This was a very different Easter weekend than usual - I'm sure that's true for all of you.
the grass is starting to turn green!
Blogland has become very quiet. And it makes sense- clinics and shows are cancelled. Many are unable to see their horses because barns have closed their doors. That makes sense- it's important that the people working at the barns are safe and able to care for the horses. What is more disturbing is that others are being harassed for continuing to ride. I get it- riding is a risk and do we want more stress on a health system that is already stressed? All that to say that I have made the decision to continue to ride. I am always making careful decisions whether Carmen feels safe and I trust my gut. I'm not trying to justify it- it's just the decision I have made and am comfortable with.
if this doesn't describe 2020 I don't know what does
And I'm not gonna lie- I worry that others may think that I'm gloating over my good fortune. I know that I'm not and that will have to do. I can't worry about what others think-probably they aren't thinking about me at all.
Without the push of upcoming clinics, lessons and shows I have been going slow. I'm enjoying the lack of pressure- even though I know that the only one putting pressure on me was me. Sigh.
Every spring I start back with Carmen and wait for her to begin to lose her crap over stuff. And this year it's sort of the same. There's breeze, waving grasses and, god forbid, happy, horny, noisy birds flitting about everywhere. But it's also not the same-I have been working on our goal of increasing her confidence (and mine). And it's working.
spring means shedding and I looked down to see all her hair making little dandelion fluffs.
Our ground work is aimed at starting her off calm and loose. I start that work from the moment I get her from the pasture. It's cute to see her get tight and as soon as I touch her neck she goes oh right, relax. Phew. Under saddle I ask her to bend and soften and I don't fall into the trap of her worry.
We've been playing with moving her weight back onto her hindquarters and using her core. We've been doing a lot of poles.
A puzzle I set up
Carmen is enjoying these- or I am and it's transferring to her. So whatever. I really liked the above one- it asked her to stretch a bit going the through the square and I could feel her really lifting through it. I also made use of the going between the poles- can I canter across the short diagonal and make a simple change through walk inside of the poles. It really helped me to see that left to right was simple but right to left she required a lot more time to get back to walk.
We have been playing with Travers and Renvers (haunches in/haunches out) and she's doing well with those. Carmen is quite happy to look out of the ring, it's having to be carrying herself in balance that was mind blowing for her. I can feel my half-halts really working on bringing her balance back.
Anyway, I'm hoping to keep picking away at our second level stuff so that when things do resume we're ready. But what is most telling about our work is that, no matter where we start, she always end feeling relaxed and content. Honestly, she is the most mellow horse and you wouldn't recognize it. And it's not from exhaustion because she's barely sweaty.
No she's not exhausted, just mellow, also do you notice something? No flash. :)
I love that she has learned to trust that when she feels tight/anxious I give good advice on how to feel better. We have much fewer arguments. Not none, but fewer and less dramatic. Yay for less drama.
while I would love her neck to be out more I still quite like this photo
In my last post I talked about two good sessions that I had with Carmen.
What I hadn't written about was the next ride after that. It was after work and Carmen seemed less then enthused about the whole thing from the get go. However, during our ground work she was tuned in and listening. I was okay with not riding but she seemed to be okay so I decided to get on. When we started walking she was okay except for the far end by the trees (like you see beside us in this photo). I worked her slow and carefully and she seemed to get over it. The issues were on both reins but worse on the right rein.
Until I asked her to trot there. Then is was resistance on top of resistance that kept escalating. Interestingly, I again was not afraid but was getting annoyed. Once she gave half-rear and I reached forward and bopped her between the ears with my hand. we.do.not.go.up.
Anyway we were going downhill and I couldn't get her out of the pattern of balking, throwing her shoulder and running sideways. I finally dismounted, put her back on the lunge and went back to work. By the time that was done she was sweaty and puffy. I hopped back on to walk her out. Again, heading over to the side she was having an issue with as part of the walking. When she stiffened I dropped the rein and said do what ever you want. Funnily enough she did nothing. Sigh. When will I learn to not fight this horse? What is the line between not engaging in a battle but not giving in? After I was a bit discouraged but did recognize that 2 out of 3 rides had been good.
After the ride I saw that my lovely turquoise browband had broken, I lost a lot of beads and it was flapping on her head so that definitely could have contributed. I can also appreciate that the browband I had made to impart serenity had completely shattered while we are going through all this......
Lots of things could contribute to her attitude: it's hunting season and the woods around us are having a lot more activity. Also, I believe that Carmen is associating the pain in her gut with being in the ring. Which makes sense. I know that it was ulcers and those are getting better but I can't expect her to go 'oh, it was my stomach, not the riding? Well okay then. Thank you for the medicine. I feel so much better now and am ready to be your zen unicorn. Grand Prix here we come!' (although, Universe, WHY NOT?)
I had a lesson booked for Thursday and I was curious to see how it would go. In the barn Carmen was much more mellow than the day before. However, her neck was a bit tight so I spent some time massaging it until she relaxed and blew out. I then put on her bridle and headed up to the ring. I started as I have been lately by walking her all around asking her to stay with me and to tune into my feet (if I stop, back up, turn etc). Then we went out on the lunge. She was really good and responsive to my body cues. Shanea arrived just as I was getting ready to mount. I gave her the update and then hopped on.
Walking off Carmen was totally relaxed until we passed A and headed up the far side by the trees. She said 'nah uh' and threw her shoulder in and walked sideways through my aids. Shanea advised me to not argue but set the terms. So I straightened her shoulder and then had her leg yield properly. This way she was going the way she wanted but I was in control of how we travelled.
This was only an issue on the right rein. To the left she went down that side with minimal fuss. Any ideas? Because I'm chalking it up to the theory that 'horses are weird'.
Shanea then set up some poles to give her something else to think about. Going the left- no problem. To the right- problem. I didn't want to escalate this, again.
So I stopped and asked if Shanea would lead us over the poles on the right rein. At first Carmen tried to walk over her so Shanea shifted sides so she was between Carmen and the trees. That worked really well. The exercise was to trot the far side and around the short, ask for a walk, pick up our escort over the poles and then trot off. It was a weird solution but makes sense because it's connects the ground work I'd been doing with the under saddle work I'm trying to do.
And it worked:
Yeah, I know, she's just trotting over poles. Honestly, if you could have seen us on Tuesday as the spinning, hot mess you would realize how much of a miracle this feels to me right now. It wasn't that we didn't have any discussions- it wasn't always great (I wish I had a video of that to show you for comparison) but it was like the walking with her helped her to understand that it was all okay. I also stopped holding her and put my leg on. When she realized that she could go 'fast' through there it seemed to set a light bulb off in her head. Mine too. I realized that I was holding too tight to prevent her from flying sideways. One she tried to 'passage' over them but that didn't work.
I was kinda ready to stop there to reinforce the win but Shanea threw out the suggestion of canter poles. I have done those before and I thought let's try it. As we cantered around I felt Carmen 'lock on' to the poles and go.
Although she wasn't always sure of what to do with all four legs:
But she didn't get pissed off and figured it out:
Again I was ready to end it but Shanea said 'she seems to be having fun. Let's try it on the right rein'.
While I was wondering if I was setting myself up for failure (you know-the 'just one more' that leads to wreck and ruin) but I realized that she was right- Carmen was enjoying herself. For the first time in a long time in the ring.
So I picked up the right lead canter and up we came. Carmen looked at the poles, locked on and dug in:
While it is not perfect by any means I love it. It's been a long time since Carmen and I had fun together in the ring and it made me happy. Shanea and I even discussed setting up a small grid and cross rails for her to play with.
Stay tuned, there may be jumping videos at some point.
