Rally Report! (Plus extra training thoughts)

Well, I have a little less than a month to go before the Mega-Rating where I'll take my C-1. It shouldn't be too terribly challenging, but it's more of a challenge than my D-3. The real question will come if I decide to take my C-2 next spring, because the level of riding and knowledge expected for it is more than what I have right now. But, you know me, I love a good challenge.

I really had to DRAG myself out to the barn yesterday. I was very tired from the rally. But, I did it, and I had a great ride. Pandora was on her best behavior and we rode in the outdoor - it was the absolute PERFECT temperature for riding, and there was a beautiful sunset too.

With all the hard work we've put in, Pandora has become much more responsive to lateral work. We still are just not getting that left bend at the trot - she tilts her face to the outside and leans in over her inside shoulder while swinging her haunches out. I have also noticed that in halt and reinback, she tends to blow her haunches out through my right leg/rein. So it's all symptoms of the same problem, and I just need to figure out what the problem is. Strength in her hind end, I'm guessing - the right leg since it's the one she ignores, or the left leg since that's the one she swings out to unload? Don't know.
Either way, the more lateral strengthening work we do, the better it will get, I'm sure. In fact, I think general strengthening will be a big help. I'm hoping to make it over to Elijah Bristow, a state park with horse trails about 10 minutes from our barn, to do some riding and conditioning. Event horses need to go over terrain, after all, and there's nothing for building strength like riding over hill and dale.

On the plus side, she can hold the correct bend at the walk. So we do a lot of walk-trot transitions on the 20-m circle, trying to hold her in the bend as I transition up. I can actually feel her lean into my inside leg as she makes the upward transition. It gets worse as she gets tired, but I'm thinking that maybe if I do this, I will be able to hold her in the correct bend for a few strides, so both of us can at least understand what it feels like to do it right.

She gets excited about the canter transitions too. But, I got some good ones. I am trying everything I can think of to keep her engaged and working hard off her hind end, like a 20-m circle with transitions from trot-canter-trot-canter-trot-walk-canter-trot-canter-walk...etc. It gets her a little riled up, but she carries herself better. Walk-canters are hard, but Brian had us doing them at the clinic I went to last weekend, and it really helped my half-halts and Pandora carrying herself. I struggle with that, because we're not near good enough to do proper dressage walk-canters, but even our attempts are helping with strength and carrying...chicken-and-egg, I suppose.

Anyway, lots to work on. There's a nearby dressage trainer I want to try taking lessons with. A friend's ridden with her before. If all goes well, I'm hoping to take a lesson every other week for several months throughout fall and winter, if I can swing it. We are just at the point in dressage where I don't know what to do next, as I've mentioned several times before.

Then, I was thinking about maybe trailering to Inavale for stadium and XC lessons with Brooke as we move from winter to spring, because I could certainly use some of those, and I click really well with Brooke no matter which horse I'm riding. Brooke is $40/hour for a private lesson, and the dressage lady is $35 for a private lesson (don't know how long it is). I think I can do it, it's only an extra $70-80 per month if I don't overlap too much with the two kinds of lessons.


I'm funny about lessons. I take a bunch and learn a lot, but if I go on too long, I develop this overpowering need to go home and work on things on my own. I need time to take what I've learned and digest it by myself, working through the exercises and awareness that I've taken away. I did that for most of the summer - I took a LOT of lessons early summer and then I really needed to go home and figure some things out for myself. It's been good for me, because focusing so hard on how to fix this left bend has made me incredibly more aware of what Pandora does with her body and why.
But, now I'm at the stage where I want and need another round of lessons. I'm at the limits of my experience, so I need a pair of educated eyes to help take us to the next level. I think with some quality, one-on-one instruction this year (I've found consistent, individual lessons seem to help much more than group lessons with rotating instructors, at least for what I want right now), I should be able to easily meet my goal of competing Novice next year and maybe taking my C-2.


ANYWAY.


The rally was wonderful. We got 8th place riding-wise (an E for one of our riders on XC really hurt us, plus a few stops and time penalties here and there), but we got 3rd place in Horse Management! I was extremely proud of our team because that's certainly the best we've done since I've been a member. I told everyone on the team that I wanted to do really well in HM, and they all got psyched about it - everyone chipped in to help keep our tack room clean and organized, stalls picked, etc. As the weekend went on I think we all got tired and let some things slip, which may have cost us a higher placing, but oh well!
It was my first time as Stable Manager, so now I know a lot more. I learned that it's easy to drop a lot of needless points on safety checks, as they will dock a point for a not-quite-tight-enough girth, a crooked noseband, a strap not through its keeper, and the like.

Still, I had a great time. The facility was gorgeous - it is the same place where the Mega Ratings are held. She has 78 acres there, wow. Lots if it is in a big open field with BN through T sized fences, and I really hope we get to go in THAT field for the rating next month instead of the little field we did the rating in last time!

I was glad I wasn't riding, because it was much easier to take care of all the riders than to deal with my own horse and equipment, but I admit I was itching to get out there on XC. There were some Training-level fences that looked like a blast to jump, including a section of trunk on a huge fallen tree. Next year, maybe!

Okay, enough for the day. I am writing the clinic report (probably even as you read this!) and it'll be posted tomorrow.

Old Faithful

Last night I went out to the barn knowing just what I needed after a couple bad rides.

I needed to ride McKinna.

First, I longed Pandora, because I wanted to get her moving after yesterday's tough workout. She was fine. A little spazzy - I had two ground poles out, one on each side of a 20m circle, and the first few times she did some leaping and hopping and general silliness. On the plus side, when she jumped over the ground poles she looked nice and pretty! Ha. Anyway, she settled down, I got about 20 minutes of nice solid relaxed work, then put her away. Today I'm going to focus on having a short, positive ride.

Then I went to ride the Wonder Pony. She has a knack for dealing out what you can take - what her rider needs isn't necessarily always a quiet, calm ride, so sometimes she challenges you. But last night I needed some quiet time. It felt like from the moment I took her out of the stall, she was just taking deep breaths, relaxed and ready to calm me down. (Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing. Sue me.) She was very quiet in the cross-ties, fairly unusual for Ms. Fidget.

My whole ride was just that: quiet, calm, relaxed. I worked on some dressage with her - some baby lengthening and shortening at the trot, just holding her in with abs and seat and then relaxing and letting her surge forward. Fun stuff. I tried it at the canter, but when she's not cantered regularly under saddle she loses a lot of her canter adjustability. Still, I got a fairly good canter, considering I haven't really ridden her since my rating.

Then I tried this turn-on-the-forehand-in-motion exercise with her. Basically, it's like you're leg-yielding around a circle....so, your horse is the spoke in a wheel, and both forelegs and hind legs must move over and cross over as you rotate. A bent sidepass? A sidepass on a curved line, instead of a straight line? Yes.

Anyway, I tried that exercise with Pandora the night of my bad dressage ride, and she wasn't having any of it. I think it was very, very hard for her: she couldn't seem to coordinate the motions, no matter how big or small I had the circle. She especially struggled with crossing her forelegs over without moving forwards or backwards. (Also I think it was a tough exercise to throw at her on a day she was feeling unfocused: I'm going to break that exercise down into smaller pieces to incorporate into our normal workout, THEN try the exercise again.)

McKinna nailed the exercise, first try, easy as cake. "What are we doing now? Oh, okay, this is kinda cool, I get it." The mare is so darned supple it's ridiculous - when I had the chiropractor adjust her a long time ago, she practically folded in half on one of the stretches. When the farrier's trimming, she could hike her hind leg up to her ears and probably still stand there casually, looking around for some hay.

I should make more time to ride them both. McKinna is great fun to ride and I would really like to make some dressage progress with her, too. With her, the main issue is a strong rein connection without a super-high neck, but I have the suspicion that most lateral work would be a breeze once we established a good connection.

Oh, and for your viewing pleasure, some (fairly low-quality) pictures from the jumping lesson. You can't see all her boots but you sure can see that fly bonnet! My mom took these with her cell phone, so the timing of the jumping picture is especially impressive.

Please ignore the dorky XC-vest-over-tanktop look. It was hot.

Whooosh. Look, she CAN reach out in the trot!

Pretty good jumping - except for her hanging knee - considering she was flying through the grid. My seat and heels are up because I was bracing with my back and thighs, but at least I'm following her mouth nicely.

Thanks for all the helpful comments on that last post. I'm sure we'll get back on track today and I will go back to the quiet, constructive rides we had been having.

Difficulties

Horses work in funny ways.

Usually if I'm in a good mood, I have a good ride. Or maybe it's just that I pretty much always have good rides on Pandora, so I'm always in a good mood when I go to ride. Something I fully appreciate, let me tell you - a 'bad' ride on Pandora probably would have qualified as an 'okay' ride on Bailey.

Anyway.

With all the thinking I've been doing lately (see my last post, whose great length and slight disorganization characterize my mind), one would assume I'd be having extraordinary rides. New ideas, new exercises, new perspectives! Well, yes, I did have one fantastic ride and a few pretty darn good ones.

Then, probably just to remind me that you can't always win, I had two pretty bad rides in a row. The first was Tuesday. There wasn't really any reason for it - I was in a good mood, I was full of new ideas, etc. Pandora just wasn't focused on me, and for whatever reason we just kept getting into small arguments with each other. Most of the blame lies with me, of course - the horse can't argue if you don't agree to argue. I was getting frustrated in a way that I haven't for a long time, either because I've gotten a lot better at being patient or just because my horse is awesome. I like to think it's mostly the former, but in reality it's probably mostly the latter. Anyway, I only meant to ride for a half hour but it ended up being an hour, and I just could not find a good note to end on, where I felt like she was really tuned in to me and listening.

Very frustrating.

Then last night, I set up a jumping lesson with one of the ladies who lives across the street from the boarding barn. Her hay field is all hayed and nice and she's got lots of jumps set up, so I wanted to take advantage of it while I still could. (We move to the new barn in two days!)

So, yay, jumping lesson. I have to say, Pandora looks amazingly cute when she's all suited up. Front boots, back boots, bell boots, FLY BONNET. Yes. I don't usually boot up that much for just plain old stadium jumping, but I figured since it was outside, I should err on the side of caution.

Our warmup on the flat went just fine. Then we started some gridwork. I warned my instructor that she was probably going to get strong, and the instructor said to just not worry about it and let her make her own mistakes. Well, she did get strong, and I did let her make her own mistakes as we continued to build up each element of the grid from ground pole to cross-rail, until I finally said, "Okay - I need to do some schooling in the middle of this grid, because she is just acting downright dangerous." She goes too fast and she completely took out a fence. Argh.

So I schooled her hard. Walk halt. Trot halt. Walk trot halt back. Trot halt back. Canter halt back. Walk trot canter halt. And so on. I was not polite about it: I want a stop and I want it when I say I want it.

So then we tried the grid again, and I gave her a very strong half-halt after the first fence. Definitely got through to her. So, we never quite got the gridwork perfect, but at least she wasn't charging through like an idiot, and she actually added the stride at the very end instead of launching herself.

Then we moved on to coursework, where she proceeded to try to run like a bat out of hell. Approaching fences wasn't too bad, but on the landing side she was just ridiculous. Completely ignoring half-halts. It wasn't like she was trying to bolt - she was just, I don't know, either excited or anxious or something, and she was completely tuning me out. I hate that.

So I did some serious schooling there, too. We trotted all the fences. Instructor had me exhale and give her the reins a few strides before the fence, which did help on the approach - she definitely likes room to breathe. But then on the landing side she'd still launch and ignore polite or strong half-halts, so I'd fight her back. I'd ask for a halt from the canter and she'd completely tune me out, so I would have to seesaw on her face, which I absolutely hate doing. I can't even tell you how much I hate doing that - it makes me sick to think about it. She throws her head up, and I can see her tongue stick out the side of her mouth. But there was really nothing else for me to do at that point other than get the point across.

We made some progress on that before we decided to call it quits for the day, as it'd been a pretty long lesson.




So it got me thinking about this sort of thing. After all, I've been thinking so much lately my head's about to explode, so what should I do but think more?

I get so easily discouraged with Pandora. Probably, again, because she's so good-natured that 99% of the time I have a pretty good ride on her. So when things really do go south, I start running through all those familiar self-doubt thought patterns. I try to break it, and usually I succeed, because logically I know that this is not the end of our training success. But it's difficult to avoid thinking that. I mentioned this in the Lily Glen post - one admittedly disastrous stadium lesson, and I was frantically rethinking every aspect of my riding with her. A couple hours later, I had a lovely dressage lesson and my fears were assuaged.

Speaking of dressage...

For some reason, Dressage is just this big ol' mysterious THING to me. It's a vast discipline with lots of history and everyone thinks they're right and there's shortcuts and all kinds of ways to do it wrong, and all I want to do is just do it right. Hard to do without an instructor, but then there's plenty of people who hang up a shingle as a dressage instructor but teach their students to just use a headset.

It should be a methodical, step-by-step process. You build the base, and you go up from there. I am getting it, slowly. Like I said, all of this minor freaking out is probably just from my bad rides the past few days. I'll have a good ride this weekend and quit worrying.

I am making progress, though. She's super nicely forward in all gaits. If I remember to back my leg up with the whip if necessary when I ask for a canter, she's liable to surge forward in a beautiful transition. I'm starting to make progress, or at least develop an understanding, with her current evasions. I know that she swings those haunches to the right when we track left, therefore avoiding loading up that left hind leg. I know I need to work systematically to supple her shoulders and hips and strengthen that left hind. I have the tools and the exercises. I even have the eyes on the ground, sometimes, because if I ask nicely my mom will watch me to tell me if Pandora is crossing over correctly or maybe even take a video.

I read a lot. I have lots of ideas swimming around in my head, tools to gymnastically develop her and sharpen her mental focus. Leg-yields around a circle, something that proved extremely challenging and frustrating for both of us last night. "Ping-pong" exercises, sending her back and forth between the sides. Shoulders-in, leg yields down the wall, trot poles, spiraling circles, transitions, turns on the forehand.

I have a plan, too. There's a lady in the area who gives dressage lessons occasionally to the Pony Club. She refuses to take payment but, from what I understand, she is also not interested in becoming a paid trainer at all, mainly (I think) because she doesn't want the time commitment. In my head I am working on a perfect speech where I will ask her to please make an exception for me, just give me weekly or twice-monthly lessons for a few months this winter and I will pay you or clean your stalls or make you dinner or what-have-you. I am hoping this will work, because some focused regular instruction for a short period of time should make a big difference.

I have a plan for the jumping difficulties as well. I am going to break that down further, too. I could just say, "She's running through my hands when we're outside so I need a stronger bit." It's tempting, and I admit the thought crossed my mind several times last night. And I'm not completely against bitting up, sometime, if it becomes clear that even with careful training she ignores her snaffle. But I don't think that's the issue here, so I plan to fix it a different way.

There's a grassy area at the new barn outside where I plan on schooling in full jumping tack. First we'll just do flatwork, nice and calm, including crisp downward transitions and immediate half-halts. Then I'll add some ground poles and work through them while expecting calmness and the same responses to aids. Then I'll add a little cross-rail or two. Etc. Until we can go through a several-fence grid out there or jump a few fences in a row without losing the brain. Most importantly to me, I can do all of this work calmly and gently, taking things gradually, so I never have to fight hard with her or hurt her or damage her trust in me by getting rough with the reins.

This is the way I prefer to train. That horrendous ride last night showed me where the big training hole exists; now, on my own, I get to take things calmly and quietly and build each piece so that we don't have to have any huge fights about it. I'll start where she can already do what I ask, i.e., flatwork outside calmly. Then I'll slowly build things up and establish the comfort level along the way.

So, you see, I face difficulties. Most of them are in my head. But I know that, and I'm working hard to get through them, and despite my frustration there is also a very dangerous sort of joy I take in working these things out for myself. Because as we resolve these challenges, I get to say to myself -- see? I worked that out. I put in the time, and the studying, and the effort, and the understanding, and together my horse and I overcame this obstacle on our own.

Just so you know, it is my goal to come out blazing at Novice level next spring. To do this I will work very hard but I am really looking forward to some serious, thoughtful, quiet dressage work this winter. It will be between me and my horse, and with a little luck occasionally with that trainer. It will be careful and methodical. I just know that if I break this down into piece by little piece, I will be able to stack them all together and come into Spring with a capability to perform something that looks curiously like real-for-real dressage.


Whew, another long post. I'll get back to you sometime soon with something a little more bite-sized. Just feeling stressed about the bad rides and I'm anxious to start working on our challenges so we can establish our positive relationship again. Planning on giving her a light day today and just longeing her, but I'll ride tomorrow and make darn sure it's a short and sweet one!

Lily Glen: Days 1 - 2

By Tuesday night, everything was loaded in the trailer tack room. As in, we fit all the equipment for five days of horse camping for two girls and two horses, including three MONSTROUS bales of hay plus one smaller one, inside a normal trailer-sized tack room. It was a triumph of engineering, let me tell you.

Anyway, after a fairly long and uneventful drive, we pulled into the campground. Lily Glen is an absolutely beautiful place.


It's kind of a sad story, actually. Lily Glen is actually public land, donated awhile ago by someone. From what I understand, Lily Glen used to be the premier recognized event in Oregon - for a time, the ONLY recognized event. The course went up to Intermediate. A few years of terrible flooding essentially ruined it, destroyed the footing and the courses. A big old barn, kind of a landmark, burned down - lots of people donated their time and money to rebuild and restore it, and the new one burned down too.

Noble Riders Pony Club is working very hard to build up the course again. They've added several new cross-country fences each year, and right now the course goes up to Novice. I hope someday it can be a recognized event again, but we'll see. It's so sad to walk by the broken-down ruins of these old, huge fences, big hanging logs, skinnies, water complexes.

But, I was there to ride and have fun at camp.

Over the course of the whole week, Pandora was just not very settled. Don't think she was a big fan of the whole openness. She didn't eat her grain very well, though she ate probably 80% of it, and didn't plow through hay like she normally does. On the other hand, she drank lots of water and didn't seem unhappy, just a bit on the tense side.

We of course breezed through the jogout on Wednesday night. Pandora was a bit nervous because of all the stuff going on, and I swear she grows about a hand when she's a tad spooky - she puffs up and it's very pretty to watch, though a little disconcerting to try to steer. Anyway, I got a compliment from the judge/inspector about my "lovely mare." Why yes, she is quite lovely!

First lesson on Thursday morning was XC. Pandora was hot to trot and OMG she looked adorable in her brand new red fly bonnet. I hope someone got pictures. It wasn't even a silly purchase, because she inherited typical sensitive TB skin and absolutely hates flies. Anyway.

Our warmup was just perfect for her. The whole group rode on a big circle, walking awhile, trotting for five minutes or so, then a little cantering. I'm learning that she just wants to get out there and move when we're in jumping mode, no stupid standing around or quiet walking or expecting her to trot slowly right off the bat. She just wants to get a forward, no-nonsense trot going, then I can start asking her to adjust or transition.

She jumped marvelously that day. She is developing a rather forward-but-not-rushing attitude to the fences, which I really enjoy. It's a blast to ride and she was jumping like a rockstar. The only times we get into trouble are when I think the instructors want something slower, so I pick, and she either fusses or chips the fence or both, so I just need to stop second-guessing and always ride nicely forward.

The instructor had a really nice tip, too, for horses who warm up pretty tense and stiff at the walk. She said to just put toe pressure on each stirrup, like you're pushing down a brake pedal, as each shoulder comes forward. Left, right, left, right. I'm not sure how exactly it works - I'm guessing the way it sort of imposes a gentle rocking on the horse's back - but it really seems to help them slow, relax, and stretch down, at least a little bit. I tried it a little at the trot and met with some moderate success there, too.

Our second lesson of the day was pacing. I expected, I don't know, marked-off sections of 100m each and tips on how to get and maintain your ideal pace, but we ended up going on a strange little trail ride for about 40 minutes, then she took us to a big loop and essentially told us how long it should take us to complete it at a certain speed. So, not particularly useful I guess, especially since I got lost the first time. The second time I wanted to aim for 350 meters per minute, a solid BN pace, so I asked and she said it should take 3:50. I held a steady canter through the woods, had to drop back to a trot for some tight switchbacks, and had to really hold her back on the open stretch at the end because she just wanted to FLY through it.

I still came in closer to 400mpm.

So, well, I know the dang horse can go fast. But I'll have to be careful not to gather speed faults on my BN courses, though I'm planning to ride Novice at the rec. HT next year if all goes well.

And thus concluded the first night.

My buddy and I went for a bareback hack, which was fun - we played in the water crossing, which Pandora was not a huge fan of (she hates deep mud, can't say I blame her) and cantered around a little. I almost fell off, because her canter got really bouncy at one point on a turn, but I just grabbed mane and hauled myself back on. Later in the week, we were headed down a mown path back towards camp when my buddy on her little QH mare picked up a canter. Well heaven forbid we walk when they're cantering, and trotting bareback is no fun, so I had to canter too.

Pandora has a much faster canter than my friend's mare, so we rather quickly passed them up, Pandora took a little leap over a shallow ditch, and we did a bit of an accidental bareback gallop towards camp. She pulled up pretty easily with a circle, and it was fun. Staying on is easy in a straight line!

The second day was, um, a little bit less spectacular. We started off with grids. Most of our problems, I'm pretty sure, came from a woefully not-ideal-for-Pandora warmup. The instructor had us get in a line and pick up a trot, then adjust our speed forward and back without breaking rank. Except, well, I was behind the my friend's mare - who has a nice trot and is capable of slooooowwwwwwwwwww when the instructor asks for slow - and so I had to be up in Pandora's face pretty much constantly - even in the forward trots - to keep from breaking rank or running up the pony's butt. Then she had us go straight into trotting grids.

Nope. Pandora was not having any of that. Definitely not a good warmup for her and by this point she was all wound up.

So then the instructor sets up a pole in front of a cross-rail, says we should be putting in two trot steps before the x-rail. So, because she said so, I tried to half-halt really strong to get the two steps, since I knew Pandora was really hot and would just want to leap the whole thing. Which was a bad idea, because she flipped her head and whacked me in the nose with her poll.

Which hurt, a lot.

Ugh. Basically, the rest of the lesson sucked and I had to work hard just to get her to trot calmly through some trot poles. She lost a lot of trust in me in the beginning because I fought with her so much and she had a crappy warmup, and I just couldn't get her back. Lesson learned, I guess, and I did carry away some ideas about how to control her with more seat than hand. And also the knowledge that even if I think an instructor wants a certain thing, I need to be careful not to compromise what I know simply will not work with my horse.

I was dreading our second lesson of the day, dressage. She's been a nutcase so far, so now I'm gonna ask her to be calm and quiet??

Much to my relief, and again with a much more suitable warmup, I had my horse back for this ride. She was pretty forward, but not ignoring me, and when we did some one-on-one instruction I got some reeeally nice work with a spiraling trot circle. The inside of the spiral was very difficult for her but it produced some very nice gaits, so I know that's something I need to practice.

It was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster of a day, to be honest. I am so used to everything always being calm and right with Pandora that when I have an awful lesson like our grids session, I start second-guessing practically everything. Is she right for me? Does she hate my bit? Is she feeling okay? Am I ever going to get her to relax? Is she developing bad habits that she's going to have forever? Is she getting hotter and hotter the longer I own her? And I just go round and round. I'm glad I had such a good dressage lesson about an hour later - it helped knock some sense into me and make me remember that it's not the end of the world if I have a bad ride. More on that later, I think, it's something I need to spend some time talking about.

Lots more to write about. I learned a lot and I don't think I can get it all down in just one or two posts! I keep remembering more to go back and add. Next I'll write about the last two days of camp, then talk about the horse management lessons we had while we were at camp.


PS, tomorrow I'm going to watch the upper-level XC at Inavale's recognized HT. I am SUPER excited!

A Fine and Pleasant Misery*: Part II

Here's a continuation of the Event Derby story. Sorry it's taken me so long, finals and packing and working has sucked up my time. The good news is, I'm OFFICIALLY done with my first year of college. Yeehaw!

I haven't ridden much lately for pretty much the same reasons I haven't been posting. Pandora has been acting on-edge a lot - not as bad as when she was in raging heat, but I free-longed her last night to blow off some steam and she was just going for it. Fingers crossed she settles down for Lily Glen.

Anyway, without further ado:

---

Ah, morning. A quarter to 8, to be precise. Birds chirping, horses nickering, grass waiting wetly outside to be tromped through. Which I do, promptly, to feed and water my horse, who has managed to drain two hay bags and two buckets of water overnight. Sigh.

It is satisfying when she nickers at the sight of me, though. I choose to ignore the fact that she nickered only the second time I approached, which was when I brought her hay.

I head out to the barn, correctly suspecting that our instructor won't quite be ready for the guided course walk at 8AM sharp. My pants are wet wet wet by the time I even get down to the barn, so I know the course walk is going to be hopeless. Thankfully I borrowed my mom's very waterproof boots, so my socks at least are dry. But everything else is, as usual, wet.

Our instructor is perky. This is because she has a cup of coffee in her hand, and also waterproof boots that are tall enough to keep her legs dry. The course walk, despite its sogginess, actually goes well. The course looks nice, though there are some rather tight turns for Beginner Novice. Then again, this is a hybrid between SJ and XC, so I suppose I should be glad there aren't any SJ-tight turns.

The course looks like this: the first three fences are a serpentine, two stadium fences and one rolltop. Then a right turn to a double stadium, hang a right to a fake trakehner (it was a little stadium vertical set down inside a shallow ditch), then up a longish hill to a little barn. Over the barn, pretty tight left-hand turn and down the hill to hop over a little ditch. Then an almost 90-degree left turn and a few strides to a little table with a pretty straight line to another bigger table. Loop awkwardly way left and then tight right to go through the water complex, then turn around the judge's mound for a turquoise stadium fence and another tight left to jump the Fence-3 rolltop in the other direction for the final fence.

It looks like a nice mix of fences, and I'll actually have some room in places to let Pandora move out a little. Some of the turns suck, but most of it should ride nicely.

My only concern is the footing. I'm not sure if you picked up on this, but everything out there is pretty darn soggy. Before my division goes, the turf has to withstand divisions of Prelim, Training, and Novice, most of them with studs. I can't stud because Pandora's not shod on hind, and you don't want to have more traction in front than in back. Barefoot should be okay, I just don't want her to slip and get anxious in the mud.

Anyway.

I make the long slow return to the tent and again change into breeches and half chaps to save my poor wet legs. Isn't it summer yet? Thankfully, breakfast is equally good as dinner: leftover pork chop in scrambled eggs. Yummmm. Delicious.

Then we need to scurry, because Prelim XC is from 10 - 10:15 and we want to see the big jumps! As expected, it's exciting and fun to watch. There are only three of them, and one accidentally jumps the (bigger) Intermediate trakehner instead of the Prelim one. The big E for her after she jumps her next fence, but cool to see.

So we head back, take care of some chores, check on the horse, and the like. My dressage ride time is at 1:12 and now, at last, I get to take a nap. Once again the sleeping bag is very comfortingly dry.

I wake up to the most welcome voices I have ever heard. My father has arrived in his shining white armor - okay, maybe more like a white t-shirt - with, praise the lords of Eventing, dry sweatpants and my rubber boots. And food, more food. I am thrilled beyond words. I am now warm, dry, and immune from the ever-present tall wet grass. My day has suddenly become several orders of magnitude better.

Just in time for me to tack up, of course, but it's the peace of mind that counts.

Pandora dislikes being tied to the trailer away from all other horses. She commences dancing around like an idiot, eyes wide and rolling, ears flicking all over the place, ignoring her hay bag. I get that familiar feeling that sits somewhere in the belly and goes "Oh, well, this ride is going to be fun." I tack up anyway, of course. After taking a moment to admire the vast expanse of white that is my brand-new dressage saddle pad, I mount up and head off to the [soggy, squishy, grass] warm-up area.

Happily, Pandora mellows out once I'm in the saddle. (Highly preferable to the opposite situation.) Our warm-up is, one might venture to say, nice. She relaxes and stretches into my hands. We have bend, we have transitions, we have obedience even in the slippery grass. How exciting.

Naturally, this all goes out the window once we get to the actual dressage court. Our test is tense. The 20-meter circle at A has been thoroughly pounded by all previous divisions and is not squishy but hard mud and therefore very slick. Pandora, who is paying more attention to the judge and letters than me or where she's putting her feet, has several minor slips until she's so nervous about the footing that her canter is short-strided and incredibly tense. We survive the test without any major mishaps and exit.

Oh well. At least the warm-up was good.

I never check my dressage score, but if I had, it would have been a 46.2 and we are in 6th place out of 9 or 10.

So we put the horse away, settle down for some food, etc. It has now progressed past cold and wet, through warm and wet, and everything is growing decidedly drier. It's a pleasant idea.

Anyway, I trudge out to the course like a good little Pony Clubber to walk the course one more time. Much to my surprise, it's dried out. A lot. Still a little questionable in places, but for the most part, it reasonably resembles solid ground. This is a good thing and it makes me a lot more comfortable about my impending round.

So I go get tacked up and hack out to the course.

(This was actually taken on the way BACK from the course, but oh well)

Now, Pandora likes short jumping warm-ups. As in, walk around for three or four minutes, trot for a minute, canter a bit, jump three or four jumps, and go in. Grand total 10 minutes or so. Therefore, I check in as soon as I'm in the warm-up area.

Obviously this would be a good time for someone to fall off and hold the course for 40 minutes.

She was okay, or I wouldn't complain. But still. I end up hopping off, because Pandora hates being sat on for that long and I hate sitting on her for that long. I mount up with a few minutes to go, walk a lap, pick up a canter, jump an oxer, make a neat tight turn around to a vertical, and call it good.

We head out to the course.

She wavers before the first fence, a big red and white vertical with a lot of stuff going on near it (water complexes, big hill with permanent fences, judge's area, spectators). I growl just a little and we get over nicely. Left turn to the second stadium vertical which rides really nicely. We loop around to our first XC fence, a tiny rolltop, which rides well.

I pick too much to the purple stadium combination so it's a bit ugly, but we get through okay. I give her a strong ride to the fake trakehner, convinced she's going to want to put her nose down in that ditch, but to my surprise it rides super smoothly. A bit more aggressive on the uphill, push the speed a little, then over a barn and a tight left turn to go downhill. She slipped a little on that turn, the only place on course - probably my fault for turning too tight, but she let it go quickly. Back to a trot down the hill - my downhill horse, who wants to stick her nose in every ditch and pull me onto her neck, is probably not the best horse to canter downhill to a ditch - and over the little ditch with no problems.

Then a tight turn to the line of tables, which she nails with no problem. Awkward long loop to the water complex, and after a bit of drop-the-outside-shoulder-skitter-sideways, we plunge through. Around left past the judge again and over a turquoise vertical, which was super ugly because we just got a weird distance and I stopped riding, then a tight left turn to the first rolltop again. That one rode super nicely.

And we're done, clear, and according to my father the announcer called it 2:30, which was one second under optimum time. Go us!

Everyone packs up, heads out, and we load everything up. I decide to head over to check on my score. And, to make a long story short, they'd given me 7 time penalties which I knew was incorrect. After yet another trek to the XC course, all is straightened out, my time penalties are removed to make me one of two clear rounds, and in the end I move up 5 places to take 2nd place.

Victory (or close to it) is so sweet.

*Again, I shamelessly stole this post title from a book by Patrick McManus of the same name. He is an outdoorsman and hilarious. I don't hunt or fish or much of anything, but I am still in awe of his humor. Horse camping, much like hunting and fishing and regular camping, is indeed a fine and pleasant misery.

Combined Test

Phew, what a great day I had at that Combined Test. Not only did I have a fantastic day, I knocked out practically all of my May goals in one fell swoop.

A Combined Test is sort of quasi-eventing, I guess. It's a schooling show with an eventing dressage test and then a stadium course. So, eventing minus the fun part ;)

Our dressage test was mediocre. In warmup, Pandora was beautiful - relaxed, stretching into my contact, bending nicely, transitioning nicely, completely ignoring all other horses and the very colorful jumps set up in the outdoor arena we were riding in. Once we got to the indoor arena to perform our test, it wasn't quite as good. She is not a big fan of the judge's box in any way shape or form, which is unfortunate since it's the first thing you ride straight towards! This tells me we need practice riding straight towards scary things and ignoring them.

She was distracted so we lost more 'forward' than I was expecting, at two times actually breaking gait for a step (though the judge only caught one of them). Distraction aside, it's still the best test I've ever had, the previous two horses preferring giraffe and motorcycle impressions. We ended with a 40.5 (eventing dressage - it's like golf, not bowling), tied for 5th place.

We had a few hours until my stadium ride, so we camped out at the trailer in style. Pandora had a big ol' haybag and a bucket of water, and we were in the shade about 15 feet away. Dad brought a little propane BBQ so we had cheeseburgers. Yum! We also brought our young dog, who behaved wonderfully. He hung out at the trailer with us, respected the horses, and played fetch with blades of grass when he got bored. No, seriously. I actually threw pieces of grass and he would bring them back. We have it on video.

I got on a bit too early to warm up for stadium. Well, if they had been running on time it would have been fine, but they were about a half-hour behind schedule. Pandora, I've discovered, loves about a 5 - 10 minute warmup for jumping. Get in, w/t/c, jump a couple fences, and call it good. When you do it that way, she's light and soft and springy and fantastic. Unfortunately I was on her a little longer than she would prefer, but once I dismounted and stood with her, she stood patiently. I hopped back on just before my round and it worked fine.

Our jumping round was awesome! The fences at Inavale are both beautiful and spooky, so I was worried we'd have some 'forward' issues. Not a chance. She didn't hesitate at a single fence! None of our distances turned out particularly well, which is my fault - I have only practiced jumping once in the last month and a half, so I think I've just lost a bit of feel for pace. I could tell that I needed to have her moving with a little bit bigger steps so we made better distances, but overall we had a smooth pace and a good clean round. I was very pleased with her - she was soft, controllable, easy to steer, and honest about the fences.

We ended up with 4th place. Hooray!

Then we got to the fun part!!

I headed out to school some XC. I can tell we need more practice at rating in general on a cross-country course, but we definitely have a good baseline. I hopped over some low fences, then came to the water complex expecting to have to patiently insist for the next 40 minutes that she really could take a step into the water.

It took about 40 seconds.

After a brief and halfhearted protest, she went straight in and splashed straight out the other side. I trotted in, she trotted through. The next time I trotted in, she picked up a canter as she stepped into the water and cantered through. This water comes almost up to her chest.

I guess I have a water horse!

After that I practiced hopping over some little tiny ditches (no problem), then put together a couple short courses for myself. By the time I finished, I'd pushed myself to go over some larger fences, like the house you see me jumping in the picture in the last post (I'm jumping the larger house in the middle, not the coop that's nearest the camera). Those fences were either maxed-out Novice or tiny tiny Training, but my money's on novice. Either way, they were pretty big, and when I finally talked myself into letting Pandora have a decent pace coming in, we stopped chipping in and got a good distance.

Seeing a pattern here? Need more pace, need a longer stride, need to let her go a little more...it's a good lesson for me to learn.

Overall it was a fantastic day and I love this girl more all the time. On Monday we're riding in a fun Hunter Pace/Foxhunt Derby, where you ride in teams around a set course but get to choose which height of fence you jump (if you jump at all). That'll be great because we can start out at our level and then pick a couple fences at Novice or small Training to jump too.

I will post this weekend with an overview of my summer horse plans. It's going to be an awesome summer!

A Good Day

I'm too tired to write a real post.

But, I was at a Combined Test (dressage and stadium) at Inavale today. We ended up with 4th place out of 10ish, then I got to go school XC.

It was a good day.

Here's a preview.

A Constructive Mindset

Trotting at Karen O'Neal clinic, 4/19/09

I've been thinking a little bit about what you can do when you ride with a constructive mindset.

Tuesday evening, it was raining hard. In the arena, it sounds loud, no matter how lightly the rain is falling. Pandora had some extra 'go.'

Normally my warmup is pretty relaxed. Walk a little, trot a little, bend a little. This time I decided I needed something to focus on. We started walking serpentines. On the straightaway, I insisted on, well, straightness. Even weight in both reins, even feel between the legs: straight.

It was harder than it sounds.

It felt like she was a pinball going back and forth, almost bouncing between the reins. After a few loops, she understood, and settled in nicely straight. I requested a forward, marching walk -- come on, girl, let's act like we have somewhere to be!

When we picked up the trot, she was feeling the Thoroughbred half of her breeding. That is, she was Forward. More so than she usually is, and more so than I'm usually comfortable riding. I tend to be a little bit of a control freak, because I had so little in the way of half-halts and speed control on my first horse. With Pandora, simply because I can control her momentum with half-halts, I do it too much.

But this time I decided to work with what she gave me. I took that energy and said, "Okay -- let's go." I asked for a big, powerful trot, then asked her to come back to me and compress her stride. I insisted on correct bend. I would push her forward through the corner, accelerate, then come back. We did some leg yields. When we picked up the canter to the good direction, she powered right into it. To the left was still a bit unbalanced, but I'll take what I can get.

The most important part of this was that I came into the ride with a constructive mindset. Sure, she was a little hot, and maybe she wasn't too focused when I mounted up. But I took what I had and I decided I would do something with it -- so we had a really nice ride.

It's important to me to take some benefit out of every ride, no matter how many things didn't go as planned.



I applied the same concept to a clinic I rode in this weekend.

We ended up spending two and a half hours in the saddle - probably an hour and a half in the arena, then another hour on cross country. The arena is beach sand. Lovely and soft, sure. But have you ever gone running on sand? It's hard work.

So I was already stressed about the demands on Pandora's fitness. I know, I worry too much, she's half TB anyway. But that made me a little tense to start with.

Then we rode forever and ever and ever. The clinician was great and had some really good advice, but sometimes it was unclear when we could give our horses a break and when we should keep going.

THEN we went outside. Between struggling to keep a tired Pandora up off her forehand, fighting with her about adequate brakes, and a little confusion about what exercise we were doing, I got pretty frustrated. I did keep my mouth shut and do what I was told, because the way I see it, you go to a clinic to learn, not to argue. ESPECIALLY not to complain that you're tired and so is your horse.

So I kept at it. And you know what? I got some really valuable lessons out of it. Towards the middle of the XC session, I finally understood what she was trying to get me to do with my hands and seat at the base of the fence (I was dropping Pandora, again, sigh). When I started riding right, Pandora started going very very well, as usual.

I found that, even after 2 hours of hard riding in the heat, when I was exhausted and my horse was pretty tired, I could still get around a course of obstacles without Pandora falling on her forehand -- provided I rode correctly.

That is GOOD knowledge to have. That means that when we've been riding for an hour, I know better than to think 'Oh, she's so tired, it'll be impossible to jump without falling on the forehand!'

Nuh uh. I need to start asking more of her. This is a big weakness of mine. I just don't push hard enough.



Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. There's always a valuable lesson out there, even if you're hot and sweaty and grumpy and tired ;)

Schooling Show

We went to a dressage schooling show on Sunday and my goodness, did it go well!

We arrived at the show at about 8; my ride time was 9. Perfect. After unloading the horses, taking off their boots, and setting them up with hay bags, we groomed and started tacking up. Pandora was not that fantastically clean, unfortunately -- the whole evening before had been spent washing McKinna to get her white!

Anyway, other than all that dust lurking under her pretty brown coat, Pandora looked fine. "I'm going to head over to the warm up arena to see how she does away from McKinna," I told my parents, and led her away. I mounted up just as the sole other occupant of the warm up arena was leaving. Wonderful, I thought. Not only did I take her away from her buddy, she's going to be all alone in this arena.

Well call me a pessimist, because that dang mare waltzed around the warm up arena like she didn't have a care in the world! After a few relaxed walk laps, we picked up a trot to do some bending and serpentines. No problem. No head-tucking-behind-the-bit, which I just figured out a few days ago (post on that coming soon). She was good as gold.

I was the very first rider and our test was Intro A. So we enter, trot down a fairly squiggly center line, and come to a halt with her leaning on the reins. Lovely.

We walk forward. Well this isn't too bad, I think as we turn neatly past the judge's stand, with nary a twitch from Pandora. We pick up a trot and circle in the center. My geometry isn't that fantastic (I haven't taken it in four years, give me a break!). Her free walk, while lacking in the forward department, certainly involved plenty of stretching down to the ground. Repeat the whole sequence going the other direction, another vaguely straight center line, halt salute.

What a lovely mare. She was totally relaxed and in sync with me the whole time. Definitely lacked some forward -- it was not a brilliant test by any stretch of the imagination! But she was relaxed and steady through the whole ride, something that is very important to me.

Well by the end of the day it turned out that we'd won Intro A and received high point for the Intro level ;) Our score was a 62.5%. Not spectacular but hey, I've been riding the horse for a week and a half!
Cheesy smile, blue ribbon, bored-looking horse? Check.

Mom also rode two nice tests on McKinna. Their communication is getting better and better. In my mother's words: "I'm so used to working on things that when I'm riding a test and it's going well, I'm going 'Oh! Everything's going right! What do I do??'" Don't worry Mom, eventually you will get used to it!

All in all the show was wonderfully successful. Extremely relaxed and low-key, just the way we like it. Time to get working on canter work with both horses so I can start doing some Training level tests (walk-trot-canter instead of simply walk-trot).

I can't wait to tell you about how I figured Pandora out! Our communication has improved a LOT. But that's a story for tomorrow.

Batman, Revisited

McKinna was awesome on Sunday. Mom rode her a little bit and after watching I decided to hop on -- it is much easier for me to explain things as I'm doing them, rather than as Mom is doing them. Also, I was jealous because McKinna was going so nicely!

It's the first time I've ridden McKinna (well, a real ride anyway) since I broke my ankle. My mom laughs at me for the way I keep telling her that she's done so well with McKinna, but it's true. McKinna stepped forward into a springy, energetic walk, and happily gave me a nice working contact on the bit.

So she'd been having some issues with rushing in her trot circles. She would be fine for the first 1/4, then drop her inside shoulder and rush the next half, then straighten up the last 1/4. To fix it, I did this:

Prepare her several strides out with a firm half-halt: gently but firmly close hands and legs and sit deep for a brief instant, all to "check" her and let her know I need her to do something. I begin turning my head to look ahead on my circle; as we near our point of departure from the arena wall, I keep the contact of my outside rein firm (as this is what defines and holds the size/shape of your circle). At the same time, I open with my inside rein and squeeze with my inside leg, while my outside leg rests passive slightly behind the girth, ready to squeeze if she wants to swing her haunches out.

Positioned like this, we go into the turn. The moment she wants to start rushing (maybe 1/8th of the way through, or halfway through the first 1/4), I half-halt again. I'm not shy about it -- if your horse has no reaction to your half-halts, then you need to make your half-halts as strong as necessary to get a reaction. Since McK's been worked so consistently at the walk and trot, it didn't take much.

Here's the key: during these half-halts, I never let her off the circle I wanted to be on. Between my outside rein and my inside leg, she simply could not avoid my path. I checked her several times, each time doing so before she fell apart and started rushing. To clarify, by 'check' I don't mean a quick bump on the reins. I mean a measured whole-body pause, where I squeeze my reins and close my legs and sit up tall and deep. It's a smooth movement, but brief.

While this gave me a bit of a lumpy tempo (steady, speed up, check back/slow down, etc) and her head was a bit raised in response to my very firm insistent outside rein, it also gave us a smooth path and made it extremely clear to McK what I wanted. She tries to deviate from the circle, I force her to stay on it with my aids. She wants to rush, I half-halt and stop her. These two go hand-in-hand, since rushing often leads to dropping the inside or outside shoulder and thus losing a smooth path.

In the last quarter of the circle, she gave me what I wanted. She relaxed her head down, accepted a contact with my hands, and started truly pushing from behind. This was a very, very tangible change; I felt it immediately as her cadence steadied, her back rose, and the "air time" between her steps felt longer. My mom saw it instantly.

When this happened, I quit messing with her. Yes, she started going a little faster as this happened, but that was because she was using her hind end to push. The increased speed still had a steady rhythm, her back was still lifted, and she was still relaxed in my hands. My very steady hands, accompanied by a steady seat and steady leg. This is key. When she gave me what I wanted, I didn't need to half-halt, to hold her on the circle with my outside rein, or to constantly remind her to bend to the inside with my leg. She held the path. She held the bend. She kept her rhythm. All I did was give her soft, supporting hands, a supporting inside leg, and a LOT of verbal praise. You'd think she just painted the Mona Lisa, the way I carried on.

The next time we circled, it only took her half the circle to give me that feeling.

It's an amazing, amazing experience, let me tell you. To feel her suddenly shift her entire body, using it correctly, and moving in perfect communication with me, like a steady quiet dialogue was going on between the reins and my seat -- that was cool.

It's happened before, but never that easily.

So after I explained all this to Mom, she got back on and was able to reproduce that same sequence of events: prepare for the circle, hold her to the path, half-halt as often as necessary, and when she responds, go with her. It was really lovely to watch.

I'm very proud of the progress McKinna has made in this. It's truly wonderful to ride that feeling.

That being said, what is with the title of this post, you may ask?

I'm so glad you asked!

There's a Halloween schooling show at a local barn this month and one of the classes is a COSTUME CLASS. I bet you can guess where this one's going...

Yes, that's right, I am going to drag the Batman outfit (see post here) out of the closet. In fact, McKinna, as the Bathorse (did he ever have a horse? Don't think so, but oh well) will get costumed as well. Here are the details we've thought of so far:

A black sheet to go over her main body (like picture below). I want to put the Batman logo on the haunches.

Black dressage saddle and bridle, obviously.

"Warhorse" armor, made out of tinfoil that is painted black. Probably much the same pieces as on this horse from Warwick Castle:

i.e., a forehead-down-the-nose plate (probably not going all the way down the cheeks and all), scallops over the crest, and possibly a shoulder guard. It all depends on how difficult it is to make all of that!

The other option, of course, is to make her a My Little Pony. She is white and cute and would look phenomenal with pink [mane, tail, hooves] and glitter all over with glittered hooves and the like. Mom wants me to go with this outfit (and I can't deny that she would be unbearably cute, especially with wavy mane/tail) but I really can't decide. To be badass, or to take the perfect excuse for getting her all girly and pink? Either way I'll figure it out soon and I am excited to get all dressed up!

The Brain is Mightier Than The Pony

My ride on Wednesday night was the first time I'd ridden in almost two weeks. Mainly because I'd been at camp for a week, then I was too tired to drag myself out to the barn, let alone ride.

But it was a really, really good ride. I could feel things shifting in the way McKinna and I interact when I ride -- it was cool.

She's now consistently stretching down at the walk. I can manipulate her stride length by how much or little I move my back with her step; I can get her to relax into the bit just by exhaling and sitting a little deeper. I'm getting used to gently bending her around the squeeze of an inside calf rather than poking her over with a turned heel.

Then we picked up a trot, and it's much of the same. She's relaxing into the bit, and for a few strides here and there, she brings her back up and I can feel the lift and the briefest "hang time" in each step. She's starting to bend without dropping her inside shoulder, move off of my leg without dropping the outside shoulder, and in general just straighten up and carry herself.

So I asked for a canter. She picked up the wrong lead, I brought her down to trot, and we came back up on the correct lead.

She was pretty anxious by this point, though her canter was fairly nice.

When we came back down, we started to fall back into that old familiar pattern: her trot was rushed, her head relatively high, she resisted bend with her neck and body, when I used an opening rein to make her bend into some circles, she dropped her inside shoulder to resist the bend that way.

But then all that thinking that I've been doing paid off.

I did something magical, right? A special cue that I've learned, or I threw my reins away and immediately she was fixed, or I stopped for five minutes and when I picked up the trot again she was nice and relaxed?

Nope.

I didn't do anything. I just rode her, but here's the difference.

Instead of riding like I was riding a tense, rushing, resistant horse, I rode like I was riding that same relaxed, obedient horse I had ten minutes ago.

I can't describe it as anything specifically that I do. I just stop riding a rushing horse, and start riding the responsive one I had earlier. And then she turns back into that responsive horse. My legs are supportive, and she politely moves off of them. My hands are relaxed and steady, and she stretches into them. My legs and hands guide her through loops and circles, using inside rein to outside rein and expecting her to stay upright, without dropping her shoulders -- because she can't. She can't move like that when I am giving her all of the support and guidance to go correctly.

It was really, really cool. I stopped reacting and started thinking.


Here's where I give you the little disclaimer that says: just expecting your horse to do what you want her to do is NOT going to fix all of your problems. It's taken McKinna and I quite a lot to get to this point.

The point of this blog is that you need to THINK while you are riding. Think about your problems, think about solutions to them, and then TRY them on your horse. I was so busy thinking about the ideal movement I'd had minutes ago that I automatically recreated the feeling with my body, and she followed.

I like this whole thinking thing.

By the way, we finished out the ride with a few more really nice relaxed canters, and we kept that calmness throughout the whole time. It borders on the Zen sometimes, I swear.

Update

An update on McKinna's riding progress, since that's mainly what this blog is about --

The other night I had a lesson where I explained to Ellen that I wanted to focus on taking things slowly and allowing McKinna to think about and understand what we were doing. As a result, in that lesson we really focused on the walk, getting her to relax and stretch out and bring her back up.

It was a really eye-opening lesson. I've been reading a lot of Mugwump's blog lately, thinking about how each horse really tells you what they need from you if you pay attention, whether they need soft gentle understanding or a swift kick in the sides. That night, McKinna was telling me that she was cranky (I really think it's because she was about to go into heat, as she's usually particularly resistant at that time. I wonder if she gets a little sore?), but she was going to try for me anyway. In return, I tried to cut her some slack. We worked on walk relaxation for awhile. When I could tell she was getting bored, we picked up a trot, trotted around for a little while, then came back to the walk and worked on leg yields and finished with a bit of shoulder-in.

I know it's standard practice to shake up your lesson and have changes of pace. But often when I ride or lesson, I drill until I get it right -- something I should not be doing. I am going to start trying to really pay attention to what McKinna needs, not just what I want to work on. I would love to work on the canter and have it be nice and beautiful and flowing, for example. But I know that in order to achieve that, I need to do some serious homework in walk and trot to get her relaxed and stretching down; this way she can achieve a balanced, smooth canter transition, and thus a balanced smooth canter.

Just something to think about. When you're riding, do you focus more on what the horse wants or what you want? There's also the opposite problem -- if your horse tends to rush around, I bet you're not using your leg very much because that's what the horse wants. If your horse has a beautiful canter but a jackhammer trot, I bet you spend more time in canter. I'm trying to find the right balance, and so far it's working.

Working on shoulder-in was really fun. I'll explain it in depth sometime, but basically it's walking on three tracks, with the shoulders slightly in but everything still straight. The inside hind is on one track, the inside fore and outside hind in line on another, and then the outside fore on the third. In any case, it's a fun new challenge, and McKinna is slowly but surely starting to understand.

Forward and onward!

Slowing Down

Sometimes I get the best results when I do a lot of thinking about my ride before I actually get on.

Surprise, surprise.

Last night was my weekly flat lesson. First I rode Chaucer, who I am fairly convinced had a (small, low-watted) lightbulb go on in his head at the schooling show last weekend. Now all of a sudden when I school on the flat with him, he's reaching into the contact, bringing his back up, and swinging in a nice, powered-from-the-butt trot. I can literally see the base of his neck getting fatter as he lifts it up instead of poking his nose straight out. Of course this doesn't happen all the time, and I was laughing sometimes because it's so hard to coordinate the forward leg, the bending-into-the-corners leg, the bend-to-the-inside squeeze and release with the inside rein, and the gentle half-halt squeeze with reins and body. Not all at once, of course, but it's a challenge to hold it all together. I keep getting glimpses of it though, and I'm practically drooling.

On McKinna I was talking to my trainer and wanted to try something new regarding her annoyingly persistent canter issue -- she just has a really hard time relaxing and going smoothly, from the transition onwards and even in the trot after. Anyway, the other day I spent a good 20 minutes in nice, relaxed walk warmup, doing gentle bending and a lot of listening to leg, relaxing down into the bit. I then did some trotting to reinforce the same lessons, always emphasizing relaxation. Then I asked her to pick up the canter. Once. It was a beautiful transition and a fairly good canter.
We cantered around the arena once, brought it back to a relaxed trot, brought it back to a relaxed walk, schooled the walk for a bit, and called it good.
Awhile back we tried to muscle through her canter anxiety by just doing it. Warm up, get a nice trot, pick up the canter, back to a trot, get her mostly relaxed, back up to canter, and just keep doing it. Lots of figure-8s and circles and short diagonals.
Well, that worked for getting her the cantering experience, comfortable with leads, and so on. But she was still just anxious about the canter.
So now it's time to take it slow. I realized this because I've been thinking a lot about how much of a sensitive, thinking horse she is, and how much she wants to get things right, so that she only gets more and more anxious about the canter when we keep doing it. I was not setting her up for success by doing it that way, though she did gain some valuable experience. Now I'm going to be showing her that it's not a big deal, and when she does it right, we'll leave it alone.

My lesson on her was fantastic, by the way. I got some of the most beautiful walking I have ever gotten from her and some damn nice trot too. I really feel like we're getting somewhere.

Ugh.

Hmm. Did I say that camping Friday through Saturday and then going to a schooling show on Sunday wouldn't be tiring?

Ha. Who was I kidding?

The horses were just fine, but I am one tired kid. Yes, you crazy people who get like five hours of sleep per night notwithstanding, I really really need about 8 hours of sleep a night. 9 is ideal, but my body can't handle less than 7 for a few days at a time or I get really cranky and start to get sick. In any case, both camping and the show were quite fun!

A quick overview before I go crash for a nap:

Camping
I had a blast where we went. It's a state park in Salem, and they have campsites that fit four horses and two tents (though really there's plenty of room for that and more). Since we had five horses and seven people, we took up two adjacent campsites. McKinna was awesome on the trail - just truckin' along being the lead horse, totally fine with all of it except the occasional downed log in the underbrush. For whatever reason, she really doesn't think that big chunks of wood belong in all the bushes and stuff. Don't ask me why, but without fail, every time we passed big pieces of wood in the brush she'd scoot sideways a little and look at it like it came from the moon. Other than that she was good. The rest of the party had the occasional panic issue, probably because the trail was single-file and a bit windy through the woods. There was some bucking and some all-out meltdowning (at the end one of our riders got off to walk for a bit because her horse just lost it), but the majority of the ride was quite nice.

For me the only unpleasant part was the heat. It was just downright muggy - hot I don't mind, but humid sucks. All the horses were pretty wet by the time we were done (except McKinna, who was only a little sweaty under the saddle pad - do I get to be proud of that?). They all slept cheerfully in the corrals and we went for a short ride the next morning with no issues at all.

Show
We ended up taking only Chaucer and McKinna to this show. I did Intro A and B on Chaucer and A on McKinna, then Mom did B on McKinna. All in all it was a very successful first show! We ended up with some ribbons but those hardly count at schooling shows (especially when they score juniors separate and I was one of very few people under 18!).

The real victories were in the rides, though. My first ride on Chaucer was alright - not bad, not good, but still a definite improvement over past rides. Generally inverted and counterbent, but I'm looking for the right gait and the right general direction, here ;)

My ride on McKinna was . . . stressed. I didn't give myself enough time to warm up. I KNOW better, but I did it anyway. The test itself was actually pretty okay, and I got some nice moments, but I know it would have been way better if I'd taken the time to walk and trot for about twenty minutes before I went in.

The awesome part was in Intro Tests B, though! I went first on Chaucer and I was just blown away by how good he was. His lines were straight! His free walk was stretchy! His trot across the diagonal was downright powerful! Our weak spots were the trot circles, where he lost focus and wanted to go fast. But my goodness, I was so happy with him, as I'm sure you can tell by the exclamation marks ad nauseam! That trot across the diagonal was really something. He reached into the bit, brought his back up, and was dead-on straight. It made me really itch to bring him along further just to feel what his trot lengthenings and extensions would feel like.

Last up was my mom on McKinna, and that little horse was just a saint. For my mom's first dressage test ever, she trotted around relaxed and calm, reaching into the bit, marching along at the walk, and halting perfectly on the centerline. From a horse that normally gets so anxious she trots around at warp speed with her head flung high, that's pretty darn good! My mother, by the way, was also pretty awesome.


So all in all the weekend was a great success, and I am off to bed.

Progress, Progress

I haven't posted in awhile (has anyone ever told you how busy the last two weeks of a high school career are?), but I haven't disappeared! We took both McKinna and Chaucer to an Eventing Derby this weekend. It was pretty fun -- a dressage test, then a big loopy course in the big field on their XC course using both stadium and solid fences.

McKinna's ride times were first, since they went from the top down and I was doing Beginner Novice on her and Intro on him (again: little horse doing bigger stuff than the big horse). The dressage test was not exactly pretty, but I was expecting that. You know all those canter problems we have? It's not like they fix themselves when we go to a show. But the whole point of taking them to the show was to get them out into the big bad world, the more of which McKinna does the calmer she is. Naturally.

So Dressage was rushed and hollow and above-the-bit, but on the plus side, she also had a few moments of nice walk, a few steps of nice trot where she thought about relaxing (right before the canter, unfortunately), and she went where I wanted her to go. At this stage, with a horse who's done maybe three dressage tests in her life and is still having a midlife crisis about cantering and rounding in general, that's all I'm expecting. I've talked it over with Ellen, and I'm going to get once-weekly flat lessons (probably twice-weekly this summer if I can swing it), so before she knows what's hit her, McKinna will have the muscle and the mental capacity to canter beautifully. Once you start working in earnest on something, it doesn't take her long to figure it out.

Jumping was...a little disappointing at first. Of all the fences out there, she spooked hardcore at the little stadium ones. You know, pretty painted post-and-rail fences that she may glance at, but never ever really tries to stop. Well we had several refusals (hooray for schooling shows), and then at fence four: I could feel her wanting to stop. She was squirrely, she was sucking back, she was spooky, and I put my leg on as solidly as I could and drove with my seat. No dice. She planted her forelegs and sliiiiiiiiiiiiid to a stop on the grass, dumping me neatly off her shoulder as she lowered her head for balance. Nice. I landed on my butt, too.

Sigh.

So I haul my sorry self back up in the saddle, check with the judge-person (is there a technical name for that?) to make sure I can keep going, then leg her over it and away. She has one more stop at 5A (another stadium fence), but then we truck around the rest of the course with no problem. Except that I couldn't find fence 6. Don't ask me where it went. I knew where it was SUPPOSED to be from the map. I saw a fence 6 in black on white, which was not my colors (I was black on yellow). But I did not see a fence 6 in my colors. After pulling up and looking around hopelessly for a minute, I gathered up my frustrated self and went from fence 7 through the end without issue. She had no problem with the solid XC fences that just a couple weeks ago were still making her wobble and stop, so there was a small victory for the day. At any rate, she jumped everything eventually, just not always on the first try -- and it was a good learning experience for her, since I could feel her getting more brave as we went around. Really it's only her third time on an XC course, so she gets a little slack.


Chaucer actually impressed me very much with his dressage test, incidentally the same one as McKinna's (up until the morning of, I mistakenly thought we were doing a walk-trot test. Which also shows you how far ahead I plan things like memorizing my test). I told the judge we were there for schooling and I didn't expect to be able to finish the test, but we actually did it, with some really nice canter strides and everything. Chaucer's weakness is definitely NOT cantering -- it's beautiful, I tell you. It was a terrible test at any rate, but the point is that for him, it's wonderful that he completed the whole thing without A. frying his brain and stopping dead, or B. tuning me out completely.

Anyway, we took him out to jumping warmup, and he was just too tense. Trying to leap over things and the like. I ended up walking up to little crossrails and picking up the trot a few strides out, which kept him fairly manageable. We did a little cantering around the field, he got acquainted with Mr. Pulley-Rein when he wanted to take off, and then Ellen and I agreed that taking him out on the course would be an unnecessary stressful experience for him. We had enough jumping in the warmup field, and if he wasn't doing it calmly out there, why would he do it calmly in the bigger, scarier field? So we called it a day and headed home.


I was really, really tired anyway!




I'm learning a lot about handling Chaucer. It's been very good for me, because while some of McKinna's problems are similar to Bailey's and thus old frustrating problems, the challenges that Chaucer offers me are new. It's interesting to think through how I am going to handle him or what I should do next.

I did some groundwork the other day and had him walk through a series of oddly-spaced scattered poles. He was very, very careful about the placement of his feet, leading me to believe that he's not stupid about his feet, he just likes to be slow about it. Which could explain a lot about his jumping-terrors: he gets overwhelmed and since he doesn't have time to think about where to put his feet, he just trusts brute strength and throws himself over. Something to ponder. He's definitely a horse that needs to be taken along slowly.

I also think lots of miles on trails would help him out. Nothing too challenging, just moseying along for a couple hours over varying terrain and through water and such. I think it would really improve his confidence and his sense of balance.

Any thoughts on working with this type of horse? I'm thinking gridwork would be a good idea.

(Pictures soon, I have to get them on my other computer!)