Cob Jockey

Last night Connor and I had a great lesson out in the field at home.

My trainer had done a lot of work with him while I was in California for a week, and she really made some progress with him.  I could feel him rocking back for transitions and we actually did get a couple of proper, no trot steps simple changes in my solo ride on Saturday in the indoor, both of which were new.

We rode in our breastplate with the running attachment for the first time in YEARS, at my trainer's request, "just in case".

She did a lot of her schooling with him out in the field, for strength reasons (if he can do a simple change over terrain, doing them in the indoor will be easy) and for proprioception reasons (he has to pay attention to his feet out there).

So we did some of the same, starting out with doing a lot of transitions and then doing more canter than we've done in AGES. 

Proof, and maybe a little embarrassing, but that's a LOT of canter for us.

The biggest takeaways for me are that I need to consciously focus on asking for the bend in my body, and I need to LET GO with my hands.  I don't know why this is so hard.  We're just both used to a lot of pressure being in the reins at the canter.  It feels like he's leaning on me, but then I just soften my hands and he softens too - so clearly it's a 'me' thing.






We never really got a proper c-w transition, there were always trot steps, but the canter felt so much better when I softened my hands, that I consider it a win anyway.

Heading downhill

For me, the biggest win lately has been him actually thinking about starting the transition from the hind end and sitting down rather than splatting onto his forelegs in the down transition.  This has just as much or more to do with the way I ride the transition than it does with his natural inclinations to splat along on his forehand.  Maybe Definitely this is something we should've tackled in First Level, but hey, better late than never.

A balanced down transition, be still my heart

I've told my trainer in the past, don't ask me if I want to jump or wait for me to tell you I want to jump, just tell me we're jumping.  So she did.

Armed with my new canter and my newfound biomechanics cues, I was hoping this jump lesson would be good.  AND IT WAS AMAZING!

Happy post ride selfies

For the first time, I felt how much of a difference it makes when you jump with a tight core and your lats engaged (thanks Megan).  For the first time, I really understood what Mary has always meant by "feel like you're riding the hind legs up to the fence."  And for the first time, I took my uphill horse with his snappy hind end to the base of the fence and felt seriously confident.

Side note:  This was my first time using the Equisense's course feature.  Pretty cool!

That's not to say I was confident from the beginning.  My trainer put the crossrail up to an 18" vertical on the sly mid-course, and I felt my wimpy amateur brain shrinking into itself as it told me how big it looked.  But then I remembered how wrong my wimpy amateur brain had been about that 85# clean and jerk on Saturday in CrossFit, and how I put that weight back on my barbell on Monday night and ripped it off the ground like I meant it, and even added a few pounds for good measure.  In my head, in that moment, that jump became that barbell and I got aggressive instead of wimpy.

My head is a weird place sometimes.  But it works!

Canter stride frequency taking a huge leap forward in the jump lesson

Connor is very used to landing on his forehand and taking a few strides to mentally check out while I'm regrouping on his back.  When my core and lats aren't engaged, I just follow him down to the ground, which makes for an altogether awkward jump and makes it hard for me to regroup quickly after a fence.

Finally did a respectable amount of canter in a ride

Even though we have a long way to go until that lifelong habit can get undone, I could feel how much of a difference it made to hold firm in my upper body and not just follow him like a ragdoll.  I had a lot more influence, and was able to regroup quicker and send him on quicker.  It made a big difference in my ability to put him back together after an awkward jump.

14.cm!  Wow!

We have such a long way to go, but I felt some serious glimpses of jumping feeling easy, and I want more of it.  Never thought I'd say that again!

Happy New Year, everyone!  After taking a year off from setting goals, it's time to look forward to the next year.

In 2019, I want to:

Compete at National Dressage Pony Cup again - I'm guessing we'll back off to First Level for this (I can't see us being championship-caliber at 2-3 by July), but I'm definitely doing it, I really missed it when I didn't go in 2018.

Connor and his full sister, Castleberrys Delight (PSG), and their breeder Lisa in the middle at NDPC 2017

Nail the simple change - For real though.  We're getting there. 

Not a canter we can get a simple change out of, but look how forward my hands and elbows are! #smallvictories PC: Austen

Work up to spending an average of 10 minutes cantering per ride (while not sacrificing quality) - True confession time: My average canter duration per ride is an appalling 2:49.  Not cantering is not the way to improve the canter...who knew?

Turns out I walk...a lot.  I definitely wouldn't realize how severe of an issue this is if it weren't for the Equisense.

Jump or do cavaletti once a week, in my jump saddle - Good for his brain and for his body.

All the heart eyes

Use the Dressage Rider's Journal to help me be conscious about my goals for each ride and how they fit into his week. - I've never been a planner, but we're at that point where I need to become one. 



Get comfortable with the local state parks - We have several state parks within a 30-60 minute drive of the new barn, and there's no excuse not to be taking advantage of those.

Brown County State Park with my barnmates in 2012

Use schooling shows to evaluate progress in the first half of the year, and possibly start going after my Second Level Bronze scores in the second half of the year. - No lie, this feels like a stretch, but it would be awesome to knock out in 2019.



Discuss when to introduce the double with both of my trainers.  Maybe get one and start hacking in it. - I'm not going to introduce the double just because, but we're at the point where slowly starting to introduce it isn't crazy, IF we feel like it will help.  If it won't, I'm just as willing to be the next North Forks Cardi and ride in a snaffle at Grand Prix. 

Cardi beating warmbloods in a snaffle.  Atta boy.

To my best buddy, that is.

And his new buddy, who is, yes, a full two hands smaller than Connor is.

After another marathon business trip (in which the TSA exchanged my ID with someone else's...during the first leg of a three flight trip...yeah that was awesome), I finally got a chance to ride on Saturday evening.

Connor had been ridden twice by my trainer while I was gone, but I hadn't ridden in a very, very long time.  So all weekend, we walked, while I rediscovered what sitting on a horse feels like.  (Is this sounding familiar?)

Saturday

Sunday

That wasn't just walking in a circle though, it was leg yields and ToF and ToH and lots of other suppling things.   My trainer is on a vacation this week and then I have another (very) full week of travel the following week, so it'll be a while before I get a lesson again.

I can sum up my rides right now with four things:

1. Hands forward
2. Breastbone forward
3. Slow the forelegs down, bring the hind legs toward the forelegs
4. Transitions


It's working.


We had an amazing ride in the outdoor last night - got some of our highest elevation scores ever at both the trot and canter.  It's really, really hard for me to slow the front down while I'm still breaking the pulling habit.  I'm doing a lot of self-checking by releasing often.

I'm even starting to feel it at the canter, and the net result is that his neck is much more in front of me, he's not diving down on my hands, and he's doing a whole lot less "dolphining".


After feeling stuck for a long long time, it's good to feel some changes.

When I got to the barn on Saturday, there was a jump exercise left over in the arena from one of the eventers gearing up for Heartland.  I thought it might be fun to treat it like a cavaletti exercise within my Dressage ride, so I modified the second element from a tiny oxer to a tiny crossrail.


This line was set up for a big moving warmblood gelding and the distances were wrong for Connor, which I actually liked.  There was no "right" for us in this exercise: we would either have to shorten or lengthen the canter - AKA what is really hard for us right now.

Side view

In the canter lately, I've continued to work on following forward with my arms better, as well as sitting more on the outside hind and using my seat to encourage him not to dump so far onto his forehand at the end of each stride, a la this Mary Wanless video my trainer sent me.

The girl on the left is basically me.

The coolest part about the exercise didn't really happen within the line itself, although it rode really well for us in both the short and long variations.  The coolest parts came in between.  I've never had great adjustability in the canter, and most of the time when we were jumping in the past, I'd have to either bring him back down to the trot to regroup the canter after a line like this, or cowboy up through the line a second time with a splatty canter.

December of 2016.  Splat splat splat SCRAMBLE jump WHEEEEEE

Imagine how cool it felt on Saturday then, when I was able to land, ask him to put himself back together, feel himself actually put himself back together, and proceed to do the line a second time with a quality canter.  It felt like he lifted underneath me and shifted his weight back rather than running along strung out like we were both used to in the past.

Equisense totally backed me up on that too.  13.5cm elevation in the canter is 1-2cm higher than our usual average.

For some reason, I can feel the inside hind better when I make the turn to approach a line like this too.  In between doing the line both directions, I played with counter canter and boy did he get straight.  We actually did the 20m half counter canter circle from 2-2 for the first time in its entirety on Saturday!

Bottom line: we need more cavaletti in our lives.  Super productive ride!

I think I'm finally ready to talk about Connor's warmup without feeling like I'm going to jinx it.

Close your ears, just in case.

I've written in the past about how it takes him like 40 minutes before we get really good work.  How the first part of every ride is a slogfest of me trying everything under the sun to get him going.

And...I'm just going to let these recent ride times speak for themselves.

Ignore that outlier in the middle, the Equisense malfunctioned.

That amazing canter leg yield ride I wrote about yesterday?  It was 25 minutes long because it got so good so fast.  Super productive rides of less than 30 minutes have been consistent since January 1.

Here's what we're doing:

1. Lunging, suggested by you guys.  For like...less than five minutes each side.  Maybe even closer to 3 minutes.  Just until he's forward with an open throatlatch and I see him softly chew the bit.


2. Setting the tone that, from the second I get on his back, we're there to work.

3. Learning to identify things like the right amount of impulsion and when a particular hind leg isn't joining the party instead of trying everything under the sun and hoping something works.

4. I hate to bring purely anecdotal evidence into the "Does BoT work?" conversation, but...Back on Track.  I've been letting him stand under his saddle pad, quarter sheet and his non-BoT cooler while I'm grooming him, then he lunges with the quarter sheet on.  The first "productive and short" ride was also the first time he wore the BoT.  No idea if the ceramic fiber heat thing is working, if he just likes the saddle pad better than our other pads, or if it's just a super crazy coincidence, but there it is.  And I am superstitiously not going to change a thing.


We've had enough rides in a row like this, even when I've had to take a break for travel, that it seems to have stuck.  We can be productive in 30 minutes or less instead of our usual 50-60 minutes.  And I feel a heck of a lot better going into the clinic with a horse that can show up and get to work.  So happy!

Continuing with the outtakes from the "Not Blogworthy" photo folders I have...

Hoo boy.  This was 7 months ago!

That photo is from the test in which the judge called out his "head nodding" and specifically said my rigid elbows were causing it.  That stung - but I knew it was true.

Literally pulling backwards with each stride

For whatever reason, that feedback has finally stuck since my lesson last week when my trainer came out guns blazing on this subject, and I have done an above average, unusually good job of implementing that position change.  And it has made THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE. 

Say what?  Is this my horse?  Is that me?

I've had to completely re-learn how to ride the canter.  I had been using so much hand, I'd been keeping Connor from using his body effectively.  First I had to let go and just accept him splatting on the forehand while I taught my hands how to move forward instead of back.  But then I needed to fix the splat...

So since I don't know what I'm doing, I googled "how to get horse off forehand at the canter" and was led to a helpful COTH thread that, in summary, said, "try leg yielding at the canter."

I did that and oh MAN did that work.

What up, highest symmetry score ever.

I found it was most effective to leg yield off my left leg in both directions, (probably because I was actively engaging the weak leg in both directions?) so quarter line to rail on the left rein and rail to quarter line (we didn't really get there, but it's the thought that counts) on the right rein.  We also played with some counterbending in the canter.

This GIF was taken eight days after the one above it!  It looks so different!

Toward the end of the ride, I felt his front end lighten a ton and his neck looked like it grew six inches taller.  Of course I didn't video that ride (GIF above is from a few rides later), but the Equisense did show some of our highest canter front end elevation numbers to date at that point in the ride:

Side note, the newest Equisense app update can now do minute-by-minute breakdowns of your rides in certain metrics like this one.  SO COOL!  No more guessing.

All the heart eyes!

I just can't believe this is the same horse, and that that one position flaw has made this big of an immediate difference.  Just amazing.

His neck is above his withers and his nose is out in front of him and not curled into his chest on the downbeat of the canter.  Compare that to the photo at the beginning of this post.  I am just amazed.

Thanks to a number of things - work travel, holiday travel, it being so cold my fingers stopped working within minutes of being outside for what seemed like forever - my lesson on Saturday was the first time I'd ridden since my lesson in mid-December.

First thing I did: take off that goat beard!

It was my first time trying out the Back on Track, and I was determined to be as objective as possible about it.  To give it a fair shake and follow their best practices, I put the saddle pad on under his blanket while I groomed him, then put the quarter sheet on once I'd tacked up.

I did end up putting the quarter sheet under my saddle for lunging.

My trainer suggested I lunge since they'd been in for a couple of days due to ice.  Not because she thought he'd be silly (he wasn't, can I just say how much I love not riding for three weeks AND him being stalled for two straight days and him coming out totally normal like nothing is wrong?) but to be fair to him and get him moving.  So he also lunged in the quarter sheet and saddle pad.

I'm so used to seeing massive horse-sized quarter sheets on him, one that fits looks too small.

I did not expect a great ride.  My trainer has ridden him once and lunged him once in the last three weeks, but otherwise, he's just been a bum. 

And...it was one of the best rides we've had in months.  What?!

The second I got on him he was reaching over his back for the bit.  He came onto my aids pretty effortlessly and very early in the ride, especially considering our normal slogfest warmup. 

He felt incredible, and, trying to be fair to him, I requested we quit early because he hadn't done this in so long, AND he was getting the message today.  The Equisense confirmed we quit at roughly the 30 minute mark.  WOW.






So was it the Back on Track?  Lots of people have said they get shorter warmups using it.  I am inclined to say it was not, as tempting as that is.  Two things happened during the lesson that I think contributed:

1. The exercise we did, shoulder in to small circles, really made a point to both of us.  My trainer made sure I was keeping my leg in the right place per my last lesson, using the right parts of my leg to ask for the inside hind to step up, and I figured out the right rhythm in which to ask.  If the inside hind wasn't stepping forward, I was instructed to reduce the angle of the SI and get the inside hind before trying a circle. 

Any time I felt him get flat or grab the inside rein, I applied the top part of my lower leg in the right rhythm to engage the inside hind - and very quickly that had other side effects too, like his poll coming up when I used it like that.  (Big thank you to the blogger, I can't remember who you are, that wrote about that this week.  It helped me a lot!)


2. My fingers were f-r-o-z-e-n thanks to trying out a new glove setup (and white, thanks to the Reynauds).  And I was really focused on keeping my elbows forward.  I think both of those things combined meant I physically could not pull on him.  My trainer said "If anyone could find something positive about this weather, I guess it's you!"

Even just as a quartersheet without taking into consideration the magic Chinese whatever, I really like this thing.  Full review soon.

So, did not expect that ride to be that amazing, but I'll take it!  And it's always nice when the Equisense backs me up after a ride I feel good about - this is tied for our highest symmetry score ever, and definitely our highest score for a ride this short: