Cob Jockey

I feel like my life is just about under control enough that I can start blogging again...aaaaand I leave for the CrossFit Games in Los Angeles for 10 days tomorrow.  I'll have a mix of horse posts, CrossFit posts (for the CrossFitting ladies I know are in the audience), and no posts over the next ten days.  Cheer on Nicole Holcomb if you happen to catch any of the Games footage next week!

Nicole today, already in California, fourth from the right.

I saw my trainer teaching lessons in the open jump field, so I put on jump tack, which of course meant we ended up not jumping, but it was productive and fun, so no complaints.

He tried on his insanely amazing halter Hillary sold to us, thank you, Hillary!  It fits beautifully!

We had a biomechanics lesson entirely on a 20m circle on a slight incline.  She has been working the horses on a slight incline to magnify any imbalances they have so she can fix them - and Connor's were immediately obvious.  We focused on aligning his head with his center of gravity, and not letting it go in or out of the circle.

Connor's preferred method to go downhill was throwing his forelegs out in front of him to stop himself, but not slowing his hind legs down at all.  We've noticed this on the flat too, and for a pulling breed, it makes sense.  He has no concept of where his hind legs are or how to slow them down.  Going downhill, it meant he swung his hindquarters out to either side to avoid running into his forelegs.

Does this look like a pony who doesn't know where his own hind end is?  Well...yes, yes it does.

This was one of the more fascinating lessons I've had, because I felt the whole 'teaching a new concept to a horse' process from start to finish.  The goal was to walk downhill with his hind feet behind his forefeet.  I needed him to learn to slow his hind legs down and shift some weight back onto them.

At first, he didn't know what I wanted and just barreled down the hill.  As I gained more control of his body, he started listening to me, and got confused - he'd stop and think for a second before continuing on, asking me what I wanted.

When he aaaaaalmost had it, he suddenly realized how much work it was, and we had a really funny Welsh Cob moment: he stopped on the decline, and shook his head up and down for probably 10 or 15 seconds - long enough for me to laugh and then exclaim to my trainer "Oh my gosh, he is literally telling us 'no, this is too much work!''

#myhorseisadachshund

From there he got better and better each time, and by the end, after several free walks in between good declines and lots of 'Good boys!' he was keeping it together on a fairly loose rein and I could tell he understood what I was asking and wasn't just complying with my aids physically.

My trainer said, "I know what your homework is!" and I grinned and said, "Uh, I know what YOUR homework is, he's all yours for the next 10 days," (She's putting three rides on him while I'm gone in exchange for the lessons I will miss/have missed.)   Looking forward to seeing what he feels like when I get back, I'm going to miss the little guy!

Just realized how long that mane is...oops.

Ahh!  We got it!

(And as a side note, this is why we didn't make a lot of progress this winter.  I need to be able to quietly figure stuff like this out on my own after my lessons, and I wasn't able to ride consistently enough to do that this winter.  That stops now, this week, now that it's going to be in the 50's and 60's!)

It's probably because he was wearing white boots, a Dressage saddle and a sparkly browband.  #lookingthepart

In our ride yesterday, I worked on exactly what we worked on in my lesson on Saturday.  It took a while, but I finally felt his back and poll lift the way she said it would, and I also felt him carry the movement himself like she said he would.  It didn't last forever, but I felt how to get it and what it was supposed to feel like.  It's much easier to the right than the left.

Foam!  Also notice the lack of goat beard.  Phew, finally got around to that.

Funnily enough, I didn't really "get" either alignment or the right tempo until I asked for a halt too quietly, and he did the exercise at the right tempo and in the right bend (and didn't halt.)  That's how much quieter my seat needed to be in order for him to go the right speed.

"I bring the Dressage skillz, you bring treats, yes?"

I had to really focus on keeping the tempo in my core, which I forgot often, and I also had to keep my outside leg back pretty far to keep the squirrely hind quarters in check.  It feels REALLY far back for my leg which is used to the jump saddle and bareback more than the Dressage saddle.

Training braids actually look really cool from 20 feet above him.

I know we got it, though, because when he was doing it absolutely perfectly, I asked for a halt, and it was a perfectly square halt.  More square than that horse has ever gotten in our 3 year relationship.  And his back went up into the halt instead of down.  I am able to feel so much when you slow it down that far.

I like this new program!

It was almost 50 yesterday, so he got his braids redone and his bridle path, ears, and goat beard clipped.  As soon as it is above 50, the mane pulling will begin.  That's going to be a long, multiple day process.

This is pretty much stream of consciousness about my Saturday lesson, but there's no way I could shorten this.  In fact, I really feel like I needed to write it down so I had to think about it a second time.

While I was gallivanting around Texas last weekend, my trainer was auditing a Jean Luc Cornille clinic in Lexington, and came back bursting with ideas that would clarify concepts we were already working on.  She said she pretty much dragged a couple of other students to it, and I would have been dragged too if I hadn't been away.

His "THE SNOW IS SLIDING OFF THE ROOF!" face.

At my lesson today, she did one of the exercises with me, and without having seen the clinic I have to describe JLC as "biomechanics with an MRI machine nearby"  (Not literally.)  JLC's website describes it like so:

The authority-pleasing, question-suppressing, rule-following approach is wasting the athletic abilities of talented horses and gifted riders. Modern science exposes the horse’s vertebral column structure and function in details previously unknown. With this knowledge in mind, the rider’s feeling can lead the horse’s education toward unprecedented achievements.

She spent about 10 minutes talking in the beginning, and I am not sure I fully grasp it all yet even though I rode it and it made a big difference in the way Connor went.  Basically, she talked about getting the horse to carry his weight evenly distributed and off the forehand, and how the ribcage relates to that.  Even if a horse is bent in the correct direction, his ribcage can still be out of alignment on multiple different planes, and that makes him unable to use his back correctly, really carry himself, or shift his weight back.

The main road to the barn is closed because they're replacing a bridge along the route, so I have to cross this scary freakin metal bridge to get there for the next 6 months or so.

Our entire lesson was spent at the walk.  At a very slow walk, because she wanted both he and I to have time to think about our mistakes and our successes.  And when I mean very slow walk, I mean hardly moving, with Connor deliberately thinking (and he was really thinking) about where to place each foot.  This was really hard for him, given his tendency to rush.

So I was:
- Keeping the walk very slow but still engaged
- Keeping my core very still and tall
- Using the upper inside of my inside thigh toward his wither to ask for the correct bend
- Not using my lower leg unless I needed to make a big correction
- Keeping him in shoulder in the whole time

Not only was it really hard to slow him down (we only got as slow as she wanted maybe twice - and when we did, I knew it was right because I could hardly feel his footfalls), it was also really hard to keep all his body parts in line.  As soon as I got the ribcage, he'd swing his hindquarters out.  She actually got on him at the end to feel what I was feeling, and she said that I was slowing his front legs down, but the hind legs kept going pretty quickly, so all that energy had to go somewhere and therefore it went sideways.  I have to slow down every single leg, not just two.

"Please stop writing...please?  This post is long enough."

The amazing thing was, even though we only got a step or two here and there of really doing that exercise right, Connor went amazingly well.  Steady in the bridle (the Micklem/loose ring) and REALLY concentrating on what we were asking.  In fact, he was concentrating so hard that when the piles of snow on the roof started to melt and slide off while my trainer was riding, he only gave it the hairy eyeball.

"Wow," I told her, "If you didn't have his brain where it is now, you would have been on the other side of the arena."  She agreed and said, "This exercise is honestly more about his brain than his body.  He needs to make mistakes, but slowly, and understand why they are mistakes and how to fix them.  He can't do that if he's rushing around."

It's warm, so pony doesn't have to wear a hood anymore and the Great Mane Pull is beginning this week.  He gets to look super manly in these training braids for a few days, because I am NOT letting that mane flop back over!

When she really got him straight and aligned, his whole topline changed.  His throatlatch relaxed, his poll was lifted, he was on the bit, his underneck muscle disappeared, and he looked round.  When he was tense and not aligned, you could see the change immediately.

I am in Indy all week for work training, staying in a hotel, which means I'm pretty far from home but only 30 minutes from the barn, so I am taking all of my makeup lessons at once this week.  I'm excited to be doing that now, with these new concepts to work on.

Despite the fact that we're still slogging through one of the coldest late winter/early springs I can remember, Connor and I are putting in more time than ever these days.  I've bumped our rides up to four days a week, and though we haven't been able to get outside, I'm keeping it interesting with ground poles and, every once in a while, a couple of crossrails.  This weekend, I'm signed up for another visit from our pseudo-resident clinician, Cathy Jones Forsberg.  Just one ride instead of two, since the whole thing is against my better financial judgment, but I was signed up for it before our plumbing fiasco happened - not that I mind, since Cathy is awesome, and last time she saw us in the fall, we couldn't turn left.

Summer, where are you?

Since I haven't seen my trainer in three weeks due to work, our rides are beginning to feel a little flat.  Just yesterday I was able to get him working over his back for the first time in a few rides.  I know it's primarily because my trainer has been having me focus on my position lately, and I've been focusing more on internalizing these changes (posting up to my wrists, not collapsing my upper body, keeping my pelvis from tipping forward, keeping my lower leg steady and on him, not hanging on the left rein, improper rein use in general) because I know that when I get all that right, he goes wonderfully. We're still making progress, but I feel like I need a 'Wow!' lesson to feel good.  Anyone been there?

One thing that has helped is changing our warm-up.  I'm giving him more time at the walk and I'm waiting until his walk becomes free and his head is lowered and he's relaxed through his back, even if that takes a while. Then when I first ask for the trot, I do some very quick transitions to get him in front of my leg - for example, trot, one step of walk, trot.  He's also finally educated enough at the canter that I am able to add a tiny bit of it to our warm-up, and he's always stretching into the bridle and forward by the time we get done with that.  It feels good, and he feels more mature than ever.

Two weeks until the Hoosier Horse Fair!

After I practiced my running braid yesterday, I got a ride in.

All we did was walk.  And it was perfect.

I focused on myself, and I closed my eyes and allowed myself to simply feel what was going on with him.  I thought about where the energy of his walk was going, and where my body was allowing or not allowing it to go.  I got shoulder ins with a simple shift of my shoulders, and worked a little harder for the shoulder outs, but they'll come.  I sat on my outside seatbone more to help his shoulder not pop out on our circles.  I focused on keeping myself centered.

But best of all, I relaxed, and I enjoyed the journey and my pony.  And that's all you can ask for, right?