First post since February? Yikes!

Well, things have been going very well with Val and I, although we have yet to get to do a cross-country schooling because of the weather. Our dressage is finally clicking again, after it totally imploded over the winter, thanks to my "one response" riding that never changed no matter what Val needed... fortunately, that is on the road towards becoming better.

Now, we should have our first XC schooling of the year next Sunday, if the weather doesn't do anything stupid. That's going to be the huge deciding factor on the novice v. beginner novice question. We've been really stagnant this winter, and we definitely didn't hit our dressage and show jumping the way I thought we would. I really thought that by this time this year I'd be more than ready to go novice, but now I'm not so sure.

Could Val and I go Novice without huge mishaps and horrible accidents? Almost certainly. Would we be competitive at all? Would we have any shot at going to the AECs again? Would I be bored at beginner novice? It's those last three questions that are really holding me back. I'm an extremely competitive person, and that kind of pulls me two different ways- I want to push myself and do better (go novice) but I also want to place well and go to the AECs (stay beginner novice.) My desire to go to the AECs and NOT place last is incredibly strong!

Right now, I can tell you I'm really leaning towards staying BN for most of the season and maybe doing one novice towards the end of the year, but this XC schooling may change everything if things just go really, really well. We'll have to see.

This is probably a pretty boring update post, but I thought I'd let everyone know we're still alive and kickin'!

Finally Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Well, that's pretty much what this post is all about. In the past few weeks that have been my second semester of my junior year, things have not been according to routine. This was the first week where I was present for every single day of school (no getting sick, no going to a funeral for a friend). This was the first week I got to ride Val a majority of the days. And this was the week we finally started getting our dressage back together!

For awhile, I haven't been having very regular lessons. They kept getting rescheduled for mini-emergencies, but the fact that the lessons were rescheduled for legitimate reasons doesn't make our dressage any better. I've been accepting poorer and poorer performances from Val without even realizing it.

Things really came to a head this week. Thursday, I was riding in the arena while my instructor was giving a lesson and she was telling me that he needed to bend and reach forward to my hands. I was stubbornly sure that he already was, but I started doing a serpentine and I kept getting in "trouble" for leg yielding. "He doesn't need to go sideways, he needs to BEND!" And I was stubbornly sure that we WERE bending. In reality, Val probably looked like someone had jammed his head close to his neck and then forced him to eat something vile-tasting; he was gnashing at the bit and turning completely U-shaped. And I was positive that he was soft, forward, and bending!

So, whatever hallucinogen I was on yesterday didn't work today; I saw my instructor ride my horse and saw what I hadn't been getting in forever. Then I got on and really felt my horse, and I realized he hadn't felt that way in months! We focused on him taking the contact instead of me forcing it on him and we started to work on a more gradual "soften" as a reward instead of just dropping him. I've definitely lost a ton of the finesse I had last summer!

Anyhow, it was a nice, basic lesson and we ended on a beautiful canter-trot transition. :) My instructor made me realize that I can't just keep riding the same way every day for forever and asking for the same things and expect to get the same results. Horses aren't machines; a button that "works" one day might not the next, and continually pushing the same button will just make them resistant and confused. We have to adjust to what we're sitting on every day and we can never expect them to be completely predictable. Where would the fun be in that?

Also, as a side-note, my fitness is definitely improving! My aerobics class is really more a "go down to the YMCA and use the machines and equipment" class; we get to do 20 min of cardio and then 15 minutes weights/etc. every day. I've been working on the elliptical, and I love feeling that every day 20 minutes is easier than yesterday. This Thursday, I went completely full-out, as fast as I could, for 20 full minutes and I felt VERY accomplished! That success made me think, "Gee, I bet I can run for a whole 20 minutes too!" According to the elliptical, I've been going between 1.5-1.8 miles every day. Let me tell you, folks, 1 mile on an elliptical machine feels a LOT different than 1 mile on a treadmill!

After my lesson tonight, I got on the treadmill and ran at 4 mph. That lasted for about 5 minutes until I was gasping for breath and positive I was going to DIE, right then and there. So, I came back to a walk, caught my breath, and kept going for as long as I could. Rinse and repeat and 18:30 later, I had run a mile. I can't believe that an almost 19-minute-mile kicked my butt!

On the plus side, my recovery is definitely better than it ever was. Also, I used to only be able to run for 2:30 before being completely out of breath. That's definitely an improvement, however small. I think I want to keep checking how fast I can do a mile on the treadmill a couple times a week; I'd like to be able to do an 18:00 mile in the next two weeks at least. I think that's reasonable, although I really don't know much about running. By the time May comes around, I would ideally like to be able to run for 15 minutes without stopping for a breather. I figure that if I can run for 15 minutes, surely I can ride for 5 minutes cross-country without getting too tired toward at the end of the course!

The no-longer-quite-as-elusive One Stride

For the longest time, one of my biggest issues with Val has been my complete inability to get the typical "horse" stride- 12ft- out of him. The key word in that sentence, sadly, is "my". He has no issue whatsoever with getting a "horse-sized" stride with other riders. So, it's clearly something I'm doing to hold him back.

We've tried many things- my trainer has even watched as I "pushed" him right after landing, clearly asking for him to speed up and take the jump in one stride, and seen him ignore my signals and take it in two. And she got on right after that incident, and he gave it willingly to her! It felt like even if I was doing everything right, he was convinced I wanted two strides. Which, when I was a less forward, less confident rider, I did! I wasn't ready for him to be that forward. That's not the case anymore.

So, today, we tried a different approach- I had a lesson, and after I jumped a simple cross rail a couple times, we turned it into an oxer and built a cross rail in front of it. It was set on a short one-stride distance- 18'. Gradually, we built it up all the way to 22', an-almost-standard one-stride distance, and not once did we get two strides! That was definitely a good moment.

My lower leg position was much better today, and my toes were even pointing in the semi-right direction! Unfortunately, my upper body had become locked and stiff. I wasn't hitting Val in the mouth or landing on his back, but I was like a completely rigid board he had to carry. By the end, I was bending- bending in my elbows, bending in my hips... getting closer to a more fluid jumping position.

The only negative part of the lesson was Val's inattentiveness, at times. He was so excited to be jumping, and so confident in his abilities, he felt that he could go as fast and disorganized as he pleased. He didn't need MY input; he knew how to jump! Well, we set that straight with a few circles before and after the fence, and he had calmed down and was just taking me to them instead of rushing towards them at the end. A very productive lesson, overall.

Yesterday, I had planned to jump some little stuff, but the arena was terribly crowded and both Val and I were sick and TIRED of being inside. It was a fairly nice day, and although it was incredibly muddy, we decided to head off into the wild blue yonder for a trail ride.

There is something about being alone while you're with your own horse that's amazing. When you spend as much time with them as I do, you feel like you know them inside and out. You know when they're tense; when they're going to spook at something. You know if they have devious thoughts of barreling back toward the barn at a gallop. And you also know when you can trust them.

I trust Val. We were out in the open, for the first time in several months, and I didn't even get on or canter him once inside the arena. I took him off the cross ties, bridled him, and hopped on. And I had a fantastic ride. We went in and around some of the light woods at the back of the property. We rode a little near the pond. We even "schooled" water via going through puddles. I even let him canter a little when we turned around. We were on the back stretch; not the actual path that led straight to the barn, but I could feel him thinking "barn!" and I let him pick up a slow gallop anyhow. And when I asked, he came right back down. He thought about not, but the thing is, he did.

Sometimes I wonder if I trust him too much. But other times, I think that a lack of trust in your horse is what causes some of the worst accidents, especially jumping accidents. If you're pointing you horse at a fence and you're simply not sure if they'll go or not, it is incredibly easy to pass your uncertainty on to them. And one thing I know about horses is that they (at least all the ones I've been acquainted with) aren't big fans of things their riders are unsure of. Anyone that rides cross country has got to trust their horse; we owe it to them to not create some self-fulfilling prophecy with our own doubt.

And that's my deep thought of the day, I suppose. Sadly, I have to stay at school very late this week for newspaper, which pretty much means I can't ride, not with the amount of homework I have to do. Best case scenario, I'll get to ride again on Thursday. Ah, well.

Hind Legs and Energy

We had a really good lesson on Monday. Despite the fact that we walked for 95% of it, I feel like I learned some incredibly important things.

I warmed up Val myself for around a half-hour while my instructor, C, was giving the lesson scheduled before mine. I went back into the "he WILL stretch and connect" mindset and got him to stretch and continue stretching even when I collected the reins. D, my instructor's instructor, made a comment I found interesting a few weeks ago. She said, if you have to shorten reins from the walk to the trot, or the trot to the canter, you know they're not stretching forward to and accepting the bit. Their neck shouldn't shrink; they should still be stretching forward to your hands. The rein length you use for the walk should be the same for the trot and canter.

When the other students were gone, we started a pretty simple exercise. We have mirrors on the F-M side of the arena, so we worked on that side. We started at M, tracking right. The idea was to leg yield to X, then switch to haunches in (in to the BEND, so although his haunches were technically to the left/ "B" side of the arena, they were to the inside of his LEFT bend in the leg yield) for a few steps, then straighten to the mirror and turn left, INTO the wall. We circled at that end of the arena until we were ready to go again, then we did it the other direction.

It sounds pretty simple, and it mostly was. The big things she talked to me about were his hind legs and how his energy moved through his body. When we're leg yielding from M to X, his LEFT hind leg is coming up under his body and pushing him forward. The energy is going from his left hind leg up through the left rein.

When we switch to doing the haunches in, although we don't change bend, it's now his right leg that's coming up under him and pushing him forward. At first, that really had me confused. How could that be when the bend hadn't changed? Then I realized it was direction that had changed. He was now just going forward; he wasn't traveling to the right anymore.

C fixed a little hole I was developing in our leg yields- I've always heard her say that you don't want the hip just trailing along, so I ended up over correcting and asking for his hips to move exactly with his shoulders. They're technically supposed to be just a teeny bit behind in a correct leg yield, so we fixed that by either speeding up the shoulder or slowing down the hip. Crazy-technical stuff!

We also worked on getting a really nice connection to the outside rein and using it with the inside leg to establish correct bend, especially on the circles after the haunches in part of the exercise. Val always likes to throw his haunches to the left, no matter what direction we're going. So, inside leg and outside rein, with a light tap of the whip on his hip, would get him to straighten up.

At the very beginning of the lesson, she finally found a way to explain how I should be sitting in the saddle so that I finally get it. I always have a dip inward in my lower back, and that's kind of interfering with my ability to shock absorb. You want a bit of a curve there when you're jumping/in two-point, but when you're riding dressage and trying to sit the trot, your lower back needs to be straighter. It's a feeling of tucking your hip bones under. If you stand up and place one hand on your stomach and another on your butt and push a little, that's how it's supposed to be. It was really hard for me at first to do it at all; I would end up accidentally pushing the entire opposite way. But whenever I did figure it out for a whole circle or so, Val would stretch forward to my now steadier hands and soften to the bit without my even asking, just because I was sitting better! That's something we'll have to experiment with to perfect.

We finished up by cantering a circle, again messing with Val's hind end. We wanted his hips in line with his shoulders, so it was more inside leg to outside rein, with an open inside rein to encourage his hips to come a bit more to the inside. It took a while, but he finally got the idea and it was just amazing to feel his balance shift! He has never been quite that round, up, and balanced in the canter. It truly felt like the beginning of collection.

So, a pretty fantastic lesson from beginning to end. :) We have another scheduled for Friday and I've got to admit, I'm itching to jump at this point!

Actual riding!

Ah, at last! When I finally got the opportunity to put butt to saddle on Monday, Val had a lot less energy than I expected. I even longed him a bit first, just to see if there was anything totally wacky in there. He didn't even buck once, and after just a few minutes, I hopped on. Things were a bit crazy- the indoor was in heavy use by the lesson kids. My trainer was on one end, giving a girl a longe-line lesson over jumps. At the other end, another instructor was teaching a girl to really sit the canter correctly and to do transitions within that gait, and they were on a circle, too.

When you consider that our arena is 20m wide (about) by 50m long (maybe)... it was tight! The other instructor eventually had her girl leave the circle, but still, 4 people going around a small arena with a big chunk cut off by a longe-circle is... tricky. Especially when Val and I hardly ever just stay on the rail, although we kind of had to that day.

The actual rides on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all pretty much the same. Val felt like he was rushing and just not really connecting to the bit or softening and bending at all. My bad habits had come back, as they are wont to do after 3 weeks without riding. I was using way too much inside hand and having trouble keeping it from crossing over his neck. Also, I had major "duck feet" going on, as I usually do.

My instructor's instructor, who we'll call D, was in the arena on Tuesday. I could see her watching me and Val, and I instantly got very nervous. In the past, she's watched me and then told my trainer some things, which I don't mind at all. But I feel like I'm a reflection of how well my trainer is teaching things, and whenever she watches me, I feel instantly like I have to do my absolute best. Val MUST be on the bit every single second. We can't be overbent, we can't have too much bend. We can't have a sluggish transition, too much angle in our shoulder-in, not enough crossover in our leg yields... we need to be perfect when D watches us!

Obviously, that's impossible to do. I can't just magically start riding perfectly when D starts watching, and she's going to see our bad moments from time to time. Either way, the only thing she said to my trainer was that I was posting a bit behind my horse's motion. Not surprising, considering how nervous I was.

Anyhow, after those three mediocre rides, I was supposed to have a lesson on Friday. My trainer ended up not being able to be there on time, so I decided to just ride myself, since I was already on Val and I didn't want to sit and wait for what would've been 40 minutes. D was there again, this time riding her amazing old show horse.

This horse, Breeze, is about the coolest horse I've ever met. He's a paint, and he used to successfully compete at Intermediate! Of course, this means that I worship the ground he trots on ;) He's 25, but according to D, he hasn't changed a bit since his competition days. And I have never seen a horse that has a motor the way he does!

You watch D riding him, doing all manner of complicated dressage moves like 3 tempi changes and canter half-passes and pirouettes and you think, wow, he's so controlled! But under that calm facade, he's got a 1200 HP engine. All it takes for him to go from a nice walk to a dead run is for D to stop giving the invisible cue that tells him not to. He never, ever had problems making Intermediate speed, and he loves to run. D says that he was the most amazing horse XC- he just loved it; he never looked at anything and he really relaxed when he could just go out in the open.

Anyhow, the first part of our ride on Friday was just as terrible as the first three this week. D, fortunately, had her attention taken by Breeze, so I wasn't really being watched. Still, things weren't good. Val had PLENTY of energy on Friday, and he was choosing all manner of ridiculous things to spook at. I started just trying to loosen him up, letting him trot, and canter if he wished, on a fairly loose rein, just asking for him to stretch and bend. I then shortened the reins up after maybe 10 minutes and started asking for more roundness. In hindsight, I think he need more "stretchy" time. We were doing a serpentine and had just reached the place where I was going to change bend when he spooked at the door.

It was a pretty hard spook for him; he squirted sideways rapidly and did about a 60 degree change in direction. For the first time, his spook didn't get my heart absolutely pounding. It didn't even really unbalance me at all! We just continued on and made another pass at the door, with me insisting it was NOT scary and that yes, he could trot right by it. That made me pretty proud. :)

He was concerned at two other places in the arena, but he only spooked the once. It was shortly after the spook that D was done warming up Breeze. She was putting him through his paces, and so Val and I just went into the middle and watched him. He is a fascinating horse to watch. After he had preformed his extensive repertoire, including his super-fast run, D stayed on him for a bit longer and I could just see the change... he was calmer now. After they got off, I started riding Val differently.

I loosened the reins again and I absolutely insisted that he stretch. We worked on that until he was stretching and bending. Then, I did a walk to canter in one corner and rode several circles, working on him being forward and up. He was happy to oblige. Then, I just let him go. He did a couple laps of the arena before he was done, then we came down into a nice stretchy trot and took a bit of a break. He was no longer constantly hopping in the trot, trying to canter. He didn't feel like he was all pent up.

Then, we shortened our reins back up and we worked. We started with another walk to canter on the other lead and did one more lap of the arena, then I collected his canter back and he just did it willingly. I put my reins in a bridge and I refused to pull my inside rein over his neck, which also helped.

We started doing one of my favorite things- walk to canter serpentines. He's just so good at them; he comes down to the walk without a fight and he takes only the softest cue to pick up the canter again. While D was riding Breeze, they worked on canter halfpasses. Val and I can do okay halfpasses in the walk, iffy ones in the trot, and we'd never tried in the canter. We tried today.

We recently got mirrors on the small side of the arena, so you can now see yourself in them head on when you go down the long side. I got a nice, collected canter from Val, and then I just asked him to do a canter halfpass to the right. Imagine my surprise when he did! I could see that he really was maintaining his right bend in the mirrors, and although he didn't have huge crossover, he was bring his hips and shoulders together, not just oozing to the right with his shoulders. Not bad for a first try!

We played with that a bit the other direction, did another walk-to-canter serpentine, and came down to the trot and had a bit of a break. We went back to work and used the mirrors to do haunches in both directions. Then we did some leg yielding and picked up the trot. I asked him to be round and forward, and he was. We did some transitions, and then I let him really stretch down. I gradually slid the reins and he just followed the bit until he was doing our best-ever stretch down trot. I'm usually lucky if I get his poll level with his withers- he held the stretch below his withers for a bit! D actually saw us doing our stretch down, and she commented on how nice it looked. :) My trainer came in toward the end and also saw some of the work and said it looked pretty good, too.

After that, he got huge loves and was done. I walked him for a while so he wouldn't be too sweaty, then I got off. It was definitely our best ride in a very long time. We have a lesson later day, and I've got a feeling that will go well.

Overall, I've learned how important your mindset is. As soon as I decided that yes, he was going to be a dressage horse today and I was going to do the right things with my hands and shoulders and legs... things just fell together. Positive mental attitudes are difficult to beat! I just hope we can summon that feeling for our first real dressage test of the year...

New Years Revolutions

2010 is just 3 days away. Looking back, it's great to see how far we've come as a pair, but what's almost more amazing is how far Val has come in his training.

At the beginning of this year, Val had just your basic training- he was good walk, trot, canter, could jump simple courses, could round up most of the time, and had some adjustability of stride. He could do okay leg-yields and shoulder-ins. He was hardly ever hot and he was the type of horse you had to push for every stride, unless he was on cross country.

Change was gradual the first four months or so of the year and gradually built up to the last month's crescendo. Although I (unfortunately) haven't been blogging about it, we've gone through some radical adjustments to Val's training.

The first lesson with some really "new" stuff in it was maybe a month and a half ago. We worked on lengthening and collecting the canter and the beginnings of his working, collected, and extended canter. Pinching knees are starting to mean, "collect!" and a slightly driving seat combined with light leg aids, "lengthen!" Val's becoming fine-tuned! The change just in the last month has been incredible.

With our move up to Novice probable sometime this show season, there's one big weakness we needed to explore and fix- Val's sluggishness. About a month ago, we had a lesson that focused on what I like to call Val's "rocket launcher." We were essentially teaching him to go from 0 to 60 as fast and balanced as possible. He's great at it- he really uses his hind end and comes up in front. But even more amazing to me, he maintains the speed. My sluggish Val has finally found his motor!

At BN, the fences are small (no more than 2'7") and the optimum times are pretty generous. Most horses can easily make the XC and show jumping times. Novice is a speed increase of 50-100 mpm, up to 350-400 mpm cross-country. It becomes even more important that the horse have drive and impulsion from the hind end. Although we've only had time penalties because of refusals and other difficulties (more to come on that later!), and only at two competitions, we've mostly been closer to the slow side. I definitely think we can make novice time XC now.

Our biggest speed problem has always been in showjumping, though. Even though we've only gotten time penalties twice during showjumping, we were still prone to crawling around our courses last year. When you consider that the slower we go, the more my position deteriorates, it's a big problem. You can't have a nice jump without impulsion, which we were lacking in most if not all of our showjumping rounds last year. So, that's probably where our new-found speed will help the most!

We've been practicing stadium jumping at faster speeds. Going back to the rocket launcher metaphor, I like to imagine that I'm aiming a missile at the jump. I lock him on, and then we go; no sluggish oozing over fences.

One of the most interesting lessons we had lately involved a fake Weldon's Wall-like jump. There was maybe a 2' wide fake ditch (created with the use of a handy sheet) in front of a 2'9" vertical, and we were expected to jump it the first time as a part of a combination. After it, there was one stride to an oxer of similar height, then two strides to a skinny vertical. This quadrupled the difficulty- in order to get the two strides to the skinny, Val would need a forward-reaching, fairly fast stride from the very first fence.

I'm not too ashamed to mention I was feeling very nervous of that fake Wall. Whenever I'm nervous about whether or not Val will jump a fence, my first instinct is to get a nice, collected, fairly slow canter. Sure, it probably doesn't have the impulsion it needs to make jumping whatever it is easy, but that kind of canter also doesn't have the impulsion to launch me off my horse if he stops! I'd rather knock it down the first time then get dumped on top of it at speed. Not really a good idea if you're cross-country, though, and a dangerous frame of mind to be in at all. Our instructions were to jump it like a cross-country fence and get the striding right the first time.

So, we went right to it- Val's "new canter" has a totally different feel, and although I was nervous, I could still tell that he wasn't. He hardly even blinked at the strange-looking fence, and we got over that and the oxer just fine. We got over the skinny, but we took three strides in between. We continued to do the line over and over again, but eventually both Val and I were tired and we still hadn't gotten the 2 strides. My trainer jumped on and got 2 strides the first time: the current hypothesis is that I'm landing slightly too early after the jumps and nicking him in the back, making him reluctant to step out like he needed to to get the distance. We've started work on that, but we haven't yet tried to get a two stride again.


Despite that minor failure of the day, it was still an amazing lesson and I got to really feel a forward horse. He was happy to be going at a good clip and happy to be jumping, and I was happy to not have to constantly nag at him with my leg.

That lesson started Valerius' personal revolution. He's become a completely different horse in the past month; his dressage has improved exponentially from the added impulsion. I'm able to apply my aids much more selectively when I don't constantly need to nagnagnag for more, smoothing out the communication between us.

We've started serious work on haunches in and out, as well as shoulder in and out. The half-pass has even been experimented with at the walk, and it's all looking good! I now understand the idea of riding forward to the bit a lot better and our connection is better for it, although he was getting really fussy about taking contact for a few days. That's been mostly resolved. I love his new-found responsiveness more than anything; I can't even explain how incredible it is that he's changed so quickly.

While Valerius has mostly finished his impulsion revolution, I'm just beginning a fitness one. My general lack of fitness is just not acceptable anymore; I can't demand fighting fitness of my horse and not of myself. Fitness has always been an off-and-on battle with me. Although it's probably the most important thing I could do for my riding, I've never really devoted myself to it for more than a month at a time. This is the end of the road for that; I've made a fitness pledge to myself and my horse for the very last time. This time it will be fulfilled.

See you in 2010!

Back on Track... again!

Sorry I haven't updated lately; there hasn't been too much exciting going on. For the past few weeks, Val and I have continued to work on our stretchy, and we have that pretty well now, although I was beginning to feel like I'd lost my finesse for everything else. This Friday, I had a really terrible ride where I felt like I was asking for everything wrong and, deservedly, receiving nothing in return. After that atrocity, I expected my lesson to be terrible today. It was actually very good, and I ended feeling like I remembered how to ride again!

I watched my cousin's lesson while on Val, which went very well for her, and then we moved from the outdoor to the indoor and I started our real warm-up. It started with the rather interesting mission of cantering Val basically no-reined around the arena while attempting to relax and sit the canter. There was no one else in the arena; although I kept having this feeling that I was going to run into the wall, which concerned me a bit. We finished with that pretty quick, though, and returned to the trot, working on achieving a steady, reaching connection over the topline while staying forward. Val has got that down really well!

We started by using a 3 loop serpentine the length of the arena and switching bend in the center while leg-yielding out a bit to the new bend. We focused on staying soft, forward, and connected, especially through the change of bend. We then moved to a circle, where I would get him round on the long reins, then let him stretch forward without throwing my hands at him. I could really feel him ask for a stretch and I think I was finally able to respond appropriately without just tossing the reins at him, which I am wont to do.

We switched direction a couple times, still working on the same thing, while throwing in a diagonal here and there. I don't remember where I read this, but for the last 3 or 4 months I've been following advice I read somewhere that has really helped. The idea is, when you plan to lengthen or go more forward across the diagonal, let go. Instead of pushing as soon as you get there, build up the round and collected on your way, then stop using the amount of hand you were using and let the horse go forward, with a few light taps of the heel if needed. More often then not, Val just surges forward as soon as I stop asking him for his more "working" trot. (It's definitely not a "collected" trot.) You still have to keep some connection, or else they get flat across the diagonal, but softening really lets Val move forward.

Then I shortened my reins gradually, with the instructions to make sure I didn't loose my outside connection. I have a habit of not following through with my outside and making the connection uneven, and I really felt like that was better today. My leg also seemed better-behaved than it has been in a while, and so I was given some small spurs to help with Val's lack of forward.

We did some trot-canter-trot transitions, keeping the amount of canter about 1/2-3/4 of a circle and focusing on the transitions; Val not "dying" in the canter-trot transition, and me not gripping (yet another bad habit!) in the trot-canter. The downs were very good, but I still tend to grip too much on the ups. There's always something more to fix!

After a very good canter-trot-stretchdown trot transition, we ended happily. It was the best ride I'd had in some time, barring a jumping lesson I had about a week and a half ago.

To briefly summarize that lesson, which was also very, very good, we focused on being forward over fences. Val's at the point where he needs to keep the same forward pace on the approach and he needs to go forward instead of dwelling after the landings. When he doesn't, my trainer says, "He's landing like a ton of bricks!" which isn't too far off from the truth. She had me ride several fences with the reins in one hand, with me really focusing on not checking him back on the way to the jump, then giving him a healthy smack on the landing if he dwelled. We're both secure enough that we don't need to go like snails anymore, and that's another of the goals for this winter- upping our jump speed. Anyhow, jumping one-handed is surprisingly secure-feeling, and the pace made jumping twice as fun as it's been in the past. Plus, he was really rounding up, and towards the end of that lesson he gave me one jump where I could just feel his knees tuck up! I don't think he's ever jumped that well and that round before.

So, that's a brief summary of the last two weeks. I am eagerly awaiting Thanksgiving break- we're out starting Wednesday! And Christmas isn't even that far away... I think we only have 2 1/2 weeks when we get back, then I loose one class after semester and gain a study hall, which should mean that I'm able to ride Val more. Fingers crossed!

Back on Track

We're finally getting everything back together. I had a pretty great 4-day weekend, where I managed to ride 3 times in 4 days. We had a lesson Thursday, I practiced on Saturday, and we had another, 10x better lesson today!

Val had been feeling odd recently. His transitions were getting lazy; he was moving sluggishly in all gates. In our lesson, our trainer was able to pinpoint the problem. I was doing too much collection and not allowing him to stretch; I was basically asking him to move forward, but then never letting him. So we spent the first lesson establishing a contact in a "stretch-down" frame and got him moving forward to the bit, then Saturday, I spent the day keeping the stretch connection through transitions and changes of bend, and I even played with shortening the reins back up and getting him to reach forward to the bit in his dressage-length reins.

Today, we put the finesse on the stretchy frame and went over some trot poles. The exercise was a square made up of 4 trot rails so that you could approach it from any direction. The idea was to get straight to it, not mess with him over the poles, then re-establish the stretchy connection before turning after going over the poles.

In the past, I've had difficulties getting him over poles without him tripping over them, but today he was right on and he hardly even nicked a pole once. That went very well, and we also got Val moving off my outside leg and softening on the left rein, which he sometimes gets stiff on.

We're supposed to start cantering over some poles to get a little more lift in his canter; my trainer says he is getting a bit flat.

Val has also, finally, been getting pieces of a bath. On Saturday, I did his legs and tail, and today, he got his mane and neck done. Eventually he'll have his face cleaned, and I'll have a 100% white horse! Of course, his main body is still fairly clean; he always has his blanket on when he rolls.

And that was my fantastic four-day weekend. I'm going to do my best to ride tomorrow; we'll see how that goes!

AEC Videos

Thought I ought to share these with you guys :)

Dressage at AEC's 2009
Stadium Round at AEC's 2009

Val is currently a very happy pony- he gets to go out to the pasture on days when it's not drizzling rain, and when it is, he gets to stay inside and munch on hay. He's not had much work recently, pretty much exclusively on weekends. What rides we have had, we've been working on dressage. The jumping we did was fun, but now that I know I'm not going to forget how to jump, it's more important for us to focus on dressage. :)

I am anxiously awaiting our "Halloween break" next week- we get Weds. and Thurs. off for teacher conferences! 4-day weekend for absolutely no reason, huzzah! Then we have Thanksgiving waiting in the wings, then Christmas. The next semester will be here before you know it, and I'll be able to devote more time to Val. Things will be back to normal at last.

Wide Open Spaces

Well, school has been kicking my butt lately. Val is having a well-deserved break. Ideally, I thought I'd still be able to ride every other day of the week, but I've been lucky to get one ride in during the school week.

Obviously, Val is fairly fit. He just came off nearly a year's worth of daily work and a long eventing season. He was only getting 2 or 3 hours of turnout from his stall, and I just wasn't having the time to ride the extra off. It wasn't fair to him, so he was introduced to the herd today.

I know it's best for him, but I feel like I'm giving up on doing my best for him, in some way. On the good side, he gets to stay out during the week, but he can still stay in his stall on the weekends. I know he'll love eating nearly 24/7 and having less work, and I know the rest will be good for his joints. I just hate having to admit that I can't ride my horse 6 days a week and get good grades in my classes. I hate being the person that just goes out to feed her horse every day. I want to be able to spend time with him like I always have, and I really hate having to choose between him and school.

Plus, I'm fully capable of admitting it: I'm scared of what will happen to my riding. Just this first month or so with me not riding him consistently has already affected me negatively. In January, when he's supposed to come back into regular work, how far back will I have slipped?

So, I'm pretty sure he'll be happy as a clam. I just wish I was as chuffed with the situation. I think the best thing to do is just keep a positive attitude the next few months. Whatever I lose in the interim, I can get back. And no matter what, we're going to keep chugging after the 1st of the year. At semester, one of my classes that was only for my first semester is replaced by a study hall, so I should have more school time to work on homework. Hopefully, that means less time spent at home doing acres and acres of homework, and more time spent riding and gearing up for the next eventing season.

I'll still be taking lessons on weekends, but it will be odd having only 1 or, best case scenario, 2 days to practice what I've learned in between them. I'm sure we can adjust.

On the plus side, senior year is going to be a cake walk compared to this year. I can't hardly wait!

My favorite picture of Val and I from Champagne Run this summer:



ETA: I also wanted to add that I am rather absurdly pleased that you can see my saddle shine a bit in that picture. If this was submitted to PH for George Morris' column, he would obviously point out that my feet are pointing out like a duck's and my heels are definitely up in the air. However, we have very conservative turn-out (for eventing!) and my saddle is clean. Bonus point for sure, I would imagine. And because of my awful leg position, he can't see the bottom of my boots! (It always kills me when he scolds people for having dirt on the bottom of their boots.)

Back to Regular Riding!

So I went three whole days without riding. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I focused exclusively on homework, and I just barely managed to get it finished for Tuesday! (Yes, it was entirely my fault for putting off until that late in the first place.) Fortunately, I got to go back to actually riding on Tuesday. Thank goodness!

We did just simple dressage on Tuesday. He was surprisingly good; I really thought he'd act up more than he did, considering it was very windy and threatening to rain. He was a really good boy! We did lots of quality work in the walk especially. I did one of his least favorite exercises; where we turn in to the rail suddenly and his haunches follow my seat until he makes a 90 degree angle with the rail. Then, I ask for a few steps of leg yield. He's best going right (off the left leg), so I tried to do a bit more going left (off the right leg).

We also worked some more on our shoulder-in in both the walk and trot, and that's starting to get better. Funny how things do that when you actually work on them! He was also really responsive to my leg aids when I asked for lengthenings. We did a lot of work on the rail, since there were tons of lesson kids who were also using the arena and jumping a course!

Today, we did just a little bit of jumping. I was planning on riding for at least an hour, but we jumped everything that was set up out there at least 5 or so times, and completed the one really tight turn that was set up well several times, so I decided to cut it short. Oddly enough, he gave me two wrong leads on his walk-to-canters. I must have been doing something wrong; he usually never gives me wrong leads on those! Both times I just brought him back down to a walk, made sure his haunches weren't to the outside, and asked again, and he got it. Walk-to-canters really give him the impulsion and drive he needs for jumping, so we do a lot of them.

I've actually been schooling him over jumps in his elevator gag, but on the snaffle ring, so it's basically just a snaffle with no gag action. He's been great! In dressage, he goes in a fat, double-jointed snaffle. I'm glad we've been able to back off on his bits; it makes me worry much less about my hands! When I first got him, he was in a plain snaffle for dressage, then we moved up to a Dr. Bristol, then we just used the Dr. Bristol for shows and the snaffle for at home, and now we just use our double-jointed all the time. Progress! :)

We're supposed to have a XC schooling on Saturday followed by a one-day schooling show on Sunday, but I'm not sure it'll be held with all this rain we're having. If it gets too muddy, the footing can be dangerous for XC and the course can get really chewed up by the horses. Maybe they'll just make it a combined test? Fingers crossed, because we really need the schooling before nationals.

I also borrowed a meter wheel today so that I can wheel the perimeter and finally start working on figuring out our speeds- probably just 350 mpm to start with, since that's BN speed. I hope I can get out and do that tomorrow. I have to figure out what I'm going to mark the distances with, though!

Sunshine Rain

I always think it looks so bizarre when it's absolutely pouring down rain but the sun is shining. When I went out last night to take care of Val, I was feeding him an apple when it just started pouring, but I could see the bright sun reflecting off the covering of the hitching post for the lesson kids. Very strange.

Because of the homework, I did not get to ride yesterday, but Val got turned out after the rain stopped and promptly rolled in the mud! That's my boy ;) He actually had pep in his step; he almost trotted away from me. I can always measure his energy level by what he does when I take off the halter. Usually, he just walks away.

About a week ago, I hopped on bareback in the evening, so it was kind of cool out and he kept asking, "Run Buck Play?!" and after I said no several times, he quit asking. Thank goodness he usually asks! After I got off, I turned him out and he trotted away, rolled in the dirt, then he thought really, really hard about bucking/rearing right then. However, he realized he needed to shake off the dirt first, so he did, then he reared once, bucked exactly twice, then came trotting back up to the gate! Is that really all you had in you, silly boy? I love watching him rear; he is incredibly balanced up there. I certainly don't want to encourage him to do it when he's near me or I'm on him, but if he does it voluntarily, it's beautiful to watch.

Here's hoping I can finish my homework today and ride!

A Beautiful but Tiring Day

Today looked like it was going to be real hot, but it leveled out real nice in the evening, and it was beautiful when I got to the barn around 7. I put him out in one of the dirt turnouts while I did his stall and got him new shavings, then I tacked him up and rode outdoors. The sun was setting while I was riding, so there was plenty of light but virtually no heat.

I've been working lately on not getting stuck in a rut and doing the same exercises over and over again. I have a tendency to just focus on the newest thing I've learned in my lessons (or worse, just ride the same 20m circle over and over!), and not do some of the older exercises that are still very important. So, I dug out an old one I remembered that actually incorporated what we did last lesson, just in a different pattern.

The "Bow Tie" Pattern
It's just a figure 8-ish shape that touches the long side of an arena, such as at B. You ride from B to M in a working trot, make about a 15 m turn off the rail, and come back to B at an lengthened trot. Then, B to F, you can ride shoulder in. Another 15 m turn off the rail, and come back to B by leg-yielding. There are tons of variations you can do, but we worked on a lengthening / shoulder-in and leg yield bow tie. We don't really have a true lengthening yet, but we're working in that direction. He did really well with it, especially the leg yields.

We set up a course in the outdoor on Wednesday, and the jumps were still set up today, so we had to get a little creative in our bow tie, but it worked just the same. The hardest part for us is definitely the shoulder-in, so we schooled a lot of that at the walk before we started the bow tie exercise. His lengthenings were getting better at the end, too.

Since we're currently planning on going to nationals, where you can't use whips in dressage, my instructor said I should ride without it every once in a while, and today was the first day I tried it. He was really good in the "forward" aspect of the things, but I just didn't feel like I had the same control in our lateral movements like the leg yields, and especially the shoulder-in. I ended up picking it back up about half-way through the ride. I definitely want to school some more without it. Makes me glad our test doesn't have any shoulder-ins!

After the ride, I cooled him off and was thinking about just leaving when I got really motivated, for some odd reason, and decided to do my instructor's two stalls, too. So I lugged two more loads of shavings to their respective stalls, and got completely covered in the itchy stuff. Thank goodness it comes off easy!

I wish I could ride tomorrow, but I am completely swamped with summer homework that needs to be done by Tuesday, and I have to help clean house in the morning, plus we have company in the afternoon. I'm thinking he'll just have his day off tomorrow instead of Monday for a change. Although I might apparently be taking said company out to the barn to meet pony. We'll see!