Archive
>I can’t sleep, so…
>…. want to hear about my ride?
It was a pretty good one, although Tucker was a little distracted. The wind was pretty strong this evening, and my one complaint about my awesome super-sized indoor is that when the wind blows, the sides turn into giant tuning forks and they make this rather loud vibration noise that sounds sort of like the gong show. (Or maybe more cowbell? Told you, I can’t sleep. I’m punchy.)
So every time that noise sounded, Tucker lost focus for a minute. I’d get him nice and straight and then the noise would start and he’d just ever so slightly twist his head in that direction and shift just enough that I’d lose the straightness, or he’d bring his head up to look, and slow down a little, and I’d have to re-establish the forward momentum. All in all, not huge issues, but kind of annoying. My hope is that he’ll get so used to the noise that eventually he won’t react at all.
I wanted to work tonight on keeping him straight, especially tracking to the right when he wants to overbend to the inside, and since I needed to keep him focused, I did this with lots and lots of figures, reverse turns, half circles, big circles, little circles, serpentines, figure eights, leg yields, all the time thinking about turning his shoulders off my outside aids. I basically need to keep my left leg on, my left rein to left hip, and keep my right hand giving and flexible while I am tracking right. Since he’s developed a comfort zone of being over-flexed right, I pretty much can’t stop thinking about these aids, or he falls back into the wrong place. Sort of like when you are trying to fix something in your own position (like my right elbow, which appears to belong to a very perturbed chicken, or a little tea pot).
I did a lot of work at the walk tonight so that I could concentrate on my position and my aids. Once I felt my horse start traveling straight, balanced, and forward, I knew I was doing the right thing. Then we’d move up to the trot, and when I’d lose it, I’d come back to the walk and get myself centered again.
I’ve also started working a lot of walk-halt-walk transitions into my rides, working really hard on not letting him lean into the bridle at any point in those two transitions, and making him stay connected back to front and straight. I swear, sometimes I feel like he’s bargaining with me. “Okay, I’ll stay light up front, but how ’bout if I swing my hips right? No? Okay well I can stay straight, but I’m going to fling my head up in the air and get disconnected. Still no good? How about hips left? Really, no? Okay, fine, picky-picky. Sheesh.”
To test the straightness, I worked with a cavaletti that was set up on the center line in the middle of the ring, concentrating again on turning his shoulders and not letting him bulge to the outside to give himself more room (which he does a lot over fences). I had a breakthrough moment at one point toward the end of the ride. I was trying to keep him straight, tracking right, and he kept blowing me off, and then we’d get to the cavaletti on the half-stride because he was crooked and it was changing the track and the pace. I actually said out loud to him, “You know why this is happening right? Because you’re ignoring me?” (Yeah, I really do expect him to be able to rationalize. Yes, I do realize that’s insane. What’s your point?)
I came around the next time and decided not to protect him. THWACK. He smacked his right hind on the cavaletti, hard enough to make a horrible noise. I cantered off and thought, well, I guess that’s what happens when you don’t listen. Amazingly, the next three times he decided he could actually respond to my outside aids. He stayed straight, and we had no trouble cantering over the cavaletti right out of stride. Huh. Lighbulb moment. I protect this horse way too much.
Once we successfully completed this exercise, it felt like a good place to quit for the night. So we ended with our big stretchy trot and I told him he was a good boy. All in all, it felt like I accomplished a lot, even if the ride wasn’t always that pretty or smooth. We had some really lovely trotting and cantering moments where he was nicely balanced and straight, made some substantial progress with the walk-halt-walk transitions, and the cavaletti exercise toward the end definitely taught me something.
Okay, I have a lesson tomorrow morning so I really need to get some sleep. I’ll be counting minature ponies (more fun that counting sheep, right?). Hope you are all sleeping soundly with visions of sugar plums dancing in your heads….
>A Nice Ride, and the Bit Search Continues
>This is Take Two of this post… Blogger ate the one I wrote last night, so I’m rewriting it while I eat my lunch. (Good excuse to turn the lawyer-brain off for a few minutes).
Tucker and I had a very nice ride last night. We ended up with the company of two horses in the ring, which you know my horse was very, very happy about. No need to stare at the door tonight, he had friends!
We flatted tonight in a french link full cheek snaffle that Alicia loaned us. We used this bit in my lesson last Friday as well, and at first I hated it, but after a while of flatwork, I started to like it. What I like about it is that I can take more than just a light feel of his mouth in this, without him getting behind the vertical (which isn’t always the case in the twisted Dr. Bristol), but the bad news is that he has a major tendency to lean on it. So, it takes a lot of strength on my part (both hand and leg) to keep him balanced, which isn’t really what I’m looking for. Next up will be a full cheek Dr. Bristol, which I found online for a good price (plus a $10 off coupon code).
We started out last night in a long-and-low, stretching, forward trot. It was cold, so I just wanted his muscles to get warmed up and relaxed. As he started to feel more fluid, I started adding in some smaller circles in different spots around the ring, where he’d get a little more elevated (letting the circle collect him a bit) and then ask for a bigger trot down the longsides, down the center line, the quarter line, or across the diagonal. I was hoping that allowing the circle to collect him might eleviate some of the leaning. It worked somewhat, but his first reaction is to use my hands as a crutch, instead of using his hind end, which means a lot of leg and seat and trying not to give in to his leaning by letting my reins get longer or my position fall forward, so he only gets a release once he starts supporting himself.
Then we added in some lateral movements at the walk and trot: haunches in, then shoulder in, then some leg yields, which he executed very, very well. He got a little stuck doing the haunches in tracking left but when I applied a little more inside leg at the girth (instead of all outside leg) I got him coming forward. His lateral work is getting really strong (and the lead changes are getting better… I’m thinking that could mean he’s actually getting stronger behind like I had hoped!).
From there we moved to our counterbending circles, spiraling down from a big circle to a small one, and then changing back to inside bend and spiraling out. The counterbending really got him to balance and he actually was very light in my hands at that point. When I changed back to the inside bend tracking left, though, he swung his haunches way out to the right (common evasion tactic of his). Since I couldn’t get control over him using my outside aids (kind of blowing off my outside rein), I went to a shoulder-out until I had control of his hind end. Then we went back to the inside bend and it was much straighter.
After a walk break, I used these counterbending circles as a platform for his canter transitions, which were absolutely fantastic. Tracking right, I asked for a counterbending circle (bent left), and once he got lighter up front and stepping under with his inside hind, I’d turn left out of the circle and ask for a left lead canter. Then I’d come back to the trot, start on a left circle, counterbending right, and once he was light and soft, turn right and ask for a right lead canter, and repeat. His transitions were awesome, he stayed round, and soft, and stepped right up into my hands. Such a good boy!
I had a little trouble with him bulging through his left shoulder in the right lead canter, so I modified the spiraling down circle exercise a little bit, asking him to straighten (not counterbend) and pushing him in with my outside leg (which took a little more spur), but not making the circle as small as I do at the trot. This helped, though it felt like more of a struggle than I would normally like because he really wanted to lean and bend right. Then we finished up with some more long and low trotting and stretching down in both directions, and he felt even more relaxed and loose and balanced than when we started.
All in all, it was a really nice ride. And, the dressage rider that we were sharing the ring with asked us what Level we compete at! Ha! Not too shabby for a hunter princess huh? I’m starting to think this horse really could do anything. I wonder if he’d cut cattle?
>In search of new hardware
>Tucker and I are in need of a new bit for our flat work. We’ve been using the full cheek rotary bit for over a year (photo here) and it’s now not producing the results I like. We started using it because each side moves independently (the whole bit twists back and forth, hence the “rotary” name), and we used to have major problems with him grabbing the left side of the bit. That problem seems to be gone now, and I think was fixed in large part due to good chiropractic work and a flash noseband, which keeps him from crossing his jaw.
The problems I’m having now with that bit are leading me to conclude that it’s worn out its use, especially given that his flat work is great in either the hackamore or his jumping bit. In the rotary, he leans on it at times, especially when he gets tired and doesn’t want to keep using his hind end. He also roots the reins out of my hands in it when he doesn’t want to work, or sometimes on landing from the jumps (especially if he’s anticipating a lead change). Lastly, especially when I’m asking him to accept the right rein (as opposed to the left), he doesn’t accept the bit well. Instead of maintaining a steady contact with my hand, he flips his nose up and down a little (not violently or anything, but enough to disrupt whatever we’re trying to do), or he’ll try to come above my hand. In short, he used to like this bit, but he seems to have no respect for it anymore.
All these problems go away in the bit we use for jumping and shows, which is a full cheek copper Dr. Bristol with a slow twist. I know that Dr. Bristols can be harsh when in the wrong hands, because if you yank on the horse you’ll dig the narrow side of the center plate into your horse’s tongue, but I’m very gentle with my hands. According to Wikipedia, when used with a full cheek with keepers (as I do), the plate lies flat against the tongue because the bit’s position in the mouth is kept stable. I’m not sure if that’s accurate or not though, because I haven’t read that elsewhere. What I do know is that for Tucker, it’s the magic bit. He doesn’t lean on it, he never roots the reins out of my hands, he responds immediately when I need him to collect down the lines without much pressure from me, and on the flat I can keep a soft following feel and it rests comfortably in his mouth. I love the copper mouth, which really seems to make him foam up and accept the bit nicely. But while I love this bit, I’d really like to use a milder bit to do my flat work, and save that one for jumping lessons and horse shows.
Last night I tried a dee ring copper roller that I have, and he was better — no nose flipping, and he accepted both reins pretty consistently at the trot. Unfortunately, there was a lot of leaning. We did some work cantering over cavaletti and when I’d ask him to collect to add a stride, he leaned on my hand instead of compressing between my hand and leg. It was also really tough to keep him from bulging through his outside shoulder in this bit because my outside half-halts were mostly ignored, which made me have to use a little stronger half-halt than I normally like. So, that bit’s not quite right.
I think the Dr. Bristol piece in our other bit is what keeps him from leaning or rooting, because if he leans, the plate in the center will increase tongue pressure. This has the added bonus of me not having to change anything in my hand to stop the leaning, so it’s more of a self-correction, which I think makes him learn more quickly. So, on Friday for my lesson with Alicia, we’re going to try a plain full cheek Dr. Bristol (no copper, no slow twist). I wish they made a copper mouth without the slow twist, but I can’t find one.
If I’m not happy with the plain Dr. Bristol, I’m going to have to start trying other options. I know that he doesn’t like loose rings, which makes me think he probably doesn’t like all the movement a loose ring causes. I also know he hates the Waterford mouthpiece. He goes best in a full cheek with bit keepers, which is a very stable bit (not a lot of movement in the corners of his mouth). He also goes pretty well in dee ring bits, which are also fairly stable (more so than a loose ring or an egg butt). I definitely want something that either has two breaks in it, or is curved so that the center break doesn’t cause pressure on the roof of his mouth.
Here are the ones I’ve been thinking of trying, though I’m not entirely sure that I want to spend the money on some of the more expensive ones without knowing they’re going to work:
OV Curve Full Cheek
OV Curve Dr. Bristol Dee Ring
JP Slow Twist Full Cheek
Ovation Elite Full Cheek
Stubben EZ Control Full Cheek
Sprenger KK Ultra Full Cheek
Maybe if the plain Dr. Bristol works well, I can use that for a while until we’ve eliminated the leaning/rooting behavior (just like we eliminated the grabbing the left side/jaw crossing with the rotary and flash). At that point, once he’s gotten stronger and he’s staying balanced consistently, I can go to something that doesn’t apply any tongue pressure, but is a comfortable, ergonomic design, like the last three above. I’d really like to get him to the point in his flat work where we can use a very simple, gentle bit that he’s happy about. It’s possible that we’re not quite there yet in our flat work though. Everything’s a work in progress….
Any suggestions or things I haven’t thought of?
>Renaissance Man
>What’s the only thing that could possibly be better than your horse returning a loose baby draft horse to his home, spending 2 1/2 hours on the trails wandering through the woods, galloping through hay fields, keeping his trail mate calm and relaxed, and walking home on the buckle, in a hackamore? That same horse spending the next day in the ring for a lesson, getting down to business doing some serious flat work and jumping around a 3′ course. He is truly a renaissance man. The kind of man I’ve always dreamed of, in fact. Up for anything, dependable, reliable, smart, brave, honest, devastatingly handsome….
On Sunday we went for a lesson at Alicia’s farm. I spent Saturday afternoon body clipping him after our trail ride, so he was looking extra gorgeous, all dark and sleek and shiny (another plug for SmartShine). Before my lesson we discussed my lesson with Sarah, which was very helpful. (Note: This is the mark of a truly great trainer who is not an egomaniac — something hard to come by in the horse world. Alicia appreciates the benefit of getting another trainer’s perspective and wanted to discuss it with me, as opposed to so many other trainers out there who would completely lose it at the thought of their students ever doing anything so disloyal and sacreligious as taking a lesson elsewhere — heaven forbid! Do you know that some trainers don’t even let their students take clinics? Talk about insecure… sheesh. But I digress.)
We started off at the walk asking him to do some lateral movements to get him stepping under with his inside hind leg in both directions. Then we did the beginnings of a turn on the haunches. We didn’t worry too much about maintaining an inside bend (that can come later). Instead, we started off on a small circle and spiraled it down, focusing on keeping him coming forward as the circle got smaller until I was asking him to turn on his haunches, pushing him off my outside leg. He got the concept right away and did this really well in both directions. This was a good exercise to get him engaged behind and coming forward, and light on both reins.
Once Tucker was warmed up at the trot, we worked on some collection and extension exercises. We would do a small circle in the corner asking him to collect, letting him elevate his frame a little, with a slight shoulder-fore to avoid letting him bulge through his shoulder to avoid collecting. Then Alicia had me follow with my hands for an extension coming out of the circle (so my hands slid about 4-5 inches toward his ears) and Tucker reached down for the bit and held a longer, more relaxed frame, in front of the vertical and stretching down and out, but he stayed light in front and pushing from behind for the extended trot (we’re not talking about the kind of “extension” that I see in dressage tests here, mind you, just a bigger trot than his regular working trot). For Tucker’s conformation and build, this is a great exercise for him. It really makes him work hard and push from behind, but stay relaxed through his back and swing through his shoulder.
In the canter, we worked on getting a similar carriage out of him on a big circle. Once we had a good, engaged canter in his normal working frame on the circle, I followed more with my hands and used a lot more leg and seat to push him forward and get him to stay engaged but in a bigger canter and a more relaxed, lower frame. He did the same thing he did at the trot, when I gave with my hands he followed and reached down for the bit but stayed light (good boy!), though it was hard to hold the canter together and not let him get strung out (my thighs were burning!). We could tell this was really making him work, because after holding this canter for two circles he broke back to the trot right out from underneath me, which made us laugh (“Um, guys? This is super hard? Trot now? Please?”).
We re-established our canter and then worked on figure-eighting a set of cavaletti, where we had no trouble getting the left to right change but could not get the right to left. I had a couple of little break throughs on the lead change issue (or, Alicia did but somehow also managed to get the concepts through to me too). First, Tucker likes to bend right, so when I go for my right to left change, he’s bent right, not straight. So, when I ask for the change, he just falls in with his left shoulder, swaps in front, swings the hips out and there’s no chance we’ll get a full change. Second, I sometimes try to ride my 17hh warmblood like he’s a 12hh welsh pony. I stand in my stirrups and lean for the lead change (this doesn’t really work with little welsh ponies either, but I think when you weigh 65 lbs it doesn’t really matter what you do up there). I also plant my hands on his neck when he raises his head and gets quick for the change. This move is also known as RVB: riding very badly.
We then carried our cavaletti exercise over to figure-eighting a small jump in the center of the ring, landing and turning right, then landing and turning left. We worked on the same thing, getting him straight instead of bent right. When he’s bent right coming to the jump, this turns into bulging through the left shoulder, drifting left, landing on the right lead, and missing the right to left change (see how this is all connected?). When we come to the jump straight, with a little counterbend out of the turn, he stays straight to the fence, the distance works out better, and he’s more likely to land his lead in the direction we’re going, or get his right to left change. (Remember that line from Cocktail with Tom Cruise? “Light dawns on marble head!”)
Next we jumped this same fence bending left 5 strides to another small vertical, landing right. I find these short bending lines exceedingly difficult, even when the jumps are itty bitty. HP’s do bending lines in 10 strides, across the entire diagonal of a huge hunter ring, where you have plenty of room to find your track and get straight for the last few strides. 5 stride bending lines make us nauseous. You have to count and turn at the same time. It’s madness. So, the first time we did it in 6 (we got a little, er, lost). Then I came through the turn to the first fence with more pace (reminder from previous lessons — jump in with more pace if we want more pace in the line itself) and we got 5, but jumped out huge (I thought there was one more, he didn’t). The next time, Tucker knew where we were going and helped me out a little (this horse is going straight to heaven one day), so we did it a little more directly and the 5 worked out perfectly.
Lastly, we did some course work. Started out with the bending line in 5, landing right, then long approach to a single 3′ oxer on the outside off the right, then the triple (vertical-oxer-vertical) across the diagonal, landing left, and then a forward 6 down the outside line, vertical to oxer. As opposed to my last couple of lessons, this time we did the triple in a collected four to a forward three, and the last vertical was set at 3’3″ (the rest of the line was around 2’6″/2’9″). The first time the bending 5 was great, but the outside oxer was a little tight. I have a bad habit of taking my leg off when I see the distance, instead of keeping my leg on and stay still. But, because he backed himself off and I stayed back with my upper body, he jumped it well anyway. We landed left and missed the change, so I did a small circle (which was part of the plan) and asked for a little counter-bend on the way in to the triple. We jumped in quietly, put in the four strides neatly, and then I gave him a big release in the air over the oxer, landed sending him forward, kept my arms following and my leg on, and he made it there in three strides easily. Then, since I knew that the last line was forward and he landed forward, I tried to maintain that pace all the way around the corner and the six was beautiful. I’m starting to realize that I can actually signal in the air when I want him to land forward through how much of a release I give him: I can either land with a little feel or land with a following hand and almost no contact at all, and that changes how big his first landing stride is (I think I used to know this, once upon a time, and I’m re-figuring it out).
We did this course twice more and each time it got a little smoother. I was so pleased with his adjustability. He had to stay collected for the five stride bending line, then get a good, steady rhythm to the oxer, then collect for the four, move up for the three, and go forward for the six. I never would have thought he’d be adjustable enough to do a collected four to a forward three in the same line, that was such a huge accomplishment for him. We finished by doing the oxer just one more time and I changed my track a little to get a slightly better distance, which we did. He jumped it fabulously, and then we landed left and I remembered to lift my hand when I asked for the lead change and I got it. Love ending on that note!
>Live from New York
>Good morning Tucker fans! We are blogging to you live from HITS-on-the-Hudson IV, where the Wunderkind is completely living up to his name. He has been fabulous so far, and I am convinced that I am the luckiest girl in the world. I can honestly say I’m not taking one second of this for granted.
First of all, this is my favorite horse show. There are a million places to ride, including a HUGE schooling ring for the hunters (so big it fits about six schooling jumps across the middle, lined up end to end, with plenty of room in between and on either end for multiple horses to pass each other in both directions. The footing is perfect in the schooling rings, the show rings, even the lunging area. The rings are a nice size for Tucker, and the lines are set up just right for him. The jumps are pretty but not intimidating. Everyone has been incredibly nice, from the people working in the horse show office who patiently answer questions, to the guys at the in-gates who constantly have to juggle the order to get everyone in the ring, to the grounds crew who wait for your horse to walk by before driving their big fork lift past you. This is just a well-run, beautiful, fun horse show that I look forward to all year.
And the horses! You have never seen so many beautiful horses in one place in your whole life. One after another, they parade past you like Breyer horses come to life, in their beautiful tack and their fancy scrim sheets. You look across the schooling ring and it is a sea of fat, shiny, gorgeous athletes doing their thing. Back at the barns they walk around peaceful and contented with their day’s work, totally comfortable with life on the road. I love them all. Hunters, jumpers, eq horses, ponies… they are all spectacular. I have to force myself not to gawk sometimes, some of them are just so painfully lovely.
And then there’s my fabulous boy. He has been everything a girl could ask for. We got here on Tuesday afternoon around 4:30, unpacked, settled him into his stall and then went for a quick lunge until our eyes went back into our head. Then we joined Alicia and Outsider, Kathleen and Reggie, and Dana and Joe for a ride down in the Grand Prix schooling ring. Tucker felt springy and loose and so happy to be working. We worked on some lead changes. The left-to-right was perfect every time. The right-to-left we were having a little trouble with, so Alicia watched a few and coached me through it. The aids are very simple: it’s both hands, both legs, keep him straight, send him forward, and then signal the change with an outside spur as he’s beginning his canter stride. He can make things complicated because he starts bouncing up and down or winging his head around trying to grab one rein or the other, but when he stays focused and relaxed, they are easy for him. We got one after a couple of tries, and then quit with that.
On Wednesday, Alicia showed him in the Low Hunters, and we think his second round was the best one he’s ever done. He was relaxed, and adjustable, and jumping round but softly. He was nice and straight through the two-stride. And he got his changes! We were leaving it up in the air whether I would show him or Alicia would in the first class yesterday (Thursday) but since he was so fabulous, we decided I would do both rounds.
Yesterday, I did the Low Hunter undersaddle at 7:30 a.m., and he was 4th out of 12! Amongst some very fancy horses, so I was extremely pleased with him. He hacked very well, but got a little worried in the second direction canter when a horse played a little right behind him, so I never got him quite fully relaxed in that canter. Still though, he didn’t do anything naughty despite the commotion behind him, just raised his head a little, so I can’t penalize him for it. Then we had about 2 hours until his turn in the order to do his jumping rounds, so we went back to the barn and put him back in his stall to hang out for a while. I heard them say they had only seen the first 15 horses at 9:15, so I knew they were running a little behind, and took my time getting ready. Then we made our way down to the ring (which is about a ten minute walk) and met up with Alicia and the rest of the crew. (I love our barn. We all come watch each other’s rounds, and it makes me feel so good to cheer on my friends and have them there supporting me.) Alicia had just done a great round on Outsider so we looked at pictures and joked around a bit before it was time for me to start warming up.
I did some flat work, some shoulder-ins and leg yields to get him accepting both reins, and worked on getting a forward, rolling, balanced canter. Then we jumped a cross rail and three oxers, and he was perfect, so we headed up to the in-gate. (I love that he doesn’t need to jump much before he’s ready for the ring. It really makes me feel like we are saving him up for a long career.)
Our jumping classes were awesome! He was adjustable, and quiet, and I actually had to close my leg a little and send him forward (and remembered to do it!). When I wanted him to move up, I just had to squeeze a little and he’d respond, and when I needed to collect, I just had to sit up tall and use my seat, without really changing anything in my hand. Ideal!
And…. drumroll please… we got our right-to-left changes in both classes!!! We decided to have me wear a little pair of spurs since he was so quiet the day before, and it made all the difference in the world for the changes. I usually wear spurs at home, but not in the show ring, because he used to get so forward in the ring. But now that he’s so relaxed and quiet, that doesn’t seem to be a concern, and we thought it would help with the changes. For the rest of the course, I really don’t use them, just squeeze with my calves when I need him to move up. But when I wanted the right to left change in the first class, I asked pretty hard with my spur, and he gave it to me. Then in the second class, he knew I meant business, and I could feel him setting himself up for the right to left change in that corner, which is exactly what I want him to do.
In the lines, he was straight, adjustable, and jumping round but not jumping me loose. He only lost his straightness two times. One was in the first class, he drifted right in the two-stride, so Alicia reminded me to keep my weight in both heels evenly, and it was much straighter in the second class. The other time we lost our straightness, we had a long approach to a single oxer on the diagonal, off the right lead, and he just wanted to bulge through his left shoulder and grab the left rein a little, but I think I managed it well. I decided to sit down, collect the canter and get him straight with my left rein and leg, and add a stride. We did, the jump was good, and I was able to get him straight by the time we a couple of strides out. I was a little worried that it was going to look like a chip, but Alicia said I worked it out well.
So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I am living on Cloud Nine right now. Today he just goes for a light hack, and then we do the Adult Hunters Saturday and Sunday. Off to the horse show for me to cheer on the rest of the Whitmere team!
>Every dog has its day dog, but today dog just ain’t yours
>
That would have been my theme song for yesterday’s horse show.
Frankly, it was a bit of a disaster, and I had a nervous breakdown on horse back. It wasn’t pretty. The day started off just like any other horse show. He lunged quietly, Alicia warmed him up and he had a bit of a temper tantrum about a lead change in the schooling ring but he was good after that. She did one round and he was good. Then I got on, and it was brutally hot but he schooled fine in the schooling ring. I had plenty of time to stand in the shade, learn my course, watch a few trips. I actually didn’t feel that nervous.
Then we went up to the ring and the jumps started looking big, which isn’t unusual for me (they usually grow about a foot in the few minutes before I am about to jump them), but I thought I was going to settle down once I got in the ring. And when I trotted in and looked around I actually felt pretty confident. They didn’t look as big once I was in there, the ring really is elevated and the jumps do look bigger from outside the ring (so they weren’t just lying to me to try and make me feel better).
They were dragging the jumper ring behind our ring, and Tucker felt like he wanted to spook at the huge tractor driving around, but I tried to just bend him in and ignore it. The first jump was a single diagonal going toward home (away from the tractor) and I told myself that once we got to that half of the ring he’d be fine. Well, I must have been stiff and tense on the way to that fence because he landed and did his leaping/broncing/crow hopping routine which scares the bejeezus out of me. I made a big circle and tried to get myself to calm down but I just couldn’t get it together. By the time I jumped the next fence I had myself so worked up that I couldn’t breathe and I was trembling like a leaf. So I gave up. I just make a right turn out of the middle of the diagonal line (and got a beautiful lead change, go figure) and came out of the ring. I think I saw a mixture of shock and confusion on the faces at the in gate. So, I explained, “I’m just having a panic attack.”
Alicia had to go walk the jumper course with Dana so I had a little while to regroup. When she came back, we went to the schooling ring and I jumped a vertical a few times and it was okay, not great, I couldn’t really get a canter that I liked because I was afraid to send him forward and afraid to hold so I was doing virtually nothing on the way to the fence, and probably needed to be doing something (something, that is, other than sitting there like a zombie). I actually felt like calling it a day right then and there but I hate when I wimp out like that, and I thought I’d feel so much better about myself if I could just go in the ring and get past this, so I forced myself to give it another go. I walked in the ring and begged Tucker to take care of me.
It should come as no surprise that the second round was also a disaster, with that kind of pep talk. The first fence was ugly. It was a single diagonal vertical off the left lead coming toward home. I had a crawling, going nowhere canter on the way to it and realized about two strides out that we were going to eat it, which we did. Not exactly graceful, but thankfully he didn’t land and lose it like he had the round before, so I thought maybe this will be okay. The next fence was a single oxer up the other diagonal, off the right lead. As I was coming to it, he was bulging so hard through his left shoulder that I could barely turn and couldn’t get him straight to it, so I had to make a circle. I came back around and got the same left bulge but was able to control it a little bit better, but he was still hanging on my left rein the whole way there. He landed and I got him straight and asked for the lead change, which he did. It wasn’t soft and relaxed and he pulled me through it, but at least he did it. Then the next line was an outside five coming toward home, off the left lead. We jumped in quietly so I closed my leg and moved him up for five. He drifted really far to the right though, which made the line even longer, and he jumped out over the oxer huge. The next line was the diagonal six, going away from the in gate (the line I turned out of in the last class). His head came up on the way in and his stride got a little shorter, so we ended up adding one more in than I had planned coming out of the corner, but I softened and moved up to get the six and although he was looking out of the end of the ring the whole way there, it was okay.
Then at the end of the ring, someone was going by in a golf cart and Tucker lost his mind, again. Leaping/hopping/spinning away from the bay-horse-eating-monster. All I could think was that we only had two more jumps and I could get out of there. I was trying so hard to be relaxed but there’s just no way I’m going to stay calm when he does things like that. I realize that on the scale of scary things horses do, this is pretty minor, but it terrifies me, nonetheless. I made a circle, and headed to the last line, which was a two-stride on the outside. I’m not really sure what happened because I was so nervous and scared that I wasn’t riding, really just blanking. We jumped from practically underneath the first fence, which meant my options were either to gun it out of there (likely causing an explosion on the other side), or try to cram three strides in there (which would make him jump straight up over the second fence, equal probability for explosion). So I chose Option C, and pulled him out of the line (the humiliating option). Trotted straight for the in gate, told Alicia I was done for the day, and walked back to the trailer.
It’s going to take me a few days to process what happened, figure out how to make it better next time, figure out why things went so very, very wrong after several good horse shows in a row. Maybe it’s outside stress that has nothing to do with Tucker, maybe it was sort of a spooky ring, maybe the only thing I did was get stiff through my arms on the way to the first fence and if I hadn’t, the day would have gone completely differently. Maybe my confidence was shattered from the start because he was fresh on Friday night, and did his leaping/hopping/broncing thing in my lesson on Saturday. Maybe I shouldn’t over-analyze it and just chalk it up as a fluke, a bad day.
On my walk back to the trailer I was feeling so defeated and had the following conversation with myself:
“Well do you want him to be a trail horse? Do you want to just ride him around the backyard?”
(frowning) “No.” (sniffle).
“Well, then, you are going to have days like this.”
Big sigh.
>Breakthrough
>
How lucky are we, horse people? Do you ever stop and think about it? On a regular old Wednesday night, I got to do something that made me feel thoroughly satisfied and completely elated. Do you ever think about the fact that people who don’t ride must get that feeling so much less frequently? Sure, they have other things that make them happy, but that walking-on-air, everything-is-right-with-the-universe feeling that we get after a good ride must be so hard to replicate in a life without horses. I am so grateful that a few nights a week I get to see this face and know that my life has meaning. This horse is such a blessing. >Good solid flatwork
>So my goal for this winter is to really delve deep into my flatwork with Tucker and make it right. Like all horses he is a work in progress, and since we’ve been training with Alicia his balance and self-carriage has improved by leaps and bounds. He understands collection now, which for a big guy like him is a huge feat. It’s amazing the horse he has become since he first moved into Whitmere last winter.
What I’m working on now is acceptance of my right rein. We have left rein issues — probably something that I unwittingly started and he has now taken and run with. I think it went something like this: He was a little stiff to the left, so I worked my left rein more, he became dependent on me using my left rein, and he now seeks the left rein contact all the time in both directions, to the point where he’s very uncomfortable taking the right rein. Does that make sense to everyone? The progression has happened over a number of years, and now we’re working on creating a more balanced Tucker, which of course has to start with me changing my behavior.
We worked on this during a flat lesson this past weekend, and I picked it back up last night. Basically, tracking left, I am using a counterbend to establish connection between my right hand and right leg, so that he’s actually turning off my outside aids. It’s so amateurish, but I have realized that I have gotten into the habit of turning him left with my left rein. And then his hips go right and he gets stiff on the left side. Tracking right it’s much better. He wants to bulge through his left shoulder and lean on the left rein so I just have to create a wall and keep his hind end moving forward into my hand with both legs.
By the end of the ride he was much more accepting of my right rein and I tried to get a little bit of a left bend by opening my left hand without taking back on my left rein and asking him to move away from my left leg into my right hand. Moments of success but overall as soon as he thought there was something to lean on in my left hand he wanted to get a little flat and heavy.
Yet again… I seem to have stumbled upon a gap in my riding knowledge. Why is it so important for them to turn off our outside aids? I know that’s what you are supposed to do, but why? Just for the reason I stated above, that otherwise the hips move out and they lose their bend or get heavy on the inside rein, or is there something more that I’m missing? And, how does it help me to counterbend, when what I want is acceptance of the outside hand on an inside bend? Is the counterbend just a means to an end? It does seem to help, don’t get me wrong. By the end of the ride I could at least track straight down the longside (without a counter or inside bend) and see in the mirror that without any left rein contact his hips were square behind his shoulder and he was moving straight and forward and light. I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Ultimately I think I’ll need to hash this out in my next lesson and hopefully I’ll report back with a little more knowledge.
The other thing we are working on is downward transitions. He wants to get heavy/stiff and I lose the hind end in the very last step of the transition. It’s a very subtle thing but something that could really use improvement. Walk to halt start off badly (he just wants to lean through them) but then he gets it and I can get really nice halt transitions off just my seat and leg. Trot to walk are getting much better, but it seems that he really doesn’t understand what I want at first. (“What? I walked. That’s what you said. What’s the problem now?”) I have, in lessons, gotten a few really nice trot-to-walk transitions though. So I know that it’s possible.
Canter to trot, still haven’t been able to get a transition that I’m happy with (sort of an emergency brake, horse falls out from underneath you type of transition). It has improved to some degree though, because his trot is well-balanced and soft right away, instead of heavy, too big, and overreaching for five strides. I’ve had to learn to keep my leg on through them, that helps a lot. And stay relaxed and tall through my back, sink deeper with my seat. Those things help. I sort of query what I’m supposed to be doing with my hands though. Reader thoughts on downward transitions?
>Blind faith
>Last weekend due to rain we had to do our lesson in the indoor. Alicia and I had dinner on Saturday night and she said she felt like Tucker could use some gymnastic work, so it actually worked out just fine.
Tucker used to have such trouble with gymnastics. He would hurry through them, never really sit back and use his hind end, which meant he would have a lot of trouble collecting his stride and end up kind of nose-diving by the last fence. I am happy to say he was much improved this time. This was the gymnastic by the end of the lesson:
We started with just the first vertical, set around 2’3″, and the second fence was just a vertical, not an oxer yet, and no ground poles. First time through, he wasn’t making much effort and just crawled over it the first couple of times. So Alicia added the 9′ trot rail out in front of the first fence and that helped. Once he started paying attention a little, Alicia made the second fence an oxer, set at 2’9″ with a 2’6″ spread. He was doing pretty well; I was having a little trouble not jumping over my hand.
Then Alicia came up with one of her typical strokes of genius — these are the reason we’ll never train with anyone else — and she made me close my eyes. I don’t think I’ve done this in years, but I remember having to jump through gymnastics like this when I was younger. It was pretty amazing. With my eyes closed, I had no choice but to follow his movement and as a result I had to be soft and following with my hands. And like magic, Tucker slowed down, thought about the gymnastic, and as a result started jumping better. We added the ground line between the first and second fence and I could feel him negotiating it. But of course, I had my eyes closed, so I couldn’t interfere. Blind faith. (How lucky am I, seriously? I have a 1200 lb. seeing-eye-dog.)
Then we added the third fence, which was a 3′ oxer with a 3′ spread. He jumped it awesome. Just rocked back on his hind end and jumped up really round and soft and slow. The next time through we added a ground rail between fences two and three, and I could feel him jump the second fence a little slower, land, canter one slow stride and then he jumped the last oxer even better. So cool. Only thing I didn’t like was that he was drifting right! For years we’ve struggled with a left drift, and now he’s going the other way. My theory is that because my eyes were closed and I was following so well with my hands, he was missing the left rein that he usually leans on (due to my bad habit of holding too much on my left rein), and as a result he went right. We’ll sort that out though. The important thing is that he handled the gymnastic well this time. He thought about it, he took his time, and he jumped really well.
We’re doing the gymnastic again tomorrow, and this time going to focus on my position over top of the fence. I could feel my lower leg falling back, which meant my center of gravity got pitched forward, and when he made that big effort and used that powerful hind end of his over the last oxer, I ended up having to peel myself off his neck on landing. So that was a little frustrating. Tomorrow, we are going to tie my stirrups to my girth. Another old trick I haven’t tried in years, but it will really help I think. I also am going to punch a few extra holes in my stirrup leathers so I can get a little leverage. Definitely can’t move up to showing at 3′ until I learn to stay with him, so this is definitely something we need to nail down.
I feel like I owe it to him to figure out how to stay with him when he gives me that much of an effort. Basically, my goal is just to learn to ride well enough to keep up with all the natural talent he has. It’s a funny thing, I think I get so impressed with him in the moment that I stop riding. I’m in the air over top of the fence I’m thinking “Wow, he’s jumping great” instead of concentrating on what I’m supposed to be doing, and then nano-seconds later I realize I’ve totally lost my position and we’re landing in a heap. But there are certainly worse problems to have than being a little starstruck by your own horse.
When I turned around after taking a few pictures of the gymnastic, Tucker was standing right where I left him. I realize he looks like a total giraffe in this shot, but he looked so cute just watching me walk around taking pictures, I had to take one of him. Part athlete, part goof. And I love every hair on his big old head.
I’ll let you know how gymnastics part II goes tomorrow. . . hopefully more good things to post!
>Rough lesson
>We interrupt our regularly scheduled Horse Show Journal (one more day at HITS to tell you about) to bring you a post about a decidedly rough lesson yesterday. There was a lot going on, and I think I just need to write about it to figure it all out.
He flatted reasonably well. We were working on getting him to hold his inside bend and not swing his hips to the outside. He was listening to my outside aids pretty well. He seems to hold the left bend much better and not swing his hips to the outside if I really step my weight into my left stirrup. This is tough because I need to keep my right leg on him at the same time, but when I can manage to do that, it works. He did get pretty distracted at the canter though, just wanted to look at and think about everything except me. I should have nipped this in the bud right then, because this carried over into the jumping.
We started off adding a little verticle into a canter circle. It was tiny, so I wanted a conservative distance, which at first he was just ignoring. But then Alicia told me to carry my hands and square my turn to it, and it immediately got better. I have a terrible habit of letting my reins get too long, burying my hands in my lap, and leaning over my hand. It’s so ineffective and I don’t know why I can’t stop doing it. But it’s a habit I am trying to break.
Then we did another little bending line, which I rode well. Again, these were tiny so I just got conservative distances. Then we did the same bending line, but this time instead of the little verticle on the out, we jumped a bigger oxer that was set beside it as the second fence. This is where the trouble started. I didn’t see anything, got him down there in nine and a half, and curled into a ball. Again, not very effective riding. He jumped it, diving left because that’s what he does when I bury him, took the top rail down with him, wasn’t too pleased about that. Then we started having problems with the little verticle jumping in. He wasn’t paying attention, didn’t leave the ground when I thought he would, and kept taking that rail down as well (very un-Tucker-like). Then I tried putting my leg on to get him to focus, that just goosed him and drove him past the distance. Finally jumped in decently enough to continue to the oxer. Worked it out in nine but the nine was actually tight this time. We then pulled my spurs, which did help. Except a couple of times he broke from the canter back to the trot (what am I, five?).
Next we added a verticle that was set on the center line in the middle of the ring, off the right lead. The first time we jumped it, I didn’t square my turn and he just bulged out through his left shoulder (a continuing problem) and then the distance I saw out of the turn wasn’t there anymore and we were really tight to it. Came around again, squared my turn and kept him perfectly straight. This is where I got a little annoyed with him. Even though I rode it well this time, he still wanted to dive left as we were leaving the ground. I felt it though, dug my left spur in on take off and made him stay straight. He landed pissed off, we had to walk a minute to let him settle.
Then we added another bending line, a verticle plank bending to a liver pool, then 3 strides to a little gate (can you tell we have a lot of jumpers in my barn? I told Alicia when we paint the jumps we have to have at least one natural jump that remotely resembles something you’d see in the hunter ring). This would be where a rough lesson became a lesson we will be talking about for a while. Tucker never even notices the jumps, so we figured he wouldn’t care about the liverpool even though he’s never jumped one. Oh, how we were wrong. We’re cantering up to it, and I feel him back off, but I don’t want to scare him so I just supported with my leg gently and figured we’d add one more in than I had planned. He gets to the base of it and jumps straight up in the air. If it had been 5’6″, he would have cleared it, no problem. We land, I have no power steering, he is running blindly in terror from whatever monster he just climbed over. I just stopped him, somewhere toward the end of the ring, and patted him and told him he was okay.
[And here’s one of the things I love about riding with Alicia. The moment when I look over my shoulder at her after we’ve just done something ridiculous, and she is doubled over and laughing. The first time this happened, when I first started riding with Alicia about a year ago, Tucker put a two in a three stride line, and I thought, “oh god, is she going to be horrified? yell? stomp her feet at my incompetence? refuse to continue teaching me?” And when I looked over, she was laughing. What a relief. We are on the same page. Tucker is hilarious.]
So we made the liverpool a tiny cross rail and we came around again to it at a trot. This time, two strides out he gunned it and took it at a gallop. Apparently, he figured he’d just get it overwith as quickly as possible. Again, landed running blindly and this time I had to pull him up a little abruptly because at some point we can’t allow that behavior. At least his reaction is to run at the scary jump and take me to it, instead of suck back or refuse it. Then we went back to one of the plank verticles at the top of the ring, just to give him something a little less scary to jump, and came back to our trot and trotted over the bay-horse-eating-monster-qua-liverpool. This time I talked to him the whole way to it and in the air over it. That really helped. He overjumped it, peeking at it between his legs, but not nearly as scary.
Went back to the plank, from a trot, and he was distracted, looking at something else, put one too many trot steps in and whacked it pretty hard. He was pissed, kicked out so hard that I actually saw his hind right leg out of the corner of my eye (again, all very un-Tucker-like behavior). I was a little annoyed. I don’t usually blame him for anything, but he was the one that didn’t pick up his feet there, and it was a trot jump, so all I had to do was sit up and relax my hand, which I did. Kicking out at his own silly mistake is just a little rude, I think. But maybe it stung him. We came back around to it and this time he picked up his feet, jumped it fine, landed quietly.
Then we trotted our liverpool and kept cantering four strides to the white gate, which was not easy because it was a three stride line, but he did it. We did that again, and then added an oxer that was set on the opposite diagonal (our ring is huge, which is why this course probably sounds a little confusing). Here is where I made one of the mistakes that really makes me mad at myself. When I am worried that he is going to land and be fresh, I tend to not want to let go of his face on the way to the jump. Which is totally counter-productive. It is basically like coiling up a spring. He’s in a ball, he jumps the jump straight up in the air, and then he does land all pissed off and bronc-like and yanking the reins out of my hands. If I would just let go and be soft on the way to the jump, he will jump it soft. I don’t know why I can’t seem to grasp this. But I endeavored to fix it on our last course of the day.
So we did the whole thing again, and it was admittedly a lot better. The bending line in nine (which worked out fine when I just let go of his darn face), the center line verticle (kept him counter-bent to the left and rode it square, much better), trotted our plank, trotted our liverpool (which had ceased to be a monster at this point), cantered four strides to the gate (which was still tight, but putting four in a three is really hard for him), and then finished up with the diagonal oxer (where I told myself no matter what, LET GO OF HIS FACE). I let go, he found his own distance, he landed forward but not running and much more relaxed, and did a perfect left-to-right change on the straight line before we got to the corner. Good note to quit on.
So now that I’ve written this post, I can reflect on what I learned from this lesson, instead of just thinking “wow, that was a rough lesson.” What have we learned? 1) Everything goes better when I let go of his face; 2) Even if he is terrified of a jump, he will jump it no matter what; 3) When he gets pissed off, if I just ignore it, he will get over it. Oh, and given that he jumped an imaginary 5′ wall the first time we jumped the liverpool, if Alicia needs a back-up mini prix horse, she can always use Tucker.
Tucker the Wunderkind 