Cob Jockey

On Sunday, I threw my jump saddle on Connor and thought I'd pop him over a few things in the indoor.  We hadn't jumped in a while, and the schooling HT we might do is in a month, so it's high time we found our sea legs again.

From a ride earlier in the week in which we hacked around the big field

They're almost finished with expanding the outdoor, so the bales of footing that have sat in the corner since last fall on a pallet were gone, leaving just the pallet and plastic wrap.  I let Connor puff and blow and grow six inches over it at the walk until he seemed moderately convinced it wasn't a mountain lion, and after a while, picked up the trot.  As we approached it again and he got tense, I started to say his name in a soothing tone of voice and...

That was too much!  His brain exploded at the sound of my voice and his body followed.  I don't really know what happened, but he levitated about 10 feet to the left in the blink of an eye and unseated me.

First I found myself hovering above him looking at the ground, thinking "This it is, this is how my streak of never having fallen off a Welsh Cob (6.5 years!) and never having fallen off Connor (5 years!) ends!"

All the way back to when I broke Baby Shae in college, I have never come off a Welsh Cob.  And I have ridden many:  Shae, Dillon, Aviator, Dundee, Connor, Rory, Tristan...I think that's the whole list.

Then, I found myself sitting up and still on him, but sitting on his withers, in front of the saddle, with my left foot still in the stirrup and my legs around his neck.  To his credit, Connor's natural reaction to someone sitting on his neck was to throw his head in the air (while still trotting).  If he'd put it down, I would have been a goner.

I kicked my foot out of the stirrup in case I bit it, planted my hands on his neck and pushed myself back in the saddle.  And then you better believe we spent the rest of our warmup next to that stupid pallet, until he was too tired to curve his body away from it (but I'm pretty sure there was probably still side-eye being given).

This horse, always keeping life interesting but never (really) dangerous.

Who, me?

My crazy work schedule meant a missed lesson this week, which we made up on Sunday.  In daylight.  In the open field across the street.  HALLELUJAH!

Moment of brutal honesty: I didn't even attempt to clean the leg he puts on the ground in order to eat grass under the fence in turnout.  It was a muddy trainwreck.

My trainer asked if I wanted to borrow Louie's saddle (big drafty paint X guy, we've borrowed it in the past) and also ride in my jump bridle to change things up a little.  I am so glad I said yes, because if I hadn't, I probably would have been a lawn dart.  Connor was hyper.  I asked for the canter in warmup and got a squeal.  A squeal!  A quiet little pony sized squeal.  What does he think he is, a racehorse?!

It's an event saddle made in England, and is definitely the most British piece of tack I've ever seen.

We got to work with my trainer, and in the first five minutes, Connor completely lost his shit over the following things occurring more or less simultaneously:
- Neighbor kid playing basketball about 400m away
- Bare patch of dirt in the grass
- Shadow of jump standard being cast on the ground (to be fair, it was the first sunny day in three weeks here.  He probably forgot what shadows are).

He jumped in the air, threw his head in my lap and scrambled backwards/sideways, and then got even more scared by his own spooking.  Oh boy.  So we started at the walk, and ended up having an extremely productive lesson, surprisingly.

"What, me, scare myself spooking?  Doesn't sound likely."

One of the biggest things we've learned recently is that I hold too much with the outside rein in both directions, so he can't lengthen the outside of his body to move it around the inside.  When I think about a soft outside elbow with my outside hand a bit forward, he's able to bend a lot better.

Today's lesson was a lot about doing the following things on a circle:
1) encourage him to lengthen the outside of his body with a soft outside elbow and an outside half halt, then
2) encourage him to bend around my inside leg, using my inside rein to guide him, making sure that my hips are straight but my shoulders are bending, to put him in shoulder fore on the circle

She had me focus on one point per quarter of the circle to plan ahead for his bend, so that it was more consistent.  The result was that he was soft and bendy in both directions, including the left, although it was harder that direction.




At the end she asked me if I had any questions.  I did.  "Is it okay to like riding him better in a bit with more leverage than the snaffle?  I feel like I am a bad person for preferring the way he goes in the elevator, but it's like I have to whisper when he's wearing it, and I have to shout in the loose ring."

She said, no, it's fine, and she actually wants me to ride in the elevator for a little while because we're retraining both my and his sense of feel.  He likes to lay on my hands (and when he does over terrain, he trips) and this is a tool to help us not do that.  I rode with very little contact today, and she said he looked better than she'd seen in months.

All in all, a really productive lesson.  Way to channel that excess energy into good work, little buddy.

"Come visit me, I'm awesome!"

Since a couple of you locals have said in the comments that you will be attending the Hoosier Horse Fair this year, I wanted to let you know when and where Connor and I will be this week.  Our event, the Breed Demo, starts at 2pm in the Blue Ribbon Pavilion each day.  When we're not performing, I'll be hanging around his stall in the Champions Pavilion for the most part.

Also, all the Breed Demo and Stallion Demo participants have a chance to win a brand new trailer in a crowd vote for their favorite horse (Saturday and Sunday only), so please make sure to take a minute and vote for the Welsh breed while you're there! (all 5 of us count as one entry, I think)  Our Heartland Welsh Club would likely use it as a fundraiser for the club if we won.

Everyone seems to think that he's going to be a spook festival at the Horse Fair, but I am not so sure.  I do think that if someone moves in the bleachers as we ride by he'll spook, but overall, he's unusually comfortable in crazy show situations in which everything in the environment is moving.  He really doesn't like a quiet environment in which one thing moves at a time and steals his attention.  A horse that likes chaos...hmm...

Looking forward to seeing some of you this week!  Go Welsh!

I took Connor on a "quiet hack" down the grass track after chores today, but this crazy wind came up during the ride and he completely lost his mind in a way I've seen once before, when the motorcycle drove by the big field last April.  He actually did not spook in place for once and spooked about 15 feet before wheeling around to face the trees, drawn up to his full height.  My sense of self-preservation was yelling "DANGER! DANGER!" so I bailed rather than try to work through that by myself and in a wide open field, and did some groundwork with him next to the spooky, creaky trees before taking him into the arena for some flatwork designed to find his brain.  Green horses: some days you realize how far you've come, and the next day you remember just how far you have left to go.  Love it one way or another.

I didn't take any photos today, so have a picture of  Nick feeding Tucker a popsicle.

My post-stall cleaning ride today should have probably been a hack, but it was too wet outside, and I paid the price by having to fight a war with Connor.  I cried.  It was a terrible ride.  We rode in the indoor, with the doors open at one end for the first time this season, with a really tall gymnastic set up on one side and a pile of blocks in the center of the arena.  I would get his attention, then lose it, get it, then lose it.  I felt like I was yelling "IT IS NOT THE PONY'S JOB TO LOOK FOR LIONS ACROSS THE STREET!" with my body language the entire ride, as he threw his head straight up with his ears on everything but me every time he went past the door, the windows, or the jumps.  Dramatic post-ride re-enactment of Giraffe Pony:


The windows in our indoor are at a height at which a 14hh pony can only look out of them if his head is straight up in the air like a giraffe, and if he's working correctly, he can't see anything.  He did that a lot (and turned his head to look, too) when he first got here as a 5 year old, but he's almost 7 and has been worked in that arena for 15 months now, with firm guidance on what is and is not acceptable behavior during a ride; he knows better with the windows, and he knows better with the open door.  There are windows every 12 feet or so, so every 12 feet I was making corrections for his immature behavior, for a half-hour.

We fought and fought, with him taking a mile if I gave an inch with the reins, and me drawing my elbows back and getting tense as a result.  Transitions every few strides, lateral work, nothing was working and he was frustrated and I had tears in my eyes.  When, after a half-hour of this, he finally sought the bit and got soft everywhere except the open door, I told him 'Good pony!' and pushed my elbows forward, which caused him to relax even more.  Hm.  I got some good, connected trot work out of him and was a walk transition away from ending on a positive note when our previously-mentioned redneck neighbors started 1) irresponsibly shooting their rifle overandoverandover in the same manner as last time and 2) throwing wood blocks off their second story deck into a trailer below.  The horses started running scared in their fields and Connor threw his head straight up.  This time it didn't take as long to get to a good note, and when I got it, I quit right there and praised him.

Blah.

And now for some news!  Connor and I have been asked to represent the Section D Welsh Cob at this year's Hoosier Horse Fair - which is NOT the same weekend as Equine Affaire for the first time I can remember, so all you Indiana people should be there!  I'll be riding him in the Breed Pageant once per day, similar to what I did with his sire last year for the Parade of Stallions.

Connor's sire and I at the Hoosier Horse Fair, 2012

I have always loved hanging out at the Welsh booth at the Horse Fair and introducing people to the breed for the first time, and I am ecstatic that I get to do it with my little buddy this year.  For those of you not from the area, the Midwestern US is very much home to a Western-oriented, backyard cowboy sort of equine culture, and English sports are not typically well-represented at the HHF.  I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "Is that a Mustang?" while working the Welsh booth.  Small + lots of hair + big feet = Mustang,  I guess.  Everyone leaves a little more educated, though, and last year his breeder ran out of business cards after handing so many out to people that became interested in the breed.

By doing it, I will also be promoting his breeder, and giving Connor an excellent opportunity to get used to a high-pressure show type environment, minus the judging.  I had so much fun with Dundee last year - it's such a thrill to ride in front of a huge crowd without the pressure of judging, which is something I'm willing to bet few horse people get to experience.  It should be a great learning experience for Connor, too, as we ramp up his show career this summer; I bet he'll be too tired to spook at people by the third day of living in one of the exhibition halls at the state fairgrounds. :-)  Hooray for desensitization!

After Thursday's success, I was hoping that I could get some more of that nice trot on Saturday.  It was an unbelievable 60 degrees here in southern Indiana in January, and our gorgeous outdoor footing was just perfect, so I decided to take him outside.  Should be a good work day, right?

BOING!

Nope!

My reactive little pony had never been in the outdoor before, and was paying attention to everything but me.  He also spooked in place at the sight of his own shadow moving on the white barn, and then proceeded to spook or look at it every time we passed after that.  I just laughed and pushed him through it into a long canter.  We haven't been able to do that in the indoor since the footing and size makes it hard for him.

The rest of the ride looked something like this:

"Hi, I'm a giraffe.  Did I mention I'm a giraffe today?"

As far as he overtracks, it's amazing that he doesn't interfere, though I have thought about precautionary bell boots.

Just past the spooky place.

You can see the white spot on the top of his hindquarters here.  I call it his Rorschach blot - everyone who sees it sees something different in it.

He's reaching so far under himself with that right hind!

Just starting to listen to me.

Terrible picture, but my husband thinks he looks like two men in a horse suit in this picture.

So cute, it's stupid.

For more photos from this set, see our Flickr page, which is linked above.