Author: Amanda C

Something strange has been going on here lately. The last 5-6 dressage rides I’ve done with Henry have been… like… pretty decent. And not just decent for us (our standards are lower) but decent in a normal, general sense.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been doing our dressage rides out in the field

or because it’s been warm and therefore he’s a bit more, ehm, rideable

but I’ve actually been able to use BOTH of my legs… AT THE SAME TIME. Not only that, he’s been letting me ride him into the contact. Legit IN the contact, no faking. I keep thinking “Oh, so this is what it’s like for normal people to do dressage. This is way better.”. It’s amazing how much easier everything is when you’re able to use all your aids. 15m circles happen. Decent transitions happen. Lengthenings happen. Stretchy circles happen. I actually had to keep both legs on in our canter squares or he’d break to trot.

The only thing I seem to give up a little bit is the lateral movements. Henny no move sideways when Henny chill. Whatever, man. I’ll take the rest.

$20 says it all goes flying out the window this afternoon when I pull into Dressage Trainer’s barn for a lesson, and when we trot up centerline on Sunday, but hey… it DOES exist in there somewhere, sometimes.

Side note: it’s amazing how fast I fall out of horse show mode. Last year we were showing pretty much every month until October and I always had all my stuff organized and ready to go. Last night I spent 20 minutes looking for my white breeches… they were still hanging in the laundry room… where I left them in October…

Now that we’re getting close to competition season, hotter/ more humid weather (it’s Texas, it’ll be here by April), and with Coconino boldly written on the calendar, I’ve amped up Henry’s fitness regime. It doesn’t really take much to get a TB fit for Novice, and our twice weekly half-hearted conditioning rides worked just fine last year.

This year though, with the demands of a full long format 3-day (granted, only at Novice) and a move-up, the bar is raised a little. I also want to see if making Henry more fit helps him with his breathing issues. For those of you who don’t know, Henry has some scar tissue in his lungs (the vet thinks it’s leftover from an illness when he was young) that makes it a little hard for him to get enough air when his respiratory system is super taxed. Usually it’s really only evident when it starts getting really hot and humid… his core temperature never rises, but his respiratory rate goes through the roof pretty quickly. I’m hoping that just by increasing his base level of fitness, his respiratory system is less taxed and therefore he can breathe a bit easier. We shall see. For this particular horse, especially considering his career, I’d rather err on the side of a little over-fit.

But I also want to preserve his legs as much as possible, so we do a lot of walking and trotting. Specifically, we do at least one long trot a week and then another day of w/t/c intervals or a long walk. We’re up to 40 minutes on the long trot, and I’m not going to lie… it’s BORING. Now I know why they always made us working students do most of the conditioning work on the upper level horses when I worked at an event barn. It’s totally mind-dumbing.

Lately we’ve been able to ride in a big hay field, which is great. I love riding in the field because Henry seems happy to get out of the ring, I’m happy to get out of the ring, we get some changing terrain to practice over, and the bigger space means bigger turns and less stress on his body. But still… even in the big awesome field you find yourself checking your watch every two minutes. What I eventually figured out was that each lap is almost exactly 5 minutes. Then it was just a matter of breaking it down by laps. Eight laps sounds a lot better than 40 continuous minutes.

Then I figured… why not spice up each lap? And that’s how The Conditioning Games (may the trot be ever in your favor) were born. This is a testament to how boring my life is.

Every ride seems to spawn a new game or two, but so far I’m up to:

• Zig Zag
• Wham
• 2 point
• Forward and back
• How many steps
• Point to Point
• Lopsided

Some of them are pretty simple… zig zag is just 10-20 (I pick a number) steps of leg yield left, then leg yield right, then go straight, then leg yield left, right, go straight, etc for the whole lap. 2 point is exactly what it sounds like – a lap of 2 point. I usually do that in the beginning because it’s the most boring.

Wham is a little more fun…

I pick a point, usually a particular little clump of grass, and try to run it over dead-on. Kinda like if you were jumping a skinny, but it’s more fun to run over things and say WHAM!

Forward and back is also really simple, just lengthening to medium to a more collected trot and back again between the three ad nauseam. I also pick a certain number of steps for this, just like Zig Zag.

How Many Steps is something I do in the ring all the time – I pick a point in the distance (in this case a tree, a stick, a bush, a shadow, a clump of grass) and try to guess how many steps away it is. Way more fun at the canter but it works at the trot too. It makes you more aware of your rhythm, anyway.

Point to point is trying to hit exactly the same points at exactly the same times on each lap. So if I pass this bush at the one minute mark, I try to hit the same bush at exactly the same time on the next lap. That weird spot in the fence at 2:00, etc. Kinda like minute markers on XC.

Lopsided is dropping one stirrup at a time, or putting both reins in one hand and putting the other behind my back. The barn I grew up riding at did this a lot and called it Horsecapades. Whatever you call it, it seems to help me sit up taller and, despite the name, sit more evenly in the saddle. Plus it makes things really exciting when your horse spooks and you get to play a bonus impromptu round of “Don’t Fall Off”.

As the spring wears on and trots get longer, I’m sure more games will be added to my repertoire. Because I don’t know how the hell anyone can just trot around a giant field for more than 10 minutes without getting bored as hell.

Titillating stuff, this. Try to contain your desire to run out and try it yourself.

 

I have a really lovely dressage saddle, I can’t deny that. My Childeric is nicely made, fits me and Henry well, and is comfortable to ride in. I got a really good deal on it, and since it’s dye job and copious amounts of TLC, it looks as nice as it rides.

But I also kind of feel like I’m cheating on it, because I can’t stop thinking about Trainer’s Devoucoux Loreak that she let me borrow for a few weeks last fall. Anyone who has ever sat in “The Saddle” (whatever that may be for you) will understand what I mean when I say that it really doesn’t matter how nice anything else is – nothing is the Loreak.

The Loreak is the only dressage saddle I’ve ever felt 100% comfortable in. The only one where it felt like my leg hung naturally where it was supposed to. The only one where it required no actual thought or effort to sit up. The only one where I felt like I might almost be semi-competent. And, naturally, it’s the dressage saddle that Henry moved absolutely the best in, by far, ever. Of course Henny loves D3D panels and a shoulder cutout. OF COURSE HE DOES. Not really a surprise considering how much he loves my CWD with a very similar tree and panel design.

The problem of course is that the Loreak is like $7k. Yes, a 7 with three 0’s after it. I know, I’m laughing too. Even used prices in the US are $3500-5500. Never ever happening. Ever. So I have my Childeric and I’m trying really hard to apply the “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” philosophy. But every time I sit in the Childeric I keep having lustful thoughts about the Devoucoux. Surely I’m not the only one that has fallen madly in love with a saddle I can’t afford?

I have a running search going on all my favorite European used saddle sites for a cheap Loreak. After all, I got my CWD for $1050, so miracles DO happen. And in fact, in the past few weeks a couple of Loreaks have come along for under 2,000 Euro. Things like that get my brain thinking “I wonder how much I could get for the Childeric…”.

That thought will have to live in the back of my mind for a while, because there’s no room in the budget for a trade-up like that unless I came across something so ridiculously cheap that selling the Childeric cancelled it out. Stranger things have happened, but I’m not holding my breath. And until that day comes…

Yes, that’s right… I managed to work my helmet camera without messing it up. Granted, it required a lot of constant help, but whatever. Details. I left a special Betty White cameo appearance in the end of the video, because ❤ Betty.

On Saturday I hauled Henry a couple hours east toward Houston (pretty sure my truck and trailer could find their own way to Houston by now) to school at High Point. We’ve never been there before but we entered their derby next month so I wanted to go scope it out.

Bobby is dumb and was out of town, and everyone else had other commitments, so I asked my friend Amy if she wanted to go be my Scooper. You know… the ground person that can scoop you up and take you home in case you die. Luckily Amy also likes to take pictures, so this was really a win-win for me.

We did a brief w/t/c warm-up in the front field and then went further in to the XC field. Henry was a little backed off and looky, which is kind of typical for him in a new place. I jumped a little log and then strung a few smaller fences together in a row until he felt more forward, then formulated a plan.

I entered the derby at Training level because I’d heard the courses were pretty soft, and that’s definitely true. The T course is more like N/T… most of the fences are Novice size, with about 3 fences that are T height and then a couple of combinations that are N height but T technical. It’s kind of the perfect in-between levels course.

I decided to just follow the T course around and string together groups of fences as we went. He hopped over the little brushy fence at 1 just fine

and then the angled 3 strides from the tires at 2 to the little table at 3.

The skinny white T height ramp at 4, he wasn’t so sure about. He kept wanting to bulge way out to the right, so I had to get after him a bit but once he jumped it he was fine with it. That was also the point where I felt XC Henry mode engage and his superman cape appeared. Which makes sense, because it’s usually jump 4-5 on course where he’s like “oh my god I’m having the best time and I’m so amazing look at Henny go!”.

I trotted him over the little faux ditch at 5ab the first time, since he can be a little ditchy. Monsters live in ditches. Monsters that eat horse feet if they stay too close to the ground on the way over.

Once he was being less dramatic about the ditch we cantered the ditch bending line combo, which he didn’t seem to care much about, then we looped around to another line of fences and cantered the novice chevrons, then circled back around and jumped the green Training ramp.

No problem with those either, so I kept cantering and jumped the up bank-down bank combo. He’s never done that before but it was no problem.

Except for the one time he stumbled on landing and we almost died. Great save on Henry’s part, I have no idea how he untangled himself from this pretzel.

After the banks, the Training course rolled back around to a T size rolltopy thing. I thought he might be a little bit backed off here considering how he felt about the white ramp, but this one was no problem.

After that some other groups of people wandered into the area so we walked around and waited for them to move on, then tried the water. Training had a small bank down into the water with a right turn out over a little bench. He’s only jumped a down bank into water once before so I thought he might hesitate here too, but with XC Henny mode engaged it was game on.

We did the water a couple times and then strung together the last half of the course.

If anything he was getting a little too bold by that point, so after we jumped the last T fence I had him canter that one again, a little more politely, and then circled back to the last fence on the Prelim course, a little skinny log.

Then it was many pats, a short walk to cool him out, and we were done.

Overall it was a good day. The facility is definitely very low key and the course is a good confidence builder for Henry and I at this point. I think the Training derby will be fun!