Fishtailing

Metaphorically and literally lolz. Such is life with horses.

Opie got his deep tissue massage last Monday, and obviously the main issue was the sore lumbar area. Actually, I guess I could say delightfully his main issue was the lumbar area. Everything else felt pretty standard -- a little sore in the TMJ which has always been him, and some soreness in the pecs which is always and forever him. Other than that, he was in mighty fine shape!

KG pinpointed the specific spot that was bothering him the most to just above his last rib on the right side, so chances are he popped that rib out. A little manipulation, a little coaxing, and some good old fashioned magic fingers digging in there had him feeling much softer. Even so, I did four days of Robaxin following the massage. By the end of the week, he finally had a happy back again. 

we were also assigned this SI stretch which he is
OBSESSED with.
video here for an explanation

Good for him because he ended up getting dumped right back into full, never-ending work. 

I've been slowly creeping back into feeling like a normal human being now that I've finished steroids which means I'm kind of sort of ready to ride seriously again. (Still iffy on if I'll be able to breathe the whole ride, but it's getting there.) Just in time because my lack of riding while sick meant almost all of Opie's rides were coming from the people that lesson on him. And while MB is a very good instructor, she can't turn low level amateurs into neurotic Thoroughbred that loves taking advantage of people to get out of using himself correctly whisperers. So Opie was out there living his best crooked bully life, clocking along, conning people into letting him go however he wanted while making a perfectly pleasant picture. And I know MB tries to bully him right back into being correct, but there's only so much someone from the ground can do when the riders can't/won't make the corrections. 

stretch out, you naughty creature

It has been tedious getting him back on track. He is the king of what I call microaggressions. Every step he's trying to see what he can sneak by you, and if you don't immediately shut it down, the inch you just allowed him turns into 800 miles. 

He had to relearn how to get the fuck off my left leg. And then my right leg. And then you do not jig when I pick up my reins after a break. You do not giraffe when I shorten my reins. You hold the counter canter. Etc etc etc....

when we're done stretching out, you keep marching

After several quiet rides where I mostly focused on getting him straight again so he'd release his back, earlier this week I put it to him and asked him to really hold himself accountable. He started off feeling so shitty that I actually got off and put him on the longe thinking he was broken. Surprise, he wasn't, he looked great. He just didn't wanna. 

But then I said, you're gonna, and when we came out the other side, I suddenly had a trained horse again. Thank fuck.

this was the first time in 2 weeks i'd cantered and i couldn't
breathe afterwards it was the worst

For my lesson this morning, he was tired. Even though the work wasn't technically hard or went on for very long (because physically I simply cannot), I never ever ride him that many days in a row. Fortunately all I wanted to work on was the ability to go across the diagonals in the outdoor while maintaining straightness instead of feeling like I was playing ping pong with his haunches. That ended up being mostly worked on through the walk.

Forever and always, MB had us going back and forth from the renvers to the SI. He can't be dramatic about it. He can't get overbent in the neck. He can't cheat and wing his haunches around instead. Quiet, straight, correct. 

This made Opie angry. It did not make me angry. I Zen Ninja my way through his tantrums. If he got quick, we halted. If he got mad in the halt, he could throw his tantrum, but I was not engaging. (MB joked during one of these tantrums he walked out of super well after that we needed to tell Anne Gribbons the next time we went to one of her clinics that we find sideways piaffe works much better for collection than her go-to of normal piaffe. #ragemonster) If my leg went on, it stayed on until I got the response I was asking for. Eventually he figured out that I wasn't going to let him get his way, and suddenly he was able to do the Very Hard Thing I was asking for -- that being walking straight across the diagonal. 

having a get off my leg talk

Our left lead canter was good. MB reminded me that when I got the neck straight, that was my cue to ask for more forward because it meant the hind legs were where they're supposed to be. 

The right lead canter was its usual discussion. We did a couple of w/c transitions because he wanted to get very hoppy in them, and then the canter felt like riding a pogo stick, even when I got into half seat and tried to get him to go out. So back to the walk to reestablish straightness and loading the hind end. Eventually we got there off a 10m circle which is one of the best cheat codes for Opie. 

The canter from there got super lovely. Definitely under powered because he was tired, but straight which is all I wanted for the day. We finished getting a super duper long diagonal where the rhythm stayed metronome and the track stayed razor straight. 

i am soooo proud of this pic because it's mid-reinback
WITH HIS HEAD IN FRONT OF THE VERTICAL!!!!
getting too deep has been the bane of one of his otherwise top movements
so this was such a huge win for him. 

He obviously gets tomorrow off, and then I need to get serious about setting up a schedule for the both of us where I'm riding him enough to cancel out uneducated riders without making him tired. Thankfully the fitness of the Thoroughbred comes along with the questionable brain cells.

Just kiddinggg

We are not back in action, that turned into a total lie.

Whomp whomp.

My sickness turned into COVID which saw itself out by leaving me with bronchitis. Rude. As such, breathing is a real struggle which doesn't really lend itself to physical activities like riding. 

For my lesson last Thursday, I showed up in riding clothes fully intending to push through, even if it was just a low key work on the lateral stuff at the walk ride. Instead I had to keep sitting down to catch my breath while grooming and MB put a training ride on him instead.

This ended up working well because she was able to affirm that he feels (spoiler alert: felt LOLZ) much better after the hock injections and he was ready to go back to full send work when I was. 

zoomies while cooling out at the trot

I'd been struggling with his neck positioning while riding, and she was able to clear that up for me as well. In summation: less is best, as always. I was trying to make sure he was connected to the outside rein, and it felt like that's what I was doing, but then looking at video I would actually have him too far tipped to the outside making his neck crooked. But if I tried to think inside bend, I'd end up doing way too much inside neck. She took a picture of his neck while on him to show me where the "bend" should be - basically, I should barely be able to see the inside cheek piece of his bridle. 

To the right, he wants to tilt his head so it will feel a little more dramatic to the inside to get him straight. But it all comes back to her most favorite exercise for us, the renvers to SI. When I change to bend to go from one to the other, I can't actually ride the change or I make it go crazy and piss Opie off. I just have to let it happen. Same thing with the neck positioning. Just let it happen, the adjustments are so miniscule. 

Friday, I gave myself a ton of time to get ready and was able to climb aboard for the first time in a week. I spent a ton of time doing walk serpentines, focusing on neck positioning. MB's explanation helped a lot so that was a win.

As always, we also worked on the walk-canter transitions. I think we're finally starting to get rid of the jiggy anticipation while still being able to collect and sit.

me: barely alive.
opie: doing the work anyway.

I've been playing with adding turns on the haunches in when he feels my outside leg and anticipates the canter transition because leg means more than one thing stop guessing and listen, sir.

(You're welcome for the Pivo clip. It followed me the whole time, except I didn't wipe off my camera when I stuck it on there so the zoom footage is all through a pocket sweat filter. Can't win.)

It was only a 20 minute ride, but we hit on the two main things from the training ride the day before so calling it a win.

He had Saturday off because sick, and then I tried to rally and ride him Sunday but I couldn't breathe through the grooming again. (It was at this point I finally caved and went to Urgent Care where they loaded me up with meds and an inhaler #bless) Which worked out anyway because he was back sore AGAIN. And when I went to stick him on the longe untacked in his halter to give him a stretch, he was short on the RH. Broooooooooo.

Fortunately the deep tissue massage body worker the barn uses was on the schedule to be here all day day and she's able to fit Opie in this afternoon. Hopefully that helps him out. We'll try some methocarb from there if it doesn't, and if that doesn't work, the vet is on the schedule to be back out on the 30th for the minis so I can add on to that. But hopefully it doesn't come to that. I have to put my cat we've been trying to keep alive since November down tomorrow, and I have to tell you, I am tapped out on taking care of animals.

would never let anyone see him enjoy cuddles, don't tell!

Back in action

As expected, April has started off at a glacial pace. In good news though, this was the least eventful recovery he's ever had after his hock injections -- a week after he got them done, he was fully sound and back to being ridden. I still took it easy on him to ease him back into it, especially since before the injections he was barely doing anything thanks to his back soreness.

fortunately he's got a body worker with all the toys

I've done three rides on him since then, one of which lasted all of seven minutes to assess soundness. 

The second was thirty minutes with ninety percent of the work focused on getting him travelling straight. 

He's the most crooked horse on the planet on a good day, and he reverts to full gumby, drunk sailor when he's been off the Straight or Else regime. You know the metaphor where you stick your finger in a hole in the dam to plug a leak and another leak immediately shoots out, forever and ever? That's Opie's body. You corral one wayward section and a different one slips out of your grasp, forever and ever. If this horse has taught me nothing else, it's how important being straight is. 

pivo and i continue to fight every time i use it. one day i will
figure its bitch ass out.

like, why can it be normal on this side of the ring but not on the
other side (the pic above this) when it's parked directly at X?

On Friday we did ride number three, this time in the double. The poor double last got used for the two seconds I pulled it out to take Opie's year end pics, and it was covered in dust and feeling very neglected. It proved its worth for the ride though, as allll the straightness issues I dealt with in the previous ride, especially in the right lead canter, immediately went away. I'm sure some of that is that this horse is very well schooled at this point in his life so things come back quicker, but ugh. The double. It is a good friend of Opie's. It's rarely the right choice for him at shows, I've discovered, as he gets so tense in the ring one ounce of pressure on the curb is his excuse to blow up, but it is SUCH a good schooling tool for us. 

We worked on our SI and HI, trying to remember all the points of contact from our last lesson with LB. His bounce per ounce is back with his go go juice on board, and the trot was especially lovely. 

We also worked hard on the walk-canter transitions, trying to get the feeling of the pi/pa without actually doing the pi/pa (obvi not really throwing down pi/pa here folks, it's the feeling of super collected sitting and bouncing to load the hind end and launch into the canter. Such an amazing tool we picked up for him over the winter.). This is hard for Opie because getting him lit while keeping the lid on is a fine line. I tried to redirect and do some turns on the haunches when he got too up and down anticipating, because the outside leg going on asks for the canter, but also asks him to turn so him having to take a second to see which I was asking for was a good distraction to bring him back to planet earth. 

And then the death plague hit our house and Hubby and I spent all weekend comatose on the couch in between hacking our lungs up. Hopefully this week gets us back into a more normal schedule. Our lesson is this Thursday so maybe I'll attempt to fight with the stupid pivo again to get some footage for a blog post. 

Or it might be the day I finally mow the stupid thing down in rage. Stay tuned!

Grand Champion of the vet

Opie had his spring vet appointment on Monday, and we crossed all the spring crossables off the list.

• He did, in fact, need his teeth floated again.
• Dr A (our usual vet; I had added Opie on to someone else's appointment last month because they do a dental discount every February and I wanted to split the barn call) stuck her hand in his mouth and immediately felt a couple spots that weren't smooth, and once she had the speculum in, she basically ended up doing a full float.
• He has a little bit of a parrot mouth that causes his bite to not line up perfectly, and she said that especially was the likely culprit for the sideways head chewing -- not going ham on the last float (or as ham as possible without grinding his teeth to useless smooth stubs) was pinching his cheek folds. 
• Opie notices and feels everythingggg, so doing the bare minimum simply does not work on him. Again, it was single digits when the last vet came so none of her battery powered lights worked and she was using her phone's flashlight, but at that point maybe call it quits and reschedule?

no cow cuds since this float fortunately

• She agreed his back was likely sore from the hocks needing to get done, and it is feeling better to palpation now.
• He actually trotted super sound in hand, and then she flexed him, and we stuck him on the longe, and he went lame in the RH.
• "I don't mind seeing that at all. Now I feel like we're doing these injections for something!"

snoozing off his elephant sized sleepy dosage.
he metabolizes sedatives sooo fast.

• I stuck him on the longe for two seconds yesterday to see what the progress was, and he blessedly looked the best he ever has at this point after injections.
• Admittedly the bar is very low. He was still lame.
• But in a shuffle-y, poke along way, not in a Dead Fucking Lame way. 
• This is huge improvement from past years!
• He might react less dramatically to biologics than he does to the steroids we inject him with, but I've heard more "I didn't see any improvement afterwards" stories about Prostride etc than I've heard success stories, and quite frankly I don't have the money to gamble that it would make a difference for him and not still give him a slow recovery time. So we wait out the two-ish weeks it usually takes for him to come back to feeling his best again, and we get eleven months of really, really good results afterwards.
• And like I said, he's never looked this good this soon so maybe all the strength I've packed onto him in the past year is helping him recover faster. Fingers crossed. 

doing important modeling work in the meantime

In other news, over the weekend we finally got to attend our rescheduled year end awards banquet. Opie was Horse of the Year at Third Level, and was also the Third Level champion in the schooling show division. (Based solely on being the only person doing Third at schooling shows. A bonus for trying to get more ring time to relax the rage monster.)

He may cost lots of money, and we're already going on weeks of not doing a real ride, but at least he brings home giant ribbons!

Nothing but a dirty horse

Not one single productive thing has happened since my last post. Opie had to give a lesson last Friday, and when I groomed him in the evening before going away for the weekend, he was so back sore he tried to sit down when I curried him. 

So that wasn't great.

I gave him some bute that night and set some out for his morning feed hoping that when I got back on Monday to look him over he'd be improved with the drugs and rest.

He was not.

Not only was he not, he was now also dropping big cow cuds of his Stress Free alfalfa even though he just got his teeth floated by the vet a month ago, and the stupid bully in his paddock had chomped two new big bites into his butt which meant more holes to patch in his clothes. 

Needless to say, I had a quick menty b to everyone before heading home, as one does.

has been doing a lot of snacking on the barely
green grass

MB said to have the vet who's already coming out next week for vaccines and hocks to check his mouth (same practice, different vet) because that's on them. 

My saddle fitter said to try front shims to get his saddle more stable (as the back soreness was right where the panels sit) because she intentionally left it a little wider than she wanted when she reflocked it - and she told me this at the time - because Opie threw a shit fit when she flocked it to make sense on paper.

Opie's body worker squeezed us in for a PEMF session yesterday.

he got a bath yesterday when it was 74* and we
were waiting for his most favorite person (pemf)
to arrive

and of course he immediately rolled when
i turned him back out

The PEMF helped a lot, especially combined with a weighted heating pad and Surpass, so today I felt comfortable enough to try the saddle with the shims added to his Mattes to see how that felt.

He was absolutely feral, but it was hard to tell at first if it was from getting a week off or because he felt better or worse. Eventually though, his tongue came out and I couldn't get him moving forward which is his tell when he feels like the saddle is too tight and pinching him - even though it is literally not actually doing those things, he's just the most claustrophobic animal alive when it comes to his saddle. So I jumped off, pulled the shims, and we went for a trail ride with MB to try to reset his brain so I could tell how he felt back in the old setup.

Only we did one lap of the pastures and MB wanted to wrap up her ride, but Opie flat out refused to go anywhere else but back to the trails. So back to the trails we went on our own. We found a giant puddle to have a splash party in, there were a bunch of trees down in the woods he got to half jump, half clobber over, and his wife came galloping over the fence to say hi.

He was in a much better headspace after all that and we went back into the outdoor to check in on the trot and canter super quick. He felt kind of stabby at the canter, but at least he was quiet and settled. He's very much ready to get his hocks done and that's what it felt like. He was a little sore in the back when I got off again, but he's going to get a full week off from the hocks on Monday so hopefully that will help him out. And I'll see if the vet has any other suggestions for pain relief.

was very pleased to meet me at the gate when i
pulled in to show off how disgusting he was

 Still holding out hope that by mid April things will be normal and I can start looking at shows!

Baby (Forward) Steps

It continues to be one of those winters that things are just stutter skipping along, but while time in the saddle has been more limited than I'd probably like, I'm making the most of it by getting the most education I can. Which is why we find ourselves here again: another lesson post!

in typical thoroughbred fashion, he never ever gets
tired under saddle. but then afterwards we are very sleepy lol

But first! I need to share some exciting news!

I think I've finally reliably unlocked the ability to ride forward in the trot in the indoor.

Right off the bat! (After warm up of course.) It's okay if I'm the only one that finds this exciting. I can be excited enough for alllll of us. We can even mostly continue to do it with some lateral work thrown in.

The canter is a work in progress. It's hard to build up steam inside as the ring is very small, but we were finally able to venture into the outdoor so I was hopeful that would help my brain. We've been out there twice now, and while we haven't been able to use every inch because drying out from literal feet of snow and ice thawing takes time, it's still more space than inside. 

The first ride was Opie being completely feral with no steering until he got to have a good hand gallop, and then we were able to reel it in and do a teensy bit of productive work -- some good turn on the haunches both ways, and then playing with the quarter turn canter pirouettes. 

Our lesson was also in the outdoor, and we went ahead and started with our hand gallop after a few walk laps that didn't want to remain on the ground. Fortunately that helped clear his tiny brain a little, and our trot - once he got over trying to bolt every time I put my right leg on - was absolutely amazing, no notes. 

I wanted to specifically work on one of the exercises LB had us do in our last lesson, the haunches-in on a circle. Yeah, none of the much harder exercises. Those we've been able to pick apart on our own. I legit could not wrap my brain around the easiest one, and if I couldn't then Opie definitely couldn't.

you know what we can do tho?
halt.

So right off the bat, we couldn't even do a circle. At the walk. Cool cool. 

MB had us go back to her favorite exercise for us, renvers to SI, because if there is one thing about this horse it's that you at no time ever have full control over his shoulders. Once we were able to establish a circle-like shape, she had me ask for the HI. At which point we could no longer go on a circle again lolzzzz. 

There were a couple core problems here. One is my inability to put more than two aids together at once. This exercise needs probably three aids, ones like: steer, bend, your two legs are separate entities (an important thing to remember for later). REALLY ADVANCED STUFF HERE. 

Another problem is I've grown way too reliant on having four arena walls to hold my hand. I used to event, guys. More than that, I used to ride with no arena at all. And now I'm like, WHERE ARE THE LETTERS TO TELL ME WHERE MY CIRCLE IS SUPPOSED TO GO?!? It's absolutely ridiculous.

And finally, we ran into the same problem I was having with the canter halfpass in that I was trying to do too much and overcomplicating things in my head.

MB broke it down into baby steps for me. Establish the circle track. Renvers to SI until I could reliably get him bent correctly on said circle track. Brush the hair with the outside leg to ask the haunches to come in. This is not a dramatic ask or change in track. I don't need to be shoving his whole hind end thirty feet over. Once I got that through my head, it turns out this exercise was much easier to ride. Shocker.

It also did what it was designed to do, which was set him up in much better positioning for the canter departs which is where we headed next. We spent a couple months making him think pi/pa into the canter to help him with collection (which was a great exercise we picked up from an amazing Anne Gribbons clinic we audited over the winter), but now that the collection is there, he needs to skip the pi/pa steps and really jump off the hind end right from the walk. The HI on a circle will be really good homework to help with that. 

The canter was super tho! MB had to keep chiding me to ride more forward, and not let getting him straight take away from the forward, but once we put those together (MB: idk what you changed in your mind to get there, but do it again. Me: I put my inside leg on, too! I have two legs! Who knew! MB: Why do I do this job omfg) the loft he was getting was next level. So exciting. 

lots of stretching breaks forever and always

Which meant that I wanted to try the canter halfpasses again, especially with having more space in the outdoor to ride them. 

I tried to start off thinking less is more, but we quickly realized my nice forward bouncy canter could only go straight and we had no lateral suppleness again. BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING. 

That turned our exercise in to left halfpass a few steps, 10m circle thinking SI, halfpass again. To the right was halfpass, 10m circle thinking HI, halfpass. It took a hot minute to build up to even being able to steer on our circles, but once we got there the halfpasses were much improved. Another shocker.

We quit there with a ton of homework that we won't have much time to work on until April with the way scheduling is going, but I should be able to sneak in at least one more hardcore ride next week. We're definitely hitting that sweet spot in training between levels where the 3rd level work is feeling super strong and 4th level is feeling in-reach enough to make it fun to work on instead of miserable. 

All haunches, all the time

We had another lesson over the weekend with one of my trainer's trainers, who we should probably give a name, so we'll call her LB. Of course, I wanted to utilize her on the dreaded R-L change and she delivered big time - without us ever touching on the changes, and really doing the majority of our work in the walk. 

Because there are SO MANY AIDS in dressage, and eventually you are expected to use ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Even if the aid is, "don't do anything" YOU HAVE TO USE THAT DON'T DO ANYTHING AID. 

Ugh, riding is so fucking hard.

I asked if I could go first in the rider rotation this time so I could give Opie his Opie warmup without the eyes of others on us as that is a guarantee to erase everything out of my mind that works and start making senseless shit up (directly correlating to shows, it's a whole thing). Of course, when I went out to get the horse from his field he was in the middle of running laps. His two friends quit when I walked into the field, but Opie was still busy doing Thoroughbred things.

"it's called lightness bitches, look it up!"

the fields had been mostly ice up to this point so
zoomies have been limited.

Sooo my warm up time was spent washing the mud out of his tail and off his chest and stomach and legs and face, and then LB showed up early, so nevermind. 

I ended up sticking to my guns this time though, and LB let me do my thing. She even remarked that he was moving much more freely and more forward in the trot right off the bat (thanks, saddle reflock), and that in the canter I was doing a good job of thinking "lift the saddle, lift the back" and that the canter was really good. 

Quick warm up concluded, we moved on the real work. She asked if we ever tried haunches-in at the canter to help with the changes, which we have not, so that was the first order of business. 

She started us off leg yielding out on a circle, really pushing him out to activate the inside hind and getting him loose laterally. From there we moved in the HI in a straight line. She said we could start by cheating if we needed to and ride the second track and put the shoulders on the rail.

The goal was to get the left hind jumping off of my left leg as this is the leg that's always getting left behind in the change. Then we switched directions and repeated the exercise this way, although she said the counter canter would probably be a more effective exercise for him tracking right (which we do do a lot of). But the leg yielding out tracking right stretches his left side and he really needs the lateral suppleness. HI shows how much he lacks bend, and the HI is the best way to train the bend.

Then she had us trotting on a circle in HI. Yeahhh, we could not do this. 

at all.

It kept being more Head Out than Haunches In, and the front end refused to stay on the circle. She had me thinking of his front end as a cannon - his shoulders are the wheels and the cannon is his neck, and the neck can't move unless the shoulders steer it. But again, this really highlighted how stuck he is in the lateral work, and that will lead directly to weakness in the changes.

Eventually we mercifully abandoned this and switched to square turns in the walk and then the trot. This started off well and then she asked me to "do it the other way" which I took as the other direction. Nah. The other way as in, I was riding them off his haunches and now she wanted them off his forehand. WHO KNEW THERE WAS EVEN A DIFFERENCE WHY ARE THERE SO MANY WAYS TO MAKE A TURN.

We did get a "That was quite well ridden" which from LB is basically saying I'm a genius LOL and were released into the canter. Same at the canter, starting off riding a pirouette type canter off the haunches and then changing to the forehand.

Ooh, his canter got so pretty!!

A little walk break, and then ANOTHER EXERCISE THANK GOD FOR VIDEO SO I COULD GO BACK AND TAKE NOTES IT WAS SO MUCH INFORMATION THIS SHIT IS SO HARD.

Even though my drawing is very clearly labeled and there's no reason you shouldn't understand it flawlessly, I will explain it for you anyway. 

1. Ride a square, splitting the ring in half.

2. Leg yield in towards the square you just rode.

3. HI the opposite direction of the leg yield you just did. 

4. Turn towards the direction of your haunches. 

5. Another square.

6. Leg yield in.

7. Change bend of the haunches.

8. Turn left. 

This starts in the walk, then the trot, then you pick up the canter when you start the HI in and come back to the trot or walk when you get to the next HI to change the bend, and then the end goal is to canter the whole shebang and that change of bend between haunches becomes your change. 

Hopefully that makes sense. We only did the walk because the indoor is too small and quite frankly Opie and I were very confused, but I'm super excited to try this once the outdoor thaws. The principle of it reminded me of a lesson MB took with her other trainer on Opie this fall where she had them leg yielding in at the canter down the long side and then leg yielding out on a 20m circle. Basically, the horse needs to get better about bouncing from leg to leg. 

AND FINALLY! We learned how to.....actually ride a haunches in. Ha, whoopsies. Turns out as we kept breaking down these exercises it was revealed I've not been riding these correctly ever either. Shocking, I know.

In short, simple terms: the ankle asks forward, leg says bend, hips or shoulders control angle of HI or SI, spine controls line of travel. Easy peasy!

being followed around the ring as we went from HI to SI because
it was not, surprisingly, easy peasy for either of us.

She wrapped things up by saying he's athletic enough to do all the work, which again, from LB basically gave us her blessing to aim for GP. But maybe first we try to just get a clean fucking R-L change.