5/21/2018 - Alfredo Hernandez Clinic

Both Jenj (here, here, here, and I know there's more but these were easy to find) and Megan have ridden with Alfredo, enjoyed it, and blogged about it. I was STOKED to find out he was coming to a barn a mere 4 hours from me for a 3 day clinic 5/21-23. I wanted to learn his methods for piaffe/passage, he was here on the east coast, and he wasn't stupidly far from me. Jenj described his cool way of getting changes on a horse, which I recreated at home and bam, Penn had changes. I needed to take a turn with him.

Lots of learning happened!

I messaged the trainer organizing it and tried to sign up for 2 of the 3 days. All was well until I asked work for the time off... and they told me no. I could have the first day (a Monday) but not the second day because of an outage test that was being conducted. I had to make a deicison at that point- do I make a crazy plan of drive down Monday, ride, drive home, go to work Tuesday, or do I skip out?

I went, duhhhhhhh!

I got up at 4:30am Monday, met two ladies at the barn who were coming with me to audit, and we were on the road at 7:05am. Alfredo's flights got messed up, so the clinic was shuffled from noon to 6:30pm, no lunch break. We were excited to get there in time to see the first few rides, one of which was a GP horse.

We actually got to see majority of the clinic (I only missed part of the rides before and after me)- we were there for the beginning and stayed until the end... meaning I dropped Penn off at midnight, and got myself home by 1am Tuesday morning, showered, and got way too little sleep for a Tuesday in the office. It was totally worth it, majority of the horses were FEI level horses, or aspiring, and several of the riders were ones I knew about and have seen go at shows.

Arrival

Some of the things he covered with the other riders:

• No hanging on the reins for balance. He made a rider with a "lazy" horse who couldn't be ridden without two whips ride without any whips. He got after the rider to stop hanging on the reins and to sit better (on the back of the pelvis) and to collect the canter using the middle of the thigh. Her horse was beautifully forward with tons of jump in the canter, of which I was quite envious! He made her do her PSG tempi changes on the wall while holding the reins at the buckle, each direction. She struggled, but she did it and she had beautiful smooth changes.
• He does not advocate riding with a whip because that is not the kind of rider he is building. He is going to treat you like you want to ride in CDIs and guess what's not allowed? A whip. They aren't allowed at championships either.
• To help with getting the changes: trot around the ring, go down the longside and go from shoulder in to renvers to travers to leg yield with the nose on the wall. Continue to flip between those in that order on the long wall until it is smooth as butter. Go to canter, half pass in (more of a haunches in) on the circle, then leg yield out, repeat. On one of the leg yields out, ask for the new lead.
• Half pass corner to corner on the diagonal, but before you get to the corner make the haunches lead the half pass, and do a turn on the forehand into the same half pass back down the same diagonal.
• Open the inside hand instead of pulling it back.

There was also a huge lesson in being tactful. The first 3 lessons were a trainer, her student, then the trainer and one of her GP horses. Both riders had a little attitude, but the student opened up to Alfredo's ideas and ended up with all of the auditors applauding her efforts and finished a very good lesson.

Sunday night, all scrubbed up and clean for the clinic!

The trainer... is not one I want to ride with. I saw her compete a few years ago and was impressed with her canter work but not her trotwork- it was irregular and tense.... and now I know why. She would tell Alfredo how it is, threw her own trainer (who was there watching and hosting the clinic) under the bus, and basically went off about how her GP horse was a huge ass and how he took years to learn things because he was so uncooperative and was prone to rearing. Alfredo immediately told her to pretty much simmer the fuck down because her body language was so aggressive and that she rides this horse very differently than her first horse (he did not use that language,I'm creatively paraphrasing). He tried to tell her in every way imaginable that the reason the horse had a rearing problem is because she has an anger problem (short of outright yelling that at her). He had to tell her to give the horse a moment to think about the piaffe/passage transition and to stop hitting the horse with the whip when he didn't respond immediately. The trainer rode angry and defensive, but eventually she opened her inside hand when the horse would get stuck and the horse would think and move forward instead of rearing.

Alfredo asked to see the trainer and the host trainer work on the piaffe/passage, which the trainer said "it took me 2 months to undo what [the hosting trainer] did", and about 15 seconds into it, Alfredo ripped her off the horse. He was warned, "That horse will rear and run you over" as he set the gelding up in a side rein and prepared to work him in hand. He simply said, "We'll see" and got to work making the horse do a turn on the forehand in hand. The horse's eye immediately softened and got right to work for him. He settled him on the wall and worked him through a few rearing threats with beautiful timing/pressure/release, and don't you know it, that horse piaffed without running anyone over.

Moral of the story? Be fucking nice to your horse. No emotions. Let them think. GP Trainer got that in my head already, but it was nice to see a horse that is wound so tight relax because Alfredo was simply unemotional with it. I learned later that he almost dismissed the trainer from lesson for being so disrespectful to both him and the horse.

Tacked up, waiting for my lesson. Penn decided to rest his face on the wall for the 10 min we stood there.

On to happier things, like my lesson! I'll admit, after watching the lessons before me, I was extremely anxious.

I told him Penn and I finished my bronze medal last year, we're working on making third better, Penn can sometimes be bolty in the changes, but I really wanted to learn how to do the in hand piaffe/passage work. I also told him that Penn had SI injections about a month ago and is getting back into full work. He asked how many days of the clinic I was riding, I said just the one day... he wasn't happy. He told me outright there's a limited amount he can get done in one day because he's getting to know you and the horse, and you can only cover so much in  45 min and you can only push something so far in one day. I told him I understood completely and knew that coming in, and we'd do what we could.

We warmed up with the leg yield on the diagonal exercise, trotted briefly, and moved on to in hand piaffe work! I told him I wanted to learn how he worked it, because I've had hit or miss lessons with it and I'm unable to reproduce the results on my own consistently. He told me flat out, "This horse is ready to piaffe." Ok, awesome. He asked to see how I asked for it, I sucked at it, and he immediately said, "I can see why the horse bolts through you in changes. We can fix that here." Ok, that's even better.

He started by putting the outside side rein on and looping the reins over the head and through the bit (outside rein over the head like a lunge line, and through the inside bit ring) so that way he had both sides of the mouth right there in his hand. Then he asked Penn to move his hindquarters in a leg yield/turn on the forehand by tapping him rather smartly with the whip on the fleshy part above the gaskin. He always gave a light tap to start with, then a sharp tap if the horse didn't respond. If the horse moved away, he'd immediately stop applying pressure for a moment before asking again. He did that until the horse was reaching the inside hind leg under him and moving to the outside rein without pulling on his hand at all. The cue to stop moving was when he'd put the whip vertically up against the shoulder/neck parallel to the slope of the shoulder.

The bridle set up was like this (picture taken after the fact).

He then took that leg yield to the wall, and used a specific clucking noise (aka, start developing different clucks now), in a trot rhythm while tapping the same spot above the gaskin with the whip with the same gentle/sharp intensity. Penn was confused by what he wanted, and reared a few times (we'll call it levade, lol), before figuring out he was supposed to trot in place.

Alfredo did a few rounds of it, before handing Penn to me to walk once around the ring (the horse works when Alfredo is there, the rider gets to be "the good guy" and walk the horse on a long rein).

Alfredo took him back and asked for piaffe, which was very nice, and then said, "You want to try? Let's see what you learned from watching."

I have to say, I missed the part with the leg yield turn on the forehand and the reasoning behind it. He explained it to me, and off I went. I sucked at it. He took Penn back from me to show me again, and then had me try again, and then schooled me on the ask gently once, then ask sharply. I didn't get anything magical, but I learned a lot on the timing of things. If Penn went to bolt through me, I was to immediately put him on the leg yield/turn on the forehand until he was light in my hand again. I didn't get the excellent response Alfredo got, but it was apparently sufficient because he eventually said, "Ok, that is enough of this for one day. Get on and let's look at the changes."

Penn's best piaffe of the session.

We went back to the trot after the piaffe work, and Penn was immediately more uphill and forward. Alfredo wanted his head a good bit lower with much more contact than I do, but we did it because that's what we were told to do and I am here to learn. Off to the canter!

The first thing he did was encourage me to follow the canter better. GP Trainer has been after me for a long time to sit into the canter and it has been a struggle. He wanted me to pull my pelvis up and down with the motion of the canter, which really forced me to absorb the motion in my core. Thinking about it that way made me realize I completely seize up in my seat when I ask for anything in canter that's not a circle (like half pass, leg yield, flying changes etc).

It took me a while to work out what he was telling me to do with the canter after that. The other riders mostly stuck to the circle and leg yielded and half passed on it, so when he said circle, go to the rail, and leg yield... I tried leg yielding down the rail. Wrong. We had a few communication issues to work out, and then I finally understood he wanted me to leg yield from the corner to X in canter. He then sprung the change on me, and bam, Penn did is very nicely!

The leg yield kept him very straight so I could simply ask for the new lead. I got the one change, and Alfredo said walk... and I couldn't get Penn stopped on the CC. He got bolty and did another flying change. Alfredo immediately said, back to canter! If he's going to run through you, he's going to keep cantering.

He had me repeat the leg yields and changes until we had clean changes, and multiple changes! Penn did his first real set of multiple changes, just two on a long side, but I was super happy!

Link to YouTube

I would advise anyone who wants to ride with Alfredo to audit him first, to make sure you like his style. He is... quirky. Between quirky, a thick accent, and sometimes he didn't quite finish the instructions, made him difficult to ride for. Once I understood what he wanted, I did it immediately, which made him very happy. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my lesson, because I did enjoy it.

In short, Alfredo is intense and extremely demanding as a clinician. But again, he is building you as if you want to be a CDI rider. He is not someone I would host at home barn, because he's more expensive than most people would do, and he's much more intense than most people I know would be happy with. He is supposed to come back to this host barn every 8 to 10 weeks, so we'll see if I ride again!

On Sundays, We Chase Cows

OMG GUYS.

If you get a chance to mess with cows with your horses...

DO IT!

Back in December, I saw a Facebook event called, "Intro to Cattle". It was a beginner clinic that introduced horses and riders to cows, and then the basics of working them, with the end goal of competing in sorting. I emailed the organizers and said, "Do you allow English horses to come in? I ride dressage but this looks like fun!" I got an "Absolutely!" as a response, and then found out it was a 4 hour session, all mounted. I was like uhh, nevermind.

Fast forward a few months, they posted there were still two openings in the Sunday morning session and I decided to sign up anyway. I could always get off and stand for a while, or just be done, and then I wouldn't be sitting on Penn for 4 hours. One of the other ladies at my barn signed up for the other spot, so at least I had company!

I just want to insert this here, since we were talking vet in my last post: THIS TRIP WAS VET APPROVED. Since it was mostly walking and standing, she didn't see a reason we shouldn't go. In fact, she brought it up and asked if I was still going. I said I'd only go if she approved it, and she's like, "Yupp, that's fine. You should still go!"

I also got a new bridle for the occasion...

He is very cheeky to ride with the noseband converter! Also, I am on a black and navy roll.

I ended up getting a Berlin Beta Biothane headstall with a Thinline bitless noseband converter and 10' yacht rope reins. I didn't get the headstall from RW, I ended up getting the buckle end version from Ebay. Looking back at the reins though... They didn't send me the scissor clips and apparently they were supposed to (I thought I had misread the item description when it arrived sans clips)... It's a bit late for me to be like "hey! you shorted me my stuff!" when I ended up buying gunmetal black scissor clips that I like more from Amazon and wouldn't have any use for an extra set of clips. I wanted a bitless bridle to trail ride in, and this seemed like an excellent reason to buy all the pieces since I didn't want to use my nice dressage bridle around cows. I did use a bit for the clinic though!

Such stunning beauty... I rode him lightly in this set up the day before the clinic and he was quite foamy and happy with it. Remember, the vet did approve light riding up until his SI injection.

We pulled out of home barn at the dark hour of 5am (meaning I got up at 2:35am that morning). We allotted 3.5 hours to get there (Google said 2.5, but it's all back roads), and it took us about 3.75 hours to make the trip. There was a snafu with Google though... I entered the address, and the maps plopped me out on a dirt road 3 miles off course, not even on the correct road. Eyeroll. Come on Google, I gave you AN ADDRESS. I guess this is why I got into the habit of using coordinates. I'll have to get back into that habit!

We were panicking and in a hurry to get the horses off the trailer and tacked since we were supposed to be "tacked up, warmed up, and ready to ride at 9" and we still had horses on the trailer at 8:45. We shouldn't have hurried, the clinic was VERY relaxed. Hell, they said the usual route to the indoor was extra muddy, so just hop through the man door into the arena. Which we totally did, NBD. #prouddressagehorsemom

This barn is gorgeous BTW. And I love the set up. They have a huge indoor with nice footing (standard size ring plus a little length and width I think), hooked up to H-shaped stabling. The vertical part of the "H" has stalls where every stall has a shared run with one other stall. Over each aisle, there's a catwalk with hay storage so hay can be dropped from above. All of the horses go out in regular fields too, which is great. It's a more western oriented barn, but that's ok. Everything was neat and tidy and it had a low key atmosphere. I lifted a few pics from their Facebook page since the barn is newly constructed (and how I found out so much about how its layout):

Anyway, as soon as Penn got into the arena, he was on red alert (he was already on red alert from tacking up with a jumpy/hurried rider at the trailer). He saw the cows in the paneled off section at the end of the ring and was like, "WHAT IS THAT". He was very brave up until about 20' away from them, and thank goodness I decided to go "semi-western" with the clip-on rope reins... I ended up unclipping the right side so I had a 10' long lead rope attached to my horse shaped snorting kite.

I have a lot of pictures like this. Blurry, most of the horse is missing (or all of it), and sometimes without cows. This was one of the best ones.

I wanted to stay on the ground for a little while because Penn was acting semi-feral and snorting up a storm (it was as if he's never traveled before in his life), but the guy who was running it suggested I get on and put him to work and keep him moving, and slowly circle him down the ring until he was working nicely next to the panels. Sure, why not?

I hopped on, using the buddy system with my barn mate that came with us as shield that kept Penn in place, and put him to work. It worked like a charm. I put him on the bit an on my outside aids, and he was worried and distracted but was like, "Ok, let's work."

They eventually put the cows back behind their little "blind pen" and had us ride into the cow enclosure so the 6 horses could sniff and investigate the tarp covered panels that held the cows. The tarp was a bigger issue for the horses than the cows were! Especially when the cows ran into the panels and the whole thing clanged and moved. I did sit a few big spooks, but I am proud to say I stuck them out like a champ in my dressage saddle. Much better than the other riders in their western saddles!

This is literally the only pic I have of the arena and set up. Like, what was I thinking? Oh yea, I had a kite instead of a horse.

We had a baptism by fire moment when two cows busted through the opening in the little pen, and were free to mingle with the horses. The guy running it was like, "Crap, didn't mean for that to happen. OK, we're moving this along a little faster everyone, deal with it!" It worked out great actually, I hooked up with a more confident horse and Penn fed off his confident energy and kept his brain in between his ears. He eventually got bold enough to try and sniff the cow, which ran away, and he immediately was like, "Hey wait, I wasn't done sniffing you!" and chased after. Ice. Broken.

They let out a few more cows so we each had our own, and moved us on to the next step: to "pick a cow and follow it around" so the horses learned the cows would move away from them. Penn thought this was great, and got a bit over excited and tried to trot after his cow (I was then told to keep him at a walk...).

Eventually they let all the cows out of the blind, and we cornered them between the wall and panel by standing in a semi-circle, so we could practice walking through the herd one at a time, and then peeling a single cow out of the herd.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

This brought out an interesting characteristic in Penn... He got all big and macho and became chargey. He also had two settings: ears super forward and watching, or ANGRY DRESSAGE HORSE with his neck arched and ears pinned back. He got so aggressive with the cows that the guy teaching told me that if he goes to charge a cow I haven't locked on to, I need to stop him and reprimand him. He had to get used to the cows walking around him with him just standing passively. He did not like that one bit!

It took about 1.5 hours to get to this point, and Penn finally started to relax. He spent the first bit of the clinic on high alert with super flared nostrils, fast breathing, and his blood vessels popping out. After his initial OMG WHAT IS THAT, he never once felt like he was checking out or wanted to leave.

We did basic sorting moves after that, getting progressively more difficult: get a cow out of the herd and get it outside the semi circle of horses, get a cow and take it to the opposite wall, get a cow out and go to the wall and make the cow change directions once, then twice. Get a cow out and make it walk between two cone 15' apart, then repeat but the cones are only 5' apart. Get a cow out and walk it between the panel and a cone 5' away, go to the wall and turn it once, and go back through the cone and panel back to the herd.

Big bad dressage horse!

We did all of that! And did it well! We actually did better than a few people who have worked cows before. Cows work off of the same shoulder/hind pressure that horses work off of, and to get them moving you kind of aim the horse across the cow's spine. The trick to to keep the horse's nose pointed at the cow so you can turn either direction quickly, and not get head on with it. One thing I had to get used to was when the cow is going straight along the wall, to kind of run across the ring with the cow, but not towards the cow. Cows also work off the energy your horse brings to the party- walking is low energy and they'll react with a slow moving response. A lot of the other riders were kicking and yanking and flinging their horse around, so the cows were really moving, and it got a little annoying because they would get close to running into the other horses (one actually ran into my barn mate).

Around the 2 hour mark, I hopped off and took Penn out of the cow area to give him a break. He didn't feel bad, but I wanted to give him a break from me sitting on him. We stood outside the panels for about 20 min, and he went back to being a semi-kite. Funny, he's ok when he can actually touch the cows, but they're a bit scary when they aren't responding to him from the other side of the panels!

Link to YouTube

The video was during a "break" about 2.5 hours in. I can tell because the cows aren't stuck in their semi circle.

After doing individual sorting, we started working on moving the herd as a group. The first thing was to use the horses to put all of the cows back in their blind pen, then one horse goes into the pen along the panels and pushes the whole herd back out. Penn wasn't quite brave enough to go in with all the cows in a compressed space, but he followed a brave horse in.

After that, the exercise became put all the cows away, then bring them back out, and take all the cows out to the big ring, down the long side, around the short side, and down the next long side and put them away again... I don't have video of that but it was more of a figure 8 the first few times we tried it, haha! It took all 6 of us to move the 15 or so cows, which is apparently overkill for 15 cows... #totalbeginners

We finished up with an exercise where we took one cow at a time out of the cow area and pushed it to their overnight holding area, which wasn't too hard. The hard part was taking one cow at a time OUT of the overnight holding area and back to the paneled area in the indoor. It took 25 min for 6 of us to move the 15ish cows one at a time to the indoor... Yea, we sucked at it, haha.

The cows were pretty dead to us by this point- as they get used to the horses and exercises, they become less responsive. There was one long horn in particular that got chest bumped a few times and just wouldn't move. They had been worked for 8 hours the day before, and we were almost through our 4 hour session.

Link to YouTube

Penn REALLY liked chasing the cows around. He hated when it wasn't our turn and he had to stand still. He got way too confident and aggressive though. By the end of the clinic he was trying to bite and kick the cows. That's why in the videos I'm keeping a contact with his mouth- it's so he can't bite the cows. The guy who ran the clinic said it's always fun watching the horses progress, and sometimes the most afraid horses in the morning are among the most confident by the end since they're a bit intense to begin with.

My barn mate gave me the biggest compliment, and I just wanted to share: "It was very cool to see how your dressage horse being able to move any part of his body in any direction become a "dressage cutting horse". The other participants used brute force to their reins or by kicking their horse to move them - you were able to move Penn by more subtly using your legs and seat." I was just so moved by that, it was so nice. I did get in touch with our dressage side when we did longer distance work, his ability to half pass and leg yield made it very easy to keep his eye on the cows and ready to go at any moment while still encouraging the cow forward where we wanted it to go. Dressage training also made working the cow on the wall much easier, he responded so quickly to what I wanted. I wish I had video of us doing that!

"Hello cow!"

Everyone seemed to enjoy Penn. They called him Slick, because he was so freaking clean and shiny (yes, I did give him a bath the day before, lol). They also called him "the big horse" because apparently at barely 16 hands, he's taller than everything they have, hahaha.

I have to say, the guy who ran the clinic and instructed (I actually never caught his name, wtf), was incredible. He's done this so many times and was just very very chill about everything. It made it easy to trust his suggestions and get better at moving the cows. He kept everything very low key.

He was SO PROUD of himself.

Aww poor guy. All the adrenaline wore off, haha.

We're totally down to come back, and I think more of our barn will come with us next time. We'll sign up a bit sooner so we can basically take over an entire session. I'm looking forward to playing with cows again!

1/28/2018 - Adult Camp Lesson 2

My lesson Sunday morning was with LH, and she also focused on keeping the quality of the canter and frustrating Penn while he builds the strength to keep his hind end under him instead of trying to splat in the counter canter.

While we warmed up, she stressed he needs to be straight: If he’s not straight he gets flingy (as noted in yesterday's cavaletti lesson). He needs to be super straight on the outside aids.

She also stressed the quality of the canter: If you’re asking for collected canter, right on. Make sure you can still drive forward. Keep the jump in the canter no matter what. Lots of inside leg to outside rein.

Look! The sit! Too bad it wasn't quite what I asked for and he ended up stuck.

She also said now is not the time to be subtle with my canter cues- once he’s confirmed I can be subtle. I need to make sure my seat and leg are very, very clear. 

She also said to stop asking for backwards when he wants to stop, but he can send himself backwards. Tap him forward. Don’t ask for rein back or anything that resembles backwards for a while (not that I was planning on that, haha).

So stuck in the canter. Must spin in. Must back up.

Basically, we’re picking apart the changes and making them better and he thinks that’s horrible. As we got rolling into the real meat of the lesson, I tried to bring him along to the changes the way GP Trainer and I did, half pass to the change. The half pass was ok (haunches leading, a new problem for us), but I lost the jump and he hopped instead of changing.

I got the canter back, and LH recommended not doing any movements, just canter on the 20m circle, and over x, change to counter canter on the adjacent 20m circle. So that's what we focused on the rest of our lesson!

Find the counter canter, and spend the first circle just keeping counter canter. Next, flop around a little bit, but keep the counter canter. Slowly start changing the bend, working on left bend in the right canter, all while keeping the counter canter.

He got all flustered when I started changing the bend and trotted, but LH praised me for keeping a very cool head when he started his halt/rein back nonsense and simply going back to it. We did some more counter canter as I tried to change the bend and he broke to trot, then tried to quit, to which LH said, “Horses are great, horses are great, dressage is fun, dressage is fun!” Just keep going!

She said that he’s not wrong in breaking, being uncomfortable and knowing something is going to happen. The counter canter on the circle is about him letting me in and me being able to adjust the canter or flop around as desired without him changing. Eventually, when I can counter canter and move around and adjust the stride and bend, and I finally do ask him to change, he’s going to leap at the chance to do it because it’ll be a relief and easier than anything else we have been doing. And it will be beautiful and lovely.

But look at this very smart walk- counter canter transition!

We took a break, then got our wires crossed about which direction to go next- LH wanted the left lead, but I heard right lead, which made sense to me since the right lead is weaker, and he did this lovely agreeable CC circle:

We went the other way, and had to work through his halt/rein back shenanigans, and got the left lead rolling. She had me keep the regular counter canter for a circle, then start bending him right. He wanted to lay on me and lean, and I had to fluff him up off the rein. She got after me to keep the jump coming, and to open my inside rein to say, “hey, over here” and he had to maintain the CC. His stride got a bit open, and when I went to collect it, he quit.

We got the counter canter back, and she reminded me to keep his poll up. “Don’t even ask for a change until he can counter canter with his poll up, in the opposite bend, with his hind legs under his body. When he can do all this and not give you the middle finger, and not stop and back up, then you can ask for the change."

In his last CC on the left lead, she had me really change his bend and sit down, and he just got stuck but never quit trying.

She encouraged me to keep going through this struggle, because he will be so much better on the other side.

I found this lesson to be super helpful, and I actually have a single half hour clip from this lesson, so here you go. Bad blogger with a too long video I know, but I've cued it up to the right lead canter work.

Link to YouTube

I videoed J's lesson for her, and we got everything packed up to go home. It was a great weekend of learning!

Penn staring longingly out his window. He and B didn't really want to go home.

Penn and B with matching sped-heads in the trailer cams.
Penn is usually mean in the trailer, but he and B seemed to be genuine friends!

The sunset was SO PRETTY. (don't worry, J took this pic, not me!)

Of course it was dark (but not too late!) by the time we got back to the barn, and we hadn't had anything go majorly wrong... so I fulfilled that by almost jack knifing my trailer. I had to aim it around a truck to get it back to its spot, and I misjudged everything and got my truck stuck in the mud while wedged between the trailer and a fence. *facepalm* Why didn't I turn on 4wd? The truck can't turn as tightly... and the fence was already a problem. So I had to unhook right there and move the trailer another day when the ground was frozen again. Sigh. At least I didn't actually jack knife it!

So close to disaster.

I found this weekend so worthwhile, cavaletti work and more homework to make the changes better. I also really liked getting 4.5 lessons (we'll call the cavaletti a .5, lol) in January. I've already noticed a big difference, so I'm trying to work out if I can financially do this camp again in February. We will see!

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!

1/27/2018 - Adult Camp Lesson 1

One of the barn ladies (we'll call her J) approached me a few months ago and asked if I wanted to go to the Adult Camp that GP Trainer's two assistant trainers were holding on 1/27-28/2018. I looked it over- $150 for: a private half hour lesson Saturday morning, lunch & lecture, a half hour group cavaletti lesson or private lunge lesson Saturday afternoon, overnight stabling, breakfast on Sunday, and a half hour private lesson Sunday. I thought it was pretty good value, especially since I'd have someone to haul down with and split some of the costs of gas and hotel.

I knew we'd have to leave super early Saturday morning since the first lessons of the weekend were in the morning (our lessons were at 11:00 and 11:30), and it's a 5 hour minimum drive down (it has taken me as long as 7 hours to make the drive home). What I didn't bank on was having to be awake by 2am, leaving my house by 2:45am to pump gas and get breakfast and be at the barn by 3:45am, to leave for VA by 4:30am. Umm.

I did make the good decision of taking a half vacation day to go to the barn Friday and clean tack, pack, and make sure Penn was bathed and spotless. I was home by 7 and in bed trying to sleep by 9! I was proud of myself.

My truck's radio. I was running 15 min late, this pic was supposed to happen at 2:45am!

We were on the road at 5 instead of 4:30 due to a grooming mishap... I tried to do a quick mane shortening with a bot fly egg removal knife so J's horse wouldn't have a hobo mane (it was too wet from his bath to do the day before). I may have sliced my pointer finger open enough to drip blood all over the barn on my way to the bathroom. That really slowed me down in getting Penn ready (you try wrapping legs without using your pointer finger while trying not to get blood all over everything).

Did you know that when you wake up at 2:15am in the dark and get your day rolling, that at about 7am, you start to wonder why the hell it is still dark and it suddenly feels like 10pm? Yea. J and I both had the same feeling around the same time, "For the love of all, WHEN IS THE SUN GOING TO RISE?!"

We got to GP Trainer's barn at 10:15am, making really good time even though we had to drive the slow windy roads in the dark. We got Penn and B off the trailer and in their stalls, then the tack room emptied in record time. We had to hurry and slap some tack on Penn, but then I was ready to ride!

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Let me give some background on GP Trainer's two assistant trainers: LH is a silver medalist and Traditional B Pony Club graduate who worked for the the Hanoverian Verband in Germany, and LF is a bronze medalist who has been with GP Trainer for almost 3 years now.

I really wanted both of my lessons to be with LH because she's much further up the dressage ladder than me. I didn't get my wish, they had so many riders sign up that they both taught at the same time Saturday morning, splitting the huge indoor in half (which still left two huge squares to work in). That worked out though, I got to know LF better and she has a depth of understanding I did not expect from someone who only showed 3rd in 2017. I mean, that's a perk of being at GP Trainer's barn 24/7! She definitely gets an A+ and I'd recommend her to anyone.

I briefly went over what GP Trainer and I worked on the previous weekend (canter half pass and flying changes, then general obedience), I did a quick warm up, and we went straight to work on the canter and flying changes.

The first thing LF had me do was push the canter forward and back, being able to collect it with just my seat and have Penn go forward again immediately when I asked. Unfortunately, I don't have her commentary because she was using a headset from the other side of the ring, so here are some clips of us doing stuff to work on sit and go and sit:

10m circle on a 20m circle exercise, ending in a canter/walk.

It felt like he was sitting so much more than he actually was... why is that always the case?!

We didn't touch the easy change (left to right), but instead worked on ways to make the right to left better. I was able to get it from counter canter into the corner, but Penn would always be late behind.

I mean, at least it was pretty? Stay in rhythm, he didn't buck, he didn't drop much, why does it need to be clean too?

Then Penn just stopped picking up the counter canter altogether. We switched to tracking right and he kept picking up the left lead. *facepalm* We eventually got the right lead while tracking left, and LF had me maintain the counter canter, then put Penn in renvers while counter cantering. (unfortunately this is when my randomly selected fellow adult camper left the ring and stopped videoing)

Me: Walk on, then counter canter.
Penn: I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request.

Ohhh Penn did not like that one bit, he got hoppy and jumpy and oh so frustrated. Why wouldn't I just ask him to change already?! The goal of the exercise being: keep him up and hoppy while keeping him collected, and most importantly frustrated that he has to do all this hard work so that when I finally do ask for a change, he goes, "OH THANK GOODNESS, YES I'LL CHANGE!"

We never got back to trying a change, but more importantly we worked on keeping the quality of the canter.

LF got to see his naughty behavior too, "No, [Penn stomps horsey foot] I will not keep going!" She said something along the lines of, "He's so sweet and cute, and GP Trainer always says what a delightful horse he is when we discuss lessons, and she didn't say anything about him this last time. I did not expect this from him!" I joked that he showed her his naughty side last week, so he didn't earn his delightful horse comments!

We wrapped up, and J came in with her horse, B. J was a bit nervous, she's only had B for 6 months, 3 of those were at our barn where she realized how inadequate her "instructor" was at teaching and preparing someone for horse ownership (I've found her last "instructor" likes to keep her clients in the dark about horse ownership options). B was sold to J out of the lesson program, and he was supposedly a good traveler (turns out he's a wonderful traveler, as advertised), but J hasn't taken him anywhere. I ended up hanging out for a bit in the middle of our square as moral support, which was cool. LF got her moving and working again, and eventually we were able to wander back to the barn. J had a good confidence building lesson and was much more comfortable by the end!

Next time, PEMF treatment and a cavaletti lesson!

12/2-3/2017 Clinic with GP Trainer

First of all, OMG the stress. Give your clinic organizers a big hug for all that they do to make sure you have a good experience, get the times you need/want, and pay as little as possible. It's hard work and very stressful. I was so stressed about the clinic that I stopped being able to sleep and I wore myself down until I got some kind of coughing disease before the clinic and the cough lasted well after, and since my immune system was so worn down, I got shingles after. Fun fact: If you've had chicken pox, you can get shingles at ANY AGE, especially in times of very high stress. I'm 30 and the doc that diagnosed me didn't bat an eye at my age. Go get your shingles vaccine.

It might have felt like this cat was nomming my back.
I am STILL riding out the pain even though the rash is well past it's contagious stage.

Added to the stress was an outbreak of EHV-1 at a barn on the other side of our major city- I was suddenly asking for vaccine records, where horses are currently located, and where they have been in the recent past. Luckily, it seems the outbreak was contained to just the one farm and only stopped one of our riders from coming.

I was given a lot of freedom for this clinic: I was able to take deposits and became an admin of the farm Facebook page so I could properly promote the clinic and answer questions. I made the schedule, contacted everyone to confirm times, etc. Exhausting.

Going into day 1 of the clinic, we had 2 openings on Sunday. One of the ladies who previously didn't want to do back to back clinics messaged me that morning and asked if the two spots were still available, and if so, was it possible to get a ride in between them so she could take both. I said absolutely, and was able to move around some of the more flexible riders to get the slots filled. In the end, we filled the 20 spots and had levels Training-PSG (and only half of the spots were training level- a huge deal for this area since we're mostly lower level riders). I only had one cancellation for the weekend- it was someone under mandatory quarantine for EHV so that was A-OK.

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Overall, there was a lot to learn over the weekend and the clinic covered a lot of ground. Everyone seemed to have a good time and got a lot out of it, especially the lower level riders.

I got a lot out of the PSG horse's lesson. The horse was an above average mover of average build, but not extremely fancy, and he had Penn's 4-beat tendencies at the canter (it was a lot of, that horse can do it! So can Penn!). The horse and rider are confirmed at PSG, so their lesson consisted of more nuanced things that would make PSG even better, and help them move up to I1. Unfortunately I missed the technical discussion of the pirouette- GP Trainer got up and walked over to the middle of the ring to demonstrate something for it, so I couldn't hear her well, and one of the auditors decided to talk to me at that point.

• Prep for Canter pirouettes: Collected canter. Apply the half halt, but press both legs into the horse at the canter for several strides while not allowing them to move faster or take bigger strides. The horse should gain lift. (this apply the leg was a theme for several riders)
• Canter pirouettes: Do not touch the inside rein. It's there because it has to be. GP Trainer made the rider hold her reins in the outside hand, canter down the diagonal, collect, and bring the shoulders around to do the half pirouette. OMG it was lovely, and the best one they did all lesson. The horse sat and made a very tidy small circle with his hind feet and did that nice lifting with his front end (GP Trainer's comment on a good pirouette: "They look fun, but they don't feel good. Good ones feel like a boat capsizing.")
• Canter zig zags: Once at PSG, never end a canter half pass without shifting the shoulders into the new half pass angle, even if you don't intend to school the next half pass. At PSG and after, you will never end a half pass without a change or going into another. Aka, half pass, straighten for a stride, then shift the shoulders to the new half pass direction without changing the lead, ask for the new lead and move off immediately into the new half pass at the same time.
• More canter zig zags: Don't go for broke sideways in the half passes. Pay more attention to balance, quality, and accuracy. Only the very tippy top horses can move incredible distances sideways in the zig zags (Valegro quality)- the rest are just extremely balanced. Barely go sideways when you start out- nothing crazy. GP Trainer: "When my students move up to GP, there are so many things to worry about in the zig zag that I tell them, 'I want to see on your test: 6, needs bend.' on the zig zag at your first year of GP. You have to worry about the count, the changes, and staying in balance on top of everything else in the test. Let bend go."
• This rider was struggling with the half pass, but with those few tips, she managed to do 4 half passes and changes down the centerline of our 25m by 45m indoor. She only did 2-3 steps sideways in each direction, but they were of very nice quality.

Other lessons included: one woman cantering her horse for the first time, another one finally getting more than two hurried unbalanced canter steps, and another covered 2nd level and canter walk transitions.

There were several green baby horses, and one teenage 3rd/4th level horse that had excessive attitude. I lump all of these together because they worked on the same things: The rider is allowed to tap you with the whip, ask you to trot, flop around, etc. GP Trainer phrased it as, "When you have young, athletic horses, tell them they're wonderful but also 'poke the bear'. Lightly tap them with the whip 20 times for no reason (do not beat them- literally, lightly touch them). Flop around. Ride poorly. These exercises set them up to take pressure later without having a meltdown." If you don't do those things, you end up with fit, young, athletic things that are now teenagers- basically the 3rd/4th level horse's problem.

Penn's version of teenage nonsense.

The horse would have tantrums over just trotting and cantering around- he'd slam on the brakes and threaten to rear. GP Trainer stressed that you absolutely cannot get emotional when he does that. She didn't think he would make good on his threat, which allowed her to take this approach to fixing it: Do not take his bait of a fight. Just keep adding leg with light/no contact on the inside rein (aka the door out). Tap him incessantly with the whip. WAIT HIM OUT. If he goes to back up, change to asking him to back up. It's not so fun when it's not his idea. Give him every opportunity to move forward out of it, and when he does, just go back to what you were doing like nothing ever happened. Zero emotion. Praise him when he's good and when he tries (inside rein forward and scratch him, vocal praise). Recognize he's doing a good job, and don't just keep working him until he thinks he needs to retaliate to get a break.

In two rides, they had his stopping down to a minimum that his rider hadn't seen in well over a year. He was willing to try instead of resorting to a tantrum. He simply had to trot and canter on the bit and be straight. Over the last year or so, his rider started compensating for his nonsense by riding him crooked and pulling the inside rein. GP Trainer told her no, ride him straight. He must go straight. Yes, you're picking the fight, but he's not going to be successful at 2nd and above if he is not straight. His rider almost said, "But straight doesn't work for him," but caught herself just in time, lol. He tried everything to avoid being straight- stopping at the trot, and doing tempi changes at the canter. GP Trainer just stressed to wait him out, and praise him when he's good.

We got to ride outside on Saturday!

Ok, on to my lessons! Auditing was fascinating, but I got a lot out of my lessons too. You get the brief recap so I can get this out sooner rather than later:

• Congrats! You have the 3rd level version of what we've been working on! Horses tend to have something that they revert to when the bar is raised, and they do it throughout their training life. We had the first level version, now we have the third level version. Penn wants to be long flat and scrambly. It's his go-to thing.
• Roll my wrists to help stop Penn from leaning on the hand. Be more sloppy to test his self carriage. Test him much more often.
• Penn needs to be rounder- I let him sneak too far above the bit/in front of the vertical, especially at the canter.
• Sit down and back more. (as usual)
• Work 10m circles in canter and carry an excessively long whip- gently tap Penn's tail with the lash to encourage him to drop his hind end down in the circles (it worked!).
• Walk, canter 3 steps, walk. This is SO HARD. It doesn't work if I throw myself at him in the transition (he won't pick up the canter at all), and he can't shuffle into the canter. He also doesn't have time to drop down either. Do this until he starts lifting his own head.
• Turn walk, canter 3 steps, walk into cantering the short side, or a portion of the long side.
• Obviously the flying changes went to shit, he's not strong enough to do them out of that much collection. Do them off the 10m circle into the new direction- placement on a line is irrelevant (this is where our huge outdoor is helpful).
• Do not let him run off when I ask for a flying change- that will only teach him to bolt through them and we'll be in real trouble when it comes to more than one change. If he fails to change and surges at all, stop immediately. This isn't about the change, it's being able to change in the collection. If he does give a change, 10m circle right away to set him back on his hind end.

A short clip from lesson, 10m circle to change to 10m circle:

Riding has basically been misery since the clinic- self carriage is so hard and it's so frustrating. I've given up on changes until I see GP Trainer in January because I don't want to mess them up and in the end, it's a strength issue. Plus the last time I tried one he almost bucked me off (I was on his neck flailing). There's a lot of riding the struggle bus happening and I am attempting to embrace the suck... because I'm having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel where he can do all the canter work for 3-3, and do the changes without hopping.

One thing that has gotten a lot better? The TOH and the start of a walk pirouette. Combining what I learned about canter pirouettes in this clinic with identifying the inside hind at the walk and actively using the inside leg in the TOH has made the TOH right a bit better (it's still a struggle), but it created almost a half walk pirouette left. I don't get after Penn quite enough and he ends up getting stuck at the 2/3rds mark, so I try to keep them to a quarter turn. But he stopped crossing the hind legs and just lifts them up an down in rhythm, it's very cool! All is lost if you pull the inside rein.

Stress and Things and a Lesson

Modeling his SmartPak clothes... He was featured on their Instagram!

Unfortunately, I spent the last week super sick, and I am super busy with life things (ok, horse things) and the blog is going to suffer for it. Especially since work blocked Blogger (and Centerline Scores by the way, they've labeled it "gambling." Ha. Ha ha ha.), so that means I can't write things at lunch... And I'm not writing on my phone, so you're stuck with what I can write in the rare evening at home, the weekend, or on a Wednesday (when I work from home).

Side note, that's also why I've been a bad reader/commenter. I used to catch up on blogs while I ate breakfast at my desk. I can't do that when they won't load :(

We went for a two hour trail ride a few weeks ago before Mother Nature decided to dump rain on us day after day!

Penn's hoof is healing nicely- he became sound again quickly and has *knock on wood* stayed sound. I started him on SmartHoof Ultra to help the cut and bruise grow out as quickly as possible. I'll keep him on that for 4 or 5 months, then drop it. He has good feet, and doesn't really need a biotin supplement, but I want that to grow down as fast as possible, preferably without an abscess or other weakness. I also ordered bell boots for him and I hate them. Not these in particular, but just bell boots in general. He's developing a scum on his ankles from the amount of wet we're having, and they just hold mud. It was very noticeable after I wasn't able to be at the barn for a week- I take the bell boots off every day and wash them and clean his ankles, and that wasn't done for a week.

These do fit kind of strangely, but they have held up to a very naughty and roughhousing horse at the farm, so I picked them for Penn too.

Penn continues to be great. We have good and bad days, but I'm really excited about the direction he's going. He also has recently taken to pointing out when I'm being a shitty rider. Thanks bud. I guess he's done that before, but now there's some discussion if he thinks I've been unfair.

I decided to really work the canter the other day... I had somehow neglected it like an unwanted step child, and it had become a raging shitstorm of flailing and ugly. I decided to be super picky about the transitions to canter, with GP Trainer's thought of "he's not strong enough to make good canter out of bad canter," so if the transition is crap, the canter itself is going to be crap, and we're going to waste energy. Ensuring the transition itself was good worked really well to develop a nice canter.

I started picking at the bend on the 20m circle to the left since Penn wanted to bulge his ribcage in... so I booted him extremely hard with my inside spur. He promptly did a flying change and bucked HARD. Sorry dude, my bad. Good boy for the change to the outside lead on a 20m circle coming back to the wall. Super job. I LOVE that he offered that. Rider error! I got him back together for the canter, then made sure I was in my "rider doing a lunge" position (it keeps my inside seatbone on and I can't shove the haunches in with my outside seatbone), and then asked him to move his inside hind leg forward more, and I magically had sit and bend.

He's getting so foamy these days!

I had a lesson with Megan while she was briefly in town Sunday! Sorry Megan, this recap is no where near as detailed as the last one because being sick/coughing was occupying a lot of my brain and you have so much information to share and well... you'll get to teach me this one again! :-D Can't wait for my SoloShot3 to get here so I can record the audio.

• First thing Megan did was straighten me out in the saddle by having me sit more to the left (both directions).
• I'm not crazy, he's better in the walk, and MUCH BETTER in the trot! The connection is much better, and he's getting more suspension in the trot.
• The canter, while still really not good, is actually much better. It's just awful in a totally different way now, lol. Victory?
• The rein back is still small, but it's more constructive and is setting him back on his haunches and lightening his front end like it should.
• The new pressure in my hand is acceptable- we'll always be evaluating if it's leaning, but Megan confirmed that most of the time, the weight I have in my hand is an acceptable contact of him reaching for the bit. He's still seeking a little support, but is spending much more time on his own. She said to look at the overall picture- is he up, forward, and seems like he's reaching? Then the pressure is probably OK and part of an elastic connection.

We got a lot of rain the morning of my lesson. The driveway does have a drain... it was inadequate though.

• Start asking for shoulder fore on the circle in trot. Keep asking until he can't hold it- that's his balance point where he'll cross his legs or flail or fall out or shift his haunches in or get super flat. Work to stay in the bouncy trot while maintaining as much shoulder fore as I can (it's not much tracking right, it's almost SI tracking left).
• This is also where she pointed out that he's very free with the use of his body. Meaning, he thinks I'll save him (or I guess not punish him?), so he's willing to try to figure out what I want by hopping or lifting or throwing himself around a little. It's not a bad thing- he's trying hard!
• If the trot suddenly becomes easy to sit, I've lost the suspension and the trot is crap.
• Be mindful of the walk- when he tries to collect in the walk, he ends up a bit lateral. His good "collected" walk is somewhere between a medium and collected walk right now. Be sure to follow his neck oscillations with my hand to help encourage the swing and relaxation.
• Ask for shoulder fore in the canter too. Be mindful of the angle and time spent in shoulder fore since he gets tired quickly and the work is really difficult for him. This exercise will help him on his extra shitty days. I described days where he was a dream to canter and it was great (like three times in the last month or so), and then the rest of the days are like he's never cantered before. She suspects that he is wide behind on the bad days as he gathers tension or gets tired. He widens his base instead of sitting, and then it's super hard to rock him back and sit. I have to keep the hindquarters close behind, which the shoulder fore will help with. I had kind of applied a lateral thought to the canter (haunches in), but Megan pointed out that doing that will eventually come back to bite me in the ass when we work on pirouettes. The inside hind will be in the way of the rest of the body and create a larger pirouette.
• Overall, keep in mind neck length. He needs to keep stretching towards the bit, especially when I try to apply half steps to the trot. Eventually he'll have to step from piaffe to passage, which to step up and out properly, he has to be reaching out to the bit. I can't be crushing him into it

We had a waterfall off the wall. The water at its deepest was about 6" deep.

The other part of my extremely stressful existence is filling the clinic with GP Trainer when she's here Dec 2-3. Only about half the riders from last time are coming back (for various reasons), so I'm trying to fill 10 spots with outside riders... and the local dressage barn won't come or send riders, period. Even though we go to their clinics... So basically, I am freaking out trying to fill the clinic because cancelling isn't an option, and neither are $200 lessons. Slowly though, things are filling... As of this writing, there are 5 spots left. If you're within a driveable distance to my barn in Western PA and are interested in a lesson, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me an email at codexdressage at gmail.com. I can't put you up myself (GP Trainer has my guestroom), but we can probably put up your horse!

I am about to start a 2 week vacation though (counting down the days!). I am very excited about that. I feel very burnt out (work and horses), and I think part of me getting sick last week was burn out and stress from the clinic.

Let's finish with a fun video of Penn running away from me while I was trying to catch him (long story):