12 Months

This is to say that 12 months ago yesterday, I pulled Tristan up in his lesson because he wasn't feeling quite right. The next day, he was quite unsound on the RF. The day after that, he blew out his abscess, one year ago tomorrow.

Hell of a year.

Tonight we had what might be called our first really solid schooling session since that day. We warmed up, we worked on lesson homework, we worked through rough spots, we improved from start to finish, we took a break, and we picked the work back up and cemented it. He felt fit throughout and tired in a muscle building way at the end - it was the most time he had spent bending and forward and stepping under since last year. SO glad we are on the path forward!

Best Laid Plans

After a weekend out of state visiting family, I had a routine medical procedure Monday morning. It was supposed to take 5 minutes and leave me in mild discomfort; it took 35, was excruciatingly painful, and my body crashed pretty hard afterwards to the point that my doctor drove me home herself on her lunch break. (<3 Vermont)

So I did not ride on Monday. I did not move from the couch until late Monday night. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling waaaaay better, though I slowed down through the day, and planned on a road hack. I got to the barn to find out Tristan had attempted vivisection of his left hind hoof, as seen below.

Luckily the farrier was there and finishing up with another horse and said he'd look at Tris next. Score. While waiting, I watched a lesson and seeing another rider sit the trot made me queasy - no riding for me after all. Farrier cleaned up the foot and declared it ugly but not worrisome. He's mixing up gunk for me to apply until it grows out just to be careful but it already looks way better.

Today I am feeling well enough to for sure go for a hack...and it is pouring. We'll see if it keeps up until I get off from work, but seriously, universe, I would like to ride my horse.

Lesson Notes

Second lesson on Tuesday, and it went really, really well. I think the 30 minute spots are a perfect fit for us right now: I have him warmed up, we zero in on a few specific issues, and then I have homework.

Warmup was a bit rocky on Tuesday, as he was hopping about rather than go forward, so I stood up off his back and urged him into a canter for a few minutes, and focused on staying forward and straight rather than anything he was doing with his head.

When R. came up for the lesson, we started by testing the response to driving aid exercises we'd been drilling and she saw huge improvement. Not perfect, but already much sharper off the aids. So now that we had laid the forward-and-straight foundation back down, we added flexion back ion.

She talked about something I'd never really parsed for myself before. If the inside rein is responsible for flexion, then there are three types of inside rein that can help achieve that flexion. The first is an indirect rein - a subtle lift and shift of the inside rein more toward the outside rein, while brings your elbow back behind your shoulder. Second was direct rein, which is straight back. Third was open rein, bringing the rein away from the horse's neck.

Indirect rein is more for collection, is more subtle, and is a lighter aid. Direct rein is, well, more direct, and in Tristan's case in particular I have to be careful not to kill the motor when I use it. Open rein is more for greenies who are just learning to steer (and also for oh $h!t moments on XC, I should think...).

We worked on a 20m walk circle and re-established flexion. Tris settled in beautifully, thankfully showing R. that instead of the lazy lunatic who slams into walls as in our last lesson, he does have a dressage pony in them. Within a stride or two he flexed beautifully into the inside rein and filled up the outside rein. We're not talking FEI collection, here, but he recognized and executed the concept beautifully. We repeated at the trot, and worked through a rough patch tracking left - he is hollow to the left and over-eager to fling his shoulders to the outside. So we applied a few strides of counterbend, release, inside bend, release, counterbend, release, and he worked through it nicely.

Then we worked on layering in a half-halt for more collection into that outside rein, once he'd filled it up. R. doesn't like to use the term half-halt when teaching because she feels it places too much emphasis on the "halt" - it's more of a half-go, or as she calls it a connecting aid. I've always thought of a half-halt as that guy in the old phone commercials - "Can you hear me now? Good!"

So we broke the half-halt down into its component parts: forward energy, inside flexion, outside rein, and release. In the perfect, imperceptible half-halt these all happen practically simultaneously. I've never been that coordinated and in the past my half-halts have been an approximation of this but I'd like to take this opportunity to really nail them. So then we worked half-halts on the 20m circle at the trot.

One of the most useful concepts R. gave me while we were working the half-halts was about recycling energy. That's essentially what a half-halt does: if you feel like your energy/collection level is at, say, a 2, then your next half-halt should be at a 2.5, and think about loading the hind legs, increasing the collection, etc., up to that 2.5. Then go for a 3 on your next half-halt. The idea being you're always asking for a bit more with each half-halt and that you aren't "leaking"" energy in between (or at least hopefully not). I am thinking of them a bit like a catalyst, too - you're checking in, you're putting a finger on the connection, and when you're asking for more dressage collection you use it to recharge the battery, but if you use a half-halt out on XC or in the jump ring, you're asking for a re-orient - "here, the jump is here, let's touch base, let's re-form ourselves to tackle what's next."

Tris was a bit tired even after that short lesson, as he used his back and hind end waaaaay more than he has. Our prescription is 10-15 minutes of this work a day for the next stretch and then we'll check in again and take the next step. We'll also make sure we get plenty of road hacks in there, too. :)

Trail Pony

I've been focusing on ring work with Tristan, doing our homework from our lesson: responsive to driving aids, maintaining tempo, putting him forward into the bridle rather than riding backwards. We've been trying to get forward-without-fast in the canter in particular.

Sunday I went down to GMHA to volunteer again for P&Rs for the 25/25/50 CTR ride that Hannah wrote about here. Gorgeous, perfect day, wonderful horses, and I got very wistful about being out and about. I think Tris would be a great CTR horse. I'd like to be less homebound now that he's back to 100%. I've been dragging my heels on this more than a bit - I haven't re-registered my trailer in Vermont (10 months later...) and it needs a check/inspection. My savings still haven't quite recovered from his surgery and vet bills, but I hope soon - maybe September - to get up to that. There are some GMHA rides coming up that we could swing.

On that note, last night I got to the barn after a full day of work on my day off and pulled out our jump saddle and we hit the roads. We did mostly walking, some trotting on flattish sections, and all in all spent about 45 minutes doing about 3 miles. Probably 85% of it was some kind of grade, some of it quite steep indeed. On the flat and lightly sloping sections where we trotted, he really settled into a nice big road trot, and while I took a firm grip on the reins he never offered to canter; he was just motoring along.

We finished with a bit of a hand gallop up our favorite hayfield hill, and one benefit of riding in the jump saddle was that I could do a proper gallop position and bridge my reins which seemed to give him a flashback to conditioning for events last summer. ZOOM. For the first time, too, I had to pull him back when we cleared the pasture instead of urging him forward until we cleared the fenceline.

Small Victories

Lip update: sloooowly getting better. Swelling almost all the way gone, but still stiff and bruised. Now looks about 95% normal. Pain level is about comparable with the most painful zit you've ever had on your lip, and I still can't drink normally which means I have now dripped iced coffee on three different pairs of pants this week. Which I'm sure is information you all needed to have.

I've been doing barn chores for the primary reason of earning lesson credits, but my secondary reason was to continue getting back in shape. I had 11 months off, too, and the stress of moving and starting a challenging new job meant that I have been consuming way more than my fair share of carbohydrates. I've been baking too much bread and then eating it all, is the real problem here.

So I was very pleased to discover yesterday, while carrying heavy book boxes around at work, that lifting them was far easier than it was a month ago. I'm also marginally stronger while doing chores, and while my legs were a bit sore when we started cantering they're not now, and I'm incorporating more two-point work for my own fitness.

I am still struggling with adding in additional exercise - we have a recumbent bike at home that I was using regularly for a while, but not so much now - but it's good to feel the little work I've been able to manage making a difference.