Polar Vortex, Take 2

You guys, I am officially sick of winter. Our heating and hot water bills are off the charts. My skin is so dry I get a cut or abrasion every time I bump against something. I am eating bread three meals a day with snacks in between and still my body craves more. Whenever I find a sunny spot I sit in it for as long as I can, cat-like. I want to ride my horse, but it's too cold, so I worry about him instead. Is he staying warm enough? Is he coping ok with his frequently frozen solid water bucket? When will we be able to hack out without worrying about the ice? Will there ever be green and growing things in the world again?!

SIGH.

Ok. Time to bundle up and walk to work...

What makes a good lesson horse?

A narrative of my lesson with my boyfriend on Tristan has been requested, and in thinking about how to write it I thought a bit about a bigger question: what makes a good lesson horse?

But I'll get to that in a minute. There's honestly not much to recap about the lesson. It was 20 minutes, with about 15 on the longe line. A lot of talking him through position at the walk. I made him reach all over and do stretching, and call out to me which feet were hitting the ground at what moment, trying to get him to feel what each part of Tristan was doing in order to propel them forward.

We talked about keeping weight deep in the saddle and it was a bit of an exercise in frustration for me to see him refuse to grasp the idea that it is weight, not muscle, that keeps a rider in the saddle. He insisted it was physically impossible for him to drop his weight through his heels without gripping the saddle with his knees. I told him to see what happened when he gripped as tightly as he thought he should with his whole leg, and bless my horse, he launched into a beautiful forward trot, obedient as you please, and then stopped after two strides because M. was bouncing around like a potato sack.

We talked about posting, and finding the rhythm of it, and then I turned him loose off the longe for about five minutes of experimenting at the walk, seeing what happened when he asked Tris to move off his leg and go different places. We talked about how contrary to Hollywood's bad example, reins are not the way to make a horse go left or right, and what the right feel of a horse's mouth in your hands is, and there were some very brief, faint glimmers as Tris tried so hard to figure out what this strange person was doing, when my poor pony offered to step under and reach in response to the sort of, kind of, muffled aids asking him to do so. (I love him so.)

I have always maintained, and yesterday proves it once again, that Tristan would be a really superlative lesson horse. His brain is so rock solid, and his self-preservation instincts are so good. When he feels inexperienced riders on his back his preference is to slow down, and not speed up and take off in reaction to their imbalance. He tries to read muddled aids, and in size and in overall temperament he is the very opposite of intimidating. At the up-down, walk-trot level he is not a complicated or difficult horse to ride; his issues crop up when you get further along, and are usually in response to a more experienced ride.

But he would not be happy as a lesson horse. He doesn't thrive on work. He keeps his temper cheerfully for the occasional up-down ride but string two or three of those together and he would start to get seriously sour and cranky. He would start to shut himself in. He is a one-rider kind of horse; that's where his personality really shines through, and I don't think I'm saying that just because I happen to be that one rider. His interest in and devotion to work is not sufficient to carry him through a lesson schedule.

So I think, perhaps even more than that steady-eddie adult amateur horse (of whatever discipline) the truly good lesson pony is the rarest of equines. The horses that can take a joke all day long and still make faces on the cross ties. The horses who will adjust their way of going to the ride they're getting, will be kind when interpreting aids, and will generally work to preserve the balance of the rider on their back rather than to upset it. Who do as they're told not in the deadhead way, but in the highly competent, thoughtful way of a seasoned professional.

What do you think? What qualities go into the truly superlative lesson pony? Would your horse be a good schoolie?

Foot Progression Collage

I finally completed a project I've been wanting to do for some time: a complete collage of the progression of Tristan's right front.

For those who haven't heard this before, let me make a long story short: in August 2012, Tristan blew a massive abscess out his coronet band. Over the next few weeks, he blew it again halfway down the foot and at the toe. Eventually, we discovered that it was due to an infected stress fracture of the coffin bone, and in March 2013 had surgery to remove bone chips and dead bone.

(if you want the story in excruciating detail, check out the abscess and surgery tags)

Photos are as follows. The top left photo is from August 2012, the night I discovered the abscess. They follow through monthly, left to right, at roughly the same time each month. August and September 2013 were lost in a camera data card crash, and I don't have a November 2013. The bottom right photo was taken on December 18, 2013 and still roughly represents where his foot is today.

For anyone who has ever wondered what a massive abscess hole looks like as it grows down from the coronet band to the toe, look no further.

This will, please God, be the last entry in the abscess tag set.

Two rides, or, how having a plan for a ride doesn't always work out (in a good way)

I've been doing really well keeping Tristan to a consistent schedule with varied work. The last two weeks I've had energy and plans and executed them well. When I got stuck at work way late and was cracking my jaw with yawns by 7pm, I swapped days and went out on a planned rest day. Of course, some of that is about to get waylaid by winter (high of 3 on Tuesday and Wednesday!) but I can look at those days more as a planned rest rather than a frustrating interruption, because we've had some good rides lately.

Friday, the plan was to incorporate lots of leg yields and lateral work. Supple, supple, supple! Then straight, straight, straight! Back and forth times infinity, at all gaits. Well - that plan didn't work out. We ended up in the ring at the same time as a lesson with a horse that was being extremely crabby and cow-kicking, so scratch that. I could barely do centerline leg yields without bumping into him somewhere.

So we worked instead on transitions and keeping straight through them. Changes of direction, turns on corners, walk-trot-canter and back and forth between them on a circle. My job, keep my body and hands still and straight. His job, respond to the leg, don't pop the shoulders, stay in the outside rein. It wasn't the kind of ride that set the world on fire but we accomplished things, and there was a good progression.

Saturday, my planned rest day, became instead a day of planned poles and hind end action. I laid out eight poles and the idea was to work through them in the walk and trot, then change them up and do some individual poles at the canter to work on hock action and jump. Straight through all things!

Instead, I got on at the walk, and we warmed up straight and forward on a long rein. And he was striding forward beautifully. He's easily 50% more forward right off the bat than he was even two months ago, and he's holding it better - my signal that he's starting to get that muscle back and he's responding to my drilling the forward. So I started to play with that, picked up the reins enough to feel his mouth and keep a steady contact but not do much more with it.

We ended up doing 30 minutes in the walk, which I've rarely, if ever, done with so much productivity before. Leg yields everywhere: quarter line to center line, center line to quarter line, off the wall and back to the wall, into turns, onto diagonals. Straight and even in the reins, riding every step. Cueing each individual step over and then going straight again. Mixing it up, so he didn't just zoom to one direction or the other. Simple, basic stuff, but focused and thoughtful and good.

I had set up poles after all, eight of them in a row along one long side, and we walked over those from time to time: straight down the middle, go where I point you, stay forward and reaching. I didn't prop them up to make full cavaletti, since it was already clear that poles were not going to be my focus for the night, but I did jump off and adjust them for trot - they were a touch too close together. God love a horse who ground ties: I literally jumped off, said "Stand!" and he watched me from where I'd left him as if rooted to the ground.

He really likes the poles when I use them as I did, as something to aim him at and trust him to figure out. My job is forward; his is the footwork. He clearly thought of them as an interesting puzzle, and having eight of them - twice as long as I've ever laid out for him before! - was a bigger challenge. He couldn't just power through on a wing and a prayer. He had to have a plan and a rhythm and an adjustable stride.

I did most of the trotting poles in two point, looped rein: something about my posting rhythm wasn't helping him, and after two or three passes I figured I'd get up off his back and let him use it more effectively without me. We also did a teensy bit of cantering after the poles. The first few times through, he was losing impulsion toward the end despite my aids, and so when we finished I sent him forward into a strong canter on a circle, then brought him out and sent him down the poles again. That seemed to do the trick.

Today, a lighter ride planned - I'm going to be teaching my boyfriend a short longe line lesson - and then Monday through Wednesday off for work insanity (me) and temperature (Mother Nature).

Antique Sleigh Rally at Old Sturbridge Village

Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. I did my graduate internship there, and got to ride Tristan through the village one day before it opened.

They also do some really cool programs. Their upcoming Antique Sleigh Rally looks to be even more exciting than GMHA's Sleigh Rally. If you're anywhere nearby, I can't recommend the experience enough!