Cob Jockey

I was supposed to have more or less back-to-back lessons on Connor last weekend, with one on Friday and one on Sunday, BUT on Saturday our roommate called to let us know he had taken an "exit" COVID test for school even though he had no symptoms at all, and tested positive, so we are now quarantining until Dec 2.

It is the most first world of first world problems to say that the only thing I'm upset about is that I'm going to miss riding and lessons, but I think you'll understand when you see how Friday's lesson went. Connor is educated to the point that every lesson, I'm learning in leaps and bounds and I'm so bummed to have to pause that!

On Friday, she asked to get on him first to "show me where he's at", and I had a hard time keeping my jaw off of the floor watching them go. Since mid-September, just over two months ago, she's taken him from being a maybe First Level horse with an incorrect understanding of collection to where all the pieces for 3-1 are passably there.

Full disclosure, her standards for someone being ready for the level are pretty high, so I'm not saying she WOULD show him 3-1 tomorrow, but she COULD.

I got on after her, and I'm going to put the two GIFs of both of us doing the same things on him to show you how differently he goes for her vs me. Not to throw myself under the bus, but to show the difference between a skilled rider that remembers to half halt and me, lol.

Even just warming up, he's a different horse. Look at how different his neck shape is, how the top of his neck is longer than the bottom:

Her warmup walk

My, uh, "just got on" walk

She's militant about never letting him get stiff in the bridle, and told me that "95% of the time, if he feels stiff, the right answer will be to apply the right leg and right rein and hold until he softens". She also said "It means something to him if you close your legs and then briefly close your hands now, put him together." Hello yes these are the kind of first toolkit adult amateur slow learner instructions I am here 👏 for 👏. 

I know the medium trots below aren't scoring an 8, but WOW you guys, the feeling of closing my legs and having INSTANT POWER is something I am not used to. This required a whole other level of core engagement to stay with him. 

Her medium trot

My medium trot, where you can see my abs just completely peace out in the middle from the unexpected force of holding him together

You can really see the difference in her canter vs mine. Mine has less energy (although this WAS 40 minutes into the ride) and the balance isn't nearly as good. Those two phrases could sum up the major differences between our riding in all gaits and movements. I'm not upset about it though, having a horse that I know understands how to go well means I just have to learn how to ride him well, I no longer have the responsibility of also teaching him to go well.

Her collected canter

My collected canter

She didn't intentionally show me any flying changes, but she did attempt a canter half pass (she hasn't done many with him and warned me it was a work in progress) and he gave her a change as a wrong answer. I think it's pretty cool that he knows what a change is well enough to be willing to see if it's the right answer to an ask he doesn't quite understand yet.

She also did a few things I didn't get to do but was happy to see, such as this extremely balanced counter canter. No more motorcycling and hanging on for dear life! 🙌

I did get to do shoulder-in but the Pivo missed it, so you'll just have to watch this clip of CGP and trust me when I say it is so accessible and easy now, it's kind of amazing. No more struggling to manufacture a S-I that's mostly neck bend for me!

I was just on cloud nine. More to come.

This was the first weekend in a long time that I didn't have anything going on, and I knew where I was going to spend it!

With this derpy, derpy animal

On Friday night, I made my goal for the ride "adjustability."  I wanted two different trots, two different canters.  I tend to spend too much time in one trot and one canter, and I really need him to be paying attention to me within the gaits.  He felt freaking phenomenal, so good that I quit at a half hour.

He'd had two pretty intense Dressage rides in a row, so I wanted to change things up a bit with a cavaletti exercise on Saturday.

(PS, is there still a caveletti bloggers club and if so can I join?  I need ideas!)

I don't really have cavaletti but I have jump standards with holes all the way to the bottom, so that works!  The idea of this one was that we'd do it as a figure 8 at the trot.  I liked it, because it would require both of us to pay attention to both the bend and the inside hind, and it would come up quickly for us.

We struggled with the exercise on the left turn especially.  Right was no problem.  I did it at a collected trot, and was somewhat surprised that he actually did trot it every time, rather than trying to jump it.

By the time I quit with the cavaletti exercise he was feeling so good and we were only about 25 minutes into the ride, so I decided to play with canter-walk transitions.  They're still super rough, but we averaged around 2 trot steps which is way better than the 4-5 at the beginning of the summer.

Then we hacked out around the field:





The grass is so tall in spots, up to his eyeballs, I couldn't blame him for grabbing a to go box.  If he was a sale horse I wouldn't let him grab grass like this, but he's not.

No filter, the grass really is still this green.  It's been a great year for grass and hopefully hay too.

Of course, he couldn't exactly chew it with the bit in, so:

"Bleh" - Connor, probably

I also got my tack locker cleaned and organized, my tack cleaned, and my trailer re-organized.  All in all, a pretty fantastic Saturday!