Pics or it didn’t happen…

So this happened at 6 o’clock Monday morning – a ride!

He’s had two weeks off due to busyness and sickness on my part - lame, I know, but at least we are back in the saddle!

Predictably Copper was stiff, a little more unco than usual, and not a very soft ride for our first schooling session back but we still had a decent ride so I was super happy about that.

I dropped my stirrups for 10 minutes and did some no stirrup walk/trotting while circling and it really was some of the best circle work, in terms of consistent bend, that we’ve had in a while - despite the two weeks off.

I know why – it’s because my hips tend to contort on a circle, and my shoulders tip and twist and basically I make it super hard for Copper to actually work a circle correctly. I don’t know why this is – my theory is that it’s because I’ve spent so many years fighting my saddle for a correct position that the muscle memory is overtaking me and making me twist up like a pretzel.

But when I drop my stirrups something magical happens and my hips suddenly start sitting where they are supposed to be! My leg drops long to balance me, so my shoulders stay back, and basically everything suddenly works!! :O

Solution: lots of no stirrup work – particularly when riding circles. At least once, each rein, every ride. The plan is to retrain my muscles without stirrups and hopefully then be able to translate that back into the stirrups later on.

After that, I picked up my stirrups again and we had a nice as-good-as-can-be-expected trot and a decent canter on each lead.

I’m pleased that the spring sillies have gone away, and that I finally have a horse with a brain again. For about a month or so there it was like riding a four year old!

I would lunge him, and he’d be physically tired when I got up to ride him, but his brain would still be skittery, and he’d be “up” – ready to spook at the slightest thing.

It was the weirdest feeling – usually when a horse is physically tired, and Copper is like this – their brains usually calm right down. But with the spring sillies, I’d be pushing as hard as I can to keep him going, yet feeling like his brain was spinning it’s hamster wheel as fast as it could…

A very strange feeling!

So I’m very glad my pony-boy is feeling much more like himself again. Even if it was good practise working with a tense horse, I much prefer my steady Standie instead!

See ya,

bonita

One step at a time

Slowly we are pulling it together.

Our downwards transitions still suck. I need to half-halt more and keep my elbows soft and tucked by my side.

My legs are getting better, but I’m still struggling with keeping them underneath my hips.

While my core is stronger than it was, it needs to be even more stronger still. That helps me balance, and when I keep my abs switched on, so does Copper!

All that said – I’m so obsessed with this recent schooling video.

Our canter transition is awful because this is halfway through our ride, and he was tired from cantering twice before so he’s slopping along here, but it was still quiet which is a good improvement.

He’s bobbing his head about like a duck looking for food, but the connection is getting there and he’s definitely starting to look more uphill than before, and rounded too!

I love it!

I know I’m not just seeing his improvement, I am also feeling it too. For the first time ever, the other day he actually stepped under himself properly for a downwards transition from trot to walk. I felt him reach underneath himself with his right hind, and step into the walk from behind. He’s never done that before, and it felt sooo awesome! 

Just one step, but one step forwards, and we will get there one step at a time.

See ya,

bonita

Creatures of Habit

Copper and I had a good time these last two rides.  It’s actually kind of boring – I don’t have any exciting updates or news to share. 

But I’m ok with that too – I’m getting to that stage in my pregnancy – 33 weeks – where the last thing you want is excitement with your horse!

- Loving this look: butt muscles, a nice topline, summer dapples, red coat, and hey! Just check out the length of that tail! (> ◡ <) -

We had a fun trail ride Saturday; once again, I super love hill work for really pushing Copper to work off his hind end and carry himself. All the soft up hill horses…  *grin*

It’s very cute, because I can tool around anywhere on him at a walk with the reins at the buckle. He’ll turn and even do a bit of neck reining for me. As soon as I pick up the contact though – he knows we mean business and that’s when Mr. Speedy comes to play!

There is no such thing as a quiet w/t trail ride for him. So we ended up working pretty hard.  We did loads of uphill trotting where I required him to remain soft and cadenced – not slow per say, as he fights that too much and it creates too much tension, but he had to be listening to my half-halts.

I find it’s so much easier if you bundle him up and let him really ‘charge’ forwards and release his energy up and out, rather than trying to bundle him up and keep him slow. He just fights that, and it creates much more tension than if you let him ‘run’ it out. When he is allowed to run it results in a more extended/medium trot (okay, I have no idea what kind of trot it is ‘cause I’ve never seen it from the ground – but it’s certainly big!) that is actually softer and easier to ride than a slow, tense, choppy trot. 

So we did lots of that and when he started bracing and getting heavy on the forehand (because all the sitting into the trot is haaarrrddd human bean!) we did trot shoulder-ins down the track. He had lovely impulsion!  Lol.  XD

Then came our Monday ride, and we did some schooling in the arena.  I used our useful turn-on-the-forehand square exercise, (which I’m planning to do a training post on later) and some halt/rein back transitions to really get him light on the forehand before moving in lateral warm ups.

It’s interesting to me to note that we don’t need to spend as much time doing a walk warm up as we used too. I’m actually finding that if I spend too much time on lateral movements at a walk, he looses a lot of his impulsion and gets really “sticky” – behind my leg and slow. It feels like he is stuck in molasses!

Our warm up used to be 15-20 minutes at least, but now I think it’s more like 10 minutes?  This is a good thing. We have more time for working on his trot, and can even fit in some canter work sometimes. I suppose we must be making progress, because he comes in front of my leg sooner, and is able to start working through his lateral and longitudinal flexion a lot faster. This is super exciting to me! Yay! Progress!

 

Anyway, we did some good trotting and I’m already seeing improvement from doing the strengthening (trail riding!) rides. He was more balanced on a trotting 20m circle, both reins – though we still struggle with wobbling around on the left rein. I really have to ride that circle or he’ll bulge out through his outside shoulder and get wonky.

One of the other ladies from my yard was having a lesson in the arena at the same times as I was riding, so that was good because I got to practise working with Copper when he’s distracted. There was a lot of ‘power’ trotting (- ヮ -)!, and we even did some cantering.

He wanted to canter and I let him think that it was my idea because he went to canter, but I kept it really balanced on a 20m circle. He did so well with it for 3 or 4 laps, and then stopped because balanced cantering is hard!  :P

The instructor giving the other lady’s lesson also gave me a titbit of advice. She said “Your horse is responding really well to your leg yield aid, but try to keep his neck from bending so much. You want only a little bit of flexion from the poll.” 

And I was all “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” because that’s the first bit of advice I’ve had in over two years(?) or more and doing this dressage training thing by myself is hard. 

I think what was happening was that I couldn’t tell if he was crossing over on the back end enough, so I’d ask for deeper flexion with his hind end, but create too much bend in his neck because he was already crossing over enough. 

It’s little things like that which make me go “Oooh, I really need some eyes on the ground” because it’s such a simple fix. I’ve been over riding the leg yield aid and I simply didn’t know it.

I can’t wait until next year and I can finally have some lessons!

See ya,

Bonita

Saturday Post-ride Dissection

Circles are our new best friend and worst enemy. Yup, a geometric figure is my frenemy. Mostly because when we get it right, I really can feel the suppling and impulsion benefit to Copper on the straight, and mostly because when we get it wrong – it’s oh, so very wrong…

I’m struggling with that left rein circle - I do know how to fix it (close the outside aids, and ask for outside hind to actively come forwards and help carry weight) but it’s not an easy fix. All that wonderful lateral work to supple him is also wonderful for showing Copper exactly how to evade and escape from working properly!  *sigh*

You would think that the horse would consider bending and sideways harder than bending and forwards, but nope.  :/

Still, he is feeling better and better these days, and I’m starting to consistently find relaxed and rhythmical working trot from him. I even tested it a few times today by releasing both reins forwards, and he was keeping the same pace. So that’s been super exciting and really rewarding.

We also did a leg yield from center line to outside track! There is nothing that makes you feel cooler than a super fancy prancy horse daintily tracking diagonally across the arena(Left to right, fabulous – right to left, needs some work).  Half pass here we come! Lol – yeah right.  :P

His canter transitions are also getting better – I think being able to balance properly on a circle is also helping him to get his hind underneath for a quiet transition. Thus, it stands to reason that his left canter lead is way more explosive and messy than his right at the moment – I think I really need to focus on some left rein work and try to get him stronger and more supple on the left side.

I try to work both sides evenly every ride, but I think for a short while I should almost be working the left side exclusively during the main schooling portion of our ride to really build him up.  Of course, we’ll warm up and cool down on both reins, but I’m going to stop spending so long on the right, and just get *right* back to the left for a while – sort of like a left rein boot camp for the both of us!

Here’s some more schooling footage from today if you are interested:

And yes, this is now a thing. Because honestly, just working on my hands and shortening my stirrups alone have already made such a difference to Copper; I swear he looks twice as nice as he did last Saturday, and my position looks a ton better as well.

My leg still needs work, but I’m almost thinking I might need a dressage saddle. Or maybe it looks worse than it is because Copper’s so round? I don’t know. One moment I think “Yeah, my leg is right underneath me and inline with my shoulder and hip. It must be alright then.” and then I’m all “Ugh, I don’t think it IS underneath me! I look like I’m in a chair seat again!”

So I’m vacillating between good and bad and don’t know if I should be trying to push it back even further. I hesitate because I don’t want end up to pitching myself onto the fork of my pelvis. Oh, well, I’ll try it out next ride and see what happens I guess.

See ya,

bonita

A Much Needed Eq Check

Copper and I are on track now, and I’ve been pleased with the progress we’ve been making.

We are ready to work on our circles and yesterday managed to turn out a nice 20m walk & trot circle on the right rein. We struggled a lot with the 20m circle on the left rein – he bulges out through his right shoulder, and swivel his haunches in, so he is not bending through his body correctly, or carrying his weight on his hind end properly.

His right side is stronger than his left, so I think he finds it easier to evade rather than to carry his weight on that left inside hind. I discovered that by using strong outside aids – a closed outside rein, and activating his hind leg by using a driving aid with my outside calf – it forces him to bend around my inside leg by closing the outside ‘escape hatches’!

I know that this will improve in time though. His lateral and longitual flexion have improve his ability to work through over his back in so many ways, and I am so happy with the softness that’s coming into his work now.

We are steadily improving on rhythm and relaxation, and we even find some connection and impulsion for a few moments when we get that perfect flow between him and I. Doesn’t happen very frequently, or for very long – but I get subtle whiffs of where we are headed, and it makes me so chuffed!  I get the biggest grin, cheer like an idiot and praise and pat my horse profusely.  This is why I’m addicted to dressage. 

If you want to make your eyes bleed though, I do actually have some footage of our schooling ride on the weekend. : P  It’s not very good because I had to set up the camera at the corner of the arena, so I’ve cut a lot out from where you couldn’t see us at all!

Also, Copper has some nice moments but avert your eyes from the rider… Pllleeeeeaaase?  I just took one look at the footage and went *groan*….

My hands, which I’ve been working so hard on, need more work – they are too low still. And what the flip is up with my elbows? You can see 3 feet of daylight between my elbows and sides!  *sigh* 

I would love to chop off my lower legs and relocate them – permanently. Studying the footage I can see that my lower leg is braced reeeaaally awkwardly - particularly when rising to the trot and in the canter. It makes sense as to why I’ve been coming away with some ankle and knee pain depending on how hard/long we’ve been working.

My initial thought is yes, my lower leg is somewhat better when sitting to the trot, so I don’t think it’s a problem with my hips/seat. I actually think it’s a problem with my horse’s round build!! Not only are we having trouble with saddle fit, the roundness of his barrel also affects my position, because when I lower my stirrups to the length I like I can’t keep my calves in contact with his sides. So then I end up twisting my toes out in an effort to maintain contact, and this pushes my lower leg forwards and I brace against the stirrup.

Solution? Raising my stirrups a hole, even though I feel a little bit like a jockey. Heh. This actually helped our ride a ton on Monday, Copper was a lot more relaxed because I wasn’t braced weirdly, and my leg aids were much more effective funnily enough, because my leg was back under me where it belongs and sitting in the right place so my toes didn’t turn out so much.  So yay for equitation fixes! 

Please ignore the giant baby bump in the middle. My core looks so clunky, but I can’t fix that just yet.  Get back to me after three months or so. 

I think I need to video every weekend in the mean time to make sure that my position keeps on improving and doesn’t go backwards, because I can’t have lessons at the moment (as no instructor is going to want to teach a 25 week pregnant lady - hello liability!). At least some form of eyes on the ground helps, and I can check our progress against something more tangible than just feel. :)

See ya,

bonita

Working Through The Muddle

I think we are working on something good; every ride feels like an improvement, but it’s still a big muddle.  We teetering on the edge of an upgrade – I can sense it, I swear!

 

 

So, quick notes for the interim while we chip away at this:

• I love the new Wide Barrel Loose Ring Comfort Level 1 Myler Snaffle I recently purchased, and I think Copper does too! I think he finds the mouth piece much more comfortable than the French Link Loose Ring Snaffle he was in, as it is thinner as well as shaped.  Boy, that horse has a really fat tongue.  He also can’t lock his jaw around this new bit so easily which means less running off against my seat/hands. A very good thing.
  
• Loads of transitions and longitudinal flexion has turned out to be a natural progression in terms of his schooling; not the step backwards that I thought it was. He is eating it up and behold!  The back has been discovered!  This has resulted in some moments of honest-to-goodness throughness and connection over his back. Yippeee!

All in all, I am super happy with the new direction our rides have taken, and I am so keen to keep exploring this. A level up definitely looms ahead!

 

 

I might actually be able to start working in circles again!  Haha!!  Only an OCD Dressage Diva could possibly be thrilled about riding on a twenty meter circle, but there you are. :D

See ya,

bonita

Working On A Standardbred’s Trot

 
I’ve been trying some new things with Copper to hunt down that elusive soft trot that I know he has in there somewhere. I know it because just the other day I actually found it for once!

We were out on the trail loop that goes behind our horse paddocks, and he was buzzing – his energy was so high.  I tried a few short trot ‘sprints’, with little success, and then we came to the part of the trail that drops into a ditch.

Well, it’s more like a gulley, where the feet of two hills meet. It’s not altogether that steep or deep, but it’s fair stretch down and we usually walk it on a bit of angle.

Not this time though! Copper charged down it, and when he reached the bottom, snatched the bit and took off up the other side. I had anticipated this, so I stayed with him and when we reached the top, steadied him down to a medium-fast canter.

I didn’t even bother thinking about pulling him up. So not worth it. He dropped back to a trot himself when we reached a rocky part of the trail, and then I asked him to walk which he did quite willingly.  I guess he needed to blow off steam or something…

At any rate, I got the bright idea of making him do some work to combat all that excess energy!

There’s a nice level piece of ground that our trail goes past that is about 150m x 70m (roughly – it’s a natural stretch, so this is just a guesstimate!) and is relatively stone and grass tussock free; great for doing some schooling out on a trail.

I started with lateral work at a walk.  Leg yields, shoulder-fores, and ended with two/three steps of shoulder-in before we moved onto trot circles. He wanted to canter, so I said, “Sure, you can canter Copper, but I’m going to make you work for it!”.  

We did slow, uphill canter circles for a bit and when he finally figured out that that was HARD and a trot was easier, I got the softest trot from him I have ever felt!

What’s more, he was so round, supple, and through, that he felt like he was doing an actual medium trot worth a score. It was powerful and energetic, but so soft. It’s really hard to describe, but it’s like you’ve tapped into this circle of power, and you’re holding it together between your legs and your hands and letting it flow through your seat, into your back and out again.

I was thrilled!

And then, even better – I found it again.  This second time was the ride directly after a not-so-successful ride where I wanted to take it easy, but he wasn’t having any of it. Small, balanced canter circles was the result of that, and it paid off on the very next ride!

I had done a lot of lateral work – we ‘warmed up’ at a walk for close to half an hour. We went through all of our lateral movements, adding some turns on the forehand for fun, halt transitions, backing up, 20m circle spirals with leg yielding in and out, serpentines from the end of the arena to the top and back again - and we had such a good ride I was all like, “Eh, do I want to stop here? If I ask for a trot I might ruin on the relaxed-ness I’ve just spent 30 minutes working for! But I neeed work on his trot… Ugh.  Here goes nothing!”

I asked him to trot right before the corner so that once he was trotting, the first thing he needed to do was balance himself for the corner. This was reasonably effective to stop him from just taking off willy-nilly.  Next, I kept my seat super light by leaning forwards slightly in a half-two point position.

Then I tried something I read somewhere, opening my hands wide, but keeping my elbows tucked in and steady. That was the final key to the puzzle – lightening my seat allowed him to come through over his back, and opening my hands unlocked his neck and shoulders and allowed him to work fully from back to front.

Yes, his frame improved almost instantly, but at this stage that is a secondary concern for me – I am really only interested in his looseness (suppleness and relaxation) or Losgelassenheit, his “throughlettingness” of the aids, or Durchlässigkeit and his free flowing movement and energy, or Schwung.*

And I had all the beginnings of that.  I had it twice – once with far more energy and impulsion on the trail and the second time with more relaxation and attentiveness in the arena.

It’s been nice to have this breakthrough – I now know that I can actually achieve a decent trot from Copper, and I have a some new keys on how to go about doing that. 

Boy, he’s a tough ride sometimes, but I am learning a lot!

See ya,

bonita

*This page on dressage terms has a more through explanation of these German words.

Quick Notes on Joey

 

After trying out some lateral work with Joey, I have discovered that he is very stiff and ‘straight’.  He doesn’t seem to be able to move his hindquarters sideways as easily as Copper does, and I can feel a lot of stiffness through his back, which would explain why he ‘locks’ up his shoulders a lot!

I’ve been so focused on forwards with him that I’ve forgotten about sideways and suppleness – thus the reason why circles unbalance and slow him down, and why he gets stuck on bending.  His corners are still good, which fooled me into thinking that his suppleness and flexibility where ok, but that is not the case.

He seemed to be able to leg yield a lot more easily in a trot than a walk, so we definitely have a lot of work there.  Joey can bend and flex around my leg through his spine and back – so we can do 10m voltés and serpentine down half of the arena, but like I said – his hindquarters are not as activated as they need to be.

When asking for a leg yield it’s like your tapping against a wall – there’s no response and no softness.  He just doesn’t get it.  Yet!

Lots of lateral home work for him!  

And yes, the lateral walking warm up helped with our forwards and trot work.  (=_=); (Well, no duh Bonita!) Loosening up his shoulders, back and hind end meant that we could finish with some lovely forward trot and some quick walk/trot/walk for five strides/trot transitions.  He does a great stretchy trot after all that hard work I can tell you.  (>u<)

See ya,

Bonita

And I fell off Sparrow again…

Yup, I did.  But it’s ok!  I was actually really happy with how the whole schooling session went yesterday – Sparrow did really well!  Yay! : D

It was interesting, because I wasn’t sure that he would behave.  It was a hot, sunny afternoon when I arrived at the paddocks, but in the two minutes between saddling him {complete with pulling faces on his part, some side stepping which I corrected and a growl on my part} and putting on his bridle a really fierce wind whipped up and blew in some nasty looking storm clouds.  Sparrow’s head went into giraffe/Arab/TB mode, and I was thinking that there might be a possibility of some trouble, so I debated whether to lounge him first or not.  But then I didn’t really have the time, and I wasn’t going to wuss out of my ride, so I led him to the arena instead, shutting all the gates behind me. {Even though the “gate” for the arena area isn’t a gate, it’s two rope strung across where the gate used to be.  Somebody stole it.  Our arena doesn’t actually have a fence either – it’s all rather open.}

He stood like a rock for me to mount {whoever trained him to do that did a good job!} and we got on with it.  A few jogs here and there, a bit of *stop* “Oh lookit!!  My mates are over there!” and a lot of “Yikes! That-horse-eating-barrel-has-moved-AGAIN-you-can’t-tell-me-it-won’t-jump-out-and-nom-me-how-‘bout-we-walk-over-THERE-instead”s, and he finally started to drop his head and relax.  10 minutes later we were walking around calmly and listening to leg signals.  Yay! 

We just did some simple schooling, walking, figures of eight, 20m circles {which aren’t quite 20m yet, more like 19m ‘cause he doesn’t want to “touch” the outside track… Grrr.}, trotting large and in circles, and in figure of eights.  I practised my leg position and my two-point position to make things harder for me, and we did a few serpentines. 

I was walking him past the horse-eating-barrels {they are painted bright green and white and sit just out side the arena} in a shoulder fore, working on the “let’s keep to the outside track at a straight walk, not a jog or veer, kthx” and he was slowly starting to listen to me, and not spook. Of course we had to be right next to the barrels when one of them went “Bung!” as the metal cooled down from the heat.  Sparrow went Ahhhh! *Jumps for his life*.  Stupid me lost my seat and I accidentally dug a spur into his side, so he promptly skittered away from that and I just slipped off the side and landed in the dirt at his feet clutching onto the reins. 

He then peered down at me with a “What just happened?” look on his face and I looked back at him and said “I fell off you goof.”  He actually seemed sort of relieved when I got up and patted him!  Away, then it was desensitization to barrel type noise time, so I walked him up to the barrels and started banging, kicking them, and knocking the buckle of the reins on them.  He actually hardly reacted to the noise at all, so that was good considering that he is quite sensitive to sounds.  When he looked bored with the whole business, I hopped back on and we continued our nice calm walking around and our shoulder fores past the barrels.  A little bit more skittery about the barrels, but really no worse then the beginning of our work out; still listening to me and really that was it! 

I was thrilled at the end of the ride.  He did really well considering that the wind was whipping around in trees, everything from long grass to weeds to leaves was constantly moving and rustling and shaking about.  The fact that I got calm, relaxed ‘plodding’ from my four and half year old TBx for most of our schooling session says progress to me, particularly when just two rides before the only time he would relax would be half an hour to forty minutes into our session, and then it would only be for a few minutes because I would reward him and end the ride.  A trick which seems to have worked well! 

In summary, I think he’s trusting me more and that’s great.  I have only had him for three months, and three weeks out of those months I didn’t ride him at all, so all in all, we are actually doing okay.  > U <

If you manage to make it to the end of this rather long post – kudos to you!

See ya!

bonita