The Art of Weightlifting

Courage is probably the most challenging horse I've ever owned, and that includes the bitch mare that tried to kill me on the regular. I mean, he only has one move, but she only had one motive. He flails. She would rear, buck, bolt, leap, stop or go as it suited her in her quest to be rid of me. Courage is never trying to get rid of me, but that actually makes him a lot harder to deal with.

Because I'm not (always) the problem.

It's not "if I ride better" or "if I don't piss him off" or any number of easily fixable things with Courage and it rarely has been. If I put a pro on the mare, she quit all the shenanigans and minded her manners.

But not Courage.

When Courage flails, it's not because he wants me off now or even usually because I did something wrong. He flails to protect himself.

Almost 100% of the time, it's because he's in a situation that overwhelms him and he doesn't understand and his only defense mechanism is to leave, so he has a huge physical reaction. If you've been around Courage, you've seen it. It's actually quite dramatic.

And when he has these huge physical fear-based reactions, I have to 100% keep myself from reacting to him. He's not doing it to be naughty. He's doing it to survive.

And that's hard to deal with.

It's taken a long time to suss out with him because it LOOKS like naughty behavior and people like to treat it that way. But it's not and if you punish him, you scare him and that makes it even worse.

The other approach people like to use is overloading--just hit the the trigger over and over and over until it's not a trigger any more. But like. That works if you're a rational human being with a moderate trigger that isn't life threatening and you can sit there and say "totes cool, not actually going to die here", but not so well on a non-rational prey animal with years and years of baggage and trust issues.

Don't get me wrong here--I really and truly do not believe Courage was ever abused. I don't. I think he has had lots of good handling, which is why I think I can reverse this at all. Had anyone ever laid a hand on this horse, I don't think he could come back.

He's just deeply intelligent and highly sensitive and when he doesn't understand, he's afraid.

and has great outfits, but who's counting?

It is changing, very, very slowly. At home, we almost never have an incident with him any more. He's started to trust me and he's learning to trust my trainer in the saddle, and when he trusts his person, he's a thousand times braver.

So at the show, I had a horse that trusted himself and trusted me enough to be successful at the walk and trot.

But canter is hard for him--it's a gait he's spent a lot of time in for his previous life and that means I have years of muscle memory to retrain. So when we got to canter, it was a bridge too far and he left to protect himself. The fact that he did come back to me in the walk and trot tells me that he's still mentally with me, when he can be.

I'm a highly analytical person, so I can sit here and explain to you my plan of action--build more trust and more strength and more muscle memory at home and prep him better. Overloading for the sake of overloading breaks down his trust rather than builds it, so I need to be sensitive to his mind each day and only work within parameters he's comfortable with until he's ready to move forward again. I can tell you that a running martingale would shut down his expressions sooner rather than just limiting their scope, but he also has a lot of history with them and not only does he know how to brace on them, but they also tell him to run.

But see, in addition to being a highly analytical person, I'm also deeply emotionally invested in this situation. It takes two to tango if you will, and Courage is the one I'm tangoing with. Rationally, I can tell you that if show success was my motivator, this isn't the horse for me. But I like this horse and I'm willing to work with him.

And really--despite all the high drama theatrics, Courage honestly doesn't scare me. It's more and "aw shit here we go again" sort of thing. That's the nice thing about him only having one move; I know I can ride it and I know we'll survive. It's not my favorite thing ever, but I'm far more worried about running up on another horse and scaring it than I am about anything that might happen to me in the saddle.

I really think the part that's the hardest to deal with is accepting other people's reactions without internalizing them.

See, in order to get Courage past this, I have to 1) not punish when he appears to misbehave 2) not bring up the issue on days he can't handle it and 3) accept and encourage even when he tries and fails. If you've read this post, you're nodding along with me. A trust and balance issue, not a behavior issue.

But if you haven't read this post and you see my horse go leaping and bolting across an arena, then see me drop the reins, pat him, and not readdress the problem, you probably think I'm a shitty incompetent adult ammy rider with sparkles in my eyes and one of those maddeningly stupid imaginary "majikal" connections with ponykins that ruins horse after horse.

You respond to me in kind--you lecture me on how to handle my horse, you make an example of your horse, or you even give well-intentioned, sound, and logical training advice THAT TRUST ME I HAVE TRIED, and the net result is that everyone I talk to thinks they know better than I do how to train my particular horse, who again, is anything but easy.

And just as I can analyze and understand Courage, I can also analyze and understand the motivations of well-intentioned help. I get it, I really do. I'm sure I've been that person. I know they don't mean to sound like they're attacking me (usually), but that's how it comes across. It takes a really strong person to take that sort of criticism every day from every corner, know that no matter how it's delivered, it's still wrong, believe in my own methods, and continue to treat my horse in a way that encourages his trust instead tears it down.

If there's one thing I'm learning from this horse, it's strength of character.

It's not always fun. It's never easy. It's definitely getting worse before it gets better. I don't know if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but I know we need each other right now.

A Funny Thing on the Way to the Forum

When I got back in to horses as an adult, I wanted to do the jumpers. When I had a successful season on Cuna, it was a build up to moving into straight jumper land.

not gonna lie this looks really big now

And when I got Courage, he was supposed to be my jumper.

i tried so hard to make this happen

Are you sensing a theme?

I like my saddles brown with forward flaps and graceful curves. I like my colored poles that fall down.

But here I am three years later, making the transition to full (for now) DQ. While I make no promises about my trajectory as a rider if something were to happen to C, it appears that the next +/- ten years are going to involve a tiny white sandbox and an over-emphasis on out-of-sequence alphabet soup.

at least i've upped my braid game

I spend 90% of my time in a black saddle with long flaps these days, but I've always been way more comfortable in shirt stirrups and forward flaps. It's how I ride through all the things Courage throws at me and it always has been. Dressage saddles are for horses that behave, not ones that are losing their minds.

But then we went to our little open show and I had zero compunction about throwing the brown tack back on the beastie to look the part.

or... whatever

The weirdest thing happened--I felt absolutely uncomfortable and out of balance. I was virtually incapable of riding without a death grip on the neck strap of my martingale. I assumed it was show nerves and just sensing Courage's underlying tension, but in general, I don't get that weird about shows and this was just a whole 'nother level of fail for me as a rider.

martingale ftw

My first ride back at home was in the dressage saddle. The moment my seat hit the saddle, I was 100% comfortable. I was confident. I knew I could ride anything Courage threw at me, even if it was residual tension/flailing from overloading in the show environment.

It's carried forward, too. My next ride was outside. It was also massively tense (because reasons), and instead of a death grip on the martingale, I felt my hands stay light and giving while my legs draped nicely around Courage's sides. I felt the tread of my iridescent stirrups and I comfortably rode the horse I had in the moment.

I'm not saying I'm some sort of dressage maestro--I most definitely am not. I still tip forward, do funky things with most every body part, and haven't really addressed the sitting-trot-shaped elephant in the room (but I think we're doing another season at first so whatevsies), but apparently my body has finally learned to relax with those long black flaps.

I guess we've found our new home.

A Rash Vow: C-Rage Hits the Open Circuit

After a solid kick in the pants by our dressage clinician, I signed Courage and myself up for an open schooling show. I haven't done a rail class or an open show since I was maybe 14, so I called the show secretary on the closing date and signed Courage up for every single class we were eligible for.

yup

I'm definitely a "the more, the merrier" sort of person so I talked a girl from our barn into going with. (It was hard. Me: "hey let's go to a show!" Her: "yes!"), then we picked up another local friend, which filled out our three horse trailer. 

also finally justified a fancy stitch bridle

Two days before the show, I had the farrier pull Courage's hind shoes for the winter, then tried to practice "english pleasure" on a horse who had no goddamn clue what I wanted but thought his newly-bare hind feet were EXCITING and we had only dolphin leaping and no cantering and I had to get off and lunge. So that was positive? 

I also realized I don't ever ride in my jump saddle anymore and that was going to be challenging. Oh, and while I was making good choices, I said this to a friend:

I mean, let's be real: Courage and I have been failalicious (it's a word. i just made it a word) at shows this year and I had zero hopes of this going anywhere, especially after the dolphin leaping ride. 

I thought maybe we would practice again the next day, but completely forgot a dressage friend was in town and wanted to play ponies, and it takes like .01 seconds to talk me out of riding in jump tack these days. 

Courage was ON IT for dressage. 

And then we went to the show! To do not-dressage! 

First things first, I took too long checking in and completely misunderstood the nice woman in the office when she explained that I needed to be in the lineup for in-hand trail. I thought she meant outside the ring. 

She did not. 

So when Courage and I made it down to the ring to wait our turn, I discovered that our entire class was already in the ring doing their thing and we were too late and not allowed in. Whoops. My bad. Whatever. We took the opportunity to hang out on the rail and Courage was pretty bug eyed about the experience, but he didn't kick anyone or lose his shit, so I counted it a win and stuck him back at the trailer. 

I should mention, it was a super gross rainy day. And I brought the fixings of apple cider mimosas because Courage relaxing isn't the only problem I have. As I told my friends, I was going to drink until showing sounded like a good idea. 

one of many refills

Possibly I lost count of the mimosas, but there were several hours of western and trail for us to chill out during. We needed yeah all of them.

Oh my. And then we had to tack up, at which point I started sorely regretting the chili I got from the concession stand at lunch. 

peer pressure makes it happen!

But Alyssa was on hand to document! And dammit I paid my $40! And mimosas! There was a fortuitous break in the rain, so I threw tack and and handwalked C around the indoor during the open schooling. I expected him to lose his shit about the bleachers, the barrels behind the fence, the corner all the horses were spooking at, and the huge ass steamy mirrors.

He was up and giraffe-y, but he settled in and gave zero shits about those things. So. Don't don't get me wrong--he was still super tense and looky, but he wasn't bothered by the completely new-to-him facility. He was just being green at a show. 

By the time I got on, open warm up was over. I walked some figure eights in the holding area while the class before us ran and tried to find a good place to throw up my chili. Before I settled on a spot, they called us in to the ring along with five other contestants in the W/T. 

Courage was actually being reasonable--he didn't look at the ring steward, wasn't worried about the judge, and really wasn't super upset about anything I expected. I locked my demon right hand into the neckstrap of his standing martingale, basically got full tunnel vision, and would have said a rosary if I were Catholic and knew it. Time to die. 

I really can't explain what happened next. Courage put his little nose down and walked like a pleasure horse. I thought I was dead for sure when they called the trot, but no. He did a lovely transition into a trot I'd say was too on the forehand and not quite tracking for dressage, but it was fine. He even stood in the line up fine and backed on cue fine. I hadn't watched anyone else in the class, so I sat there to see how it placed AND THEY CALLED US FIRST!! IN A CLASS OF SIX!! 

note death grip on martingale

DAYUM was that unexpected. 

Then we had to sit out a couple classes. We did some more figure eights at the walk and added walk/halt transitions. Not gonna lie--I was feeling a little competitive. Didn't know the little guy had it in him, but apparently he does. He even kept his back moving reasonably well and he was starting to let me put a little leg on, which was helpful for steering.

The next three classes are kind of a blur. Courage and I went out there and freaking killed it at the walk and trot. 

But every time they called for canter, no matter how I went slow, set him up, asked softly, and took my time, our canter transitions looked like this:

thank the lord for standing martingales

I'd ask for left lead and he'd leap and bolt onto the right lead. I'd ask for right and have the opposite problem. The first class was bad, the second mildly better, the third pretty bad. The good news was that it was a schooling show with a super nice judge. The bad news was those two Equitation classes we signed up for are pattern classes with an assumption that your horse is broke. Which mine is apparently rather not.

And hey. If I'm going to use the allowed schooling equipment at a schooling show, I like to at least demonstrate to the judge why I feel the need to ride my nice horse in it... so there's that. Also fun fact--I didn't really watch any of the other riders other than trying not to hit them (we never really got close), but in several classes, we actually placed above people. I'd say they must have really screwed up, but even with his canter reactions, Courage was still ON IT walk, trot, halt and back. So. Dunno. We can go from flailing to perfect english pleasure trot, so that's cool.

and sometimes after the flailing, the canter was ok

I told my squad that if I had one class without bolting, C was done. It was our last rail class with just one other rider on a nice broke horse.I REALLY REALLY REALLY didn't want to do the pattern classes under those conditions, but I also can't end on a bolty note. 

Off we went. 

W/T were of course fantastic. Left lead actually also went great. C picked it up and cantered around about half the arena before the judge called a walk transition. We changed direction. You open show folks know the drill--walk and reverse, then canter again. All day, I'd been ignoring the walk/canter transition and just picking it up through the trot. I did that again. C'mon horse--ONE decent-ish transition and our day is over. 

And as a friend described it, "I heard the crowd react and thought 'I hope Aimee is ok'". 

Sigh. 

Yeah. Saved the best for last apparently. We went BARRELING and LEAPING across the arena. The positive here is I totally got my new most favorite flail pic.

uphill much?

I mean, this is not my first rodeo with C and he's not a dirty horse, so I was never in danger of falling off. Despite how it looks, I really wasn't in danger of having my face bashed in either. It was just frustrating because we have these problems conquered at home, but the show environment brings it out in him. Which is why we're there.

Again, it's a two person class that I'm clearly not winning. The judge looks at me once I have C more or less contained and goes, "let's just try that one again". He was a Ray Hunt/Tom Dorrance natural horsemanship dude with a good head on his shoulders and he talked us through another transition and C kept his little brain in his little head and it was totally reasonable. YAY JUDGE. YAY COURAGE. YAY AIMEE.

finally justified this super attractive cooler I bought last year

We made it out of the ring, I slid off, and the tendons in my lower leg promptly seized up from that much abuse. Courage was steaming and covered in sweat, but dammit, we had a class with two good canter transitions. I'll take it.

our barn buddy cleaned up (top row), but we didn't do too bad either (bottom row)

The judge had some nice things to say about Courage and I. We even chatted with another competitor on a super cute, super broke horse and she assured me she'd ridden him through worse before it got nice and that Courage would get there too. 

pretending he's a fancy show horse with Alyssa

So. All in all, it was an excellent learning experience. Courage and I both really need the outings and the ability to just keep going back into classes. Usually this is the sort of thing you can do at jumper shows, but jumps are kinda not our thing and I don't want to go there anymore, haha. We will definitely be looking for more opportunities like this.

Oh and that rash vow? We not only won a class with more than three horses, we also placed above other competitors in more than one class. 

Apparently there's a craft project on my horizon.

ROLEX OMG: Let's Buy Tickets #1

It's a lifelong dream for me to go to Rolex and OMG ITS HAPPENING. ROLEX 2017 BABY.


I'm planning to be there for sure Thursday-Sunday. I want to do and see absolutely everything. I've never done this before, so I figured I'd make a blog about the hows of getting there.

1) TICKETS

As fellow blogger Pony Express pointed out, advance tickets to Rolex go on sale Tues, November 1, 2016 for the 2017 event. This year's Rolex runs April 28-May 1.

Early bird (11/1-12/8) prices are:

$75 for Ground Admission. My understanding is that this gets you in the KHP and access to XC, but does not get you seats for Dressage and Stadium. There is a price break for groups of 6 or more, but at present, I do not have a group.

I plan to be there for both days of dressage and stadium, so I also need to order those.

Now, I've never been to the Kentucky Horse Park nor have I paid that much attention to it. Here's a diagram and last year's price breakdown (I think). My prices are coming off the RK3DE site for 2017.

 My understanding is that the 200s seats are covered, which is fantastic if (when) it rains, but also the views is obscured by giant pillars, which is super dumb. I dunno. I go to lots of football games and I'd be super pissed if there was a pillar in front of me at one of them, so I dunno why it's supposed to be ok here.

Plus you can get up and move around during dressage and stadium doesn't take that long... I'm learning towards uncovered stadium seats on day 1 when it's not crowded, bleacher seats on day 2 when it is, and uncovered stadium seats for show jumping. That makes $11 Thursday, $12 Friday, and $35 Sunday, for a total of $58. Thoughts? Terrible idea? I just want to sit everywhere, ok?

There are hospitality tents and the Kentucky Patron club and all that, but let's be real: people in my income bracket do not drop $700 on tickets.

FIST BUMP

Another cool add on is commentary headsets. One day is $25, Two is $40, and three is $50. I like commentary on dressage to keep it from getting boring. I don't really see the point for show jumping--non horse people can figure that sport out. Add another $40 here.

You can pay to upgrade to premium parking, but general admission parking is included in your grounds pass. You can also pay for a tailgating package that includes 6 grounds passes, which is super cool, but since I'm not local and don't have six friends with a tent and a grill and prefer to be mobile, that will not be happening this year. There's also an option for "on site glamping", which means you and a friend pay $1800 for the weekend to sleep in a tent with no power. Sorta seems non-glamorous to me, but again, out of my price bracket.

There is a $10 service charge for placing the order, which brings my ticket total to:
$75 grounds fee
$58 individual events
$40 headset
$10 Convenience Fee
$183 in tickets

There are definitely more budget ways to do this. This would get me to all the same events but picking the cheapest options--here's what comes to mind:
$69 early bird grounds fee for group of 6 or more.
$45 individual events, always picking cheapest seats
$0 pass on headset
$10 Convenience fee
$124 in tickets

Or if you want to pass on Thursday entirely, there's the option to do this:
$57 three day grounds fee for group of 6 or more
$37 individual dressage friday and show jumping sunday
$10 convenience fee
$104 for three days of entertainment

Obviously, you can do a whole variety of these. I'm trying to make good choices. I don't want to spend money on things I won't use, but I also don't want to regret missing something on a trip like this. Weigh in, bloggy folks: what's to be done?

PS Show wrap up later!
PPS Apparently it's a holiday.

Coming Soon to an Arab Show Near You!

One thing that really stuck with me from the clinic last weekend was when I explained to the clinician how yes, Courage was going nicely at home, but no, we weren't showing because his little brain kept falling out of his chiseled head and it just wasn't worth it to me to put out $$$ for dressage shows with a guaranteed fail like that.

pretty chiseled

So she said that next year, we had to go to every single show, until he learned he had to show up and do his job. Specifically, she said "I don't care if it's a dressage show, open show, 4H show, whatever. He can go do rail classes, but he has to go."

She's not wrong and in fact the year we did all the derbies, Courage got downright reasonable at hauling places and going to work. So when it popped up on my newsfeed that the local Arab club was holding an open show, my ears sorta pricked up. Then I talked a barn buddy who actually does those sort of shows into taking one of her horses too...

uh yeah we look like this

And now Courage in entered in 7 (count 'em) english pleasure and equitation classes and one class for in hand trail this weekend.

Yes, at an Arab show.

need all the help we can get

So uh. Wish us luck?

Magna Wave Meets Reactivity Personified: A Magna Wave Maxx Review

I'm skeptical about alternative therapy for horses. I think new technology is super cool and I love living in the future, but I also think it's dumb to spend money on untested tech that may or may not do anything.

this pic is never not appropriate

Good news: my bodywork lady totally gets that.

(Aside: people like to ask what bodywork is. It's some combination of massage and chiro and I can't 100% tell you what she does, but when she works on C, we go from not going forward and not turning right to going forward and turning right, so it's worth the $ to me.)

our specialty

Bodywork lady also runs an equine rehab center and she usually lets us play with the new toys when they come in to see if it's something we're interested in doing on our horses. Courage has gotten laser treatment and ultrasound stuff, I gave Alyssa  Courage's turn on a Theraplate to see what happens (answer: made her nauseous), and I think we've done a couple other things. To this point, I haven't noticed that anything outside of the usual hands-on body manipulation was doing anything for Courage.

getting started

And then bodywork lady shows up with a thing called a "magna wave". It looked like a glorified hose lasso attached to a suitcase or tiny R2D2 droid and it popped like an electric fence. It has little wheels on the body so it's easy to move and it plugs into a normal outlet, so pretty straightforward. (research tells me this is the Maxx model).

Given Courage's extreme reactions to ropes/hoses (DO NOT LIKE) and hearty respect for electric fence (won't step over a single strand 1' off the ground), I figured this would be another failed experiment where I might get some good NOPE pictures but would achieve nothing useful.

Bodywork lady walked into his stall with the weird heavy popping droid suitcase hose thingy. I was SHOCKED that Courage gave it minor side eye, then was 100% ok without even moving his feet.

And then I was completely floored.

Not only did he like the treatment (I'd already tried it on myself--feels weird, doesn't hurt, did feel good after), he literally dropped his head below his poll and completely relaxed his entire body. Apparently, the machine/hose combo uses electro-magnetic pulses to essentially give a deep tissue massage. I don't know how I feel about any of those words in particular, but the change in Courage was remarkable.

This is the horse who leaps around, rears, paws the air, bolts away, and generally has a meltdown in his overreactions to pain when we do bodywork. He relaxes afterwards when he feels better, but it's borderline dangerous (at best) for myself or our practitioner and I never feel comfortable asking someone to hold him for me.

After a nice long session with the Magna Wave, Courage stood there like a sleepy old school horse, eyes closed, ears floppy, poll below his withers, and was completely passive and cooperative for the entire length of the adjustment.

and gave big releases

Which was less than a third the normal amount of time because there were no flying hooves to dodge or trooping around the barn trying to catch him after yet another escapade. (Yeah he possibly has a reputation...)

Um. Sign. Me. Up.

Courage is a special snowflake for sure and I try to do anything I can to keep people around him safe and happy. This was worth it for the increase in personal safety for myself and our bodyworker alone. I mean, we both kept repeating "I don't even recognize him" and "do you think we killed him"? I also asked her if I could get my own, and she said sure but pointed out they cost a tidy 20k so yeah, not happening here.

Per our bodywork lady, you can actually get on and ride immediately vs the usual 24-48 hours off after stuff like this, but I had somewhere to be so I didn't get to see the after-effects until I pulled him out the next day.

I threw him on the lunge line and then scraped my jaw off the floor--dayum.

don't even know this horse

Homeboy floated around like I've never seen him move. I ended up not riding, because he also felt super good, which entailed grunting oddly every few strides and periodically leaving the ground ways I just didn't care to ride.

eh no thanks

He wasn't naughty or bolting or any number of previous lunge line shenanigans. He just looked like he felt amazing and he was expressing himself. Nothing was sustained or idiotic.

Even without the after pictures though, I'm a believer. The change in him was mind blowing for me and regardless of how well it holds long term, the sheer fact that he was able to let us work on him without the big reactions makes it worthwhile to me at this point. I will say I watched our lady use it on several horses and there were a variety of responses, but for Courage and one of his girlfriends, this nifty tool could be a game changer.

10/10 will use again. Definitely recommend.

Lessons Galore

I somehow went from  the "lessons once a quarter or so" schedule to the "four lessons in six days" schedule.

I am ok with that.

It started last Thursday--that's usually a trainer ride day, but I'd missed my usual lesson Tuesday and our trainer was able to squeeze us in, so a lesson it was. 

it was also gameday #winning #movingup

I was thrilled with C. Thrilled. Omg. It was like sitting on a dressage horse. He was loose and forward and OMG rideable and I actually got to work on me. Guess what? When he lets me ride, my position actually doesn't suck that bad. 

So that's super cool. 

We had about 90% of a REALLY good ride and then we went to do right lead canter and Courage had kind of a giant existential crisis about how hard it was mentally which resulted in a giant flail and the only thing between me and a concussion-while-mounted was my beloved standing martingale.

only regret: phone ran out of space so no flail media

We finished with a nice little relaxed trot on a loose rein and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I had a peek at the sort of horse Courage is capable of being and omg it's going to be fun. Someday. Haha.

We had a nice toodle on Friday, found out about a last minute dressage clinic with our favorite clinician from last year, and slipped in for Sat/Sun rides.

such class!

There isn't really any media from Saturday beyond my proof-of-outfit shot. We worked on a persistent head twist that Courage has. It's usually subtle, but it always stymies me. Our trainer was able to get rid of it on ride #1, but it kind of comes and goes for me and I'd like to stop getting test comments like "every time he twists his head, a puppy dies" from dressage judges. 

The clinician called it out as an imbalance and gave me a bunch of tools to work through it with. The biggest problem was that I had to address like 7 things at once and my brain wasn't thinking that fast. I also warned her that we could be explosive when cantering, so she had us canter both ways and HOT DAMN C-Rage kept his brain in his head and was lovely. 

I think my best takeaway from this day was simply that when Courage is with me mentally and rideable, I need to actually ride him. Whether or not he is rideable can be hit and miss, but I need to take advantage of the good days.

Then came day two!! Not only did my trainer take (extensive) video for me, but Alyssa came out and nabbed some great pictures. That is no easy task when you're basically trotting 20m circles over and over, so full credit to her.

turquoise day!

We took all the concepts I learned on day one in terms of getting Courage to rebalance without the head tilt and put them together at speed. And by speed, I mean slow trotting. It's hard, ok?

I had to ask Courage to keep his neck low and long. The neck is a counter balance, so I'd take the neck one way in order to tip the body the other way. If he was stuck, we had to go on a small (5-10m) circle to diagnose what was holding while riding forward and engaging the hind end. Oh and if I did all the right things and he still didn't release, that meant I was holding in my body. So. Apparently I do that a lot.

all tip top except that twist

I can't seem to make it sound as hard as it was in the moment. Rest assured, it was super hard. Courage was also super good and stayed with me the whole time.

At this point you're probably like "where is lesson #4" and "wtf you said there was video of clinic day #2" to which I say "lesson #4 is tomorrow I think" and "it's not edited yet ok".

In a lot of ways, this whole year has felt pointless and stagnant to me--we didn't really get out and show, we didn't make a lot of measurable progress, and no one thing makes me go "wow yeah look at that accomplishment". I mean, yeah, objectively, we didn't really get that far.

But.

This is the year Courage needed. To this point, he has more or less gone through the motions, but now he's starting to really understand them. The rides I've had the past few days are rides I could not have had last year, last month, or even last week. He's mentally with me and he's ready to go on.

And as much as I love satin, I love this feeling more.

PS hopefully satin next year. finger crossed.