1.5 Weeks

Well, we went from one of our best lessons yet to a complete write off, washout of a lesson the very next week. 

I never was able to replicate the good things--aka the canter--that we got from previous lesson on my own. During his PEMF session he was uncharacteristically pretty back sore. DL did warn me that he was going to be sore working so hard in such a new way, but I guess in my head it was going to be more of a cumulative thing and not an immediate result. 

For our lesson, I thought he felt alright warming up, but my hands started bouncing and I felt like a jumbled mess which turns out ties into how Opie is feeling. The better he goes, the easier he is for me to ride. Things kind of spiraled into general grossness as the lesson went on. Any time we put on the pressure to do more than flop around, Opie adamantly said no. 

I gave him a canter each way in half seat which loosened his back up, but he wasn't interested in doing anything that resembled real work. DL had us back on the circle at the walk and we moved in and out of haunches in and haunches out as an exercise to loosen him up--while telling me no half pass because she caught on immediately that he loves that as an evasion. 

We quit there. DL suggested adding in Buteless to his daily life as we start ramping up the big kid work and his body transitions, which I did.

Saturday he got a quick bareback spin because I could not resist getting to ride in our outdoor for the first time this year.

Sunday was 80* and sunny and glorious so K and I loaded up our ponies and went to the park for the first time this year. We got plenty of canters in, splash parties galore, and walking on the buckle in between. 

On Monday, when I usually would give him a day off after the park, it was super warm again outside with snow in the forecast for later in the week so back to the outdoor we went.

He's been really rude and dishonest about my outside aids the past few weeks. I put my outside leg on and just falls inside--or like dives into the inside. Zero outside rein connection. So right off the bat we addressed that. On a circle, hold the inside bend, and turn off my outside aids. 

He. Was. PISSED.

There was much flailing and leaping and trying to run through my outside aids, but I held firm and did not give in an inch from what I was asking. Eventually he caved and did what the aids were telling him to do. We did our haunches in to out on the circle at the walk, and from there I had a rideable horse. I was able to do t/c that focused on me and my position while he went around like a trained horse. Love it.

Tuesday he had off, this morning half the freshly painted jumps were up in the indoor so obvi we had a quick spin over them. I continued working on making my arms side reins, pulling my right shoulder back, and making the outside aids a thing we live with. 

He was literally perfect for all of it. All 2'6". Single vertical around to a 3 stride vertical to oxer, to a rail topped gait. Then we did the gate to vertical bending line. 

The first time he landed and I went to turn him and he was like, "wtf why are you running me into a jump where are we going abort you idiot!" and came back to a walk before I booted him into the trot and made it over the vertical out. The second time he knew we were turning but I didn't half halt on landing and he ran past the distance. Third time was the charm: he knew the game, I put in a half halt, fucking crushed it. Put it all together for a mini course and nailed every distance and every lead and ended there. Riding forward and straight, man. Makes it all come together lol.

We were supposed to get our saddle today, but it was rescheduled yet again. Hopefully Friday now which means our lesson will get reschuled, but at this point the saddle situation needs to be sorted for good.

Oops, there one is

Friday's lesson was life affirming. Or, if not that dramatic, then at the very least Third Level affirming. 

Finally.

I feel like it was only yesterday we weren't allowed off a circle.

LOL jk we still sometimes get put on circle timeout.

love when it's warm enough for outdoor lessons

I told DL that we've been breezing through our warm up trot (which has felt super for a warm up trot--like, super) and then putting in the hard work at getting the canter in order which in turn makes the sitting trot feel amazing. So once we were done warming up at the trot on our own, she sent us into the canter.

She wanted us to do shoulder-fore or shoulder-in down the rail which turned out to be next to impossible. It's been no secret Opie's shoulders are what's holding us back in pretty much every movement, but hot damn getting those things unlocked never fails to impress.

After we started a fight over hanging on the left rein (DL: "You two are caught up in this rein battle and it's totally irrelevant to what we're trying to do here."), we got assigned exercises instead. Left lead canter, SI (as much as possible) down the long side, turn down center line, go back to the rail holding the counter canter, and SI in counter canter.

also my face when she told us to do SI in counter canter

I literally did not think this was going to be possible. 

Instead not only did we manage to do it, it got him super straight, we both let go of the left rein, and as we came near the end of one long side I got him too bent so that when I put my leg on he quietly and cleanly popped a change. I was cackling in delight and let him come back to the walk to pat him while DL was like ::facepalm:: "Alright, we can take a quick break." Listen, DL, this is a HUGE DEAL. Okay, so it wasn't intentional, but it was easy and sane and those two things do not get associated with Opie and changes.

We changed directions and the exercise this way was picking up the counter canter from the walk already in SI. That surprisingly wasn't too hard, probably because we'd already done so much hard work the other direction. From there we turned down the quarter line and leg yielded to the center line. When we got to A, turn onto the true canter lead, 10m circle, walk on center line, turn back the other direction, back into SI to pick up counter canter. Getting him straight was hard, but as DL said, he needs to learn to canter between the aids and be super straight underneath me. All of this is what is going to lead right into (intentional) changes. 

That took up our entire lesson, but it felt so good to get the affirmation that DL thinks we're capable of Third. Like, despite all our bad habits and things that need to be fixed, it's still solidly in her plan for us. 

The next day I tried to replicate some of the work. It didn't go well in the canter at all. DL warned me he would probably get sore as we went through this work, and my thighs were burning so he was probably sore as well. He was LAYINGGGG on the reins. I finally got him softer with a hundred rein backs and then floating the reins at him in the canter.

The trot to finish was alright. Not the best quality, but eh. I gave him Sunday off, and then this morning we did a stretchy only ride. He was super crooked starting off in the trot to the right, but once I got him straight and into the outside rein we started cooking. The left canter was not much of anything, but the right lead I got him connected to the outside rein and felt him step underneath himself and square up which made the quality so much better. More stretchy trot, and then a banging rollong stretchy walk to finish.

Fast and Furious

I ended up doing some trial and error with riding Opie and his stitched up face. The area around the stitches was juuustt swollen enough that the cheek piece/bit hanger rubbed against the bottom stitch no matter what bridle I tried. So the first day I threw the neck rope on him, did a little w/t, and then reminded him of his useless trick of standing front feet on the mounting block.

After that I clipped reins onto his flat halter and did a couple rides that way.

He honestly was much better for that than I thought he was going to be as he can plod along on a trail ride in a halter all day, but he's been pretty resistant to any sort of nose pressure in the past. Maybe that whole learning how to ride better thing helped out some.

Finally over the weekend I decided to retry the bridle. I snugged the "throat latch" up one more hole and it was just enough to keep the cheek off the stitches. He was good on the Friday, and then Sunday the temperature dropped twenty degrees with 30mph wind. It took me ten minutes to wrangle his wild bronco ass out of the field, and I made the choice to put on his thunder shirt and stick him on the longe before even getting him tacked up because his brain was visibly melting out of his head on the crossties.

After a good ten minutes of running and snorting and leaping, he felt sane enough to get on. He started off well enough, but at the canter left he kept blowing through my outside aids and trying to be act like, "You're going to make me change and that makes me SO ANXIOUS I can't possibly keep cantering anymore!!!1!"

Yeah, nah. Get over yourself, changes were never on the menu, get the fuck off my leg and straighten up. We had a little CTJ and suddenly could circle like a normal horse.

He felt crooked, but I imagine even skipping one week of lessons has made me crooked AF again so here we are. Counter canter helped straigten the canter and a straighter trot followed.

When I got home around 12:30 I still hadn't heard an update on the puppy that was supposed to be here Saturday afternoon before things went off the fucking rails. In the end, at 1pm Hubby and I jumped in the car and drove 5 hours to MA, grabbed the puppy ourselves, and turned around to get home at 10:15pm.

introducing ferdinand magellan
aka ferdi!

With the addition of a puppy, it's meant zooming through barn chores in the morning, coming home to let him out of his crate so he can party until he can't keep his eyes open, and then run back to the barn for a ride within a two hour window so he doesn't have to be in the crate too long.

Yesterday Opie was perfect for this set up. W/t/c, sitting trot, stretchy trot. His medium trot is feeling  AMAZING after making sure the canter is straight and collected and forward, and then he's more than happy to bounce around in a stretchy trot to finish. A++ lots of GHM awarded before I hurried back home.

Today he was pretty resistant to bending right so I ended up picking up a dressage whip and giving him two taps with it. That, of course, sent him spiraling, but I ignored him and just kep insisting on the right bend until he got a grip on his life and did what I was asking. We skipped the left canter because that took some time to sort out, but the sitting trot was super followed by the best medium trot he's ever given me. We were both soaked at that point. Fortunately it was warm enough for a quick shower afterwards.

The short, focused rides seem to do well for us. It gives me less time to get distracted and inevitably fuck things up. I know we're going to have some serious corrections for DL to sort out on Friday though!

Unrelated, on Saturday morning I volunteered/audited my GMO's Vincent Flores symposium again. Unlike last year which was amazing, this year almost no one braved the shitty weather and it turned into more lowkey lessons for each rider which was honestly kind of underwhelming from an auditing point of view. I did pick up these pieces:

• SI is the same movement at 2nd as it is at Int, the only difference is collection. 
• Work on the gaits instead of the movement. 
• It takes two sessions to teach SI but it takes two years to teach the collection.
• I only give them a long rein at the end or if they've done something significantly amazing. If they walk on the long rein all the time they think every time you pick up the contact they go to trot or canter and then they jig in the walk. They need to always be working even if they're taking a break.

Brake Checked

A light week of working on my positioning kept Opie from revisiting his Spring Stupids. Making sure I put his brain thunder shirt on might have helped, too. And then I gave both of us a fun day and set up four trot poles down one long side and three 2' bounces down the other.

He was good for the poles, but wanted to run into the bounces--which of course they do not allow you to do which is what makes them so wonderful lol. He finally got things sorted out to the left, really lifting his shoulders and bouncing instead of boinging through. To the right he was convinced he couldn't get in there without going full steam ahead, so I made him trot in and that worked out well. We wrapped up by trotting into the bounces, cantering out, staying straight all the way to the end of the ring, back down into the trot, and through the trot poles. Rinse and repeat a few times each direction. Definitely an exercise I'll use again, it was hard work for him while staying fun. 

For our lesson the next day we got tons of compliments at the trot. She was like, praise Jesus you're finally figuring this shit out! So we moved on to the canter which was a mess, and decided to push that off for another day to get it sorted. 

I'm focusing so much of sitting in the middle of the saddle and pulling my right shoulder back and sinking into the seat (and on and on) that I keep blocking him with different parts of my body and fuck knows if I can pinpoint where that is. However I know I'm now also really bad about following evenly with both reins/arms/elbows. My left elbow needs to come back about ten feet which it doesn't want to do because when I pull my right shoulder back my left elbow goes forward. 

BEING CROOKED IS APPARENTLY MY SPECIALITY.

The shits is that one the way home--having already had a bit of a hairy trailer ride between the rain/snow/hail and absurd wind--a woman blew through a stop sign on a cross road and I had to brake check Opie to avoid hitting her. I felt him scramble around, but I was in sight of the barn so kept going to get him unloaded. 

Fortunately he already had a PEMF appointment scheduled so he got worked on while I waited for the vet to come stitch his face up.

Also fortunately he just kicked off his month of ulcergard so that went nicely with a week of SMZs and a couple days of Bute. He looked stiff/sore behind when I longed him quick on Sunday, but he looked perfectly fine this morning.

I'll get on him tomorrow for a light ride to see where he's at. He felt okay enough to try to double barrel the shit out of his friend in turnout this morning at the very least. 

Spring stupids

Opie let his spring freak flag fly the day before our lesson last week. 

Things started off well, but then I got it in my head I could ask for more...as in, more than simple w/t/c. Could we add some collection? Some deeper bend? Some anything above First? 

The answer was no, not really. He finally said thanks but no thanks to leg yielding from the quarter line to the rail tracking right while maintaining straightness. He Noped himself up, down, and sideways until I finally got off to stick him on the longe where he ran himself into a sweaty mess. When I got back on,--with draw reins/safety reins--we were finally able to get our straight leg yield at the walk within a couple minutes.

It gave me a reason to give him a rinse, a fresh tail wash, and much needed mane wash so we'll call it a win. Fortunately this time around I've kept it in the back of my head that he's always satan in spring and it usually coincides with lack of hay consumption because he thinks the two shoots of spring grass count as a balanced diet. Which they do not. He's been on hay pellets for awhile now, but I ordered a box of ulcergard as well.

In our lesson, we went into the same leg yield that had sent Opie over the edge the day before. Right away he tried to use his neck as a weapon so we aborted mission to get that under control. You must be a straight horse. That means I must be a straight rider. Thus the basis for the rest of the ride.

Same old, same old--I lean too far right and can't pull my right shoulder back to save my life.

It was extremely frustrating as went around and around and around in both canter and trot trying to get my body sorted. What are my hands doing? Am I sitting up straight? Is my leg draped? Is my seat following? Are my elbows bent? Am I being even with my contact and not pulling on one rein or the other?

We finally took a little break where I expressed my frustration that I wasn't getting it. ALL of it. Right now. All at once. DL reminded me that this is years of bad habits we have to get sorted.

"You're very effective. You can do all the movements, but--"

"They're not being ridden correctly."

"Well....it's just that it's going to handicap you going up the levels if we don't get it right."

So trainer speak for yes, you're not riding them correctly. 

We really didn't end on a "good" note to say, but it is what it is. DL said if she could have me do one thing before the next lesson, it would be to stop falling off the right side of my horse.

The weekend got wasted by other things, but despite fresh snow and a high of 16* I got on to ride after doing the barn with that as my challenge.

I think it went well. I tried really fucking hard to focus on it. If it felt like I was falling off the left side I was probably barely right in the middle. My right shoulder felt like it was behaving, mostly because I was working my ass off to make it do so.

Basic w/t/c because I wanted to work on me. I had to make sure I was moving both arms and hands together or Opie got pissed and tight.

We finished by breaking down the TOH, which every time I do I unlock another tiny puzzle to making it correct. He steps wide behind, loses his balance, starts walking forward crooked AF, and then has to cross behind to not fall down. I made sure to get him to rein back slow, straight, not behind the vertical, and NOT wide behind. Then walk off slow and straight and not wide behind. If all that stayed on task the TOH was easy peasy. If any of that didn't go to plan, the hind legs crossed behind.

The canter

We finally got to touch on the canter in our lesson Friday. I think DL eventually just gave up on trying to get me to ride correct geometry in the trot for our first outdoor/standard dressage court ride of the season--one of which I have not been in since last September.

hello, i do not remember what all these letters mean

I was glad we were finally able to show this off a bit. We're there to fill holes and learn, but we do know some things and I haven't really felt like we've gotten to show any of it. The canter got much praise, and all she really wanted me to change was sitting deeper in my seat and pushing my hands forward. Of course as soon as I did that I felt my abs engage and his shoulders come up and tah dah we were really cooking. 

His walk to canters and canter to walks were both perfect, and we wrapped that up by her saying the canter was going to fix everything about the trot.

Saturday morning I rode again, and again I felt like I was really nailing the canter. So much so that I asked him for a change his easy way. He promptly bolted through it and to get a pulley rein and run into the wall before I got him back under control.

So. Good to see those aren't actually any better.

::facepalm::

Maybe it was just because he was in the double?

We were able to finish with more good canter, and then his sitting trot was ahhh-mazing. I pushed my hands out where they belong, got my wrists under control, and yet still had soft contact and a soft horse. It was two laps of perfection so I quit there and offered him up to M after promising her I would let her ride him like six months ago.

Opie easily impresses people coming off the lesson horses. He does amazing things like stands quietly at the mounting block and moves forward when you put your leg on. Everything else is just a fancy bonus. 

He worked his nuts off tho for the both of us and got some quality time with the massage gun when he was done followed by the next day off.

Monday he got his feet done first thing--snow pads off, new steel on. He's never had a problem after the farrier so I tacked him planning on a quick stretchy ride. Instead, as soon as we picked up the trot, he felt...not quite right. Definitely in no way lame, but kind of mincy and footy. I called Farrier in and had her take a look. She agreed if she had to pinpoint it LF. I got off and stuck him on the longe where BM watched too and said she thought maybe RH. But all parties were in agreeance--not lame, just not right.

Fortunately for him he had a PEMF appointment that afternoon, and he got a gram of bute with his dinner.

The next day's ride was inconclusive.

He felt great starting out w/t. Best of all, I felt great! I was like, "Look at these hands! They're together! The wrists are straight! The contact is following! I know what sitting up is!" 

Then we cantered and it. felt. disgusting. I tried leg yielding, circling, transitions--none of it worked so back to trot and some haunches out on a circle to getting him stepping under himself. Canter was marginally better after that. I got him softer so each footfall wasn't rattling my teeth, but that was pretty much the highlight.

When we came back to the walk he felt stabby on the LF again.

Stretchy trot cool out he felt amazing. And I figured out how to control my right shoulder which was the best feeling ever!

I packed his feet because it made me feel better and gave him today off so we'll see what tomorrow brings.

To the Left

Our lesson last week was SO. HARD.

We started off attacking my position again, and everything was just feeling super stilted and braced--hands bouncing, horse brace, me braced. Finally DL was like, "Just do whatever you do when you're by yourself" and immediately my whole body melted and both Opie and I felt a hundred times more relaxed.

She was like, "What did you change?" I of course tried to find all the bad things I was doing, but really...I just let go of the tension and stopped trying to hold myself in this rigid, proper pose. She paused for a moment and then said, "You're doing literally everything I've been asking you to do, you look great."

So. Noted for both of us. Relax lol. She adapted to occasionally telling me "position check" and I made sure all my body parts were doing what they were supposed to.

Then we started in on the leg yields again. DL wanted them straight--straight neck, haunches hitting the rail first, when tracking left have left positioning of the crest/head.

WOW. WE COULD NOT DO THIS.

He is such a gumby with his body that was soon as you got one part of his body under control the next part went shooting out. Getting him to have that slight left flexion while keeping his neck straight AND making him step over in the leg yield was fucking torture. 

We finally started to get it with the help of a 15m circle to start, and then he decided he didn't want to get off my leg anymore and step over. DL had us come onto a 15m circle again and do haunches out/leg yield/get off my leg. That got him moving over again, so we had to go back to holding that left flexion, while moving over in the leg yield and focusing on the haunches hitting the wall first and then as soon as they did transition into shoulder-in.

SO MANY THINGS SO HARD OMG.

It was nearly an hour and a half lesson and we finally quit because Opie and I were ready to drop dead from exhaustion. Fortunately for both of us, the weekend was freezing and gross so he got both days off.

Today we went back to work.

I thought we had gotten the left flexion thing sorted because he was great on a circle, but then we went down the quarter line and had to keep the neck straight while holding that flexion and nope. We would get three or four strides and have to go to a 10m circle to bring the left flexion back, rinse and repeat a hundred times.

We finally, finally got it, but holy shit it was hard.

From there we moved on to maintaining the connection during transitions between h/w/t. His back was completely locked and the trot was fucking disgusting. We hadn't cantered yet so I figured we'd try that to get things loosened up.

The canter, too, felt like shit, but I was determined to perservere. Down each long side I leg yielded him over to the rail. That took a bunch of reps, but finally the back came up. The shoulders were still pounding into the ground though so I put him back on the circle to get them up. Finally I put the two together and had a super canter.

He was better when we switched directions, but I repeated the process anyway. Then I couldn't help myself. Did we have changes? R-L first since that was the direction we were going. He was late behind for a few strides and when he changed up front he got fast out of it (but didn't bolt!!!). I put a big half halt through, he changed behind, and we carried on easy peasy, no tension!!! 

Then L-R. He was too chill about the process and kept trying to get out of the attempt by breaking to the trot. I finally made him leg yield to the rail on the circle as we came out of the corner, turned him across the diagonal, got him straight in one stride, and asked before he had the chance to shit out on me. Bam, insta-clean change! It was a jump, but it was a massive flying leap into the air!!!!

He got mega, mega praise for that before finishing with some stretchy trot, lots of cookies, and time with the massage gun.