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Tuesday, April 19, 2022

another lesson

It's been a couple years now since I've considered my horse pretty much "trained." By which I mean: he's reliable, consistent, and capable of "doing the thing" in a predictable and reasonably correct manner. 

Charlie can go long, or go short. He can jump basically any style of jump. Execute just about any imaginable variation of course or grid. He's been there, done that, and has been pretty darn fun along the way. I like it! 

cantering my little pony around
Tho. There are two kinda big caveats to that whole point of view: 

Numero uno: Yes, he's trained. But... "trained" to the maximum of my own abilities. Which you can take to mean whatever you like, but I understand this to mean that I've taught the horse basically everything I know. And we've crossed into the territory where he's kinda figured out everything I *don't* know too haha. 

legit the first oxer we've jumped for this new trainer
In some ways, this means he's gotten better than me. Like his eye is better than mine, he probably reads a distance better than I do. In other ways.... Well, my ability (or lack there of) is more of a limiting factor for him. 

Which is kinda the whole basis of my second caveat: Charlie doesn't have his own discipline. Well, let's be real, NO horse does, right? Horses aren't out there sketching up a calendar for the year, marking down a training plan. Capitalizing on good ground conditions for high intensity cardio, or fitting in the stretching and weight lifting of dressage bc it's important and we have to even if it kinda sucks. 

same warm up fence, just higher and vertical. also a nice example of why oxers are useful for charlie lol
I've made a big deal of "kinda giving up on dressage" for a couple years now, too. Mostly bc.... I kinda suck at it. I have a habit of getting drawn into riding the front of the horse at the expense of... well, everything else. Which, as you might imagine, creates a behind-the-leg horse that isn't super fun to jump. And since Charlie is my jumping horse.... Eh, I've prioritized, right? 

oooh guys, charlie learned a new trick and is pretty into it!
But the pendulum always swings back again. Everything old is new again, and some lessons just don't stay learnt. For right now, that means I'm figuring out that "trained" isn't the same thing as "fit." Charlie KNOWS how to do literally everything I want him to do. Inside and out, front to back. Eyes closed and a hand hoof tied behind his back. 

But physically? Ehhhhhhhhh let's just say his topline needs work, yes? And sadly, it turns out you can't just pay the vet for another injection to build that muscle LOL.

jump 1 on course --- another oxer yay!
I wrote a little bit about my thoughts on that in my last post. And... Ya know. It turns out, hill work and walking probably aren't a silver bullet for a horse that is.... turned out on hills for 12hrs a day. Maybe for a horse that doesn't get as much turn out in as giant of a pasture with as many other horses as Charlie gets, it could be a game changer. Actually -- it WOULD be a game changer for Charlie if this wasn't his lifestyle bc I'm 99.9% positive he would not be a sound horse without it. 

We need something more tho. The next step. Which, for right now, for us, for me and my skill level and with the available patience and tolerance of my sweet-but-kinda-sick-of-my-shit OTTB... Means... Ugh. Flatwork

fun with fillers
Rather than thinking of our flatwork days as "dressage" rides where we endlessly cycle through 20m circles and test patterns or movements..... I'm trying to be better about shifting more quickly between exercises -- and therefore muscle groups. So, not just trotting straight for 5, 10 or 20min, like one might also do in a "fitness" ride, I want to be better about switching gears. 

And it's all the same usual stuff, too, right? Transitions. Transitions within gait. Transitions between two gaits -- or three gaits! More halts, more rein backs. More lateral work. And all while *round* and *in front of the leg.* Theoretically LOL.

jumping in all sorts of quiet, about to chop in a 3rd without breaking a sweat in this 36' distance....
Again, obviously none of this is new. But it takes some discipline to think it out. Not only to remember and stick to the plan... But to have fun with it and make it fun for Charlie too. 

Like... In the past, when I've thought about rapid fire transitions and shifts between exercises... I maybe focused too heavily on the "rapid fire" part -- at the expense of frazzling and frustrating Charlie when I wanted him to be snappy despite possibly muddled aids from me. So now I'm trying to keep everything smooth and clear. Making sure that -- at all times -- Charlie understands what I'm asking, and understands that he is being good even as I continue asking for more and different things. 

then back around the turn for another 3, but this time over 48' lolz... who said charlie wasn't adjustable?
So far, so good tho. At least, I hope haha. And we got a nice proof of concept in our most recent lesson with trainer-on-trial new trainer Kelly. We shipped out to Tranquillity, and she ran the lesson a bit like a show simulation: everyone warmed up by riding a figure-8 over the same jump over and over again while she built it up in height and width etc. Then we went out and rode the actual course cold. 

On one hand, I feel like Charlie and I have extensive experience with this style of ride, considering we probably competed more than we lessoned last year.... But eh, it was fun. Not perfect, obviously -- Charlie was bored and sassy about all the repetitions over the same one warm-up jump (see the above pic of his "new trick" for reference lol...). Plus we chopped in the add in the 2 stride in and out after I botched a turn on the actual course.... 


Actually, tho, overall it felt pretty good. The jumps were all somewhere between 2'9 and 3', and were all pretty ho hum. Charlie was in a nice rhythm. Felt close enough to 'in front of my leg' to be good 'nuff. The jumps came up nicely for the most part, and any adjustments otherwise weren't too too dramatic. Ya know. Basically just a solid course. For us, lol. 

And it's cool, ya know? It's kinda crazy to think about, but... where Charlie and I are right now is... Actually somewhat new territory for me. For my entire riding history, I've either been learning to ride on something experienced, been the experienced rider on a horse learning its job, or been trying to move up with a horse I made myself. I've never actually cruised at altitude tho, if that makes sense. 

But that's our goal now. Was actually last year's plan too -- tho first I had to sorta learn how to have fun and be relaxed again after two years working on a failed move up. And it's actually kinda exciting! Kinda nice to just work on the details, just enjoying it and getting better at it. 





7 comments:

  1. Back in the day the old masters didn't really discriminate between flat and jump work. I remember one (I can't remember who) talk about practicing tempi changes down a jump line.

    Maybe we need to go back to that?

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    1. lol somehow i suspect charlie might rather lay down and die than go back to that haha...hahaha. sometimes he thinks even *one* change is just way too much to ask lol sigh

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  2. Sounds like things are going pretty great for you guys! The fitness will come, it's just the start of spring.
    My trainer growing up always said that jumping was just flatwork with obstacles in the way. It's unfortunate how true that is. Lol!

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  3. My trainer says the same thing Stacie's does around flatwork with obstacles. I've been thinking about how we frame flatwork and how it never gets the time / credit it deserves - is it because it's really hard to do correctly? Or boring?

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  4. OK, so get this. I was having some trouble with Eli the other day. We are still learning each other and were having a particularly messy day around a small course. He would bulge, suck back, hop up, just general bleh. But we still got to each jump in a good spot. They were small, 2'6" max, but every distance was good.

    I was getting frustrated and my inability to ride and trainer M said, "what matters most?" I dutifully replied: "flat work between the jumps!" and he said, "No. The jumps." WHAT!? His point was that as long as we were getting to the jumps with impulsion and in a good spot, it didn't matter what was happening between them. That would start to work itself out.

    This is a complete 180 from what he (and every trainer) says about jumping being flat work with obstacles. But I think his point here is that we are jumpers, it doesn't matter what it looks like, and once Eli sites the jump he knows/does his job and we get over it. I argued that we couldn't be competitive in a jump off if I can't make tidy turns, but again he said that will come.

    So this week, I've just been focusing on keeping Eli forward and in front of my leg. I'm hoping to jump again today, so we'll see how it goes when I stop worrying about what's happening between the jumps.

    Of course, I will still work to improve flatwork and fitness. I can't change my brain that quickly!

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  5. I'm still working on base fitness for Bird -- I lost a month and a half with a broken wrist this year -- but right now we're flatting with a lot of laterals. Current overall goal beyond fitness is to get a nicer, bigger gait while lateraling.

    Bird understands the basic movements and he's pretty good at doing them in a walk or a not-flashy trot -- about 1/2 of what I expect he's capable of. So we're working on a "2/3" effort in trot right now... and starting to ask for laterals in canter on an ongoing basis. Bird thinks shoulder-in in canter is HARD, SO HARD, but he is giving it a yeoman effort and he's improving as he fits up.

    Also, sometimes we just do... lateral tricks. Can he leg yield zig-zag up the centerline? Can he do 90 or 180 turns on the haunches (walking)? Can he dance his butt with haunches-in? Haunches-in left, haunches-in right, haunches-in left? Can he shoulder-in, haunches-in (same side), shoulder-in, haunches-in down a long side? Can he shoulder-in down quarter line a ways, then straighten slightly and leg yield to rail? Can he maintain a shoulder-in while adjusting the trot? Can he maintain a haunches-in while adjusting the trot? Can he maintain a shoulder-in THROUGH A TRANSITION? Upwards? Downwards? I know none of this stuff is in a dressage test, but it does give me a way to see how... steady my bend is and how good my control of it is and how clear my aids are. Also it's more interesting for Bird than just drill drill drill. He is positively pleased with himself when I ask him to do stuff he knows how to do -- I am "Hey, can you?" and he's "Yes! Yes, I can! I AM SO SMART!" (Or sometimes he says "Ooof, Lady, Dis Too Hard" in which case we work on strength and clarity and plan to revisit it in a few weeks.)

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  6. I'm definitely guilty of focusing way too much on getting snappy transitions or pushing into a new movement because physically they CAN do it, but they truthfully aren't ready to do it well. Especially with a horse that's naturally behind the leg, it's super exciting when they give you those moments, and idk about you, but I always start thinking "more! more! more!" without considering the fitness that's needed to create something greater. Definitely had a moment mid-ride a couple weeks ago where I legit told myself to settle down and let the horse breathe through the exercise.

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