The Long and Short

When I typed out "I've literally never had a bad ride on zb" the other day, it made me think. 

What is a bad ride? What causes a ride to become a bad ride? 

For me, a bad ride is emotionally turbulent, accomplishes no clear goal, leaves horse and/or rider more frustrated than when they started, or ends in injury for horse or rider. 

That's not to say that every ride has to be all-positive, all-the-time, 100% training focused. I mean, if you've been around here at all, you definitely know that I spend more time toodling than working my horse and I am 100% more focused on playing horse soccer than I am on going to horse shows. And while I certainly gush about ZB's (many) (many) excellent qualities, she's also a bit of a moose on the ground and not always the most motivated under saddle. 

Albeit a very cute moose

A bad ride is more than an "eh not feeling it, let's redirect and trail ride today" where not much is accomplished. I would actually call that a pretty decent ride as long as you identify the issue and make intentional choices to address it. 

One of those moments of clarity I found in between Courage and Zoe was this understanding that a partnership depends on being the person your horse wants to be with and finding the horse that you want to be with. It sounds oddly simple phrased that way. 

But like. 

It's not that every day is butterflies and rainbows. 

It's that when I'm toodling around bareback in the pasture on a loose rein on the first cold fall day of the year and my horse goes COMPLETELY TENSE OMFG WTAF IS HAPPENING, I choose to slide off, do some ground work, address where our attention goes and when, and then choose a successful note to end on. 

Could have been a bad ride. Might have gone ok. I addressed it in a different way. 

That not to say one shouldn't ride through resistance because you 100% should, some of the time. It's important to set yourself up to win the little battles so you never really have the big battles. The other day I hopped on and ZB was definitely "eh not feeling it" on the going to work issue. 

We started with halt/back/halt/walk transitions to confirm "you must comply in a soft manner", then added trot into the mix, which got the whole Going Forward/Stepping Under pieces engaged. Then lateral work for straightness, then figure eights with bend/counterbend for direction changes with consistent balance. 

And all of a sudden, I had this lovely, soft, balanced horse who was on the aids and I asked her to stay soft and step up into canter (vs hollow and run), and wouldn't you know, she did it. And we could repeat the transitions. She wasn't strong/consistent enough yet to hold it for more than a few strides, but for the first time, she totally got it. 

Lightbulb.  

That wasn't the most promising start, but it became a good ride. 

I'll admit I'm 100% spoiled here. Ms. Zoebird has this ridiculous Disney horse attitude and shows up for work 99.99% of the time. She's good natured, hard working, and lovely to be around. She makes it easy. Even if she really just needs to OMG MUM G2G BUCK AND DO RUNNIN, she lets me know that's on the table and tries so hard to make sure I get off first. 

She's never going to be your international eventer and I dunno if she wants to dressage once the dressaging gets hard, but she's the horse that made riding fun again for me. 

People have bad days. Horses have bad days. 

If you're both having a bad day, it's maybe not the best day in the history of ever to get on. 

More than that tho--good rides are about good fit. Good goals. Good camaraderie. 

On a personal level, it has mattered a lot to me to take showing off the table. Instead of sort of patching together an uncertain partnership in pursuit of indifferent public approbation of my skills, I've gotten to zero in on the things I want out of riding and what I enjoy. 

It's not that showing is bad, because it isn't. 

It's that having a good ride is so much more natural when "good" is a finite term that I can see and feel and touch. It's that moment of appreciating my horse and knowing that I'm in the right place at the right time. It's the ability to take a day or a month or a season to teach her goofy things that make me laugh.

The other day, I wanted to win a shiny satin ribbon. I'm spending a little more time polishing show ring skills than I did before. I have a goal of taking a couple lessons to advance our skills that I think I can finally accomplish. 

Maybe we'll give showing a go next season. 

Maybe we won't. 

Either way, we have many more good rides to look forward to.  

That New Leather Smell

It's weird how our foray into learning western stuff re-energized me for all things horsey, but here we are. And like. I know I never stop going on and on about how great ZB is, but seriously she is the actual greatest and I love her so much. 

So anyways. We've been westerning. I dragged my moose sized western saddle out and I can't really tell if it fits or not. To trot around for 20 minutes, it's fine I guess, so we started playing with a little more complexity in our neck reining adventure. 

SMOOSH SUNSET

I decided to clean up my tack explosion area at the barn and realized that since I'm not riding often or hard enough to justify juggling two saddles and ten pads on one saddle rack and the top of my trunk, that I ought to just take the dressage saddle and to-die-for otto bridle home where they're safe. 

And then I tried riding in my jump saddle. 

I realized these things:

1) I hate my stirrup leathers more than life itself

2) Neither of my girths fit my horse

3) The girths are so bad I literally can't use my $$$ custom mattes pad that I impulse bought in a 'rona sale this spring

And see, despite my total moderation in tack purchases lately, I have (un?)fortunately cultivated a lovely group of very tack savvy friends. 

In less time that it takes to talk about it, I have:

1) Custom-made Gary Mundy stirrup leathers with my initials stamped in them on the way

2) 3 (count 'em) girths to try out

3) A bonus anatomic noseband that is oddly sized to mess with

Stay posted for the prolite vs county logic throw down

Well that is surprisingly perfect

Oh look it's the indoor time of year

I'm one of those weird people that like CANNOT EVEN if things aren't working. I didn't realize how much it bugged me that my tack wasn't quite right. 

Which is dumb. 

Because after playing musical girths and messing around, I got on with a saddle and rode like an adult and ZB was super champion of the world. Seriously. I don't know why she's like ROCK SOLID HOKAY MOM I BE GOOD GIRL literally every time I have EVER sat on her, but it's insane and amazing. Still. 

Seriously horse it's been over three years now and WE HAVE LITERALLY NEVER HAD A BAD RIDE. 

And I don't even feel like I'm jinxing it by saying that out loud. 

And then because I am a dumbass, I pulled her saddle off and walked away to put it on the rack with her loose wearing the fancy new bridle in the middle of the arena. 

And yeah it was totally fine she just stood there and watched me. 

when ur mum is a dum dum but u still love her

Summer Fun

In the vein of "what sounds fun today", I spent a lot of time this summer in a distinctly old west style locale. 

Is that a buffalo walking down the street?
Yes that's a buffalo walking down the street.
His name is Jackson.

And I thought. 

Ms ZB is literally a purpose-bred ranch horse. 

Oh and she's looking completely fabulous

Why not teach her to western?

So one night, I googled "how to teach a horse to neck rein", read one of those horrible how-to articles on some random site, and decided to go for it.

Worst case scenario, we can't figure it out, I feed her cookies, and all is well. 

Did I mention she's looking fantastic? She totally is.

I mean, I don't have a western saddle that's moose shaped and given my status as a tack snob, I can't make do with the cheapest thing on ebay.

But also ZB is a literal couch and we have plenty of easy, slow work we can do before we need to, I don't know, zoom around and sort cows and rope a calf while practicing mounted shooting. 

Bareback it is! 

My preliminary research indicated if your horse was already reasonably broke and had a good idea of direct reining, the neck reining wasn't terribly different and horses usually picked it up pretty quickly. 

I'd call that summation accurate--ZB is one smart lady and as long as she stays focused on what I'm asking, she's quite lovely about the whole thing. It honestly wasn't much of a transition for her in terms of steering. (Now, in terms of how we pretty it up, I dunno. Might take some lessons lol.) 

BUT. 

Did you know that riding a horse is kind of like riding a horse and any imbalances, weaknesses, or flaws that you mask with your usual equipment might show up in a whole different way if, say, you dropped most of your tack and tried to provide clear, simple aids? 

Cough. 

I know that. 

Now. 

I mean it's literally what I talk about when I transfer the skills learned kicking her ball into letting me pop on in a different setup and start muttering a different language and asking ZB to cooperate. 

But it's funny how much the whole bareback-on-a-round horse tells on my tendency to evaporate my right seat bone and curl up my right side when I'm trying to stay balanced and in the middle and strong with my core and consistent with my legs so I can let the reins mean something. (Pro tip: you honestly don't do a whole lot with the reins. It's really more how you ride OH WEIRD WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT BEFORE). 

gonna be cowboys

TL; DR 

Riding is fun, ZB is fantastic, hope your summer is great. 

The Magical Thing About a ZB

 I've been working out of town, which severely limits barn time. 

But I have a ZB. 

#winning

So when I had 48 hours in town a few weeks back, Nadia asked if I wanted to haul out to go trail riding and the obvious answer was YES. 

ZB has never hauled a ton and definitely not in the last year. 

O HAI

And it is so freaking cool to have a horse that I just loaded onto a trailer she'd never seen, took to a place she hasn't been in a long time, hop on, and go. (Ok hop on=train her how to back off a straight load, which took a minute, but then she got it.) 

JOONBUG R WALKIN VERY FAST

She led. She followed. She crossed boggy ground, walked by scary things, and never batted an eye. 

ZB R DYIN

By the end, she was SO TIRED, but gamely hopped back in the trailer and headed home like a total champ. 

And then used her new-found "backing off the trailer" skills. 

TL; DR she is the absolute best and hopefully next I will write about some of our exciting continuing adventures.

Taking Ownership

I drafted a blog the other day, but it bored me to write. I can't imagine trying to read it. The gist of it was that ZB and I aren't really doing much because blah blah blah excuses. 

And I thought. 

I hate excuses. 

What's the real issue here?

It's not that "waaaaah it's hot and I'm tired and I'm not a pro and my legs aren't strong enough to make my horse go forward and I'm tired of kicking" because you know what. 

She goes just fine when I ask her to. 

It's definitely that I'm bored to tears of going in circles and soldiering away in the summer dust for some abstract goal of impressing a judge at a show I literally don't want to go to, even if there wasn't a pandemic, which there is. 

So if I don't want to go to a show and I don't want to do mindless circles in the dust, what do I want to do? 

Go on hacks

PLAY LEGOS

Get dressed up in jump tack

Instead of doing arena exercises, what do I want to address today? What sparks my interest and engages my horse? 

O HAI FANCY LADY HORSE

All of a sudden, I have a willing partner going forward and I'm happy in the work too. 

My low-key goals for the year are to take a couple of jump lessons and get ZB to a cross country facility to get exposed to ditches, banks, and water. New barn buddy Nadia is all on board for that, so hopefully there will be epic media when it happens. 

R BEEBEH EVENT HORSE HA

My other low key goal for the year is to dress ZB up for some over the top photo shoot with long flowing locks and I dunno, flowers in her mane or something. If the hair is giving you a twitch, well, get used to it because I love it. 

I mean. Who isn't excited for fancy new ZB media? She's literally the world's cutest full size horse.

Transitions

Late last year, I took a couple big career steps and jumped out of my comfort zone. If things have seemed quieter around here, well, they are. As spring came along, I started up on more regular riding and was even quasi thinking about maybe taking ZB on a couple field trips (schooling show? xc? i think yes!) and then oh yeah apparently the entire world shut down.

let's learn about water!

Well, most of the world. My state and industry have been minimally impacted, which is good and bad. (How does it feel to drive by all those "stay home, save lives" signs when you're an essential worker providing essential services? uhhhhh kinda like shitty cannon fodder tbh). 

My barn never shut down (though they did implement additional safety precautions) and I've been able to ride pretty steadily. 

how can any horse be this cute

I've definitely made some more conservative choices even for my super safe baby horse (I guess she's 7 now buuuut baby mare for life <3.) The last couple years have been a marked transition for me--moving from a "rider" mindset to a  "trainer" mindset, so even with careful choices and choosing to keep my feet on the ground some days or limit barn time other days, I find that our progress and training really didn't slow down. 

operation: look where your feet are going you adorable moose

\

one of her favorite things

I'm fascinated by the sheer amount of ideas and concepts we can work through even without a full time program or a more "conventional" approach. It's driving home again and again that riding every day and drilling concepts is 100% for humans, not for horses.

all smiles

It helps that ZB is the actual best horse of all time but it's so freaking cool to watch her learn and attack new concepts with aplomb because every outing, every topic is light and positive and thoughtful. She believes she can. She wants to try. No one has ever shut her down or fried her or told her she's not good enough. 

I've spent so many years trying to train the horse first and build trust second. I built some useful mechanical skills for myself in terms of learning how to ride through behaviors but I think long term, I missed out on a lot more. 

Going forward isn't the answer.

Pushing through isn't the answer. 

hello

It has so little to do with teaching the horse, either. The horse is there. It can already horse pretty damn well. It's going to continue horsing with or without you for the rest of it's life. 

It's not the feeling you get when you put your foot in the stirrup. 

It's the feeling you bring when you set foot in the barn. 

It's never asking them "why won't you do this?" and always asking yourself "how can I be calm, clear, and fair about this?"

It's being the kind of person that a horse wants to canter up to in a field. 

It's building trust, day in and day out. 

I always thought the lessons we learned form horses were about self discipline and training and understanding what it looked like to chase a passion and have a vivid interest in life.

Those things are good, I think. 

They're a shadow of what we can learn though. 

The real lesson is who we become when we learn to hear what they say.

Elemental

I wore jeans and cowboy boots to ride the other night.

In my dressage saddle.

ZB wasn't wearing the latest matching outfit. She didn't even have front boots on. Her mane hangs below her neck now.

She's not blanketed.

She's not clipped.

I'm focused on developing the horse I have in front of me. She's not fit, but she's smart and she's fun and she learns things very quickly.

All kinds of things.

What's the practical application of teaching her to kick a giant ball? Literally nothing.

What's the practical application of encouraging her to use her naturally inquisitive personality and food motivation to solve problems and think independently?

Hmmmm a lot.

I'm not trying to build a show horse right now, though that might come. It is so fun to put in the time to build the horse I want to ride. It's not about teaching her to mindlessly zip through a list of tasks. It's not about skipping steps to get to the "fun part".

I want her to be engaged with me.

I want her to think.

I want her to be brave.

I want her to trust that she can achieve what I'm asking her to do.

I want her to try.

Today the "try" is follow the soccer ball and kick it herself.

Tomorrow it might be to find her way through a tricky part of the trail.

The day after, maybe a challenging arena gymnastic.

What fascinates me is how little repetition a horse really needs to understand a concept. All those transitions and hours in the tack help us develop the muscle memory we need and it definitely builds the fitness a horse needs to feel strong and confident in a long, challenging test.

The horse doesn't need them to learn.

If Zoe does something well and I drop the reins and say "good girl", she doesn't need to do it again.

I can leave it alone for 6 months, come back, and it's still there.

It's not about cowboy boots and jeans or breeches and a hairnet.

It's about learning together.