Weekend Riding Report + Horse Show Plans

Saturday was a super busy day for me. It all started with me getting my trailer to the barn's local mechanic shop to be inspected at the bright and early time of 8am. Which means I'm waking up at 6 like I do for work to have it there on time!

Trailer was about 2 months past it's inspection... no worries, I wasn't using it since Mikey wasn't going anywhere for anything. Trailer passed with a note to take the battery on the tongue home and try charging it for a couple days. The mechanic asked how much I used it this winter, and I said 3 times. I thought it was just chit chat, and a little later I asked about the battery because it never seems to come up green (charged). It's always charging. He said I don't use the trailer enough to get it to fully charge, so if I could take it home and plug it in, that would be best. If it won't hold a charge after that, get a new one. It's still safe to use because it holds enough charge to put the breaks on (part of the inspection).

I took the trailer back to the barn and tacked up for a lesson at 9:30.

Trainer and I chatted about what's going on at the farm, a dressage schooling show in a couple weekends, plans for the recognized show I'll do in August, and plans for the rest of the year and next year.

Before we get to lesson, here's some applicable info:

• 7/26/2015- Horse on Course Dressage schooling show. I was able to confirm that the show is still going on since the entry form isn't on their website at 16 days out from the show. I also got the entry form!
• I also will not be going alone to the above show! Not by a long shot. Trainer has several babies that need ring time, so those horses are going. She's also having everyone who is going to the mini trial the following weekend go to the dressage show to practice their tests. Then there's a handful of people who are also going because either they only ride dressage now or they've never ridden dressage and want to try eventing. Basically, we're a group of 10+ horses! I'm thrilled to not be going alone like I always do! I'll most likely have someone to share travel expenses too... and hopefully I can braid a bunch of the horses going to earn my entry fee money (I'll only need to do 3-4 to earn it), and maybe I can braid Trainer's horses to work off coaching fees. I better get to the farm early the Saturday before!
• For the above dressage show, we're going to ride 3-1 twice. Having the canter half pass work ready won't happen, and that way we get more chances to practice this test. This conclusion was come to after much discussion about 2nd and 3rd level and not wanting to confuse Mikey on his changes. I'd rather have him go, 'oh yes, we're changing directions, let's change leads via flying change' instead of me trying to force him to hold to his counter canter... It shouldn't be confusing- the change comes from seat and leg, but he's had a hard time catching on, so I'd rather he auto change on me. Which leads into the next few points...
• 8/15-16 WPDA USEF/USDF Show at Quentin Riding Club - ride 3-1 and 3-2 both days. Attempt to finish my Bronze Medal.
• 9/12-13 VADA/NOVA USEF/USDF Show at Morven Park - ride 3-1 and 3-2 both days. I'll go for sure if I miss my bronze in August, 50-75% chance of going if I do get my bronze in August.
• Next year I'd like to spend time riding 2-3 and 3-3. We're not sure if Mikey will hold up to 3rd level or be able to move beyond it, so I'd like to get a Dover Medal (win the AA 2-3 at an approved show) and above a 60% at 3-3 so I can work on and show a 3rd level freestyle. This will also force me to get my changes organized into happening when I want them to happen since we'll be moving between second (no changes) and 3rd (yes changes).
• 4-1 late next year/year after with Mikey. We aren't sure he'll be able to do the canter pirouettes anymore (I'm so glad I got to do them with German Riding Master last fall!), and 4-1 is the only 4th level test that doesn't have them.

Ok, and now on to lesson.

I mentioned to Trainer that the horse I had Friday night was super sensitive, super up, and very wiggly. I had mixed some shoulder in, haunches in, and half pass back into our work, and he responded by offering that instead of say, the circle I asked for. My error I know, but I just didn't know what to do with him because he's rarely like that. He was super attentive, but also felt like he was 2 steps away from a meltdown. He also ignored my left leg entirely.

I had been walking him as we chatted, so we went off to trot and added in some shoulder in and haunches in on the circle to start. He resisted, so it became, 10m circle into shoulder in, change to haunches in, 10m circle, repeat. We eventually took it down the long wall, same pattern.

A lot of the work focused on me not smothering him with my outside rein. Even weight in both reins by relaxing the outside rein! It feels like I'm pulling the inside rein, but I know I'm not. When I don't smother him with the outside rein, he keeps the tempo going and keeps stepping forward into the movement.

Mikey was awesome with shoulder in, and resistive to the haunches in, but he still maintained his bend (had a tougher time of it to the right). We did a lot of work on these, mixing in 10m circles and me posting on the wrong diagonal.

We took a break, then picked back up and started going from trot shoulder in and trot haunches in into trot half pass. I found this almost impossible to do in posting trot, so I spent some time swapping between that and sitting.

The left was ok. Keeping the bend wasn't bad, but keeping the tempo and forward throughout the movement was harder. To the right was an entirely different story. His haunches in right is already tough, but I asked him to move it into half pass with my left leg and he totally 100% ignored me. Spur, no response. I wailed on his left hip with my whip at that point. I asked with leg, then spur, and I got nothing from him, so I had to make my point heard. He of course went to invert and run off, but I forced him to hold the haunches in bend, but had to be very careful not to touch the outside rein. He was baiting me with it the whole time to escape the work. So after a round or two of that, he moved over very readily but we had trouble keeping the bend. I wanted to bring my right hand into my crotch or almost over the neck, but obviously that won't work. I ended up doing a give and take with my right elbow, while keeping my hand in it's correct placement. It's an odd feeling, but it worked. He immediately stopped fighting me and had to bend his body properly and soften.

Basically, I need to stop smothering him with my outside rein so we keep the forward in the movement, and really force the bend to happen by riding properly (who knew!). Plus I need to ride in posting trot on the wrong diagonal (helps me keep the outside hind moving). Mikey needs some time to strengthen up a bit more before I do a lot of sitting trot.

We finished up without getting to canter, which is fine. It wouldn't have been any good anyway!

I spent Saturday afternoon washing my truck. It was horribly dirty, and it doesn't even go anywhere! We park it under our tulip poplar, which had covered it in an oily dirty sap that required scrubbing to get it off. I also hosed out the bed because it had trace amounts of mulch in it and was growing grass! I did find some new chips in the paint (driving to OSU twice in the winter didn't help I'm sure...) so I need to get the right color touch up paint from a Chevy dealer so Husband can work his magic and cover them up so they don't rust.

Sparkly clean. Except for the tires. I'm horrible, I don't scrub tires.

Husband and I went to a local church's summer carnival for dinner. They had a Ferris wheel, spinning swings, tea cups, games etc. It was fun, but we didn't ride anything.

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Sunday was a bit slower paced, I got up and went riding, and that was about it besides making dinner. With all the sun we had Saturday, the arena had finally dried out a good bit. It also wasn't too hot.

I spent about 20 minutes working shoulder in, haunches in, and half pass in walk. I made sure I was consistent in how I asked, rewarded Mikey for anything good and above, and in return he worked so much harder. We had to have the same discussion about moving away from the left leg. After doing all that work in walk, and a lot of it was very good, I moved on to trot.

I had a lovely, uphill floaty trot. Who knew developing the walk properly really did that? I used to not spend much time in the walk because all I did was piss him off and frustrate us both. I'm glad that's changed. I asked for a few lengthenings a promptly messed him up, but I'd half halt and collect and he'd come back to his good boy self. I think I'm going to try to get a grab strap for the front of my saddle to help me sit the trot in medium/extended trot. Hook a finger under it, I'll keep my balance and so will he, and I can still influence him.

Something that I found works well when I lose bend, throughness, uphill, or self carriage (for my own notes, and anyone else who struggles with it): inside seatbone and leg to outside rein until I feel him shift his ribs and shoulder out, then half half outside rein to outside leg to stop the movement out and straighten him, apply a tiny amount of inside rein to remind him of the bend. It doesn't have to be a huge motion from him in the first step, and it took me several days of walking to figure out how best to apply it, and it took my trainer's help to get it started (see my reins crossed lesson).

It only takes a step or two now for him to come back to me in this more complicated series of half halts, and when he comes back to me I have the nice uphill gaits back. It's almost like riding a giraffe (I know we usually talk about it being bad, but in this case it's good). He's a round, through and connected giraffe. Bad analogy, but that's how his uphill movement feels to me. It's the only way I can describe it. It's becoming quite consistent though! I'm so excited to take it in public.

I did a lot of shoulder in to 10m circle to haunches in each direction, mixing up the posting on the wrong diagonal as I could. I mostly sat the 10m circle and haunches in, but to the left I rarely needed to do that. He was very soft and cooperative. Praise makes him even more so. I had to remember my prim and proper shoulders up and back in the circles and all the movements- that really makes an immediate difference.

The hardest thing is getting my half halts done in the half pass before I run out of long side to continue half passing. Which is odd because I ride in a converted baseball field with no arena wall/line/markers, so I essentially have as long as I need to in order to get something done, well beyond the 60m. Since I'm not on my straight line I'm trying to work it out how to apply them and remain in the movement and keep my balance, but when I get it right he immediately softens and has all the correct bend he needs. I suck at it, but I'm so glad he's willing to reward me when I get on the right track.

I moved on to canter because we hadn't touched it the day before. I wanted to see how the rein release I'll need for 3-2 went. It occurred to me that Mikey tended to blow through me at centerline and change directions when we did 20m circles in canter at C, so doing a rein release there seemed like a bad idea. I decided to match rein release circles with diagonals for flying changes to make it obvious for him, and test him a little. He delivered on the rein release. I really held my hips to where I wanted to go, gave a release of both reins, and he didn't move an inch! Hello self carriage!

The flying changes still leave something to be desired. I was using my set of 8 trot cavalettis as a makeshift wall to force him to realize he needed to do a flying change. These had been picked up and stacked because they were in the way for the jump lessons that happened Saturday, so I didn't have my wall. Mikey absolutely gets it that he needs to change leads right to left. He tries. It's ugly, but he tries. The left to right... I'm not sure if it's a slow right hind (the injured one) or he doesn't get it. I think he gets it- he gives me the big hop up front but no change, even the front legs, but I think it's hard for him. In his defense, I didn't spend as much time as I should have developing the canter. We'd been out for 40 min working already... But he gave me many right to left changes without too much of a fuss. They won't be ready for the schooling show, but maybe they'll be good for the recognized one. I finished with a confidence building simple change through walk for the left to right change because I could not get him to do a flying change for the life of me.

I did a handful of trot/halt/rein backs as well in my trot work. Who knew that uphill trot into halt helped me create straight rein backs. Straight and willing. I got my 4 diagonal steps and was like, "Whaaaa..? No fuss? Straight? Pat and good boy! Moving on!"

Walking home. He was tired.

I think I'll do a bunch more of the simple changes to help build that leg up and get him to understand. It won't hurt the other change either! Our next ride needs to be trot sets. We're doing 4 3-min trots through the hills in the hay field with 3 min walks in between. After that one, I think we'll do a longer/lower ride with a lot of transitions. It'll be good for Mikey's brain too. Weather permitting of course... I can do trot sets when it's rainy, but if the arena is dry next time I'm out, I'm doing transition work!

Drumroll please...

I booked a hotel for a recognized dressage show for Aug 14-16! Which means Mikey is going to make a return to 3rd level! Super excited.

I'm looking at finances, and while I'd love to go 9/12-13 to the show at Morven Park, I don't think I'll be able to afford to go. If I can, it'll be awfully tight. Plus, I really need to stay home and dog sit for my parents. That weekend is the tail end of one of their trips... though they pay me to dog sit and the first part of the week will cover the entry...

I need to pick which tests I'm going to do. I plan on doing 4 tests, two each day. I think Mikey will be able to handle that. We started conditioning work this week to help both of us with that.

Definitely 3-1. It's basic and it doesn't have canter half pass. Our canter half passes haven't been touched since January, and back then they were great or they were horrendous.

Basic Review of 3-2:
Double Coefficient Movements: Renvers right, Extended trot, Renvers left, Extended walk, Flying change, Flying Change, Release of Rein in Canter, Extended Canter

• MXK Medium trot
• F-B Shoulder-in left , B-M renvers right
• HXF Extended trot
• K-E Shoulder-in right, E-H renvers left
• C Down centerline
• G-E Trot half pass
• A Down centerline
• D-E Trot half pass
• C walk, turn on haunch x2 between H-M
• S-P Extended walk across the super short diagonal
• F Canter, immediately turn down centerline at A
• D-R Canter half pass
• R-M Flying change between letters
• H-K Medium canter
• A Turn down centerline
• D-S canter half pass
• S-H Flying change between letters
• C Circle right 20m showing a clear release of both reins for 4-5 strides over centerline.
• M-F Extended Canter
• A up centerline, L trot, I halt salute

For your reference and mine!

Basic Review of 3-3:
Double Coefficient Movements: Trot Half pass left, Halt & Rein back, Trot Half Pass right, Extended walk, Canter half pass left, Half circle and Flying change, Canter half pass right, half circle and Flying Change

• HXF Medium trot
• K-E Shoulder-in right
• E-X 10m half circle right, X-B 10m half circle left
• B-G Trot half pass
• MXK Extended trot
• A Halt, rein back 4 steps, trot on
• F-B Shoulder-in left
• B-X 10m half circle left, X-E 10m half circle right
• E-G Trot half pass
• Walk, turn on haunch x2 between H-M
• R-V Extended walk across the super short diagonal
• K canter
• F-X canter half pass
• I-S 10m half circle left
• S-F across the short diagonal, flying change near centerline
• K-X canter half pass
• I-R 10m half circle right
• R-K across the short diagonal, flying change near centerline
• F-M Extended canter
• H Trot, E turn left, X turn left, G halt salute

So I don't like how the extended trot falls in either test. Mikey does best when it falls after the canter work. So moot point for that.

And holy hell on the number of double coefficient movements.

3-2 comments: Shoulder in to renvers isn't a big deal. Mikey's good at it. There is an obnoxious amount of trot between each trot half pass and the next movement. It reminds me of the first level tests that just took so darn long to get to the next movement. That doesn't suit me or Mikey very well. He loses focus and connection. I end up losing my seat a bit because his trot is so hard to sit that riding it down a straight line is actually hard. It's easier when I'm actively asking for something or going across the short side. The canter work comes up quick in the beginning, but I like how the flying changes are presented- on the long side after a half pass. He really understood that last fall and would give me good changes when I asked when we hit the rail. Release of rein in canter, no problem. The test doesn't have a halt/rein back. Our rein back is reluctant and crooked.

3-3 comments: I worked those exact trot half passes last fall on my own, combined with those 10m half circles. He did very well on those. This test has a halt/rein back, meh. Last fall Mikey was a little iffy when I asked for canter halfpass from the wall to X. It either went really well or really badly. I do like this canter work, half pass, a couple strides of straight into 10m half circles to diagonal and flying change. It gets a lot done quickly (which surprises me). I'm only concerned I'm going to fry Mikey getting him to the flying change. I think by the time I get to the flying change he'll be ready to tell me to F off! If I botch the half pass though the straight and half circle will fix his canter. This test only has the extended canter, no medium canter. Those are usually some of our best scores, so I'm losing places to make up points.

Based on the coefficients and test, I think I'm leaning toward 3-2. I'll work the half passes in my lesson this weekend and see how they go. If they're awful, there's no reason to try the double coefficient one and botch the half pass and the flying change. We'll see though!

This week's activities: Horse Show Groom, Painting the Dining Room, Lesson, Barn Slave

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity. Just doing a day by day list. Sorry!

Saturday/Sunday 6/27-28
I went to Stonegate MT to groom for Trainer. She was riding 5 horses (three green beans, one moving up a level, and one just plain difficult) and needed someone in the barn to have the next one ready to go when she came back. I braided all of them, in one afternoon, while cleaning the legs of whichever one had just finished working. I made 5 trips to the washrack Saturday and 10 on Sunday.

To say it rained a little is an understatement.

Monday 6/29
I took a day off from work after the horse show. Took Mikey for a long road walk in the morning. He had a good time and we got to enjoy the brief time that the fabulous sun was out.

Road walk. Mikey was not keeping up with the youngsters on the way out, but he beat them coming home!

Tuesday 6/30
I went into the office for work today, no riding after work. Too much rain? I don't know, it's all a blur of rainy days. I had to clean my house too.

Wednesday 7/1
I worked from home on my usual work from home day.
My mother in law came in today to visit. We all had dinner at my parent's house.

Thursday 7/2
I worked from home for the holiday.
My husband, mom and mother-in-law peeled wallpaper off of our dining room walls and got them ready to paint to remove the 50s and 70s era paint that was under the wallpaper.
I used an early out to leave 2 hours early from work... which I used to go to the barn and ride! Had an OK ride until the end- I got two flying changes, one each direction! I haven't gotten one left to right since pre-surgery. He gave a huge grunt and did a clean change! Yay! Obviously very exciting for us.

Came home to go to my parent's for margaritas and quesadillas. Yum.

Umm, yes.

I dropped some broccoli. It fell on Nickels' head. He ate it.

Friday 7/3
I was off that day for the holiday, so I went to the barn in the AM. Braided a horse, had a lesson, braided another horse. Worked off my lesson, sweet!

We reviewed what's been going on in the last two weeks during my lesson, with the idea to check in and then cross my reins again. We never got to crossing my reins again, Trainer didn't think it was necessary.

Three major points:

• Yes, we're pushing him to the outside rein. I am still allowed to use my inside rein. This is a total "Duh!" but I have a habit of getting heavy on the inside rein or over working it when the going gets tough. It's usually a right rein problem. In keeping with my last lesson's idea of inside leg and seatbone pushing to the outside rein, then outside leg kicking on for more forward, we should do the following: To the right: Since he doesn't fill up the left side of his neck, overbend to the right for a step or two, half halt, leg on, and give back. Repeat every 3-4 strides. To the left: Since he way overbends to the left already, counterflex him right for a step or two, half halt, leg on, give back. Repeat every 3-4 strides. The idea is to make him weigh both reins evenly, (again, totally duh!) and he has to let me half halt right to right, left to left, right to left, and left to right.
• He's been more connected and through than I thought for the past week. I have a baseline of what through and connected feels like, and for the last 3 months, that has been a super deep connection (long and low). In the last week, we did a little more uphill connection, and it felt like his nose was poking out in trot and canter and that I had lost my connection. In truth, I did not lose my connection, I had established a raised poll that simply can't connect as deeply as it can when I let him go long and low. Duuurrrrr.
• Start conditioning work again with Mikey. He just looked tired Friday morning. Nothing crazy, just start with trot sets and see how his hock holds up. If it doesn't hold up to trot sets through the hay fields, it'll never hold up to 3rd level work.

We finished in a very collected canter. Same leg, seat, and hand ideas from before (reading over this, it's a lot to think about, but it makes sense once I'm on the horse!), but applying collection by simply pulling my shoulders up and back slightly (think prim and proper) because that engages my core and thigh to collect. We moved between that super collected canter into working canter and back to collected. The transitions were EASY. Pushing it back out became as simple as allowing him to take a bigger stride, no leg necessary. Collecting it back in was a simple pull your shoulders back, but apply a good amount of leg and seat to keep the energy coming. Very good lesson. I wish the weather would break so I could practice on my own.

Went home Friday and painted my dining room for the rest of the afternoon and evening. And ran to Lowes on the worst home-improvement shopping day ever because the 3rd color we had picked for the trim was not going to be appropriate. Hello wasted paint.

The dining room's new colors. Edges still need cleaned up, stuff put back on the walls, window sheers need put on.
All the colors are a bit darker than we thought they'd be, so we traded a dark brown paint for white for the trim.

Saturday 7/4
Hello barn slave life. Trainer left Friday for an event, so I was at home taking care of horses. Put feed in stalls. Bring 17 horses in by hand (sets of 2-4 in hand at a time). Hay and water all the horses. Set up afternoon feed. Wrap the hoof of the horse with the abscess. Mikey lost a shoe, so call the farrier for him to come out Monday. No riding my own horse! We had trot sets in store for today, but that got scrapped since he lost a front shoe. I would have done them if he had lost a hind though. We'd be working on soft ground in the hay fields, and he's ok to work without the hinds on soft ground.

Since Mikey couldn't work, he modeled his new fly bonnet. He did not cooperate with me to take pretty pictures of him.

I ended up going home between morning and afternoon work. It's a 45 min drive, so I don't usually, but I was done at 11 and couldn't feed until 2 or 3 or ride my own horse, so I decided to go home, say goodbye to my mother in law, take a shower, wash my clothes (I was filthy due to rain/mud/uncooperative horses), and take a nap.

"Hello Human." Penny was my naptime buddy.

Afternoon feed involved putting those same 17 horses back out then cleaning stalls that had two days worth of gross in them because they weren't done Friday night (I couldn't skip out on more painting so Trainer arranged for someone else to feed and turnout only). I should have cleaned stalls in the morning, but I couldn't bring myself to do 17 stalls twice in one day. It's not the stalls were super gross for having two days of poop in them, the horses are out for 16+ hours a day. Hay, water, set up morning feed. Go home.

Tractor driving on the 4th of July.

Oh, and I rubbed two quarter sized blisters into the backs of my heels. Had to wear my damaged muck boots (neoprene on the back of the heel on the inside is worn away) to fetch the 7 horses on the hill due to mud at the gate. The trip involves walking a quarter mile each way to the field and leading the horses in a group of 3 and a group of 4, so two trips. Lovely.

Sunday 7/5
Barn slave life, part 2. Repeat Saturday's feed and bringing in with less problems than before because I wasn't flying blind. Went on a road hack with my weekend trail riding date, but I rode one of my trainer's "babies", aka 4 yr old OTTB Lucky, instead of Mikey.

Lucky and Leader on our road walk.

Go to Walmart. They have Subway, air conditioning, and running water/flushing toilets. Buy some groceries. Go to the barn. Stuff all perishables in the barn fridge.
Repeat evening chores. Stalls were much faster today with only one day's worth of poop.
Go home. Shower, Cook dinner. Make breakfasts and lunches for work for Monday and Tuesday. Pass out.

Wednesday Pictures

Meant to post these pics with the video I posted of Wednesday's ride.

Mikey is going to have to start wearing bell boots when we work in the arena. He interferes up front pretty badly when we get working (his fuzzy boots are missing outer shell over the fetlock joint on both fronts). I thought this was restricted to the lower leg, but above the pastern. Apparently not.

Came back from my ride and he had blood all over his leg. This is why.

I have a pair of Dalmar No Turn Bell Boots from our cross country days. They have a carbon fiber strike plate across the back of the boot, and they'll sit high enough that he'll interfere with the boot and not his leg. They aren't much good for keeping shoes on since they don't touch the ground (I can't stand the flip flopping of regular rubber bell boots, and Mikey detests the feeling too), but they'll be perfect to protect his coronet band/lower pastern from his other front hoof.

The sunset here in PA was beautiful on Wednesday.

Mikey grazing. So pretty.

More grazing horses back lite by the sun.

4 Months, 22 Days Post Surgery

Well that count is as of Wednesday, June 24, 2015... which is when I took this video! Make sure you watch in 720 HD :-)



I brought my helmet cam out to the barn, put it on a tiny tripod, which I then put on the mounting block. My helmet cam has 170 degree field of view, but records it all in HD, so the video fish eyes a little, but you can see everything! I promise I will drag Husband out to the barn one of these days to take good video/pictures with his super deluxe professional photographer's camera. Or I'll give someone my cell phone and have them record some work on it. A helmet cam on a tripod is the best I could do! I needed something that remote starts, otherwise I would have just stolen Husband's camera.

Pardon my sitting trot. I'm still working at sitting his smaller trot. Since I was able to replicate my lesson (without crossed reins) and engage the correct seatbones, Mikey found his forward and connection and I was struggling to keep up in the trot.

I also got a flying change, right to left! Yes, it was inverted and late behind. I don't care. He offered it after not doing any since January.

I'm so happy! He is doing amazing. And he's sound and moving well. I feel so lucky.

First Lesson Since January = Reins Crossed

I was able to connect with Trainer yesterday for a lesson. First once since January. It's not really anyone fault. Mikey had surgery in Feb and the only horse I was really interested in lessoning on was Cody (sorry, not lessoning on a green bean!), and Cody's prep schedule for Rolex ended up not including lessons for me (they were planned then he'd do something that Trainer wanted to fix in the next ride, so my lesson would be cancelled). Then he just got too fit for me to want to sit on!

Anyway, I got out to the outdoor and we did about 10 minutes of walk while I waited for my lesson time. trainer asked me what was going on with him. I told her I'm having a very hard time maintaining right bend. His jaw locks and no amount of flex right/left softens it. It's just a dead air feeling on the left side when we track right and I've found myself working the right rein to compensate. It's a hole we had last year. We 'put a band-aid on' it so I could get out and do my 3rd level tests, and we planned on fixing it this winter (which got scrapped due to his accident).

She asked me to put him through walk/trot/canter each way so she could watch him go. She's seen him on and off for a couple months now, but hasn't really watched him. I did a lap in each gait, starting left. Nothing spectacular- he felt very average and non-committal to the whole connect to the bit thing. Tracking right was more of the same until I went to canter and asked for a circle right, and struggled to keep him on the circle because of the dead air on my outside rein.

She told me to pull up and that she had an idea.

Due to a lack of pictures, I googled "horse trainer with ideas" thinking I might find some cute drawing.
This is what came up.

She took my reins, crossed them under Mikey's throatlatch, gave them back, and said, walk on!

Everything I talk about now is going to reference tracking right. We never got to the left because it doesn't have as many issues.

So the idea with crossing the reins really makes you ride inside leg to outside rein. That about sums up what we had to accomplish. So now I'm attempting to walk Mikey around with botched steering. Bless his heart, Mikey is just going along with bat shit crazy mom's very poor steering. Crossing the rein really multiplies any holes in the front end. With Mikey and me, it amplified the fact that I lose control of his left shoulder.

So we're walking. Use the left hand to get the horse to go right. Be careful of too much right bend.... only that's not what I have. The hole in both of our training is so bad that if I pull with my left hand, he moves his head left. If I pull with my right hand (so pulling on the left side of his bit) he goes left. Both reins now mean go left. Huge hole.

So the answer is to use right leg to get the bend back and push him into my left hand, only he's so resistive to it that I end up tying him up in a pretzel. I halt, attempt to put his head back on straight, try again, and he's bent off to the left again.

Trainer comes over to get me started because now Mikey's feet have stopped moving forward and I probably look drunk. She holds the right side of his bit and bumps the handle of my whip on his belly as I use my right leg. It becomes a battle for right bend as he's very resistive to stretching the left side of his body and bending around the right.

The next thing Trainer tells me is to use my right seatbone. I tell her I am. She says nope, you're not. Well hell. I know I have trouble with it, and I know all of Mikey's problems are because of my problems. So she has me lift my foot in my stirrup just a fraction of an inch. That helps me find my right seatbone, and Mikey immediately flings himself left and magically has right bend.

Poor Mikey, he was very confused by this point. He's tossing his head and in general pretending he's a giraffe. Trainer said he's allowed to be a giraffe, but he's not allowed to toss his head. Both legs kick on when he tosses his head.

So now we're walking on a circle and around the arena unaided but unable to keep right bend consistently. After finding my right seatbone and getting right bend (that's really all it took for him), I had to send him forward with my left leg without losing right bend... or hitting the jumps in the arena.

Poor Mikey. Those nice cavaletti blocks I made? I ran him into at least 5 of them. He'd try to go around and I'd try to encourage it but inadvertently pull him right into them, so the best I could do is stop, regroup, and try to get him turning and forward again.

For the number of times I said, "I'm sorry Mikey!" yesterday, you'd think he would have a good handle on the phrase!

We went around like this: Mikey swaps to left bend because I put my left hip into him/pulled the right rein/did something wrong, right leg press into him at the girth and lift my foot slightly to engage my right seatbone, Mikey swaps to right bend, LEFT LEG LEFT LEG LEFT LEG move forward! Repeat.

Trainer had me trot on even though I was still driving drunk in the walk because Mikey reacts better with a bit more forward momentum and I was doing a good job shutting down the forward. I finally got some softness near the end of the trot work and got a lot better at not hitting things in the arena.

We took a break (during which I neck reined Mikey on a long rein), and she said before we quit, do it in canter, my choice if I want to do trot-canter or walk-canter. I was like, let's go for broke and did walk-canter.

I have to say, once I set him up for the proper bend in walk and asked for canter when I'd normally put my left leg on to ask for more walk or trot, I had some of the crispest, lightest departs in our career. They weren't round by any measure, but they were prompt, with no shuffle steps to start the canter.

My hip problem became immediately apparent. Mikey was flip flopping leads like crazy. Every time I'd get right bend back and put my left leg on to ask for forward I'd swap my hips and he'd do a quick simple change to the left lead. We went for forward first where he was just straight, add bend, kick on. Apply right to left half halts, left to left half halts. I got a couple laps around the arena, then something incredible happened:

My horse became round, through, light as a feather, and so incredibly uphill. So uphilll. I finally had his shoulders under control. I transitioned to trot. An uphill transition into a trot that was no less uphill. Then we walked and fell apart and he got tons of praise.

I asked to do it once with normal reins to see what I could get without crossed reins. Applying the same idea, inside leg, inside seatbone pushed to outside rein, lots of leg go forward, left to left half halts, and bam, I had my super fabulous uphill horse. I didn't quite know what to do with him at that point so I had some trouble directing him, but he was so good! We agreed it really wouldn't take too long to fill in the hole after such an "aha!" moment.

Part of the reason I was able to cover up the hole last year is the fact that my core is very strong, and the struggle we would have would give us momentum to get somewhere. Between those things, I could muscle my way through the 3rd level tests, but would fail miserably on the flying changes. The other place I couldn't quite hold it together was in my lateral work, so that's why that work tended to fizzle out as we progressed in the movement.

Very exciting stuff. I'll spend a week or two working on it (not drilling the reins crossed as Mikey will eventually have enough of that), and we'll see what we have!

Dressage Horse's Day Off

Sunday afternoon/night we got a lot of rain here in Western PA. A lot of rain with a lot of lightning. Since Sunday, we've had another day of a lot of rain. Basically, it's pretty darn wet over here.

I went out Tuesday afternoon to ride anywhere that was dry enough to ride on... I doubted the outdoor would be dry enough to not be slick. I was going to investigate it... but I never got that far!

Dressage Horse's Day Off: Ford a pond like it's Oregon Trail!

There's a pond on the property that's usually small and we barely notice it.

It overflowed just a little. The cat tails mark the normal border of the pond. Where Mikey and I are walking is usually grass.

The pond expanded into one of the fields, and made for nice deep water on top of good solid footing. Trainer took all her babies through it this week as water jump practice.

These pictures are courtesy of Trainer's 8 yr old step son using my phone. There were many pictures that come out with fingers, but he did a good job!

Walking through hock/knee deep water. It's apparently belly deep closer to the cat tails, but I don't remember the lay of the land under the water well enough to go more than 5-10 feet from the fenceline.

Cantering through the pond in a less deep section. 

Splash!

Back out in his field, clean and almost dry.

I had a blast and Mikey seemed to have fun. Every time he'd go through I'd give him a pat and "Good boy!" I only rode for about 10 min since going through deep water has to be tough. By the time we got back to the barn, Mikey was obnoxious because he'd gotten so much praise and then horse cookies. Oh well, he's earned it!