A Thinking Rider

It's no secret that actively working through problems I run into under saddle while still in the saddle is a completely novel concept for me. 

Panic first, spiral next, wrap it up with sitting on the couch many hours later ruminating on all the things I could have done differently.

It's funny because inherently I overthink prettyyy much everything, but generally speaking, when I'm in the saddle I'm either frustrated or in lala land just enjoying the ride, enjoying the scenery, yay horses look at me I'm on one. 

look at my horse trotting what more could he possibly need to do

Obviously this shows up the most in the warm up ring when I need to be managing my horse who's tenser and tighter than he is at home and needs me to be running through my Knowlege List to help him out. But I don't. Because I'm at a show wheeeee!

We did our little schooling show on Tuesday afternoon. These shows are put on by the local eventing club, but the last one of the year is sponsored by my GMO so they count towards year end awards. They're still plopped in the middle of a grass field with schooling show judges and minimal volunteers on hand though.

so grassroots they miscalculated my scores by 10% because addition is hard

It was 96* Tuesday afternoon so on top of my usual drifting brain, I was physically fucking melting. Opie was fine, Opie was thriving...Opie should have had his double bridle on. He spent the first test laying on the bridle and dragging me around, and nearly porpoised right on out of the ring in the canter work, at which point I made him halt in the corner so we did not leap out of the corner. He was significantly better for the second test, but me schooling "Do not launch yourself out of the ring" made my favorite judge (so much history with her! #besties #not) PISSED. Schooling at a schooling show? Absolutely not.

MB looked over my tests (I still have not lolz) and was like, "We have got to get this figured out. I'm getting on him to start your lesson Thursday." This being the horse laying on the bridle, but also me not doing anything productive in warm up.

I'm so glad she did, and also glad MB is who she is. Sympathetic to listening to my complaints, but completely unfazed by a "bad" show and immediately on to problem solving. Her takeaway was he locks against the right rein and I just sit there and try to walk it out. That doesn't work. Make him go sideways (SI, leg yield, half pass, whatever) until he fills the reins himself. In the canter when he gets braced an/or anticipates the transition, make him trot instead. Then spring the canter on him. A million and one transitions in and out of the canter, change directions, change the balance.

I feel like I have to save a lot of horse for the tests at shows, and she shut that right down and told me I can walk him for the whole fucking warm up if I needed to. He can do all the things in walk instead. Walking isn't just walking around. DO THINGS.

Once she got done schooling him, she had me get on and first things first told me to SIT ON THE HORSE. I was like, "Oh no, but he is tense and wanting to jiggity jig I could never." And she was all, "SIT ON HIS BACK AND MAKE HIM DO HIS JOB." 

So I did....and then he did his job.

Especially at the canter, let the inside seat bone move, but the outside seat bone has to be nailed down. Use the seat to influence the balance; knock him off balance and let him exist in a canter he doesn't want to for a circle. In and out, always up up up with the shoulders. 

By the time we were done, I could access any canter I wanted and they were all amazing. And this is why we pay trainers the monies.

opie says trainers suck 0/10

We also talked quite a bit about how the next thing to fixate on was strengthening his lower back. He gets so tight there he's not using it the way he should be and it's just straight up weak. This was great news for me because we agreed it could all be done without riding (aka being a thinking rider, that's such a mental strain) but addressing it more as physical therapy. More back lifts, butt tucks, and raised walk poles. Easy peasy. 

plenty of body work too of course

It's finally going to be not hot as balls next week so I'm looking forward to getting back on and attempting to use my brain for at least half the ride. Baby steps, y'all. 

Obey Your Master

In our lesson last Thursday, while Opie was thoroughly objecting to the audacity of asking him to walk along the rail while my legs remained draped along his sides, MB said, "This is a submission problem."

She came in halfway through our ride this morning when I was already well into my warm up. The trot work was good, but I couldn't steer this thing to save my life. And then the right lead canter was all over the place and things kind of just kept spiraling from there. One of the times I went shooting by her as power steering failed, she called out, "Maybe go grab the double?" 

But I was like, "Nooo, it's not a submission problem! It's just a steering problem! And rhythm problem! And he's just tense!"

MB got finished working her horse in short order and parked along the rail to watch me run through 3-3. The heaps of lateral work at the trot actually helped him a lot, and MB complimented us on how good our SI looked both ways--like, we can do them now! I remembered the stupidly placed halt and reinback, he picked up the canter quietly, did his left canter halfpass good enough despite starting to tense up again, and then absolutely lost his shit when I asked for the change. Conveniently timed as MB suggested maybe I just do a walk-canter transition instead since he was getting so tight. 

Instead he went straight up, leapt out of it, and bolted across the entire length of the incredibly large arena before I could get him stopped.

Needless to say, we put the kibosh on finishing the test. Instead I made him walk around. It involved inch long reins while he angrily chomped the bit, but every time I even thought of offering a release he would start jigging or running sideways. 

Eventually he slammed on the brakes and refused to move. Which was fair, being strangled isn't a fun game for anyone. But back to my last post, there's plenty of work to be done in the halt. I got to work on shifting side to side because he kept craning his neck around to shoot me death glares which would knock him off balance. Leg off, leg on made him go running backwards. Finally, he decided running backwards wasn't getting him anywhere so he planted his feet, tucked his nose to his chest, and checked the fuck out. 

I sat there with my legs quietly on because having a meltdown doesn't get you everything you want. He had a great big loop in his reins so literally no reason to be curled into a ball. And then I just clucked and told him to walk on without moving any part of my body because I knew he was looking for an excuse to go up again. It was a long, boring wait on my end, but he finally jolted himself out of it and burst into the trot. That's fine, that was forward. We did a lap of the ring in trot before coming back to the halt on my terms, and repeated the vocal cues until he walked off. 

Good boy, so smart, how about a little canter to reestablish forward. I did it in half seat which convinced him to loosen his back, and then into the sitting trot which was A+++++. We cruised around for a solid five minutes with a trot I'd be stoked to take into the show ring any day. When we halted out of that I hopped right off and shoved a candy down his throat. 

It was a full hour of riding by the time we were done, but I think it was a conversation we needed to have. A conversation about....submission. Whomp whomp. I've gotten sucked back into the habit of tiptoeing around him when he doesn't wanna because he's been so good the majority of the time. 

He's getting tomorrow off, but on Thursday I'll put the double back on him and see what I'm working with. He'll get ridden once more by me on Sunday, he gets his PEMF Monday, showtime Tuesday--hopefully without dying in the predicted heat and humidity. Zero percent enthused. 

(I am enthused thinking about who will be offended by this title tho.)

Learn all the things

My cup has been runneth-ing over with knowledge lately. I am living for it.

Obsessed.

Blessed.

Grateful to do anything that doesn't involve being hot and sweating.

Absolutely thriving.

give me a clipboard and a ringside view any day

Last weekend I spent all day Saturday volunteering at the first day of my GMO's recognized dressage show. One of the perks of doing a lot of volunteering is that you eventually get seniority and handed the cush jobs. In this case it meant sitting in the air conditioned indoor being ring steward/equipment check for the first half of the day and then helping with the breed show in the afternoon--something I've never done before, but it was super interesting. The show secretary made me her right-hand man and I learned so much from her. Bonus was that my trainer was scribing for the indoor judge all day so driving home we were able to compare notes on what I saw watching the rides and what the judge thought from the booth. An hour and a half of complete dressage nerdiness, we were in heaven!

once again, opie being mocked in the group chat.
sir, you might hold your weight better if you stopped
giving your food away.

On Thursday I had my lesson where it was 62* and raining so we went to the indoor. I was in my element--it was legit the best day of the summer in my opinion. However, I didn't anticipate it being too cold and wet for sensitive Opie and he came out SO tight and SO angry.

Lots of stretchy walk and trot, big circles, and changes of directions eventually got him feeling better so we went to move on to the canter. He was not having it. He immediately locked everything up again and any attempt to ask for the transition was a shuffley tranter with his head in the air. At one point I gave him a little tap behind to try to convey he needed to get his fucking legs sorted out and try, but this was VERY OFFENSIVE and he completely lost his shit.

dripping sweat even though it was freezing

We eventually got him to put his brain sort of back in his head with a lot of lateral work and moved on to my request of working on the walk pirouettes. Shockingly he was perfectly okay with being drilled on these, and we figured out the missing piece was me letting his neck get too bent which is generally the bane of my existence tbh. He's so gumby, and so annoyingly capable of bending every single inch of his body in a different direction all at once. 

We tried the canter again after that and sort of got it okay, but MB reiterated that his neck is doing too much and he needed to be a lot straighter. So we used the solid walls of the tiny indoor to make him walk in a straight line with my calf resting against his side.

It. Was. Awful.

I went full Zen Ninja while Opie threw every evasion in the book at us because HOW DARE we ask him to hold his body straight, and HOW DARE I expect him to do this with both my left AND right calf touching him. Over an hour after my lesson started he finally got it enough that I could dismount and be done with him.

it was 68 and sunny the next morning but he got
BOT for half an hour anyway. no using being cold
as an excuse to be an asshole.

I rode him in the outdoor the next day and MB and I agreed I was guilty of being a little sloppy with the straightness out there. The ring is so big you really don't ever need to be on the rail so it's easy to lose track of your straightness. With that lesson in my head, it was easier to pick up on when the haunches came in too much or the shoulders started creeping away. That was a really good stretchy, straight ride which he needed to give me to redeem himself for how awful he was the day before.

Saturday morning, MB had one of her trainers out for lessons with both her horses so I went to watch. Her warmblood is mentally identical to Opie, and that lesson was SO interesting to absorb. Specifically at the end when her horse wants to physically and mentally quit and if she pushes him he loses his shit. MB had him going amazingly, but right on cue he checked out and refused to walk on. LB had MB keep him in the halt and make him work hard in the halt. 

IT WAS SO COOL.

LB had her rocking slowly side to side to make him shift his weight to balance her, and then she had her take her legs off completely so that when she laid them back against his side he needed to take that as his cue to lift his posture. Then pick up the reins and with the leg on and posture raised he should go on the bit on his own. So even though they weren't moving, he wasn't being rewarded for quitting--he was still having to do hard work. 

LB explained it to us afterwards that the halt is actually more work than moving, because movement is momentum and that momentum makes it easier to carry the muscles. If you think about it in yourself, it's harder to sit in a chair in perfect posture than it is to wander around at the walk. 

working on his stretchies

I had that on my list of things to try for this morning's ride, but I mostly just wanted to do another nice stretchy ride. Unfortunately his wife was in the indoor getting worked and he could hear MB talking to the mare's owner so he was suuuuper distracted. And then my reins got twisted so I spread my hands wide and shook them out to untwist them, but this meant my whip went out wide as well and he saw that and took GREAT OFFENSE. 

It's almost like there's a common theme with you, Opie. 

would prefer a life of baths and grazing

So I had to scrap my stretchy trot plan and just go with whatever he would give me. That ended up being more walk pirouettes, the trot work from 3-2 in a super collected sitting trot because whatever floats your boat, and then a stunning swinging L-R change. I did try some stretchy trot again but that was a definite no lolz. 

Instead we tried the halt work! He was fine for the l-r shifting; he looked back at me like, "You suck at being centered every day, but this is sucky even for you." The leg off to leg on made him Big Mad. There was a lot of running backwards and sideways in reaction to being expected to stay still and improve his posture. But eventually he did get what I was asking for, and while he didn't remain in the halt for long, the exercise went through. 

Now I have to come up with a plan for the rest of the week that should probably involve running through 3-2 or 3-3 at some point before our show next Tuesday. If it could be not hot or smoky with an AQI of 160, that'd be a great help, thanks New York.