After the best ride ever…

- We are no longer in the dark! -

Yes, there have been many other rides after that amazing, epic, lesson of awesomeness. After all, it has been a month since that ride!

But for the first week I didn’t ride at all because I was petrified I would stuff up everything Copper learned about giving to the aids, and that I’d ruin him forever!

It’s the first time I’ve felt that, and it kept me off his back for five days…. Then I gathered up my courage and tried it by myself. Except I was sort of cheating, because my instructor was back giving lessons, and I got to share the arena with him and his pupil, so he did actually keep an eye on me. Though I think he probably thought I was a bit silly for not riding my horse for a week because I was scared to wreck him!

He did say at the end of my ride that we had thoroughly grasped the concepts we’d been working on, and that he was pleased with the quality of Copper’s walk and trot work. He thought it was good! Which sent me into silent squeals of excitement - naturally….

Since then, I don’t know if we’ve progressed much - it’s hard to tell as we are trying to find a new balance for the both of us. Where do I carry my hands? Too high - very messy, too low - Copper will dump a shoulder, or both, and lose his balance.

Though once or twice when that’s happened, I’ve actually been able to gently lift my rein and pick his shoulder back up with it, which is just… (O_______o)!!   

I have never been able to do that before!

The finding-a-new-balance thing also translating to odd moments in the trot. Yes, it is way better than it’s ever been - Copper is actually legitimately lifting and working over his back; which is a HUGE deal for an ex-trotter.

But it’s also… odd. Sometimes he feels very heavy in the contact, and I have to get used to how bouncy his stride has become! Dare I say it – he might actually be learning how to get some suspension in his gait!

The canter has also been better, but at the same time, it has been weaker because it is much harder to maintain the balance and the lift through the gait.

It’s all been a very interesting learning curve – and funny when Copper discovered that a counter-shoulder in exercise preformed correctly was HARD.

He just stopped at the wall and tossed his head like “Nope. No. No. No, Nope…” He actually tossed his head so much he bonked his nose and startled himself, the daft wee ninny.

I had to get off and remind him that over was over, and he had to go sidewise if I asked him to. He gave in, and we did regain the sideways movement again, but yeesh. He is definitely not happy about doing those exercises for too long!

I’ve sort of backed off – we used to do them all the way down the long side, but now I’m being nice and only asking for them about two-thirds of the way down the long side, so that he only preforms the movement for approximately one third of the arena.

I’m doing this until I can talk to my instructor again as I really don’t want to get into a battle when I’m not sure of the best way to go about getting the results I need to. I don’t wear spurs, and perhaps I need to, but I’ll ask about that as well at my next lesson.

I also have to be sure that I’m not asking for them incorrectly. Which I don’t think I am, as he will do them for the one-third length of the long side, but refuses for the full length of the long side. So there’s that, but I still want to check anyway.

This is all very new, and I’m uncertain half the time if I’m getting it right, but I do know that help is now available, and slowly but surely, I believe we will get it together.

At least we are no longer in the dark!

See ya,

bonita

Silly Season Shenanigans

… Not on horseback thankfully!

But yeah, crazy times. Copper is getting another extended holiday because of all the things we have on… *sigh*

- Hai der! I iz on “Hor-la-daiz”! -

But it is what it is.

I ride when I can, so we did a short trail ride on Saturday which was quick and fun. Then Monday I managed to hop on for 30 minutes or so and work on some flatwork.

Sometimes I feel like it’s really hard to make progress with him. I feel like our wheels are just spinning and going nowhere. I think it’s partly because of all the holidays, but also because it is rather hard to keep the long term goals in mind while also processing what’s happening in the moment of the ride.

I have to work really hard to assessing the feedback Copper’s giving me under saddle and adjusting our ride to fit in with what he needs – ie, stiff shoulders, shoulder fores/shoulders in; not enough impulsion, some transitions and rein backs to drop his croup and engage his hind end, etc. This is way you need a trainer…  *double sigh*  Oh well. We’ll keep trucking on.

So this ride we did some trot leg yields to get him carrying himself properly from back to front, and we also did a little on trot-canter transitions. The cantering definitely helped his trotting – he did a beautiful 20m left rein circle afterwards. He was really carrying himself, using his hocks for suspension and that resulted in a lovely, perfect bend on the circle – it was so good I stopped the ride right then and there!

 
- I iz gooood poneh! -

But his transition into the left rein canter was terrible. And I mean a.w.e.f.u.l. with a capital FULL! Copper was just trying to run into the canter – he seems to forget that cantering starts with his inside hind leg, and thinks that if he just keeps leaning and running he’ll fall into left lead canter. 

Which is true, but when he does, it is so rush-y and strung out that you just can’t rebalance that hot mess. So I try to remind him that when I am squeezing with my inside leg for the canter aid I want him to lift and push off with his hind leg and not just run faster!

He did get it eventually, and then it was a beautifully balanced canter, and really straight! It was so nice. I just hope he’ll remember how he did it, because then we might struggle less with it next time.

Copper’s actually pretty good like that – he likes moving properly, and tends to retain the muscle memory from what I teach him. He’s really got a great athletic mind. But that’s not to say it’s easy for him to overcome his bad habits, so we’ll have to keep working on that one for sure.

Do you have any tips for teaching a horse to strike off with their back leg for a canter transition? I know I’m not doing it the best way – I’m just trying to hold him together, but push him up rather than forwards.  So yeah, I am really holding onto his mouth and half-halting pretty dang hard.

I don’t like doing that, I know he doesn’t like it either, but my toolbox is empty with this one apparently….  I’ll do some research and see whether I can come up with something!

See ya,

bonita

Aha!

I have just finished up my first ride on Joey in about three weeks {thanks to rain, a head cold, a bout of mastitis and some ‘flue….  Yay. Sick.}.  I am really pleased to say that he did really, really well today!  He was soft and listening for most of my riding lesson; there were a few times I could have used my spurs, but I forgot to put them on today. 

Still, I am super pleased with today’s ride.  I had some serious “Aha!” moments with my riding position and some really good feedback from Joey.  There is nothing like getting it right and getting an instant response!

The first big one that made the most impact on how he rode was a tip I picked up from Val of Memoirs of a Horse Girl:

-  Close your outside upper arm against your side when riding in a circle.  OHMIGOODNESS I can’t believe how well this worked!!  Basically, Val wrote that she was told to pretend that she was carrying a ‘precious piece of paper’ – like a cheque for $100.00! – between her outside upper arm and ribcage when she was riding in a circle.  I tried that today with Joey and you would not believe the difference it made to his circle work!  I was really catching his energy that was escaping out through his outside shoulder and channelling it forwards.

I found this tip particularly was also extremely effective for controlling his spooking away from particular points in the arena.  Joey will flex in a circle, but he’ll often bulge in and out depending on whether he finds parts of the arena scary.  So, for instance, we’ll be doing a 20m on the left rein at C.  He’ll cut in on the circle when we are heading towards S because he didn’t like the tall weeds waving in the wind.  I had to really support and use my inside leg to push/leg yield him out while opening up my outside rein to create space for him to move into. 

Once past S on the centre line, he would promptly spurt forwards and out, trying to get away from the scary weeds.  So before the centre line, I would half-halt, clamp down my upper outside arm and close the gate by really applying my outside leg.  I was amazed at how much of a difference that made to his bulging out/evading issue.  The outside rein reinforced my leg far more efficiently and I was able to actually execute a circle rather than a corner from the centre line to R.  

- Direct with your thumbs.  This means to hold your thumbs up and point in the direction you are going; creating “rails” from your shoulders to the horse’s mouth that guide the shoulders.  You can open your inside “rail” to turn, or close it to keep that shoulder in.   I found this super helpful because it helped me to a). keep my wrists straight and even, without breaking/bending to try and turn him, b). it helped me to keep my fingers closed on the reins which is great because my coach has been nagging me about my bad habit of open fingers for ages, and finally, c). it made Joey’s turning much smoother.

-  Use your belly button to turn.  This also helps to create a smooth turn if you twist your belly button in the direction you want to go.  Useful!

I can’t believe how much of a difference these little things are making to my riding and to Joey, and I am so glad I can see the results of using these tips! 

My homework:

-  Working my half-halt and halt.   I tend to brace against the stirrups and lift out of the saddle when I am halting which is bad, bad, bad and totally ineffective.  I know what I am trying to do, but I am not doing it right.

My lower leg needs to go ON, and THEN my spine needs to draw up.  I want to think of actually creating energy in the halt and half-halt, not just stop.  This also applies to downwards transitions.

-  Lower leg position.  I have been working on this, and I am not doing to badly, but I need to be more consistent and really aware that during downwards transitions and halts/half-halts, my lower leg tends to swing forwards which also ruins the effectiveness of my halt aid.

-  Turning the trot poles into a comfort zone for Joey.  We didn’t do trot poles today in the lesson, rather we snuck them in when we had rest breaks and just got him to walk over them calmly.  I was so excited to see how well he did with them today.  He was a star! 

I have to make sure I don’t tense up when approaching them in a trot though; the first stop he pretty much stopped and then walked over them.  He was a lot better at trotting over them when I was relaxed too.

I think that’s it; I love writing all this stuff out so I can remember it properly.  It’s super helpful.  Oooh!  And I also got an accidental walk-canter transition from him today!  It was all very exciting, because even though I didn’t ask for it at all, he did it beautifully.  He just stepped under himself really deeply, lifted up his shoulders and flowed up into a canter!  I was so shocked, but it was so beautiful and neat!   I didn’t let him canter on after the first few strides of course, but I didn’t scold him either, because that was a lovely forwards transition and he did it so nicely.  He wasn’t trying to bolt or pull, he just went up a gear, skipping trot on the way.
 : D   

I love that he has that athleticism – I can’t wait to see where we go in dressage.  I had a fun ride on my horse, and that’s really cool.  > w <

See ya!

bonita

P.S. -   Ack, more text I know – sorry for the super long post, but I also have to add that we had some really good tying up training after our ride today.  Joey has sucked back a few times and learned that he can escape being tied up by breaking the baling twine/and or his halter{!!} which is really not good news. 

So today my riding instructor double haltered him {his rope one underneath and a nylon halter over the top}, twisted both lead ropes three times around the solid metal pen rail, leaving only a small amount of rope, so that Joey was ‘tied’ short, while she had the other ends of the lead ropes.  We both stood on one side of the fence and he was on the other, and then I went to town picking off the rain scald scabs on his forehead.  I wasn’t hurting him, but he so didn’t like it so the first thing he tried to do was suck back, and when he found he couldn’t do that either he wasn’t happy!

My instructor would release a little bit of rope for him as he went backwards, so that he knew that he could go backwards, but she didn’t let him pull right back or go very far, and she didn’t make it easy for him either!  After a few minutes of dancing around and fussing, he was standing still and letting me touch his forehead and his ears and gently rub the scabs off.  It’s a really great training technique for horses that suck back, but a bit difficult to ‘set up’ when you are a). by yourself and b). don’t have anything specific that’s going to make him suck back so that you can implement the training!  As a result, I was really glad the timing worked out on this lesson for Joey.