Dressage at the Fair

Back to dressage land we go!

As if we ever really left it. Dressage. It's everywhere.

and hot damn, we are really good at it.

So all last week as I was preparing for this show--and by preparing I mean I have no recollection of doing any real work focused towards improving these tests aside from not flailing too badly at the canter--Opie was a spooky hot mess. Dopie is not a spooky horse, so I went out and bought an armful of UlcerGard and started shoving tubes down his throat. It was going to be his first time stabling at a show in a big atmosphere and I wanted him to not be even more of a tweaker than he was already being at home.

Surprise! It didn't do shit. I had a lot of success earlier this summer treating him with ranitidine (Remember when I thought he had pee cancer? Never rule anything out!), but this fancy stuff didn't help with the tension, or the spooking, or the loose nervous poops all day at the show. Possibly he contracted a sporadic, acute form of spooking cancer. Possibly he was feeding off of the hot fucking mess I was all week.

both of us experienced some Feelings about warm up

I was fucking wound up over this show. I'm the type of person that exists on routine, and any deviation out of my familiar comfort zone sends me into a tailspin. I've never stabled at a show before, I'd never shown at this facility before (this facility being the NY state fairgrounds where they were three days out from hosting the state fair), and I was signed up to scribe in between my two tests. Alone, one of those things I could probably handle. All together? Hot mess express.

(Sorry to blog reader Kourtney for being a checked out spazz every time I passed you! Congrats on your giant ribbon!)

Of course, nothing actually went wrong (enough) to validate my anxiety. Does it ever? BM let me raid her trailer the day before to get whatever I needed to set up my stall, and I had been in the barns a couple times before visiting with my barn as they were overnighting for hunter shows so I wasn't completely unfamiliar with what was where. I got in, got set up, got the weaving horse off the trailer and tucked into his cell for the day, got checked in for volunteering, and went to watch some tests.

little horse scopes things out

I took Opie on a walkabout before getting him tacked up for the first test so he wasn't completely blown away by where he was, but he surprised me by being completely chill about the whole thing. He let me ground mount in the middle of the road and then strolled over the warm up and walked around on a long rein checking everything out. When I asked him to go to work, he took a peak out the open sides every now and then, but mostly stayed focused. When I felt like he was ready to go, I looked down at my watch and only seven minutes had passed. Which was nice that he felt good, but it left a lot of time to get trampled by the worst warm up riders of my life before I could escape into the coliseum for our first test.

doping along to warm up. i'm clearly very deeply paying attention.

Training 1

The coliseum's ring is just big enough to stuff a standard dressage court in. They still had a small court set up for this test which left us just enough room to trot up the sides and get up close with the flowered letters, banners, and people in the stands. It didn't leave enough room to go by the open judge's stand which turned out to be the undoing of pretty much every single horse in their first test.

Opie was no different. He trotted in, halted nice and square, and then I asked him to trot off and he was like, "Fuck fucking no, we are not trotting directly up to Satan's altar." I got him going a little wiggly, but as soon as we turned left he spooked hard to the right and then jetted through the corner when I got him turned left. The judge was really understanding of everyone's horses being in probably the spookiest, biggest ring of their lives, and our score was still a 6.5 with the comment, "Square halt. Drifted right before C."

all these pics are from T3, but this is opie giving the judge a hard stare down 

A 7 for the first trot circle, 6.5 for a slightly above the hand (as always) left lead canter depart, 7.5 for the canter (praisejesushallelujah), and then we came down the long side and right as I was about to cue for the trot Opie propped and tried to Nope right out of going past the judge's stand again. He started to back up a step, and I know if I fight him on that he likes to go up instead so I just nudged him forward and stroked his neck, giving up on even getting the trot back, and we sidled on past at the walk. 5.5 with "Abrupt (LOL), falls on forehand."

Mostly 7s for the rest of the test with no more spooking, with all 7s for the collectives except a 6 for submission with confidence circled. Fair enough. "Lovely pair! Keep working on consistent bend in all circles--your straightness is doing really well! Overall well done." I'm glad my straightness boot camp has paid off. Now it looks like we lost the gumbiness. Never fails. I wasn't impressed with the test because half of it was spent spooking, but judges fucking love Opie no matter what. We ended up second with a 67.17%

i was pleased that the canter felt like the best part of both tests.
hard work and wet saddle pads paying off!

Here's where I turned the corner and went from keeping my shit together to starting to lose my shit. Again. And not for the last time. I was signed up to scribe for an hour directly after my test up to the lunch break. The organizer had done me a solid and slotted me in so I could get some more volunteer hours after I emailed the GMO begging for anything. I met her in the stands, she told me to head over to the judge as soon as the test in the ring finished up, and I was good to go.

FALSE.

The show was running behind and the judge was trying to get everyone in and out as quickly as possible. I told the scribe I was there to take over for her, but the judge rung the next person in before the scribe could tell her I was there. The scribe was like, "Whoops, sorry?" That test finished, next test same thing. Finally the scribe just waved me off and told me she was good until the lunch break, and I was like, "Uhhh....okay?" So there went ANOTHER opportunity to get any hours, which leaves exactly one show left. I already committed to not showing in it so I could be free all day to volunteer instead. I emailed the secretary and manager to tell them to put my down for anything two weeks ago. Have I heard anything back? OF COURSE NOT.

I checked in with the office to see if there was anything else they needed help with, but they were good to go there, too. I wandered back to my stall, took Opie out for another walk and graze, got Hubby corralled after he drove right past me, and eventually got ready for the second test.

Training 3

The warm up was blessedly empty when I first went in. I got some walk and trot work done, and then all at once the ring filled back up. I have all sorts of feelings about this, but they can all be summed up in a post I wrote four years ago. After having to yank Opie to a complete stop multiple times to avoid getting run into, I finally just gave up.

the lady behind me was all about not sharing space

I ducked into the chute to ask the ring steward where I was in regards to which horses were in front of me, and she pointed out one horse between me and the rider in the ring, explained to me that with the switch to the standard court we were able to go into the ring and warm up before the bell since there wasn't enough room to go on the outside anymore, and then moved on to the next rider.

One minute later she stuck her head in the ring and was like, "Where's Carly?! Carly?? You're on deck!!" And I was all, "Right. We literally just had this conversation." And at that point I was ready to go home for real.

he's just adorbs

We trotted into the ring and went right over to the judge's stand. It was still slightly offensive, but no dramatics this time around. The judge rung us in, and we had another square halt and another moment where he thought trotting out of it and towards Satan's altar was not a good game plan. 6 with "Straight, slightly against hand. Drifted afer X." Yep. He twitched a bit as we went by the first time, but fortunately no peacing out of there this test.

I was so pleased with getting through the corner that I checked out and kept right on trotting instead of turning at H to start the loop. Whoops! Fortunately I caught myself quickly and got us back on track only a couple strides past H. The rest of the test was a mix of 7s and 6.5s with a 7.5 for the free walk and an 8 for the second trot loop. "Correct geometry and bend." No comment on Opie's battle against the world's smallest fly circling his ears the entire loop...

i know judges are supposed to ignore horses reacting to bugs like this, but still.

it was a little embarrassing nonetheless.

7s and 6.5s again for collectives with final comments, "Another nice test with your willing horse--keep working on down transitions--better balance before will improve them a lot. Keep at it." The downward transitions are still a heavy work in progress. She'd made a comment on the previous test about them as well so I'd worked on them in warm up, but Dopie is a quitter at heart and the second he gets wind of a half halt in the canter he's all over that as a cue to stop. Add it to the list of things to work on. Overall though the test felt really steady, and I was pleased with it. It was another second and another 67.95%.

They were giving out giant ribbons for champion (and a cooler) and reserve champion for each division, but the person that beat me in T1 won with a 70% and they announced the winner of T2 had won with a 72% so I assume that knocked me out of contention for either. I didn't stick around to find out.

Instead I went over to the parking area to get my trailer hooked back up so I could pack up and leave. That went fine, but when I drove into the same gate I had pulled into that morning with zero issue, the security guard told me I had to turn around and go through a different gate at the far end of the fairgrounds. So I did that, almost missed the fucking unmarked gate and burned rubber braking in time, and then got told to go two different places by the security guards there. Totally frazzled, annoyed, and done with this show, I almost drove right past the DOT cop waving me in for a check stop. That would have made my day just spectacular, but fortunately he was really nice and only checked my license before sending me on my way to go get lost in the maze of gated off parking lots leading to nowhere.

I finally got back to where I needed to be, got the trailer loaded, and then led Opie to the ramp. He'd walked right on for me by myself that morning without issue, but he got halfway up the ramp to leave and parked it. At that point I didn't even care. I parked it myself just inside the trailer and waited him out for a few seconds before he gave up and marched in without dramatics.

he's so very cute. and at some point i need to do a post about white breeches.
because oh my lord do i have words.

Overall it went both better and as bad as I expected. The tests themselves were much better than I thought they were going to be. I was expecting nonstop spooking, tension, and staring at everything the entire time I was riding. Instead he had a few justifiable spooks, but moved on from them and put the work in. The second test was downright pleasant minus a couple minor bobbles. And while I was being a raging hormonal bitch all weekend much to Hubby's delight, I can't actually complain about two second places with 67%s. Those are good scores and good placings, especially since we can easily do so much better.

I think we're set with Training level now. I'm planning on doing First at the end of September to close out the year, and then we'll have all winter to work on the new tests to see what next season brings us. Hopefully I'll get my final fucking three hours of volunteering in so I can have some year end awards to show for all this.

In the meantime? Our next show report should be a little more exciting....

almost as exciting as the return of fair food to my life. my fave time of the year!

You are now a jump jump horse

No, not really. No one get excited. I bought Dopie with dressage specifically in mind and he's clearly well suited for it. However, I do really enjoy jumping and knew that was something I was going to carry on with regardless of what discipline I was showing in.

Opie's introduction to jumping thus far has been along the lines of: Here are some jumps. You are now a jump jump horse.

And Opie has been like: Okay!

#childgenius after all

I kept saying I was going to wait until winter to lay out a systematic training program to get him going around like a real horse over real courses. Except I'd get the itch to jump some things and never really had the time/ambition/desire to shear off a week or two of dressage work in the middle of show season to introduce ground poles and have them lead to grids and on and on.

This has worked out well enough. Dopes loves the jumping game, and is always keen and willing to hurl himself over whatever he's pointed at. I don't jump him high enough or technical enough that this lackadaisical approach has gotten us into trouble yet, and I certainly won't be moving him up any higher or more technical until he has a much firmer grasp of feet and self preservation.

not a firm grasp of feet.

I kept all of that firmly in mind when I took him out back to new-to-him cross country jumps on Sunday to push his current limits a little bit. He really stepped up to the plate for how little experience he has, while still reminding me that he is very, very green to anything but trotting walking halting in circles.

One of the back pastures that usually has horses in it was open as it was resting after getting sprayed so we started off in there with short grass and flat ground. Right away Opie gave one of the log jumps the hairy eye and tried spooking at it. I made him circle around it multiple times before he sidled up to it, snooted it, and deemed it safe.

the offending log that he popped over without issue.
how cute are his happy horse ears?!

He warmed up really well and we popped over a vertical with one side dropped a couple times just so he knew what we were doing back there.

easy peasy

Then I figured I'd move on to the skinny log that we've jumped a few times in the past when the field has been open and we've wandered through on a cool out walk. He's never even thought about doing anything but hopping right over it, so I figured it would be a good next step since he hadn't jumped anything else back there.

False.

He tried the same bullshit "I'm running out but also jumping but basically that just means I'm jumping the air." that he tried in the front field before. I brought him back to a slowww trot and really focused on channeling him straight between my legs and we got it although with much more drama than it warranted. From there we moved on to two hay bales stacked next to each other and he thought about trying the same thing, but I was quicker and more aggressive with my leg and caught him in time.

this week's almost #misseditmonday is brought to you by baby horse meets skinny meets outside leg. #ottb

A post shared by Carly Starkey (@poorwomanshowing) on Aug 13, 2018 at 8:13am PDT

That's where my "He's a green horse." mantra stepped in and I calmly shrugged off the skinnies and put them aside for another day. No reason to get upset over them when straightness is still a struggle for us on the flat. On to easier things!

I could tell he felt a little bug-eyed after those jumps, but having inviting jumps like the straw bales and the big log that funneled him over the jump with the "standards" on either side gave him his confidence back and he quickly returned to locking on and landing raring to go.

We moved back to the next field and hopped over the two jumps back there. The grass was pretty long and Opie wasn't the most...most with the footing so once we made it over those out of the trot we quickly moved to a different field.

all sorts of special over this teeny tiny jump

The third field had Hubby's fancy skinny, a big log stack, and an open hog's back type jump which was the only one I was aiming for. It took us three attempts to get it right.

The first time he just ran right at and through it.

don't be fooled, the whole jump is coming down after us.

I made him do a little canter and really sit the fuck down and get his front end up. This being where that grid work and training to be a real jump jump horse would have come in handy. Sorry, Dopes. Quick lesson in not dying and off we go again.

The second time was better although he brought the top rail down with a front leg this time instead of his trailing hind end. The third and final time I made him slow it down even more and out loud chanted, "Lift! Lift! Lift!"

yay, actually jumping!

And by that time, too, I was able to stop him in a reasonable distance after the jump because he still very much lands and is like, "Dobby Dopie is a Free Elf Horse!"

We finished back in the front field doing a little course of the three easy jumps: straw to vertical to big log. Hubby only got the finish:

He was feeling himself at the end, which is good although I wish he'd feel himself a little less exuberantly two strides out. And check out that canter! That's just his casual, every day, my mom isn't choking me out to ensure I steer in a dressage court canter. Smol horse, Big canter.

rly needs some grid life tho

It felt good to be back in a jump saddle (even if it was only borrowed from a generous barn mate) and get a productive school in. He was so much more relaxed out back than he has been in the front where he gets turned out and is constantly searching for his BFFs. Now I've got grabby hands to get my own jump saddle again as show season wraps up and hunter pace season kicks off.

But first we gotta #dopiedoesdressage at a big show in a big atmosphere this weekend. Where there's a chance to win a fucking COOLER, bitches. So back to circles this week it is.

But maybe circles in the out of doors to make it a little more fun.

More grinding

Last week was a light week for both blog fodder and actual riding as once again that four letter word... camp. Pardon me as I dig my nails into my eyeballs.

Fortunately I have this week free to get ready for my last scheduled dressage show on Sunday before another (and the last!) week of camp. And that camp is advanced camp which is full of the teenagers that are often lurking about the barn so I can work around them without issue. Hopefully.

might involve riding in the far reaches of outside

I did finally get sick of running out of there as fast as possible once I was done with the barn and made myself get on the horse a few times. I didn't really want to give him another full week off as I originally planned on pushing for a First debut in short order, but now I'm undecided about that. I have about ten different game plans for the next few weeks to wrap up the season and none of them are similar.

But we'll cross that blogging bridge when we come to it!

He got Monday and Tuesday off. On Wednesday we put in a solid bareback trail ride all around the adjoining properties to chisel away at my 25 hour TIP goal. Thursday and Friday I finally put the saddle back on.

i forgot how much easier it is to post in a jump saddle.

Unfortunately for our dear Dopie Horse--and myself--I'm still on my never-ending Improve the Canter mission. On Thursday that meant a lot of trot work. I stuck us on a roughly 20m circle in the middle of the ring framed by a few jumps. We made the circle square. We made the circle round. Sometimes is was 20m, sometimes it was 15 or 10m. Sometimes it was a big trot, sometimes a little trot. But for fuck's sake one thing always remained the same: the shoulders had to stay upright and straight.

Once I finally moved on to the canter, I had a most excellent right lead canter underneath me. The left lead was full of evasions--fake spooking, bolting, breaking, falling--until he'd tried them all and not one got him what he wanted. And then we magically could canter perfectly acceptable that direction as well.

to be fair, this little horse has a giant fucking canter. it's hard to balance letting him
move out while fighting the urge to choke him back so he doesn't careen around our
narrow indoor. it will come as the balance and strength improves.

On Friday I started off playing around a bit more with the trot lengthenings. They're not giant like Bobby's were, but I'm also trying to get them correct from the start so it's slow going. This whole correct basics thing is such a drag, you guys. Not as much of a drag of having to go back an fix everything though!

Then we moved on to the canter lengthenings which is where it turns out test movements just might be set up to help you. Color me surprised.

I started off just relaxing my aids as we came down the long side and letting Opie naturally move out. As a measure of how far he's come, he did just that instead of dying as he would have done over the winter...and this spring....and earlier this summer. Only then we started nearing the end of the long side and I couldn't bring him back. He'd either not come back at all or break to the trot. (Or Angry Cobra flail into the ground on the left lead.)

So I added in the 15m circle at the end of the lengthening in 1-1 and suddenly his little brain and his little feets had something to focus on. Lengthening unlocked, coming back from the lengthening also unlocked.

zoomgofast!

He got Saturday off since those two days of work were hard, both mentally and physically. Then he got thrown into the deep end on Sunday which is where all these pictures came from, but that's tomorrow's post.

lots of pats for a hard working midget

Tanglewood Dressage Schooling Show

Full disclosure: If you're not in the mood to read a post erring heavily on the side of bragging about #childgenius turn back now. I was starting to annoy myself by the end of the day, throwing blue ribbons around like confetti and twirling Opie above my head like a baton.

See? It's already started.

(Even though it was more Opie's head twirling as his latest soulmate got on the trailer to go home.)

this old man quarter horse a kid was riding western dressage at her first show
was pretty much the sweetest creature alive and opie instantly adopted him. 

After how good he was for Thursday's ride, I gave him Friday off and then crawled aboard Saturday afternoon. It was ten trillion degrees with the humidity, but Opie struck off into a forward w/t/c anyway so I called it quits after maybe five minutes. Yay, you're a good enough dressage horse, let's go stand under the hose together!

With an 11am first ride time I was able to sleep in until seven and take our sweet time getting on the road. Opie settled right in at the trailer while Hubby and I set our canopy up because there was no shade in the parking lot and it was a lovely 90*+ day with no cloud cover. As long as there are no bugs, Opie seems to be able to stand sub-Saharan heat without a thought, lucky bastard.

I got on with twenty minutes before my first test which was still too long, but Soulmate also didn't like being left alone so he got led up to hang out while his trailer mate and Opie showed; as a collective trailer group we wanted everyone to be chill. Yay, for good trailer neighbors!

killing fifteen minutes of warm up time by strolling around and standing

We walked around the large grassy area around the warm up ring for a good long while, hung out and nibbled some grass, got fawned over by the ring steward, and then slowly trudged over to do some trot and canter right before our test. We could have spent that fifteen minutes marching or something, but Opie is a quitter and I don't want to give him any excuse to be any lazier than he already is. Plus he just doesn't need to be drilled over the basics that Training calls for at shows. You pick up the reins and he does the thing. The end.

it was a day for the record books in that i got there and he hadn't slept in his pee

Training 1

We trotted into the ring for our lap around as the judge finished up writing comments for the rider before and as I passed one of the groups of people watching at the fence I heard one of the girls say, "This girl is going to win."

I was all, "Yep."

And then I reached down to adjust my stirrup leather and my horse lost steering and almost ran face-first into the fence so I amended that to, "Probably."

What I didn't know was that we were riding under OUR FAVORITE JUDGE. I mean, I could have gone in there and walked around for five minutes and she would have been like, "Brava! 10s all around!" This fucking lady, guys.

We actually got some varied scores this time to be fair. Opie was a good kid--steady and relaxed albeit a little weak in the steering department. He wasn't feeling the first halt in either test and started off with a 6.5. The left lead canter depart was sloppy and also got a 6.5 for "slow to develop, needs better connection." He started bulging out coming into the corner and he's gotten me on that trick twice now which results in picking up the wrong lead. I had to beat him back over which took the extra time, but we got the correct lead.

stupid left lead canter. the bane of our existence.

I could tell he was killing it at the medium walk and that scored a 9.5 with the free walk an 8. 7.5s and 7s for the rest of the test with a 9 for the final halt. 8.5 for gaits and 7s and 7.5s for the rest of the collectives. "Lovely horse--work towards more uphill balance. Good luck with him." That earned us a first with a score of 74.3%

he's really starting to fill out and bulk up

We had three hours before our next test which was really boring. With about an hour left to go I took Opie over to watch some of the Training 2 and noticed it seemed like they were running way ahead--like, I was two riders out ahead. Obviously I didn't have to go until my ride time, but I am all about helping facilitate shows finishing early so I hustled back to the trailer, let my neighbor who was also doing T3 know they were running early, and got back on.

The ring steward was a really nice lady. She'd come over during the lunch break while I was grazing Opie to tell me she thought he was so gorgeous, and she loved Thoroughbreds, and she couldn't believe how amazing he was at only 5, and did she mention he was gorgeous? She was, however, the most absentee ring steward ever when I needed her.

I knew the first rider in T3 was on a white pony and then it was my turn. The last horse in T2 finished and the ring stood empty with no ring steward to be found. I was about to send someone over to the judge to ask if I could just go in early since no one else was there when she finally popped up out of the indoor. I told her I could go in if no one else was ready since they were running early, but she said the other ride would be along shortly.

...but I could be done by the time she got out here?

Whatevs. The other girl eventually made it out and I did two seconds of trot and canter work to make sure Opie was alive. He was, but he was in a fucking mood now. The little porker had hoovered his entire hay net just before I got him tacked up even with grazing breaks so he was mad he was out of hay. Plus, although he hadn't gotten overtly hot or uncomfortable, he had been standing out in that blazing sun since ten in the morning and it was now 1:30. He was a hangry hangry hippo and wanted no part of doing the thing again.

Training 3

I tried to keep his baby brain as happy as I could by letting him hang out at the rail before our test, and then I let him walk around the outside of the ring as we waited to be rung in. The judge rang the bell right as I was turning the corner at A so I had to do the world's most awkward finagling to give us so room to pick the trot up to enter.

Opie went down centerline and promptly gave me a big ole Fuck You for the first halt. (5.5) Right away I knew this was going to be an awesome test.

He was so not interested in being a riding horse anymore. Hard pass to dressage, thanks. I know you guys are going to watch the video and whine that it doesn't look that bad, but good lord it was. Every single step was either me subtly spurring him to not quit and die or half halting to not break into a canter and then spurring him to not quit and die. He didn't want to steer. He didn't want input. He didn't want to pay attention. He just didn't wanna.

We got another 5.5 (for the left lead canter depart) and a couple of 6s and 6.5s for the rest of the canter work. Even our walk only got 7.5s. The stretchy circle was so-so. He can take it to the ground on an honest contact at home, but he kind of just flopped his head down and I flopped the reins at him and we flopped around for the circle. We finished on an 8.5. 7s for the collectives with the comment "A bit tight at times--blocks flow from hind end. Very nice horse!" Yep, I can definitely support the tight comment. Still somehow a 69% for another first.

We got champion of the Training division and our T1 score was high point for the show. Neither of which was ever in doubt because I went into the show expecting to win both classes, and when I saw they were offering a high point award when I checked in I expected to win that as well. Because I am SO ANNOYING and know that #childgenius is the ruler of schooling shows and Hubby would like to mention I am SO ANNOYING STFU ABOUT HOW AMAZING DOPIE IS.

strong side eye because he'd just boob punched me and got
yelled at for it.

That got me the last scores I needed to submit for year end awards and they're high enough that I'm good with being done entering Training for the year. Or my life. Good fucking god, I never want to ride another T1 test in my life it's so fucking boring. Sad story though because I have to do it one more time the weekend after next. And then depending on what my GMO gets back to me with for volunteer hours, I'll either be volunteering at the last show or doing First. He needs quite a bit of work to be considered a First horse, but all I want to get out of that is some judge's feedback on what to work on over the winter.

In the meantime, ever onwards with improving the left lead canter.

Unfun Canter

Sweet justice, the end of show season is in sight. I'm sure come January I'm going to be going crazy over wanting to do the thing again (or I'll be frozen and refusing to leave my house because Winter), but for now I'm starting to get a leetle bored with the whole thing.

Which, shame on me. I'm incredibly lucky I was able to put together a complete show season with no major deviations or fuck ups. Knock on wood of course! But one can only do the same low lower level dressage tests so many times before wanting to tear one's fucking eyes out.

look at that giant white snoot showing off its true snoot outline

We have a show this Sunday, a weekend off, and then an inaugural dressage show at the state fairgrounds which is kind of exciting. After that I have one other show on the schedule, but I'm not sure if I'll be riding in it or volunteering for it. My GMO requires a certain amount of volunteer hours for year end awards which is fine, but they have such limited opportunities I'm struggling to find a way to come up with my final three. I offered to help at the beginning of the week with set up the day before, but that position was filled. I'm glad I spent all day scoring at their last show and racked up a huge chunk of hours or I'd be fucked. So that's kind of annoying.

post bath time snackies

Fortunately nothing helps battle the repetition of test riding quite like having a young, green horse. While he's pretty much always really easy and lovely to ride at shows, schooling at home is a different story. He likes to save our go-rounds for his home turf which I am one hundred percent okay with.

Monday and Tuesday I buckled down on the flail-a-saurus canter and it. was. tough.

Inspired by Megan I bought a Happy Mouth mullen mouth bit to try. He goes okay in the metal french link eggbutt, but I've been thinking of trying something different to see if I could get the contact a little steadier. Obviously riding better to train the horse better is a large part of that, but I wanted something he wouldn't have any reason to back off of. He loves to curl and fake a frame, and while that's gotten significantly better from where we started, I have this horrible fear of fucking up the basics like I did with past horses. They all looked like they were going around okay, but there's nothing like reaching the upper of the lower levels and running head first into some giant fucking holes to give you a reality check on future horses.

is dubious about said training.
or just creeping on the cat behind him.

Monday was the first day in the new bit and the timing worked out well in that BM finished her ride just as I was getting on so I headed out with her for a trail walk to let him get used to the feel of a very different mouth piece before asking him to go to work in it.

I really want him to build up the base of his neck more so all the walk and trot work this week (and for the foreseeable future as SADLY muscles do not grow in three days or I'd work out like a boss) has been done in a long and low frame. It's been fucking fabulous and really kept him soft and relaxed while still making him #werk. 

Then we canter.

I think Jen had the post about shifting the weight back from the front of the saddle to allow the horse to have somewhere to come up. Sometimes it's just little reminders like that that help, and I had that firmly in my mind in the canter departs. Derp, what a difference! He's been much quieter about stepping into them now so I'm hoping that upward trend continues.

he hates anything and everything apple so he's taken to sucking
on a peppermint as we warm up at the walk. i find it hysterical.

The canter itself has not been a one and done fix. I mean, unless we're counting my inability to ever walk like a lady again because that fix is set in fucking stone. My thighs have been working overtime trying to keep this horse upright and straight and moving forward.

For the motorcylcing around turns/corners/any bend whatsoever, I've been making every turn super square. We start at the walk, move to the trot, and then make it happen at the canter. It's not pretty, but it's gotten loads better and he's actually getting pretty competent at it now. He has no problem being a bendy Gumby horse. It's a straight line that he finds challenging.

For the wanting to quit in the left lead, I was really struggling to keep him from breaking and then rocketing off when I corrected him which threw the whole canter into shambles. Again. I finally got annoyed Tuesday, grabbed a dressage whip, and spanked him once the second he started to think about making bad choices. That was all it took and suddenly listening to a subtler leg cue didn't seem like such a bad idea.

The steering though. God fucking damn. The first day in the new bit I thought for sure it was going to be a bust because I could not steer. Like, wow, we almost just peaced the fuck out of the open arena doors. Once alllllll the other pieces started to come together, the steering slowly returned. Historically it hasn't been a strong point for him since Day One, but I'll take shaky geometry over careening into outer space any day.

the sign i want for opie's canter

I gave him yesterday off and then got on to see what I had to work with this morning.

Surprise! Or not because #childgenius, but he was excellent from the very first step. Really lifting his back way up at the walk and trot, and then quietly and correctly cantered around on both leads. I quit after ten minutes because it was exactly what I wanted, and I'm all about rewarding good ponies.

I don't even know what my game plan is for the next two days before the show. I'm still irrationally frustrated by the volunteering thing, but I plan on making sure my name is written in cement for the remaining hours I need while I'm there Sunday. I spent a lot of money planning my season around supporting my GMO and aiming for year end awards. Take my free time as well, too, please!

Fly, Opie! Fly!

no, i don't mean take off with me, you little fucker.

Because thinking of how many more times this season I still have to ride the same god damned Training tests is starting to make me a little twitchy (three more times apiece), I gave Opie the whole week off decided to change things up a bit this weekend.

He did, in fact, end up getting the week off although it was unplanned. I didn't realize beginner horse camp was last week until I showed up at the barn Tuesday morning to feed and Children. I attempted to ride Wednesday but lasted maybe five minutes before I got off in annoyance. Because Children.

So instead Opie spent the week eating carrots and weaving at the fence because his soulmate was inside most of the time for said children and his other pasture mate doesn't count as a real horse ninety nine percent of the time.

trying to peace out to go find soulmates. the theme of sunday.

I got to the barn super late for me on Saturday with everything crossed that lessons would have cleared out by then and lucked out that everyone was driving out as I was driving in. I snagged one of the barn girls that was meandering around the ring bareback for a trail ride, grabbed Opie from the field, threw his bridle on, and headed out bareback myself.

For essentially not being ridden in a full week he was great. We did have a moment where he trotted up the last part of our hill and I clung to his mane bouncing around frantically giggling as I tried not to slide off the back of his round pony body.

I finished the ride in the ring under tack. He was a total star for it. I'm starting to work in earnest on putting a real lengthening on, so we did a ton of back and forth at all three gaits just getting him familiar with adjustability without breaking. A few really nice turns on the forehand, and then finished with some real shoulder- and haunches-in at the trot.

he is so good at the dressage stuff. just look at him.

alright, he was only a little asshole most of the time, not all of it.

On Sunday I decided we were going to jump in the front field. I didn't have a particularly solid reason for it. It was a nice day and I had originally planned on going to a hunter pace, but the thought of driving for yet another weekend when we're showing yet again this upcoming weekend just didn't excite me so I passed. Plus I still have memories of the front field being a fun place for easy jumping with Bobby. Obviously the first and last time I was out there with Angry Cobra Opie wasn't enough to deter me.

Hubby and I brought all three horses in from the field, got Opie groomed, and then took his monthly confo pic quick.

current status: adorable.

I got him tacked up in a barn mates borrowed jump saddle (because barn mates are the best) and then headed back out front where Opie immediately started screaming nonstop on the off chance BFF Apollo had poofed back into existence in the field while Opie wasn't watching.

Spoiler Alert: He hadn't.

Opie proceeded to try all sorts of evasive maneuvers to get back to the barn, none of which worked. Once Hubby made it up to the front Opie settled down and stopped making noise because he loves Hubby.

After a slightly wild w/t/c warm up, I started us off with the baby coop.

always has an eye for hubby

It involved nonstop Angry Cobra on approach and then we landed and he abruptly bucked and tried to take off to the barn. Again.

bye felecia. 

But I persevered! And got the same result some more!

locked onto his end destination: not this field.

Eventually ripping his face off sank in a little bit and we ended on that jump marginally successfully.