Author: Amanda

Quick update, my first ride in over a week and a half:

– Forward really is the key to everything.

– I can’t really describe in words how satisfying it felt last night to be working on sitting Tristan’s trot down – half-halting and posting slowly to ask for scope and a bit of suspension and more through his back. Really good thinky stuff instead of fighting and stiffness.

– Last night, for the first time EVER, I had actual control of his outside shoulder in the canter. Just right, but – when I put my outside leg on, he spiraled in. I had him between four aids, on a 20m circle. I even said out loud to L. how weird it felt, having my horse that completely underneath me. Consequently, his canter smoothed out it was like all of a sudden riding a hunter hack and not my motorcycle mustang.

– \o/

I’ve been bad about this lately, but: life goes on. Tris is doing well, a teensy bit stronger and more balanced each time. Canter transitions are more through each time we try them, and the trot is really starting to develop some power. The more dressage-y he gets, the more Spanish he looks, which is a nice and unexpected bonus.

Last night, we toyed with counterbending on a 20m circle, walk and trot. He fussed and fretted and wouldn’t, couldn’t…until he came through beautifully for one step. I could practically see his brain go BOOM. Following close behind was a “wait…wait a minute…ACK” as he realized how completely his outside hind had engaged. Then he retreated and we spent the rest of the lesson getting back there. But by the end, much better.

My own seat and legs are…in and out. Monday night: plugged in from start to finish. Last night: always just a teensy bit out of reach; I wasn’t riding poorly, but I had nowhere near the feeling of solidity and facility that I’d gotten so effortlessly on Monday.

One last ride on Friday, perhaps in a jump lesson, and then C. will have the riding of him as I will be away for a much-needed vacation.

So yeah. I knew we’d take our steps back at some point.

After a nice jump clinic on Sunday, Tris came out for his lesson tonight and decided the pile of poles in the corner were scary. He skittered sideways, I applied the dressage whip and pushed him through the corner anyway.

Then we got to the corner with the chairs, where T. was sitting, and it was like a little light bulb went off in his head: if I pretend that’s scary, too, then I don’t have to work!

Cue 50 solid minutes of: spook, half-rear, spin to the left, land, try to bolt. Everywhere. All the time. It was one big battle royale of who gets to control Tristan’s shoulders now?

I also got a nice little remedial lesson from T. in riding a hard spook. Tristan doesn’t spook! This horse is not afraid of ANYTHING. But: turn his head to the inside, boot him off the inside leg, half-halt him on the outside, leg-yield him through the turn. Lather, rinse, repeat, even when that means a 3m spinning skid of a circle, as long as I’m keeping him doing what I want.

We settled for actually working in a 20m circle in the middle of the ring; lots and lots and lots of leg-yields, spirals, and transitions. He got a 2 minute walk break only once; other than that, I kept his little butt moving. Some of the work, especially the canters and the transitions, was quite nice, but I was really far too pissed off at him to praise him as I should’ve.

By the end, we trotted past T. on the bit, but ohhhhhhhh my was I ever considering selling him to the lowest bidder. Or just putting him out front with a sign – “Free Horse!”

Sigh. Could’ve been weather, could’ve been soreness from jumping, could’ve just been he woke up on the wrong side of the stall that morning.

I emailed C. to give him time off until Saturday, see if that sorts his brain out, and I will jump on Saturday morning. Fingers crossed this was an aberration that he’s had time to regret, and not a new trend.

Very mixed; Tris was doing spectacularly for a little while, and then on Tuesday we had the most godawful ride we’ve had in months. He was not willing to be cooperative, I succumbed to getting good and pissed off instead of staying impassive and correct, and T. had to remind me, once again, that ain’t nothing going to get done unless I can actually keep my $#@$@ leg on my $#@$@ horse.

But, in lieu of that, a fun story.

Among the things you probably don’t know about my horse: he farts. Like, a lot. Like, he’s known for it. Lead him off the cross ties – fart with every step down the aisle. Step into the ring – let a long one loose.

Then he tenses up for the first 10 minutes or so of the ride, and then he lets loose with every stride, sometimes as long as a few 20m circles. It’s rather amusing, and I’ve decided to take it as a sign that he’s releasing tension. T. says he’s also making room to suck his belly up and engage his core muscles, come up through his back.

During my lesson last Tuesday, several of the young girls were cooling out their ponies bareback during my warmup, and Tris, as he does, let loose. I learned then that a) they think it’s hilarious, and b) that they’ve decided it’s part of his system of locomotion.

I quote, “how else is he going to get the extra push he needs to go forward?”

So nice to have a horse with capital-P-Personality…

Is it totally cheating to just post someone else’s riding notes on your horse? I don’t even care, I am so delighted with this, from C., received about an hour ago:

Oh pony was magnificent tonight! After just a wee bit of the obligatory argument he settled right down to work. We did all sort of figures and leg-yielded everywhere. We did stretchy-round-stretchy. We did spirals. Then we had an AWESOME canter. Really! Left we were round (really!) and once we did the canter 20m circle, trot spiral in and out and canter he had this “OH!!” moment. We took a break while he processed it and did it again. I think that is a very helpful exercise for him! Even to the right he got round after the spirals. Then he lost his balance but the effort was there. He must have thought i’d lost my mind cause I was patting him so much!! We quit at the half hour mark as really it wasn’t going to get any better.

Good good boy!!!

He has been going similarly for me – really really trying in his canter, and figuring stuff out, and just an absolutely delightful ride.

I could do a whole post on how wonderful C. is too and how asking her to ride Tris one or two days a week was one of the best decisions I have ever made, both for my sanity and for Tristan’s training and guys, she’s just awesome. I have to get her something amazing for Christmas. Any suggestions?

In conclusion: Best. Horse. Ever.

Weekend’s worth of rides, under the cuts.

Took His Highness out back to one of the jump fields with two goals in mind: get him a bit better through working up and down hills, and test out the accelerator and brakes before the hunter pace on Sunday.

Through – and occasionally soft – was much, much better than I could have hoped for. He was able to keep his hind end somewhat engaged both up and down hills, and after 15 minutes or so of warming up, around corners. We played around, threading jumps, up and down hills. He even offered a canter a few times, especially going uphill. On the one hand, it was technically evasion; on the other, he NEVER offers a canter and then actually follows through on it. I let him go, and he came back from it easily.

Brakes worked out mostly well save for one incident. I was trying to confirm a left-lead canter/hand gallop down the long side. His left lead canter has reacted to attempts at being through by not being as expressive as I would hope. Embarrassingly, I’m occasionally having trouble spotting the lead. So I wanted to get a nice transition, then a circle, then send him down the long side to work up some speed. Circle went fine 3/4 of the way around, and then faced with maybe 3-4 of open room left before he would have to complete it, he jerked his head around, pivoted on his hind legs, swapped leads, and BOLTED down the long side to the right. (Picture a circle in the corner, with his option to go down either side.) He surprised me enough that there was a distinct moment of hanging in the air over his left shoulder. I remember quite clearly thinking “What? Huh? Oh, HELL no.” Shoved myself back in the saddle, brought him back down, and put him back in the corner. Four more bolts right, kept my seat just fine, and on the last try I made the circle more like 12 meters than 20 and did.not.let.him. even think about going right. He came through it after much fighting, picked up speed down the long side, and I dropped the reins and let him be done. We cooled out with a bit of a stroll through the woods.

Sunday morning I got to the barn to find my idiot horse impossible to catch; just kept walking away. Poor Frosty, who I was also fetching, followed me patiently as I walked after Tristan for about 10 minutes. I put Frosty in the barn and yelled back at Tristan that maybe I’d just take this OTHER, nicer pony to the hunter pace. When I went back out for Tristan, armed with treats, he walked right up to me, ears pricked, even before he knew I had treats. Spaz.

Trailer-loading was…sub-optimal. Swerving, backing, and then as is his wont, one big OKAY, FINE and he stepped up fully and stood quietly for Hannah to do up the butt bar. She remarked that he refuses so completely and vehemently for so long, and then gives over all in one wave and is great after that. He just has to make his case.

Trailer ride however, did not go so well; Tucker couldn’t find his balance, and was scrambling badly enough that we headed back to the barn to find he’d cut himself. We called it a day, and while I was helping with Tucker, dumped the hay bag in front of Tristan’s stall. Turned around a few minutes later to find that he had upended the entire bag and created his own little buffet in a 5′ ring around his stall door in the aisle and was leaning over the stall guard, taking a piece, and watching everything in very contemplative fashion.

I opted for a short dressage school in the outdoor. I had some energy to work with, probably a combination of trailer stress + outdoor ring + neighbors across the street sawing metal. It was great – it’s pretty rare that I get to work with jittery energy instead of sluggishness, at least in dressage. 15 minutes or so of suppling and circles and he came through wonderfully. He’s not really a horse that gets springy and light; he gets light, but there’s *power* behind it, a great big wave of push with each stride. It’s really neat to feel when he can put it all together.

So we worked that trot for a while, and then I asked for some canter to play with that energy, and – oh, niiiiiiice. Some of the best canter work we’ve ever done, heavy as an anvil on the forehand but trying SO HARD, and several glorious strides of that deep in the saddle, sitting with the horse instead of just on the horse connection. Both directions! I was holding him up far more than I’d like, but for him to even let me hold him up – especially in the left lead – was so, so huge. Cooled out with a walk around the big field out back – and a trot through the stream to get there, his first trot through water under saddle – totally unphased! Atta boy. 😀

Short, sweet ride on Wednesday. Limber and loose in the walk, so we forged on into the trot. In retrospect: probably a bit too soon, as he was hopping a bit in the first few strides of the trot, asking to canter instead of trot. I pushed through with the trot instead and he shook it off after a quarter circle.

The ring was very busy, so we didn’t do nearly as much circling/spiralling as we usually would to start off, and more complicated figures were out of the question. So we warmed up in big long laps, diagonals, working for soft and forward on the (sometimes) trickier straight line.

We worked on transitions, in part because I am a bit nervous about the hunter pace on Sunday – His Highness has run away with me enough times to still leave some residual caution in my brain. I’m getting better about it. But in the meantime: transitions and lots of ’em, concentrating on the quality in the gait before we make the transition, concentrating on keeping all parts where they need to be through the transition, and keeping the forward impulse through down transitions.

He was a bit more stiff to the left than usual; rather, he was stiff and didn’t work out of it quite as well as he usually does, probably in part because I couldn’t put him on a 20m circle and really work him out of it.

Did a little bit of canter to the right, focusing on the quality of the transition again. Walk-trot, trying to stay forward and uphill, then capturing that upward into trot-canter, really not letting him fling his head up and his body to the outside, and his canter was MUCH better as a result. Got some really, really nice stuff.

Saturday: long hack outside with some quick work to test the brakes and attention span, then Sunday the hunter pace!

Saturday, first ride in a week, after reports that His Highness had been stiff and resistant for Hannah and C. Not unusual for him, just had been a while since he’d done it.

I actually have quite a few pictures, one or two of them very nice, and I will try and put them up soon.

Tris warmed up stiff, as reported, but a jumpy kind of stiff – not just slow and sluggish. More like there was more jerky movement than I was used to. He wasn’t exactly forward, but nor was he really painfully behind the leg like he can be. He softened laterally beautifully; always nice when I ride him the day after L. or T. does! (L. rode him instead of my lesson this week, pre-empted by a grad school function.)

He just wasn’t very loose and swingy in a forward direction, so we worked a lot on that. Really most of my focus was on the outside hind leg, engaging it. His inside hind steps under beautifully – maybe even too easily and too quickly. He’s much more willing to just spin around on that inside hind than he is to push off evenly with the outside hind, especially going right. So we worked on not letting him just swoop under and ignore the rest of his body. Lots of spiral circles, and when those weren’t getting at the problem quickly enough, I tried some leg yielding.

His leg yields have really come a long, long way this summer, and when I can coordinate my aids to ask for a correct one, they are really good for him, one of his magic bullet exercises. Even if they don’t work, they help me figure out what the problem is. (Usually my lack of outside aids…) These were great: any bulging and surging through the outside shoulder was easily corralled, and in doing so it meant he really had to push with his outside hind, because he couldn’t just swing through and zip to the wall. Trot work became much better.

Canter is still a work in progress. Departs to the right were pretty good, but departs to the left need some work. I can’t quite juggle enough things with my body to support him as he needs to be held together through the depart. Unless I have every.single.one of my ducks in a row he throws his shoulder out, giraffes his neck, and scrambles through the transition. I’m getting better and better so that now he will most of the time get his lead, but as can be imagined transitions like that are not exactly conducive to lift and push in the canter itself.

We had one decent transition and about a half-circle of very nice canter in the left, after which I called it a day. I jumped off, gave the saddle to my mother, and crawled up bareback. Very patient pony to put up with my leap and scramble from the ground – I used to be able to do it in one jump and swing. More practice! We wandered around the ring for a while cooling him out, then outside to watch a bit of a jump lesson and take a 5+ minute drink from a puddle.

So: good. My body took a bit longer than I wanted to figure things out again after a week and a half break, and I’m still keeping an eye on his stiffness. (He was also a bit spooky about one of the mirrors – half fogged up – which is unusual for him. He’s got two abscesses on his jaw from tick bites, so…if this keeps up I’ll see about a Lyme titer.)

Lesson Tuesday, hack/conditioning on Wednesday if I can fit it in before the light goes, otherwise I’ll see about schooling him bareback. Supposedly I’ve been volunteered for a bareback jump lesson this winter, so I should probably see about getting my bareback seat back…