Cob Jockey

This is, I guess, less of a Waterloo retrospective and more of a "First 90 days with Kate" retrospective.

This is Disco's new LinkedIn profile picture

See what I mean?

I am at a loss for words to describe what Kate has achieved with him since March 5.

This DOWN TRANSITION, Y'ALL (The GIF sped the tempo up slightly, but it still looks amazing!)

Three months into training with her, he is the most educated horse I've ever ridden; there is such a difference between 'broke' and 'educated'. Connor got to Second Level, sure, but he did it without ever really achieving self-carriage, and so many of the foundational building blocks of Dressage just never developed with me doing all of the riding on him.

Disco feels light, forward, and balanced. Every photo of him I see, his chest is facing forward rather than down, and that's no accident: Kate's style of training emphasizes balance before anything else. He's almost never behind the vertical even for a moment, and the contact is SO alive and obviously meaningful to him. 

All of this gives Kate access to his body parts in the most fluid way imaginable, which is why the lateral work is coming along so well. He's already beginning to learn half pass!

This schooling show comment right here (not from Waterloo) is EXACTLY why I sent him to Kate!

The difference between how he goes with Kate riding him and how he goes with me riding him is so stark. He truly could show First with Kate and possibly even 2-1, but he and I together are a solid Training level pair. When I ride to my absolute best, he goes so well, and when I ride to my usual crooked baseline, he meets me there, confused but obedient. 

Insert potato riding, get potato horse

All that said, I could not have gotten him where Kate has gotten him on my own, which SO validates the decision to send him out, but I can learn to meet him there, and I'm hungry for that challenge. The way Kate trains him and the way she coaches me, I can see a path towards becoming the rider I've always wanted to be and feeling things I've never felt from a horse before.

For the first time in years, I could not stop thinking about horses for probably a week after Waterloo, and that felt so good. I truly can't wait to see what kind of horse I have when I bring him home in October.

Darn my GIF program speeding these up, it's really lovely at real-life speed

For years now, I've known I would send Disco out for full training in his four year old year, once I got him to the stage that required finesse.

When it slowly became clear that Kate's move back to the Midwest would happen in the second half of his four year old year, the whole plan crystallized: there's no one else I would rather send him to for this phase of training. Kate's ability to "speak horse", her clear "boss mare" body language, her experience taking horses through the levels of Dressage, and her genuine enthusiasm for him and his career after she rode him last summer all make her the top choice by a mile. 

At home last August

Going to Kate also meant he would stay intact for now (he still earns the right to keep them through good behavior every day of his life, and that will never change). He will always be a horse first, a performance horse second, and a breeding stallion third, and I wouldn't have hesitated to collect/freeze and geld him if being a stallion held back my options on training and/or held back his options on socialization. 

Temporary solitary confinement at his new home

Not too many trainers will take on an outside stallion for full training, and even fewer (probably zero, and I don't blame them) would attempt to give that stallion a turnout buddy. Disco has always been turned out with others to this point in his life, and I didn't want full training to come with the stress of sudden and confusing loneliness for him. Kate is willing to try him with someone else after he gets settled in, and that means so much to me.

The moment he realized this is not a vacation

So, last week, at the age of four years and ten months, we packed him in the trailer and drove him 7 hours north. And it didn't come a moment too soon for my personal life, which is going to turn upside down in a very "growthy" kind of way this year - including, among other major life changes, taking the house down to the studs and living in the camper for a few months before my partner and his kids move in with me. 

It's all good things, all very intentional things, but having one less horse on my plate ended up being more of an immediate relief than I was even anticipating.

He'll be up there for at least four months, and after that, we'll play it by ear. 

Be good, buddy. 

At the time of my lesson on Black Friday, I hadn't had a lesson in over three weeks. Between her schedule and my slightly-less-flexible new job, it's been harder this year to get lessons in than it was last year.

But you know what? I actually think that's been a good thing. I had back-to-back lessons on Friday/Saturday last weekend, and they both left me with my jaw on the floor in the best of ways. He feels a lot more confirmed to her way of riding than he ever has before, which means it's easier for me to get on and feel the right way to do things.

Not me, but wow I've never seen this out of him before!

On Friday, she asked to get on him first and show me what she'd been working on. Even from the ground I could see that his balance was different and there was an intensity (but not tension, unless she was actively pushing his buttons to get a point across) to his work that hadn't been there before. 

You'll notice I was forced to clip him between Friday's ride (when he took two hours to cool out, yes I just clipped him five weeks ago) and Saturday's ride. I did an entire (shitty) full clip in 30 minutes before my lesson, desperately wanting to get the hair off to avoid a repeat of the day before, and then had to clean him up after!

I could see very clearly the building blocks of flying changes that she was laying. For example, in the upward canter transition, his default is to initiate the movement with the front legs and leave the hind legs as an afterthought for a stride or two later.

His default:

Slow off the ground and slow to the aid

What needs to become his default:

I picked this effort because he did it a little bit "extra" so you can really see the difference. Those two canter transitions above occurred just a couple of minutes apart!

Regardless of what the transition looks like, the canter quality is just incredible, especially for the horse that started his riding career as the "King of the Tranter". I overheard CGP telling a student that was watching my lessons that he continually surprises her by how well he's able to sit. She keeps asking for more sit, and he keeps delivering.

She is also working on the changes from time to time, and says "They're there, and they're easy for him," but that at this point they will come and go until the canter quality is more consistent. I expect it will be a long while before I actually ride one, and I'm totally okay with that.

When I got on after her, the difference I felt were enormous, the biggest ride-to-ride change I'd felt on him since that first week I dropped him off in 2020. He follows the bit with no hesitation and no blockages anywhere in his neck. The top of his neck is longer than the bottom - no more underneck leverage! And I felt him reach for my lats in a way that immediately taught me what correct contact should be like and could have just died right there. My horse knows more than me!

We had one moment when the canter got a bit splatty, and she told me just to find my lats and not give my elbows away, AND HE SAT AND COLLECTED THE CANTER RIGHT THERE. Normally once the canter gets crappy, it's just crappy until I bring him back down, so that felt like a miracle.

Balance

The other big change I noticed is that when I close my legs now, he gets quicker behind rather than just speeding up and splatting forward. There was actually a moment where I was heading into my second trot half pass (ever, I've never done it before) on Friday and I recognized I needed more impulsion but not more speed, and I closed my legs in the corner and I felt him step under and get quicker with the hind feet. IT. WAS. AMAZING.

The right amount of impulsion feels borderline too much at all times, like there's a ton of potential energy there. It doesn't feel polite and slow, it feels energetic and barely contained even when it doesn't look like he's moving fast.

It's not like he's suddenly easy to ride though. The contact thing in particular, I have a lot of work to do to internalize that solid-but-alive feeling that's there now, and that's the thing I most have to not break. 

Me: determined to pull on the inside rein 4eva

So it's interesting, because last weekend was the first time that Third Level ever felt possible at all. In the context of a First/Second Level balance and way of going, half pass and flying changes and all that sound like unattainable rocket science. But the balance I felt, the control, the reaction to my half halts, the on-demand quickness from behind, NOW Third really feels possible.

But at the same time, it feels further away than ever, because now that I've felt it, I know that all of that has to be our confirmed, default way of going before we're ready to show it. And I LOVE that. I was grinning like a little kid in my lessons, feeling things I'd never felt before. That moment when I closed my legs and got more impulsion for the first time ever meant more to me than a Bronze Medal ever could. So I'm stoked to continue this journey no matter how long it takes to actually get into the show ring again.

The actual best boy <3 So proud of you.

I had the whole long weekend to think about that ride on Saturday. How much progress he made with her in three rides now that she's actually improving things on him and not just fixing broken things. What she said about installing changes vs my show season. I also had a couple days to process her Sunday ride, which she sent me a video of.

She did the same TOH/10m (or smaller) canter in HI/walk/TOH exercise on Sunday that I did Saturday, only better. There were some moments in which you could REALLY see a canter pirouette canter starting to form.

And after a chat with JenJ about my show goals, I find myself making the same decision I did a year ago this month: to send Connor for full training later this fall again. Only this time, the goals are completely different. And I won't send him for quite as long.

She sends me crosstie pics <3

Last year my goals for fall full training were "give him a more educated understanding of the contact" and "fix the simple changes" and a secret hidden unspoken goal that maybe he'd ride a flying change once. Check, check and check.

This time, the goal is "install flying changes." Period. I know she'll work on more than just that over 2.5 months, but changes are the goal. I've watched enough people deal with the frustratingly low scores that come from bad changes/late changes/inconsistent changes to know that it's worth my money to have her get them solid for me. And clearly, she's effective with him!

Shame that board is in the way, but still, damn. She's such a trooper to be doing this in a way-too-small-for-her jump saddle too!

GP trainer says "it's perfect timing". It is, in a lot of ways. He's fit enough for them, he's 15 and still requires no maintenance even with the work getting much harder this year (knock on wood so hard!), and the building blocks needed are all there.

It's also perfect timing for baby Disco, who will be coming home around the time I send Connor off, so this will give me 2.5 months with him as my only horse at home.

Getting taller by the day!

 I can give him the time and attention he needs to get settled in properly, and I can also bring him with me sometimes on the weekends when I make the 4 hour round-trip drive to take a lesson on Connor. You know, just to spend time on the trailer, go somewhere new, and be bored in a different looking stall.

I think this plan might work!

I'm treating Pony Cup as the pinnacle of my season this year, and am pulling out all the stops for it, including sending Connor to CGP's for two weeks of full training this week and next week.

(And, you can probably infer from yesterday's post that anytime he's at CGP's I'm not doing his stall, which is a nice "in case of emergency break glass" option for me as a co-op member. Although I'm still taking my feeding/turnout shifts).

On Tuesday morning I got a call from GP trainer. Of course I answered it immediately.

Dropping my kid off at "boarding school" (as my husband calls it) on Sunday

"I just got done riding your pone pone and I just want to BRAG on YOUR RIDING these past seven months! It seriously feels like I last rode him yesterday, the contact feels fantastic and everything is right there. I even schooled half pass, and it was great," she said.

"That's amazing, because I definitely have not touched half pass myself," I joked.

"Here AGAIN? Okay I guess"

I was tickled. I knew deep down that he was still going well, but to hear it validated from her was amazing, especially after I'd been so terrified to take the ride back when I brought him home from full training in January, and then was unable to lesson with her until March.

In fact, he'd been going so well leading up to Waterloo, part of me wondered if it was worth it to spend the money on two weeks of full training, if he even needed a tune-up. But then a never-before-accessed region of my brain kicked in and was like "There's are no broken fundamentals on this horse anymore. He's GOOD. You can send him to her to IMPROVE things now, not just to fix all the problems you created."

Whoa brain, whoa. I'm not used to thinking about myself as anything other than a heavy-handed problem-creating amateur.

Natural selection did not provide me with arms long enough for horse selfies

"It's so much fun to have horses in for training like him," she said. "We can really make a lot of progress now." And then she touched on why the simple changes are sometimes there for me and sometimes not, and what she's doing about it, which is the best thing she could accomplish for me the next two weeks, IMO.

She ended the call by telling me she "survived" riding in my jump saddle. Yes, for the first time I'm forced to ask my 5'10ish GP Dressage trainer to ride my pony in my literally-used-to-belong-to-a-child shortest-flap-they-make CWD jump saddle. But she's a trooper and has a firm policy that she rides training horses in the horse's saddle no matter how poorly it might fit her because the horse's comfort has to come first. 

At least she can take comfort in knowing a Dressage saddle she approves of is on order for him!

Scale is hard to convey in photos, but y'all know how small this horse is. This saddle brings 'postage' stamp saddle' to new heights (CWD SE02 1C flap for the CWD nerds out there)

Connor came home with tons of new muscle from his time at GP trainer's, and I am completely unapologetic and not fussed about it at all when I say he's already lost some of it.

When he came home, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't freak out as he slowly became "my horse" again, for better and for worse. The truth is, even after four months of full training, he was never going to continue the level of work he was doing at the trainer's with me. Although it's awesome to know he CAN do all that stuff.

I'm an adult amateur who brought my horse home from the trainer's in the coldest month of the year right when the trainer left for Florida, oh and I'm trying to juggle two fully in-work horses for the first time ever, AND our fiscal year at work ended last week. Those aren't excuses, it's just reality. I'm not a Grand Prix rider with 20+ years of experience like she is, I'm not professionally riding horses day in and day out, and I am not going to beat myself up for being what I am and not being what I'm not.

See also: not Florida

Instead, I'm focused on what I've gained. I have gained an enormous toolkit. I no longer have bad rides where everything is going off the rails and I don't know why, because she's given me (and him) ways to deal with most of the common problems I experience. The floor for what is "bad" is much higher now. 

I have gained a horse that goes solidly into contact when I allow him to, and doesn't when I don't, which has done more to resolve my pulling habit than years of lessons have.

I got a new phone that's not yet compatible with Pivo, so I am sadly media-less for a bit. Although I'm working with them to fix it, so hopefully it doesn't take long.

I have learned a lot (but still have so much more to learn) about "putting him together". It doesn't have enough finesse for me to call it a half-half yet, but I'm getting there.

Bottom line is I now have a horse that can teach me things, that I can progress on, and it really does not matter and should not matter that I can't keep him at the same level a GP rider can keep him at. I got exactly what I asked for in the beginning: a horse with an educated understanding of connection that knows more than I do about Dressage, and I'm happy about that.

Originally the plan was to send Aeres back to Lisa's just before Connor came home, but I decided to extend her stay by a bit and keep both ponies for a month or two, since my barn has an empty stall right now.

Absolutely no shenanigans when I first turned them out together

At the time I thought that it would be mentally good for me to switch back and forth between Aeres, who forces me to ride with conviction, and Connor, who I need to ride with conviction and often don't. 

I also thought it would be a great opportunity to get the idea of owning two ponies out of my system once and for all. Indeed my BO was like, "You're going to ride two horses in the two worst months of the year?!" That's actually the plan!

Also still really enjoying dressing her up, what can I say. Black horses get all the fun.

Based on the very little she knows her, CGP was concerned that riding Aeres would hinder my education on Connor, because Aeres is at a point in her training where she needs big loud aids, and Connor is at a point where I needed to ride him with the new refined aids he's now used to - and that's extra hard to get across to my subconscious, who is certain this is still the same pony that needs the same type of riding I used to put on him before full training.

But.

In fact, the opposite happened. When I finally got to start riding her in my Dressage saddle in January (as opposed to the jump saddle I had to ride her in the entire time Connor was in Ohio), suddenly I had a whole new relationship with her. The tiniest movement of my hips was a half halt. The idea of "suction cupping" her back up to me was possible. And when I was asking her to bend around my left leg but also unconsciously blocking her with the right, she practically shouted that at me in English until I fixed it.

Playing with leg yield, SI and HP on the regular now

I thought I'd be riding Connor first every night, but instead I'm riding Aeres first to fix my asymmetries and get into that "finesse aids" frame of mind, and then I translate that to Connor. It has worked SO well.

Updated photos for the saddle fitter bc of course

So you might be thinking, "Keep two horses forever, this is working out great!" Yeah, no. This experiment has DEFINITELY shown me I don't have time to do two justice and still live my best life in terms of sleep/Pilates/job/house chores (Literally the most first world problem I've ever had). 

Having two in the worst months of the year is a real stretch, but it's one I will cheerfully accept temporarily since Aeres is helping me transition to riding the new-and-improved Connor.

When CGP asked me in August what my goals were for Connor over those not-quite-four months, I set extremely squishy and vague ones. I had no idea what to expect, so I said, "a more educated understanding of the contact and simple changes."

Needless to say if you've been reading this blog regularly, she knocked those out of the park. I sent her a horse that didn't understand contact and got back a horse that I could conceivably show Third on by the end of 2021.

I mean just look at that body! Also how good he is with Baby Annie <3

In case anyone wants to do non-local full training like this in the future, I thought I'd share what made this so successful for us, since I have definitely heard my share of horror stories over the years.

I thoroughly knew CGP as a trainer, rider and horsewoman before I sent him. Over the previous 18 months, I saw her ride on good days, on bad days, on Grand Prix horses, on green horses. I saw her ride Mustangs, Haflingers, Lusitanos, and OTTBs as well as imported Warmbloods. I saw her ride with MW, with her coach, and by herself. I saw her and her students' consistently eye-popping scores at shows (one of them was even First Level AA Champion for 2020). I knew she was talented at bringing along all kinds of horses and riders, and I knew the horses in her care were happy.

Including an actual Haflinger. As opposed to my fake Haflinger.

Her program is impeccably organized. They have a public Google Calendar for training rides and lessons, and they do not deviate from it. Every lunch break, every bathroom break, every horse that needs tacked up by a groom is all planned out down to the minute and publicly available on her website. There was never a question how many rides Connor was getting.

CGP is ambitious. I think she sees her students as a reflection of herself, and she wants to be the best instructor just as much as she wants to be the best rider, so she's very invested in Connor and I's success. She rides him as if she personally has skin in my game, and the whole relationship is that much better for it.

I drove over to see him - a LOT. Just to hedge my bets against myself waking up and feeling lazy, I only made up a week's worth of supplements at a time so if nothing else, that would guilt trip me into making the four hour roundtrip drive. And with the exception of when I had to quarantine due to COVID exposure, I did see him every single weekend.

No shame, my truck looked like this a LOT this fall.

I took lessons every chance I got, every weekend she was home. I felt the progress happening and learned how to ride him along the way.

Long lessons, short lessons, weird lessons, exhausting lessons, I had them all.

I got media. About once a week, she'd send me a video of Connor's latest achievement with a ton of !!! and unicorn emojis, or a phone call where I could hear the excitement in her voice about how quickly he learned something new. Not only did I know he was being ridden from the calendar and the changes in his body, she let me see it too.

Soooo many exclamation points when she sent me this flying changes video

She has a huge barn staff. There's an office manager for billing, a barn manager for feeding, turnout and blanketing, multiple barn workers for stall cleaning and water filling, and a head groom who groomed him, tacked him up, handwalked him to warm him up and generally got to know him deeply. With that many different eyes on him, absolutely nothing was missed in his care.

I walked in on a bromance.

"What? You didn't see anything."

All in all, it was a fantastic experience, and I would (and probably will) do it again. I can definitely see dropping him off for a week or a month at a time in the future if I'm traveling or he needs a tune-up. And it's going to very much benefit my relationship with my new full-time trainer going forward that she knows my horse so well.