Home Run!

I worked five horses today. Papillon, Star, Colonel, Reno, and Keno. When Reno came up a little lame and I had a half hour before feeding I seriously considered sitting on Lady, just to pad the count a little.

I got out at 10, and the boys (Robert and Jerry) were working on putting Jerry's cart back together. It fell out of Roberts truck on the way back from a show and as a result, needed a little TLC and about 25% of it replaced. As always, they were working on the cart right in the entryway of the barn. So I grabbed Robert's dressage saddle, and some grooming equipment and set up shop at the main barn for the day.

Before getting my first horse for the day I actually took the time to condition the reins on Star and Colonel's bridles. Its nice because they are flexible now but I've lost my special rein aid, the snaffle push. Its nice having the trailer set up so I can just sit down, polish, and go. I actually wound up polishing tack throughout the day in between rides, a habit I'd like to keep up.

My first victim was Star. I decided this wasn't the moment to work out her issues about tying in the wash rack so I just tied her in the aisle. Cari came by and showed me how I could slide the dressage saddle back about an inch and then it wouldn't be compressing Star's scapulae. (Scapulas?) I think the saddle wound up sliding back up during our ride anyway, but not all the way so that was interesting. I think Star was a little displeased to feel my weight someplace other than where she's used to.

Poor Star winds up being the guinea pig for everything I read about online. I was reading this blog: http://glenshee.blogspot.com/ and was experimenting with some of the thoughts there about collection. The big thing was being much more conscientious about how much leg and hand gets applied at the exact same time. The phrase 'push them into your hands' made me feel like I should be doing both at the same time, but this blog advocates something I remember hearing elsewhere (now that I've been reminded) namely, push them forward with your leg, collect them with rein as needed, push them forward again as needed. Over time they should learn to retain the collection even when they are pushed forward again. Something like that. I'm sure I'm not expressing it quite correctly but hey, thats why I linked to the blog.

(One thing I love love love about this blog is how it just absolutely rips George Morris apart. I always felt bad because much of the stuff he wrote didn't really jive with what I thought I understood about the physics of the situation.)

Anyway, Star was pretty good after a while. We ran into trouble when she decided that there was no reason to react much to my leg, since I was just going to collect her up again. So, when she ignored my leg, I booted her up in to a canter and went around the arena once and then we relaxed back to the forward trot I had asked for in the first place. She got the picture.

She was actually so good, and she had been worked so hard the day before, lots of collection and lateral work and such, that I put her back after a particularly nice collected(ish) walk that she did for me. I think she's starting to get the idea of relaxing her back a little. She really is a very nice ride when she's all shaped up properly.

Got Papillon out next. Not much to say really. She's a good old bird but I only took her in the arena because I didn't feel like dealing with her enthusiasm outside. She got a pretty short ride too, I quit while the sweat on her neck was still in patches. For the upteenth time I've resolved to get Papillon out a little more often.

Then I had my lesson with Robert and Colonel. I dont think I'll ever quite get over the audio-visual disconnect I feel when I watch this old suspender/plaid wearing farmer type guy fluently dispensing eloquent classical dressage advice. I got to demonstrate Colonel pulling on me, which was nice. Every time I say to just about anyone that Colonel pulls on me, the first thing they say is, well dont pull back, it takes two to pull, who do you think is going to win that one, blah blah blah. I dont deny that this is reasonable advice, but it always makes me feel like people think this is just a trivial problem I've created for myself by allowing myself to get into a tug-o-war with this guy. I didn't do this, yes I'd been pretty compliant with his demands that I hold his head up, but I've stopped doing that. I've ridden him on a loose rein, (everyone and their brother all seem to think thats the solution to this problem,) but he's still doing it, so it felt good to be acknowledged. Yes he's pulling on you, yes its a big problem, here's a sensible correction for you to use in the future.

The Plan, is to push him forward every time he leans his head into my hands. When he picks his head up (which he usually does after the first push) then fix him so he's back to doing what he was supposed to be doing before the push. I think I wrote about this earlier, but Robert was there and evaluated the effectiveness of this technique. Overall we were both satisfied that this was the way to go. He added that a moderate to severe inside rein half-halt could also be used if he wouldn't pick his head up from just the forward push. (Sometimes he's stubborn like that.) Plus I should also push him when he does that annoying head flipping thing. If we're stopped and he does it I should just bump him with my legs. I needn't actually move him, I can stop him with my seat, just enough to get his attention back on not being a jerk.

We looked a little at our canter each direction. The left lead was basically fine, good transition, lots of pulling but my upper body was super active so it will help to quiet that down and re-assess. The right lead was at the lower end of mediocre. He picked up the left lead the first time, then the correct lead. When we tried it again later he was insisting on picking up the left lead, Robert kept telling me to bend him more and Colonel actually did a nice little flying lead change. He really shouldn't have because after that when he picked up the wrong lead Robert wanted a flying change. It gave us a chance to show off what a tiny tiny circle colonel can canter on while on the wrong lead. Plus his capacity to pick up the wrong lead even when nicely bent and working well of his quarters. Stubborn little monkey, that one.

I took him out on the trail after our lesson and he was pretty reasonable. We went all the way back to the far creek, but not across it. We walked through the flooded, muddy path along the far creek. I was pleased that Colonel barely worried about the blue tree protectors. The first time I ever fell off him I was leaning forward to let him sniff the ground (dumb) and he came across a tree protector. He went one way, I stayed in roughly the same spot and SPLASH. Colonel stopped running home when I yelled at him. Charles laughed at us both when he saw my muddy self leading Colonel home. Anyway, no big reaction from the tree protectors, or that one piece of Styrofoam that I really should do something about, but I'm unlikely to.

As usual when he was pointed towards home he started to fuss a little but he remained responsive to my requests for a walk so I didn't worry too much. As much as possible (not much) I kept him on a loose rein. Mostly it went prance, trot, walk walk walk walk, prance, trot, etc. Still, there was no major head flailing, or screaming for his buddies, or running through my hands, or prancing sideways, spinning, spooking, bucking, rearing, or that sort of fun stuff. So I'm pretty happy with him. I dismounted in the arena as I think I'll probably do for basically the rest of his life. No reason to let him think there is any good reason to get excited when we are riding around near the barn.

I took Keno out next. Robert had said of Colonels and me (particularly regarding our cantering to the right) that what we needed were 500 miles of good road, and that I seemed a little out of control at the canter. "A little out of control" is a lot generous, but still wasn't fun to hear. I knew I could canter Keno around and feel very in control, so thats what I did. Tacking him up was interesting as always. When I first started to put on the girth he wiggled and fussed so I tightened it as hard as I could manually and held it tight until his feet stopped moving and then I let it down. Repeat. By the third time I tried to put the girth on he stood nicely for it. He continued to stand nicely while I tightened it up.

I went to tighten the girth again in the arena and he just totally blew up. (Or tried anyway.) He spun away from me, and one of his sets of hooves came off the ground, so he either bucked or reared, I wasn't really paying attention. My eyes and will were focused on keeping the girth ratcheted up as tight as it would go until he stood still again. He yielded and let me tighten the girth. He also stood very nicely for the mounting block, and didn't walk off when I got on him.

Cantering around was basically without incident. Cari came in and was working with Xsarena. At one point I wanted to change directions because she had changed, so I tried to set Keno up to do a flying lead change. I guess I must have failed, and Keno nearly fell on his face. He was understandably pissed about that so I let him trot a few strides before going back to work.

[Almost done, I'll finish it later. Gotta go to bed.]