horse show day! + yay for show friends

B and I head to Waredaca today - our second outing as eventing partners in crime. Super exciting! 

Isabel and I should wrap up early in the afternoon, with B and Wick finishing a little later. This event should be particularly fun bc a whole bunch of OF riders are going too - including trainer P - so with any luck we'll park our trailers close by and enjoy the company. 

so ready!

Last summer/fall I was just getting into eventing, going everywhere and doing everything on my own. It felt great to be so self sufficient. But sometimes it was lonely and overwhelming. 

There was very much this feeling of 'if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it even make a sound?' - Meaning, I was fulfilling major lifelong dreams (and experiencing all the related emotions) but simultaneously everything felt very trivial bc nobody else was around. Does that make any sense?

So B and Wick joining the party has the amplifying effect that we are there for each others' ups and downs: calming nerves in warm up, cheering on from the sidelines, high fives at the finish line. Talking through mistakes or struggles, and celebrating even the most modest of victories. Not to mention that everything with horses is a easier with an extra pair of hands. 

Regardless of today's outcome (it's another big-ish BN division - 15 entries), I plan to enjoy the whole experience to the fullest - esp being there with horse show buddies! 

Do you usually show with the same people? Does your barn go as a group, or is it more of an individual effort? Or maybe you have your own horse show support team?

blurry but pleasant trail ride

We FINALLY made it into the woods again! It's been ages (since March, actually) and I've missed it. Plus it's good for Isabel's brain. Unfortunately my intended trail buddy got stuck at work, and I usually avoid going out alone bc we've previously had disagreements about speed and head flinging and general diva-type behavior... But I was determined that we would do this thing, and we would enjoy it, dammit. 

And it was great. My plan was to let Isabel choose her speed and reinforced this to myself by grabbing her martingale neck strap whenever I felt like getting handsy. She's sensitive enough to notice the pressure on her neck so I could sorta communicate 'slow down' that way without fussing with her mouth. Really tho, she was a star. 

Izzy was so surprised to be out there again - and ALONE. She had snagged a mouthful of hay on our way out the barn that she just kinda held onto not chewing for the first 5-10 minutes while we cruised along the road and fence lines toward the woods. Finally tho, she started chewing again (and grabbing more mouthfuls as we went) and settled into her forward march. 

She chose to trot a few times (and even canter once) but was very balanced and polite about it, despite the slick muddy footing. So I let her be. She handled obstacles in our path with ease (like a nasty-ish wood fall on a rocky narrow stream bank) and had her ears pricked the entire time. Naturally, since she walks so fast all the pictures are blurry. But that's ok - it was still gorgeous with lush greenery and we had a blast. What a nice change of pace! 

weekly training schedule?

I wrote yesterday that most of my recent riding has been limited to lessons or events, with very little schooling on my own. This is due to a coincidental scheduling anomaly - including shows and monthly lessons all happening at the same time. 

But generally, Isabel's week might look more like: 

Monday: 
Usually a day off.

Tuesday: 
Jump lesson with Dan. Generally a high-intensity ride.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 
These are the 'flex' days of our schedule. I could school on my own, which includes flat work in the arena or trail rides (whether at speed for conditioning or slow and relaxing with friends). Or maybe xc schooling with friends! Isabel usually gets at least one, maybe two, of these days off.

How I structure these days depends entirely on the weekend's plans, and my own personal life (bc I do actually have one of those despite appearances lol). Usually, tho, at least one of these days should be a focused, intentional schooling ride.

balance. we has it!

Saturday:
Jump lesson with trainer P at OF. Also generally a high-intensity ride, plus considerations for travel.

Sunday:
Haha. This day could be anything, it seems. Sundays maybe have the most variety of all days in the week, and are frequently high-impact days for Princess. Could be any of the following:

• horse show!!!! love these <3
• dressage lesson with C at TM - ideally twice a month, but realistically usually once a month
• bio-mechanics lesson with Kirsten - typically the last Sunday of the month, tho we sadly aren't on the schedule for June. Boo hiss to money being a scarce and valuable resource...
• xc schooling with friends?!
• trail riding with friends!
• least likeliest plans are schooling in the arena on my own or taking a day off

So if you're keeping score - Isabel typically works 4-5x a week - with at least 2 but sometimes 3 of those rides being categorized as high intensity. I know a lot of people aim to ride more often than that, but this balance seems to work well for us.

I'm curious, tho - what does your training week look like? Do you have a rigid plan or is it more fluid from week to week, month to month? Please do tell - either in the comments or a blog post of your own!

eventers lesson in the rain

Another day another lesson recap. Lately my riding has been mostly limited to lessons or events. It's been such a flurry of activity in preparation for moving up to BN, and a balancing act between being ready and souring the mare. Luckily she shows no signs of burning out and, to the contrary, is hungry for more. Game mare is game. 

We have our second BN outing this weekend at Waredaca (anyone else going?), then a little lull before an event at Tranquility on the 21st, followed by a longer break from competition for pretty much the month of July. (But oooh boy we've got plans for July!!!!)

mare awaits her doom with pricked ears (and hay. always hay!)

In the meantime, let's talk about our recent ride with Dan. I'm really loving that it's become a weekly thing (just don't ask my wallet about it, k?), and his lessons nicely complement my weekly lessons with P from OF. Plus riding in both negates any perceived need to jump on my own. Which, for the record, I've never minded - but having professional eyes on the ground (esp as we raise the bar) is always reassuring. 

This lesson was a trial too since we've had lots of (much needed) rain and it drizzled the entire ride, but the footing held up mostly ok. My philosophy about riding in weather is: 'if you would show in it, you should train in it.' Plus I wanted to get a feel for Isabel's confidence in sloppy conditions, just in case we face them at an event. Turns out she's fine. Good girl!

blurry mare is still cute

We warmed ourselves up, tho Dan instructed me in the canter (#canterstrugglebusforlife). He observed that I was trying harder to sit down (I really really am trying!) and that I needed to let go more with the reins while doing so. The mare needs to carry herself, and I can't balance on the reins - esp the inside. 

His recommendation is to just transition back and forth from trot to canter - not holding the canter for very long (as it's likely to become flatter and more difficult to sit the longer I fuss), and only cantering from a very organized trot - no rushing! 

Then it was jump time! Our exercise was kinda a mish mash between last week's and the bending line from a few weeks ago. One outside line had a bounce then 4 strides to an oxer, and two large cross rails made a bending line through the center. 

deceptively simple, no?

We warmed up trotting to the left over the white X, left turn circling around to trot the white X again, then bending right to the red/purple X in 4. Guys. That bend. It was no fucking joke. And I rode Isabel directly into the standard and the poor thing stopped. I couldn't believe it. I rode my game horse sideways into the fence and she didn't want to stop but had no other choice (or really any clue what I wanted). Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Sorry pony!!

We started again and I actually *steered* and she jumped it fine-ish in 5. Dan said the 5 was ok for trotting in, but that I needed way more outside leg to make the turn without relying so much on reins. He said if the horse is against my hands going into the first fence, there's no way I'll be able to turn it using reins anyway. It has to come from my body. 

you can see the Xs here. getting 4 in that bend was NO JOKE. 

We repeated this line for a while - trotted in once or twice more then started cantering in, at which point Dan definitely wanted the 4 - but without jumping the fences on an angle or turning midair. Very tough - that extra 5th stride was suuuuuper inviting haha. 

He also wanted our canter to be super organized too, and wanted us taking our time to establish the right canter. This kinda confused me bc last week he talked about the strength required to carry the super collected canter and that I needed to be economical in my approach... but I guess it's a balancing act just like everything else. I should NOT approach the jump without being in the right canter - but I also should NOT circle endlessly to establish that canter.

two-toned saddle nicely hides the wetness, but the saddle pad is visibly quite damp

We continued this theme after switching directions - cantering into the red/purple X on the right lead, bend left to the white X in 4. Readers might recall that left turns are tougher for my right-side dominant mare... Izzy was amazing tho and actually got her lead every time! 

It was all about developing the correct canter. Dan wanted us starting from a very organized, collected trot - interestingly, the same trot we worked on with Kirsten a few days prior. Very reassuring to have the same concepts arise with different trainers! 

I was only allowed to canter from the right trot - and the canter had to come immediately, no fast trot steps! Done correctly, the resulting canter was slow and collected with that 'jump' Dan wants to see. He also wanted me raising Isabel's poll - both in trot and canter. He said my problems with finding distances happen when Izzy's poll gets too low. Cue a huge light bulb moment for me!

Kaitlyn demonstrates the line exercise from oxer to bounce (sorry no media of me riding!)

Finally, we got to move on to the 'fun' stuff. Dan likes starting lessons with challenging exercises that force the horse and rider to be organized and powerful on a small canter. Then he finishes with an exercise where you can really open up the stride and let 'em go. 

We started on the right lead through the bounce, then a forward 4 to the oxer. The 4 had to be REALLY forward too - and a couple times I was afraid we wouldn't make it. But all that work on the canter had Isabel really sitting back and pushing, so she had more than enough power. We were directed to let go as soon as we got to the bounce, and I actually just held the mane with one hand the whole way down the line. Yay for honest ponies that travel in straight lines!

Then we turned it around to jump the oxer off a short left turn in a competition canter (ie forward), 4 strides to the bounce. Dan said the 4 would be shorter in this direction and was proved correct when we demolished the first bounce element haha. He didn't mind that tho since I let Isabel adjust herself (tho he added a placing pole before the bounce).

We did this once more (and it felt like we were FLYING!!!!!) before calling it a day. 

soggy mare is not amused

He told us about the motivation behind his lesson plans: saying a competition canter needs to have a longer stride full of power. You can always adjust to collect at the last moment - but it's much harder (if not impossible) to add power at the last moment (he used the example of coming to a wide oxer off a short turn - pretty much impossible if you're under-powered). 

So he has us develop that power on a small collected canter first, so that we can maintain it after opening the canter up. Methinks this has repercussions for my stadium warm up plan at events lol.... 

bio-mechanics lesson: spinous processes + bend

I rode with Kirsten the bio-mechanics clinician from Florida again this weekend, and per usual there isn't any media from the lesson (unless you include those giraffe pics posted on Monday haha). But we talked about anatomy so I found semi-supporting graphics via our friend google. (Didn't quiiiiite find what I wanted, but hopefully you'll get the picture anyway.)

Onto the good stuff. Kirsten observed us walking for approx 0.02 milliseconds before concluding: we are still very heavy on the forehand with Izzy's whole front end balancing way far forward over her forelegs. 

our april confo shot is a good example of this

This, um. Well this shouldn't really come as a surprise. 

I told her about our recent focus on 'inside bend' too and she decided that we'd start our ride with what she calls a 'therapeutic' shoulder in while staying on a circle. Not to be confused with a competition-style shoulder in, this was more about achieving lift through the shoulders and ultimately shifting weight back off the forehand. 

Which meant we had to discuss what 'lift through the shoulders' actually means (it should be noted that lessons with Kirsten can be quite lecture-dense, covering topics on theory and anatomy etc.). 

image via google

Disclaimer: please bear with me here as I have zero background in anatomy and am only trying to regurgitate what Kirsten told me. If I get something wrong please say so in the comments (or snicker mercilessly from your side of the computer - your call lol!). 

Ok, that disclaimer aside, my understanding is that those little protrusions from the top of each vertebra are called spinous processes. When the spine is straight, they point straight up. When the horse is bending correctly, there is lateral flexion in the vertebra, but the spinous processes remain upright. However - more often, the horse is NOT bent correctly and the spinous processes kinda twist out to one side (in the opposite direction of the bend). 

image via google

So let's say I'm trying to achieve a 'therapeutic' shoulder in with Isabel while tracking left. And let's say she's very heavy on her forehand (obvi). The resulting feeling might be that her inside (left) side feels higher bc her spine is kinda twisted out to the right. Does that make sense? 

Therefore my objective is to make both sides even while maintaining the bend. Meaning her spinous processes stay upright through the bend. Which then allows her to 'lift' her front end and get more 'push' off her front feet while allowing her hind feet to spend more time on the ground with each step. 

Ok, are you still with me? Writing this is actually a bit challenging bc I'm not entirely sure I understand and am kinda confusing myself haha... 

'this is a sick joke' - isabel

The directives for me as a rider aren't much different than what we've heard before (always reassuring!) - but Kirsten's explanations perhaps added clarity to the picture. 

The reins needed to be SHORT and STABLE. I even held on to the front of my saddle for the first 10-15 minutes. Isabel fussed quite a bit, but could only pull against herself. I eventually let go of the saddle after getting the feel for it, but the reins were to stay neutral. 

My hips needed to be pointed in the direction of bend, and I needed more weight in my thighs than in my seat. The aids were mostly distributed between my inside calf (at the girth) and thigh, and tons of outside thigh. Outside calf kinda floated out in no man's land unless Isabel's haunches drifted that way and needed a push back in. 

Kirsten mentioned that I should use my legs to create a channel for Isabel, which isn't a new concept. Except that she meant using my upper thighs in particular as a way to literally hold Isabel's spinous processes upright. Somehow that seems to make more sense to me?

Kirsten said my weight should be distributed evenly from side to side, but I have a really strong (incorrect) tendency to heavily weight the outside, so I needed to think back to my lesson with Grant Schneidman about weighting just the inside leg. 

I also tried to remember to keep my chin up, core engaged and shoulders open, as I was concentrating so hard that everything got tense and curled up - kinda like my horse, go figure!

'fml' - isabel

The directives for the horse actually kept changing. We stayed on a circle the whole time, but everything else needed to change in rapid succession. Kirsten said that Isabel's too smart to keep at one approach for too long since she'll just keep coming up with new evasions (shoulder out this way! overbent that way! flexibility in every dimension but the one you want!). 

So we'd stay in that 'shoulder in' type position until Isabel would kinda get stuck in her evasions. Then we'd try going counter bent (really, the direction of bend didn't matter since the objective of keeping her spinous processes upright remained the same). We'd walk, or we'd trot - going for inside bend here, outside bend there. 

Isabel's favorite evasions were speed and going way far behind the vertical. Pretty typical for us. The trick became getting a couple good steps, then immediately transitioning to a different gait or changing bend to get a couple more good steps, then transitioning again.

'seriously tho. wtf is this noise?' - isabel

So what was a 'good' step? This is maybe the part I'm fuzziest on... which honestly is not at all how I like to leave a lesson. But it is what it is, and I *think* I understand. 

It was a struggle too bc each good step came with a fair amount of 'chaos' from Isabel bc everything felt so different for her (and I suspect it was quite a bit of work). So parsing out the feeling I wanted to replicate was difficult. 

But my impression was that I'm looking for the following feelings or visual indicators:

• Isabel must be going very slow - whether walk or trot, she can only currently find her true balance at speeds much slower than her natural proclivity
• Staccato steps - the 'lift' in Isabel's shoulders is derived from her push off the ground with her front legs. When she's really pushing (and going slow enough to do so) it almost feels like one step at a time. As she gets stronger the steps will presumably feel less disjointed. (staccato def: each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others)
• The base of her neck directly in front of the saddle really filled in and became much wider. The dip that is usually visible there actually filled in to look more like a mound (almost haha). 

So really it was kind of a tough lesson. Isabel had more than her fair share of frustration, especially when I was trying to figure out what in the fresh hell I was supposed to be doing. 

It was interesting tho - and obviously ties in quite neatly with the work I'm doing with my regular week-to-week trainers (esp Dan and his constant insistence that I 'lift' Isabel's shoulders). We'll see if I can recreate the magic haha. 

Sorry this was kind of a long post that may or may not make any sense... but hopefully it will serve as a point of reference. 

grid time @ OF

This weekend's lesson at OF was perhaps the first return to lesson normalcy since Isabel's flu back in April. We had been either just getting back into work, or deep into show prep mode - kinda coloring the expectations etc for the lesson. But this weekend was just a regular old lesson with nothing big and important either before or after. It was a nice change! 

Plus, there were only four of us riding - me and B, plus two teens who are nice riders and fun to lesson with. And since we were all pretty good about following directions and moving through each exercise smoothly, we got to do a little more jumping than normal. Woo hoo! 

isabel apparently dozing pre-lesson

There is some video from the ride - but nothing spectacular (not that I have high standards) enough to share. Our sainted videographers maybe weren't having the best day lol. Eh... sometimes ya win and sometimes ya don't with video, and beggars can't be choosers right? 

yes emma, i think your hands are far enough forward for that X (also, close your fingers!)

Anyway, I digress. We warmed up trotting an X (complete with placing pole), then added an oxer on a bending line. I was working on letting go over the fences, and while my general positioning couldn't exactly be considered 'classical' (or 'correct' lol) I think exaggerating it a little bit will help commit the feeling to muscle memory. 

ummm wtf?

Isabel continued her trend of being unimpressed by lower fences - as evidenced by the above gem. For the record, we didn't knock the pole - it was intentionally left down while we warmed up. And what is Isabel even doing? She's kinda famous for cracking her back over the merest of cross rails, so I think the concept of 'cantering' a fence is new to her lol. 

that's a little better

She was very good all the same tho - no snarkiness either. And I found that after working so hard to push my damn hands forward over the fences, she was more willing to go for a longer spot when we didn't quite get the distance right (rather than squishing in an ugly last stride). 

Then we moved on to a super fun grid exercise that was actually reminiscent of our last lesson with Dan. A one stride grid (set at 18", with a trot pole going in) led to three options: bending either direction or staying straight ahead. The three options from left to right were the "liver pool", my favorite ever roll top (ugh), and the rainbow jump.

fun grid

I was pretty excited to work on this exercise too. It was interesting tho, riding it with trainer P after riding it with Dan. P is much less concerned about the number of strides between fences. They're measured, sure, and she'll tell you what they measured to - and she also expects her students to be counting strides (and frequently quizzes riders after a course: "how many strides did you get?"). 

three options out of the grid

But she's very much a proponent of riding what you got vs. riding to a specific number every time. In other words, she wants me making adjustments to my plan if we get a tight jump in, for example. Especially with the bending lines she didn't want me riding in saying 'I will get 3 here.' She wanted me to 'allow' the 3 to happen. Slight difference, but important none the less. 

It was especially obvious when I landed out of the one stride kicking and clucking and chasing like a maniac - to get an ulgy 4 anyway, oops. She instructed me to just 'let it happen' and I rode much more quietly the next time and boom, the 3 strides was right there. 

apparently still defensive about that roll top lol

It was mildly hilarious going to the roll top tho - as I was apparently quite willing to 'allow' an extra 5th stride to happen... but Isabel had other plans and took a long-ish spot after 4 strides anyway. She's such a good girl! Not sure why this particular fence always causes me so many issues, but whatever. Hadn't jumped it since last November (when it was backwards and thus looked like a much less scary gate instead) so it's good to get over it again. 

post lesson bath time

So it was a fun lesson. The fences were all set around maybe 2'3" - but they were good fences for *thinking* and staying present with the ride. And all four horse/rider pairs seemed to have productive rides, even when everything didn't necessarily go immediately to plan. I definitely appreciate the smaller lesson size! What do you think is the best group size for a jumping lesson? Does it depend on how long the lesson is?

'i am become giraffe'

Isabel says that she's not actually a horse. No no. She's a giraffe. They eat from trees, ya know - and don't do all that horse nonsense (like carrying their own selves and bending and other similar useless noise). But ya know - I kinda commiserate haha... and on this particular Monday, I kinda wish I could just say 'nope, not today - today I'm a giraffe....' 

#majestic