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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Enjoy the Journey

It always mystifies me when people say they buy green horses because they enjoy riding them so much.

Seriously?

I have done a lot of time on the greenies and let me tell you, any time I get the chance to sit on something broke, I get REALLY excited. Broke is fun. Training is good. I love buttons and not dying and steering and all those wonderful things.

Courage is finally sort of passing out of the "green" phase and starting to feel like a broke horse like... eh... 75% of the time? I define that as "he might not really want to behave, but I can generally talk him into it".

Honestly, I find that incredibly exciting.

He's more or less a first level horse right now. On his good days, he actually feels quite solid. Whether we move to second next year (unlikely) or stay at first and try to suck less at shows (seems like a good idea), it's time to start changing his way of going--he needs to learn to sit more, push off his hind end, and lift his withers. What's more, his default "bad" at shows is to shorten his topline and make his stride 2" long, so anything I can do to reverse that muscle memory is good.

It's not rocket science. It's simple weight lifting, as Denny Emerson is fond of reminding us. Here's a visual:

This is Courage when he first moved to our current dressage-focused barn. You can see he's a decent mover going nicely forward in this picture, but he's not lifting his withers or pushing from behind at all. He's just plowing forward on the forehand with his neck down and his nose poked out.


After a lot of time and development, here's Courage early this spring. You can see his whole frame has bulked up (it's all muscle, trust me). He's almost thinking about curling his neck in this picture, but you can see the muscle development in his neck, bum, and abs. He's going in a more level balance and he's not free falling forward.


This shot is from a week or so ago. You can see Courage has lowered his haunches to allow his body to lift. He's developed a moment of suspension in the trot and he's actually using his back and neck.

All that goes to say--the less green Courage becomes, the more fun I'm having. Most of my rides are now about developing finesse and strength and correctness. I LOVE those feelings. I do not at all miss last year's "summer of survival".
nope
Our last few rides have been spent on giant figure eights in the arena. We walk until we have a respectable, swinging free walk, then maintain the stretch and swing, roll into the trot and work to develop the biggest, loosest, stretchiest swinging trot he's possibly capable of. It's sort of compatible with the stretch trot circle, but I'm not doing it for that.

I want Courage to be able to use that pretty topline he's building. I want to step up our quality of work. I want to start thinking just a little bit about second level. All of those things take a lot of strength. For him to be strong enough to begin collection, he needs to muscles we're building that let him push across the ground. He needs the strong, supple topline that comes from thoughtful repetition of simple exercises.

I dunno when second level is in our future, but I know that every day, I'm creating a softer, stronger, more educated and more rideable horse.

And that is how I enjoy the journey.

18 comments:

  1. I bought a green horse because I'm poor (and slightly stupid). I dream of the day he's totally broke and we can stop "discussing" everything (he's got lots of opinions) and just RIDE!

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    1. I'm not actually sure that's a real day, but I don't want to kill your dreams. Let me know if you get there!

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  2. I'm one that loves my greenies. I think it's because I don't have the skills yet to teach them more advanced things. But I do know how to do the basics. Plus it is fun to see a baby develop. The change is more obvious. Doesn't it make you happy to look at those pictures and see what a hunk Courage has turned into?

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    1. Same! I prefer the greenies. Maybe we are just the small % of the population that does. The journey is worth it.

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  3. He looks so fab. I've ridden far more greenies than made horses. The progression is rewarding, even if making a good horse takes a damn long time. I hope my next one can be more of the made variety though, hopefully since that's not happening for a few years we can save up some monies!

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  4. Hahaha! I was just watching a beginner dressage lesson and was envious of the "advanced" stiff they were doing! I live in Greenworld.

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  5. I think you can appreciate a made horse while still finding bringing a green horse along rewarding. I find it very satisfying to see how far Houston has come and even Annie in the past year. That doesn't mean it hasn't been frustrating and hard though.

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  6. I'm so excited that Tony is finally at the point where we have more fun rides than completely terrible rides. Or at least an equal ratio ;) Broke horses with buttons are the best though.

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  7. I gotta say, having pushed through First to Second really fast, sticking around to build the right muscle memory and develop strength seems like a great plan. I wish I'd felt like I had more time to really solidify things with Pig. #oldbrokenhorseproblems

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  8. It's that sense of progress in every ride that makes greenies fun. Not that I don't love being able to do stuff, but in a sense with adult amateur dressaging aren't we always green at something? I still hear people saying "Green at second level" or "green with the changes". Right now I have a confirmed w-t-c and 2' jumping horse under me, but he's green at even Training level dressage. It's all in how you look at it :)

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    1. Haha yeah this is true. I've been thinking about that. Courage is "broke" in that he goes around (ish) and steers (ish) and has been that way since he was quite young because of the track, but getting from that to actually having some buttons is quite a process. So I feel like Courage should be "not green" because of all his years of work but he's definitely not a schoolmaster at what I'm asking him to do.

      Which is to say it's complicated and I have no idea.

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  9. I hear you- every horse I've ever bought was green. Except for Carmen (and you know how that turned out!). However, I much prefer the working on things rather than working on work. If that makes any sense.

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  10. Like a few others have said, I actually prefer the greenies, especially since I now consider myself to be a halfway decent rider (most days). I can honestly say that I genuinely enjoy the journey with Roger. I love learning with him and watching those moments when the lightbulb goes off, and I wouldn't trade his green-ness for anything. Sure, I would probably be jumping higher on a made horse by now, but I've learned so much with Roger that the journey has absolutely 100% been worth it. I love that helping train a horse "your way" and installing some of your own buttons allows you to grow your partnership even stronger, and I'll always be thankful to Roger for that.

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  11. This is so awesome and its so cool to see those pictures! I am so happy that I developed Katai myself but I also don't miss going to the barn to ride a green horse every day. It was tough never knowing what I was going to get and never knowing when she was going to blow up. Now even if she's still tricky, at least I know her well enough and she's trained enough that I know what I'm going to get.

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  12. I like different levels of broke horses at different times. And also lately have been thinking of the difference between "broke" and "trained." Isabel was broke when I met her, but not trained or well schooled. It's been really fun learning and developing with her, while still finding her to be mostly reliable about the basics. I like greener less broke horses bc the progress is more obvious early on than the smaller degrees of improvement in, say, trot quality. But yea. Being able to get on and push buttons is pretty awesome!

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  13. I'm in the greenies camp too. I love working with them. My favorite project as of late has been all the little mules - getting them from totally feral and never having been touched before to making them into respectable, friendly little creatures. That is SO MUCH FUN!
    But riding ultra-broke Dylan is just as awesome. He did come with a number of weird habits that I would rather he not have, so there is that... I guess there are trade offs on both ends. Also it feels like if I get to go out there and win some ribbons, it's not because I'm particularly talented or any good at anything... I just have a really nice really broke horse, and somehow that takes away from the joy of it just a little.

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  14. I'm not sure you ever really stop "discussing" things... even with a broke horse. Although, maybe it's a different type of discussion. I wouldn't know -- I've only ever had more finished horses.

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