The Screw Ups

yes more of this

I know I post lots of beautiful pictures of my horse dressaging like a pro. I love beautiful pictures and Courage is doing really, really well given his life history and my ability to teach a sport I barely know at all.

That's just one side of it. Sure, there are pretty moments and breath taking progress and and the fun times.

The hard things and the challenges and the failures are WAY less fun to talk about and post pictures of.

That last shot exemplifies where Courage is with his left lead canter. Yeah, I look like a hunter rider (but yay I'm effective so w/e), but Courage is soft with his hind end engaged and in a great balance and frame for a wanna-be training level horse.

brace ALL THE THINGS

And trust me, I wish that was our normal.

It isn't.

To the right, Courage is a whole different horse. I don't know if it's a right hand/right rein problem or a left hind problem or a chiro problem or a race horse problem or even a structural asymmetrical-ness in me. Maybe all of them together.

Maybe something else entirely.

if it was our first canter under saddle, it would be great. it's not.

I've been really frustrated about this particular issue lately, because I've attacked it from every angle I know how to and NOTHING has made a difference. I know one side is going to be harder than another, but does it really have to be this ugly?

I was debating training rides and gadgets and various expensive ideas, but I wanted one last ride to rule out poor riding. I took Courage in the indoor. That's a much smaller space, so the wall would serve to steer for me and I could just focus on riding.

We started very basic-- walk on the buckle to working walk. Then working walk to free walk. Then walk to trot to stretchy trot to walk to trot.

mid transition, but so balanced

Every step in a slight shoulder fore. Any resistance and we came back to walk to start at the bottom again.

Wouldn't you know, after about a solid 40 minutes of work, I had a LOVELY trot/canter transition to the right. We immediately took a walk break on the buckle as a reward, and then we started over again.

The next time only took about 15 minutes.

And then we were done.

this used to be hard

It's not exciting to read, though it's quite interesting to ride. It's just thorough, slow, methodical training.

It's teaching Courage that yes, he can canter on the right lead without flinging his head in the air and running.

He can slow down and balance and carry himself from behind.

In all fairness, he did not know that before.

And it's really hard for him.

he does have a great face

I don't usually post ugly right canter pictures because no one wants to look at them, but it's an important part of our journey. This is Courage and I, learning and progressing at our own pace.

I'm not a dressage expert or any kind of trainer. He's a talented and opinionated horse who refuses to be forced in to anything. We'll never compete on a national level or make some sort of team or set a speed record for advancing up the levels, and we aren't trying to.

At this point we'll be lucky to pull out a decent training level test this year and I still don't know how I feel about showing over jumps.

I don't want to get to caught up in showing the pretty part of riding to blogland and neglect the challenges. Screw ups aren't usually brag-worthy (hopefully), but they still happen. And someday, we will have a right lead canter to be proud of.