Single Pole Friend

Another week of crawling through this horrible weather - because even though it's finally trying to warm up, all that means is the feet of snow is melting into feet of water when it's not too busy freezing back over again into sheets of ice. We love a NY winter.

it never stopped snowing this year. literally.

Opie had a couple rides leading up to our lesson this morning. We fucked around with the R-L change over the weekend (which was mostly fuckery), and then did a simple stretchy ride on Tuesday with work on the turns on the haunches. 

got a little hacking in before the melt started
and turned the footing to shit

I asked for more work on the R-L change for our lesson because it's got to be a thing or Opie has got to find a new home, so we brought our frenemy the single pole back. I set up Pivo in the corner hoping to get some footage, but in typical Pivo fashion it did not want to play with me and missed about 80% of the ride. I did manage to grab a couple of (crooked) clips when it wasn't staring at the wall tho!

We made it over the pole today! That alone was a huge win lol. Bless him, he tried to figure it out, and he kept coming instead of trying his previous evasions of doing anything but keep coming. They're whacky and weird, but honestly they were way less whacky and weird than usual so we'll call that a Small Win.

Also, side note, the head wag. Opie's had the head wag at times from day one. He's super tricky about the contact and that's kind of what myself, judges, and a couple trainers have always attributed it to. He doesn't do it when he's feeling strong and relaxed. We've gone through different bits over the years and I'm absolutely loving the feeling he gives me in his current one (Bombers Happy Tongue), but MB asked today if I'd ever tried a different bridle on him. She'd read that the Micklem isn't actually comfortable for horses and wondered if that might be contributing to the head wag. I have tried regular snaffles on him - they don't really fit his blocky head, and the Micklem does - and I'd never heard that about the Micklems before. Has anyone else read this?

possibly just wagging his head to better spread the
side eye idk

Anyway, after we finished with our single pole friend on the straight approach, we decided to try it on the diagonal approach. Mostly because I really want him to do this fucking change across the diagonal like he needs to do in a test and it's usually around March that I start going into lowkey panic mode about how quickly show season is approaching. And we brought the pole along because through trial and error we've found that if I have a tangible object to aim at, I ride straighter and more forward which are basically the only components you need for changes. 

Opie started this exercise off FUCKING FERAL. #throwbackthursday to launching me into the air and being completely mental. But MB, in her MB way, was just like, "It's fiiiine! Carry on!" So we did, and eventually we went from aiming in the general direction of the pole and praying to being able to put my right leg on, and then finally I was able to keep my right leg on and ask for the change with the left on the very last pass which fortunately for all our viewing pleasure Pivo deigned to tune in for before returning to staring at the wall.

I still got launched out of the saddle, and it's still not technically correct, but it's soooo much more correct than before! Like, his fucking LH finally blasted off the ground instead of hanging back and watching everything else unfold before deciding if it wanted to come along at some point in the distant future.

So hopefully we're on the right track with those. He's so strong in everything else, literally blowing out of his skin with new muscle and confidence, that it finally feels like if we can just figure out what the missing piece he needs for those is, everything else is going to come together.

And then I'll take him to a show and we'll both forget how to horse lolzzzz.

Tomorrow is our saddle fitting appointment finally, and then Saturday we get to ride with MB's trainer again. That's not going to be a monthly thing for me because $$$ but I was able to swing it again this time, and hopefully she'll be able to give us some more help on the change.

Psychic

Or maybe more appropriately titled "Psycho" because that's what everyone thinks of horse people anyway, and then you tell them you called some random woman halfway across the country to talk to your horse, AND SHE DID. 

#noregrets

Absolutely nothing has happened since our lesson last week - not even our rescheduled saddle fitting appointment - because we're stuck in a cycle of snow and ice and 50mph wind. Which isn't really that different from every single fucking day since Christmas which is that last time we've seen open ground, but the past few days have been especially horrendous. 

i guess that's a lie. opie did get his teeth done, but
even that was routine and boring.

So this seems like the perfect time to ride on the back of Stacie's post contemplating getting an animal communicator for Al and write about Opie's session with Kathy George. Our appointment was probably a year and a half ago at this point, but don't worry. I kept the pages of notes I took! I went with Kathy on the recommendation of one of my friends who had done all four of her horses with Kathy and gave a glowing review.

I will preface all this by saying that I went in not caring either way if she gave me any pertinent or super secret information. I purely wanted the entertainment value. It was $45 for a 15 minute session, and I justified it by telling myself I've spent way more than that on far more stupid shit. Also, leading up to it, everyone in the barn was joking on how many people Opie was going to pick out and say he hates because a sweet, loveable, cuddling precious pookie Opie is not. #ragemonster

I called Kathy at our scheduled appointment time, we talked about the weather for a second (only because my area code is for Illinois and I actually live in NY), and then she asked for his color, age, and name.

Let's jump right in with some bulllletttt pointssss:

• Her first comment was, "Wow! He just ran through the door like Liberace!" Which was hysterical because while Opie is a grumpy old man trapped in a fit young horse body, he feels every emotion to a 10. She said she would describe his whole personality as "flashy." Oh yeah, he likes to give us all the ole razzle dazzle alright lol.
• "I'm first. For everything." -- Opie. "You're not going to ignore him, ever."
• He was super rude at the gate at the last barn. He had to come in first, and he would push other horses off the gate if they were coming in instead of him. And forget trying to give anyone else in the field candy if you weren't also going to give him some, too. He hasn't done any of this once at the new barn. 
• Later in the session she added that "he wants attention all the time. He's like a dog."
• He identifies me as "his person" (which gave me heart eyes because again, he's just got the grumpiest outward personality), and he wants to do a good job for me.

I  specifically asked her if he liked his job as a dressage horse, and if there was anything I could help him with in his work.

• He gets tense in his jaw and neck under saddle which makes the rest of him tense up. 
• "Mom gets annoyed when I do this." Heh, called out for my lack of patience by my own horse over the phone to a random person states away. Kathy told him that she can tell he gets defensive in response and we need to work together.
• He doesn't like to pick his back up....
• True....
• .....and then she followed that up immediately with, "Well Opie, you don't need to be dramatic about everything." And then she told me, "He's very funny, but he is a lot."
• He likes doing dressage, he likes that it helps get his energy out.
• "He's like a star quarterback. I feel like the weaving comes from needing to get his energy out nonstop." He doesn't weave at the new barn either, and literally all of the horses that moved when the barn closed that had issues have done a total 180 so I'm surprised she didn't pick up on the bad juju floating around there lol.

And, of course, I asked about any physical issues he was having which is where we spent most of our time.

• The last third of his foot/the lower pastern in the back felt like it had pressure. 
• We've never xrayed, but it does look like on the RH he might be developing a little ringbone.
• He doesn't like high nails in his back shoes.
• When he swallows, his throat/neck reflexively give him the feeling like he's having a panic attack. 
• He is starting to develop some (super, super small) melanomas along his throatlatch area, but I've had 3 vets from 2 practices check him over in this area and none of them thought they were effecting his breathing. He doesn't ever seem to struggle with this under saddle or while he's romping around so idk.
• He's sore in his sternum, and poll and jaw areas.
• He hates getting his chest buckles done on his blanket which ties in to the sternum, but I don't have the funds to try all the blankets in the world to see if there's a configuration that suits him better.  Sorry, dude.
• We make sure to spend more targeted time with PEMF on his dome piece now.
• Her big takeaway was that he felt "sensitive all over" and she asked if I'd had him tested for Lyme lately. 
• Which was on the list, and a month later we did the test and ended up treating him for it!

The best part of the whole appointment was at the very end when she just started laughing hysterically and she was like, "I told him he just needed to relax, and he SHOUTED back at me, 'I AM RELAXED.'" Opie in a fucking nutshell, I was dying. 

Definitely recommend Kathy, and definitely recommend getting a session done just so you can share it with everyone else. I'd love to have her do Opie again at the new barn because I know there would be so much new stuff. 

Everything Is Hard

I was promised a new exercise for working on the R-L change, and it was indeed laid out for me.

It was one pole. On the rail. Just chilling there.

We never made it to the change, the pole existing proved too difficult.

this canter is getting SO strong tho.
as long as there isn't a pole involved.

Yesterday was the first ride in awhile where I felt like we actually accomplished something so I was excited to go into this lesson. True, I had to ride every. single. step. and focus on controlling every single centimeter of my horse's body, buuuut it kind of turns out the higher you move up the levels the less grace you get in being a spaced out lazy rider. Like, I'm sure we've all heard "Ride half halt to halt halt." Oh, yes. And you legit are half halting every step. This riding thing actually gets harder not easier.

But anyway, on to the lesson.

MB dropped one single ground pole halfway down one of the long sides and was like, "Off you go." Walked it fine, picked up a nice (forward! Trying so hard to be more forward!) warm up trot, and promptly lost the rhythm at every approach, squirted through my right leg, and shot off on the other side. Finally got it together each way, and then picked up the canter.

Samesies. It was dreadful.

Eventually we got the left lead sorted, but the right lead - his harder direction - was just a mess. Couldn't hold the rhythm to find a distance to save our lives, and no matter how he got to it he basically just smashed through it and landed in a heap.

ONE SINGLE GROUND POLE. If you want to expose some huge gaping holes and your horse's inability to get its feet out of their own way, 11/10 recommend this exercise.

Eventually MB took pity on us and was like, let's do some trot instead. The trot was banging. Light, collected, forward, best SI to date (only took us five years to get those); my eyeballs were literally sweating when we stopped from how hard it was to ride. EVEN WHEN IT'S AMAZING IT IS SO HARD!

hacking out is a must for both our mental sanity

We still had 15 minutes left in our lesson so I asked MB if we could work on the canter halfpasses. The trot are fine. Easy peasy, Opie and I both understand them. Turns out I did not understand one single thing about how to ride a canter halfpass. Our fifteen minutes was thirteen minutes of MB being like, "No, that is not what I'm saying to you. Listen to the words coming out of my mouth and watch me prance across the diagonal like you are supposed to be doing." And me up there just like, "........wut."

She finally took my phone to video me from behind because I'm a visual learner, and the first attempt was a Fail.

I'm trying to shove him across the ring and it turns into a tense, fucked up, incorrect leg yield. MB kept telling me to just turn the shoulders onto the diagonal and let him go, and I was like, "But then he is not bent into a halfpass shape and won't go sideways and we will never make itttttttttt!!1!1!" So I decided I would PROVE THIS to MB by doing exactly what she told me.

No one will be surprised that this was indeed a more correct halfpass, and that I was wrong and my trainer was right. So that was a delightful win in that if I do less there, I fuck up my horse less. Poor Opie. We quit with that because he was over my shit at that point. 

So much homework to work on now though. And maybe one day we'll actually get to work on the change over the pole instead of just cantering over it without falling on our heads.

Best Laid Plans

Spammed everyone with a bunch of posts at once and then disappeared. It be what it be.

waiting for his pemf appt because he gets all the
things even when i don't get to ride him

After Opie kicked his foot open he was never lame, but I wanted to keep it as free from arena dirt as I could which meant riding as little as I could. The sometimes frustrating part of our new boarding arrangement is having to give up rides to other people. Board here is expensive, and while I work off what I can, MB and I agreed before I moved that she would also use him for a select amount of lessons. It helps take even more money off board cost, and MB and I are very good at communicating what's working and what's not. Currently that's a fellow boarder every Monday who has cantered him one lap exactly one time, and two girls from our last barn who ride Thursday and Friday bi-weekly. It's workable, MB is fully on board with any input I have as far as what gets done, and the most advanced thing he does for any of them is sometimes leg yielding. It's not a tough workload.

But that's other people I have to work around, and then of course I try to schedule days off around both my rides and theirs. All that is to say I hadn't done more than walk him twice since he busted his foot, and before that the only "real" ride he had from me after our bonus lesson was the one where I got off because he was having a menty b and consequently busted his foot.

He did his three lessons in between that, but you could tell he hadn't been asked to do big boi horse work when I finally got on him Sunday morning. 

big mad i would ask him to turn right instead of go shooting across
the diagonal

He was a complete beast as soon as I got on. W/t/c for warm up was fine. He was lit, but he wasn't feral. We worked on our changes in the canter, and unsurprisingly despite having done the exercise for only one ride with the other trainer a couple weeks ago, Opie already figured the R-L change trick out - and was not here for it. Back to his whacky skip change without giving me any opportunity to set him up or help him out. MB already has a new exercise she wants to try for this week's lesson so hopefully we actually get there without further derailment. 

He kept building and building the longer we rode, but I really wanted to try to get something productive out of it because this is how he can sometimes get at shows - tighter and shorter and quicker and now I have zero rideability. For whatever reason, trot halfpasses seem to be his zen so we did a shit ton of those.

He even tried some canter halfpasses for me despite being super tense, and while they weren't good, he held the lead and waited to be asked for the change which is mandatory for both 3-2 and 4-1 and has been a big suck in the past.

always good at the halts

If nothing else, it was good to get video for a check-in. Our indoor is very small and I'm developing a horrible habit of riding backwards. This was a good visual to hopefully start correcting that. It was also helpful to watch with the more educated eye I have now how short in the neck and back he gets when he gets tense like this, and while I wasn't able to fully troubleshoot under saddle at the time, I'll know for next time to sacrifice the uphill balance and really let him stretch out and lose some of the "control" I'm trying to battle for. 

Since his Monday rider is an older woman, I went this morning and gave him a good longe just in his halter. He for sure needed it, but he seemed a lot more settled mentally when we were done. 

trying out the emma recommended bib since his
other one just added new rubs to the ones he already
has from his BOT - which was not a thing last year

Hopefully we'll be able to go full send under saddle for the rest of this week, and then he'll have his rescheduled saddle fitting on Saturday!