I tried an experiment on Sunday. I was feeling a bit slothful and grody from eating nothing but junk food on the previous day, so I pulled the stirrups off the saddle. I didn’t ride for long – maybe about 25 minutes – but it was good. Really good.

So I mentioned it to L. in my lesson on Tuesday, and pulled them for the last 20 minutes of my lesson, and she agreed. Forcing myself to ride without stirrups dramatically improved my balance and seat in the canter, and consequently made him straighten up and pay attention to my aids better. From now on, non-lesson rides will be sans stirrups, and I’ll drop my stirrups for the end of the lesson until I can drop them for the entire lesson. It’ll be good.

My other takeaway from last night was, once again, that I should resort to leg instead of rein when he gets hard in the bridle. We had a long, intense, frustrating conversation about left bend last night, and the only time I made headway was when I stopped thinking of it as a hard against the rein problem and thought of it as a resistance to leg problem.

In a similar vein, I need to work on my application of leg aids. I have a bad habit of inching my legs up even slightly to cue an aid, and I need to think more long and wrapped around instead of bringing them up to put them on. Granted, when my legs stretch all the way long my heels are below his barrel, but still. If I have to bring them up – even slightly – to put a spur on, they need to go back immediately.

Riding Thursday, he’ll get jumped by a lesson kid on Sunday, and then maybe, perhaps, hauling somewhere on Monday? Fingers crossed the weather holds up.

Last night’s lesson did not start out auspiciously: I arrived at the barn early due to perhaps the best traffic of all time, and then curled up in my car to read for a bit…and fell asleep. Out cold. I woke up to my phone dinging with a text message from Hannah about horsey pun color names, and was totally, completely disoriented. I could not have told you my name, where I was, or why. Then I checked the clock and it was 7:07, aka 7 minutes after my lesson was supposed to start.

I sprinted inside, apologized profusely to L., and somehow managed to get on horseback by 7:25. Tris came out quite well, though we did not warm up at the walk for as long as I usually like. He was a little stiff and hard through the bridle as a consequence.

In many ways, the lesson was unremarkable. L. was after me not to get sucked into leaning forward, to sit on my outside rein, and to really connect his hind legs through to the bridle.

Our big breakthrough moment, however, was in the canter. I was having serious trouble softening him, per usual, and L. shouted for me to try a little bit of a counterbending feel. And I thought, that’s a terrible idea, usually when I add in too much outside rein we run into walls, but I trusted her so I put my outside leg on, HARD, and asked for some counterbend and – WHOOSH. Tris straightened and all of a sudden I was sitting on a rocket, tapping into a whole world of power straight from his hind end. We had maybe a circle and a half like that and then I brought him back to the trot and tried to put together the assembled pieces of my brain.

L. explained that my habit of overbending in the canter to try to get some kind of suppleness was letting all the energy and push from his hind end shoot out his outside shoulder, and by straightening him up I was channeling that power more effectively. True to form, after tasting it once Tris was adamant that he wanted nothing to do with it for the next 20 minutes, but we fought through. (And unfortunately I do mean fought at times…he has been flubbing his right lead transition and it is driving. me. crazy.)

We finished with a really lovely trot, and quite a bit of walking around and cooling out, because between channeling all that new power and fighting my outside aids, he was puffing pretty good, even for only a 40 minute lesson.

Next ride, Thursday, probably a long hack, since I have expectations of getting to the barn while it’s still light out.

Because I was traveling on business, I didn’t ride at all between last week’s jump lesson and this week’s flat lesson. C. took him out a few times, which I knew meant I would get a much softer, looser horse than I usually do, but I didn’t know how our absence from each other would go.

Answer: not too bad! He came out soft, and loose, and giving, and more or less willing to step up when I asked. I was cruising around, head up in the clouds, sighing happily and comparing the horse I was sitting on to the tight little rubber band of resistance I used to have…and then T. let me know that my horse was tuning me out and trit-trotting around and could I make him do stuff already?

Oh. Right. That. Fortunately, throwing stuff into the mix worked immediately, and I could tell that it worked immediately. Leg-yields, spirals in and out, baby shoulder-in, teardrops off the wall, 10m circles off the long side, in the middle of the ring, etc. Yeah: there’s his hind end.

We did the most work on the canter, because I was trotting around and thinking with amazement, I am not entirely sure what to fix next. There wasn’t, in that moment, a whole lot to fix – things to improve, always, but at that moment in time? Nothing really broken.

So I tried some canters, and broke stuff, and then got my kick in the pants. New and emerging problem: my bad habit of collapsing my right hip and shoulder in the canter transition is interfering, badly, with our right transitions. It’s offloading him onto his right front, and hitching up my outside aids, and it means that we are getting a whole lot of mixed signals about that right lead. So I have homework: deeper in my outside leg, straighter on my inside, stop screwing my horse up. (Though the very back of my brain is a teensy bit worried – hocks? I will put it out of my mind and work on balance, first.)

Left lead strikeoffs were just fine. In the canter itself, and really throughout my riding, is my bigger homework assignment: outside aids. Nail them down. Keep them deep and supporting and get him into them. Sit down on my outside rein in the canter, really commit to it, don’t just wiggle it now and then and then clamp the aids on in a panic when he zooms to the wall.

Small secondary problem addressed as well: cantering down the long side, Tris drifts in. After one or two huge struggles to keep him straight down the line, I asked T. to watch and analyze. His answer as that Tris is offloading onto that inside shoulder to avoid striking off properly with the outside hind. Answer, as always: more inside leg to outside rein. Like, a LOT more. Way more than any other time. So I did one or two long side canters focusing hard on the balance between those aids, and presto. It was not clean and straight, but I kept him in line.

Next ride: Thursday, some ring schooling and maybe if it’s not raining and/or semi-light, a short hack.

Lesson report!

I started off with an experiment: longed him for about 10 minutes, w-t-c both ways. He was a perfect gentleman about it, which was a huge relief given it’s been 18+ months since he was last longed, and I always have flashbacks to early days when I longe him. (Because you haven’t lived until your horse has reared, struck out at you, landed, bolted, and dragged you across the ring on your face as you frantically try to dig the longe line out of the skin of your hand…)

He was in fact well-behaved enough to sometimes respond to half-halts by stretching into the bit, which is an encouraging and heartening new development since the last time he was longed. Overall, I think the longing accomplished its goal: warm him up a little bit, loosen him up, etc. And he did indeed start out much MUCH more supple than on Saturday. Which is not saying a whole lot: the changing temps and cold snaps have regressed us about 6 weeks at least in that department. This too shall pass, I suppose.

In the meantime, we focused a lot a LOT on not getting into fights with him. It’s one of those lessons I need to re-learn every couple of weeks, it seems. He is a past master at tightening and turning into a brick wall and ignoring any semblance of softness I try to create with the bit. L. worked very very hard on me to keep my elbows soft, my shoulders heavy, my core engaged so that I could simply sit securely in my seat and guide him firmly but not get caught up in his drama. Every single time we started to get pissed off at each other, and flail stiffly through a turn, L. called out for me to soften my elbows, and I did, and he gave with a disgusted huff. So.

I also dropped stirrups for about the last 15 minutes and worked really, really hard on bringing him up through my seat in the sitting trot, and keeping weight through my outside seatbone and leg in the canter and transitions. HARD. But really rewarding, and I kind of love feeling my abs and core engage like that through the sitting trot. I’m even much less sore than I had imagined I would be!

Lesson! Summary: good hard work, some boneheaded decisions on my behalf, and ultimately some very productive canter work.

Started off with a lot of walk work, and he was much less stiff than I would have expected thanks to Caitlin hacking him out on Monday. He was still clearly a bit tired, though, and a bit muscle-bound. He was also already a bit sweaty – hot day!

So, walk, walk, walk, bend, stretch, off the inside leg, spiral in and out, little bit of leg yield. We’re working on shortening the reins and keeping a steadier, more elastic connection, so I concentrated on that. When we picked up the trot I just let him feel his way into it for a minute or so, making sure he wasn’t ouchy anywhere – he felt more or less fine, perhaps a bit shorter in the right hind, but nothing major. When I picked him up we started to work with T. on really getting him into the outside rein, pressing him forward and gathering him up with my right hip bone and right hand. It took a while to get him really steady in that new level of contact, but once he did I was really liking the power I had access too. He’s not a “light and springy” kind of horse, he’s got a much more drafty and solid feel to him.

After working the trot for a while, I decided to work on my sitting trot, which was….ehhhhhh. Not great. I was hitting his back far too much, couldn’t quite settle in the rhythm. He wasn’t exactly pleased, and the quality of the trot work took an instant nosedive. We worked it out to get closer to where the rising trot work was, and then I asked for a canter.

His first left canter depart? GLORIOUS. In fact, so wonderful I got all caught up in supporting him with my legs and asking for bend around the canter and…had to haul him back to the walk in order not to slam into another rider. I kicked myself up down and sideways for that one. Poor decision, poor ring management, and I ruined a great canter transition. I took myself to the other end of the ring and tried to get the trot back to where it had been before I asked for the canter again. Took a while.

Anyway: canter work was generally really great. I’m starting to solve the long legs/light seat problem, inch by inch, as I work toward a seat that’s deep but not heavy, and legs that are long but not propping. Wouldn’t you know, the closer I get to that the more jump he can achieve in the canter as I can really support him. So I could really start to dig in with hips-to-hands, half-halts, and leg support to balance the canter, kick him UP off my inside leg to get him straighter and cleaner and not leaning.

One problem that cropped up last night was that he’s really starting to go well on the bit in a canter circle, but asking for that same bend, same reach, and same jump on a straight line was reaaaaaalllllly hard for him, and he dropped into the trot, all flustered, when I didn’t give him enough support. So that’s something to work on for strength!

Back from the canter to a long walk break, then picked him up again to work on the sitting trot again, and T. got involved – which he had been quite a bit all lesson, actually, I don’t know if he saw us go XC on Sunday and thought aha! now we’re cooking with gas! and decided we need our asses kicked on a more regular basis? Which is both a good and a bad thing! Anyway – T. really cleaned up my position in the sitting trot, and we had a few strides of loooooovely smooth sit for me and reach for him.

Then we worked canter transitions. I worked on staying back and staying deep, keeping my support in the outside rein and the bend in the inside, and T. said that magic thing that always helps us when I’ve forgotten it, which is to think of the canter transition as a down transition, not as going faster. I like to picture water flowing downhill; there’s more energy there, but it’s just a natural forward motion, smooth and easy. A few attempts at that and we started getting consistently nicer transitions, and ergo, nicer canters faster. Some of them REALLY nice.

We finished after a good right canter transition and circle, took a short walk outside, and then he got hosed off quite a bit – VERY sweaty boy who’d worked very hard and was pretty pleased with himself.

So, my homework: shorter more elastic reins, longer leg, better support on the outside, canter transitions as down transitions, and recapturing that smooth sitting trot I had so briefly.

Lesson: very good. Tris came out much more limber and willing to walk on, which makes the fourth or fifth ride in a row he’s been like that. I am beginning to suspect either that he’s turned some kind of fitness corner OR that my redoubled efforts to keep him constantly supplied supplements have paid off. Perhaps some combination of both.

It was pounding rain, so one of those “ride for fifteen minutes then go stand with T. to get advice and direction for a few minutes” lessons. Which was good for us yesterday. My focus was on fixing the long legs/light seat conundrum (I’m getting small glimpses of the solution, but really wrapping my legs around him still makes my seat feel too light) and on keeping a good, solid, consistent hold of the contact. We’ve been slipping into a tendency lately where he gives, and I throw the reins at him because I’m so happy he’s given more. I’m either too heavy or throwing them away, I guess. But T. worked very hard with us on really setting the bit in his mouth, and then rounding him up TO it, the operative concept being that there has to be something for him to go to. I had to get over my nagging worry of blocking him in front, because with leg support he really can figure it out now – he’s over the “but if you have any hold at all I can’t moooooooove” phase.

He’s also changed tactics in the lazy department: instead of killing the motor when he gets round and bendy, he is, as T. put it, “popping the clutch.” He disengages in a very subtle way, then slowly loses energy over the course of the next five minutes. So: rhythm, rhythm, rhythm.

Canter was AWESOME, we’re really digging in and working on it. Spent a long time really working on a hips-to-hands balancing to make him SIT DOWN. The left lead transition is really starting to come along, but he still flails all the hell over the place in the right lead. We did a lot of walk-trot, halt-walk transitions, focusing on staying deep and keeping bend, with the hopes that nailing it in those lower gaits will start to translate up the scale.

Before the lesson I was fussing over him and noticed that his right front fetlock was a wee bit swollen and warm. Nothing that would leap out, clearly just above the joint and not tendon-related – all in all it looks like he wrenched it a bit in pasture. He wasn’t tender on it at ALL (believe me, I poked and prodded for quite a while, and then T. did as well) and he came out perfectly even and sound. I am mildly worried, but not desperately so. Something to keep an eye on.

I rubbed Sore No More in before and after the lesson, made sure he got a looooooooong walk warmup and cooldown, and mixed him a bran mash with 2 grams of bute paste. (Somehow my bute powder has disappeared from my tack trunk. Not cool.) He was decidedly less than pleased by the bute paste, and made every face you can imagine – twisting his jaw, sticking his tongue straight out the side, shaking his head around, rolling his eyes back in his head. If he could have gagged dramatically he would’ve.

Ride again tonight – keep an eye on the fetlock – and then Dover Saddlery on Saturday for a big shopping trip (new tall boots, ugh). Cross country clinic on Sunday at Scarlet Hill. I’m going to mail my entry form for the Area 1 Safety Clinic this weekend. I’m also toying with the idea of an Intro to Foxhunting clinic coming up in June…it’s the same weekend as Valinor, so that’s a tough decision – haul and volunteer, or find a buddy and do the clinic? Both are very appealing. 😦

I’m going to see about finding a dressage schooling show in July, then the Flatlands show in August, then in the fall for sure we’ll do a hunter pace, another dressage show, and mayyyyyyybe, if the summer goes REALLY well, an off-property schooling horse trial. Fingers crossed!

Two rides to talk about, with good meaty work (mostly).

First ride: lesson on Thursday. Dicey to begin with; I had emailed with J. about taking the spot (had to miss Tuesday b/c of class) but never got confirmation, and I am occasionally nervous about talking to T. about these things and then thought I got a yes but he didn’t say anything for the first 20 minutes and…anyway, it worked out eventually.

Started in the walk for a loooong time, 15 minutes of stretchy and get-your-ass-in-gear, working the hind legs up, not letting him get away with anything with his shoulders. It was occasionally frustrating – he often wants to escape into the trot instead of marching in the trot, so I had to walk a fine line between keeping his energy contained in the walk and stifling him. The walk is tough to work on sometimes, because you can end up breaking it by over-restraining, especially with a lazy horse like my pony.

Trot work was good, not great; took a little while to even it out, he was trying to laze along whilst hopping and doing a brick wall impression. T. got on me about really wrapping my legs around him and using them to channel that, pressing him up to reach for the contact instead of kicking him per usual, more of a steady go-go-go with nowhere to escape, and he had a couple of really nice patches. The head-jerking from the weak right hind was only very minimally present, so it seems I’ve found the fix for that. Hooray!

Canter: overdone a bit per usual. Left depart felt good, right depart felt up and down but at least present. He stretched and loosened in the left – we’re starting to get whole 20m circle tours in which he thinks it’s okay to give his neck to me and will spiral in and out and I know that sounds like baby stuff but you really have to ride this horse’s shoulders to believe it. Right was at least cooperative; not as good as left yet, I think he’s only slowly getting stronger on that right hind. He has the thrust but not the lift, which is what he needs now to really work on that canter. I also need a better seat + leg cooperation to help him get there: homework for both of us!

Yesterday was…okay, I guess. He was tired and a wee bit sore, and I would’ve given him bute afterwards except…the tub that the vet dropped off expires in 7 days. So I didn’t want to open what I’d be asking him to replace anyway. Anyway: curried a yak’s worth of hair off of him as well as a pig’s worth of mud, and he was VERY pleased to get all that attention – we’re talking 30+ minutes of currying alone to really dig in there. Lip drooping, legs squared, ears floppy, other things all hanging out…he likes to be spoiled.

The downside was that this was all during dinner, so while tacking up he stomped his foot and tried to snake his head for his grain; a loud “Tristan, NO” and he whipped his head back to center and stood rigid, clearly sulking for all his worth. Did not move a muscle except to open his mouth for a bit, and gave the world’s weariest sigh when I led him off.

Riding outside, I’d just intended to get him somewhere good and be done, but that somewhere good was frustratingly difficult. He was very hoppy in the right trot, kept trying for canter, so I let him blow out for a few laps, somewhere just below a hand gallop standing up in the stirrups, knuckles on his neck, trying to loosen that back up. He got one more brief canter and then no more excuses; he’s capable of saying eff you, so the fact that he only said “eh, okay” when told to stay and work on his trot was my sign that he could now. Trot eventually settled into something SUPER nice, low neck, hind end up through the withers, power and cadence. Felt really really good, both ways, though a bit more discussion to get there and stay there to the left.

Then I ruined it with the canter. Surprisingly, right lead went rather well; picked it up easily, held it for me, softened a bit, didn’t try to throw his shoulders to China. Left lead was…ugh. So choppy I kept double-checking my lead, refused to relax his neck, actively bolting out the right shoulder (across the ring and almost into some HUGELY tall jumps, the horse does not stop for nothing, he really would have gone through them). So I kept after him, and worked the transitions instead of the gait, and when he gave me some semblance of a calm(er) transition with an obedient 20m circle, we were done. Bit of a hack to cool out, then his first hosing down of the season, hanging out for a while to make sure he was cool enough to get his grain.

I’ve got an entry form for the home show on the 18th, am settled on the Beginner Novice A test and I think 2’6″ fences. My other option is 2’0″ fences, which…my horse will trot over and/or through. I’ll confirm with T. at the jump clinic tomorrow, and then fill out my paperwork and check. Trailer also came back certified sound, so we will hopefully start to get out and do some trail riding (turkey farm!!) and cross country schools over the next few weeks.

HOORAY FOR SPRING!

First things first: not lame!

I explained the things I’d been noticing to T. before we even got the lesson started, and he watched us warm up – head-jerking, inconsistent contact, etc. – and put us through our paces veryvery thoroughly, with improvement in spots. Then we talked about it for a while.

The upshot is: shortness in the right hind. Which is not unusual; it’s always been his weakest limb. T. did not see any discomfort or pain, more of a mechanical stiffness/habitually limited range of motion. Which is to say, he’s fifteen, and this is the first time in his life he’s being asked to really truly swing his hind end. Probably evenly split between his stifle and his hock. He can reach and extend without pain, he’d just really rather not. So add a dash of laziness on top of it all.

So what’s happening is he’s coming up short with the right hind – not necessarily a problem tracking right, but tracking left he’s not getting the thrust he needs to (as T. explained it, most of the lifting power comes from the inside hind, most of the thrust from the outside hind), then offloading the problem onto his left front, which is throwing him off balance and making him jerk his head up.

Solution is, as always, kick-kick-kick-kick. Bend him inside, half-halt outside, push him onto the outside rein and then make damn well sure the outside hind is doing its fair share. Supple with the left wrist, bend around the left leg, half-halt the right hand, kick-kick-kick-kick the right leg. Several circles of come-to-Jesus and we were going 2-3 strides evenly and with power; once we could get that more or less consistently, we had a bit of a walk break. Picking up again, I worked HARD on the same problem in the walk, where it was a bit easier to convince him to swing through. He wasn’t exactly pleased at all of this, mind, but once I closed off every available exit door, he sighed and farted and acquiesced.

By the end of the lesson, he’d loosened up nicely, and we had some really glorious canter complete with spiralling in and out both directions, and a big powerful swingy trot on a long rein a few times around to stretch out.

So: old horse, new tricks. Though as T. points out, we’re kinda victims of our own success. It’s not like this is new for Tris, more like by the time we used to get to this level of the work it was the last five minutes of the ride, and he was already warmed up and loosened. So he wasn’t really having to work very hard to muscle through it. Now, we’re warming up with the work we used to finish with, and he’s not quite supple enough to support that work so early in the ride. It’s just a time-patience-work thing, though; strengthen that right hind, get the joints used to moving, loosen up the joint fluid, and blow his little mind. He’s already on glucosamine and I just started him on MSM about 3wks ago. We’re getting more bute on Friday from the vet; for the next little while, I might make him a little bran mash with bute after days he’s worked hard.

Horses are so neat sometimes; every small little thing adding up and figuring it out and working on it is always like putting together an incredibly intricate lifelong puzzle. I love it.

Skating this one in just under the wire before my lesson tonight.

Tris started off loose and limber, but balky. He hopped in the trot, so I pushed him in the canter, and T. got on me right away about how my position goes all to hell when Tris is so behind the leg like that. It’s a chicken-egg scenario: Tristan gets hollow and stiff and resistant, so I tip forward, drive with my seat, and scrunch my legs up in the mistaken belief that putting my heel halfway up his belly will push him forward more. That *does* get a temporary burst of energy but it’s never any good, and in a stride or two he reacts by getting more resistant.

So: staying deep and long and wrapping my legs around even in the first “canter or die” work. Then we worked the trot for a long, long time, still concentrating on bringing him up in the base of his neck. It’s funny how things I would have been ecstatic about two months ago have quickly become our new plateau: he’ll soften and chew and reach with his hind end quickly now, but already I can feel what’s beyond that. We’re starting to tap into real *power* from that hind end, instead of just cooperation; a stride or two at a time, maybe, but it’s showing up more and more frequently.

Our big breakthrough of the evening was in the canter. We worked it longer and harder than we ever have in a lesson, and I made some good breakthroughs about the way I ask for and then ride the canter, following along with our first obstacle of the evening. I need to sit back even more than I think I ought to, so I allllllmost feel like I’m behind the motion, and let him rock me, following more softly with my hips, keeping the front open and easy to let the energy go through that way. That makes *him* work harder, and it helps me to be in a better place to cue him. I don’t *need* to vice grip with my legs to keep him cantering – he’s fit enough to canter a few 20m circles by himself, thankyouverymuch.

T. talked a lot about the things our horses trick us into. In Tristan’s case, he makes me think that he can only get a canter after nagging and speeding up the trot, then can’t hold it unless I hold him up, luring me into driving with my seat and scrunching up my legs. It’s a lot easier for him than pushing with his hind end and lifting through his back. Ironically, I had watched L. on her lovely flashy paint make my exact same mistakes in her lesson not twenty minutes before – and T. called me on it exactly. I also used the mirrors to good effect for almost the first time while cantering, and I could see instantly that what I felt like was leaning waaaaaaaay back was actually sitting up straight. Funny how our bodies lose their sense of center like that.

We had probably the best few strides of canter we’ve ever, ever, had, and T. even said he’d never seen Tristan move like that. \o/ Now, we’re at the point where not everything has to be perfect from stride 1; Tristan knows his job, and I am to shove him through, God help us both, because on the other side there’s finally something good waiting for us.

Two observations; first, that I had forgotten how helpful group lessons can be. I had private lessons for so long at Coach’s that I got out of the habit of working things out on my own. There’s something to be said for that much attention, and I’m sure there are some riders for whom it works better, but my riding has improved enormously from the sort of “directed practice” portions of a group lesson. When T. works me hard for 5 minutes, then I go to the other end of the ring for 10 minutes, and he gives occasional pointers, I add a piece to my intuitive understanding of what’s right.

Second: I think even with all the good work we did, my favorite part of the lesson on Tuesday was how often T. and I started praising Tristan at the same time. I’ve been riding for a long time; I know what feels right, and I know when to praise a horse. But this is more subtle than that. I’m catching the split-second moments and encouraging them, and stretching them out longer, than I ever have before. That makes me a better rider – which is what Tristan deserves, someone who can help him learn with a minimum of flailing around. I’m trhilled to death that I’m finally starting to get there.

After a week of no riding time, I think he’ll get ridden every day this week, which is excellent; he was stiff for C. last night. He’s turning 15 in the spring, and I need to start to be more aware of his body and the suppling work it needs.