JW Clinic Day 2...sort of

Well, I had a post written up for Jessica Wisdom Clinic Day 2, but it got deleted. Oh well. Day 1 was better anyway :)
Day 2, Tony was tired and behind the leg. We couldn't get any lateral work done, his haunches wouldn't move!

So I'll just put up pictures from Day 2 instead.

My new Pipers looked awesome...but the stitching was coming loose. On the first ride!

At least my pony's cute!

Jessica Wisdom Clinic Day 1

I am a slow clinic recap writer. This clinic was last weekend, and I'm finally getting around to putting my thoughts down.

I've admired Jessica Wisdom for a long time. She's an awesome rider, and she has Cardi! Cardi is THE BEST.

What a sexy hunk of horse flesh!

Anyway. Last year, there was talk in my local club/GMO about bringing Jessica up to teach a clinic. And we actually did it! It feels like a lot of the time, the club has ideas and doesn't follow through with them. Well, I'm the president now, so I get to push things ;) 

It was a super great weekend, even beyond the riding part. We got to socialize with Jessica, and not only is she a great teacher, she's a great person and fun to be around. 

I will try my best to summarize what happened both days in my lessons. Lots of good stuff for me to think about, and I don't want to forget any of it! Thankfully, my trainers videoed me, and stood right behind Jessica, so I've got that to study (amazing!!). 

Day 1 highlights:

-Always riding to where you could have a good halt. Could I halt right now if I wanted to? Do I have enough control? (Spoiler alert...usually not). I used lots of half halts to keep Tony listening to me, and going along at MY pace, not his. 

Collecting that ridiculously long back!

-Keeping Tony 6 feet long on both reins. This was an awesome visual that changed how I thought about collection. Imaging Tony is 6 feet long from nose to tail. Now, keep riding him 6 feet long, even though he wants to be strung out at 7 or 8 feet. AND keeping him 6 feet on both reins. I was good at keeping him shorter on his right rein, but let that left rein go way too often. 

-Being fired from my right rein. Speaking of which...I got fired from using my right rein. I was too good at bending to the right, to where there was too much bend, and terrible at bending to the left. 

-Riding hind legs into the hands/reins. Also applying to the 6 feet long principle. Imagining riding Tony's hind legs into my hands really helped me to get him bringing his hind end more under himself (at least a little bit...dude is so freaking long). 

-Shoulder fore visuals. Two that really helped were imagining which feet you'd see from straight ahead- inside hind is between front legs. Just slightly, and less neck bend than I tended to put in. The better visual for me was imagine the outside hind leg is a flashlight and is shining out the right nostril, not the shoulder, where I had it pointed. 

So much cuteness!

-Shoulder bulging. Ah the shoulder bulge. So much bulge and running out the shoulders. The best visual I got for helping me to keep it reined in was imagining arrows that point out in the direction of travel coming out the ribcage, not the shoulder (in the bend, especially in leg yield).

-5.4.3.2.1. trots. This really helped me regulate Tony's tempo, and keep him at my pace. Find my five trot, and decrease or increase by increments on my time. Just a good mindset to keep. 

-Canter snowman. This is an exercise I've done before, and I love it. Super helpful for our rushy canter. It's basically a 10-meter trot circle at the top of a 20-meter canter circle. So, canter your 20-meter circle, and at the top, change the bend, and trot the opposite direction in a "4" trot (see previous point) in a 10-meter  circle. At the completion of the circle, change bend, and canter in a "little" canter (Tony's canter is not so little, but we were getting pretty good). Rinse and repeat. If I got a really good canter going, I would do an extra 20-meter circle. The trot circles really helped us stay flexible and kept us from getting too flaily. 

Canter! So much beautiful canter!

-Best canter ever. Finally, Tony had his best canter moments ever! Watching the video, we still need to majorly work on our canter transitions (I throw away the reins and Tony lunges his giant head and shoulders forward), but he had moments of true roundness, which hasn't really happened before. Getting the canter on this beast has been ridiculous, and I am so happy we're finally getting there! 

So Day 1 was awesome! Great lesson, and Tony was a good boy. Day 2, he was definitely tired and behind the leg. That will be my next post though :) 

Heavy Head

Tony's rides lately have been just...blah... Every ride over the last week or so, he's just slowly gotten heavier and heavier in my hands. It's been too long since we've had a lesson with G, and I think we're just both playing into each other's bad habits. I'm letting him lean on me, and he's talking me into pulling on the reins too much.
 Last night, I tried to run through the lines that get thrown at me over and over again at every lesson, and that helped. I get into a cycle of holding his big head up, and there's no way my mere human arms can compete with such a heavy weight of a head.

See? It's huge...

The trick to Tony is being sharp and quick with rein aids, and float the contact in between. He actually does pretty well with a light contact, but he will start to lean into the reins, and all of a sudden, you've got 50 pounds of head in your hands. So you go in, get it done, and let go.

We have two lessons with Jessica Wisdom coming up this weekend. I desperately hope we don't embarrass ourselves...Tony's gotten a lot better, and he's usually really good when we travel (better than at home...I guess that's a good thing). I'm just hoping that after the weekend, our goals still feel realistic, and that we're on the right track. Fingers crossed!

We Be Pirates. Arrrr.

Suffice to say, Tony and I have had some pretty rough rides over the years.

One of my favorite shows to go to every year is a Halloween themed dressage and jumping show a local trainer holds at the fairgrounds on October. We went to our first one three Octobers ago, and people still remember our ride. For quite a long time after that ride, people would realize who I was when I told them I was the pirate. "Yeah, that pirate..."

Tony used to have a major bolting problem. Like, really bad. I went home and cried after more rides than I'd care to remember. I tried to get him out places and get him exposed anyway. I mean, there's walls, right? We can't go too far...

For the 2013 Halloween show, we entered a few Training Level classes. We even donned a sweet pirate for the costume class, because why not?

If you Google "Haflinger pirate" you'll see us. Although, why would anyone Google "Haflinger Pirate?"

Our first test was fine. Not great...about what you'd expect from an overly-strong green horse and a moderately competent adult amateur. We got something in the area of 60%. We saved ourselves from embarrassment! But we had one more test to go...I'll just let it speak for itself:

Yeah. I stayed on. Yay! But I had absolutely zero control from the time we exited at B, to after the video cuts out (spoiler alert, he runs up to the judge and halts).

And that's why people remember us. Every once in a while, someone will still bring it up. I guess there are worse things to be known for, right? Right!?

via GIPHY

Happy Birthday Tony!

Today, Tony turns ten. Double digits, baby!

Tony in his first hours, 10 years ago.

Here's to many more years with the big guy!

Goals

So I've got my 101 is 1,001 list of goals (which I still need to finish...), but what do I want to ultimately accomplish?

Tony's just about 10 (tomorrow!), so he's got 10-15 good riding years left. Maybe more. He's a Haflinger after all, and they tend to go forever (knock on wood). My hope is that someday I can earn all of my bronze medal scores with him. We will never be spectacular. We may never win anything more than a schooling show, but I hope can get to a place where we can put in a decent enough test to get the necessary scores and say "we did it."

The current extent of our extend.

Lead changes, half passes, and extended gaits all seem so far off, though. I'm not the greatest rider. I've certainly never ridden a third level test myself. I've taught myself and my difficult horse most of what we know. So at this point, we've got okay leg yields, rushing lengthenings, and tense shoulder-ins. The past couple of weeks, we've suddenly had a stretchy trot after a long time of really terrible attempts, so I'm hoping these things just come with lots of hard work.

A stretchy trot appeared out of nowhere!

We All Love Quirky Horses, Right?

Tony is a weird horse. Some things make him completely crawl out of his skin, but he is perfectly okay with the oddest things. For example:

Things Tony is OK with:

-Gunshots
-Fireworks
-Dogs
-Farm Owner (FO) mowing the lawn
-A large cut-out bull (working equitation obstacle. Didn't phase him one bit).

Despite his face, he was totes fine with this. Charge!

-Trails

-Trailers
-UPS trucks
-Round bales in the field
-Working through puddles when the arena floods


Things Tony is not OK with:

-The neighbor cutting his lawn
-Grass that has changed color
-Things that have been moved without his permission (jump standards, the neighbor's construction equipment, the tractor, etc)
-Hammocks

Terrifying pony-eating hammock!

-Squirrels
-The rock wall that has been on the outside of the arena for 3 years now (he's getting better about that one. Still spooky though)
-Cows across the road
-FedEx trucks
-Round bales on trailers
-Crossing raging rivers (or 6-inch wide streams)
-Whatever else Tony has deemed scary on a particular day


We've worked through a lot of these things, and he is significantly more reliable than he used to be, but he is still a weird guy. He used to have a huge bolting problem (trainer G said he was the worst one she's been on). Now he only occasionally does the spin and bolt move, and he usually doesn't get far. His neck is so strong, that when the problem was at his worst, I could have both hands on one rein attached to a curb bit and his neck wouldn't move (he also has limited feeling in his mouth, but that's a story for another day). You can't just unbalance him like you can with some horses.

As flighty as Tony can be in the arena, or when he has to do any "real work," he is Mr. (mostly) Reliable on trails. He's had a few moments out there where he panics, but overall, he enjoys hiking up and down mountains and adventuring through the wilderness.

Adventure awaits!

Too bad I have decided to make him a dressage horse. Sorry, buddy! You'll just have to get used to working for a living for a while.