training for pressure

This past week was spent mostly picking up the pieces after our disappointing attempt at Plantation's starter trial.

Like I wrote last week, obviously the first step in this process is a comprehensive wellness check for Charlie, with everything on the table. I've already made some changes here and Charlie's had a few appointments with the professional practitioners who know him best. Probably more to come on that later, too.

he's honestly been seeming like a happy camper lately!

This all doesn't happen in a vacuum tho. And the reality is that we are dealing with some training issues, regardless of whatever comes up in checking out Charlie's general health. Those training issues need to be addressed from the saddle, and there's no time like the present!

I gave myself a day off on Monday first, tho. Mostly to take a little time to sort out my thoughts and feelings. Give myself some pep talks. I wanted to really understand what happened and why, and also wanted to be crystal clear in my own mind about how to move forward. What were my objectives, my expectations? And was I prepared to get into the saddle for this first diagnostic ride confident that I wouldn't take it personally or get upset if it didn't go well?

Everyone knows that famous quote saying the only emotions that belong in the saddle are patience and a sense of humor. That might make perfect logical sense printed on a poster hanging on the office wall, but it isn't objectively true for me. It isn't really my reality.

loves his adorably illustrated sugar cube packets that my grandparents brought back from france actual years ago lol....

Riding brings out a LOT of different emotional responses from me. Most of them pretty freakin positive. But you can't really get those extreme highs without a couple lows thrown in there too. I'm human. I get frustrated, demoralized, angry. None of these feelings are super effective in horse training tho, it's true. But they happen. So it's up to me to make sure I'm emotionally prepared before I get into the saddle to keep myself centered.

I tend to hang on to things, to dwell. The memory of Plantation still stings, and will likely continue to do so until I can replace it with a newer, fresher, happier memory. For Charlie tho? Plantation might as well have not ever even happened. He's over it lol. Wayyyy past it.

If I went into our first ride back feeling angry or upset about how things went down at Plantation, Charlie's would just get confused and upset too, and it would be entirely counterproductive.

So these are the little pep talks I have with myself.

he got to see his favorite massage therapist this week too! she's been treating him for over a year now and knows his body better than just about anyone else. it's so funny bc he was so surly and defensive when he first met her, but now he just freakin adores her and loves his sessions

I also pulled out some different training aids: switched my normal crop for a dressage whip, and had a pair of spurs looped through my belt in case I felt like they were needed.

My thought here being: it's likely that spurs will become a regular part of our gear again. Even if I don't wear them for every schooling ride, it's not likely that I'm gonna leave the start gate without them again for the foreseeable future.

HOWEVER. Given the little pep talks I had to have with myself, and given that I really had no idea how Charlie would be for our first ride back (would he be sound? sore? sour? would I be able to keep my composure?), it seemed prudent to give myself a little bit of a buffer zone in case Charlie felt like a sulky sour mess and I got upset.

her general findings were that he's doing pretty well, but might be due for some chiro too

Turned out tho, he felt good. Better than good - actually, he felt freakin fantastic.

I still put a LOT of pressure on him during that ride tho. Because I really wanted to see. Wanted to push - give him an opening to say "No!" for whatever reason. Wanted to find out if there was a limit he was setting for what he would or would not take.

Esp in the moments following breaks, when he would maybe wonder if we would be done and then be reluctant to start going again. I put a lot of pressure on those moments to see how he would react.

And wouldn't ya know it, Charlie just up and took it. Carried on. Was a good boy.

That alone was enough to reassure me that physically, the horse is overall probably fine. Again - none of this precludes continuing our "comprehensive wellness check" but it's still giving me a lot of information about whether Charlie actually physically feels like he can't go forward.

So we'll see. I'm making some tack adjustments, evaluating other aspects of Charlie's day to day care, scheduling appointments.

got to sniff his favorite puppy too

Nothing is ruled out (is that ever even possible with horses anyway?) but again our day at Plantation looks increasingly more like the confluence of many small issues that snowballed into one giant catastrophe of a performance. And the vast majority of those issues have more to do with me and my approach to riding Charlie than anything else.

As far as I can tell, it basically boils down to pressure. Charlie has always been a somewhat pressure-averse horse. Since the very beginning of his time with me.

We hit a low point during our first winter together when I basically slammed into the wall of Charlie's sticky stuck resistance in a schooling ride, and was not able to work through it. The ride ended without resolution, and I felt at a complete loss for what to do and worried I was in WAY over my head.

I hauled Charlie to OF the next day (this was before we boarded here) for a much-needed lesson with trainer P. And she reinforced the lesson that I'm now facing with Charlie again: Yes, it is of critical importance that I'm fair to him and that he's physically able to do what I ask of him.

Simultaneously, however, I have to give him black and white guidelines on what's considered acceptable behavior and what is not. And as of that day, with trainer P holding my own toes to the fire, Charlie's refusal to move forward officially was deemed unacceptable. In no uncertain terms.

riley however was skeptical of all the pony attention

And I had to be vigilant about this. Every ride. Every step. If I failed to correct even the slightest indiscretion - Charlie sucking back when I put my leg on, or even just kinda ignoring me - Charlie would escalate to full on refusing to move.

At first, when I started correcting the small stuff we'd end up having our throw-down dinosaur-stuck-in-tar-pit tantrums right away, instead of slowly building up to the eruption over the course of a ride. The fights came faster and sooner. and more often. But they also became shorter and less intense. Instead of Charlie completely refusing to move and threatening to go up - he'd maybe just break gait for a couple steps before begrudgingly going forward again.

And eventually those moments of attitude faded to nothing more than a brief moment of pinned ears with a sky-high brontosaurus neck and head before carrying on as normal.

So here's where I made my mistake. Over time, as things continued to go so well, and as Charlie proved himself again and again to be SUCH A GOOD BOY OMG HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY, I kinda forgot about that vigilance. Kinda forgot that I had to stay on guard for those small little indiscretions lest I risk Charlie escalating again.

and there was a lot of pony attention haha

This was compounded by Charlie's seemingly never ending string of dings. When you're constantly in the cycle of "bringing the horse back into work," it never really feels like the right time to have it out, to end up in a big fight, or risk pushing him if maybe it really was a physical thing bugging him.

Plus I wanted so badly for him to stay happy, to stay eager, to keep being a good boy. I didn't want him to be sour or dull, and was maybe afraid to push anywhere near the direction of those earliest tar pit days.

What I forgot was: things didn't become consistently good with him until we were past that. Charlie didn't really relax and settle into his work until he was pretty clear that there weren't other alternatives - or at least not any alternatives that were easier for him.

Charlie became a happier, easier riding horse when I was the most diligent about clear rules, with consistent black and white treatment of what was acceptable and what was not. And in slipping up in that regard, in becoming more lackadaisical, it became easier for Charlie to explore other options. To feel like, maybe if he didn't really wanna, then he didn't really havta.

these ponies all live in different fields but have all become such good friends after being lesson mates for the past couple years lol

Instead of being able to have a quick clear discussion about "Yes we go forward now plz" in warm up at Plantation, the issue sorta simmered and steamed throughout show jumping and well into our cross country course. Where we started fizzling out over jumps, with Charlie dealing with the subsequently very uncomfortable jumping efforts.

So that's basically my big grand hypothesis of our current training issues. With the answer being that it's mostly up to me to be more disciplined in the saddle. To be more clear, and more consistent. And to not shy away from the sticky moments but meet them head on.

Getting back to those first few rides last week after the show, I wanted to go back to the basics of Charlie's willingness to accept pressure.

naturally they're all obsessed with trainer P too haha - probably thanking her for trying to make us better riders

I see the ability to take pressure as being something like a muscular strength. The only way to improve it is by exercise -- but too much too fast will result in a strain or tear. Just like anything else in horse training, you can't just go from 0 to 60.

Which, "60" in this example being: cantering out the start box away from friends and perceived safety in an environment that looked a little spooky (ie: Plantation's unique wide open hillside layout).

That makes "0" something simpler, like a spurt forward from my leg. Even just at the walk. But that's gotta be the bare minimum, right? Like there can't be anything less than that.

So this is where our pressure training really starts: Charlie must move forward off my leg. Every time. No exceptions. In the arena, during the walk up the driveway. On the trails. Wandering around the field. Always.

What I'm remembering is that when I'm super consistent about this most fundamental building block in Charlie's training, everything else becomes much, much easier. Funny how that works....

So we'll see. Charlie honestly has felt pretty good this week. Hopefully I can keep it up!