Realizations

The good news is that this week we finally we had the rain we so badly needed. The bad news is that it interfered with a lesson I had booked mid-week. It was rebooked for Friday which was supposed to be dry but dawned dark and rainy. It was supposed to clear up so I reassured Shanea that it would be fine for 11.

Which it sorta was. Foggy and misty is fine, right? My farrier also called the night before and said he wanted to come in the morning to do the horses. Which meant that my morning got a whole lot busier.

Before 11 I took Carmen up to the ring to do some lunging and other ground work. I also let her graze in the 'spooky areas'. When Shanea arrived I explained my idea of having me walk beside her and do what I do from the ground if Carmen acted up. She thought that it was a good idea. I am not sure if it worked or not. Carmen was much better over all so maybe it helped?

Anyway, Shanea mounted and asked Carmen to walk off and do some small circles. Suddenly she hopped off. "I'm not happy with how's she feeling, I want to start over." 

I could definitely see Carmen's tension and how she was being over-reactive but I wasn't sure what her plan was. It turned out that her plan was to walk Carmen back to the mounting block  and ask her to relax and get back on. She repeated this two more times when I saw Carmen give a big sigh at the mounting block and release the tension. I never would have thought of that.

The goal was to have Carmen go forward in a relaxed manner- accepting the contact without chomping. It was interesting to watch the process. You can really see when she's tight in her neck and back. Even her lips are tight and curled back from her teeth. I saw it come and go and finally it was just gone. Carmen's stride became swinging and her ears went floppy.

Do you ever watch someone ride your horse and think damn, that horse is stunning? I could see how well Carmen can move. Shanea started playing with her lengthens and,  holy crap, that mare can stride out when she's being ridden but a really good rider.

Shanea just asked for a few strides and then patted Carmen.

What I didn't see was an unhappy horse. I didn't see a mare who hated dressage or was sore. I saw a sensitive mare being ridden with tact and finesse and enjoying what she was doing.

Then it was my turn to get on. I could feel a difference in her right away. She back felt so mobile and I had to really focus on moving with her. Carmen was forward and felt powerful. When I look at the videos of my ride I can see that I'm not terrible but I need to really loosen my shoulders and stop riding so defensively. I think I might have been putting too much pressure on her. Even though I didn't intend to I might have been pushing her more then she was comfortable. I need to find a happy medium.

I think I need to a centred riding lesson. I need to work on myself. I'm not going to a place of self-hatred but more of self-realization. Carmen has a ton of talent and I need to buckle down myself to ride her.

And in today's cute video here's one of Guinness. When I drag the ring he 'heel's beside the tractor until I stop. Then he gives me his toy so I can throw it.

Grounding

So I've been doing a lot of thinking and analyzing.

(okay, at least try to act surprised at that!)

I am not really any further ahead then I was before but my head is much calmer.

I really want to get in this space not the other one

I also spoke with Shanea and reviewed the ride. She didn't think that I made any mistakes and she felt that sending her forward was the only answer. We discussed safety and I said that I was going to work on ground work until Shanea came again (Ed is away so I am literally all alone). 

I was 99% convinced that Carmen's responses was not based on fear but decided to test it a bit. Carmen is really good with the ground work so I decided to introduce a distraction- I let the dogs be out while I worked with her. 

 I figured that this would accomplish 2 things: 

1. help me work her through being distracted

2. get the horse and the dogs used to being together and no one dying. (#1 goal of working with animals: avoid death). 

I expected the ground work to go well and it did. She gave zero cares about the dogs, even when they wandered into the ring. And, even more importantly, when they moved around in the tall grass. 

this is the most tense she got. Guinness is in the grass behind her. 

I decided to finish with getting her to stand and throwing the ball for Guinness. I used to do this with Irish when he was a three year old and it helped a lot. After startling a few times (but nothing big) she yawned and chewed and cocked a leg. 

I took her down to the end of the ring that has been causing all the issues and see if she would graze. Carmen will not graze if she's tense. She just stands there rigidly looking around. If she's less tense she will bite the grass and then raise her head quickly to look around. You can see the tension in the way she chews. But when I offered the grazing she sighed, dropped her head and went to work. 

Guinness wanted me to throw the ball and Ripley (my son's dog) was hunting mice in the grass. I called Ripley to see how Carmen would react (and to make sure that the dog didn't wander too far). You can see the explosion in the video below:

See it was so fast it was almost like she didn't react at all. 

I threw the ball for Guinness down in the grass that she was acting so terrified of the last few rides. Once again look closely because you might miss her reaction:

I feel vindicated on my hypothesis that her reactions are not being driven by fear. She lunged fine as well so I have ruled out discomfort (well largely but I don't see any glaring reason to get the vet out). 

Which leads me to believe it's more about evasion then anything. 

I know that I can get her to do almost anything from the ground but translating it to under saddle has not been so smooth. So Shanea and I are planning to try to combine the two to see if we can get Carmen over this hump. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Security Blanket

Okay so this is me in a quandary.

After watching Shanea ride on friday I knew I had to ride Saturday. To be honest my stomach was in knots and I was feeling apprehensive. However, I tacked her up and put on the lunging equipment and up we went. It was super windy which doesn't help either.

And she was fine. Mellow and easy. There was one spook later in the ride but she immediately surged forward - it was literally:
*Carmen stops and bounces on her front legs* What the F horse? Oh, we're going to head right up to it? All righty then. 

I am sure I didn't look like this, but I felt like it. 

Other than that it was a good ride and I was happy. So was Carmen.

Then there was today. Ed was not home but I wanted to ride in the morning. I brought Irish in and normally Carmen follows along. This time she opted to stay in the field so I went and brought her in. Her manners getting caught, led, groomed and tacked up were impeccable. The first few minutes of the ride were fine. We were headed down to the area where she knocked the board out (we had gone by it a couple times already) when she did a big 'nope'. 

I didn't worry about it at first- I put my leg on and then I booted her forward. The next thing I know I am in a spiral with Carmen and she is essentially saying fuck you.

She even felt like she could rear. Which is a non-negotiable for me. If she ever rears on me she is for sale. I booted her forward and growled. Carmen was being a right pig to be honest. I was feeling very unsafe and decided to dismount to lunge her.

Except when I tried to get off she threatened to bolt. (sigh, that again). I tried a couple times and it was not working.

I was feeling flustered, frightened and alone. I was on a horse that felt unsafe to ride and unsafe to get off of. There was no one around to help. I wished that Shanea was there to help me feel secure. I wished someone was riding with me. I wished Ed was home.

So I did the only thing I could think of to do: I booted her forward into a canter. That got her moving and I steered her on a circle. I wouldn't let her gallop and I controlled the bed but by god we were moving forward. I was able to gradually move the circle down the ring. After what felt like hours of cantering (probably a solid 10 minutes) I was able to bring her back to trot and we went to work.

when in doubt go forward

It was a ride with a lot of cantering and a lot of me booting her forward when she balked. WE worked up and down the ring At first I only used that area of the ring for our walk breaks. And then, fuck it, we went into that goddamn corner so many times at walk, trot and canter that even I was sick of it.

In the end the ride was largely fine but I am not happy with how it started and I am not happy with feeling unsafe.  This mare needs to get over herself and get moving forward. She is not afraid- of that I am sure. At the end of the ride she was tuned in and listening and no longer paying attention to potential monsters. I was determined that there would be no spooks and other than the first of the ride there were not.

The thing is that we've had some wonderful, consistent rides this year and I'm not sure what is making the wheels come off one day vs another. Maybe I dealt with it correctly. Who knows? Not me, that's for sure. I'm just dealing with it as it comes.

And I'm open to advice but if you write just ride relaxed and with confidence I will hunt you down and slap you with a fish. Because I am - I didn't start the ride today with anything other than that.

After in the barn she was relaxed and happy. I needed to relax so I let the dogs out and tacked up Irish and we headed for the woods. Carmen was less than happy to be left in the barn but she had hay and I  ignored her protests. I was super impressed with how good the dogs were because this is new for them (we have my son's dog while he's away). Guinness was trying to figure out how to get me to throw the ball.

Guinness: now how is this going to work? 

It was fun and just what I needed. I can't believe I haven't done this before. Irish is my security blanket. As I rode I reflected on how far he's come. I have come off Irish many more times then I have with Carmen. There were lots of times I felt unsafe on him and he is responsible for my broken finger and some pretty hefty bruises. Now I take him out and head right out to the woods. But he never really had a 'nope' in him.  So I don't know if the deliberateness of Carmen's behaviour is better or worse?

I am going to add in more hacking out on Irish into my routine. We both can benefit.

this view is good for my soul

The Dragon Tamer

And all at once summer collapsed into fall

~Oscar Wilde~

The weather has become cool and there is a definite change in the seasons and the horses are feeling it. With Carmen it's not really evident in the paddock unless you look close. But in the saddle it's definitely evident. 

Today I had a lesson booked and I figured that lunging first would be a good thing. When Shanea arrived she suggested that she ride Carmen and I thought that was a great idea. I've been wanting her to ride Carmen and do some training. I also thought that today it would be good so that she can feel what I feel when Carmen is tense. 

It turned out to be a very valuable lesson for me. I still wore the ear piece and Shanea talked through what she was doing.  Carmen was clearly confused when Shanea led her over to the mounting block. I ran down to get a sweater (the wind was cool) and came back ready to listen and take photos/video. 

I'm going to share the videos but please, no negative comments as this is not me riding and it's not fair. 

Clearly from the beginning Carmen was not so certain that work was on her agenda.

 You can see that she does not think that Shanea is the boss of her.  When the initial resistance did not work she began to escalate. 

Yes, my horse broke my fence with her arse. And then became terrified of what she had wrought. 

  That is the backing up she does when she doesn't want to go forward. Well I wasn't happy about the behaviour, I was happy that Shanea was experiencing what I do at times. It may not look like much but it really feels like you are being flung around. In fairness about the fence, when I checked the post  was rotten where the board was so it wouldn't have taken much to pop it out. 

It was great to watch Shanea just stay cool and ride it out. She corrected Carmen when needed and always gave her a place to go. When Carmen gets like this the base of her neck retracts like a turtle and gets rock solid. Getting her to lengthen it out was Shanea's mission. 

I love how she was super clear and always giving. She also noted that Carmen gets really stiff and hard on the outside rein- like she's using it as a crutch to push against. She corrected initially by using shoulder fore and then as things progressed by flexing her lightly to the outside to get her to release and then asking for the inside bend. I would have been sceptical to try it but it worked. 

slight flexion to the outside 

riding shoulder fore to get straight

It wasn't like Carmen softened and then became all pliable and easy. It came and went. But as the ride progressed flailing Carmen became less and less evident. 

I wish I had that seat. And timing. And confidence

I was watching Carmen's eye and was seeing it soften and she began to tune into Shanea. Here you can see her react but comes back much quicker (I also put the board up so that it was not an issue).

Shanea is getting Carmen to flex her neck and relax. It seemed to really work.

In the end we had trot and canter work that was soft and flowing and in a good place. 

Shanea simply said 'she's so much fun to ride'. Well mostly. when she's like that for sure. The ride was well over an hour and Carmen wasn't even breathing hard. Neither was Shanea.

Me, I was exhausted. :)

Unleashing My Inner 12 Year Old

Most of the time I ride alone. When Cynthia and Julia were able to come regularly I didn't mind because I had company some of the time. The nice thing about returning to showing is it allowed me to reconnect with old riding buddies.

One of those people is Tanya. Back in the day she showed her chestnut mare, Duchess and I showed my chestnut gelding, Irish. It was fun.

Now here we are with new horses. Tanya has a lovely dark bay QH mare and has been cleaning up at the shows. They are both so steady and harmonious. Tanya also doesn't live that far from me (30 minutes by trailer) so I invited her to come and play with Carmen and I on Sunday:

The weather all weekend has been fabulous- 25-27 degrees every day. It cries out to be enjoyed. Sunday morning I was walking the dogs when she texted that she was on her way. I took a short cut with the walk and headed back because I had been super lazy in the morning and still hadn't dragged the ring. I did my quickest drag ever and hurried inside to put on my riding clothes. I was just organizing the barn when she arrived.

Irish was so excited while Carmen affect indifference.
Irish: Oh hai! You are new. You are so cute. Are you staying? You'll like it here. I can show you where all the good grass is and we can gallop around. The servants are too bad, you just have to remind them of things sometimes. Do you know Duchess? I really liked her. She was nice. How's she doing? 

Suzi: .......

Carmen:  Irish! Stop it. You're embarrassing me. 

We let Suzi settle in her stall (I love having a guest stall) and we had a quick coffee/tea and chatted. Then we tacked up the girls and headed up to the ring. Tanya got to see how easy and well behaved Carmen is around home. Poor Irish was quite broken hearted to be left behind.

Aren't they cute?

Carmen was a bit tense to start but with reminders about bending in the corner and the distraction of a new horse she quickly forgot to worry about things.

My focus the last few rides has been to really tackle the stiffening through the corners, especially when we are coming around the diagonal. I've been adding in 10 m circles in each corner. This has helped me to be laser focussed on the bend and using Carmen's anticipation of what is coming to my advantage. It's been working too.  I was quite happy with how well we have been working together the last few rides. Tanya also got to see how Carmen can flow when she's relaxed through the back. We practiced our counter canter and it was just so easy.

Suzi was looking really good too and didn't seem bothered by the new surroundings. There's a lot to look at from my ring and she seemed to take it all in stride. Tanya noted that she was more 'up' than normal. Which shows that how a horse feels to the rider and how she looks can often be too very different things.

At one point we stopped and rested the horses and had a chat. Carmen thought we were done and was not impressed by the return to work.

Carmen: um, what are you doing? 

Me: we just had a rest and now we're going to do some more work. 

Carmen: Excuse me, but I think that you meant to say 'great work Carmen, now let me give you an apple and turn you back out'. 

I knew what was coming and I wasn't surprised when she gave a large spook a few minutes later. With a Ha! I'm on to this game Missy!  I put her in a tight circle and made her work hard and then went back to what we were doing. That was the end of that.  I finished with working on a few walk-canter-walk transitions. The walk to canter is pretty straightforward for her but the down one is harder and she trots a few strides. But I'm not too worried about it at this point- we were just able to actually canter straight in June.

After we rode a little longer we decided to go for a hack in the woods. Carmen was great about dropping the gate but when Suzi left before her she got in a snit and would not stand while I reached for the dressage whip (it's great for swishing flies). When I asked her to stop she decided to back up and after a little bit of this I said "oh back up? Sure. I love backing up. Let's go!' and backed her all the way to the end of the ring. This time when I walked her forward and asked her to whoa she stopped like a civilized horse.

Tanya wanted to play on the bridge and Carmen was happy to demonstrate. Suzi was not so sure about it but managed to get over part of it. We headed off to the woods with Carmen leading the way. Turns out that Suzi has not been on a woods trail before. I was proud of how good Carmen was leading the way and not being concerned about anything. Even a squirrel that ran across the path. I reassured her that it was armed and she appeared to believe me.

my favourite view

We stopped and I tried to take a selfie of us. Suzi did not want to stand still and I suck at selfies so it wasn't a total success:

Add caption

We did a couple loops through the woods and then walked up to the barn. Tanya wanted to go back up and try the bridge again. I wondered how Carmen would take leaving the barn and heading back up to the ring but she seemed resigned to her fate by then and walked up with just a sigh.

We stood there and coached Tanya through the bridge and she was successful!

trip-trap, trip-trap over the bridge

We walked back down to the barn and dismounted. (Carmen: thank god). 

It was a great day. I loved playing ponies with Tanya. I was thrilled with how Carmen stepped up and was the 'grown up' horse. We definitely are going to be doing it again. 

If you are on FB there is a hilarious parody about old ladies and ponies here. 

Reach for It

Carmen and I are embracing this idea of easing into fall. Work is ratcheting up and so I wasn't able to ride again until Wednesday. I also had booked a lesson for then.

Julia came out to ride with us. I haven't seen her for a while and she has gotten a job a few hours away so Irish will likely not be seeing much of her. We are happy for her and sad for us.

Carmen was pretty mellow right from the beginning. It was such a good ride- she was quiet but listening and rarely distracted by the things outside the ring. I am loving wearing the spurs because when she does start looking out in the corners I can reinforce my bending aids without using excessive (and futile) muscle effort. When I use too much muscle I get all twisted and stiff and much less effective over all. With the spur I can give her a reminder and then carry on. Knowing I can impact her bend allows me to stop worrying about what she's worried about and focus on what I want. I am sure that at some point she will really test me on this but I am prepared.

I told Shanea that I wanted to work on using my seat to set the pace and not so much rein. We started with halt-walk transitions. The idea was to use my seat and let Carmen reach for the bit rather then me bringing the bit to her (if that makes any sense. Essentially, stop shortening the reins and pulling on the bit!).

As we practiced Carmen began to reach for the bit and step forward.

When we picked up the trot the first goal was to go forward and straight, maintaining the rhythm.
In fact a lot of this lesson reminded me of lessons with Johanna.

At first Carmen was a bit erratic - speeding up and slowing down. Bending was hard. But I love how patient Shanea is and finally we got there.

see how she's looking for the contact? (in a good way)

After a brief walk break we picked up the trot again, but this time I was sitting and it was to be really slow. From there she can build her strength and it was easier to impact her balance. It was also easier to find a place to 'sit' and half-halt through the seat. I know that Andalusians have a reputation of being 'easy' to ride but Carmen has a lot of movement in her body and she actually is not that easy to sit (at least for an ammie like me!).

It's amazing what you can do when you're not going 90 km/hr.

And it was really really hard physically. I was surprised with how much core strength it took to keep my body in alignment while keeping my seat under me and not be stiff.

walk to trot transition with a special guest appearance...

The weather has turned warm and humid again and I was getting really hot and tired. But I refused to ask for a break. Carmen was being so good and tuned it that it was a lot of fun. Like Shanea said it's great to see her reach for the bit when I give rather then get upset and pop her head up (or take advantage by spooking). 

We then went on to canter work.  At first there was some resistance to the transition- I was getting too tight and she didn't like that. Which is totally fair. But once we got it she became really strong in the bridle. Which meant that my half-halts were not being too effective. On the one hand it was great- she actually was taking me to the corners rather than back peddling. 

Carmen: CANTER, yes! Let's do this! Hang on!

So I didn't want to shut her down. Part of me was like 'eep, if she spooks through that corner I'm gonna die'. The other part was 'yay she figured out the forward part'

What Shanea helped me to realize was that I was holding her in the canter to get her to slow down when I really needed to do half-halts that actually, you know, released. When I started doing that she actually began to respond and come back to me. 

Here's a trot-canter transition that made me so happy. It was the best one yet and it was on her 'bad side'. 

I still have so many things to work on- my shoulders for one thing. They are so tight. I think with awareness and not having to use so much leg I can focus more on that. My core strength for another. I have started back to my exercise class and will keep it up through the winter. There's a lot more rein length I can give her. Now that she's reaching for it this will be easier. Before it felt like when I gave her rein she disappeared. 

But I am also so happy with where we are right now and where we're going. 

Canter? I love canter! Let's go!

Reboot

Carmen and I ended our riding vacation today. It was interesting- this is the first time that I have taken so much time off while I'm home.

On Monday when I opened the stall doors to let them out Carmen came running out beating it to the field. Normally when I open the doors they stroll out quietly, have a stretch and meander off to the field. If this was a habit I would fix it but I figured she was just in a hurry to get to the grass that she had been deprived of all weekend. For the rest of the day she ignored me and spent a lot of time grinding dirt into herself.

I let her be and didn't fuss with her. By Wednesday she started following me around in her field. On Thursday I brought her out and gave her a good groom. She enjoyed it thoroughly. 

I stuck to the plan to not ride until Sunday. And by Sunday I was ready to get back in the saddle. I figured that a lunge first might be a  good idea. 

This was her mood in the barn getting ready: 

I rather be napping

As a ride it was pretty not-exciting. Which is nice. Our lunge work was quiet and when she was 100% I mounted. I wore my new spurs and I think that these are really helpful. Not that she really tried anything but there were some tests. I find that by having them as back up I am able to ride with less tension. When she couldn't evade the corner by running in she did break from canter to trot but I would much rather be fixing that then the steering. 

The focus of the ride was on using my seat to influence her stride. It was fun to feel how that works and I was able to get her to do transitions within and between gaits.  Playing with this allowed me to feel how much a tense seat can block the forward motion. 

I am sure that at some point Carmen will really test my resolve with the spurs. But I was happy with our first ride back to work.  The weather is getting cooler and it's my favourite time to ride. I love that there are no flies. And that there is no pressure to get to a certain level of training. There are no shows to get ready for. It feels like we can take a step back and play. 

Later that day I took the dogs to the lake for a swim. I leave you this video of Guinness. I told him that he couldn't get in the car until he shook. So, because he didn't want to leave, he refused to shake. 

Sigh. Save me from smart dogs and horses.