dancing horses

dancing horses

Monday, September 3, 2018

"Never Give Up"

And I think you need to stop following misery's lead
Shine away shine away shine away
Isn't it time you got over how fragile you are
We're all waiting
Waiting on your supernova
Cause that's who you are
And you've only begun to shine ~ Anna Nalick, Shine 


So Carmen and I headed to our last show of the season over the Labour Day weekend. I'm going to give a recap and try to be succinct without losing the detail that help things to make sense.

We trailered over on Friday and she settled in like she always does- easily. We were able to ride in the show ring on friday by booking ahead and paying $5 per half hour. I always book two slots and I was glad that I did because she was full of herself. Fortunately, Shanea was there to coach me through it and we ended having a really good session in there. Carmen had decided that the pink flowers at H, C & M were deadly and was not going to go near them. But we persisted (ha, see what I did there?) and finally she was soft and listening. I do love it when she's rideable.

My ride times were in the afternoon both days so in the morning I walked her around and let her graze. We looked at RVs and a mini-putt, watched traffic on the highway nearby and generally explored stuff.  I also lunged her out on the grass. Something that she thought was a pretty silly idea.
why would I want to run around on this delicious stuff? 
I had decided to get on her about an hour before my first test. Which seems like a long time but I wanted to make sure that I had time if I needed it. I was glad that I had because at first she was tight and stiff and threatening to spook at different parts of the ring. I just rode her forward and kept insisting. Finally she was like butter and it was great.

So we headed into the ring to do our test and I was full of optimism. For the sake of understanding what I'm writing about I'm including videos of my tests. 
Overall I thought that there were some good moments with some bobbles. She didn't want to leg yield left into the corner and I had to get after her causing her to get pissy. Most notably at around the 3:15 mark where she decided that she was running away and no amount of inside leg was going to get her to go over. I should have kept my hands together more but I did what I could in the moment. I regrouped and we carried on. A 3:50 she shied in again and I had to get after her.  So both canter lengthens were a total mess. And her canter was so stiff that it was bouncing me out of my seat. I was stiff as well and clearly was not making it easier. I tried to give her rein for the stretchy circle but she wasn't having any of it and I didn't want to give her freedom if she wasn't stretching. 

I trotted down centre line, halted and smiled at the judge and said 'never give up'. Because to be honest I wasn't completely bummed out over this test because I felt that I had kept riding her actively and getting her back. When she was good she looked great. That phrase though turned out to be prophetic. 

We had about 90 minutes until our next test so I took her back to the stall to relax and have a rest. I was so happy to have some of my friends there encouraging me: Janet, Nancy and Cindy were all there.  I was in the barn resting when Shanea's mother brought my score sheet to me. I was so disappointed to see a score of 57.97%. Mostly because I really wanted to stay over 60 all year. I looked at the judge's comments and they were: "Nice horse-when rider is better able to influence the suppleness and concentration marks should improve". Which I immediately interpreted as 'Nice horse, rider sucks' (my rider score was also 5.5). I was very very upset with this. It felt mean. 

Now I know that judging is hard and I don't want to do it. I also know that it's possible that she didn't mean it that way. But that's how it came across. I showed the video to Shanea and she gave some pointers but I likely was not at a point of being able to really listen. I did say that when Carmen comes against my leg no amount of push will send her back. She knows that she can just run through it. 
I brought spurs if you want to try them Shanea said. And I said YES! 

Because trying out spurs on your hot horse at a show is the most perfect time ever, am I right? 

None the less I put them on (they were very small spurs) and headed off to warm up. When Carmen pushed against my leg I had more leverage to say 'get back over there missy'.  I was happy where we were on our warm up so we went in to do our second test. 

Overall it felt better and had more flow. I was happy with her square halt coming across at B but her head came up because the door to the outside was open and a horse walked by. On the first canter lengthen she was trying to run in but my little metal motivator kept her on the line (although her haunches fell in). Same thing on the second canter lengthen. On the second canter loop she was sure we were going across the diagonal (like in Test 2) and was surprised and irked that we did the loop. She almost did a flying change but we kept it together.  And on our last trot lengthen she fell into canter. Overall I was happy with the test. I kept her in the line and the mistakes were just that- mistakes, not resistance. I was even okay with her falling into canter on the trot lengthen because at least that was a mistake in forward energy, not backward (in other words she wasn't balking or backing off). 

My score was a disappointing 58.53%. My rider score went up to 6 and the comment was 'attractive horse- gets long and strung out easily- losing balance

I was still dealing with the idea that I totally sucked as a rider. I watched other riders go and they just seemed to have it so together. Now I know that I have no idea of their journeys and I was so happy to seem them have great rides. I was also jealous. And that is just me being honest. I'm not proud of how I felt. My friend Tanya gave me the sweetest pep talk. That I don't remember but that it made me feel better. I seriously considered packing up and going home. If it hadn't been for Paula I think I might have. My friend Karen told me to think of the question 'why do you ride'. Which is a good one to think on. 

I decided to stay and forget about scores and judges and take this as a schooling opportunity. 

I had a crappy sleep that night and was feeling less than motivated to show the next day. I repeated the activities of Saturday: hand walking, grazing. lunging. I had a lunch around 11 (about 3 hours before my first ride) and it just seemed to sit in my stomach like a lump. 

I walked Carmen over towards the warm up ring and a motorcycle roared by us on the highway (it's just on the other side of the fence) and backfired. Carmen went from mellow and relaxed to full on wired. Which is to be expected. I just kept walking and she settled down. I mounted and headed into the warm up ring. I should explain that the warm up area is a 20x40 indoor arena with large doors at each end. There is a small window that was open on Sunday because it was warm. You can can see the alley between the warm up and the show ring and there are people, horses etc walking by. To me this looked like a benign window. To Carmen it must of looked like this: 



Because as we walked by she leapt sideways and almost careened into another rider. I yelled an apology (and I am so very very sorry). I tried to work her and get her over it but she was spiralling. Someone asked if I wanted them to close it and I said yes. I would have preferred to work on it but I was derailing other people's warm up and that was not fair. Things improved with it closed but I had to work really hard to keep her with me. Finally I had her on the aids and soft. It felt quite good. 

We headed into the ring and I went to work. It's not that I forgot about the judge- I didn't. But she became irrelevant. We were in the ring to ride this test and school. And so that's what I did. My goal was that I was to be the one making all the decisions and Carmen was to do things because I said so. Not if she wanted to. Now before you think that I'm being mean and cruel and don't I know Xenophon that nothing beautiful can be forced? Of course I do. Except that Carmen was not scared of anything in that ring. I could walk her by all of it on a loose rein and she was fine. It was to get out of work, pure and simple. So every error I corrected and carried on. 


And by god we were bending. I didn't care how strong an aid I had to use or how it looked, if I put my leg on to bend and she ignored it I was fucking making her bend. You will see at about the 4:30 mark she tries to run in and I am like 'nope. We are going back to the rail and I'm STILL going to get after you to lengthen those 3 strides. You can see my left leg coming off and booting her back.   At the 5:29 mark you can see think about bopping away and both my legs came on and drove her forward. It was not a pretty test but we got it done. Carmen's face at the end kind of says it all.  I didn't even see my score or my test until the show was all over because at this point it didn't really matter.  I was sure it was awful. My mark was 59.22%, with the comment "rider has nice leg position but needs to be more balanced in the saddle and able to influence the bend from the inside leg to the outside rein. (see rider sucks!) Truthful to be sure. I am riding to the best of my ability and Carmen is able to stiffen everything and it's like riding a pogo stick. 

For our last test of the show I planned on a 25 minute warm up. I went in and we walked a bit in both directions asking her to soften and stretch. I then put my leg on for a trot transition and she was unnnh, I don't want to (if you imagine a whiny voice saying it you'll get the picture). Both of my legs came on and I booted her with the spurs and she leapt forward into a canter. That was fine. I asked for forward and so forward we went. After that my warm up was on prompt transitions, bending and changing stride length. It felt really really good. 

With a deep breath and a oh god can I have a beer soon we headed in. 

This time on entering the ring I picked up a trot right away and dealt with her wanting to balk at various flowers and the chair in the corner.  My goal was simple: we were not going to have any silly spooking. 

And guess what? We didn't! We laid down our best test of the show. I rode every inch of that ring. And mistakes were just that- mistakes. We had a bobble for the first canter depart but sorted it out. There was none of this running away, or going sideways crapy. When she was good I recached out and stroked her neck to let her know. On our first canter lengthen she thought about running in but I kept her going forward. It still looks awful but it's way better then running away which is what she wanted to do.  At the end I gave her a hug and said see that's what we do. The judge said something along the lines of 'it was too bad you couldn't have done that for your other tests'  I smiled and said 'well she didn't bolt so there's that'. Because what does she know of our history? And why should it matter. She judges what's in front of her and that's the thing to do. My only advice is to try to focus on the 'constructive' part of constructive criticism. Our score for this test? 62.21% and the comments: some nice moments. Needs to be more consistent. Rider needs to be able to influence the balance more with her seat, not the hands.  Fair enough. Will continue to work on that. The spurs are going to be part of my riding for now. There will be no more running through my leg or refusing to bend. I will have to be careful to not get too dependent on them or overuse them. 

I am really glad that I persisted in the show. And it felt like a major breakthrough that we had no spooks in the last test; not because Carmen decided not to but because I decided that there wouldn't be

That feels like something important. 

So I have homework for the rest of the riding season. For now Carmen and I are on a break from schooling this week. Pretty sure she's going to enjoy that. 




38 comments:

  1. So proud of you! I wouldn't take those comments as "rider sucks" at all, those are things everyone needs to work on, and it's not like you had an easy horse to ride :) if it makes you feel any better, I have a friend who is an absolutely fantastic rider, and yet she always gets a score lining up with whatever the average score for the test/horse she was riding was. We laugh that she's scored a 9 rider on the easy, fancy mover in the barn but only a 5 on the green eventer she works way harder on :)

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  2. Oh, good for you sticking with it! I would have been hurt by those comments, but I have found that it’s best to aim for humility because horses are going to humble you. 😂 And I don’t care WHO you are. Good job. I ride with spurs now and it has helped keep Leah and I safe on the trails at times. I don’t use them unless I ask First without them. But if she denies, they come on quickly with a tap tap and she really responds.

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    1. Thank you. this is the plan: ask nice and then have teeth to follow up the request. I found it interesting how easily she accepted them without drama.

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  3. Even when you think you’ve had a bad show there’s always some good to come out of your experience. You made her listen and didn’t put up with any crap. She’ll have some time to think about what she learned while she’s taking a break this week. Enjoy your week, you earned it.

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    1. Thanks. I do feel that I came out a 'winner' with the show although more in a training way then in any sort of show outcome. Which is better, I know.

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  4. Really nice job and good for you for sticking it out! And definitely don't take the rider comments personally. As T said, it's stuff we can all work on and if a certain mare weren't being...a little difficult, chances are you could have ridden exactly the same way/had the same position (if that makes sense) and received a much higher score. Subjective sports... Focus on your progress throughout the weekend and the fact that making it through this show successfully was a huge accomplishment!

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    1. LOL, she can certainly be a 'little difficult'. thank you for the support.

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  5. I am so glad you stuck and persisted. You got better every test. Every judge is different and you are right, it is not about the scores. You had a GREAT season overall. Focus on that. Do not let this little blip at the end spoil that for you. Every moment can not be pretty. Everyone has to work through some stuff to get to the next level.

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  6. Also, I am so glad your people were there!

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    1. me too. I can't believe how supportive our group of show people are but it's wonderful.

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  7. Good for hanging in there and making that mare wise up to the fact that work happens and she needs to listen and do the job. She isn't easy but you ride her beautifully.

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    1. Thank you Sara. I know you know all about difficult mares. :)

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  8. I found that the worst thing for my horse was an arena with ONE window/door. It was like some sort of horsey TV he couldn't stop watching, and the riding instructor said, "ALL the horses do that." Hm!

    Glad you have such a wonderful community to help you with Carmen. Makes me wanna live there.

    I wanted to say, I found out today my internship at the hospital starts on the 17th, I'll be starting out in the ER. WOO! You're the first person I've told: )

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    1. Yes- nothing like a sudden opening in a blank wall. It would be fun to have you here :)

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  9. Hey - you went out, did the thing, and continued to do the thing!! There is a lot to be said for that <3 Proud of you for sticking with it, esp when things were less than favorable and continuing to try to better yourself and Carmen

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  10. I love your line about there were no spooks in the last test "not because Carmen decided not to but because I decided that there wouldn't be." YES! You are a lovely rider (the hell with what one judge thinks!) and ended up having a great show! Sometimes not giving up and not giving in is exactly what you need. Carmen is not an easy mare, but you make it look easier than it is. :-)

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    1. Thank you. Sometimes I think that it looks easier than it feels.

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  11. Persistence when you are discouraged really shows your true grit. The one thing I have always disliked about dressage is the factor that any particular judge's perspective can colour your score, making me feel like the scoring can be somewhat irrelevant to the true work you are putting in. Every judge has their own history of experiences and training that colour what their eye is drawn to most, what they consider ideal, regardless of a general standard. Really all that really matters is how you felt about the tests. Congrats on making that last test your and Carmen's best it could be with each challenge you were presented with throughout it!

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    1. Thank you for that. Grittiness is never easy.

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  12. Well, it sounds like a learning weekend. Sorry the judge was so harsh. I think sometimes judge's see a beautiful horse who has potential and then assume the rider is the problem if anything isn't perfect. I get similar comments with Levi. Not that my riding isn't the problem, but he's difficult to ride. That last test seemed like a good improvement though. Keep on persisting...

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    1. I admire the work that you do with Levi- I know he's not easy.

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  13. it says a lot about your grit that your scores increased with each test, even if they weren't what you know you can earn. i don't blame you for feeling like the judge's comments were harsher than needed, tho. it's so hard when we have to 'stick to the plan' with our changeable, mercurial beasts, even as the judge can't possibly know or understand that plan. charlie and i constantly get dinged for stuff i'm doing on purpose for real reasons and... it grates. but that's horse showing i guess.

    fwiw tho my friend's horse learned that he could blow her off without consequence once inside the planks. it made him really really really hard to compete. like they would be great in warm up but as soon as he went into the ring, he just gave her the finger. which... obvi was extremely frustrating. so your approach of facing those conversations head on with Carmen even when a judge is watching makes a lot of sense.

    it reminds me of some george morris-isms tho (i'm not a dyed in the wool fan, but he's got some useful ideas!). he often talks about riders carrying sticks and a spur not just to have that backup, but also bc it makes them feel more brave. seems like the spurs worked for you too! i also wonder if it might be useful to have two sets of gloves: a white set for when you feel like Carmen is on her A-Game and you wanna show it all off, and a black set for when.... you feel like you're gonna have to have those conversations with her. might be one of those little pieces of mental armor to help you stick to your guns, while also having the advantage of not drawing the judge's eye to any of those quicker movements.

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    1. That glove idea is interesting. And I totally get the GM idea of courage. I know I feel more courageous when I wear my safety vest.

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  14. She is a beautiful horse, you are a caring rider who has worked very hard to get her to where she is. Being judged can sometimes be disappointing, but events like these will make both you and Carmen better at what you are working on togehter. Continue to learn together, I guess is what I'm trying to say here.

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  15. Well done for your persistence!! Those days are not the easy ones but we do learn from them. I once rode a test where my horse was so distracted and disobedient that I got 36% (Yep!) You can laugh or cry (I decided to laugh) but don't let it beat you And you didn't. 😁

    I'll just mention (you probably know, but just in case) that the collective marks have to reflect the marks given in the test. The judge might have thought you did an excellent job as a rider but if your marks through the test were 5s, 5.5s and 6s she really didn't have much choice, especially if she gave a 6 for one of the other collectives.

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    1. Thank you! I do know about the rider mark but it still was disappointing..... I can't help myself really. :)

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  16. WELL DONE TERESA. I LOVE your rallying attitude and how you got out there and made everything the very best you could. The spurs sound like an EXCELLENT solution to Carmen's blatant flipping of the bird to your leg aids. She'll figure out what's correct (and easier) in no time!

    And ugh. Screw that judge's comments. I'm with you on the CONSTRUCTIVE part of constructive criticism. There's a way to say things that is kind and supportive while also lending advice. Maybe she was just task-oriented, but STILL. Tact, judge, tact, have a little.

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    1. Thank you I really had to talk myself into staying with it. But I'm happy with the stirrups.

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  17. I wanted to pause and hug you several times during this. When I watched the first video, all I could think was, "Man that horse needs a spur right about now..." I was SO HAPPY when I read that you got a pair to borrow. While I love dressage for the fact that you always get feed back, I feel like the comments can be a lot like texting or emailing instead of talking face to face. You can't know for 100% if you're getting the tone right. I also remind my students that the JUDGE doesn't know your journey either. They only get to see the moment and not the whole picture. That's what makes them objective, but it can be extra difficult when you have a ride that's less glorious than usual. That judge has no idea how hard you've worked or how much Carmen has IMPROVED in her time with you. But boy it must have felt good to watch your scores improve as the day went on! It's so easy to let a bad start ruin your whole day and I so admire the fact that you keep on trucking when the going gets tough.

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    1. I could have used a few hugs! And I do agree with you about the judging. I am trying to keep an open mind. :)

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  18. Definitely in those moments when our horses bobble we need to microgmanage and ride every step! You proved that in your last test. Good joB!

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  19. Just catching up after being out of town - I hope since the show you've been able to reflect and find the good to take away. But I hear you, most of the year I've been hovering just under 60 (in Training) and it feels super discouraging. Mine can also usually be summarized as nice/athletic horse, rider sucks and needs more consistent connection. I know I've made progress but it sucks when the scores don't fully reflect that! Here's to next year!

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