Dressage Lesson 7-21-10

Today was my first lesson at the new barn with the new trainer.  Riz is still not in great shape since my schedule hasn’t allowed me to get out as much as I’d like to.  But she is doing much better, and the progress has been slow.

The weather was about 90 degrees and as humid as a sweaty armpit, so I knew Riz would be a bit lazy.  I got on her, talked a bit on some of our goals with the new trainer, and started my warmup. 

Our main goal is to get Riz to lift her back by coming through from behind so she can build her topline back up.  She has some overdeveloped muscles in her SI area of her back from sort of shuffling along.  Her hips move more up and down rather than forward as she moves.  Part of the reason she does this is because a lot of my work with her in the beginning of our time together was spent holding her back and getting her to relax.  So she was rewarded for moving in this slow and steady way. 

Now that she is a little more advanced, we can start to push her more.  I have gotten so used to riding from front to back under my previous instruction, that I need to modify my riding as well.  My new trainer told me that I need to ride more with my leg and not worry about her head.  Even if she sticks her head way up in the air, I need to push her forward with my leg and give her the reins so she can relax forward.  Previously, I would bend her neck when she would do this in order to get her to unlock her poll, which would just cause her to get blocked in front and lose her balance.  Instead, I need to keep my hands low and focus on activating the inside hind leg when she starts to lose her balance on the short ends of the arena.  When going on a circle, I need to be especially aware of my outside rein that I don’t push it against her neck in a neck-reining fashion.  Instead, I need to open it and keep it low.

Up until now, we have happily worked within Arizen’s comfort zone, which was barely in 1st gear.  Now, we need to start going in and out of 2nd gear so we can build some strength and balance.  Once she relaxes, I need to use both legs to push her more forward.  I don’t need to worry about her getting rushy.  I just need to try the best I can to keep her in a steady rhythm, but really focus on activating her hind end when I ask.  When coming around on a circle, especially on the short ends of the arena and coming across the middle when she loses her balance most, I need to push her forward in preparation for the turn, half halt with the outside rein to balance, give a direct vibrating inside rein aid to turn her, then let her go so I don’t block her, and also use my inside leg/whip to activate the inside hind at the same time.  Instead of using my outside rein to move her shoulders in, use the outside leg as a passive aid in its place.  That way, I hold her shoulders without blocking the energy.

The same applies to the canter.  My right arm is significantly stronger, so I need to make sure I am not using too much outside rein when tracking left and blocking the energy.  Keep it a little out away from her neck and low to maintain the line from bit to elbow.  I need to use a little MORE outside rein going to the right to keep her from overbending.  Same thing goes for activating the inside hind, always working toward the “inside hind to outside rein” mentality.  Open the outside rein and apply the inside leg to make the horse fill the gap in the outside rein. 

Work on canter/trot transitions.  Keep the rhythm and energy in the downward transition (FORWARD ENERGY), and sit the trot before asking for the canter.  This will allow for better use of the half halt to get a smoother transition.  Don’t worry if it takes the whole circle to get a nice transition.  Clean transitions are key.

So I hope that will all make sense to me when I go to read it over again before my next ride!  After doing 20 minutes of this, Riz and I were both dripping with sweat and panting like we had just run a marathon.  My trainer made a comment that she had gone easy on us, and that this was “just a warmup.”  Looks like we have some work to do so we can get to the real fun stuff!!  A lot of this was common sense stuff that I just needed to be coached through.  Riz has big movement that just has yet to be found!  Consider me on the hunt….

Update 6/6/2010

Today, Arizen and I decided to try our hand at ground driving.  I had just gotten my teeth whitened today, and was doped up on Vicoden.  You would be amazed at how painful that procedure is!  Needless to say, I decided not to ride and take it easy at the barn today since 2+2 was not quite equaling 5.  I mean 4.

Anyway, Arizen’s feet are in pretty bad shape with all the wet weather we’ve been having and I’m desperately waiting for my farrier appointment this coming Saturday.  She has some pretty bad chips and cracks that are making her sore, so I’m trying to take it easy on her until we can see the farrier.

So I broke out the surcingle and long reins that I bought last year and never used.  Here she is sporting her new gear and her new colors!

Ground driving was fun!  She was pretty good at it once she figured out what I was asking her for.  I think she appreciated the different routine and the break from our normal workouts.  We just walked around the arena practicing our steering and stops.  I’d like to practice some more and get her doing more advanced things.   Maybe one day when she is older we’ll start doing some real driving with a cart!  I’ll take some more action photos next time now that I’ve figured out how to hold the reins and have everything organized.

Update 5/15/2010

It’s been almost a month since we moved to our new place, and things are going great!  Riz is like a whole new horse.  She is so relaxed and happy.  We had one day that she decided she was afraid of everything, but she has taken everything in stride every other day.  And I’ve been able to ride her 5 times a week on average now that it is half the commute!

We’re only to the point of being able to canter two 20 meter circles before we’re both out of breath, but I’m going to watch a jumping group that some of the barn ladies put together on Monday to see if we’d be interested in joining.  They only do cavaletti grids, but that is perfect for us.  Neither of us are in any sort of shape to do anything major, and we both need to go back to the basics before we start jumping the moon.

Here are some pics I took today of the princess.  She loves the pampered life.  She gets to stay inside when it rains and gets fly sprayed every time she goes out.  Plus I give her a lot more treats now that I see her more, and she will get to go out on pasture this summer, which she will love.

We finally moved!! 4-19-2010

It has been a long time since I’ve had any updates to give.  I’ve been working nonstop the past 4 months, and haven’t seen Rizzie much at all.  But I finally found a new barn that is absolutely amazing!  We moved yesterday, and it was thankfully very uneventful.  Rizzie loaded perfectly and settled in right away without one worried winny.  She munched hay like she’d lived there all her life.

I’m shocked and amazed.  She is a bit “homesick,” but it is only because she hasn’t made any friends yet.  She got turned out with an old gelding today and supposedly did great.  I love my horse!  She is so well-behaved, especially compared to some of the others in the barn.  I just hope she doesn’t pick up any bad habits.  A lot of the horses pin their ears when you walk by their stalls… Arizen loves attention, and I’d hate for her to turn sour towards people or other horses.

Other than that, everything is perfect!  The stalls are clean, the arena is perfectly groomed, the turnout is plenty, the air is non-dusty and bright…. So on to a few pictures of our first day:

A great end to 2009…

Well, I went out to ride Arizen last weekend and my friend came out to visit us for the first time since she was weaned.  She was such an angel, and I was so proud of her!  The last couple rides before that were not our best because Arizen has some internal temperature gauge that tells her she needs to be a complete nutcase when it gets under 30 degrees.  But it was 32 and sunny last weekend and she was so good for our visiting friend.    

Here are some pictures from 12/11/2009 to add to my little photo journal.  She moves so much nicer now that she doesn’t have a baby to lug around, and she’ll only get better as she builds strength:

So not only did my horse end the year on a good note, but I finished my Masters degree AND (I’m so excited about this one) I PASSED THE AUDIT SECTION OF THE CPA EXAM!!!!!  Not only did I pass, but I ROCKED it with a score of 90.  I really thought I had failed it because I only left myself 3 weeks to prepare (crammed it) while trying to do school stuff as well, I was sick for the whole week before the test, and I took the test with a fever.  Now I have to do the next section, FAR, which will be a lot harder for me.  But, now I am motivated…. so BRING IT ON!!!  I’m on my way to a CPA, baby!

Update 12/14/2009

Well, as predicted, Arizen started getting spooky as soon as it hit below 30 degrees.  Last week, all I could do was walk her and work on getting her focused, and she still was spooking at everything. 

On another note, I FINALLY GRADUATED with my Masters degree!  I’m officially done with school… well, at least until I stupidly decide to go back to torture myself some more.  I can’t believe it’s over.  I’m so excited to start my job next month, but also sad that I don’t get to live the college life style anymore. 

But, this means that I really don’t have much reason to drive all the way out to where Riz is boarded.  My barn is close to my school, but now that I’m graduated, I have no reason to be out that way.  It’s an hour and a half drive to the barn from where I’m living now, and with the weather getting worse by the day, it doesn’t look like this is going to be a very productive winter for Arizen and I. 

I still owe $4,000 on her, so moving her is not an option.  I also don’t know if I’d even want to move her until I know for sure that I’d be able to get out to the barn more to help her transition.   She’s so comfortable at her current barn, and the first few months of the year I will be in the middle of busy season at work, which means I’ll be travelling quite a bit.  I may just end up leaving her there on semi-retirement until April. 

Sort of depressing….    And my barn search is not going well, either.

Update 11/20/09

Well I haven’t had a lesson since the last one I wrote about because I did not get out to the barn at all last week.  I’ve decided that I’m not paying for lessons every week if I haven’t mastered the things we worked on in my last lesson.  Money is tight, and unless I’m frustrated or stuck, it just doesn’t seem necessary.

So, I rode Arizen yesterday for the first time in a week.  When I don’t get out there on a regular basis, she tends to get a little distracted when coming in the barn still.  So she was calling out to her friends and generally not paying much attention to me.  Lovely.  Not to mention it was raining and cold.  Oh, how I just love days like these.

When I brought her in the arena, my trainer and another girl were riding two of the horses from Arizen’s old herd (the broodmares).  That was all sorts of exciting for the three of them when I came into the arena.  After she calmed down, I actually wasn’t too upset because last time I rode with these horses Riz was really good since she was with her friends.  But they were almost done riding, and so they went to leave when I was only about halfway done riding.  So Arizen and I were in the arena… alone.  She felt abandoned and so naturally she started getting all worried like she does best.  So I had to just walk her out and go back a few steps to get her out of flight mode with the neck bending exercises and call it a day.  She really wasn’t terrible, but it definitely wouldn’t have been smart of me to try and get more work out of her, so it was a little disappointing.

Still, I got a few pictures of her to put in my photo diary of Arizen.  She has lost a TON of weight.  Just about all her baby fat is gone, and now she just needs to build up muscle.  She has virtually none to speak of, but she still looks so good!  She doesn’t look like a fat pony anymore!  Here are some before and after pics:

May 2009 (just before foaling):

August 2009 (3 months after foaling completely off work):

September 2009 (one month of light work on the lunge 2-3 times a week)

Yesterday (November 2009, about 4 weeks back under saddle):

So I’m hoping to get some riding pictures soon because I feel like Rizzie is doing really great now that she doesn’t have a baby to lug around.  She feels light and balanced and awesome.  She only has about 20 minutes of strength in her at this point, but we’re building slowly.  I cantered her today, and it was amazing.  I can’t wait to be able to canter her around a course and fly over some jumps!

Arizen Lessons 10/29/09

It has been a while since my last lesson with my dressage trainer.  Arizen was finally weaned of the baby, and I’ve been working with my old trainer on behavioral issues to get my horse back into working mode.

When I brought her in a couple of days after being weaned, I attempted it on my own without a trainer to help me.  Her hormones were flying from having just been taken away from her baby, and her natural flight instincts were on red alert as I had just taken her away from the herd with which she had spent the last 6 months.  As you can imagine, it did not go well.  She screamed, reared, and just did not listen overall.  I kept her in her stall for about 5 minutes until she was reasonably settled and brought her straight back to her friends.  I decided I did not want to handle this on my own, so I set up a lesson with my old trainer who bred and raised Arizen.

Of course, the next day when I bring her in for our first lesson she is considerably improved.  No screaming, no rearing, just a little fright in her eyes.  Still, I was glad to have supervision in case she lost control.  Unexpectedly, my trainer decided she was doing so well that we would tack her up and have a riding lesson.  So I brought her in the arena for the first time in 6 months.

My trainer said that we needed to get her out of flight mode so that by the time I move her next year, she is calm and controlled.  Immediately when I got on, we worked on bending her neck at the halt from one side to the other until she calmly gives her head to my hand in both directions.  We did this for about 20 minutes until she would give to the rein without chomping on the bit or resisting in between directions.  At this point, there were two things we were looking for:  we wanted her to either look at me with her eye once she gave to the bit pressure OR wait until she sighed.  Then, I would immediately get off.

My homework was to do this before and after every ride.  Each time I practiced, it got much easier and took less time.  In between, I would reward her by walking around until she got nervous or distracted.  Then, I would stop and practice the neck bending again before moving on.

In my next lesson, we worked on a Jane Savoie exercise called +7/+1.  This was my first time trotting Arizen since I had been back on her.  Now that she was consistently calm at the walk, we moved on to trot.  The goal was to get her to stretch down into contact and also to be straight on a circle.  My trainer said that the more straight and balanced she is, the less flighty she will be.  So we worked on a 10-15 meter circle.  I was to use my inside leg and inside rein to bend her neck 7 inches to the inside, then 1 inch to the inside.   This was to be done “quickly” three times in a row.  By quickly I do NOT mean yanking her head around, but in a smooth consecutive manner.  The inside rein was to be vibrating and not pulling so she could not lean.  After three rounds, I left her face alone for 6-8 strides so she could figure it out.  Then I would repeat the +7/+1 three more times until she stretched down into the bit.  The exercise was very calming for Arizen, and helped me to unlock her poll and get her focused when she became distracted or flighty.

In between the +7/+1′s, the goal was to keep her straight on the circle.  She pops her shoulder out as most horses do, so I needed to focus on keeping my outside rein and thigh contact steady to bring her shoulder in while using my inside leg to push her haunches out.  This was the goal for my most recent lesson, too.  We started by going on a large figure eight and keeping her straight.  Then I asked for a few strides of “slowing her legs” while maintaining the rhythm.  I asked for this by squeezing my legs into a steady hand, and then letting her go.  I increased the number of strides of collection every time I asked.  Once she was straight and moving with “slow legs” in a forward manner,  I asked her to canter.  We went to the right first, since that is her more unbalanced direction.  In the canter, I still focused on getting her straight on the circle.  To the left, it took a little longer to get her straight and balanced in the trot, but I am NOT to move on to the canter until her trot is balanced.  There is no reason to canter her unbalanced.

So I really wanted to start working with my dressage trainer with Arizen, but she needed some initial behavioral work in addition to needing time to get back into shape.  Things have been going really well so far, and I’m not disappointed to be working with my old trainer again.  Once Arizen builds up strength and confidence, I hope to work with my new dressage trainer a little more to fine tune her technical dressage training.

The perfect barn…

Well, after months and months of searching, I have found the perfect barn for Arizen and I.   The only problem is that its about an hour away, and I don’t know how much it is to board there… but I’m sure it’s expensive.  Here it is:

http://www.baythorne.com/

I emailed them to see how much board is, and if it is under $400 a month I would pay it even if it is far away.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it is over $600, though.    Barn searching is impossible.

Dressage Lesson 9/9/2009

Today was another awesome lesson!  When I got to the barn, my trainer immediately asked me if I wanted to ride two horses today.  She will most likely be sending Habinero out to a friend’s house to retire next week, so this week was most likely my last time riding him.  She wanted to put me on my “replacement” lesson horse after I rode Habinero “if I had time.”  Do I have time?  Lady, if you’re offering to let me ride two of your horses, I have all the time in the world! 

So I tacked up Habinero and headed out to her backyard.  We used the Pelham since last week was a disaster with the snaffle…. better to get a more productive lesson in this week.  For 45 minutes, I worked on maintaining a steady rhythm and figuring out the size of my circles (I apparently can’t tell a 20m from a 10m).  Then we worked on flying lead changes at the canter.  It was the first time I had ever been taught how to properly perform a flying change.  Here are my notes to myself:

Flying Changes:

• A flying change must be asked for when the horse is straight.  It is a misconception that you need to make a big fuss about throwing your body around to “help” with the change. 
• First, establish a calm and collected canter.  When coming across the diagonal, straighten the horse out.  Without throwing your upper body, think about swinging the new outside leg back to cue ONLY.  This will automatically realign your hips for the cue.  DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR CONTACT!  This will just cause him to change in front but not behind. 
• Sit up straight.. DO NOT THROW YOUR UPPER BODY to try and “help” the change.  It doesn’t help.
• Then ride STRAIGHT on after the change.  Don’t dive into a turn right away.

My muscles were screaming, but I was having so much fun.  Finally, my trainer told me to hop off Habinero and she’d grab Simon… the new horse I’d be riding. 

When she brought him in the barn, I asked the usual questions:  How old is he?  What’s his breed?  She tells me he’s one of her sale horses and he’s a 4 year old Fresian Sporthorse that was just started this summer.  

I blinked and then asked if I heard her correctly.  She was putting ME on a greenbroke 4 year old that she was looking to sell for a large chunk of money, I’m sure… and she wasn’t afraid of me screwing him up with the way I have been riding?  I know that my leg is getting better, but I am nowhere near quiet enough in my seat to ride a 4 year old, am I? 

She just laughed and nonchalantly helped me tack him up.  “Yep, and we’ll start with a little lesson on lunging.” 

Her confidence in my abilities made the little warning voice in the back of my head slightly more silent.  She showed me how she liked to attach the sidereins (which was nice since I thoroughly researched and bought sidereins for Arizen, but felt better having her show me how to use them in person).  And we lunged for about 5 minutes just to see how Simon was responding today.  He was nice and calm, so we didn’t do much more than that.  Then, I got on him and did a lot of walking before we worked on rhythm and transitions to help Simon get his balance.  This is the kind of stuff I need to work on with Arizen once I get back on her next month, so since I hadn’t been bucked off yet, I was excited of the idea of working with this greenbroke horse.  Here are more notes to myself: 

Rhythm:

• Work on maintaining an even rhythm.  This is the most important thing, and you’re not very good at it.  You will need to work on this with Arizen, so get it together now before you get back on her.
• When you half halt, use more leg and then let the horse go.  Correct when necessary, but allow them the chance to do what you ask.  Don’t just hold them in all the time.
• Use more upper leg to post, which will help steady your rhythm.  Keep the leg long.  Don’t let it creep up when you give cues with your inside leg. 
• With the younger horses, you must allow them to make mistakes.  Ask for what you want, then let them go as if you’re not even there, and then ask again once they lose their balance.
• Patience is a virtue.  You’ll need to be a lot more patient with the younger ones than the old schoolmasters like Habinero.

After a few rough canter transitions, I could tell that my muscles couldn’t take much more.  I had been riding for nearly an hour and a half, and HARD.  I finally got a nice circle at the canter and we called it quits.  But my trainer commented on how nicely Simon and I got along together from the start.  She said he usually starts out pretty strung out and rushing and then calms down, but today he did the opposite.  But we also ended the lesson very nicely with a nice, easy canter and some stretching. 

So I have a whole new set of challenges ahead of me, but I’m excited.  I am constantly amazed by my lessons with my new trainer, and I just wish she wasn’t so far away.  I’m determined to keep working with her once I am permanently in Chicago, though, because I get along with her so well and I feel like I’m improving by leaps and bounds.  For the first time in years, I feel secure in the saddle and confident in my abilities.