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This is going to sound really really weird to anyone not familiar with the trials and tribulations of my dressage history with Henry, but last week in my lesson I actually had to KICK him. Like, a big wallop of a kick. And somehow that feels like a big achievement. Let me explain…

The biggest struggle I’ve had with Henry’s dressage is his natural level of tension and over-sensitivity. Most of our tests are a very very delicate balance of trying to keep him calm while still trying to get as many points as we can. Sometimes we’ve been successful at that, other times we haven’t. It’s remarkably easy to push his brain over the edge on the flat.

Last year at the June Texas Rose HT we got “lazy” written on our test TWICE and honestly it felt like I had won. More often we get “tense”. I’ll be honest, I’m pretty freaking thrilled if an onlooker thinks he looks lazy.

I spent all of last year not even cantering him in the dressage warm-up at shows, because in Henry’s mind if you canter once, you’re cantering forever after. My standard MO became 30 minutes of walking, trotting, halting, walking, trotting, halting, over and over. Basically I was trying to lull him to sleep a bit. Of course, that meant our canter work was never particularly great in the test, but it kept him more relaxed in general.

Since the end of last season I’ve been particularly mindful of doing all of his canter work toward the beginning of our dressage rides, with the bulk of the trot work after. I’ve been trying to get him to realize that cantering once doesn’t mean cantering always, and that it’s actually possible to have a normal, relaxed trot after the canter work.

This has slowly gotten better and better. Combine that with the suddenly more rideable horse I’ve had over the past month, and things finally came to a pinnacle in our lesson last week. We had done lots of canter work, including several trot-canter transitions (too many transitions are typically Henry’s undoing), took a walk break, did some trot work, then started working on lengthenings. We did a few at the trot, then picked up the canter again and started canter lengthenings.

Or rather… I TRIED to get a canter lengthening but it was actually taking a lot of squeezing just to keep him cantering in the first place. We came off the short side the first time and trainer says “Okay, BIG lengthening… it’s ok if he gallops!”… and I ask for the lengthening. Normally canter lengthenings are Henry’s favorite. Permission to YEEHAW in dressage? YES! Except this time… nothing happened.

Okay, no big deal, collect him back up on the short side again, come down the long side again, and… GO!

Crickets.

Oh my god. Wait. Is… is Henry… is he dead? Am I in the Twilight Zone? Did I pull the wrong horse out of the field? This must be a parallel universe.

I squeezed harder, then clucked, but nada. Nope. Henny happy to canter like normal, thanks much.

Since I’m in “I have a trailer, I can do all the things!” mode, when I saw that a semi-local farm was putting on the very first Indoor Eventing show I’ve ever seen offered in Texas, I knew I had to go. Never done anything like indoor eventing, but I was super curious about the concept so I figured it was worth checking out.

Since I wasn’t really sure what the course would be like or how Henry would take to it, I played it safe and entered Novice. My ride times were super reasonable… 9:56 dressage and 11:40 stadium. We rolled out of Austin around 6:15 and into Tomball by 8:30 which gave us the perfect amount of time to check in, unload, scope everything out, find a bathroom, and slowly get ready for dressage. The warm-up was in a really small area so I opted to keep it short and sweet. Henry was actually very good – probably the best he’s ever given me in a short warm-up at a show.

Sadly, he thought the dressage ring was terrifying. Luckily most of the other horses agreed. It was inside, with lots of stuff along the rail, and the judge was sitting in a big box above the horse’s eye level on the rail at C. Demons, obviously. He wasn’t belligerent about it, he just politely declined all my requests to get within 6′ of the rail by C and wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he was in warm-up.

Oh, and I made an error for the first time ever in my dressage life. Oopsy. I realized it the second I did it and immediately got back on track, but there went 2 points. Apparently Novice test A is just too hard to remember. Total idiot. We had some good moments though, earning a few 8’s, and I can’t really be upset at him for being a bit spooky in a ring that almost every other horse agreed was certain death. Somehow we managed to be sitting in 2nd after dressage with a 34 (thanks judge for the charity! and thanks other horses for also being terrified!). Still annoyed at myself for giving away 2 points out of simple lack of focus on my part.

After I untacked Henry we walked over to the jumping ring to check out the course. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but it was actually pretty neat.

We had 16 jumping efforts total, jumping several fences both directions, and with a few tricky lines and turns. The jumps all looked really small though, so I figured it would be fine.

The first two people that went in my division didn’t make it around. The course was definitely riding a bit spooky. The ring was kind of dark and there was a lot of stuff in there, and some of them just seemed a bit confused by it all. My plan was just to try to keep coming forward on a steady rhythm and let everything come to us, and see how he felt. Sometimes spooky courses work in my favor.

And this was one of those times. For as spooky as he was about the monsters in the dressage ring, he didn’t bat an eye at anything in there, he was just a bit more careful. I got crooked and buried him at 4, and he totally locked on 1 while we were turning to 7 so that turn was a bit awkward, but in general I thought he was great. Totally game-on about everything and always looking for the next fence. And clear!

He felt really happy jumping around, and handled it easily, so I hope it was a good confidence builder for him. Bonus – we held on to 2nd and got to take home a gift certificate. Indoor eventing = super fun! We will definitely be back!

 

 

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…