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.