulder and twist his hind end out. We've also worked a lot on flexion to the inside, rather than folding the neck. And to the left, I'm making sure that my outside leg (right leg) isn't too far back, since that's something I like to do that definitely makes this worse. I'm also riding him a little straighter than normal this direction so that I can keep him weighting both shoulders evenly. 

The forward is still tough, but it definitely improves by the end of the ride and I'm working a lot on actually STAYING to the outside of him rather than trying to connect to him by meeting him where he is, since when I do that, he seems to wilt away from me. That's super hard since I want to just get in there and ride him. But it's been really helpful to focus completely on drawing him out to me rather than me sinking into him. It takes longer, but it does work and he will step out to meet my aids by the end of the ride. And then he gets lots of praise! 

Still a long way to go but definitely a better shape
than our first ride

Again, I could lament about how long this will take, or how much is still wrong. But in September when I went to the vet, I wasn't sure I'd get this feeling again. Not just how he feels to ride, but the feeling of looking forward to riding and working on all this stuff. I'd kind of been concerned that the partnership between us had been broken, and that even if he felt better, I wouldn't have the patience to work through all the baggage and behavioral stuff with him and we'd backslide. So it's great to feel like this so soon after getting back undersaddle. 

I only have four more weeks left before I leave the country for three weeks. Previously I was like... a little bummed I'd miss three weeks of potential rehab, mostly in the sense that I'm worried he'll gain weight or whatever. But now I'm bummed because I'm genuinely going to miss riding during that time!