The Terrible Fives: Baby Draft Mare Style

So last year I get this absolutely fantastic baby horse who is the champion of all things baby horse. She's calm and honest and straightforward and adorable and sweet and fun and brave and yeah basically I think she's perfect.

can you even? you cannot.

But anytime I said, "she's four" to other people, I straight up got the JUST YOU WAIT FOR THE TERRIBLE FIVES.

Which like. 1) Whether or not I'm having fun with my horse does not impact the amount of fun you can have with yours, so chill TF out about that. It's not like there's a finite fun pile and my heaping portion is taking away from yours. 2) While horses certainly start to push boundaries once they understand them, the whole point of ZB is that she's not evil or fried, so while yes, some resistance is expected, it's not like she's going to turn into some horrific hellion harpie.

well i mean. this aside lol. 

Now my baby mare is the dreaded five. She's been in training for a while and she's starting to really understand what we're asking her and where the boundaries are.

I've gotten a couple texts from trainer lately indicating that ZB has been less than 100% foot perfect. Which is still like 95% foot perfect, which I think is pretty damn good.

But hey. After spending most of a week out of state, it was time to hop on and reassess what was going on.


If you're not a video watcher (like me!), here's the relevant stills:

R LOOK AT CHAMPION BABY MARE

Her good moments were really super. 

R SHOW MOM HOW ZB R CANTER CHAMPION

Yup. 

She was cracking me up. She juuuuust figured out how to put the pieces together in terms of canter being an expected behavior under saddle so now she's like "HOKAY MOM I R CANTER LIKE GOOD BABY" and then after 1-4 strides she's like "R BERRY TIRED PLZ TO STOP NAOW HOKAY". 

But like. Constantly. Before I snagged this video, I couldn't get ten strides of trot without popping into the canter. Also #babyhorseproblems, we can't really canter and steer yet. 

R NEED COOKIES NAOW

I mean, when your baby mare "acting out" is just her being proud of herself for learning something hard? 

That's basically the cutest thing ever. 

Oh and this is what her good moments look like right now:

omfg baby mare champion

I was going to write a sarcastic comment here about "too bad she's not more fancy", but again after almost a week out of town, I came home and got on my baby mare with zero prep and had a super excellent ride and yeah... ZB is the best. I adore her. That is all. 

#Zoëfabulous

I can be a little bit partisan about my horses, as in I always assume they are the best and get a little defensive if people imply they are other than perfect. This particularly applies to the special ones (Cuna and now Zoë).

SMOOSH

Example:

Me: How is training going?
Trainer: Well her steering isn't very good so we worked on it...
Me: 11/10 I can get this horse in and out of more places than any "fancy dressage horse" in this barn right now.
Trainer: ummmm ok?

Cough.

Possibly a recounting of actual events.

what no it doesn't count as me having 5 saddles in the tack room if i don't actually own all of them

However.

I also think that 1) a horse that can only be ridden by one person isn't really trained and 2) all people should appreciate just how fabulous my Zoebird is.

Hence, the past week has been marked by this:

Zoëbird has been #Zoëfabulous because who are we kidding, she always is.

And that's not me being partisan. It's just the truth. Ha!

New Faces, Old Problems

say hello to Bowie

I continue taking advantage of opportunities to sit on horses. Part of that is to broaden my skills as a rider. Part is because I want to suss out if I'm missing out on something in terms of horses. I mean. I know Courage isn't the easiest, but I need to know for me what I'm ok with. 

I'm learning a lot right now--for example, as much as I don't think Courage is an "ideal" rehab horse, other options aren't necessarily better. Courage is very much a horse where you need to sit still and stay out of his way. He's not a big mover and his back doesn't swing a lot naturally. 

and he really loves the velcro game his auntie taught him

It's not ideal for dressage. 

But. 

I think I got back to riding much more quickly because of it. The horse I sat on yesterday was a big-moving (for me, not compared to "big movement" horses) young warmblood gelding. And like. When said big, loose-moving horse loses his shit, it is very lost. VERY. Oh and also said horse is super quiet and normally totally fine, but horses are horses and sometimes you just have to run and buck and leap and spook like an idiot. Because horse.

and then i ride like a super defensive monkey

So it's not only a gauge of "what do I want to do" but also a range of "what nope responses am I okay with". 

Courage is a known quantity to me. I know he can't buck for shit. I know he'll bolt if he's scared, but I also know he's not a dick about it and he'll try to warn me first. He's not a spook. He doesn't spin (usually). I'm okay with those things (unless it's a show warm up in an open field by the road. Long story.) 

plus totes adorbs

Other horses certainly have less dramatic responses. The two lovely mares I rode were more like "ehhhhh I put my head up and nooooooo" and less "LEAVING NAOW BAI". That was a nice switch, but conversely, they were a lot more physical to ride. Which is not a bad thing. It's just a thing that rehab girl here has to think about.

oh no! she's a bit curled! 

I'm definitely becoming a better, more aware rider because of the opportunities I have right now. I'm incredibly grateful that I've gotten to sit on some legitimately nice horses and ride through my issues. 

And hours after my lesson, I'm sitting here trying to convince my back it doesn't have to be pissed about the big horse.  

It doesn't believe me. 

New Adventures, Part the First

Last week, I took advantage of some very generous offers by barn mates to take lessons on different horses. One of my goals this year was to ride 10 different horses and when people hand you the reins to impeccably trained personal horses, well, you don't say no.

especially not to this face

The first was this lovely mare from last week. She's completely adorable and basically perfect. I've seen her go a lot of times and always just assumed she was your "typical" stock-type paint that was a little bit dull.

Not so.

meet Cocoa!

She is absolutely the cutest, most sensitive little mare that is 110% solid try. Oh and her owner has done an AHMAZING job with her. Seriously.

Once my trainer got me on the same page with this little gal, I had so much fun. She's a training/first level horse that was a reiner sometime in the past. She also thinks like a pony, so I had to be careful to be very soft/giving with my hands, but keep her FORWARD and remember that she likes to drift to the gate. So honest. So fun.

And then while Courage recuperated from bodywork, I got to snag a lesson on a solid-first, schooling-second Friesian cross mare who is also super cool.

and Ms Nikki!

This mare has a ton of excellent training, but has primarily only had one rider. She's a bit suspicious of new people, so I had to sit quietly on her and help her believe I wasn't going to ask for more than she could do. She was super sensitive to my movements and very light off the aids.

This is what I love about having our trainer on board--she knows where I'm at and she knows where Courage is at and she's able to work on me on other horses without being down on Courage. He and I have a complicated relationship, but it's a little too intense right now and the best way to dial it back is to sit on some other horses and remember that yes, I can ride. Sort of.

Both the mares let me figure my stuff out without doing anything dangerous. They had their own ways of going and their own evasions, but they were straightforward and safe.

And then it was time to get back on my man C-rage.

The Next Phase

"In riding as in life" is one of my favorite sayings, because I see the world through horse-shaped glasses and it's strangely accurate.

I used to think I was a good rider. Then I started riding with good riders and realized that no, I really wasn't all that good. But while it was tempting to label myself a bad rider and get down on my abilities, I realized that bad riders aren't the people who are less skilled--they're the ones who won't learn.

So I frantically learned and soaked up knowledge from every angle. If there's a clinic, I'm there auditing. If there's a lesson, I want to watch it. If there's a book, I'm reading it. I've even watched a surprising amount of videos for someone who hates video on principle. Theory. Practice. Application.

And once I started trending towards "competent at the lower levels", I switched horses.

And when I tried to apply all the excellent theories and and techniques I knew that were so ideal and correct, it backfired. Hard.

Because theory is great, but as all the great trainers know, each individual is important.

And no matter how perfect your theory is and how bad you want something and how hard you train for it, if the individual doesn't want it too, it's not going to happen.

So at the time, I tried everything I could think of to make it happen.

And it didn't.

The harder I tried, the worse it got.

I didn't want to admit it. I wanted to power through. If I just did more, tried harder, studied better, got a different teacher, had better facilities, bought different tack, tried a new discipline, surely then I could make it. I could achieve my way into success.

Right?

No.

What I did was piss off my individual horse. A lot.

And he's not really the forgiving sort.

When we landed with my current trainer, we'd take an hour long lesson in which we did like... 10 walk/trot transitions. That was it. Walk and praise him. Give him a pet. Big release. Try again next week or next month or whatever. No rush. Take a deep breath. It's fine.

Of course, given my hellbent plan to achieve and learn and whatever, I couldn't take it. I'd work my ass off between lessons. Study. Push. Try. Bad rides meant bad days and maybe not tears, but definitely feelings of failure and distress, which is a lot of pressure to put on a horse you're already being a jerk to and who again, isn't the most forgiving horse.

And sure, we can talk about whether he's the right horse. The answer is probably not. He's difficult. He's temperamental. He doesn't take jokes.

But he's a fantastic life horse, even if he's never the show phenom I dreamed of.

He's like me. Slow to trust. Quick to react. Good at holding grudges. Sensitive, flamboyant, loyal.

And when my life shit and my accident shit and my horse shit kind of all overflowed on each other, a lot of bad things happened. (Example: spending Christmas on drugs on my couch. Massively shitty.)

But good things have happened too--because I couldn't physically do anything, I didn't. Because I haven't been able to function normally in months, now I can't.

And I don't think the ninja goddess knows it, but my physical therapy has been a lot of emotional therapy too. I always ask her why we do the exercises we do and have the set backs we have. She's very good at explaining. She tells me that recovery is not a linear process. That the most important thing I can do is just a little, tiny exercise, but it will make a huge difference if I'm patient and let it.

That sometimes the harder we try, the worse things get.

That some things just take time.

That sometimes they get worse before they get better.

That I can't overachieve myself out of this corner.

That I need to be patient, but determined.

That goals are good, but flexibility is better.

That just because I can make something happen, doesn't mean I should.

And all those things maybe seem simple and trite. They're nice catch phrases that I could probably spit out this whole time, but it's not about being able to mouth the words. It's about having a bad pain day and actually being okay with sitting on the couch taking drugs instead of achieving. It's about letting go of my need for perfection and validation and admitting that shit happens and it's not okay, but the world keeps on spinning.

It creates this beautiful perspective in which a bad ride is actually a good day, because I felt good enough to try. And if Courage is having a Courage day, I don't take it personally. We'll just try again tomorrow. Or next week. Or whenever.

The change wasn't overnight and yeah, sometimes it was way worse and I wouldn't say it's 100% better now, but instead of being a jerk to my horse and trying to drill him into achieving, things are trending upwards. He's an individual. I'm an individual.

And now, whether or not I used to be a good rider, I'm really not currently. I can't just power through, because I don't have the strength or the reflexes I used to.

In my weakness, I'm learning to listen.

And in riding as in life, that's the first step.

Hills and Valleys

Courage has not been on his A game lately. It's not exactly his "bottom of the barrel peace out yo" Z game, but riding has been more an exercise in mental gymnastics and patience than any sort of so-called "progress". 

did i mention it got cold? it did

I had a lesson in which we either EXPLODED FORWARD and basically ran down an (imaginary) hill or SLAMMED ON THE BRAKES and tried to reset. It was not pretty or fun. During Trainer's next ride, Courage was perhaps better, but I about gave myself ulcers watching him go around.

Then we added one last minute ride in a clinic because I don't know, I make good life choices. I lunged Courage in the outdoor before our ride time inside and it was... well... there was a lot of bolting and one time he ran backwards into the fence, but we did come to some sort of accord so that's good I guess.

Then I got on and the clinician asked how he was. I was like "omg hurray we're going the direction I picked!"

it's something

But apparently there's more to riding than that. The clinician pointed out that Courage was just sort of bracing his back and neck and turning his head without every actually yielding his body.

She put us right to work--overbend with him really deep in the neck to position his body to show him how to use his back.

And damn girls--when he got it, it felt good.

things are moving

We did not always get it. In fact we did not get it a lot more than we did. And even when we did get it, it sort of all fell apart when I tried to change directions without losing it.

But.

We did a lot of counterbend around circles with LOTS of bend, and Courage didn't check out. We asked him to really sit and push from behind, and he stayed with me. We did some GOOD changes of direction maintaining that loose, moving back, and he was right there.

So yeah, at about the 30 minute mark in a 45 minute lesson, Courage decided his brain was done and started running sideways and I made Trainer get on and she was like "he's legit done for today guys", but you know what?

little bay horse <3

This was good. Not in a "hip hip hooray such a fun day" sort of way, but in that Courage was able to accept and process and learn concepts that are legitimately hard for us right now and even when he got overwhelmed and needed to be done, it was a discreet "exit stage left" versus the full-on-flail that y'all know and love.

the wheels, they are turning

Oh and the kind auditors at the clinic took like 18 minutes of video for y'all but I was mid phone changeover and it all got wiped off the phone memory so all that remains are a couple still shots. Sorry not sorry.

Tapping Out

We've done it. 

I have Courage reliably(ish) schooling first level. He's starting to feel like a trained horse when I ride him and more often than not, I can talk him out of his worst shenanigans.

You know what that means?

Uncharted waters.

See, I've never ridden past (or at, really) first level. I haven't had weekly lessons since I was a kid. I've never had a horse in professional training.

I have taken Courage as far as I can on my own, which means now I need help. I'm fortunate enough this month that I can afford to stick him in half training with our (amazing) trainer for September.

That's right folks--for the first time in my life, I'm a paying client with a horse in training. We can do a mix of rides and lessons and I'm not sure what exactly it's going to look like, BUT the important thing is that both Courage and I can advance our training together.

Omg. High roller status here.

July One Question: When to Speak Up About Bad Horsemanship

I tried to do the July 10 Questions blog hop that's been circling around, but I realized I was really only interested in one of the questions. I started typing my answer and it just kept going. I deleted the first 9 so I won't bore you and without further ado, here's the final question:

10. Have you ever seen questionable riding or training practices, but let it go/ignored it? How do you feel about it in hindsight?

I object to the notion that it's always my business to speak up when I disagree with something. I only know my small corner of the horse world and that only as much as a part-time ammy can.

It's a simple fact that I repeatedly choose the same kind of horse--short coupled, hot, intelligent--and thus I have developed a certain skill set that helps me within those parameters.

I certainly see many, many people handle horses in ways I would never choose to. As long as it's not my horse in question, I generally keep my opinion to myself. It's certainly possible that they have a handle on the truth that I do not. I'm open to trying new things and seeing different ways of training. I'm fascinated by watching different people work. I certainly recognize that the objectives I'm trying to achieve through straight dressage training are not the same as eventing, which has little in common with show jumping, and almost nothing with the breed show world or rodeo circuit.

Good horsemanship is good horsemanship. I can learn from almost any discipline. I love finding where horse worlds converge--hearing about forward energy from a hunter trainer or expecting proper ground work from the Clinton Anderson crowd.

Currently, I describe my training philosophies as a sort of Denny Emerson/Mark Rashid mishmash of listening to the horse and learning to remove all pressure and expectations. Fast is slow and slow is fast.

Obviously, this isn't the hot trend in the competitive world. The people at the top of any sport have a certain set of practices that they use to produce their athletes. Either a horse can deal with them or the horse falls through the cracks. This is for the simple reason that only a certain type of horse will work in their specific environment and they don't want to waste time on the ones that aren't going to pan out.

That's great for them. I guess. I mean, "falling through the cracks" at that level still generally means landing in a pretty ok place. Just because Boyd Martin can't make you an Olympic horse doesn't mean you can't still be an amazing Big Eq packer.

It's less great at the local level--people go ride with big time trainers and clinicians and learn their systems. Just like at the top, some horses make it and some horses don't. The problem is here--what happens to the ones that don't?

Courage hardcore flunked out of a program with a good trainer because it wasn't a good fit for him. That doesn't make him a bad horse, but it means that if I was committed to that program, I would have needed to get rid of him. I didn't. I found/created a program that works for us and we're slowly moving to a place where Courage is a productive member of equine society.

But that's our journey. As a blogger, the constant creation of written content pushes me to think about the process with my horse and analyze it more critically than if I just showed up to ride a few times a week.

If I watch another rider do things I find offensive with a horse, that doesn't mean the horse is being abused. It doesn't mean that my corner of the truth invalidates the corner another rider has. If you're a "pressure Pressure PRESSURE AND PERFORM" sort of rider, well, I find you kind of offensive. I think you're actively undermining the good training you have put on your horse, and I'm 99% sure you're going to whoop my ass at every show we go to. That's how the world works.

Should I speak up? Should I call you out because your experience is different than mine?

Probably not. After all, I'm the queen of fail photos and I'm not really the best at anything in particular. While I see as you frying a perfectly nice horse, you see as me wasting the potential of my horse who ought to perform at a higher level. And hey, if you're happy with your results and your horses are reasonably sound and well fed, bully for you.

We're on different paths.

Lest I sound like I hate everyone who beats me at shows (which is certainly not the case), let me also interject that I see the same or worse from people who wouldn't be caught dead at shows. Underfed or morbidly obese horses, blind commitment to an ideology no matter how it negatively affects the horse, or a complete lack of discipline that creates dangerous situations that horses get blamed for.

Whatever the flaws of the competitive horse world, there is the same and worse to be found in the backyards of people who would never go near a show. At least the show ring demands a presentable, blood-free animal with some basic skills. There is nothing like a public spotlight to pressure someone into cleaning up their image.

And of course, that's not to say that you have to show your horse to be a good horseman or decent human being. There are many different ways of addressing the same problem and rather than worry about which sphere to address it in, I say it's more important to learn what we can from everyone we meet so that we can make the best decisions possible for the horses we are responsible for.

Instead of claiming my chosen type of horsemanship is DEFINITELY the best and then sticking my nose in situations that are none of my business, I choose to watch a variety of people work and see what outcomes they have. Some are good. Some are less so. The horse never lies, does he?

Furthermore, there are definitely situations in which I will speak up--if I know someone looks up to me and respects my opinion, I will do my best to point them in a good direction. If a friend or equal directly asks for my opinion, I will give it with the understanding that it is, in fact, an opinion. I have been in the position where I worked for a trainer and a client of the trainer asked for my opinion--in that instance, I defer to the trainer.

Plain and simple, my philosophy is this: I will always strive to do my best to do right by my horse. I will endeavor to push those around me to do the same and to hold me to a high level of accountability. Beyond that, I would be hard pressed to speak up. I don't believe horse welfare is improved by snark, catty attitudes, and condescension.