Lesson Recap: In Which Courage Busts All the Moves

PUMPED

To start, I apologize for my total lack of related media. It wasn't a visually dramatic lesson and it was in fading light and it did require every ounce of my concentration, so pictures weren't so much happening.

Anyways.

S came out last Thursday evening. I hadn't been able to ride Courage since early Monday morning and HO BOY LEAPING AND CRAY CRAY.

I even lunged him first. Then when I got on he was ok to walk, a speedstar in the trot (wtf where is my lazy horse) and freaking unmanageable at the canter. Like we seriously spent 5 or 10 minutes of cantering around at the beginning of the lesson while Courage dolphin leaped and flailed and spooked at absolutely everything. He probably spooked more in 10 minutes then he's spooked in the entire rest of the time I've owned him.

At least I was riding like a total badass.

Unrelated cute dog picture

So after we more or less got through that, we started the lesson. S said that Courage is doing really well in that he's figured out it's his job to always get to the other side of the jump. To this point, we've been setting distances and poles around him. Now it's time for him to learn to fit himself into the poles and do (dun dun dun) FOOTWORK!!

So we did. She set up two lines of 4 poles each. The poles were set 9' apart. The idea was to trot in and be able to put three trot strides in each 9' section. Given Courage's mental state, we compromised and decided two was good enough for now.

That is to say, he would trot the first one and then leap and flail into the horizon. The tricky part was really finding the balance of letting him figure it out and how much for me to help him. We know he really hates any pulling on his mouth at all, but he also can't be a total pig about it if he also wants to leap and flail.

DOOM

With many theatrics, we finally got the striding right and the ride just so and then S ADDED IN JUMPS. So picture 3 poles 9' apart, then a 2' jump that we still needed to trot to. Courage did alright with the little vertical, but HO BOY he nearly lost all the marbles when she added barrels to his canter poles.

But hey. I kept riding like a very tactful badass and by the end, we could canter through those poles on a 9' stride including the barrels and trot through the grid I neglected to photograph that was the same thing only with a vertical. 

And then I shaved him. Because hair.

It was a fantastic lesson and not just because S went to hang out with some friends from an old barn afterwards and bragged about me (not gonna lie, that felt good). Courage was doing very hard mental work, but instead of checking out, he was very expressively staying with me. I rode great. I was at no point over-horsed or afraid, and we got some new tools to work with as we progress through the winter.

Also. One should not let one's super fit OTTB sit for four days in cold weather and then expect a good ride.

So yeah, guess what he did all weekend?

I'm bringing an 8 second timer to the barn today.

Grid Night, Take II

Before the brain came out the first time

I mentioned our less-than-stellar debut at our trainer's weekly grid jumping night. It went badly, didn't improve, and was no fun. Soooo... since my BO was going again this week, I decided to take Courage along this week and give it one more chance. If it didn't improve, then we'd quit pushing and just do lessons until his brain figures out how to handle poles.

We got there. He was semi quiet, so I hopped on and immediately had a serious case of the "I don't want tos". I didn't want to be there, didn't want to ride, didn't want to deal with his (perfectly natural) tension. I also didn't want to address the border collie hiding in the weeds by the arena with a squeaky toy that was making irregular but alarming noises.

We can do contact

I considered just getting off. And then I was like, "Well, you don't have to jump, but dammit you do have to march forward into a contact."

So we did.

And then I started moving him off my legs and changing directions and holding my outside rein, and then I was bored of walking, so we did it at a trot. He was actually feeling quiet good. I swear after one flat lesson last weekend he grew a new muscle in a neck and kicked his training up to a whole new level.

And then the instructor was all, "Does he want to trot through the poles?"

So we did.

In our flat lesson last week, she'd talked about how if I bring him under powered to jumps, then he feels like he has to leap, which changes his balance and causes the flailing as he tries to figure things out. Hm. I intentionally took him more forward with a little loop in the reins and he trotted through like a pro.

She started adding in little crossrails. By the end of the exercise, he would trot to the first jump, then land cantering and canter through the crossrail grid. In balance. With a loop in the rein.



<3

Seriously having some Courage love here. My little man is ready to start doing real horse stuff.

So brave

When we were done, we went and hacked around the property with all the horses in his group and even lead the way back to the trailer, which included boldly marching through an ankle-deep puddle on the road. Guess who is the best at puddles?

PS I attempted to add grid video. Let me know if it works.