All the Angles

Mo and I had a pretty fun dressage lesson on Tuesday that involved schooling the halt (the horse's butt wants to swing right at all times, and he doesn't really get the whole halt thing yet--even though he'll fall asleep standing around--so it's gonna be the next Big Challenge). It was fun, because some of the things we've been struggling with feel confirmed, like bend changes without inversion.

But another dressage lesson recap with no media isn't fun, so let's talk about today's jump lesson instead.

M set up a really cool school in the ring with lots of exercises in it that I'm trying to show you via Paintbrush, which I don't know how to use at all, so bear with me. If anyone can tell me how to make a proper curvy line with this thing, PLEASE do. All the jumps were 2'6" verticals (M said next week we might try for a little more height, yay).

I put the jump numbers there just for ease of talking about them. Jump 1 was a crossrail that I trotted a few times, and then I cantered 1 and 4 off each lead, heading out of the exercise. That being done, and liking the canter my horse had, she had me jump the 6-stride line from 1 to 2. The first time, he wandered all about and we did it in 8. Second time, he was straighter but taking small strides and we got there in 7. Barf. So third time, I kicked on landing and we had the nice 6. It's not a tricky distance, I just have a lazy horse, ha. We repeated the same exercise on the right lead for jumps 4 and 5. Same "look how many steps I can take in here, mom! Like a Paso!" thing. But a forward ride on landing showed him how to find the appropriate striding and not the long spot.

Lines not drawn as ridden, ha

Next exercise was to turn inside of 4 (or 1, if off the right lead) to jump 3. He needed a little more power off the ground the first time, so when I came off the right lead I made sure he had that and he jumped great. We did it one more time to the left and took a break.

Because I'm horrible at using this app, this next exercise was done on both sides but I only drew it one one, as above.

This one gave Mo the chance to meet the verticals on the long side at an angle, since this is something he's still a little green about. We'd come off the long side on the right lead and angle 5, then rollback left, up the long side, angle four, rollback right, canter all the way around the ring, angle 1 off the right lead, rollback left, angle 2 off the long side, rollback right, done. We did this one twice just to iron out timing. One thing we learned about Mo is that he didn't care if we found a short or medium or long distance as long as I knew it was happening and was there to support him, and that went really well.

Then the real torture began. This was so much fun.

Yep.

Now, consider that my horse is not competing at training level. He's at elementary. I think for a horse at his level, this is hard, but he OWNED it. He was a little backed off going from 5 to 3 the first time and chipped for four, but came out in 3 and rode the 2-3-4 line super well. I went back around left to try 5-3-1 again and it went GREAT. And that was the jump school. Honestly, he barely broke a sweat. We went for a nice long walk, and then I gave him a million carrots and told him he's the best horse alive.

Which, of course, he is.

I might be slightly biased

MDHT Show Jumping and Cross Country

The two jumping phases get to share a post because I don't have many pictures and I'm still having issues getting stuff to load on YouTube. I will eventually, for those who just really need to see an elementary horse jumping.

By the time we were tacking up to go jump, the rain was getting pretty heavy. The upper level riders were scratching right and left, but for elementary on a barefoot horse, I felt confident. The ground at Loch Moy is in general better than it is around here. I would never risk my horse to run a course, but this didn't feel like a risk. And it wasn't, so yay.

But first we had to jump around the stadium course. My friend Katie came to help us warm up, which I don't ordinarily need but it was useful this time because some idiot decided she should stand right next to the warmup fence wearing a huge yellow beach towel that she kept flapping around. Because I was on the best horse in the world, I was fine, but he did have a bit of a sticky first trip over the vertical thanks to her. We jumped four warmup fences and headed up to the ring.

Mo was a tiny bit sticky over the first jump so I tapped him behind my leg in the air, which pissed him off, but then he jumped the rest of the jumps great. I'm so looking forward to the jumps not being tiny, it's hard to get good pictures and we're both getting bored. But I'm thrilled that he was relaxed and soft and jumped everything happily. What more could I want?

Jump 3

 I love this, he just looks like such a quiet professional.

Jump 5

A few horses didn't like this gate (or the yellow and green one that came next) but my horse didn't care.

Heading to the last

I like pictures in which he looks cute and you can't tell how tiny the jumps are.

All done!

Big pats for this horse. He knows what to do now.

Katie had located a tiny warm-up log for us before XC (which I didn't know was there last time but I'm not sure it would have made a difference). I wanted him to jump it once or twice because it's been a hot minute since he last saw an XC fence. I should not have worried. He took me to the jump like a pro.

So off we went! I moved him up from Intro to Elementary, so the jumps were about 2'3". Some were kinda spooky, like a grey gate that a lot of horses hate, and baby's first brush jump. He was again a bit sticky to the first, and took a tiny peek at the grey gate at 3, but after that it was on. I had him trot everything because it was raining and I wanted him to just go jump stuff and feel good, but he'd have cantered if I'd let him.

We're done worrying about you, grey gate!

That's a horse having a good time!

Talking to Katie right before I jumped off at the end.

It's kinda fun that he was happy to just stand around after XC and wasn't all riled up. We'll see how he does when he has to canter everything next time! I think he'll be great. He loves XC.

So there it is, our Loch Moy experience. I could not be more pleased with him. He was a classy professional the entire time. He seems to really enjoy horse shows, if for no other reason than my mom probably feeds him five pounds of carrots (the dressage judge mentioned his carrot slobber, ha). I'm not gonna complain about that, though. Whatever keeps him happy is fine.

On to Morningside for a combined test, where we're entered at Baby Novice again, but I think I'm gonna add a trip for him at Beginner Novice if it's all going well. So excited about this horse, y'all. In case that wasn't clear.

MDHT Dressage

For well over a month now, getting close to two months, we've had hardly any rain at all. I know some parts of the country are like "take our rainfall PLEASE," and believe me, we'd love it if y'all would share (Florida, I'm looking at you). The grass is dead, I don't want to take Mo cross country schooling because the ground is concrete, it's awful.

So what day does the rain come back to this region of the country?

Saturday! Of course!

The rain didn't really start until I was just about to go in for dressage, and even then it wasn't so bad. Then it poured between dressage and jumping, but that's a story for another day.

I put Mo on the lunge line for a couple minutes to see what kind of horse I had, and he was super chill the whole time. My mom fed him carrots while I got on and then I got brave and rode him down the very narrow path past people and dogs and other horses to the warmup area. This was going to be the first time Mo had to canter in the dressage warmup, but lucky for me, it was quiet in there, just one or two other riders when I was warming up. He was a very good boy. We had an abbreviated version of our discussion about contact, but then he came through for me and his trot work in the warmup was great. The canter was about what I'd expect to get out of him at home--inverted in the transition, then inconsistent in the contact. No big deal. Honestly, the reason I needed to go back to Loch Moy was to see if he'd jump around XC this time (and I'd entered him at a higher level than last time, because I'm brilliant like that).

When it was our turn to head to the ring, he was being good and listening until the judge's car's windshield wipers moved just as we were approaching to say hello. He was like WHAT THE FUCK and the judge stuck her head out the window to apologize which also scared him. I was giggling at him and assured her it was fine, he needs to see stuff like that, but we didn't go back up there again. On some horses I would have, but Mo just needed to calm back down before we went in, so we circled at A until she rang the bell.

I'll post video of the test when I can, but for now, screen shots.

A enter working trot rising

I mean, for an intro horse, what's not to love?

X halt salute

Yay...

Check to make sure your buddies up the hill saw your good halt

Woops.

Right 20m trot circle

I liked this trot circle. It was balanced and relaxed and accurate.

Right "20m" canter circle

Someone who may or may not have a PhD got so worried about getting the correct canter lead that they forgot to ride the circle accurately. Just, like, totally forgot what a 20m circle looks like. Instead I rode a 10m egg. Well done.

KXM change the rein

Forget the canter circle, try to get the horse across the diagonal like a gentleman.

Aw, look who can change his bend without inverting!

Heading into the best trot circle of his life

E circle left 20m

This left trot circle was GREAT. The only thing that would have made it better was a little more forwardness, but unless this is the very first post of mine you've ever read, you know that forwardness is The Thing We Deal With.

Buy a racehorse and KICK IT, that's what I say.

A circle left 20m

This canter circle was MUCH better because I remembered where to go. He was in and out of the connection, which is fine. I don't expect anything different right now. But no one watching would have thought I was near death, and isn't that really the goal?

Medium walk transition

His transition down to medium walk was great, but then the gait just died under me. Not a huge shock. I tried to kick him into a bigger step and he took like half a step of trot. Oh well.

Free walk

Consider the speed of continental drift...

Taking the loooooong trip back to the centerline

The judge liked this part, called it "straight."

Back up the centerline we go

G shuffle around and put your head up and eventually stand still for one second

I was pleased with it (except my idiocy in the right lead canter circle, won't make that mistake again). He'll get better, I'll get better, but this is MILES from where we were last time we came to Loch Moy in May.

But enough about what I have to say, here's what the judge thought:

34%, fine for this month

And here's the best part:

I love this entire thing. I like her compliment of my horse, I like his score on gaits (which will get better as he goes more forward), and it cracks me up that she called me brave. I'm not sure why, he was a good boy! Maybe the windshield wiper thing?

Anyway, I still have a big smile on my face after that I'm looking forward to our continued improvement in this phase. We have a dressage lesson tomorrow so hopefully we'll get those halts ironed out a little bit before Morningside next weekend. Stay tuned for Part 2: The Jumpening.

The Physical Technical Ride

On Monday I tortured poor Red with another dressage lesson. My mom came along (so there's video that I'll upload if I get a chance but for today you get screen shots). In the truck on the way to the lesson, I observed to her that dressage lessons make me really nervous but that jumping lessons don't. She was like "You're weird."

Lex thinks everyone is weird

Red and I are still struggling with getting the whole package together. He's great in that he's relaxed and he never feels like he's about to melt down or be naughty, so we really can school everything on a 20m circle forever. Which is boring, but it does have to get done.

I look bored. He, surprisingly, doesn't.

M pointed out that he's a lot harder than Mo because Red is a physical ride and Mo is just a technical ride, and that he's harder than the second level horse we had in over the summer because that horse was just a physical ride and Red is a technical ride. So being both of those things at this point in his life is making it harder for me, the non-dressage rider, to get him to stay connected for more than a stride. I really do have to half-halt every other stride right now or he just gets away from me completely.

This pretty much looks like my life

The other thing that kind of sucks right now is that there aren't any exercises that can help us with this except the 20m circle. Spiral the circle and I'll lose his shoulders. Change directions and he'll fall apart. He just has to stay on the circle and stay round, and until we can do that there's not a lot else to do, except counterbend when he tries to sneak his outside shoulder away from me. Also, I'm not allowed to really sit back at this point, because it shoots him forward and flat, so excuse the "tipping" in the pics. It was kind of killing me, which I guess is how we know I'm getting DQed.

Here are some nuggets of wisdom from M:

"He gets that shoulder stuck over on the outside and then he needs to counterbend."

But I don't need to slouch, gross

"BE. BOSSY."

"Ride half-halt to half-halt so it doesn't get away from you."

"You should be half-halting nearly every stride on this horse."

"As he masters this, he'll be able to maintain it by himself longer, but right now, he's only ever been in a false frame, he's only ever been in a gadget."

"Keep the tempo slow enough that you can put your leg on." (Not advice she'd give me on Mo, ha!)

"You're the side reins, he has to give to you."

"I know this is boring, tedious work, but it's the work that has to get done."

"It's a lot of work, right? You're like, 'This can't be right, I'm doing too much.' But not yet! You'll get maybe one stride of 'Good boy!' and then it's back to it."

A lot of what she said was "outside rein, outside rein, outside rein." I am eagerly awaiting being done with this stage of life with him, because I think when we unlock it, things will progress quickly.

A New Gear?

I'm always telling my preschool kids that whining and complaining endlessly doesn't get them what they want. I've also had to tell Mo this repeatedly. "I hate your leg!" "Well then go forward and I'll stop kicking." Etc.

As Denny Emerson says, the horse would always rather be eating grass than doing whatever you want to do.

But maybe my whining and complaining on here about how hard it is to get Mo's butt in gear has worked and the Forward Fairies have heard me. On Tuesday, the little guy had the best trot work that he has had yet. The transitions within the gaits were outstanding, and when I asked for a longer stride down the long side, I got a true lengthening. His withers came up 2". I nearly wept.

He know he cool

I hopped off soon after, because if the horse shows up and does things that have been hard for him exactly right, his ride can be over.

Then yesterday we had a jump school, with fences ranging from about 2'6"-2'9". M wants to get rid of this lazy little stall-step he does in front of some of his fences, so she had me tap him with the whip behind my leg just before the fence. After doing that a couple times, that step was gone, and his first time over the liverpool oxer was the best jump I'd had on him yet.

One of these days I'll get a decent picture of a jump school. Anyway, you can see the oxer with the rocks in front of Mo. The oxer on the other side is the liverpool. Up centerline is a one-stride, vertical to oxer. Then there are the two nearest verticals. There are several exercises in this school. I started by trotting and cantering the verticals when they were a hole down, then I angled the vertical of the one-stride heading towards the barn off each lead. All of that was peachy. I caught both oxers and the one-stride. No problemo, especially after I tapped him on the way over the rocks the first time. M hiked everything up a hole or two and we went for a somewhat more technical course.

In the next set, we did a bending line from the vertical nearest to Mo's ear there to the liverpool (rides a little funky) and from the other vertical to the rocks (rides great). He was a little green to the liverpool the first time and caught it on the half stride, but in the second go-round I was able to settle him after the first vertical and it went better. Then M broke the news that we'd be doing the one-stride then bending two-strides to one or the other vertical. She told me to slow the exercise down in my head so that there would be time going into the last jump. The first time, turning to the right, we just missed. Green horse, I could have taken a half-halt that would have made it work out. The second time to the right was fine, and then the third time, when we went left instead, was flawless. He was done, we went for a walk. I think he was very pleased with himself.

Today we went on another walk, on the buckle, all around the property by ourselves. He was pleased and relaxed the whole time. Tomorrow another dressage lesson, and then Loch Moy! (Oh, because the Gordonsdale thing got canceled so it's off to run elementary at Loch Moy instead.)

First-ever trail riding ears pic!

I'm so happy to see that my horse is enjoying his work right now. I hope he has as much fun on Saturday as I plan to.

Goals Check-In

After some up-and-down rides lately (or, rather, some up-and-down feelings about my riding), I thought I'd look back to February and see what I thought I could accomplish this year, about 2/3 of the way through it, and see how realistic my expectations were.

Mo
Schooling:
1. Get the right lead figured out. He's a left-lead addict. There's nothing wrong with him physically. We've gotten there before, where it wasn't a big deal. We can get there again. This means cantering a lot.



Achievement unlocked. He picks up the right lead now, unless he's having a temper fit and trying to pick a fight with me, but we can work through it in about half a circle.
 
2. Get the transitions on both leads to happen without a big leap forward or a lot of fuss. I think this is mostly for me to work on.

Yep.
 
3. Have a canter I can ride a bit--nothing serious, but steering would be nice. [Are we sensing a theme?]
Donesies. He canters as part of his warmup now, like a normal horse, and is coming round in the canter too.
 
4. Lose the standing martingale. I have nothing against standing martingales, but he's not going to be a show hunter, and I don't want to feel like I have to have it to keep my nose in place. I'm mostly still using it because the canter is such a hot mess, but once that's all fixed up I think we'll be fine.

The standing has been hanging on a hook in my bedroom for months now.
 
5. Once he's in regular work again, quit lunging.
Lunging? What's lunging? I only lunge him now if we're off the farm and he's up.

Showing:
1. Take him to that adorable hunter show at the end of March. I don't care what classes we enter; I just want us to have a good time and for him to settle in.

That show didn't happen, but plenty of others have!

2. M told me the schedule for the spring but I forgot it already. I think we're going to the Maryland Horse Trials twice, the Middleburg HT, and something else. Mo will go in the elementary division, which is unrated. I'm not planning on switching back to eventing, but I think this will be marvelous for his confidence. My goals for these are to get him into and out of the dressage ring in one piece, and to give him a confident ride over jumps.
 I didn't go to all the stuff Mary did this spring, a lot of them ended up not having intro or elementary divisions. But he handled the spring season well, and my fall season starts in a week. Whee!

Okay. So I met all those goals and then some. I think that I set the bar really low because winter was so frustrating that I thought I'd never get any horse training done again. In addition to those things we can:
Leg yield at the trot
Develop a fabulous connection, even if we can't do it all the time, in all three gaits
Pick up a canter on whichever lead and go jump an entire course of 2'6" jumps in a nice rhythm
Jump a grid with a 3' oxer out
Do all the necessary elements of XC

Mo needs some new goals. I'll think about what I want to write down and post something soon.

And now for Red. This isn't gonna be as pretty a picture.

Schooling:
1. Get some fitness on him by hacking out regularly.

Okay, so far, so good.

2. Establish a good connection to the bit in the trot work (he's broke, but he's a jumper, and so his contact can be a little... inconsistent). I foresee dressage lessons with M.
The dressage lessons have been happening. The good connection is REALLY hit-or-miss. I'm pretty much constantly frustrated at how hard this is. Retraining SUCKS.

3. Canter over some small jumps every two weeks or so, once fitness has been achieved.
Ummmmm no.

4. See if he'll go XC schooling or if he'll take one look at the water or the banks or whatever and head for the bloody hills.
Also no.

There's time to achieve the goals with Red, still. And my priorities for him have shifted around a little, so I'm not sure XC is really in his future. I don't know. Until we can get #2 done, the rest of it is moot for me. I hadn't set any showing goals, but I did take him to one show and had a good time. Maybe more of those will happen this fall.

I'm happy with how much farther Mo has come than I thought he would, but Red, not so much. That's the difference between "made from scratch" and "fixing someone else's horrendous training methods." I know many of y'all are feeling me there.

Right Leg Gone Wrong

I've had some super rides on Mo this week, and I think we are very close to leveling up in his flatwork. Mostly, I just have to be on top of my timing with the aids and he gives up the head tossing and moves off my leg. He also had quite a productive jump school, about 2'6", with angled jumps and bending lines. Horse jumps right over the liverpool and he's getting much braver about the rocks.

But lesson recaps with no relevant media are gonna get boring, I think. So I want to focus on the biggest weakness in my riding and see what input I can get from you cool folks.

The bottom line is, my right leg is kind of out of control right now. It shoots out forward unless I really think about it. It does this in both saddles, but more in the dressage saddle than the jump saddle. It's not all the time, but it's often enough that it's bugging me, and I expect this has something to do with why Mo takes more offense to my right leg than my left. My left leg is fine. My legs aren't symmetrical anyway, thanks to the massive ankle break I had a few years ago. That ankle is mostly hardware at this point and my left leg just looks bigger than my right as a consequence. So that could be part of it, but I'm not totally convinced that's it.

Let's travel through time, shall we? See where we are.

Lex's fifth ride, spring 2013

Here everything looks fine, leg-wise. It's the top of the post but I was able to be secure because my leg was under me. And yes, those are loose horses nearby. Same 40-acre field. With a rogue mare (she was on the gate list and the paddock list at Mountaineer) who'd stood in a field for years and then I got on her. She was pretty perfect until her head started to hurt, you guys.

Sales horse, summer 2013

Same horse

Again, we're okay here. So maybe my right leg issues hadn't shown up yet?

Such a nice mare this was. Summer 2013.

 Still okay, maybe I'm holding on with my knees a bit too much here.

Pics like this haunt me now that I know she was brewing bursitis.
Fall 2013

 My position in the above picture looks weird to me, probably because I didn't know how to ride a barely-broke horse who wanted to trot with her nose on the ground.

Looks like it's creeping forward here. January 2014.

LEX YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL.

Creeeeeeeeeping

Tracy took this! Spring 2014.

 There it is. The creep that continues to plague me. I'll always remember this as one of the best rides I ever had on Lexi, and I'm so glad Tracy was there to see it.

Late spring 2014

 In the picture above I'm bracing against the iron a little, but it's not as bad as the previous picture.

Seneca showing me how little inside rein is necessary

 In the picture above my leg is a little bit back, I must have been asking him for something. Seneca is retired fully now, and I miss riding him so much.

Brian Ross clinic, March 2015

 My right leg is halfway to shooting here, I think. Also my shoulders are hunchy.

Spring 2015

 Soooo like sometimes having my right leg ahead of me isn't the worst?

Spring 2015

 HA! Feet on the dashboard! My left leg might have looked like this too but my body looks twisted (more on that in a moment) so I think it was probably where it belonged.  Don't you all just want to buy Mo based on this picture?

JUMP, July 2015

 So it does tend to stay where I put it in the air much of the time.

JUMP

 But, see, there's this crookedness in my body that also shows up over fences. Let's back up to the frame before this.

I can't win Rolex if I have that jump form asleep in me somewhere. I mean, 2' hay bales. What the heck?

Yuck. Sorry, Red. Summer 2015

If my right leg wasn't out in front of me I would really like this picture.

So that's all the pictures I have that show my right leg doing anything interesting. Lay it on me: What do you think my problem is, and how should I fix it?