Regression

Well, we kind of reentered the land of the bolting again on Tuesday. But now we're back to having the L-R and the R-L being late.

we went for a very wild snow romp over the weekend.
totes worth it.

I think my problem is I'm overthinking the big picture of what I need to do to set up and ask for the change instead of running through my list of detail work--which isn't surprising for me since stringing that many aids together so quickly is very, very hard for my brain to deal with. As such, everything has been sloppy and slightly out of control--both my body and Opie's. I'll definitely need to take at least a couple more lessons on this to have BM walk me through what to do with each body part again until it becomes more ingrained and automatic.

I did bring out Mr Tappy on Tuesday, and he was of much assistance in that L-R change though! A tap on the bum as I asked for the change (muffled through the quarter sheet or we definitely would have been bolting) corralled the LH that wants to go blasting off across the ring and there was our change again!

Yesterday I wrapped up three rides in a row by focusing solely on relaxation and freeing up the back. I'm not going to ride until Monday because of the cold unless we get another round of snow in which case we're going to go party in it.

I had the arena doors open part way because I was planning on dragging the ring when I was done riding, and Opie started off by being very distracted and jiggy about them. Fortunately he got over it quickly as I didn't have the energy to deal with it. 

Good w/t work, and then I got up into half seat for the canter, really asking him to come round and lift up. He was all about it. He was winging his legs out and so lifted in his back and stretched in his neck I thought we were going to somersault a couple times. Like, not even fall down, just start rolling like the beach ball he was feeling like.

Meh, and then we switched to the right and it was more tense and not as nice. But I got some release and went to the left again and ended that gait on a good note.

We finished up with more stretchy trot where I really had to focus on pushing the haunches under him both ways. The LH was in rogue mode and was not down with being straight. He was trying for me though, and we both found a good rhythm to work in while he continued to stretch and I continued to ping pong his leg back into place. 

It was a good ride to see that the basics are there, and we can do them, but they definitely still need their time in the limelight. Hopefully we can bring that bouncy, soft canter into changes land one day. 

Am I done writing about changes yet?

NOPE.

And I probably won't be until we get them--quietly and cleanly--in two tests in front of two different judges who generously award us above a sixty percent.

SO IT'S GONNA BE AWHILE.

I gave Opie the day after his lesson off, and then worked on some of our homework yesterday. Bonus that it included jumpies because neither of us was down for another straight dressage ride. I am nothing if not dedicated to diversity. Better known as, I get bored easily.

BM wanted us to do some work on the right lead over little jumps on a circle, focusing on keeping the LH underneath him and keeping him from blowing through those outside aids. Fortunately there were four easy peasy jumps ready to go when I got there--two on the diagonals (a big X and a vertical) and one against the rail on either long side (an oxer and a vertical). I kept them 2' or under.

Walk warm up was a lot of shifting the haunches back and forth and changing the bend around while making sure to stay marching. Because of the jumps taking up the rail, we leg yielded to the quarter line until we got to the jumps (at B and E), changed the bend, and then did haunches in to the end of the ring. 

Right when we were ready to move on to the trot, I heard horses screaming and making a fuss outside which I knew meant someone had gotten out, so I stuck Opie back in his stall for a minute to go wrangle two wild ponies and lock them and their dumb friends still stuck in their paddock into their stalls. 

Back on Opie, our trot work was pretty lame. I didn't have a good plan for it and basically just got him going around softly before coming over a couple of the jumps out of the trot and cantering off. He was good for that, but it wasn't what we were supposed to be working on. 

I scrapped the lackluster trot work and moved on to the canter with a plan. 

On the right lead, I made sure to really hold his haunches in coming up to the jump. It was fool proof results. If I succeeded in keeping him straight in his body, he landed beautifully on his right lead and carried on. If I didn't he landed on his left lead in a heap.

We worked on a circle over the two jumps on the rail and threw in the two others on the diagonals to keep things fresh. Throughout everything, Opie's canter stayed rhythmical and he never once got spicy the more jumps we did. Good boy!

We took a long walk break before I wanted to end testing the changes quick. Turns out first we had to have a conversation about how we can pick up the canter without throwing our head in the air. I hate how this is still even a thing, and you bet your balls we're going to nix this completely this year. #overit

Once that was done, his first change was a mess, the second good but tense. We took another long walk break until he'd settled again, and then popped the easiest L-R change ever. I actually had to look down at him to make sure he'd done it because it was such a nonevent. I think he felt so confident in himself after that that the next one, R-L, was just as quiet if a couple strides late behind because I didn't have him set up quite as well. We quit there anyway with big praise because the brain stayed in the head and that's always worthy of celebration!

Ride Notes: A lesson on the changes

Still chipping away!

I did two rides on my own that focused on the changes between BM's training ride and my lesson yesterday. One went okay. The other one was a shit show, and I somehow broke the tried and true L-R change....but uncovered the R-L.

In my lesson, BM had me warm up at the walk the way I had been the past week: long rein, keeping the relaxation, walk forward, move the haunches back and forth. She also broke down what every single body part needed to be doing and when which is EXACTLY what I needed. She knows more than one to two aids at a time is a real deal breaker for my brain, so we started walking a figure eight pattern as she talked me through the aids I would be doing when we got to the canter.

We did a quick trot with a bunch of changes of direction and circles to get Opie's muscles fully warmed up, and then on to the meat of the lesson. 

The canter was pretty shit to start because I hadn't asked for any collected work yet so I wasn't going to automatically get it there either. But we rolled with what we had and in the figure eight very nonchalantly asked for the change of lead through walk or trot, whichever he was willing to give without getting worked up. 

Ugh, but worked up he got. He started anticipating changing direction and just diving towards the new direction even when I was asking for nothing but a circle. 

Since relaxation is the core goal here because we're not going to be able to get anything without it, I just kept bringing him back to the walk as needed with lots of reassurance before trying again. Finally, after a couple of planned walk breaks where I was confident with my body placement, timing, and aids, we got the canter more collected and started in on the flying change.

R-L was beautiful!!! Super clean, super quiet, right on the aids, cantered off quietly while I heaped the praise on him.

L-R was the shit show I have been experiencing. We never got a clean change this way, and ended after only a few attempts because we didn't want him escalating any more than he already wanted to.

BM thinks the root of it is weakness in the LH--as always with that fucking leg. He doesn't want to load it, so when he changes in front his whole hind end if off balance and he can't help but blow through all my outside aids and literally fall through my outside leg until we're 10m off the track we're supposed to be on, and he's just hopping up and down or bolting or both trying to correct his balance.

So our homework is strengthening exercises for that leg: haunches-in and some small turning jumps focusing on keeping the outside aids and that LH underneath himself.

A small win though! He's cheapo TSC calming supplement has purportedly made him a whole new horse in his stall at night. No more frantic weaving or running, and he even missed a cookie opportunity the other night because he was passed out flat snoring away when lessons ended. At least one thing can be easy!

Ride Notes: The Changes

Again. 

Always.

Changes forever and ever amen.

Yesterday was Dopie's eighth birthday so I did him a solid and gave him the day off. I also tried to do him a special and feed him a prepackaged bran/beet/carrot mash and he was all, "Candies only, thank you."

hat on crooked after bashing mo with it repeatedly

This morning I gave him a quick bib clip since now that he's back in full work--physically and mentally--he's starting to sweat to death during every ride. I'll probably make it a full clip this weekend or sometime next week, but I did want to ride after so I had to keep the hair covering (on me) to a minimum.

For our ride I went through exactly what BM told me to: change of bend with the hips (although I switched this in my head from hips to seat because it made more sense when going through the motion) through shoulder in and out and haunches in and out. I kept him on a long rein and made sure relaxation never got lost. He didn't give me any of the squirreliness over changing bend like he did to her, and I still wouldn't be surprised if it was our height difference combined with her in a jump saddle. My legs stretch allll the way down when I'm in my dressage saddle, and hers were hitting him mid-barrel. 

We did a quick stretchy trot with lots of circles and flexing in and out, and then on to a quiet canter.

Things were not successful at first. He was all about giving me the change up front, but it took an entire 20m circle to get him on board behind and he was still wanting to bolt off after.

We took a long stretchy walk break while I thought things through. BM told me to focus on the haunches, and I was definitely only riding the shoulders. A quick back and forth with my seat and legs at the walk to shift the haunches from side to side and off we went again.

Durhh, much better success! Still late behind but only for a couple strides, and no bolting after. We did one each way and called it quit there since he hadn't built into a hot frenzied mess and RELAXATION is our number one goal. Ten more minutes of walking with his nose on the ground, extra candies, and back out with his friends.

I bought him a cheapo calming supplement from TSC that hits all the major sleepy brain ingredients so I'm going to see if that makes any difference, and then I'll assess if it's worth investing in from there.

Ride Notes: Training ride

Fortunately it didn't go like I worried it might!

The takeaways:

• He's crooked, mostly in his neck which he uses as a weapon--his fave. 
• He needs to be more forward in his lateral work. I was like, "LOLZ forever on the to-do list, don't worry."
• Warming him up at the walk she worked on getting him straight, and then worked on getting him to change the bend while remaining supple, going from SI to renvers. 
• He did not like this. He got very tense and kept trying to scoot into the trot whenever she switched her legs. I don't know if this is leftover reactivity from the dressage whip, or he was confused by her much shorter legs in a jump saddle because this isn't something I have a problem with. 
• Skipped the trot because she did a ton of walk work first and didn't want to tire herself or him out in the canter. 
• She established the canter and then asked for a change each way right off the bat to see what they were. He immediately did the same thing he does with me: throws his head, bolts, and either flails his legs all over or doesn't attempt the change at all.
• Worked through some "simple changes" aka just changing the lead through trot or walk, whichever he offered without getting tense.
• That took awhile to bring him back to out of his anxiety bubble.
• She did eventually get a very quiet, clean L-R change and a kind of shuffle into the new lead R-L change.
• Ended with a long, long walk focusing on releasing the tension from his neck before she got off.

Her thoughts were:

• The bolting is all him. She was riding him on a loose rein in either an intentionally floppy seat or in half seat and he still bolted with her.
• The number one thing he needs to do is fucking relax.
• When riding the changes, it's the haunches that are swinging wildly out of control so I need to really exaggerate controlling those.
• Think sitting off to one side of him and riding almost haunches in before asking for the change of bend and then the change itself.
• This was good for me to see from my corner of the ring because I didn't fully understand it as she explained it, but seeing what she was doing from the ground was a big help. I don't know if I would have grasped what she was asking from the saddle. 
• His canter is very rhythmical and powerful, he just needs to relax. He's carrying tension in his lower back and that needs to go away to finish loosening him up. But, again, that will come from losing the anxiety. 
• Look into calming supplements. Even if they're not show legal, if they can get him through this training phase and get him to relax while learning the changes, he should be able to come off of them when show season starts.
• He's still prone to being an anxious tweaker in his stall some nights. No trigger, he just loses his shit and runs his stall while everyone else in the barn is chill.
• She offered him a dose of CBD pellets, but he was adamantly against those.
• He's got thick chest and mid-neck muscles from weaving that she thinks are also not helping him any. Kind of what are you going to do there though thing. He weaves outside as much as he weaves in his stall. 

omg everything is a thing omgomgomg

Honestly it wasn't necessarily any new information, but it was good to see that he did the same thing for her so it's not just me. I scheduled a lesson with her for next week so she can work me through it while I ride. My homework is to get him used to changing the bend using my hips and core without getting tense, and just generally working on getting him to relax and let go of the tension. 

Ride Notes: Goals

• "Carry my hands" goal: Wow, it's hard not to pull! This is also forcing me to ride with shorter reins which is definitely not a strong suit of mine. 
• When he wants to pop above the contact--pretty much only in the lateral work--I'm trying to convince myself that my hands can go a little wide instead of instantly drop and take back, ending up in my lap and pulling which is just my absolute favorite. I've had to revert to a little wiggle back and forth now and then, but I guess better that for two strides than setting my hands and pulling for however long until I notice I'm doing it and chuck the reins at him, usually dropping all the contact in the process. It's gonna be a journey, hot damn. 
• "Forward in the lateral work" goal: Also known as, time to up your fitness, heifer. A large part, if not the entire reason, of why I'm shutting the trot down in the lateral work is because a bigger gait is harder to sit. I had to really work hard physically to keep up with his bigger, swingier trot.
• Bonus though, he will and can do it. Especially paired with not pulling/carrying my hands.
• More sideways.
• I brought Mr Tappy out the past two rides because I knew I wanted to get that big sideways step back and I didn't want to have to keep kicking him to get it. He wanted to shoot and scoot all over the first minute I had it in my hand, but he quickly started ignoring it being in my hand. Both rides all it took was one brush and he was like, "Yes, ma'am!"
• The half pass is easy now. Canter half pass, we're coming for you!
• The changes.
• I can get them both ways. After a fight. And a lot of not clean ones. BM is getting on him tomorrow so we can both see how to approach this. I'm very dubious she's going to be able to help, but if nothing else I can say I've crossed that avenue off my list. Without a working truck to haul to anyone at the moment, it's her or me. 

Quick aside

 This week was a quick break from real dressage work--which is never really a bad thing! 

On Monday we did a light stretchy ride.

Tuesday and Wednesday he had off.

Thursday he got his teeth done, and then had a quick longe.

This morning we did some jumping for the first time since....September?

always good pony pets for trying hard.
and always puppies!

I set up a pretty remedial course, although it was at least more fun than the standard hunter course. We started coming off the rail onto the diagonal over the barrels (with no stopping because apparently we're a grown up now), down the long side to a vertical, up the other diagonal over a one stride gate-to-gate, the diagonal again to an oxer with fill, and then a quick half rollback turn right over a vertical (the X pictured above). 

Things were a bit sloppy once we started coursing. I had to remember how to ride, and Opie came around to the vertical on the long side/rail that I had set up after warming up and slammed on the brakes in surprise over the magically appearing jump. He was fine once I came back around to it, and didn't look at anything else. 

Once I gave myself a pep talk though and we kept looping through the course, I started riding more forward and letting go while keeping my leg on and everything of course straightened itself out. I was super proud of him for not turning into a rage monster since it's been so long since he's done any jumping. Especially since I just had him in his fat, hollow snaffle dressage bit. 

He gets his weekly pulse treatment tonight, and then he'll have tomorrow off before we return to dressage land again. 

Back to work

At this point I would say Opie is completely back into full work. He's still got some cardio to rebuild--which honestly always lacks a bit in the winter when we're not trail riding as much--but he feels strong, and most importantly he's remained sound with each new thing I reintroduce.

He missed one week of his pulse treatment for Christmas, and when she came to do him on New Year's he wasn't any more reactive than usual, but he was definitely glad to have her back. 

rebuilding that beastly topline

I've been focusing a lot on the canter the last few rides after not doing much with it all of December. Thank god for the double during this endeavor. He wants to start off heavy and leaning, and the double takes care of that with zero fighting and half the work on my part. He also starts off crooked AF, but getting him super collected and doing a ton of work on the quarter lines is taking care of that. 

casually the most handsome

The trot work has needed a lot of transitions to get cooking. Which...it's dressage. I need to be doing ALL THE TRANSITIONS anyway, so the night and day difference in quality is keeping it easy in reminding me to do so. 

I need to start getting back to work on all the lateral stuff, keep plugging away at strengthening the canter, and then I'm going to bite the bullet and make BM get on him and see what she can do with his changes. I don't want to fuck up my back again. I know that whether she gets them or not, she's going to be a miracle worker and all his success is going to be thanks to her, but whatever. I want my fucking Bronze this year, and Imma do whatever I can to make that happen. 

we got a puppy. she is sometimes a goat, sometimes a demon
dragon spawn, and sometimes just a good nugget.

2020 Goal Review and 2021 Goals

 2020 Goals:

1. Improve rider position. Let's be real, I'm never going to be the glowing example of dressage equitation, but I was able to be more cognizant of what my body was doing as both Opie and I got stronger as the year went on. Still room for improvement, but improvement was made.
2. Once a week stretch day. I scrapped setting aside one day a week specifically for stretching because without shows my riding/training schedule was pretty sporadic. But I made sure to incorporate lots of stretching throughout every single ride anyway, and there were plenty of rides where stretching was all we did. Gonna call it mission accomplished.
3. Be a bigger cheerleader for myself. Meh. Privatizing the blog was good because I was able to be more honest with how I felt for each ride, but I'm still pretty close lipped to anyone about the good things both my horse and myself do. 
4. Find a balance between pushing Opie forward and making sure he stays happy in his work. All well and good until we really started hitting the changes. And then no. Of course, looking back, how much of it was maybe some sort of lingering soreness in the groin/stifle/hamstring area since that L-R change was never much of an issue. He certainly felt confident with the added collection and cleaning up the lateral work, but the changes nullified this goal for us.
5. Do more jumping. Bish, yes, so much jumping. The 'rona opened up all sorts of fun cross country activities we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. 
6. Ride each movement in our tests. What tests? What show season?
7. Figure out how to score well in the turn on the haunches. What tests? What show season? I do think I broke this down in my head though, and will be able to ride it well next year. 

Well, at least the fundamentals got crossed off? Like a lot of people, this year was kind of a blessing in disguise with being able to step away from focusing on a show season and test riding and just kind of do the thing instead. 

2021 Goals:

1. Have an acceptable, clean flying change each way. They can be a little wild and wooly still, but I want them on regardless. 
2. Ride the lateral work forward.
3. Canter half pass.
4. Carry my hands. As in, in the air. Not with my lap.