various expressions + a little dressage

So it finally happened for Charlie: his first 7-day-period to include 3 trailer trips. I honestly avoid shipping out that frequently (twice a week is the preferred max, once a week is the most common) but one day was just for a trail ride last Monday that followed a 2 week period of no travel.

And the lesson written about yesterday got Charlie outside during daylight hours in a big arena with solid all-weather footing. Definitely preferable to scrambling around lesson kiddos in our narrow indoor at home. So I'm thinking these experiences have been adding to Charlie's enjoyment of riding life, rather than detracting. There's been no evidence of sourness in any case, he's been fantastic everywhere he goes!

"does this angle make my nose look big??" - charlie

Anyway, after establishing that the horse's foot soreness had in fact cleared up at our OF lesson the day prior, I opted to keep my lesson appointment with dressage trainer C at TM for Sunday. Getting to see both of my trainers in one weekend felt so luxurious lol - it's been a LONG time since that happened!

All we needed was a lesson with Dan to complete the trifecta haha, but he's down in Aiken for the winter (and I still haven't figured out how we're gonna make that happen anyway bc the new farm doesn't allow outside trainers and Dan's farm is WAY too far away to haul for regular lessons. Not sure yet how to resolve that pickle...).

more "charlie thru the trailer doors" pics!!! one of these days i'll have to collect these pics from all our usual haunts and make you guess which picture/background corresponds to which farm haha

After updating trainer C on how Charlie has been going since she last saw him, we got to work pretty quickly. We're sorta to the place now where we've got a bit of a system - a bit of a regular way of going. Which makes it kinda easier to write about since it isn't like this massive wall of bullet points that I have to record in a post lest I risk forgetting them lol.

Aside from continuing on with all the other odds and ends I've written about previously, we worked on two main exercises in this ride. The first was actually really reminiscent of work I did with Stephen Birchall on Isabel. And actually kinda similar to work I did with Dan too... kinda haha.

he loves looking out those windows. izzy always did too. i think she always wanted to gallop up the hill. maybe charlie does too?

Basically C agreed with trainer P's assessment from the day prior that - we've got the forward but now I'm kinda running him past his balance a bit. Charlie's figured out how to go long in his body (as opposed to having a very short, braced neck, tho honestly that still happens too haha). Now we need to work on helping him learn to adjust and compress himself.

The idea was, while trotting around with the occasional 20m circle, work on bringing the trot down to almost walk. Use my voice, use quicker prompter half halts, try to aim for everything happening a little faster, a little shorter. Almost thinking staccato about everything from Charlie's steps to my leg and rein aids. Then ride forward. And rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

This is basically heavy lifting for Charlie, it's pretty hard work. And, much like Isabel before him, he figured out the 'ride forward' part much  more quickly than the 'compress and shorten' part haha, and maybe got a little rushy. That's ok, tho. I just gotta keep my own focus and help him out as much as possible, while avoiding letting any of my aids get long and heavy (esp rein aids).

tired pony has tired legs!!!

The other exercise was intended to help with Charlie's canter transitions, which have remained a sticking point (except when they're not haha - it's very day-to-day with Charlie sometimes). The idea was to ride a 20m circle at the short end of the arena - then while crossing the centerline, change directions for a 15m circle. Then after completing the 15m circle, change directions again to return to the original 20m circle and immediately ask for the canter depart.

The circle figures look a little bit like a snowman - a smaller circle stacked on top of a larger circle. And the idea with putting the canter depart right on top of the second change of bend is that the circle exercises encourage Charlie to lift his shoulders. Which, incidentally, his shoulders seem to be what blocks his canter departs. They're so damn heavy and earthbound, he can't get them up and out of the way very easily.

It took me a little while to get the timing right - I was delaying my canter aid a bit too long as I wanted to finish asking for a change of bend first.... but that wasn't quite right, I needed to be quicker about changing back to the original circle and right away, BAM, canter. When I got it right tho, Charlie stepped up beautifully into both leads. Good pony! We'll need a little practice but trainer C thinks we should repeat this exercise often.

charlie is nothing if he is not handsome #callmebiasedifyouwant

It's funny bc it probably looked like a VERY wild and woolly lesson. Both of these exercises got Charlie working hard, but also maybe feeling a little rushy. And our steering suffered for it lol.... But basically any time we focus on any one thing with Charlie right now, something else must be sacrificed. That's just green horses I guess.

He was great tho. Minimal snark about the canter depart - especially when I got my timing right. And I'm kinda excited by the prospect of moving on to the next step in our trot work. We've got the "forward" so now we get to play with it and make it do tricks. Compressing his frame is going to be really hard for Charlie, but hopefully really good for him too.