Hilltop Dressage

It's safe to say that I was pretty discouraged after the disaster of our little schooling dressage show last month. I felt a bit like a moth beating myself senseless against a screen door, trying and failing to reach that sweet sweet lamp light. Dressage is.... hard, yo.

this farm is not ugly

I'm really happy with the coaching and help I've had both in learning more about dressage myself, while also trying to bring along my graceless brontosaurus. Dressage trainer C has been an invaluable resource. I'm definitely not trying to replace her or completely shift tactics or anything like that. But scheduling can be such a hustle sometimes, tho, ya know?

Plus, there was something else about that dressage show that really had me shook. Basically, I know what Charlie is and what he isn't. I'm used to his awkward way of going, and my whole team and I continue to be so thrilled with how far he's progressed over the last few years.

the amount of wildlife that has taken up residence in my truck is mildly alarming at times. this spider was pretty tho!

That's all well and fine and whatnot, but my worry is that we've all become a little blinded to how the horse appears to strangers. The first impressions are... not always great haha. But in a dressage show, they're everything, right?

So after this judge at the schooling show basically tore me apart for presenting my horse to her in his condition at that moment, I realized that we might be in for a rude awakening in any actual recognized or rated shows haha. And thus: a new idea was born. I wanted to seek out a fresh set of eyes to help assess and evaluate where we are in our training and condition, and help inject some fresh mojo in breaking through those persistent issues.

it's definitely butterfly season in maryland - these tiger swallowtails are EVERYWHERE!

Which is a long way of saying, we decided to haul up to Hilltop Farm up the Route 1 corridor for a lesson with their gold medalist Grand Prix trainer Jess.

And guys. It was awesome haha.

i spy with my little eye, a Charlesaurus in the grooming bays!

I mean, first of all the farm is friggin gorgeous. It's everything you would expect an uber fancy dressage barn to be. Pristine grounds. Luxurious rubber pavers lining all the aisleways (even the gravel drive seemed shockingly cushy). Wash room bays fully kitted out and available for use by ship-in riders. The whole nine yards, ya know?

Which proved useful bc the heavens basically opened up in a torrential thunderstorm the moment I parked. So Charlie and I quickly hustled through the deluge to get inside the safety and dry of the barn. I usually do all my setting up and tacking and whatnot at the trailer, but this honestly wasn't a terrible substitution LOL.

these wash racks have it all - cross ties, rubber flooring, hooks to hang things.... we maybe looked a bit homeless since i brought in all the stuff i'd usually keep at the trailer due to the rain

For the lesson itself, I don't actually have a ton of explicit notes. At this particular point in my riding career, honestly I feel like there's a such a distinct limit on what I can achieve myself - compared to how badly I need/crave real time instruction and guidance. In other words, I really just want more frequent lessons.

I don't want to have to remember 18 different subtle insights on my body position, core, application and timing of aids, while also trying to ride the appropriate figures and movements etc. Instead I just want someone telling me what to do, when, and how haha, in real time.

i've only seen rings like this on youtube haha

To this end, Jess had me go about my warm up mostly on my own at first, before identifying some key areas to work on. These mostly revolved around known issues and weaknesses that I've worked on with dressage trainer C too -- something that's always reassuring when different trainers agree haha.

the other trainer was in there schooling his upper level horse too. i made charlie watch haha

Highlighted issues were:

- The connection isn't very good bc I don't hold a steady contact and allow little moments of slack into the reins
- Charlie's tempo is actually a bit too fast (he was very nicely forward for this ride, compared to the slug he often is at home...)
- I've previously worked on getting him to "squirt forward" when I put my leg on, but perhaps he's ready to graduate from that and I need to instead start focusing on steadiness in tempo.
- On a related note, our transitions are too hollow -- a symptom of the poor connection and inconsistent tempo. Canter transitions were particularly wretched.
- Our straightness is also kinda a biggie - we have too much bend in the neck and not enough in the body (naturally I told her this shows up in a big way in our jumping too...)
- For some movements, like leg yields, my leg positioning was backwards. I want to swing my inside leg back, but actually need to keep it up by his elbow.
- We're also nowhere near round enough at the canter.

my signal wasn't great so the gps tracking isn't very accurate, but you can get a good idea of the facilities

For me, the biggest takeaways were those first two items: the connection and the tempo.

Tempo is a tricky thing to address with Charlie bc he can be a very different horse in different environments and situations. In some ways he's a lot easier to ride away from home when he's less sure about what's happening and less distracted by wanting to go back to his stall.

For this lesson, he was absolutely on his best behavior. Forward and in front of my leg with minimal effort. Which, obviously, is extremely pleasant to ride haha. It's just not how we normally go. Normally I'm asking for more, more, more. But actually, even tho it felt a little alien, the feeling when we got the tempo right was very good.

the drive home was a bit dicey tho...

The whole idea is to arrive at a tempo and balance wherein Charlie doesn't feel like he's sorta snow-balling somersaulting over his front end. When he gets too fast, he sorta starts running downhill a bit and loses all his adjustability. When I can get him a bit slower in the tempo even as we keep the energy up, it's easier for him to shift more weight behind and carry a longer stride without getting heavy up front. If that makes sense haha.

the conowingo dam is always a joy in nasty weather lol

The other biggie, the connection, is something I'm really excited about. I've had bad hands and bad contact for as long as I've been riding dressage. It's really hard for me to hold a steady contact on any horse bc I'm so rigid and locked through my shoulders and back that I feel like I'm just hanging on the horse. So instead, I compensate by holding a longer rein with sorta floppy forearms that allow a lot of intermittent slack into the reins.

Dressage trainer C has been trying to help me with this for years, but it's just.... hard, ya know? This new coach Jess was actually able to help phrase things a little differently in such a way that I was maybe able to make some good changes.

Basically the issue is in my shoulders. She described the need for my forearms to be almost like "guardrails" or "chopsticks." In other words, fixed solid objects. My fingers can move, and my elbows should be soft and following. But everything in between should basically be still.

back on dry ground, doing our warm up hack with a little poneh. charlie is OBSESSED with these ponies. it's cute bc he's a horse. but.... if he had a mustache and drove a van someone would DEFINITELY call the cops lol

And instead I need to be thinking about giving through my shoulders. For me, I was kinda focusing on the spot between my two shoulder blades. Tho it was tricky haha bc when I'd be thinking about softening my shoulders I'd also inadvertently collapse my core.... So clearly I need to work on developing more independence between those body parts.

Regardless, I'm not sure I ever got it quite right, but even just that subtle shift made a huge difference in Charlie's steadiness. A difference that has stayed with us in all our rides since then too. For me, that's a huge key in determining the success of a ride. Can we reproduce, at least in part, some of the results we got in the lesson? In this case, the answer is definitely yes.

somebody, not naming any names, but somebody may or may not have learned a thing or two about connection

In all our rides since then, Charlie has actually been super. Going forward, in front of the leg, and pretty steady in the bridle. Actually, we finally had another jump lesson with trainer P too (details coming on that) and the #slug was literally nowhere to be found. Charlie was just straight up clicked into gear and a downright pleasure to ride.

I'm not sure all the credit goes to this one single dressage lesson haha. But still, it's always really nice when the horse feels so happy in his work, especially as we feel like we're having little breakthroughs.

So I'm pretty pleased with the lesson and eager to get the next on the schedule. It also helped that the price was ridiculously affordable despite the uber-fanciness and how accomplished and well credentialed the trainers are. It's actually one of the cheapest lessons of all the folks I ride with, go figure. So yea, we'll definitely be back lol.

And maybe one of these days we'll actually be a bit more convincing in the dressage ring in front of strangers lol. Maybe...