Cob Jockey

I've always appreciated bloggers who tell it like it is and don't sugar coat things.  And I have to think all of the abject positivity from this blog this summer has to be a little annoying.

I promise I will always tell it like it is, and I am.  Things are just good.


We are doing things that were impossible six months ago.  Repeating exercises that made me cry last winter like they are no big deal.

Like last night.  When he was good and on my aids, we did 3 strides counter canter, 1 stride trot, 3 strides canter, 1 stride trot, 3 strides counter canter, 1 stride trot, rinse and repeat all the way down the quarter line - entirely with my seat.  No pulling on the reins at all, just a nice consistent contact.

We were so close to figuring things out at Pony Cup, but still missing a few pieces.

Last winter my trainer had me do something similar, and I cried.  I didn't know that I wasn't able to bring my horse down from the canter because I couldn't get the "stop" message across to him when I was clamping down on him with my thighs, inadvertently sending him forward into my hands, and thinking he was  "running through me."  Now I know - he never was running through me.  Or if it felt like he was, he never wanted to be.

August of 2013.

You couldn't have explained that to me before this summer.  I would have listened, but I couldn't have understood, because riding felt one way to me and I didn't know anything different.

This blog has been up since 2009.  Way before I got Connor, way after I started riding, and there's been a whole lot of telling it like it is, brutal honesty, struggles, thinking I knew what was wrong, not being right, being right but forgetting the answer two rides later, and trying things before we were ready.

I should do a post on all the strange things I've catch ridden while visiting Austen over the years... (The first riding photo of me on this blog, Bella the Wonder Pony, January 2010).

We are never going to stop struggling, I will certainly think I'm right and actually be wrong in the future, and I will always be a slow learner, but for the first time I feel like the doors are open to future progress and I'm leaving the barn with a giant smile on my face every. single. ride.

And most importantly, my horse is happier than he's ever been, and annoyingly positive or not, that's what matters.

Connor's 'lipstick foam' lips after our ride Monday. Woo hoo!

For the first time in my life, I am able to automatically take stock of Connor's body and reactively apply the correct aids at the correct times in order to get exactly what I want out of him at a given moment.  This is why I've completely changed my perception that well-trained horses have "buttons" to well-trained horses are sensitive enough to respond to the rider's expertly-applied aids.  I will never be an expert with the timing and placement of my aids, but they are getting more sophisticated, and now that Connor and I are speaking the same language, the results I am getting are better - no buttons required.

On Monday my trainer arrived for night chores right as I was finishing my ride on Connor.  "How did it go?" she asked. "Really well!" I said, "I'm finally able to get the kind of canter transition on my own that I can get during a lesson with you."  She laughed, so I continued "Seriously!  It takes me like six weeks after a breakthrough with you to be able to get it on my own."

Pretty shiny pony.

I worked on the canter on Monday, keeping in mind the mantra "No rein aid without also a leg aid."  My biggest problem in the indoor is that when I give a half-halt, he breaks, so I never learn how to put the canter together.  So, I put together the information from the awesome outside ride with that mantra from a lesson several months ago and figured out that I am riding with too much hand and not backing it up with any leg, causing him to break if he's not feeling motivated to move forward like he is on hacks.  Lightbulb moment six months in the making; seriously, I am slow.

On a 20m circle, I would establish a good, forward trot, do several trot-walk-trot transitions to get him sharp off my leg, then as I was heading toward the wall, I would give him a strong half-halt on the outside with my outside leg a bit back, then apply inside leg to keep him out and ask.  When I did that, it went great. Like Cathy said, I did not get caught up in asking at a particular place or time, but I waited until I had him ready no matter how long it took, and when I did all of that, it was just as good as it was in lessons.

No buttons, all skill, good pony.

At my lesson tonight, my trainer asked how my practice rides went this weekend.  I told her about riding bareback in order to feel myself using my body unequally, cantering bareback and how much that helped me when I went back to riding in a saddle on Sunday.  Intrigued, she had me drop my stirrups at the very beginning of the lesson and I ended up never picking them back up during another spectacular lesson.

Connor pre-lesson, untethered and falling asleep in the wash rack.

This wasn't a physical fitness challenge.  Taking my stirrups away took away my ability to brace against something and contort my body into strange shapes while asking for the lateral stuff.  It also made it very obvious that I brace in both stirrups when doing a downward transition, causing him to fall out from under me rather than rise up under me. She had me keep my calves on him, and to do that I had to hold my legs where they normally would be in stirrups. This revealed that I like to keep my leg off of him, as a result of him liking to shoot forward when I try to put a different leg aid on him (lateral or holding).  When I kept my inside leg on him while I had the outside rein, boom, instant connection.  I would never have realized that in stirrups.

She also had me work on being "lazier" with my body.  She asked me to sit longer on him at the trot, and he responded by sitting down and really engaging with his hind end.  We got the same quality of trot that we got out in the field in the indoor, and then some.  "He is really moving totally differently!" my trainer said.  I focused on engaging my core, but relaxing my lower back, and also letting my elbows feel heavy so that my hands could raise and encourage him to stay up with me.

Yes, that is a curved line that should be straight.  Can I call it 'art'?

I also had a revelatory moment with trot transitions, in which she pointed out that I was...busy...with my upper body during the upward transition, causing him to shoot forward.  When I stilled my upper body (I still don't know how I was active, though I definitely felt a difference when I thought "still") he moved off quietly and roundly into a trot with magnificent impulsion.

Finally, we ended at the canter, and he was so on the bit at this point that he made my job easy.  I asked for a leg yield just before the transition, and had him so well packaged that several times he stepped into a wonderful canter.  He then promptly lost it within a few strides, but hey, that's the first step, right?  He would also get it back right at the end when I first thought about bringing him back to the walk.  Note to self, for future lessons: think walk, continue cantering.

I feel giddy.  I love this pony so much!  The best part, honestly, is that he is so happy doing the work and he's willingly offering everything to me.  He's got that sparkle back.