From Halt to Salute

Sorry for the hiatus - spring break and the new school quarter made things a little bit hectic again!

Monty has been very good lately, although a little tired I think. There is a supplement called DMG that is supposed to help them recover faster and up their energy a little bit and I think I might give that a try. The research says that it is quite useful in racehorses and eventing, so I can’t see why it couldn’t help our dressage horses recover!

The tempi changes are coming along quite nicely, although I do need to work on the pirouettes more. Rebecca will be here next weekend, and I am very excited to show her our progress and have her help us step up and go big! I am enjoying this journey so much and I’m crossing my fingers that everything goes as planned and that this summer is a success!

I have all the music picked out for my freestyle and I have my choreography done, but now I need to get into a regulation sized arena and video tape my ride. I need to have the video tape so that I can set my music up with my freestyle. Hopefully I will be able to get that done this month so that we can start practicing!

I have also been neglecting something else….introducing the double bridle. This isn’t to say that Monty hasn’t had it on before - he has. He actually goes fairly well in it, the 3 times he has had it in. However, I don’t love it. At all. I love my snaffle with its drop noseband: simple, elegant and clean. And guess what the best part is? Only one set of reins. Having two sets of reins on the double is just a bit disconcerting for me. I actually don’t have a problem using the reins, I just feel like there is so much between me and Monty (which really is a rather silly thought, but I digress) that I have been ignoring the fact that I have to use it in Young Riders. 

Personally? I would love to use a snaffle, although the double does look nice in photos…

I think on Wednesday I will put the double on and hack around and see how it goes, he could use some deep, stretching days anyway! 

Oh, and one last fun fact? On Saturday, for no other reason than I wanted to try, I asked Monty to do some two tempis. And guess what? He did them! I’m not saying they were perfect, but he did them, and he did them on the aids and they were clean. It was all in good fun and I won’t be asking for them again for quite a while, but it was nice to know what he has in there. 

Tip of the day: To try and get your horse connected and your seat bones plugged into them, imagine that your horse’s hind legs are like pistons reaching underneath you in a metronome. The power should come from the impulsion up from the ground, into their hind legs and up through you into their poll. Be the connector and recycle the energy.

Sorry for the delay in posting, but it has been rather busy the past few days. First, I would like to say that I am now officially done with finals week, and so spring break is calling my name!

And now, here is an account of my past few days with Monty, who, I’m sure many of you know, has a penchant for trouble and is constantly devising ways to give me a heart attack. Horses…

Friday

This was supposed to be a relaxing day, and I had already planned out that I was going to throw the double on Monty and hack around the property. He had other ideas. At about 9:30 in the morning I get a call from the barn saying that Monty had somehow cast himself into the fence, with his hind legs in the wire, and was trembling all over. They were able to flip him over pretty easily and Monty slowly got to his feet and seemed rather tired and weak. 

There were a few good things about this scenario and a few bad things.

Good things: 1) Whenever Monty gets stuck, which I sadly must admit has been a few times too many, he never really struggles. He will simply stand there, or in this case, eventually lay there, and wait for someone to rescue him. He is very patient and displays a remarkable amount of trust in his human companions. 2) He was not cut up and didn’t have a single hair missing. 3) He was stiff, but as far as we could tell, not lame. 4) That he was found so quickly - he couldn’t have been stuck for any more than 30 minutes.

Bad things: 1) That he was stuck in the first place and I could feel my ulcer coming to life as soon as I got the phone call! 2) That he was definitely stiff behind and a bit uncomfortable. 3) How in the hell did he get there in the first place!?

All of this aside, we had the vet come out to check him over and make sure he was okay. They couldn’t find anything wrong with him, and sent Monty off with a shot of banamine for the stiffness. As we contemplated ways in which Monty could have found himself cast against the fence we came up with seizure, narcolepsy, or, maybe he just laid down by the fence, went to roll, and caught himself in an unfortunate circumstance.

At this point, I have no idea what happened. He was oddly twitchy when I brought him in later in the day and had a slightly glazed over, unaware look in his eye. However, when I put him back outside he wasted no time in chasing his buddy around, rolling in the mud multiple times, and having a general good time. It is at this point in my life that I ask myself why I didn’t just get into dog showing…

In all, the events of that day are a mystery. I am hoping that it was an isolated incident, just an accident, and that it will never happen again. I have been trying to figure ways that I can ensure this will never happen again, but there are no promises with horses.

Saturday

I gave him some bute and just brushed and grazed him. Everything appeared normal today, so I did throw him on the line for a minute to see if he looked sound, and he did!! So, I told myself I would ride him very lightly on Sunday to see if he was actually sound.

Sunday

I got on him in the afternoon, not really knowing what to expect. Much to my surprise and great joy, he felt 100% sound. He was happy and forward and left off where we ended on my last ride.

All I wanted to do with him was some stretchy, deep work to loosen him up and let his muscles relax and become supple. He was more than willing to oblige, but he makes sure that I never forget, that above all, he is an overachiever. If I wanted to have him deep on a 20 meter circle, he kept offering me more, and more and more! I think our conversation went something like this, in the span of 15 minutes.

“Are you sure you only want this? How about a little more collection? Passage maybe? Really, are you kidding, this is it?” - All that I wanted was a deep, relaxed trot. And then we moved to the canter.

“Oh finally, the canter! How about that pirouette canter, we were working on that last time! No? Do want changes then? You MUST want changes! Oh, just a long side in the canter? That’s okay, I can change on the long side. No? What do you mean no? Why aren’t you asking me for anything!?”

We finished our ride with a very relaxed, although confused, horse. And our canter? Even though I wasn’t asking him for anything, his back was so relaxed, and his stride was long with excellent hind leg separation  - I couldn’t have been happier.

Monday

I had a pretty quick ride on Monday - it is finals week for me and I had one final on Monday and two on Tuesday that I needed to prepare for. 

Monty was fabulous! Forward, relaxed, supple and I think we had some of the best canter work we’ve ever done! He gave me a tremendous medium canter that climbed in front of me, instead of doing the normal rolling over his shoulder gig. He was so uphill in the canter, that the changes were easy, easy! I had a few counting mistakes on the tempis, but he reacted to every aid appropriately and promptly with straight, clean changes. All in all, it was a super schooling session.

I have been trying to figure out how to upload some of the videos I have from the Conrad clinic, but I haven’t been able to make it work. I’ll keep trying, and hopefully I will be able to get some new video of us soon!

Tip of the day: Go hug your horses and give them a carrot - everything can change in one second. And if you have been wanting to do something, take a lesson, go to a clinic, or go to a horse show, just do it! There are no guarantees, and if your horse is sound and happy right now, that doesn’t mean it will be like that in a week or even a few days. Just make the commitment and have fun! 

I have to say, riding at eight o’clock at night has a rather soothing quality to it, despite the fact that it was cold and obnoxiously windy. It definitely isn’t a good sign when the wind blows down the ally way and makes your horses’s tail and mane look like they are in a photo shoot with a fan turned on!

Monty was basically asleep before I got on him last night - he’s not exactly used to riding so late at night. A tired horse, however, also made for a very relaxed horse. He was super loose and soft again yesterday, and we had some very nice changes! I did work a bit on getting a super collected, on the spot canter, and he was more than willing to comply in the beginning on my ride. Towards the end though, I could tell he was getting tired (more tired from when we started at least!) and so we finished with some brief trot work and some practice on our free walk.

I have learned with Monty that it is really best to quit while you are ahead. When they start to get tired, it is really counterproductive to keep trying in order to obtain “perfection.” Once Monty is tired, I just call it a day. He always gives 150% to our rides and to always ask for just a little bit more, when I know he isn’t saying ‘no,” but is instead saying “I’m trying, but I can’t,” is simply unfair.

Tip of the day: When you have a quality ride and are receiving quality work, don’t continue to push for more. Praise for what you received, maybe work on something different and call it a day before you go too far. It takes very little time to ruin what you have gained by always asking for more, and tomorrow can bring even better work if you build off a strong foundation.

First of all, it is freezing outside and I risked life and limb to ride tonight. I had so many layers on that I felt like the Michelin man and I could hardly move, let alone actually ride! Monty felt the same way too - he was literally asleep in the cross ties and definitely wasn’t going anywhere quickly.

Tonight’s ride started out with a little, shall we say, turmoil? A newly purchased horse was in the arena for his first time with a new rider and was quite scared. This resulted in a small little bolt and some spooky theatrics, complete with Gilbert (the barn’s fluffy orange cat) traipsing down the hill by the arena (in the dark) in an attempt to scare the living hell out of any horses going by. Now, Monty would like to say that since he is a completely reformed citizen, none of this bothers him anymore. It’s a proud little fact that I like to parade now that I don’t have to peel myself off the arena walls, or in one case, the arena gate, whenever Monty decided to “express” himself.

Even with everything going on tonight and the fact that the temperatures were in the 20s, Monty was fantastic. I focused mostly on the tempis and we were able to get straight and clean 4s multiple times!! The trot was super tonight, very supple, swingy, and springy!

I’ll have to try and get some new video or pictures of him soon - he has really just been fantastic lately! I think he is definitely happy to be back on Dynamite. I have to say, I think their products make all the difference. :)

Have a good night everyone, now I’m off to finish some homework!

After my ride with Rebecca on Friday, I used the weekend to jump start our work on the tempi changes and the pirouettes!

Monty felt super on Saturday and so I made his work pretty easy for him. After warming up I went into some pirouette work, and I have to say that after only one day of serious work on them, we were doing pretty well. The main problem is of course, me, because once I provide him with the correct aids, he is more than happy to comply! Our ride only lasted about 30 minutes, but I am a firm believer that you shouldn’t have to ride an hour every time you are on your horse. Make your work correct, consistent, and fair and save your horses legs - they only have so many hours of extensions and collected work to give.

Sunday focused more on our 4 tempis. My counting was definitely a bit off that day and so I can’t blame Monty for his confusion. We had a few successful lines of changes, although not all with the proper striding, and so I called it a day. We finished up with some trot work, and easy zig-zags with the half-passes. I have to be careful not to ask for too much haunches, because I can easily confuse him and end up bending him into a pretzel, which isn’t the best idea! We also went for a walk around the property to cool out - it seems so much like spring that I am having a hard time convincing myself that it is still winter out!

The only thing that DOES have me convinced is the fact that Monty looks like a molting mutant. Seriously. His coat is rather embarrassing at the moment; parts of it are starting to shed but since he has had 3 (yes, THREE) body clips this winter, only tufts are shedding and he has colored splotches forming. Apparently no one informed him that Thoroughbreds aren’t supposed to grow hair, and the “look” that he has going on right now is very unique!

This week is “dead week,” otherwise known as the week before finals! I have too many things to do and not enough time, but I will be out to ride later tonight and will tuck Monty in so that he can survive the forewarned snow flurries!

Tip of the day: Always try to incorporate a variety of activities in your horses work, and remember that when something goes wrong or isn’t working out, always look to your body and your aids first.

Hello, everyone! I am starting this blog in order to catalog my experiences as I go through Young Riders, and today is my first blog entry! Enjoy. :)

So, today was the first day of the Rebecca Rigdon clinic and it started out bright and early and COLD. All the horses were happy that the sun was out, but the temperature definitely hadn’t gone up since last night!

Monty and I had the second ride of the day at 8:45, and my warm up was super. Monty came out and was very relaxed and loose despite the cold weather and distractions that were going on, and I couldn’t have been happier with how responsive and light he was!

Our goal for today’s lesson was to work on the tempi changes and the pirouettes since that will be our biggest weakness going into the summer. I have only loosely played with the pirouette work on Monty and we have done a few lines of changes but that is about the extent of our work on those movements! Rebecca started out by giving us a pattern on going across the diagonal and doing a change on the first quarter line, and immediately a volte to your new direction, and then proceeding on the diagonal and another change on the opposite quarter line with another 10 meter circle. And guess what? It worked like a charm!

The best tip of the day, however, was in regards to the canter stride. Rebecca wanted me to “canter on the spot” and almost think of pounding the ground with his hind legs in order to get him underneath me and really up in front. This gave me the most amazing feeling on Monty and made the work in the changes much easier.

We moved onto working on a line of 4 tempis, and really, the most important thing for me is to learn how to count. Counting the tempis are definitely harder the more I think about - if I just let Monty go and trust that he will respond in the tempis, it gives me time to count and him time to react!

The pirouette work came next. The exercise that we did for this involved making a triangle with the short side of the arena and X. In order to do this sequence, Rebecca had me keep Monty’s haunches in along all the lines. In the two corners we would do quarter pirouettes and at the apex, on X, we did a half pirouette. Monty struggled to keep the forward momentum in the pirouettes and I struggled in getting him to shift his shoulder over quicker in order to make the pirouette smaller. In order to really get me to bring his shoulders over, Rebecca said to almost think of “neck reining” him over in the pirouette. This made all the difference for me and once I used that image to turn him, our pirouettes improved ten fold.

We ended with just a little bit of trot work and half-passes. Monty was super, although pretty tired by the end! Tomorrow we will build off of what we worked on today and maybe take a nice light hack around the property to keep him fresh and ready to go.

And here is a helpful video by Edward Gal that places a lot of focus on half-pass and pirouette exercises: http://www.horseandcountry.tv/episode/edward-gal-masterclass

Tip of the day: To get the jump in the canter that you need, think of your horse bounding underneath you and “pounding the ground” with his hind legs like on a trampoline.