riding the footprints

It’s always interesting to me when a relatable or timely training concept somehow serendipitously keeps surfacing through various channels. 

At last week’s schooling show, my new coach spent some time discussing how and why pulling back on the reins can be so counterproductive on the flat — by basically shortening the horse’s neck and therefore shifting longitudinal balance in exactly the opposite way we want.

stuck riding indoors bc of rain… spying jealously on the horses outside

Then, not two hours later, I got a stark reminder of this during our show jumping round between fences 1 & 2, when I felt like I needed a strong “whoa!” and ended up with a face full of Dooz Ears and a scrubby distance to the jump. 

It was a perfect demonstration to sorta reinforce what Woodge had said, that taking advantage of the lateral bend could have maybe worked better for us there vs shortening Doozy’s neck.

grateful to have the option tho for sure!

Almost as if by some unseen universal synergistic force, later that same day, Gwyneth McPherson expounded on “Why We Don’t Pull in Dressage” in her Horse Nation column:

The more the rider pulls, or pulls and lets go and pulls again, the more the horse goes on the forehand, pushes the hindlegs out behind, and leans into the bridle in an attempt to maintain his balance.

 

unrelated pic for posterity: photo of my furious cat after i had to give him medicine LOL

So. Naturally, this concept would be our inspiration and homework for integrating into this week’s solo schooling rides. Which, sadly, were almost all indoors bc of all the recent rain (and outdoor footing that transforms into bottomless quicksand in the wet…).

I also reached waaayyyyy back into the archives to pull out an exercise to help sorta work on this idea: the “ride your footprints” precision / direction exercise I learned from a David O’Connor clinic back in 2017. Funny enough — that post actually features an action shot of our new coach, when she was still on her way to becoming a 5* rider (tho, I guess at that point it was still 4*??). 

pictured: me enabling bad habits bc “haha cute!”

There’s something strangely meditative about being so deeply focused on exactly *where* each footfall lands, and it’s a shockingly great exercise for getting the horse completely on the aids in a calibrated and almost harmonious way. 

Theoretically, I should always ride like that. But ya know. Realistically I can’t always walk and chew gum at the same time… and it’s hard to sustain that level of focus on literal footfalls. 

consequences: you can juusssst barely see the top of my brand new sunscreen bottle that she absolutely crunched beyond repair. womp.

But then again… This is sorta the core underlying missing piece in helping Doozy travel straightly and find her longitudinal balance. Which, not coincidentally, has been almost the entire focus of all these lessons on remedial trotting, more or less. 

And the practice paid off when we showed up for our lesson yesterday with a cool calm collected Doozy, who was happy to prove that — actually — she CAN trot nicely and in balance! 

moving on! look who graduated back to tying at the trailer in a flat halter!!!

Tho ya know, it probably didn’t hurt that we’d also had our now-quarterly saddle fitter appt earlier that day, in which the fitter removed a fair amount of wool now that Doozy is a bit more, er, plush from the spring grass. Mare appreciates the extra breathing room! 

more unrelated pics: a giant storm blew thru and doozy insisted on investigating all the wind-swept detritus

It’s interesting bc in our last lesson, prior to the schooling show, we spent a LOT of time on transitions, particularly with respect to not letting Doozy spool out in a racing unbalanced trot. 

But when I worked on that as homework leading up to the schooling show, I’m not sure it really did us any favors. It seems like sometimes Doozy really just needs room and space to move out, and to not always be constricted into starting and stopping.

bc some of it was scary omg

In this week’s lesson, it felt like we were able to take the same “idea” of frequent transitions to help control speed and balance, and transform it into this sort of “riding the bend” approach instead of actual gait transitions. And not like, whipping Doozy around tight turns or whatever. But just that deep focus on line of travel and equal application of full-body aids vs constantly feeling like I need to hold the mare back. 

“who put that branch there?? and WHY??” — suspicious biscuit

And honestly I think we got better results! Doozy was more relaxed, and even in the moments when she wanted to spurt off or whatever, it felt like I was able to apply all my aids in a calibrated way that didn’t make her go bouncing off the walls. Yay!

Plus, the transitions we DID do seemed a lot more fluid and uphill (ish). That’s kinda been a recent tricky spot for us — it’s hard to get a soft upward transition when the horse is tense and short in the neck, ya know? 

lol it apparently passed the taste test!

It was funny tho… A few times — especially in canter — I’d feel like I’d set us on the right track or line, and then soften… And Doozy would **instantly** wobble and drift off it. Like her shoulders have their own gravity, I swear. And a few times I was definitely a bit too late in preparing for our turns etc. 

But it was all good practice, AND — good enough that we got to do some actual real (sort of) jumping in this lesson, yay!! Nothing crazy, and still just working on the same exact fundamentals of line of travel and positional balance to little jumps, one at a time and halting after. 

Still good, tho. Still exciting lol. Exactly the sort of patient detail-oriented practice that I’m not always disciplined enough to see through without supervision. While simultaneously exactly the sort of good clean correct + confidence building repetition that Doozy benefits so much from. 

released back into the dramatic wilds

It’s also exciting that this new coach is quick to adapt and evolve her approach to Doozy every session based on what’s working and where the horse is on that particular day — vs adhering to some sort of rigid textbook version of “how it should be.” 

Doozy isn’t necessarily a complicated horse, but it’s maybe easy to overlook her best qualities (being a brave biscuit who wants to color inside the lines) when she’s unspooling on a chaotic rampage lol. So it’ll take somebody with a flexible and open minded approach to really help us dial it in. 

And in the meantime, now that oppressive summer is starting to breathe down our necks, we’re likely to stick with the “bite sized” scale outings + adventures for the foreseeable future. Perfect time to really settle in on the detail work!