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Alright, time for the fun part. If you suffered through yesterday’s recap of the flatwork portion in Part One you deserve a cookie. Instead you get to read Part Two. Sorry.

Our warmup fence was a little green astroturf covered coop, about 2’6″. We were to canter this off the left then off the right, etc etc repeatedly until something good happened. The first time over I got reprimanded for chicken wings, which I definitely find myself doing sometimes on this horse. I needed to make sure I was moving my hands forward in the release, not just laying my body down on top of them. I also was still turning my head in the air – I DON’T KNOW WHY I DO THIS but I’ve been tying to stop for years. Seriously, why is my head on a swivel? If I don’t 100% concentrate, it never stays straight. And of course subsequently my body doesn’t stay straight either. So – sit up, hands forward, head straight.

My friend Amy was both photographer and videographer so she did the best she could. I tried to cut out all the excess.

We cantered that jump a few more times with marginal success so we got to graduate to a different jump, a big oxer crossrail. The center was still little so no big deal although it looked a little impressive visually when you were cantering up to it. Off we went again jumping it off both directions repeatedly. A theme started to emerge here… jumping off the right never went quite as easily. Remember what I said yesterday about him carrying his haunches to the right? That of course translates into crooked horse and crooked approach to the jumps. So, I had to focus on controlling those wayward haunches.

It also became apparent that I’m making a twofold error in my adjustments.

1) I’m waiting too late after the jump to re-establish my pace and balance. This should happen before the corner, not in it. Once I’m in the corner I should just be maintaining, because it’s too late to still be trying to get my rhythm and balance back. Yes this is common knowledge, but it’s a really bad habit of mine to wait until the corner and I really need to be more aware of it.

2) When I do make an adjustment I should always use my seat first. Henry is pretty sensitive and needs very little aid to make these minor adjustments, so it’s very rare that I ever need to use a lot of leg or hand when jumping this horse. When I do, it usually creates an over-adjustment. So always try just the seat first.

We got those things ironed out a bit better and actually had a few really lovely jumps in a row, earning several “good”s. Those are hard to come by.

Then we moved over to the white box with a pole over it, which was maybe 3′. In trainer’s words “still a tiny jump” (easy to say when you’re a  six-time Bolivian National Champion, former president of the Bolivian National Federation of Equestrian Sports and member of the Bolivian National Olympic committee, I suppose) but I’m just a peon and it looks a little bit on the bigger side to me when I’m on what is still a pretty green horse. And of course since it looked a little big to me, the first thing I did was try to attack it. Because that helps.

Trainer immediately nixed that behavior and had me practice waiting, waiting, waiting and just sitting up and supporting the horse all the way to the base – something my Certified Leaner self is not good at. We also practiced landing and immediately making a turn rather than continuing straight ahead, without me letting my body get crooked in the air in the process. This tied in what we’d practiced earlier about getting him back before the corner to ensure better turns. We did it, and it actually wasn’t heinous, and by that point Henry was breathing pretty hard so we quit while we were ahead.

Baby steps, y’all. Baby steps. I’m so excited about this type of work, I really thrive on the little details and I think this is what we really need to start moving up to the next level. I’m getting so much out of these lessons!

This weeks lesson report is getting split into two parts… mainly because I have a lot of pictures and some video to share, and also because there was just A LOT of info coming at me and I don’t want this to turn into a crazy long post.

It’s been two weeks since my last lesson, which was my first lesson with my new trainer. Unfortunately last weekend it rained so we missed our lesson day. In those two weeks I’ve been trying really hard to work on the main points from lesson one, particularly SITTING UP. Honestly, this has been the focus of my entire 22 year riding career – I am Quasimodo by nature. And if someone isn’t always telling me to sit up, hell if I ever remember. The struggle is real.

I hopped on for my lesson, walked around for a few minutes (sitting up!), then started trotting. I got very few comments during my trot work, which I have figured out is a good thing because nothing gets by this guy. I still have to constantly remind myself to sit up and look up and put my thumbs on top. Eq rider, I am not. Henry felt better though too… we’ve got a slower tempo but with a bigger step, and he was actually bending his body around my leg. We did lots of changes of direction, some sitting trot and a few leg yields.

 After a quick walk break we moved on to the canter. If I didn’t get a lot of comments during the trot work, it’s because I got All The Comments during the canter work. I’ll summarize and say that they’re mainly about finding exactly the right rhythm, slowing the tempo but increasing the stride, and keeping him more connected. That’s a lot of work, especially to the right. He tends to carry his hind end too far to the inside in the right lead, which makes everything a little wonky and almost sideways sometimes. More leg, straight shoulders (I tend to be a little crooked too) and just very steady hands and still upper body. That’s really easy to say but not really easy to do. Honestly it’s exhausting. Still, we did manage to get some good canter work in there.

Then we focused on the lead changes.

Henry does pretty easy changes, but he does want to speed up a little bit and get heavy in my hand for a couple strides afterward. Trainer wants seamless changes so that the corners are smoother and they don’t interrupt our rhythm or make tight turns difficult. Off we went on a figure eight exercise. The first couple times were kind of a fail… apparently I like to just lean my upper body all over the place like a drunken monkey (Trainer was too polite to use those exact words but that’s basically what he meant). Henry got all the changes but he also got a bit quicker and pulled. Sooo we talked about it.

And then off I went to try a little harder at doing a lot less. This is a difficult concept for me and always has been a constant struggle in my riding. Sitting there and letting things happen does not come naturally to my personality. So I tried my figure eight exercise again, this time just sitting up perfectly square and being very still and doing absolutely nothing but changing the bend of his body with my legs and a softly supporting outside rein. Much better this time. 3 out of 4 perfect smooth easy changes with no change of tempo. Sometimes it’s so simple that it’s incredibly difficult.

I wanted a trainer with a whole lot of attention to detail and I certainly got one. It’s hard, it’s challenging, and I’m loving every minute of it. Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 – the jumping!

Good news first: there were lots of fun things happening this weekend. Friday after work I went and rode, although kept it short because it was so hot. After that I went to happy hour with some horse friends and had some queso and fajitas and a lovely blue margarita. Fridays are the best.

Saturday was a rare day off with the SO, so we got up and watched the Tour de France time trials, then loaded up the dogs and went off to Bull Creek for some hiking. It was quite a climb up the steepest part of the hill but totally worth it for the view.

 

Afterward we went and hung out on a dog-friendly patio and had a late lunch, then home to shower and chill for a few hours. Then we got re-dressed and headed to my favorite part of the downtown Austin area, South Congress. There’s so many cool restaurants and shops on this street, I can entertain myself all day. Plus the city view is awesome.

We ate, we drank, we had some really amazing desserts at Snack Bar, and we were home by 11pm. Total win.

Sunday morning I got up early for a lesson, AND my friend came out to take pictures/video! So I finally have lots of new media to share. I’m going to break that off into a seperate post though because there was SO MUCH, it’d be a whole ‘nother novel if I tried to fit in all in here.

Now, on to the not-so-good part of the weekend, and why I’m slowly going nuts. There is a pretty contagious virus going around central Texas called Vesicular Stomatitis. It effects mostly cows and horses but also sheep, goats, etc. The virus itself in most cases isn’t a huge deal… the animal usually gets lesions and blisters on the lips, gums, tongue and basically feels like crap for about a week, then it passes and they’re fine. The reason it’s a real problem is that when it shows up in cattle it looks a lot like Foot and Mouth. Obviously this is really bad if you’re trying to sell or ship cattle, hence why the Texas Animal Health Commission monitors cases very closely. If you have an animal show up with it, the property is quarantined for 21 days AFTER the last infected horse is healed. When you figure theres a 2-8 day incubation period, it can be spread by flies/mosquitoes as well as nose to nose contact, then a 7-10 infection period… that can potentially be a pretty good amount of time in quarantine. For all of these reasons, obviously I’d really like to keep it out of our barn.

Enter: me becoming a complete horse hypochondriac. Henry lives in a constant cloud of Pyranha. I check him every single day for any signs of lesions. Yes, even the inside of his mouth. He’s thrilled about it. It goes a lot like this…

Get Henry out of his stall. Inspect every centimeter of his mouth, inside and out. Freak out at his lip coloring (the rim of his lips are naturally speckly). Decide that’s normal. Freak out at the thing on his gum. Oh, that’s chewed up cookie. Stand there and stare at him for a minute, trying to decide if he’s lethargic or just completely bored with me being a crazy person. OH MY GOD THERE’S A FLY ON HIM, KILL IT KIIILLLL IIIITTTTT!!!

Repeat every day.

Luckily my barn is being as proactive about it as possible. The grooms check every horse before they take it out of the stall, they’re spraying all the barns twice a day with super duty insecticide, we have flyers posted up around the barn, etc. But I can’t help but feel like we’re kind of all screwed since it’s spread so easily by flies and mosquitoes, and in a wet Texas summer there’s just no possible way to keep them all out. We’ll see what happens. In the mean time, if you need me I’ll have my face in my horse’s mouth. Happy freakin’ Monday!

The other day on facebook BellEqui added tons of new color sample photos for custom jackets. I have to admit, I sat there for a few minutes totally gobsmacked by the options. There are So. Many. I couldn’t even wrap my head around where to start. Honestly, I STILL haven’t wrapped my head around all of this. I could handle it when the only body color options were gray, black, navy and red with about 40ish possible collar colors. But now? Basically every color of the rainbow.

So for a fun Friday exercise… if you were building your DREAM show jacket, what colors would you pick? Body color, lapel color, and even piping if you so choose – all of the colors can be used for any part of the jacket. The standard black, gray, navy, red are still available too. Ultra conservative or ultra flashy… you decide.

I warned you there were a lot. Didn’t believe me did you?

For me I’m thinking…

1) navy with cornflower blue collar and white piping

2) dark chocolate brown with french blue collar and ivory piping

3) for a fun one – dark purple with black collar and gray piping. Because you only live once so why the hell not.

Ready – go!

 

I rode my first stallion at the age of 14 (what better mount than a 3yo stallion for a lesson kid?) and have been around them off and on my whole life. Some better than others, but for the most part I’ve always gotten along well with the boys. I worked at a breeding farm and have always been really interested in the breeding industry so along the way I’ve been truly fortunate to get the chance to handle/sit on/meet some of the nicest stallions in the country.

Valentino Z – forever my favorite boy

Kinnaras

Cielo B

Cartier R

Diabolo D’Esquelmes

Obviously I’m not the rider on these boys in their “grown up” pictures. 😉 This is just a handful of the boys I’ve been lucky enough to meet and work with over the years. Sonntagskind is a total lamb, as is Sea Accounts, and I completely fell in love with Cascani and Justice at October Hill. Shine probably has one of the best dispositions I’ve ever seen on a horse, and while I obsessively stalked As Always for years I have no idea where he is now. Figaro B, Concorde B, Deja Blue B – all stunning. I would have gladly put Baron Van Gogh in my pocket and taken him home from the stallion testing in 2009. And so on and so on… there’s so many nice stallions and I’m obviously a sucker for the boys. Don’t tell all the others but no one will ever take the place of my favorite squishable, Valentino.

Who is your favorite stallion?