Dressage from the ground

Over the weekend, we had a mini clinic at the barn that we all participated in, and that we all were humbled by. One of the boarders has approximately one million world champion titles to her name in showmanship and is an active judge, and she offered to teach us all some in-hand skills.

Obviously I was all aboard. My horse might not be able to trot around under saddle soundly (more on that later), but surely we were going to nail standing still! I am also--not to brag--quite qualified at trotting my horse out for people as he sees the vet about once a week lolol.

Spolier alert: we knew nothing.

trying to hide alllll the conformation flaws

The biggest takeaway I got was how similar it was our under-saddle work. It was basically in-hand dressage. Horse is gumby in the neck and you don't have him pointed in a straight line? When he halts his haunches swing out and he's crooked AF. Don't come into your halt with enough impulsion? No chance of halting square. Transitions jerky because your horse isn't paying attention/on the aids? Judges are going to mark down for that. 

Gah it was so interesting! Every flaw she pointed out, I was like, "Yes! He does that u/s too!"

just like in dressage there are 100 ways to eliminate yourself without
even realizing you've done it

There's a breed show at the end of July where they have Amateur Handler classes that we're trying to manifest our attendance at, so we covered both how to mask Opie looking like a crooked wiener dog and how to show him off on the triangle.

• He's cow hocked so the wider I could get him to stand behind the straighter he looked. However, we had to work within his comfort level because that's not a normal/natural position for him. I do think this will help strengthen him though. And she suggested working on him straddling two poles laid side by side since he's already mastered the single pole.
• 
  

• 

  a good boi for trying to be a wide boi
  
  

  
  
• In showmanship, you work off squaring them up off of wherever the RH lands because that's the leg you'll pivot off of. Opie's RH likes to land well underneath him (tying into whatever the fuck is going on back there), so that already wasn't going to work. Fortunately we're not aiming for showmanship rules so we had more leniency in standing him up.
• Don't hug the cones--the cones are lava! Even a sound horse is going to take a "lame" looking step or two if you whip them around the cones. Opie has no wiggle room there so big, sweeping turns with the cones as a general guide. 
• The right hand is always the leading hand up by the bit.
• Once the judge passes the girth line, then you can move around to follow them. Don't block their line of sight.
• Position yourself so you're facing the point of your horse's shoulder. Give them room, don't crowd into them. 
• To get smoother forward transitions, push the right hand forward and the horse should immediately move off. No tugging them forward! The downward from trot to walk should be a FORWARD transition, don't just quit. Into the halt, plant your right foot and stop. The horse stops with you. If they don't, they come back to where you've stopped, don't get dragged forward with them. 

getting him stood up correctly made it look like we shortened his
back by about 4 vertebrae which was needed when you're a limo

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, and honestly I could have been out there for another hour gobbling up everything she was saying. 10/10 recommended cross training experience, especially with someone who is so educated.

"hello, standing normal is hard plz give candies"

In other news, Riding Opie has continued to be consistent in his inconsistencies. Wednesday the LH was a little sticky right off the bat, but some lateral work at the walk loosened everything up and he was sound at the trot afterwards. Thursday we had a full lesson that he felt great in the whole ride. Friday my friend rode him and he was lame-ish LF. Saturday he was lame LF. Today he was lame LH.

No idea what the trigger is or the cause. Hopefully Friday's vet appointment brings something new to the table.

Joke's On Me

This is what I get for putting things out into the universe. Nothing good ever comes from it.

both of us in the throes of a menty b

On Saturday Opie had his saddle fitting appointment. You know, now that he was sound and being ridden more than one ride every month.

He was obviously super lame for it.

We snuck in enough trot work to check the saddle after she gave it a fluff and evened everything out--which he was, for once, easy to please over--but the LF was gimping away.

I gave him Sunday off, and then tacked him up Monday with the mindset that if he was lame again I'd give in and just go ahead and call the new vet. He was frustratingly not lame. I wouldn't say he was 100%, but he felt alright enough that I continued to waffle over if I should continue waiting it out or not.

they're getting switched over to their grass field
and everyone is feeling the spring crazies

Fortunately (I guess lolol), after doing a lovely walk warmup this morning, as soon as I picked up the trot he was Dead Fucking Lame. So lame! LF? Sure. LH? Certainly! 

So I got off and called the next vet in the queue. I debated about who I wanted to come out. Between the racetrack, eventing/hunt country, and our proximity to Cornell we're actually pretty lucky when it comes to availability. What I'm most anxious about is bringing in someone new that won't listen to what I say. Like yes, his hind end is shit, and yes it can be looked at to be improved, but for the love of fucking god someone figure out this fucking LF.

I ended up settling on the track vet. For one, they're looking at a million lame thoroughbreds a day. I know they've seen some shit. But also Hubby's cousin works for their office so I knew I could trauma dump on her over the phone and get some insider trading by way of stealing a cancellation appointment for next Friday when they're booking out all the way into mid-June. 

some days he is clean, some days MB sends me video
of him being jet black 5mins after he's been turned out
with his tail bag hanging in shreds.

I'm not going to lie. I'm super frustrated. Actually I'm feeling rather pissed. It's been a YEAR. I have done everything we can think of and we've come up with absolutely nothing. The tech at my current vet was reading down the CVS receipt length list of imaging to send over to the new vet to look at and we were both giggling in a "holy shit wtf" sort of way. How have we done so much and this horse is still broken?!

Hopefully a fresh set of eyes will bring in some new ideas. Obviously I scratched our show at the end of the month, and while that's not the end of the world the situation as a whole is making me feeling resentful over my horse's continued useless existence. Objectively I know it's not his fault, but it is like, throw me a fucking bone here dude. 

Fingers crossed for next week! 

Nonlinear

In typical Opie fashion, we can't do things normally or easily. 

He was like, "I'm sound!"

But then, "I'm not sound!"

But also, "But not not sound enough to call a vet!"

While still being all, "You should definitely go home and cry after riding me lolol."

a perfect angel, has no idea what i'm talking about

Because really what else is there to do besides continuing to plug away--the whole fail forward thing--with my vet's blessing my plan was to just put it to him. Either break permanently already or let's fucking move on with our lives here, sir. 

Fortunately all his stupid body parts seem to finally have recalibrated and we're (for the moment at least) clocking along in regular work. 

With his return to First level at the end of the month, we've been working on all the things we have to hit in those tests. This includes coming back from a lengthened canter without flinging our head in the air or refusing to slow down in the slightest, shallow counter-canter loops without anticipating changes, leg yields without flinging ourselves sideways so fast that we've reached the other side of the ring in three strides, and most importantly all the speedy transitions that come from actual test riding.

i put him back in his fresh off the track opie setup.
he goes delightfully in a full cheek and figure 8
because apparently he's still a feral 4yo.

After the initial excitement over staring down the diagonal in the canter, the canter work has actually been the easiest to school. We've done a lot of the shallow serpentine work with MB over the years already, so he's familiar with doing that movement. He got told he was the smartest, bestest boy in the whole world a few times for quietly coming back to the trot at X instead of leaping through the air, and now he takes great pride in that transition. 

Where we're still getting a little spicy is moving out of the walk. We've been doing a lot of free walk to medium walk and back again to try to convince him that we don't always pick up the canter as soon as we're done with the free walk. But also at some point we do have to pick the canter back up again, grossly at First it's out of the trot so then we also have to sneak that transition in. There's lots to overthink when you're a tiny brained Opie Horse, and honestly First level has to be my least favorite to ride. 

The last couple of rides, I've really been working on the quality of the gaits themselves. Now that he's feeling stronger and sounder, I feel comfortable holding him to a little higher standard. Which is good because when he gets tense and distracted I can't even steer this thing let alone sit comfortably on him. 99% of the time the answer is renvers. So we do a lot of renvers. The other 1% of the time is just riding out his tantrum until he gets over it and magically remembers how to horse. 

how he looks when i insist my right seat bone
can be on his right back

I'm excited to have so much homework to do finally. While spending the winter walking my horse was great and all (it wasn't that great), I do selfishly actually enjoy riding and showing and fucking doing things. 

Now here's a little Opie story to leave you all with so you can appreciate his level of drama on a daily basis.

drama llama on alert

I brought Opie in for his PEMF appointment Tuesday afternoon. He met me at the gate like usual and I chucked him in his stall for a quick groom while we waited our turn. I started cleaning out my trunk when I was done with that, and as always his stall door was wide open because he's too dumb to leave it. He kept acting like he wanted to lie down and just like he was the sleepiest horse in the whole world. The bodyworker finally came over to our side of the barn and once he was in the crossties he used them to hold his head and neck up.

He was being sleepy but normal to start, and then he started shifting all over which eventually led to trying to throw himself on the ground. Now normally I would have been like, "Oh no this horse is colicking let me take care of that!" But it was Opie so I was like, you might be colicking.....but there's just as big of a chance that you're having a total toddler tantrum about wanting to take a nap and being inconvenienced by getting body work instead. 

He eventually got so insistent about wanting to lay down that we had to stop PEMF and put him in his stall where he cycled between throwing himself down and parking out. UGH OK FINE YOU MIGHT BE COLICY. I got on the phone with the vet while I brought the rest of the barn in (timed his drama perfectly to when I needed to do barn chores), and they said to give him some bananmine and if he hadn't improved in 45 minutes they'd send someone our way. 

By the time I got back over to his stall with drugs (absolutely not in a hurry because I'm sorry Opie but I was not convinced you were in dire straits) he was quietly laying down sleeping. I shoved banamine down his throat, skipped his dinner grain, and within ten minutes he was back on his feet being his usual ragey self.

"where is my dinner and the rest of my pemf sesh?!"

My guess is he had a little bout of gas that he thought he was dying from. However there is still the strong possibility that he really just wanted a nap. He can never be normal about anything.