1/27/2018 - Adult Camp Cavaletti Lesson

After my first lesson, I went to lunch, which had two special speakers. One was a PEMF (Pulsed electromagnetic therapy) company, and the other was for Tribute Feeds. I can't say I heard much from either company, they started talking before I got there, but the PEMF company was offering discounted treatments for riders who were in the Adult Camp.

From a PEMF website:

"PEMF therapy "exercises" the cells with a pulsing magnetic field, bringing them back into electrical balance while increasing nutrient circulation and oxygen flow. When cells are properly charged and functioning, soreness is reduced, inflammation is decreased, range of motion is increased, stress is reduced, and the body's restoring abilities are accelerated allowing the horse to perform at its personal best."

I like to test all kinds of treatments. Penn works hard, he's built downhill, and while dressage is easier for him than it was for Mikey, it's still hard. I am willing to give him any chance to train better and feel better.

The people from PEMF didn't recommend using it before a ride on a horse that tends to be lazy since the treatment can make horses VERY relaxed and even lazier. I wasn't worried about that, Penn has an excellent motor. They didn't have any more spots for after our cavaletti lesson (and there wasn't enough time Sunday morning), but they did have a spot to do it immediately, then Penn would have an hour before our Saturday afternoon lesson. I opted to have that done, and so I missed most of the Tribute Feed talk (I don't have control over what kind of grain Penn gets anyway, unless I want to buy it myself which I don't).

Penn LOVED his treatment. He was a hair suspicious about it since it was a big coil of plastic, but one "hit" of it and he was totally on board. He was exceedingly relaxed and the crossties were holding him up. At one point he started swaying and his front legs buckled a little. I'm pretty sure Penn was their best reaction of the weekend. Every other horse who was treated at least stayed awake, if not skeptical (J's horse, his skeptical face is hilarious).

They had a chair that both J and I sat in, and all we can figure it that it finds tension in the muscle and works on just that. We couldn't feel it in places that didn't already hurt.

Sleepy time while feeling good.

On to our cavaletti lesson with LH!

LH holds cavaletti Sunday every week, and I've always wanted to take a lesson, but it just hasn't panned out. If I make the 5 hour drive to GP Trainer, I want to take two lessons with her, not one and a cavaletti lesson.

#AwkwardPose
Tried to get a pic of all his matching navy LeMeiux stuff.
I failed. You can't even tell the polos are navy.

We showed the horses the poles (Penn snorted and arched his neck over the blue poles down centerline), before moving on to tackling one section of poles at a time. It was kind of like a group jumping lesson, tackle all the bits and pieces, then put it all together in a course. The below pic has the poles numbered with directional arrows, but that's just for the final course. As we practiced each section, we ran through it on both the right and left rein.

The "Course"
Colors may not be accurate to real poles, lol

We started with the easiest, the two purple poles on a circle, with two trot steps in between. Penn likes to trot the poles then hurry off- LH was adamant that Penn stay straight and not hurry while lifting his forearms UP, and that I stay very upright and really hold him to a slower tempo while still sitting with my core. The idea being that he takes slower, loftier steps over the poles.

This entire lesson was very helpful for my ineffective posting trot. I have trouble keeping him up and not rushing in posting trot and this was an excellent lesson in posting, but keeping my core engaged. I noticed it carried over to being more effective in my warm up at home.

We moved on to the blue poles on centerline- two sets of two trot poles with two steps in between. I had to work a lot harder to keep him straight and sitting. Not too difficult though.

Next was the red fan, and I struggled with it. It really highlighted how I let him sneak out the outside shoulder ALL THE TIME. The first time through, I let Penn go with his tendency to get forward and running and taking bigger steps.

Weee, shoulders falling out the outside!

LH had me aim a bit more to the outside of the middle of the first pole, and then keep bringing his shoulders around. That worked a lot better for me

Better, no falling out!

For the final piece, we did the orange set of 6 trot poles. This was a big test of my ability to keep Penn straight. If he wavered at all, I'd lose any sit I managed to gain.

The final course: The orange 6 poles tracking right, the red fan tracking right then turn left and go over the green fan tracking left, the two purple poles tracking left then turn right, go up centerline over the blue poles, then turn right and go back to orange 6.

Link to YouTube

I was SO EXCITED to be part of a "group jump lesson" again! I have to say, remembering the course was initially a bit daunting because I'm wayyyyy out of practice. LH made an interesting comment that I think also pertains to jumping: Going through poles in a group gives less confident horses confidence.

We wanted to take the horses for a short walk after our lesson, so we invited the girl who shared our cavaletti lesson to come with us. We stuck B between Penn and the third rider, but he still got a bit fussy. I told J to run him up Penn's butt if he got moving. B did try to pass Penn on one side, so I cut him off by turning Penn that direction and putting Penn physically in the way. It worked, haha. We've gotta get J and B out on the trails! Overall, we had a nice walk though.

As for the PEMF? I think Penn really enjoyed getting his treatment, and it made him happy. He was very relaxed before, during and after our cavaletti lesson. He was a bit on the forehand for lesson, which goes back to, one, he already worked that day, and two, the treatment could make him lazy. He felt good the next day, and I'm sure it helped him deal with 3 rides in 24 hours (sorry bud). I do think the Pulse Treatments he gets at home are longer lasting and overall more effective though.

J and I finally dragged ourselves back to our hotel and got dinner before passing out by 10. It was a long day!!

Next up, our final lesson and the drive home!

The Perks of Outside Forces

The past few weeks with Penn have been a bit of a struggle. We've hit a bit of a plateau and we're just fighting each other in my effort to get to the other side. I'm all, "Can you just sit down please" and he's all, "OMG NO! I'm going to (insert an activity that is not sitting) instead" and then I'm all, "Oh FFS, if you'd listen this would be over already."

This felt quite festive and fun!

Penn went on a little vacation from Christmas until what will probably be this Sunday. It's been between -2 and 23 degrees from 12/24 until what looks like 1/6. I really don't like doing much when it's like that, but he's worked a few times since the Northeast decided to relocate to the Arctic for various reasons (I was stir crazy, we had a "heat wave" where it got to 20+, and snow riding!).

I purposely don't give Penn these long vacations. He becomes obnoxious and spooky. Sigh. Anyway, we had a few experiences in the last week that seemed to give Penn one hell of a reality check... yay!


Saturday 12/30/2017
We got a bunch of snow, and I had to go to the barn and work anyway, so I decided we were going to go for a snowy trail ride, temperature and wind be damned.

SNOW!

Ok, it was really cold and I wore two pairs of pants and two coats in addition to my two layers of shirts, and I rode in my Noble Outfitter muck boots (which I NEVER do) so that my toes would stay warm. Still so worth it! Penn got out and got to go for a walk, and he had a great experience going down the slightly steep gas well road back to the barn.

I told him to slow down, get lined up straight, and sit down. He decided I was full of shit and leaned on me and his own shoulder... and promptly slipped out from under himself because of the frozen ground under slippery snow. We didn't fall down, which was good (I thought we were going down). He got himself sorted and I kicked him on down the hill and told him "Sit down!" Don't you know it, he got very light in my hand and sat. A nice dressage sit that I would have liked to have in the ring! He kept it the length of the gas well road (which is a long time- it takes 5 min or so to get down the hill in good weather), and I gave him a ton of pats at the bottom. My thighs were hurting from telling him to sit, I bet his hind end was sore too!


Sunday 12/31/2017
I worked at the barn this day too, and I was planning on riding Penn after. It took a long time to get the barn work done- it was 1 degree at 8:45 when we started, so we fed, hayed, watered, and starting cleaning stalls while the horses were still in them. This takes FOREVER. Especially when I leave Penn in his stall to clean it.

Stall snuggles <3

And Penn wasn't the only one who wanted cuddles, Syndrome came down from the stall walls for hugs and snuggles and we had one big cuddle-fest in Penn's stall. Penn even got in on it! He put his nose on the cat and flapped his upper lip around in an almost petting motion.

Cat for breakfast?

By the time we got stalls done and horses out around lunchtime, I had had enough. Penn still needed to be worked, he had far too many opinions about working when I rode him the day before our trail ride. He felt good that night, but wanted no parts of speed regulation or right bend and was spooky and tense.

I opted to set out cavalettis and break out the long lines. I haven't long lined him in ages, and he could really use a good work over cavalettis. I set the poles out on a curve (so I could stay on my circle), and raised the inside of each. My theory was I could force him to take smaller steps, but also force him to take loftier steps at the same time by having that end of the pole higher than the outside. I didn't want to be completely sadistic, so I kept the wide end of the curve on the ground.

Penn handled the work to the left well- he adjusted his stride after bouncing the poles (jumping the first two then panicking and jumping the last two), and trotted nicely through the poles. He understood he needed smaller steps on the inside, and added a small amount of lift to his trot step. Nothing spectacular, and he was content to clip the poles with his toes when he passed through.

Oh tracking right. The hamsters that control Penn's brain went crazy on their wheels and ran amok. You would have thought I asked him for something crazy. Nope, he wanted to trot around at mach-12 with his head in the air, looking to the outside at the other end of the ring, spooking, all while leaning in at a dangerous level. To be honest, it was how he had felt under saddle tracking right when I rode him two days before, except I could force him to look in and stand up straight.

He lost his ever loving mind. I tried rather forcefully on the lines to break his staring to the outside, almost forcefully putting him "in frame" by pulling each line to flex his nose out and in and work it down, and then holding the outside and then pulling the inside rein in bursts to bring his head down. It didn't work all that well and he did his own mini-bolts on the lines, complete with twisting bucks (aimed at me) and then more running and spooking. I got dragged around my circle quite a bit. I was trying a bunch of things to try and keep him on his feet- letting go of pressure, bending his nose in with the inside rein, pulling the outside in an attempt to stand him up.

He basically cantered and galloped amok until his bucking and kicking knocked himself off balance and he got his hind legs tangled together and lost his hind end. Then he got a bit smarter and started listening. Of course by this point, he was a bit tired and wanted to walk.

NOPE. Trot through the poles dammit. Not my fault you wanted to be spooky and run instead of working! He had a huge medium trot going on though when he realized I wasn't letting him walk. He took the poles two at a time on the outside edges. Wonderful shoulder freedom.

He wasn't very respectful of the poles, continuing to tap them with his toes, but he did better to the right than he did to the left. When I brought him all the way in so he was stepping over the highest part of the poles, it finally clicked in his brain to take loftier steps- he did two rounds through where he self adjusted his stride and really bounced up as he stepped over the poles. He had real hang time in the air- like a fancy GP prospect's half steps! I was very pleased and let him stop with that because he put a TON of effort into those steps and I wanted to recognize it.

So foamy these days though!

Monday 1/1/2018
I hemmed and hawed about going out on New Years Day, but in the end I realized I didn't want to sit at home and went to the barn to long line Penn through the poles again.

He started off MUCH better. I made him walk through the high side of the poles in our warm up. They were close enough to take a single walk step in between, but he really struggled to articulate his shoulders, hips, and joints to flex his body to take that single step with the poles that high. He got it right several times and I'd praise him loudy. I'd praise him even if he snuck in an extra step because he was still trying very hard. I'll have to do that more often- it's good for him to learn how to flex all those joints and move his body around.

We tracked left first again, and he put much more effort into finding suspension over the poles, except he was still happy to clip his toes on each rail. That was annoying, but he was being quite reasonable about everything else. I was able to spiral him in and out so he took bigger but still lofty steps on the outside, and then short, bouncy and very lofty steps on the inside.

I swapped him over to the right, repeated the walk work over the inside of the rails, and had him trot through the poles. He kept his hamsters running properly in their wheels this time, even if he still wanted to look to the outside and be off the bit. We cantered a little when he got a bit worried about the spooky end of the ring, and it wasn't too bad! No bolty bucks either.

He put a good bit of effort into the work to the right, nothing spectacular, but definitely an overall better effort than the day before. However, he was starting to get tired, and was fighting me a bit... trying to lean on the lines and talk me into holding him up... and then the best thing happened.

He completely bungled one of his final passthroughs of the cavalettis. He was so distracted by trying to lean that he was on the forehand taking too big of steps... he tripped over the first pole, managed to kick the second pole up above his knees and almost fell down as he tried to keep stepping. He'd catch himself then trip over the second pole on his chest or the next pole on the ground. The second pole ended up getting thrown out of the circle and the rest of the poles were demolished. Thank goodness for PVC poles (which is also why the one bounced with him I'm sure).

The only booboo from his incident with the poles.
From now on we need to use polos and bandage pads for cavaletti work!

He was rightfully shaken after getting away from the poles and it took me a few circles to get him back to walk. I gave him a pat and scratch and told him he was a good boy, then took him with me to reset all of the poles, then walked through them in hand with him to give him confidence in the poles again.

I sent him back through the poles in trot, and don't you know it, I had his complete and full attention. He was light in the lines and focusing on the poles. If I asked him to collect, he shortened immediately and then finished adjusting his stride for the poles himself. He showed the poles incredible respect after that- only clipping them every now and then as he misjudged his feet, and he would get a little worried when that happened.

I only made him go through them 3-4 more times to make sure he was still confident, and he was wonderful each time. A lot of lift and bounce through the middle of the poles (not even at the inside edge!).

Looking a little model-esq!

Wednesday 1/3/2018
So what do all of these experiences have in common? Penn trying to avoid doing what I want, and then an outside source exerting some kind of consequence for avoiding. I would ask again, and he'd listen.

I rode Penn for about 20 min last night, and he was simply wonderful. I had to barely ask for sit and he was "leaping" to comply. He gave me zero fight when I'd sit into him in walk, trot, and canter. I trotted him through the poles and he didn't touch them once. He paid attention, took big steps, and kept his own balance. The canter had far more bounce to it while still being light. I had far more control over his stride length and engagement in all gaits than I ever had before. It was great. Good work = short rides!

_________________________

I think we'll continue messing with those poles on the long lines, and snowy trail rides when I can do them. I'll have to come up with some other cavaletti patterns for the lines so he doesn't get bored, and I have to get to them in the canter too. I want to keep the high walk poles though- that is an excellent exercise in pushing his flexibility. As much as I'd like to ride him through it all, I think he'll take more articulation chances without me on him.

Some exciting things are going on!

Exercises from Last Week

Last week we had some good rides. I'd like to record two exercises we did so when I look through my old posts I go, "Oh yea!" and remember to do them again later.

The first exercise is a 3 loop serpentine at canter with changes of lead through trot. I rode it with the end loops being on the right lead, the center loop on the left. Penn does not like to switch from right to left (easy direction to hard) and enjoys plowing through me in the left to right ("Left is so hard, OMG WE'RE GOING RIGHT, I KNOW WHAT TO DO!"). Using the changes of bend in the serpentine to make it clear to Penn that I wanted the left lead after the right lead really helped and I was able to make the change in 4-5 steps. For the other change, if he plowed through me as we approached the change to the right, as soon as I got to centerline, I'd put him on a 10m circle left to find some balance before bending right and picking up the new lead. I'd put an extra canter circle into the middle loop since we weren't spending as much time on that lead. After a few times up and down the serpentine, he became very light and responsive and stopped plowing through me... until he got tired, haha.

The next one is an oldie but goodie, the trot cavalettis:

We of course have worked these before, but this is the first time outside and with 8 poles instead of 6. Working the poles inside seems to generate more lift, whereas outside, he seemed to just lift his legs out of the way and got flatter faster. By the end of the poles, it felt like the distances were too short for him (set at 4'6" and him being 15.3, they really shouldn't be too small!). If I remembered to add a half halt coming in, and a reminder half halt around pole 4 or 5, it helped a lot and he rebalanced himself. I ran out of butt power pretty quickly, which meant I didn't get to really fix it like I wanted to... but whatever, that's a losing battle so it's best to quit and start again another day where you can pick up where you left off, but with a fresh horse.

Screenshots from another video that started out well until he dragged one of the poles with him:

1: I love this balance!
2: Look how high I can lift my feet!
3: Slowly sneaking downhill that will lead to dragging the 6th pole with us.

Next post, my lesson with Stephen Birchall!

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Penn wore this sheet for one day and this happened. *facepalm*

Between work and cold and frustration, I didn't really plan on doing any ride recaps. Penn's jumpy contact frustrates me and makes me think he's regressing. In the past, I have tried: More aggressive riding- which led to him getting really nervous. Less aggressive riding which I'm pretty sure I took as "ride like a passive lump and stop moving with the horse or doing anything at all to help him in any way." I tried riding outside the other weekend- he spooked hard at the dog 20 feet away and kept ducking behind the contact which made him feel like a bomb. I tried making the work more complicated, "fine, if you think this 20m circle is boring, let's leg yield and lengthen and shoulder in and 10-15m circle and... and... and..." That one worked halfway decently.

Oh! And he had his teeth done, and nothing was overly amiss. So we can now safely rule out teeth troubles. He was a bit better after having them done though.

One of my rides last week, he was having none of the leg yield work. I eventually changed it to shoulder in down the long wall, lengthen the trot across the diagonal, repeat. I changed shoulder in to the leg yield zig zag from 1-3. He really responded to that- it seems the lateral work mixed with a forward moment kept his brain working. That same day we did a mix of 1-2 and 1-3 canter work - canter at A, 15m circle early on the long wall (I ride in a small arena so I just went far enough down to get a 15m circle that wasn't in the corner), then lengthen the canter down the long wall, collect well before the corner, across the next diagonal, and then either simple change over X or trot at X and have the next lead by the time we got to the wall, repeat. His brain totally clicked on when I asked for more canter. He was like, "Wheee! Fun!"

So I think mixing up the forward and come back is going to be key for him.

"Hi, my name is Penn and this is my friend Fiction."

"I enjoy licking him and pulling his clothes."
Yupp, I stood there and watched Penn lick Fiction's neck.
I am so glad he found a friend that tolerates his ridiculousness.
In all fairness, Fiction likes to take off Penn's hood, so it goes both ways!

This past Monday I was messing around with the idea of giving him more to do, so I worked's Karen's figure 8 bending exercise on a tight 3 loop serpentine. That gave his brain something good to think about. Or maybe it made me ride every step? Another thing I did was stand there and ask him to bend his head right and left. Man, he was on the struggle bus. I figured, if he doesn't get that he can bend his head right or left, how is he going to be ok changing his body? We now include this move in our warm up, and then do it in walk. He really struggles with it, and the worse side flip flops depending on the day.

The ride was good, then took a downturn when I opted to do some sit trot work. I decided, "Screw it all, I am going to ride you!" I have a nasty habit of locking my body when I try to "be quiet". In walk, I steadied my hand and made sure to find the nod of his head in walk before taking my inside leg and kicking him up into the bridle. He of course giraffed and tried to trot away but I insisted on walk. He eventually gave in, but got heavy. Fine- he was heavy but steady. Trot on. I insisted that yes, he must move off into trot without giraffing. Then once we were in trot he was a heavy speed demon. I took a good hard look at my position. I was trying to tuck my butt under me, but my lower leg felt like it was water skiing in front of the girth. Looking down, sure enough, there my toes are in front of my knee. Bracing. I brought my leg back just an inch or two, enough that I found his sides with my ankles. I changed my seat from tucking (and I'm sure goosing) to that 3 point contact while letting my thigh get longer. I worked hard at absorbing the bigger trot Penn has started to develop (my abs protested so I think I got that right). I tried to keep my hands steady but loose, and I shortened my freaking reins because I realized my hands were creeping into my lap too much. Neck length comes from long arms, not long reins! After a few insisting moments, Penn became steady on the contact again, but heavy. But I had access to his body again, so yay!

I suspect this is going to be his training cycle- good contact, we ask for something a bit harder or new, it goes ok for a little while, then he'll get jumpy off the contact, then heavy yet steady, then good contact again. That's a very normal training cycle I think.

When I watched his sale videos, he was steady and heavy and I was like, PLEASE HALF HALT THE HORSE. When I test rode him, I half halted and he was like, 'why yes, I can stop laying on your hand!' Then he got a bit jumpy off the contact and Trainer got after me to 'stop being so nice to him and ride!' And then we dealt with heavy and steady, then a couple months of good work and then we made it harder again. Cycles people! Horse training is a cycle of the same thing- degrees of connection.

Penn says, "Why do you keep doing things to me?"
In my defense, his mane was trying to return to the left side of his neck. We can't have that.

I had a wonderful ride Wednesday night. I pulled out 6 poles and my cavaletti blocks and finally worked him through that stuff.

Like this, but not. Because my phone died. The right spacing for Penn? 4 lengths of the muck boot, and some extra toes.
I'm pretty good at walking the distance off, but my muck boots are a size 11, and pretty much a foot long, so when looking for 4'6" spacing... well they're kind of perfect.

I started with all poles on the ground, and walked him through several times. He does not have the best multiple pole track record: hitting every single one; tripping over the first one, attempting to jump the rest, running to get away from it all; just speeding through them as fast as he can.

After some walk work that included bend changes and walking the poles, off to trot we went. I did some more of the serpentines, and tried to insist he maintain contact. Then off we went through the poles. I can't say I didn't have falling down flashbacks and some jumping fears- Penn's past performance in this department does not inspire confidence.

He did ok- we had some crookedness and speeding, and eventually he settled into the rhythm. I tried some halts after the poles and was ignored. So he may have found the wall. I asked for rein back and he didn't want to, but grudgingly did it eventually.

I got off and changed it so the 3rd and 4th poles were raised, and the rest still on the ground. I walked him through that, and his little brain went, huh? He paid much more attention and tried to work out how best to approach them.

So you know how I don't jump anymore? There's good reason. Because my eye for distance and pace is bad as soon as you involve jumps or poles. Poor Penn. A couple times we were coming up to the poles and I panicked and tried to do too much in front of them, he tried his best to respond and tripped all over his face. Sorry buddy :-(

At this point, I had Penn's attention, but I wanted to make it harder, so I added in canter. Trot the poles, several strides out, canter. Canter large around the arena (keep the harder stuff simple, plus we were sharing the ring), come back to the quarterline and trot once we were straight, letting him balance himself and use the poles to force him to do it. That made little gears turn in his head. all of a sudden, he was a light horse in the bridle, but still connected and soft, and he suddenly had great respect for the downward transition.

He was doing so well, that instead of quitting, I opted to raise the 2nd and 5th poles (the entrance and exit pole were still on the ground, the rest were raised). I put him through those, just maintaining trot because he was tired, and he did very well. He started reading them many strides out and adjusting his step, as well as taking loftier steps before entering the poles. He stopped trying to speed through them (not that he had been, but he toned down the tempo on his own), and worked very nicely through them. I made him do them a couple times each direction, then a stretchy trot... which is probably the best stretchy trot I've ever gotten out of him. He could stretch down more, but he maintained his tempo, stretched, and didn't fall on the forehand.

Throughout our ride, his contact issues went away and stayed away, he became light and manageable, and he respected the downward transition from canter instead of dropping out of it like a stone or dragging me through it. I like this exercise for him. I'm going to try it again Friday if the poles are still out, and get the last set of poles up. Then, in a few months, I'll break them into two sections of 4 poles (because I only have 8 blocks- I need to make more!). Since he's reading the loftier step before the poles, I want to encourage that step to continue for longer outside the poles- so let's break up the poles into two sections, and then put 4 steps of trot in between sections. Then make it 6 steps. Then 8, until we're down the whole long side. I don't like putting 2 steps in between the poles themselves, only because I raise just one side of the pole, so I don't want him constantly stepping higher with just one side of his body.

Very happy with our ride. Penn was tired! I don't think I've worn him out since I've been at winter barn (wear out in a good, relaxed way). I need to make sure I keep cavalettis happening once a week!