A Non-Hopping Blog: We're Getting Somewhere and I Like It

There's a blog hop going around now that shows striking before-and-after shots of the horses of the blog world we all know and love.

That's great. Love that hop.

But I always think that to participate, one should have "arrived" somewhere, you know? Like JenS had Connor from when he was a teeny baby and now he's showing recognized. And Carly knew Bobby as the muleish baby, but now he's a muleish dressage horse who has moves and stuff.

I thought about doing a progression of fails, but people think I'm down on myself or my horse or something when I get too involved with that.

Or I can do this:

2012

2016

 But all that really proves is that Alyssa has always been pretty freaking amazing, since she took both shots.

I've been chatting with Emma lately, and she reminded me that I have this giant backlog of text and image-based media called a "blog" in which I can actually check up on my progress from year to year.

So I looked.

Here's Courage in February of 2016:

rope halter tells me this was a subpar day

And here he is in October of 2016:

tack tells me i need to be better about taking conformation shots

To me, that says a lot, but it also misses a lot. Yeah, Courage is turning into something truly beautiful. I'm proud of him and I'm excited for what we do together. (It's cool y'all--we're back on the upswing.)

What a before and after doesn't show is the ugly we went through to get here.

when he decided he was uncatchable

when we started bolting every diagonal in every test

when biting Lindsey was the best plan

when we opted out of cantering

I take a lot of pictures (you might have noticed) and sometimes it's tempting to create this perfect online image where nothing ever goes wrong and Courage is always perfect. That's not realistic. Sure, I can cherry pick those images, but what's the point? Courage is a real horse. I'm a real person. We have good days and bad days.

And while yes, I can definitely tell you that Courage is improving on the whole, we're far from "arrived" and the struggle actually is real.

so real 

But thanks to that giant media backlog, I can review stuff like this. Here's Courage in January all animated and prancing. Look at his slack topline. Look at his leg movement. Look at the quality of the canter. There's some nice moments in there, sure, but this is about as animated as he's ever been so that's the absolute nicest you'd ever see at that time.

But hey! There are magic phones in the future (aka now) too, so I took another video the other day. I was just videoing some free lunging to catch his movement right now, but then he got "wild" and I was laughing too much to stop. Regardless. Here's current Courage:


Now maybe I'm a little too obsessive for most of y'all here, but I see a different horse. One whose normal trot is hella better (and the animated trot at the end is pretty damn fancy). I see a horse who canters in an entirely different way. I see a horse learning to use his body and not just careening around with his back totally stiff.

And one thing I know for sure about Courage is that he has to learn how to do things on his own before he can start to offer it under saddle.

didn't have this last year

So yeah. We're in a hard place in training and no one who watches us is like "mind.blown. olympics are calling and only you will do."

But we're trending in the right direction, taking small, incremental steps, and what the hell. I believe in the little guy. I believe in us.

this is old style courage bucking. it fixes nothing. the kicking out is new this year.

I mean, I'm dorkily excited about his bucking--Courage has always been so stuck in his body that he does not "self correct" issues. Where a normal horse is like "my back is tight/stuck. I will roll or buck hard to fix it," Courage just sort of stays tight. It's bad. I dunno how he's doing on the rolling front, but learning to buck could be a game changer for this horse. Not even kidding. At a minimum, it means he's learning to use his body in a whole new way, which is AWESOME. Potentially, it also means he's learning how his body should feel and taking steps to keep it that way himself. Omg. I will take it.

uhhhhh yeah don't overthink that

Just hopefully not under saddle because DAMN SON.

Wherein Izzy Pulls a Pia Jr.

It was amazing here yesterday. Sunny, clear, slight breeze, and almost 50f. The outdoor arena was dry and had just been worked, so the footing was perfect. I turned Izzy out in the indoor. She was super lazy and would barely canter, so I tacked up and hopped on, omitting our usual winter lunging.

We started out trying to get her to stretch and work long and low. She was sticky and not forward at all. I kept at it. It's frustrating sometimes. I feel like I have to use my whip constantly, which is not the goal. I do a progression of aids--leg, cluck, whip--but at the beginning of our sessions, leg gets me nowhere. By the end, she's reasonably responsive. I just want her magically fixed now. Is that so bad? ;-)

I finally got her sort of stretching and we moved into the trot, then quickly into canter. I've noticed that canter tends to loosen her up, so I try to canter early, then come back to trot and work in it for a while, then return to a better canter later on. After a circuit or two of the arena, we dropped back to trot. Izzy remained her slightly sluggish self as we trotted by the end of the arena that is right next to the road. A car drove by. This happens all the time and never bothers her, so I thought nothing of it...

...until she started madly galloping and bucking down the long side of the arena towards the open gate! I lost a stirrup but kept me reins. I manage to snap my head back into the game about halfway down the long side, yelled at her, got her head up as she bucked one last time, and halted to regain my stirrup. As soon as I was situated, we trotted off. Then cantered. My logic was this:

1) If Izzy thinks trying to buck Aimee off is a good idea, then

2) Izzy may continue to run until her legs fall off.

We cantered and cantered and cantered. We worked on our transitions. We shortened and lengthened. We practiced staying balanced through the turns. We did big loops and small loops. We practiced going forward and keeping out balance up. Then we changed directions and did the whole thing the other way. By the time we were done, my black horse out in the bright sun was covered in sweat. She'd even foamed a little bit. She was definitely not worried about cars anymore.

And the funny thing? I wasn't worried about her. I wasn't even mad. I felt like we'd come to a good solution and I was pleased with my ability to stay on.

I know this probably sounds weird in light of the story I just told, but I'm wondering if I should do anything for Izzy, specifically as it relates to her energy levels. Since forward is so hard for us, part of me whats to give her some sort of energy supplement to induce forward. However, the other part of me wonders if maybe this is just who she is and besides, she obviously has enough energy to get some mighty bucks in on a pretty day. Any thoughts?

Awkward Moments

Izzy and I had a much needed discussion last night about whether or not she had to canter when I asked her to. It went like this:

Me: "Ok, right lead canter... now."
Her: Trot a little quicker and otherwise ignore me.
Me: Smack her with the ends of the split reins pretty hard.
Her: Angry pony takes off bucking and galloping "Ouch, that bloody hurt."
Me: Pulls Izzy up and shouts, "Knock it off, you horrid horse!"

Unfortunately, the BO's husband walked in to feed just as I was shouting, so all he saw was the crazy b*tch who rides her warmblood western calling the poor thing a 'horrid horse'.

You just can't win some days.

Overall, she was pretty good, aside from being really, really distracted that everyone else was getting fed and she was not. That annoyed me, so I made her canter around the arena A LOT, then left her out there to roll while I put some stuff away, then tied her up outside the tackroom to groom and resaddle her (no way I'm toting that massive thing across the road alone), and then made her stand in the cross ties in her barn.

It wasn't all cold heartedness--she was soaked in sweat, and I put her new cooler on her.

It looks great and works really well. I let her eat her grain in the crossties, then left the cooler on her while I cleaned up the aisle, so about 20ish minutes probably. She was nice and warm and dry when I took it off before leaving for the night.

That makes me feel better. Before, I was nervous about working her very hard because I didn't want to make her sweat, then leave her wet and cold in her stall. No fun.

I'm looking forward to actually putting some english tack on and doing a real dressage ride this afternoon. I'm curious to see how it will go after our western work. (Plus, maybe the outdoor arena will finally be rideable).

Starting With a Little History

Isadora, "Izzy", is my first horse to really own. She's the first daughter of the lovely TB mare I leased for years and showed in everything. Her father is the Oldenburg Stallion Impressario. I acquired her this February, the result of a trade. I board her out with her mother, as I don't have the space to keep her at home.

She's 6 this summer, but you wouldn't know it be looking at her. Her first owner took her away to a different barn and visited her twice in 5 years. That is actually a blessing in diguise. The mare did receive some training by a cowboy in this period, but it was only 60 days when she was 4 or 5 and she was never taken out of a roundpen.

When her former owner brought her back to our barn, Izzy began to learn some really fun little games. She would rear and strike and act crazy, and her owner would scream and run away. Many of our fellow boarders were introduced to her by helping her owner chase her around the barn as she spooked and bolted. Riding was out of the question, as was lunging, leading, picking up her feet, or anything else she didn't want you to do.

This was the state I acquired her in. I had seen her and admired her, but never attempted to handle her in any way. I didn't want to bond with someone else's horse.

On Sunday, February 1st, I traded Izzy's owner a baby horse I had rights to in exchange for this supposed train wreck of a horse. It was an incredible day.

The first few months I had her were mostly filled with hours of somewhat frustrating groundwork. She had to be convinced, gently but firmly, that she had to do things my way. No more rearing and bolting; now she had to go to work. I finally began to ride her in April, after teaching her to stand, pick up her feet, load in a trailer, lunge quietly, and accept both saddle and bridle without fussing.

I began to ride her more seriously (more than just mounting and dismounting) in May, after school got out. We've taken everything very slowly, because we're building the foundation that all her future training will be built on. Now, however, we're finally ready to start moving forward.