My Pony is Weird

I had a rather strange realization about Tony last week.

To preface this, I want to say that he is usually worse at home than he is away. He gets distracted and spooky, and he HATES it when things have moved since the last time we were in the arena. He's totally fine with gunshots, fireworks, and the UPS truck, but he does not like kittens, grass that is the wrong color, or the FedEx truck.

Last week I was riding, and he was being tense, looky, spooky, and just generally not fun to ride.

Like this. Not fun. 

Then, the farm owner came around the corner of the garage (OMG look! A human I see every day. Scary!), opened the garage (oh, but that's fine though), and turned on the loud riding lawnmower. He pulled out the lawnmower and was tinkering with it a bit on the driveway. And you know what? Tony was perfect. He let go in his back and neck and relaxed into the work. Um, ok? Apparently my pony needs a white noise machine. Can I pump lawnmower sounds into his ear bonnet? That would be swell.

Things That Have Happened

Well, it's been over a month since my last post. I started one in there somewhere about how low my motivation was. Yeah, I didn't even have enough motivation to post my low-motivation post. Fitting, I suppose.

Random adorable photo from Canada day. Look at his round little back and neck!

Although I haven't been riding as much as I should, fun things have happened since I wrote in May. Here are a couple:

1. Tony went to bootcamp
2. I rode with an almost-Olympian
3. I sent in my entry for my first ever rated show
4. I learned something new about Tony's weird mind

1. I was gone for about a week in June, right before I was supposed to ride in a clinic with Karen Pavicic. My trainer offered to ride Tony for me while I was gone so he wouldn't be a lump when I got back. Bonus- I got to ride in good footing for a few days before heading home. Our footing at home is pretty awful, and it's nice not having to worry about tipping over. Plus, Tony got to hang out with some goats.

Jelly G. Goat

Billy Bob and Tony exchanging workout tips. They've both got a "leg at each corner," as they say.

2. I rode in a Karen Pavicic clinic on June 19. She's a great teacher, and so patient. We repeated the same exercise over and over again, and she made little tweaks each time until I could really feel what was supposed to happen. Tony wants to throw his haunches to the right all the time, and we worked a ton on straightness. 

All in all, it was a successful lesson! Tony was exhausted- by the end, I felt like I couldn't even pony club kick him into the trot, and this is a horse who goes forward if I think forward! It was a very strange feeling. Could be because we went way past our 45 minutes, which is totally fine with me! Pony face can use a little butt-kicking now and then. 

My favorite part would have to be when Karen said we were a nice pair, and kept saying how cute Tony is. I think he's pretty cute myself. She also said multiple times that I have good instincts, and just need to learn what to do with them. That was nice to hear because I feel like I struggle a lot with not knowing whether or not I'm on the right track. So now I just need to learn how to work those instincts into action. 

Fancy pants McGee over here!

3. I sent in my first entry to a rated show! Okay, that's a lie. I sent one in last August, but got put on a wait-list and didn't make it in. I was not happy with how they handled the wait-list (I heard from a friend of a friend that I had been wait-listed, and then they cashed my check, and sent another back, minus the office fee. I don't think that I should have to pay the office fee for a show I didn't go to...but I digress). 

This upcoming weekend, Tony and I will be riding first level tests 1 and 2 in the opportunity classes. I'm not qualifying for championships, end of year awards, or breed awards, so I don't see the need to sign up for all the memberships for me, the horse, and his owner. That's a butt-load of money for one show. So opportunity classes it is! I'll go for the bronze medal scores next year. I'm mostly excited about ribbons and pro photos, let's be honest. 

The face of a champion, obvs.

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!