Trying slowly to get back into the swing of things, here.

I have been lessoning pretty regularly, for sanity and chipping slowly away at that idea of trying out a First Level test in the fall.

Yesterday, we had a really terrific, really tough lesson. A trainer once told me years ago that as you progress further and further along in training, the balance shifts from you working hard and the horse not so much, to the horse working hard and you less and less.

I feel like our lesson moved us further down that road, or maybe I’ve been getting stronger because I’ve been riding so much lately, but boy, Tristan was TIRED at the end of it.

We worked on a lot of things, but the one I want to record had to do with straightness & bend on turns – circles, corners, and diagonals. In particular, Tristan falls haunches in going left. He’s stronger and less crooked and more supple going right, but he still needs support.

So we worked on loading the inside hind by “hopping” him over, especially going left. Basically, as I asked for a slight bend, use my inside leg behind the girth to really target and activate his hind end and get it moving over, independent of his front end. As we approach the corner, I kept steady in the outside rein and then used my inside leg to give a quick, sharp aid and really aim for crossover with his hind end.

To the left, we really made this a true HOP – we wanted him to really jump and respond, because he was so crooked to start. The hardest part for me was anticipating and keeping the outside rein steady while I did that – I tended to drop it, and then he moved his whole body over or even got more crooked. To the right, I still had to get some of that feel, but not make it a real jump.

We started with it on a circle, and then (as a huge thunderstorm blew through the area) went down to the indoor and started long diagonal serpentines. Short side straightness, set him up for the corner with a good strong “hop”, then continue that feel around the turn to the diagonal, set him up straight on the diagonal, and open him up for a more extended trot. Then approaching the far corner, take him back, get the other bend, “hop” him into the corner, straight down the short side, and repeat.

I LOVED this exercise. The extension down the diagonal jazzed him up, and the precision of aiming for the diagonal each time really forced me to be clear and quick with my aids. We started to develop – not a true extended trot, but a new trot with more in it. Loading the inside hind also helped him sit more and gave him more lift in the front end as we went across that diagonal.

At the end of it, he was TIRED but after starting off very cranky (and having one spectacular buck/bolt that I grimly hung on through and turned into a VERY deep trot 10m circle; S. said “it’s a good thing you’re really ballsy about riding those”) he was game and willing right through, which was important for me to see because it felt like he was really understanding what we asked of him and he was feeling like he’d succeeded.

Did I mention TIRED?

I am LOVING having two lessons a month. It’s the perfect rhythm for me, and we’re really making substantial progress. It also lets me stack good lessons. When I had weekly lessons, inevitably I’d hit one that just stunk. We hadn’t prepared, or we were burned out, or things just went sideways. That hasn’t happened yet with the two-a-month. We’re excited and ready.

So, this week, notes.

• I need to be better about getting him sharp off my transition aids, both up and down. Up, he gets one chance before I reiterate STRONGLY. Down, I need to communicate more clearly through my seat and then carry the energy forward into the next gait.
• My inside hand was a holy terror. It was possessed. Something horrible was going wrong, and I just could not freaking let it go. Almost physically. It was not pretty. I was convinced that if I gave at all on my inside rein Tris would spin off like a top and we’d slam into the fence. Which he does sometimes! So my concern was not entirely unwarranted, generally. Just in this specific situation.
• We worked a bit on my challenge of asking for forward, getting canter, and needing to work back into a trot. So really a lot of maintaining crispness in gaits regardless of what they were, and of transitioning back to what I originally wanted. Then we talked a bit about good resistance and bad resistance, and how holding him in a trot using my core can be a good kind of resistance.
• I need to work on my elbows: keeping then down and close to me, and also not allowing them to translate tension from my upper body and then into my forearm. I had a tendency to get locked up, starting with my shoulders and then progressing down.
• My inside leg is too far forward in the canter, and putting it where she wanted it to go felt WEIRD and then I got off and my hip flexors were so angry at me I just had to stand and whimper for a moment before I could walk. Note to self: stretching.
• But! Overall, it was really good. Really good. Long stretches in a punchy, collected, reaching, through-his-back, energized trot. And the ability to go in and out of it, and tinker with it a little bit. At its very best, it was a proper First Level trot. Now, we just need to sustain it, and then translate it into the walk and the canter.
• Barn manager also confirms that when Tristan really puts himself together he is the VERY MOST CUTEST. I really need to get media to show you all.

I’ve adjusted my budget (squeezed some parts, shifted some things) to do two lessons a month for at least this summer. Ideally, from now on – but we’ll see. Probably the next line I should increase is my retirement savings, but ugh.

My first in this new plan, and the first in May, was on Monday. It had some really good things and some things to work on.

So here are some things I was happy with:

• My prep for the lesson; okay, that seems really petty and small to list, but after a month in which I struggled constantly to find time for things, I left with plenty of time, groomed him to the nines, put on all his Back on Track stuff, and got a great warmup walk in before the lesson even started.
• I actually did better on not staring at his neck! I mean, I did a lot of it. But I definitely did better. I think part of what helped me was working hard on the idea the he has to be responsible for his half of the ride, and I shouldn’t micromanage or nitpick.
• I said thoughtful things and asked good questions about the things that were in my head! I don’t know how lessons work for some of you, but I tend to internalize and the only words that come out are clever quips, not actually useful conversations. But this time I was able to verbalizes the things in my head, like “I understand that we’re praising for a jump off a driving aid, even if that means an upward transition, but I’m a little worried about reprogramming his transition aids?” and then talk through that.

Here are some things I need to work on:

• I took my spurs off. I’ve been wearing big swan neck spurs for a while now, because Tristan is one of the laziest horses in the barn, any barns, all the barns. But I got over-reliant on them, and got called out for desensitizing him to them. Spurs can’t be the default, and shame on me for that.
• I need to be more sensitive to the moment just before he backs off being forward, and catch him in that moment. To do that, I need to stay on top of two things: first, stay quiet when I’m not asking for more forward, so that there is empty space that he’s required to fill and I can have a clearer sense of his gait instead of just asking all the time, and second, I need to keep my standards high, so a nice forward trot isn’t just “gee, he’s trying really hard, and he’s more forward than he usually is” but is actually forward.
• He needs to be waaaaaaaaaaaaay more sensitive to driving aids writ large. That’s something I’ve always known, but now we’re officially in boot camp. And with another lesson lined up for two weeks from now, I have homework and a defined due date, huzzah!
• Less falling for his fake-outs. He’s so good at it. I can’t bend, how about I put myself on the vertical? I can’t possibly use my inside hind, what if I overbend at the neck instead? If I fling my head all around, that’s the same thing as going more forward and sitting more in the hind end, right? Endless, endless fake-outs.

And the less-than-great:

• I’m feeling a bit crappy that the horse I’ve been riding and training for 13 years now is still in this place. I can justify things all I want – he was a literal wild horse who couldn’t be touched when I started, grad school + extremely demanding job have taken up 8 years of that, he’s a really difficult ride – but yeah. Still.

If anyone was wondering if I still rode my own horse, the answer is yes! Mostly. Sort of. Winter sucks.

Anyway, in keeping with my 2018 goals, I had a lesson on Monday afternoon. I was nervous about it beforehand, because I did not have the best prep. I haven’t been able to ride consistently because the weather and the day job are conspiring against me. Then I was away for a week. Then he came up juuuuuust a touch off in his RF – you know, THAT FOOT.  Overall, I did pretty well in riding it out, texting the farrier a bit, going through the logic checklist of things it might be, waiting and re-checking, and so on. It paid off because on Sunday he was pretty much better and then for the lesson on Monday he was great.

In addition to being the world’s greatest barn manager, our BM does a great lesson. She gets that I do what I can, when I can, and strikes a nice balance between pushing and understanding. The barn owner is herself a Grand Prix rider and trainer and she’s amazing, but I just don’t have the funds or the time to ride with her regularly; I use her for aspiration lessons and the BM for the grind through the winter.

I’m just going to list a few takeaways, because overall it was a really terrific lesson.

• Still need to keep my hands up. Way up. And I need to think harder about the mechanisms I use to ask for bend: up and toward my outside hip, not blocking him down too low. Then to release, release forward instead of out.
• I need to work on the cycle of ask-release right off the bat in the walk, testing out the horse I have that day and getting him reaching down and supple through his back right off the bat.
• His canter transitions have been stuttering in part because of my hands, as above. I need to stay up and not give in to the temptation when going up, or he’s blocked, and then I need to not drop my hands because that’s cuing him to break.
• In the canter, keeping my shoulders open and back and loose lets me follow much more and ride through my seat more effectively.
• Overall, she’s like to see me working much more through my seat. Both because it’s good dressage and also because it will help hold him together through his lazier moments.
• We had one awesome/hilarious bit in the canter when his hind end was totally underneath him and pushing up, but he was also soft in the mouth and through the poll, and it was like it fried his brain because everything in between those two points was total flaily tossed salad. I just stayed in the middle of it and laughed really hard and praised him. It was a fun moment to feel, though, because I could see through it to what a better canter would be and it’s always cool, even after riding the same horse for over a decade, to feel when something totally new is taking shape.

Onward and upward! Hopefully I’ll get more consistent riding time in February, and then another lesson in March.