Cob Jockey

After getting home at 8pm the previous night, I was up bright and early at 6:30am to hustle back to Cincy for a 10am lesson on Wednesday.

I had two sound bites in my mind from the day before - subtler aids and left shoulder forward. In this lesson, I started out struggling with downward transitions - to the point that I asked her to explain the aids for the downward to me like I was stupid, because I was sure I was asking wrong. Either I couldn't keep the energy through them, or I couldn't get him to slow down at all.

She had an idea. She grabbed her piaffe pole and said, "Okay, you're going to ride a piaffe so you can feel how much activity and power and collection you need. Once you understand this feeling you won't forget it." And we did that, with her walking next to us. Then she said, "Okay, I'm turning you loose and I want you to trot forward with the piaffe feeling."

Something clicked in that moment: I could not trot with the piaffe feeling unless I thought "shopping bag elbows", which for me is a key phrase that describes a feeling of weight in my elbows, elasticity in my hands, and drops my pelvis into place. The moment I got that feeling and kept my calves on, he became a beach ball underneath me, big, bouncy and seemingly full of air and positive tension. The moment I lost that feeling, he splatted flat and I was back in that spot of not being able to ask for downward transitions. 

So I HAVE TO be sitting correctly to ride him. Just one more lesson in why biomechanics matters SO much in Dressage.

Sadly the Pivo focused on everything but me in this ride, including 30 straight minutes of a wall, sigh.

That wasn't the only massive lightbulb moment in this lesson though.

I have long lamented that something about my canter mechanic shuts Connor down and makes him nod his head. Watching other educated riders ride him over the years, I can immediately see a difference, but I never knew what I was doing to cause it.

2018

Then in yesterday's lesson, CGP told me to put my shoulders forward and my butt back "out behind me".

And I swear to you.

What you're about to see felt, to me, like I was sticking my butt out over the cantle and leaning over to touch my nose to his mane, no lie.

But uh, that's not what it looked like. Our brains are such liars.

I have never seen a video of myself so with the horse in the canter. And it felt that way too. I kept looking in the mirror, first because I could not believe "sticking my butt out" fixed such a huge problem, and second because I couldn't believe what I was seeing, because it didn't match the way I felt at all.

No head nod. No driving him down onto his forehand. Just a good canter.

I'm beginning to think I can learn to ride my "new" horse!

This week is Connor's last week at CGPs. Originally, I had planned on staying a week toward the end of this full training and taking a bunch of lessons, but between COVID and my, um, high energy new doggo, that plan got shelved in favor of me driving over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week for lessons. It's long days and a boatload of driving, but it's worth it.

Husband: "YOUR DOG escaped every time I put her in the backyard today, please take her to the barn or something."

On Tuesday (yesterday) it was a lesson extravaganza. First up was Mary on Connor, then I had a lesson on Aeres (which I'll write about later), then after a long break (and a trip to Dover), I had a lesson on Connor myself.

IDK who needs to know this but Dover's house brand has paisley silicone full seats

Watching the Mary lesson was good for me. Mary is a very educated H/J rider, but Dressage is not her thing, so she asked me if she could take a lesson on him before he came home so she could understand the way he was taught. 

CGP gave her what was basically a "first ride with Mary Wanless" lesson (all the MW people in the audience nod their heads), and Mary described it as "feeling like I was driving on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic". It was really good for me to hear CGP explain why certain biomechanical things were important especially on Connor in such detail.

CGP demonstrating the difference between the mechanics of a H/J post and a Dressage post.

Despite her feeling like a "drunken monkey" up there, he went really well for her. It struck me how much he knows now, that he can take someone who doesn't know Dressage at all and at least go around in a straight and level First Level frame. In fact, seeing how well he went for her without her really doing anything to shape his body besides sit well made me wonder if I was somehow doing too much to him.

My horse can teach people Dressage now

As if reading my mind, my lesson later that day ended up being about exactly that. "You're doing too much, your aids are too loud. You're riding him the way you used to ride him and he's a different horse now, you have to be a lot more subtle to ride him."

It was about halfway through the lesson that she said that, and suddenly I had a completely different ride. He was soft and fluffy but firm in the contact, and easily directed with just my thighs, even for things that were hard before like 10m canter circles.

GUYS THAT'S MY HORSE OMG

Part of the reason she harped on this was that she had me doing SI with mixed results, largely because I was pulling on the inside rein in both directions. She does not pull punches when it comes to telling me what I'm doing wrong, and I LOVED hearing things like "No - that would score a 3, and here's why" or "That can only be a maximum of 5 because it has too much neck bend" and then "OKAY, THAT was a seven, now we're getting there."

And there's no video evidence of the SIs because #pivothings

Things really started to come together when she told me to think about putting my left shoulder forward, because I'm STILL riding with my left hand behind my right hand. "When you pull on the left rein, it makes the haunches go right. And the left side is his hollow side to begin with."

Last month CGP rode Connor before me in a lesson, and I forgot to bring my stirrups to the indoor and had to use hers, which we were MDC Comfort stirrups set in the 90 degree position.

Now, I've always been a "Fillis irons are fine" person. Never even tried anything different, besides some super bendy Herm Sprengers once that I hated. The fanciest stirrups I own are the $30 composite wide tread ones that live on my jump saddle, and the irons on my Dressage saddle are the ones my mom got for Little Red three decades ago.

Good enough for my mom, good enough for me. Side note, didn't realize til I went to dig up this picture that those Gary Mundy leathers are almost four years old! They literally still look brand new. He's retiring this year and I really need to get a backup pair, for fifty years from now when this pair wears out I guess.

It took about ten minutes of riding in the MDC Comforts before I realized what wasn't happening. I didn't have my right foot pronated and cocked to the outside. My lower right leg wasn't swinging as much as it normally did. And something about them made the whole act of riding seem more effortless, like there was something I had to fight in Fillis irons that I didn't in the MDCs.

The Pivo was plagued by a software problem that week so the only proof I have of this lesson are some blurry screenshots of CGP on him.

Had I just become a fancy stirrup person? Maybe, but I tried to deny it a little longer.

It was in a subsequent lesson when I went back to using my regular Fillis irons that she really got onto me about my 0 to 100 posting that lacked enough tone, and she said some of my mechanical posting problems seemed to stem from "something about the way your feet are in the irons."

I knew exactly what she was talking about: my tendency to have all my weight on my big toe phalanges on the right foot but spread evenly across all toes on the left. She didn't say a word about my equipment being part of the problem, but I made a mental note that everything she said had been easier to fix or not a problem in the MDCs.

In regular Fillis irons earlier this month. Peep my right foot cocked out to the side.

I placed an order for them from Horse.com on the 21st and had a voicemail from Martin, the owner, later that day wanting to confirm that my feet really are small enough for the 4.25" irons and if that was a mistake to please call him before he shipped them out the next day. It wasn't, and I didn't, but I was touched that he took the time to do that. They arrived in what qualifies for warp speed for the USPS right now on the 26th.

My right lower leg is usually MUCH flingier than this. The left is always stable.

You can kind of see it here

Check out those relatively even foot angles!

Reminder that this is my normal foot position, with the right one cocked out like this

Since I'm going to tag this as a product review, let's a get a few review-y things out of the way before I end this, shall we:

• These come very specifically in foot sizes. I'm a 6, so I got a 4 1/4"
  
• There's a whole line of MDC stirrups out there, and if you're not sure which one is right for your particular body, Martin will consult with you about that, per The 900 Facebook Pony's blog post from way back.
• They're heavy. That's part of the deal, these stirrups are supposed to be a safety play as well. The 90 and 45 degree offsets, in addition to helping fix my right foot problem, also make it easier to pick your stirrups up if you've lost them, and the weight helps with that as well. After riding in composites for a long time on my jump saddle, can confirm, much easier.
• I had to raise my stirrups a hole (which is a half hole on my CWD child's leathers) to account for the stirrup strap hole being slightly higher on these than they are on a Fillis iron
• They have an "if you don't love them, you get your money back" policy.
  

Bottom line: I am not saying these exact stirrups are right for you or will change your riding life like they did mine. I am saying that non-traditional irons have a lot to offer for those of us with weird asymmetries and biomechanics issues, and they're worth investigating. Also these are just so dang comfortable, it's kind of amazing.

What: MDC Comfort Stirrups

Sizes: 4.25", 4.5", 4.75", 5" (based on shoe size)

Colors: Stainless

Price: I paid $179.95 at Horse.com. They're often manufacturer restricted on coupons and are extremely difficult to find used.

Just in case anyone has some Christmas money burning a hole in their pocket later this week, I thought I'd write up a proper review on the least adult thing I bought in 2020.

Hi yes I'm a 33 year old adult with a successful professional career, why do you ask?

Mary may have started something when she bought me that Punk Ponies pad. I've never been a wild colors or sparkles on horses person before, but when I saw these new Majyk Equipe Estrella pads, my brain was like "Look man, it's been a long, hard year of being an extra adulty adult and doing lots of things you don't want to. Life's too short to take yourself too seriously. Buyyyyy the paddddd."

So, YOLO. And teal sparkles look amazing on both ponies.

Bonus color and size reference, here's the pad on my barnmate's 16hh geriatric palomino QH Zippy, who has been filling in on pony ride duties for baby Annie while Connor is at school <3

But let's step away from the obvious fabulousness of the color and glitter. How is it as a pad? Honestly - it's my new favorite jump pad. It has great structure, doesn't slide down and bind the withers, and is nice and thick but still seems breathable. This doesn't feel like a cheap pad at all; they took the word 'luxury' seriously when they named it that.

I mean, please keep in mind we mostly keep one foot on the ground at all times now so I don't have an extensive collection of jump pads. But it's the nicest one I own for sure.

Like most saddle pads, it would be nice if it came in a slightly smaller size for my slightly smaller equine, but honestly, even with my postage-stamp sized 16.5" CWD 1C flap SE02 on it, it doesn't look massively out of proportion.

My biggest question with the glitter pads was how do they hold up? I'm happy to report that so far, they seem to hold up pretty well. I rode that jump lesson with my Back on Track nylon quarter sheet over the pad the entire time, and a fairly minimal amount of glitter transfer occurred.

I've also washed it once, and couldn't tell any difference in sparkliness before and after. There's obviously some top-dressed glitter on there that came off, but I think it also incorporates sparkly thread maybe? Either way, I think it'll stay glittery for a long long time (FWIW, same goes for my Punk Ponies pad as well). If you buy into the idea that glitter is the herpes of craft supplies, you're going to come away with only a very mild case if you own this pad 😂

It matches my...four? year old? turquoise Majyk Equipe Dressage Sport Boots

My only complaint is that there's one place where the braiding has started fraying, but I'm hesitant to call that out because it's such a clean cut, I'm not sure if I accidentally sliced it on something or what. Overall, the braiding and binding are very high quality and solidly attached. I'll update this review later if the fraying starts to occur in more places.

(My other complaint is that these don't come in Dressage cut - hello, Dressage queens and sparkles are like peanut butter and jelly! Do it, Majyk Equipe!)

Bottom Line: If you're in the market for a great quality pad that makes you giggle like a little kid every time you see it, this pad is for you. And I might have also ordered a purple one...

What: Majyk Equipe Estrella Sparkle Luxury Close Contact Saddle Pad

Sizes: Full

Colors: Turquoise, purple, black and silver

Price: $74.99

Disclaimer: I bought this pad with my own hard-earned money, and opinions are my own.

Mary said something to me a couple of weeks ago that stuck with me. "If you were as confident with riding as you are with training dogs, you'd be a lot more effective rider."

Kate, of course, made me unpack that because that's what Kate does. "Why do you think you're not as confident with horses?"

The well-trained Dingo

I think it's that I'm so used to thinking of myself as wrong, my biomechanics as flawed, and my reactions as bad, and the horse as the long-suffering and wronged party, that I have a hard time thinking "I don't like this behavior and I am going to change it" like I do with dogs.

 I can't subconsciously pull on a dog's mouth or accidentally hit them with my spur or sit crookedly on them. I use the equivalent of a big bit as an emergency brake and finesse tool (prong collar), yet it almost never engages because they're so well-trained to focus on me. I am VERY black and white with dog training - my dogs are solid citizens and know what's expected of them in every moment once we install the basics. Does my horse?

Aeres looking downright #chonky last week <3

Watching Mary ride Aeres two weeks ago, I was struck by how she got on and made things black and white, and how quickly Aeres submitted to her and got down to business. Wrong answer, don't do that, try again. Right answer,  GOOD PONY! It's the same way CGP rides Connor.

"Yes ma'am"

When I told CGP about this particular confidence hangup last weekend, and she said, "You are always right. Even if you're asking for the "wrong" thing, the horse has to listen as if you were right. You have to believe you're right."

I'm starting to ride Aeres with more authority after realizing this, because letting Aeres get away with whatever she wants to is a recipe for a very unpleasant ride. However, letting Connor get away with whatever he wants to is, as I put it to CGP last weekend, "this perfect homeostasis that we're both comfortable in and in which nothing terribly bad happens." But also nothing good - no progress - can happen there either.

Aeres yes ma'am'ing me last week

I think it's just as possible to blame yourself too much just like it's possible to blame the horse too much for what goes wrong in a ride. But submission is a collective for a reason - the horse has to submit to whatever you're doing. And hopefully we as riders are educated enough that we're asking for the right thing in the right way.

Thoughts? Anyone else been through this transition before? It's hard to have spent my entire adult life taking lessons that amount to "here's all the things you're doing wrong" and to now have to step up and say "I'm doing some things right and you need to listen to me!"

So the jump lesson was on Saturday, I drove home Saturday night, and got up at 6:30 Sunday morning to drive right back for my 10am Dressage lesson. Were it not COVID times, I would have stayed with my friend Nicole, but these are the sacrifices we make right now.

The cutest little dachshund

This lesson started out with "Wooooooooooooow, how does it feel to have an educated lesson pony!" from her, because he really did come out looking and feeling great, which was especially good since I was the one that had ridden him the day before too. But as always (and this is why I love her) it's like "Wowwwww okay here's the next thing."

She's still not happy with my posting mechanic, and says I'm losing all tone at the bottom of the post, which means I'm constantly telling Connor "I want you to go 0, I want you to go 100" over and over, which it needs to be like 75/25. 

She wanted me to think about staying active even in the bottom of the post (requiring a lot of core and back muscles, all the way to the top), pulling the stirrups back with my feet a bit, making sure my butt is "touching the cantle" (my words for what it felt like when I got it right) and continuing my post all the way to the top. This is really hard in light of my recent glute med discovery, and indeed it did cramp up during this. I need to strengthen that faster!

After that, we moved onto canter work, and specifically canter-walk. I'll start with the good:

I was struggling with it so much, she got on, reinstalled some respect for the bit and the bend, and then it was much easier.

I have to learn to make my half halts faster. I have to time my ask correctly - "when his mane is standing straight up". I have to sit back and have my butt touching the cantle. I have to keep my legs on him. He knows how to do it, but I have to hold up my end of the bargain, which is exactly what I was hoping to get out of this full training - a horse that knows more than I do.

Also - three weeks ago I cut four inches off his tail after we both noticed he was about to step on it during the reinbacks now that he's so rocked back on his hocks, and then after Sunday's lesson, I had to cut ANOTHER four inches off! He does grow about an inch of tail a month, but still. I guess I'm learning why Dressage horses bang the tails halfway up the hind cannons.

Sitting is not a problem

We're in the last two weeks of Connor's four months of full training, so I'm going to Cincinnati a lot the next two weeks to soak up all I can before CGP leaves for a relatively short Florida trip and I'm left here alone in the cold with my "new" pony.

Who is THE CUTEST not that I'm biased <3

No, your eyes don't deceive you: that's jump tack at a Dressage barn. CGP rents out one of her barns to a well-known Ohio eventing trainer, and every Saturday at 1pm there's a group of Dressage ladies that take a "jump" lesson from her, including CGP herself. I finally made it to one last Saturday. I say "jump, because it was a ground pole lesson, with four of them raised 6" on one side by the end. Not jumping oxers here, people!

Most of the time we started with the four trot poles, until the end when we rode it from the opposite direction.

The poles stayed the same throughout, but we gradually increased the complexity of the pattern we rode through them, so this would be a great exercise for someone riding alone at home. We rode the entire thing at the trot, and it demanded precision in the figures and good turning skills - so exactly what I got drilled on by CGP the previous weekend.

Even through this horrible photo (sorry buddy) you can see how much muscle he's packed on.

We never visibly struggled with it, partially because even the tight turns are easy on a pony, but the event trainer perceptively said, "His evasions aren't super obvious to someone standing on the ground, but I'm sure they are in the saddle. He likes to put his head down and rush, so it's not as obvious as [other rider's Saddlebred that wants to become a giraffe] even though both make the exercise harder. Make him slow his feet down and take bigger, loftier steps."

Review coming soon - I am kind of in live with there Majyk Equipe sparkle pads

Something in my brain clicked in midair and I let go with my hands, sat up, and suddenly found myself with a slower, more rideable pony. So for the zillionth time, DON'T F****** PULL ON THE REINS!

I hope I can join this lesson more in the future!

 Who doesn't want to look at cute dog pictures?

I had an inkling Meatloaf was going to be a good dog once she got some structure, stability and training in her life, but I had no idea she was going to be this good, and I could only hope she'd be a good barn dog, something all of our current and previous dogs have failed out of.

Just two months into owning her, she now comes with me to the barn every night, staying patiently tied to the wall of the stall while horses are out, and once the horses are all safely contained in their stalls, I let her run loose with all the doors to the barn and indoor shut. She has a better recall than any dog I've ever owned, but I still don't feel comfortable letting her off-leash in the open.

It didn't happen overnight. At first, she was deathly afraid to ride in the car and would poop and pee in my backseat, shaking like a leaf, probably because the only car rides she ever went on before I owned her were to go to yet another shelter. 

As she slowly realized I wasn't taking her somewhere to abandon her, she got to be okay with transportation, but being left in the stall alone while I rode was scary and she whined. Finally, just in the last week, she's started staying relaxed and silent in the stall the whole time I ride.

Dog can jump 6 feet from a standstill but very occasionally she just cannot brain, lol

Along with that, her obedience work is going amazingly well. She came knowing sit and shake, and now she knows high five, down, spin around, all the way (which is forever our term for 'lay on your side' thanks to Austen's Sonka <3), roll over, crawl, jump on command, touch, heel and wait. Many of those she got on the first try! She'll also do all of those without hesitation for my dog-owning barnmates.

Also the wiggliest, cuddliest happiest little thing

Learning all of that has come easily to her thanks to her incredible power to focus. Last weekend I had her on the leash while standing next to Mary jumping Aeres through a line, and Meatloaf never took her eyes off my eyes even though the horse was cantering no more than 5-6 feet from her. THAT'S the kind of barn dog I want.

Also must love the kitties <3

She still does have her flaws. She has 'stranger danger' I doubt we'll ever fully overcome, where she does some short alarm barks and low growls anytime she sees someone she doesn't know. That's good when I'm at home or the barn alone, and bad when I just want her to relax when we go downtown for coffee. And of course there's that whole 'can jump my 6 foot privacy fence from a standstill' thing, but she balances that out with EXCELLENT recall once she's escaped.

Bad dog + good dog = neutral chaos dog

All in all, she's been a great addition to the family, and I'm so excited to finally have a barn dog for the first time!