Riding the Rein Back?

Rein back is the kind of skill I really feel like I should have mastered by now, but I really suck at it.

I've been working hard to strengthen Tristan's stifles in particular and hind end in general, and rein back can be a great way to do that. In particular, a few steps uphill can be great.

We always fight about it, though. He tries to squirt out to either side, yank the bit away, or simply swing his hind end left or right instead of going straight back.

If I do get a few steps, it's usually with a very tense jaw and he'll do one or two dramatic strides back and then refuse to go further, and the whole process starts again.

I'm asking by: sitting deep, holding the bit steady (not pulling back just creating a barrier against going forward), keeping my thighs open/loose, and giving a light leg cue at the girth with both legs. I almost always also give the verbal cue "back!" which is a carryover from on the ground.

I could do this in hand - and I probably should - but it irks me that I can't do a good job of it under saddle.

So, blogosphere, what am I doing wrong? How do you cue & train the reinback?

Current Schedule

I seem to have - somewhat by accident - fallen into a riding schedule.

This is not a bad thing! Though I do occasionally wonder if it will get stale. So far, so good.

Sunday: hack (20 minutes or so, usually bareback, focused on mental health)
Monday: dressage intensive (40+ minutes, drilling down on one specific thing)
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: longeing (20-30 minutes, side reins)
Thursday: light dressage (20+ minutes, focused on getting in & getting out to nail an overall feel)
Friday: fitness (40+ minutes, hill work, trot sets, long canters, whatever needs tweaking)
Saturday: OFF

last week's dressage intensive

Tristan has always been a harder horse to manage mentally than physically. He just does not love to work, and he really does think things over and benefit from that during time off. At the same time, he's 22 years old, and he is healthiest when kept in regular work.

I am constantly playing catch-22 with his work ethic. His first answer to everything is NO. It has been for over a decade now. That's never going to change. However, his confidence in the work that follows my YES is a really tricky thing to manage. The better his work is going, the more confident he is, and after a warmup he can be downright pleasant if we're on a good streak. The opposite is true: if we're on a bad streak, the ride is just a slog from beginning to end.

springs!

The only way to fix that is to get good work back again, but then you're fighting an uphill battle. How do you get back to good with a horse who is in a grumpy spiral? Time off. Lots of finesse. Backing off intensity - but not too much, because muscle melts off his Cushings body like butter. Lack of muscle means he's less confident in the work, which puts us back at square one. In that same vein, getting too excited about good work means I push too hard, which leads to a backlash.

It suits me, in a way. I would not do well with a horse that has to be ridden every day. My life is too unpredictable. Similarly, the careful constant management teaches me so much as a rider and a horseperson. I'm a really practical person and that sometimes leads to a lack of empathy on my part. Tristan teaches me every day that each small action and decision I take has bigger ripples.

Surprise Show Prep

Last week, I found out that a day off I had requested back in April would finally be ok for me to take - someone had volunteered to provide the coverage needed. I had honestly totally given up on the request and kept it on the list out of pure reflexive frustration.

Thankfully, I found out the day before closing for the barn schooling show! I emailed the show secretary immediately, and followed the next day with my entry for Training 1 and Training 2.

I haven't said anything on the blog because I was convinced it would fall through (part of me is still convinced something will go wrong) but I have been scrambling since then to get show prep done.

That includes:
- Finding all the various parts of my show kit. My white breeches and white show pad were AWOL for three days, and I finally had a brainstorm in the middle of the night of where I'd stashed them and thankfully, there they were. The breeches needed to be washed but that was easy enough.

I know my dressage coat is several years out of style and I don't care I LOVE IT.

- Actually trying to memorize my tests; haven't finished this one yet.
- Practicing that newfangled long mane button braid that people are talking about. It came out pretty darn well and I'm going to go with it on Saturday!

- Taking a lesson to tune up parts of the tests. Given how much of a shit he's been in the outdoor we've been drilling it HARD, working through gradually less huge bits, and this was my first time in the snaffle we'll have to use for the show. Bizarrely enough, he was well-behaved, soft, and suuuuuuuper behind the leg. Can't win 'em all. So now I've been focused on revving him back up in the snaffle which hopefully will not swing the pendulum the other way?

From the lesson: I need to round out my circles better, be more attentive about my marks. I need to ask for some left flexion down the center line and into my halts to keep him square & straight. I need to pay particular attention to my outside rein the canter circles coming off the rail because he's awfully sticky. I need to post quickly and stay relatively light in the reins to encourage him to go forward. I need to use my diagonals to build forward and then carry it through corners. I need to get more precise about my aids for the canter depart.

My times are 10:20 and 11:20 because this is some kind of cushy and luxurious schooling show, I do not even know. Good grief.

So, we'll see how this goes! Stay tuned for a recap next week.

Three things we're working on right now in dressage rides

There's not much that's more boring than a ride recap in which I just write "yep, went pretty well" for a couple of paragraphs. For the first stretch of time in a long time, my rides are going pretty damn well. It's a perfect combination of regular lessons, a horse in great physical condition, my renewed commitment to physical fitness and presence, and a couple of small revelations all clicking together at the same time.

That said, my horse still can't really canter on the bit, so obviously it's pretty far from perfect. Here are three things we're working on right now in our dressage schools.

1. Accessing the hind end independent of the front end.

First and foremost, this has implications for lateral work. It's part of getting him to be more supple and responsive. I can do a somewhat acceptable leg yield and shoulders in without fine control of his hind end. I cannot hope to get beyond that. I started playing with haunches in yesterday and it was not pretty.

It's both a frustrating problem and an interesting puzzle to work on. It's a lot of thinking for me, requiring a much higher degree of communication through my seat than I have been used to, as well as more subtlety of aids than I have trained my horse to respond to. That's the tough thing about being 99% responsible for your horse's training: no one to blame but yourself.

So I am struggling to do things like ask him to step through with his inside hind from the saddle, and to do different things with his hind end than his shoulders might be pointing toward. Moving against the bend is a big red flag what is even wrong with you, mom? See also, haunches in. Most of our problems in that can be boiled down to being totally unwilling to step under with his hind end in a new way.

2. Transitions, transitions, transitions

I've been hitting these hard lately, particularly the trot to canter. Halt to walk, walk to trot - not perfect, but I can get them soft and through with some level of consistency. Slowly, slowly the trot to canter is starting to shape up.

I like the longe line for this, particularly with side reins or the chambon. Once I've got him responsive and quick off the aids, I ask for a trot to canter. I praise him for transitions in which he pushes up from his hind end, through his back & withers, even a little bit. Transitions in which his neck goes vertical and he lurches his whole body upward via his shoulders get an instant back to the trot and then another swift try. His reward is thus both loud praise - which he does respond to on the longe - and a brief respite from doing transitions.

I'm also working on downward transitions, specifically not quitting on them. I'm trying to make them true transitions and not just a drop down, carrying over energy and softness, and using a higher gait to invigorate a lower gait. This has been working particularly well in canter to trot, and my most successful strategy has been patience: waiting for the right moment to ask, usually on a long side after a good, deep, bending corner.

3. Bend to straight and back again

Everyone has lessons they're always re-re-re-re-re-learning. Forward is my core one. I've added a new lesson to that list: the phenomenal improvement in Tristan's way of going by focusing on moving between a deeper bend and a true straightness.

The best example of this is coming down to a short stride: I ask him to stay straight and then for a deep bend to make a true, directed corner instead of just shaving off the corner and making a sort of oval. Then I aim for 2-3 strides of a straight, uphill gait on the short side, then another deep corner.

A slightly different variation of it is on a 20m circle. Points of the compass get a stride or two of deeper bend, and curves get more straightness. (Obviously not complete straightness, but more of the dressage definition of straightness.)

If I focus on this hard, really follow up and work those feelings of bend and straightness through his whole body, keep him soft and reaching for the bit through it? 10 minutes of this work is like magic for him. It's like a giant, half-ring-sized half halt that's easier for him to process and makes him ever so much more supple and more willing to respond to what I'm asking going forward.

Are there any things you're particularly picking apart right now?

Still learning

I've signed up for a lesson next Monday - trainer is coming back from Florida for a little while and we're doing a sort of clinic. So I threw my hat into the ring, which means that after a week and a half off from death flu, I had to get back into the saddle with a vengeance and tune him up so we could get through a lesson.

The good news: I was able to breathe, we picked up where we left off, and I was pleased with both his willingness to work with me and his fitness. (inasmuch as you can tell these things from a 35 minute light dressage school)

The bad news: I put my stirrups back on the saddle because I figured I would not get the most I could out of the lesson if I was riding without stirrups. My posting was...not great, after 6 weeks out of practice.

On the other, other hand, I did get a re-confirmation of something I've been working hard on, which is keeping my hands still while posting.

It seems stupid to even report this as a thing I'm working on. At a certain point in your riding education, you are supposed to have an independent seat. And you keep your hands still. Well, I definitely have an independent seat, but I have always struggled with true fluidity in my elbows.

One of the first things that R. called me on about my riding was that when I posted, I didn't truly flex my elbows, and as a result my hands bobbed a little bit as I posted. She worked hard on me to really understand that, and like magic, when I truly flexed my elbows and my hands stayed still and Tristan got instantly more secure in the bridle.

I've ridden with a lot of trainers, and not a single one of them has ever said anything about my hands. Clinicians get a pass, but not my regular trainers.

So I worked on my elbows a lot while re-learning posting, in anticipation of R. calling me on them again next Monday. Which meant we also worked on keeping Tristan steady in contact, which was a much-needed thing (as always).

I'll keep him on a fairly busy schedule this week, then update his clip and do a light ride on Sunday, and we'll see how Monday goes!

Transition Within Gaits

I have been going to the barn but only riding sporadically. Mostly, I'm really loving free longeing right now, and so is Tris. It gets us both moving and enjoying each other's company, and he is really looking substantially better from start to finish. It's not without its flaws - for one thing, he is refusing to track left consistently, which is about half brattiness and half some body soreness - but it's working for us.

That said, I did ride last night, for a solid hour, which was a lot for us. Usually I'm on for 20-40 minutes, depending on what he needs that day and at what point I see a good quitting time.

Last night, I free longed for 15 minutes (mostly walk and trot, some canter), then tacked up. We did lateral work at the walk for another 15 minutes, then picked up and worked mostly in the trot for 15 minutes with some moments in the canter.

He was feeling good from the free longing: his trot was bouncier and more uphill right out of the box. I took that opportunity to really work more on getting him to sit, and for that I pulled an old exercise out: transitions within gaits.

I'm not necessarily talking about collected-medium-extended; frankly, Tris doesn't have that kind of finesse in his gaits. That's certainly one way of transitioning within gaits, and it's something like what we did, but we did the much broader version of it.

Which is to say: in the trot, I slowed him down and shortened his stride in a gradual way down a long side, held it through a short side, and then opened him up again down the long side or the diagonal. It was taught to me by a working student some years ago as: bring him down, using half-halts, to when he's almost ready to break.

When you hit that point - when you're suspended and need to make a decision - you can do one of two things with it. When I'm working on getting Tristan forward, I then rocket him out of that moment. I drop him down almost to a walk and then make a BIG ask to go back forward. Repeat frequently, as many as ten or twenty times in one lap. It has the dual effect of sharpening him to the leg and making him really frustrated at being told to slow down, both of which make a more forward pony.

The second thing you can do is hold it, and that's when you're aiming more toward a collected trot than just a slowed-down one. Because if you hold it, what you're really trying to do is maintain energy even in a shorter-strided gait, which is the essence of collection. When I'm doing that I keep the half-halts going and a strong leg, I work on suppling and keeping him soft in his mouth, and I use my core to ask him to sit.

We alternated doing that with more lateral work, and then started combining the two into spiral circles: slower and slower trot as we spiraled in, bigger and bigger trot as we spiraled out. That had the benefit of teaching those same lessons while getting more bend activity in the hind end. At the end, we played with sitting down more in the canter for just a little bit.

After an hour of work, he was pretty tired! His respiration took probably 30 minutes to come down while I fretted. We walked around under tack for a while, and then I handwalked him in his cooler for a while longer. He cooled down reasonably well but was still breathing a bit too heavily. I finally put him in his stall and left him quiet for 15 minutes, then checked again. This time, I checked with a stopwatch in hand instead of just counting seconds in my head; it's way too easy to count in time with his breathing and think that his respiration is higher than it is without empirical evidence!

With that final check, he was down to 16 breaths per minute - still higher than I want, but for an out of shape 21 year old horse who'd just worked harder than in the last 5 weeks, I decided it was pretty good.

That said: I did all of this without stirrups, and this morning, I discovered that I might actually have abs underneath the 5lbs of post-election belly fat?

Patience and Deliberate Steps Back

I've been thinking a lot about the training pyramid lately. You know, that infamous dressage textbook illustration.

I know we've all seen it a million times, but I'm putting it up anyway.

My riding and training has been so hopelessly sporadic this summer. Not everything has been terribly productive, and I haven't put nearly the miles on that I wanted to. I was busy at work, the house demanded attention, Tristan went through health issues (again, some more, blog post to follow, resolved now), and then we went away on vacation.

A lot of my life is in a tumult right now. I've been doing a lot of long, hard, deep thinking, trying to mine my own brain to sort out my reactions to things, the ways in which I can control my own reactions and behaviors, and the decisions that I'm making. My watchword right now is deliberate: I have to be ok with the choices that I make and why. No letting things happen.

On Sunday, I had a ride that worked out beautifully. It was a combination of a lot of things that led to success, but if I had to put my finger on it, the thing that worked out best for me was after walking around the fields to warm up, we trotted around the outdoor dressage ring. Two times, each way, and all I asked for was rhythm and focus from him. No squirreling around, no sucking back, no slamming in and out of the contact, no fights. I simply held the reins in such a way that I could feel the bit, and asked him to trot forward consistently. It was nothing fancy or extensive - it took us maybe 12 minutes.

On lap 3, he started to soften through the corners instead of motorcycling. On lap 4, he started to fill out both reins evenly, and then by the end of the lap, he had stretched into the outside rein and begun to soften. I called it quits. I dropped the reins, patted him, and we moved on to something else - walking the roads for a bit, then up the hills to get some quality muscle work time.

I've been reflecting on that ride since, in the same way I am turning everything over endlessly in other parts of my life. I think I've finally untangled something in my brain. See, Tristan is a more or less trained horse. Buried inside his brain and in his body are all the tools and memories necessary to put together a very good Training test that on a good day is schooling first. 

But that's not where or what he is right now. I can't swing a leg over and expect that horse. And I guess I have been: I've been putting him through a cursory warmup and then trying to school shoulder-in, or haunches in or canter transitions. These are all things he has schooled well in the past, and yeah, we've been sort of getting to them. Not well - not happily - not cooperatively - but the work has been produced.

Sometimes it's the right call to muscle through and get to the horse you know is inside. Not right now. Tristan needs to go back to the base of the pyramid, and that needs to be our only focus. Just because he has all the pieces of the pyramid doesn't mean I can just slap them together and zip up to the top.

So, tonight: rhythm. Short, sweet, 30 minutes focusing on a forward, elastic gait in the walk and trot and maybe in the canter. If we get it, our reward will be a taste of relaxation at the end. Then we repeat. It's a self-discipline thing. Just because I feel something in him does not mean I have to reach for it and drag it out. Just because I know what a balanced connected trot and canter feel like does not mean we have to get it tonight. Or the next night.

It's both humbling and frustrating to have to do this again, once more, for the millionth time. Tristan is 21, and he has been under saddle for 11 years now. I have been riding horses for 2/3 of my life. Back to the beginning we go.

Little Snags

Oh, okay, not little snags. I haven't been riding my horse terribly well lately. He hasn't been cooperating either, so there's that.

Right now, here's one of our problems: cantering improves the trot. But he is not quite strong enough to hold himself well in the canter.

So I am left with, after a 15 minute walk warmup, shoving him through the trot, insisting on forward and through while begging for any semblance of softness. He is stiff and sore in his hind end, I know this; I am attempting to remedy this in other ways. But he is not so stiff and sore that he cannot do the things I am asking of him.

(This, I think, is the endless daily compromise of an older horse. He is sore and he is tired. But the ways to fix that involve more basic dressage. There is a lot of working through to get to the other side. He's going to come out of his stall stiff no matter what; but he is a horse, and horses live in the moment, and he doesn't believe me that after warming up his body will feel better, and that the daily work of simple dressage is keeping him healthier and more limber overall.)

Cantering: that helps. A lot. It gets him excited, it breaks up the tension in his back, and it is smoother and easier for him right of the bat.

Best of all is cantering forward on a loose rein, with me out of the saddle.

We cannot do that outside, not yet; though he is way better than he was earlier this summer, when he was bolting hell-bent for leather at the slightest provocation, he is still not what I would call reliable enough for a forward canter in half seat on a long rein. Bolting straight is one thing - bolting sideways is another.

When we are inside, it works, and it helps, but it's summer in Vermont, and we don't want to be inside.

So we canter in a more constrained manner, with a firm hand on the reins, and only occasionally do I feel secure enough to stand in my stirrups. Which lessens the effectiveness of a good long canter. Which in turn makes the trot work that much harder.

I tried to get away with just working up through the trot last night, and it was awful. I spent 40 minutes bullying him into softness, which is really not fun.Or good. Eventually he got there, and he got all the praise, and when he gave me a nice soft 20m circle in the trot we called it quits in the upper ring, and I made the mistake of picking at him a bit more in the lower ring.

But afterwards he was nosy and affectionate and sweet, so there's that, at least.

Longer Show Recap

Can I just say, I envy all of you who can do blow-by-blow accounts of your tests? Like, you remember pieces of them? I dunno. Maybe my head is stuffed too full of everything else, but I can only retain some basic pieces.

First: holy fuck, the weather was miserable. It wasn't so much the rain or the wind as it was the rain, and the wind, and the cold, all together, constantly. Watch Emilie's video to get a sense of the day.

My last prep ride on Friday, after our epic, come-to-Jesus ride on Thursday, was...sluggish. He was tiiiiiiired. We did a thoroughly uninspired run-through of both tests in the dressage ring, in the snaffle, and then he got a long bath. Which he hated, but desperately needed.

Saturday night I didn't sleep terribly well; I drilled and re-drilled the tests, but they would not stay in my head. Not only that, but I discovered that the long diagonal free walk in Training 1 that I had memorized and schooled was, well, not a long diagonal after all, but a short one. *facepalm*

Sunday morning: bang on schedule for everything, but maybe a smidge short on warmup time. I was in not-fucking-around mode, Which was both good and bad. It meant that I was disciplined and strategic about what I chose to do with him, spotted trouble spots, and tried to work through them. It also meant that I was tense, iron-fisted, and railroaded him through everything.

setting off. nope, didn't braid. zero regrets.

From a certain point of view, that was the ride he needed. And it worked: we had not a hint of the bolting, bucking, uncooperative little shit that he had been for the previous three weeks. When I told him to jump, he asked how high. He was so docile that halfway through my warmup I went down to the barn and got a whip, and that added in the last bit of sharpness that I needed, but he still remained controllable.

note clenched fists.

But I'm not going to pretend that was a ride that was going to score well in a dressage ring!

I rode Training 2 first, and succumbed at the last second to an offer to have the test read. That was a first for me! I've read many tests, seen many read, but have never had one of my own read. It kind of underlined my theme of the weekend: do what you can, and let the rest go.

sit up. SIIIIIT UP.

Anyway, Training 2: I was pleased with the way we rode into corners, the promptness of transitions, and while he was braced AF, we at least had lines of communication. I softened when I felt like I could, which was probably way less often than I actually could have, but having gained the upper hand finally there was no way I was letting it go.

f'rexample

I was less than pleased with the, of all things, the lack of interest in my inside leg, particularly to the left, that meant that we were miiiiiiiiiiiiles away from the fence, particularly on circles and particularly in the canter.

does that circle look like it's going to end up anywhere NEAR E?

On the other hand: free walk! YEAH! One of my very few claims to fame is that I do a damn good free walk. Just a few seconds after the picture below was taken he stretched out even more. You can get a sense of how windy it was by his mane & tail.

So, Training 2: I felt pretty good about having nailed the thing, if not done it well, and then we hung out by the ring in the rain waiting for Training 1. I felt like Training 1 would be my chance to actually do well.

Mostly I was right in that. I was much more present in the test, having the assurance that he was going to behave. I identified moments to ask for more, and moments to soften. He responded well to both. So while it was a more uneven test than the first one I'd ridden - which had consistency going for it, even if it was consistently tense - I was more pleased with it.

Well, except for a few dumbass moments. First! I kicked over A on my way in. And laughed my ass off down the entire center line. The judge was clearly grinning pretty hard too when I did my salute, and Tristan didn't care, but man, that was embarrassing.

you can see it on its side in the background here.

Second: I put the right canter circle in the wrong place. It's in the end of the ring, and I put it in the center. Which is a shame as it was actually turning into a really nice circle when I heard the bell. Damn it. -2.

And THEN when we went to do it again, I was so determined to put him on the rail so he could go deep into the corner so we could get the canter transition on a bend so we could be ready to get a good 20m circle...I put him too close to the rail. And he did a little tap dance and I heard his hoof hit the board and I said "DON'T YOU DARE" right at C, and of course lost all of that prep for the canter. (The judge either didn't hear me - which I find hard to believe - or took pity on me and did not mark this as an error, but I totally deserved one.)

I was overall happier with this test, with his rideability and my decision-making, though it was still tense.

what do you mean, straight and upright on a canter circle?

In my partial defense, by the time I entered the ring for my second test it was raining so hard I could barely see through my glasses. A few people actually commented on it afterwards.

CRUSHED the free walk again!

Both tests ended up right around 58%, which is less than ideal, but was good enough for second place in the class, which tells me two things: a) hooray, schooling shows! and b) the judge scored really tough, which I like. Down with the 6's and 7's for every movement!

We scored lowest on our canter circles and any moment when we needed to display bend. We pulled in 7's on both free walks, and the centerlines & halts. Centerline + halt requires little to no actual skill and it's one of the few things I pride myself on consistently nailing.

my own feelings on appropriate salutes are a matter of public record

I put Tris back in the barn, toweled off my tack pending a cleaning later that day, and praised him to the skies. He really did so well. Far better than I expected. It was not fancy or anything, but for our first time in the ring in 4 years, amid disastrous weather and a less than ideal prep in the last two weeks, plus the totally scrambled state of my brain - I'm pleased.

spent several minutes trying to get him to put his ears forward, no joy

Which is not to say the competitive nature of my brain now wants to SHOW ALL THE SHOWS, NOW. It does. We've got probably three more schooling shows lined up for the summer, pending rides, and we can definitely do better.

kinda wish I'd gotten a picture later in the day when all the branches on that tree started swaying

I spent the rest of the day being a general helper around the show grounds. Frankly, I was as miserable, cold, and wet as I've ever been at a horse show. The company was exemplary, but wow. At a certain point after about noon most of us hit the wall, reached the other side, and the rain almost didn't even matter anymore. Wet and cold was a constant state of being.

I helped clean up as much as I could but I admit I bolted as soon as the show was over. I went home, took a loooooooooong hot shower, and sat down on the couch for a cup of hot tea, a few minutes of relaxation...and fell sound asleep for about 2.5 hours. Whoops.

So, that's the story of the show! Overall good. Plenty of room for improvement.

One step forward, two steps back

First, the good news: show clothes still fit! Including the white breeches!

The coat is just a smidge tight, but not in the "doesn't fit" way, in the "cut to be restrictive and make you sit up straight" way, and it's always tended that way.

My stock tie has vanished, but as of late last night I have another one on the way from a friend which is a fun story I will blog about later.

I also located my show helmet, hairnet, show gloves, stock pin without difficulty, remembered that I had actually bought a brand new white show shirt out of some technical wizard fabric like all the kids are wearing these days (my old show shirt was a polyester short sleeved thing that worked for IHSA classes in college but was the actual pits of fashion). I had never worn said shirt but a wearing it in the picture above!

I had also (yay past me!) washed and neatly packed away all my white/show saddle pads. So those are good to go too.

Now the bad news: I tried to start Tristan in his snaffle in the dressage ring last night and it was kind of a disaster. He bolted repeatedly, never relaxed, never softened, would not listen to me and as a result our circles were weird half-square half-oval blobs. In fairness, it was ludicrously windy, so that may have keyed him up, but it was still absolutely awful.

I brought him back down to the indoor and schooled the everloving shit out of him. We ran both tests. We ran every movement in both tests. We ran transitions, We cantered. I put on spurs and a whip and forced him forward into a hand gallop. He was tiiiiiired but finally cooperative at the end.

Then we went up to the outdoor jumping arena, and we repeated that, making sure I had brakes and that he was listening to leg and hand in the walk, trot, and canter. Then we went back up to the dressage ring and trotted and cantered around the outside, politely. He was ever so very tired, but cooperative.

So, today: we'll see. I'll start in his snaffle but bring his kimberwicke up. Depending on how the ride goes I'll decide whether to warm him up in his kimberwicke and switch to the snaffle for the actual rides.

Semi-related gripe: I didn't read Training 2 through thoroughly enough, what the hell. How many times can you cross the diagonal in one goddamn test?!

Baby Steps & Show Prep

First things first: on Tuesday night, I started my ride in the kimberwicke, and let's just say there was not enough pony kicking in the world. So I hopped off and swapped bridles - I had brought his dressage bridle up - and Tristan was a ROCK STAR.

We ran through Training 1, and my geometry was the absolute suck, but Tristan took a half halt, gave me some bending, and even softened up quite nicely in the canter. It was nowhere near a world-beating ride but there were moments of respectable dressage. Which is really all we've ever aspired to.

So, we might actually pull this off!

Things left to do:
- pull out my show clothes you guys I haven't even unzipped my coat bag since we moved to Vermont and literally the last time I put on my white breeches was July 2012 THIS CAN ONLY END IN TEARS
- give Tristan a bath
- clean tack
- actually read Training 2 and maybe think about memorizing it
- think through some kind of warmup plan? who am I kidding, I'm going to wing this on Sunday morning

Realistically: I have this evening to do one last major ride and pull out my show clothes, and then tomorrow afternoon - maybe? - to do a quick tune-up, give Tristan a bath, and clean tack.

Also last night I pulled out a calendar and counted and for a stretch that started this past Tuesday, this coming Sunday is my only complete day off for 21 days. So of course I'm horse showing, then volunteering afterwards. What is it about horses that encourages so many bad life decisions?

Oh, and it's going to rain. All day. Yup.

Progress!

Last night, I got on about 7:30 pm after we returned from the weekend away with my husband's family.

My goal was solely to confirm that Tristan was going to continue to cooperate in the outdoor ring while wearing his kimberwicke.

Victory!

I got obedient 20m circles each way, and while they weren't pretty, he at least let me tinker with them a little bit.

Tonight, I'll start him in his kimberwicke and then swap to the snaffle, and we'll see if we can't get an actual schooling ride in. Who knows, I might even do something crazy like try and practice my test. Probably I should memorize the test first. sigh.

yup, that's the view from the dressage arena

The new love of my life

As in, I almost certainly love this thing more than my husband right now. (Though probably not more than the dog.)

Tristan has been a challenging ride this spring. Probably not in the grand scheme of things, and not for a rider with actual physical fitness and skills, but he has for me. He's been throwing bucking fits on simple hill walks. He's been bolting for home. He's been jigging constantly and fretting himself into a frenzy.

I pulled out the big guns. This behavior is not new. It simply has not occurred in many, many years - seven or eight, to be precise.

See, when Tristan was first learning about riding in the open, he was equally awful (worse, in some ways). I was not nearly as good a rider but I had a certain stickability. He never dumped me, but it wasn't a lot of fun either.

Enter our savior.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a mullen-mouth uxeter kimberwicke. 

Mullen mouth = straight across, no joint. Uxeter = the slots on the side of the bit, which allow for two types of leverage, straight or torqued. Kimberwicke = this particular style of bit, which features the separated bit hangers and the curb chain. Kimberwicke bits can also come jointed or without the leverage slots on the side.

Here's what it looks like by itself.

You can see that the mouthpiece itself also has a low port.

Let me be clear: this is not a subtle bit. This is a bit that says WHOA THE FUCK DOWN RIGHT FUCKING NOW when it is applied firmly. 

It is also, however, a relatively stable bit. Depending on how you adjust the curb chain, it never kicks in. If you attach the reins as I have above, it - and the port on the mouthpiece - only kick in when you really need them to.

Here's what the lower attachment looks like, putting this bit closer to a pelham in action (not on Tristan, random internet horse):

All of that together means that this is a bit that is relatively inert and stable until it is not. Which means that you can ride in it with quiet, steady hands and have a simple, straightforward go. If you have a horse that likes a mullen mouth bit, you can use it for some dressage work - softening, etc.

Tristan tends to prefer double-jointed bits, so I never had much hope that this would really lead to quality dressage work. What I wanted was to regain some of his respect for me when riding outdoors.

I still remember, with perfect clarity, the first time this bit kicked in. I had taken Tristan out to a field behind an old barn and we were simply walking around a bit. He reared, spun, bucked a few times, and bolted for home. He had done the exact same thing the previous day, and I had not been able to stop him; he jumped two ditches, I lost both stirrups, it sucked an awful lot. (I hadn't yet learned an effective one rein stop, that's how inexperienced I was with that sort of thing. I learned later.)

But on that day, three strides into the bolt, I hauled on the reins - not with any sort of tact or subtlety. I just hauled. He stopped cold. Mid-stride. Stock still. He was utterly and completely horrified. He walked politely home, completely mystified as to what had happened to him. It was a truly glorious moment. 

From that day on, he went in his kimberwicke for all outside endeavours, for about two more years. Eventually, it started backing him off too much - he didn't need it. We moved to a full cheek snaffle for jumping and cross-country, and hacked in his regular loose ring.

When I was casting about for ways to work with Tristan on his new misbehavior, I resisted pulling out the kimberwicke; it felt a little bit like failure, or regression. Eventually, I accepted that feeling and pulled it out.

The first day I rode in it was the day of my photo session with Emilie. It was also his first ride in the outdoor dressage arena. He was not thrilled at the walk, and picked up an uneasy trot, and then when we turned to the short stride at the far end, as soon as we passed A, he was OFF.

I simply sat deep, put my hands down firmly, and let him run into the bit himself. I was perfectly quiet and calm. He did not stop mid-stride, but he did immediately drop to a polite walk, tossed his head once or twice, and then licked and chewed.

For the next few minutes, he was a little unhappy, but he was at least polite. I kept steady, quiet hands, asking him simply to trot without flailing. Then I pushed him a little bit, asking him for some actual softening - but not expecting it. And he gave it to me!

Two days ago, we went back up to the outdoor ring, again in the kimberwicke. He never even thought about bolting in the trot. I asked for a canter. He completely exploded - for a stride and a half. Then the same thing happened. Back to a polite walk, a few minutes of disgruntlement, and then we had an actual productive ride, working on geometry and putting together pieces of the test.

At about the 40 minute mark, I asked for a canter to the left, our trickier direction, and he gave me a polite, obedient, and straightforward - if very backed off - 20m circle in the canter. I brought him back to a walk, dropped the reins, and praised him to the skies.

Now, to figure out whether to a) technically bend the rules and ride in the kimberwicke for our schooling show or b) somehow make the transition to the snaffle again and hope that he behaves even in a show atmosphere...

Training Level Test 1

Whelp, I've officially entered Tristan for a schooling dressage show on June 5. I skimmed the tests and picked Training 1 and Training 2 for...no real reason other than they're sequential. It's been so long since we've attempted a test all the way through that I have no really good sense of what will play to his strengths, and honestly sussing that out is not gonna happen before the entry deadline.

So, I've been looking more closely at Training 1.

1. Centerline, halt, turn left. Potential pitfalls: halting square, picking up the trot again without a tantrum, heading straight toward the judge's box. Beginner Novice B, I MISS YOU AND YOUR BENDING LINE ENTRANCE.

2. Track left, circle in the center. Potential pitfalls: geometry. Bulging right shoulder. Staying in the arena.

3. Transition to canter, turn left. Potential pitfalls: crossing the entrance again; Tristan might see an easy way out. Also, our canter transitions are pretty much mired in suck right now. At least the left transition is as far away from the judge as it gets.

4/5. Canter circle in the center, back to trot. Potential pitfalls: Staying on the circle in the canter, especially left. Geometry. Staying in the ring.

6/7. Free walk across the diagonal. Potential pitfalls: picking the medium walk back up for F. 

8/9. Trot transition, circle right in the center. Potential pitfalls: staying on the circle, a not-ugly transition at A.

10/11/12. Canter transition, circle in the center, trot transition. Potential pitfalls: as mentioned above, our canter transitions are ugh. Geometry always a concern in the canter. Timing the transition back to trot.

13. Centerline, halt, salute. Potential pitfalls: making the turn, keeping the centerline straight, getting the halt square.

The good news: this gives me some marching orders. In particular, those canter transitions. Fix them and we'll nail down a lot of the other problems - especially the shoulder-flinging.

I've been working on the trot-walk-free walk and back again transitions for a little while now. Tris has a great free walk, mostly because he's so relieved I let him do what he wants. The trick is keeping it marching - we've mostly got that, but it will be different in the other ring. I need to be more subtle and tactful about picking the reins back up, too.

In short: while I have no doubt we can get the basic test done, I need to polish some of the pieces. All of them are well within our capabilities. I wish I hadn't hit a valley right when we need to be ramping up for this test, though.

Riding Notes: 5 Things

The real takeaway of my last few rides: I really need a lesson to pinpoint what I need to work on next. I'll have to see how March bills shake out first, though. :(

Anyway. We've had some really good dressage rides the last few days, and I wanted to document a few things that have gone well or that I need to work on. With pictures, because I don't want to scare you away with a giant wall o'text.

Thing the first: Hips to hands. Always. Everything about our rides goes better when I remember this one. A former trainer used to tell me that I'm really riding and managing the horse in the space between my hips and hands. When I think about that so many other things click into place: my elbows soften, my hands somehow magically come up from my lap, and I start to engage my core. It's most useful when we are almost, but not quite, at the point of collection; usually those small but crucial pieces are the ones that I'm missing, and putting them in place makes a big difference, and then lets me ride the collection much better.

Thing the second: Tristan has been flinging his shoulders more than usual in warmup. It seems to be a refusal to go into the outside rein. For example: there's a particular spot in the ring. It's one of the short sides followed by the corner to go back to the long side. About midway through the short stride, as I'm asking him to come off my inside leg, into the outside rein, to collect more and go into the corner, he flings his shoulders and nearly squashes my leg into the wall. I respond by cringing away from the wall, shifting my weight, and totally disrupting what I'm asking him to do - which, of course, was the point of his shoulder-flinging all along. He gets away scott free from having to do anything in that corner. It's purely a learned behavior at this point: he doesn't do it in any other corner, for example! He replicates it in small other ways at other points in the ride (on the open curve of a 20m circle, while getting ready for our first canter, etc.) and I need to better anticipate it, because once he's got those shoulders moving, they are going, no matter what I can do. Prevention is the name of the game.

Thing the third: I need to add more 20m circles and serpentines back into our repertoire. Those changes of bend are so, so lacking right now. A good thing to remember for walk breaks - stay on the bit, stay collected, but work on changing the bend to increase suppleness.

Thing the fourth: Trot to canter transitions are so so SOOOOO much better when we both stay straight. Like a miracle. You'd think I would remember this from day to day, but if you think that, you have infinitely more faith in my brain than it deserves.

Thing the fifth: We are pretty darn close to ready for a Training level test right now! Not a good one, but all the pieces are there once we warm up and we're capable of them. Two nights ago I did a lovely free walk long diagonal to medium walk to medium trot at A followed by the first curve of a 20m circle. Everything was on point. Now, can we put those pieces together coherently? Nooooope, not yet. That's still coming slowly, those transitions between gaits and the quality geometry. But it's coming, and the gaits themselves are feeling awesome.

Wordless Wednesday

I have been up since 3:15 am for work things and cannot brain today, so here, have a throwback video to Tris and I doing Beginner Novice B a few years ago.

2016 Goals

Ok, I'm putting this out there.

I'm going to take Tristan back out to some dressage shows this summer.

Nothing recognized. Probably not even traveling (unless a ride presents itself).

But we're going to do at least one, maybe two, of the schooling shows that my barn offers. Training, I think. (We've never been First Level; probably no way we'd get there now.)

Our local schooling series has some appealing additional options, if anyone else is going. We'll see.

I realize this goal is...laughably small compared to many of the other goals floating out there in the blogosphere. But it's ours, and it's been a tough couple of years, so setting sights low is fine by me.

Eating crow and why the internet is awesome

I am really pleased with the way Tristan is going right now. He's really sound, he's working well, and he is getting slowly but surely more fit. After a long and tough ride on Monday, he was quite tired but his vital signs returned to baseline much more quickly than they have before.

I'm working mostly on a day on, day off schedule to ramp up work and then give him time to rest. He's always been a horse that has benefited mentally and physically from rest days. On days when I am out there back to back, I do another kind of work with him - I longe or we hack out.

He's still very slow to build muscle. The Cushings has just really gone after that part of his metabolism, for whatever reason. It's been a solid six weeks of very good work now and I'm only seeing the most incremental changes in his body. Physically, he feels like he should have more muscle than he does. I'm not sure what to do with that yet.

On Monday, I took some photos to show how his neck is developing basic muscle, and also to show how far we have to go.

As always, it does look better in person, but you can see some things. His crest is doing better, and he's filling in just in front of his shoulder a bit.

There's a problem, though. I couldn't quite figure it out until I read Jenj's recent blog post and put two and two together.

Can you see it now?

Yeah. He's developing a funny muscle bump in response to the way I've been asking him to bend. Exactly as described in Jenj's blog post.

Bugger.

Knowing is half the battle, right? Back to boot camp for both of us.

Remembering the things that worked: riding journal

One of the nice things about a blog, in theory, is that it gives you the chance to let history repeat itself in a positive way. I've often looked back over previous entries when looking for the solution to something - and bam, there it is. I already tried it three years ago and it worked or didn't work. Sometimes my memory is just that bad or that hazy.

With that in mind: Sunday's ride.

I started him off in Back on Track hock boots while I re-clipped his neck and chest, which was an epic failure because it turns out $30 clippers with their original, never-sharpened blades probably need refreshing after a few years. So, yeah. But still, he spent maybe 20 minutes in the boots while I attempted to hack away at him.

I started with some crossover exercises in hand, doing a full circle in each direction asking him to step over in his hind end. We then did about 10 minutes of walk warmup still wearing the hock boots, and I took them off, and did maybe another 5 minutes. I picked up a trot and let him canter for a bit with me out of the saddle, then did some really straightforward, nothing-special trot work focusing mostly on getting him straight and not flinging his shoulders around, and going deep into the corners.

I had thrown down a pole on the long side, and we worked on going over that in stride and not getting super-excited about it and rushing it just because it might someday be part of a jump, Tristan. I worked this intermittently into our trot work, nothing really focused or planned. Then I picked up a right canter and worked on a 20m circle until I got a good clear in-stride canter over the pole. This took a few minutes as he kept dropping to the trot, either just before the pole or just for the split second over the pole.

Then we went back to the walk because it was 40 degrees and a little over-warm, and I thought about how hard it had been for him to canter over that pole. And here's the part of the ride that really worked.

In that walk cooldown, I thought hard about exercises that would engage his hind end. We stopped on the long side and did a turn on the haunches in both directions, a couple of times. We worked on stepping back under saddle, counting steps. This is something he typically has trouble with, for whatever reason.

[Sidebar: I once had a dressage lesson in which a solid 30 minutes of it was the trainer trying to get me to back solely through my seat, not touching the reins, not using the leg. Yes, it was as incredibly fucking excruciating as it sounds, no, we never actually managed it, yes, that was one of my signs that it was time to move on from that trainer. Oh, and yes, there was talk of "opening chakras." Oh, 23 year old me, you were so trusting.]

Anyway: loading the hind end. We also went deep into corners, then straightened on the short side, then straightened again. We stopped at the pole and sidepassed down it, in both directions.

None of this was pretty, let me be clear. It involved a lot of missteps and frustrating moments, but it got better and better after only about 10 minutes.

Then I picked up a trot, and holy shit, Tris had no idea what to do with his hind legs. They were all of a sudden THERE, and they were pushing him UP through his withers, and I could practically see small fireworks going off in his brain. He didn't want to go all that forward, because he clearly couldn't quite figure out what was going on in his body. It was awesome. It was, I'm sure, not the fanciest dressage trot ever, but wow, did it feel funky and awesome.

Then I asked for the left canter, and immediately it was a world of difference in quality than the right canter had been ten minutes before. Now: part of this is because right now his left canter is better than his right canter, in one of those plateau/side-swapping moments that just happens in training. But still, this was miles away beyond even that. He was sitting down, coming up through his withers, and fuck if it wasn't actually collected. I felt like I had all of him under my seat and between my legs, and the reins were the light balancing point they needed to be.

We went forward over the pole, keeping that feel and that jump and yeah: nailed it. Perfectly in stride, perfect canter step over the pole. I kept him for two more strides after the pole and then dropped him to the walk and let him be done, praising him at the top of my lungs.

So: loading the hind end in the walk break. Self, remember that. It worked amazingly well.

Rainy Day Dressage Calisthenics

So granted, it's not Texas-level, but Vermont just saw its rainiest June in over 100 years. Thankfully, my barn has an indoor - like most nicer barns in the northeast - or we would never ride, ever.

We've moved on from strict conditioning rides to dressage and strengthening rides. I am for 30-40 minutes each ride, which is about the limit of his muscle strength and mental tolerance right now. At the end of an intensive ride, he's very body-tired but not terribly sweaty or winded.

Generally, things are going really, really well. We've had a couple of utter shit rides, but on the balance they've been pretty good.

Two days ago, we worked on stretching and coming up over his back and connecting his hind end by getting and staying forward through all three gaits. I got some really nice canter steps out of him. We're in a weird place right now where small circles are actually easier for him, almost, because it's less for him to think about when his body is sprawled all over the place. I've never been in this place before, but when I put him on a 15m circle he's much more bouncy and together. 20m and he flails and trips and just can't even.

Last night, it was all about the lateral work. I started him off in-hand, getting big steps over behind, then backing up, then stepping in the other direction. Under saddle, it was all about the leg yields while warming up, then turns on the hindquarters (blah) and forehand (much better). Those resulted in a horse with a better idea of where his shoulders and legs were, and we stepped up to small circles and teardrops at the trot, then shoulder-in and haunches-in. I tried to keep mixing it up, sometimes using a short diagonal to swap bend, sometimes zig-zagging in leg-yield, sometimes coming back to the wall after a circle and staying in haunches-in.

I'm not going to pretend any of it was show ring quality, but he felt terrific as he worked through it: rounder, deeper into the bit, more connected to my hands, gradually lighter and more able to be responsive to my aids.

Let's pretend this is artistic and not just poor quality. Shine and great condition!

I'm really happy with both his progress and my own schedule right now. The only thing I wish I could add into the mix is more hillwork, but the rain has been so bad the fields are flooded.