Lesson day!

These days, my Sundays are spent renewing my spirit in the arena learning to commune with my mare instead of going to church. I have a wonderful, patient, empathetic trainer who coaches us through our foibles and mistakes, and I always walk away feeling empowered and ready for the week ahead. And isn't that what Sundays are for anyway??

A year ago, we could barely get a canter at all. It was messy, out of control, and really looked and felt more like Big Mama tripped face first into a gallop than a nice transition into a canter. If I was able to get her all the way into a canter from a trot (which only happened about 20% of the time), she had 3 go-to tactics for getting out of doing this terrifying thing I was asking her to do:

1) Cross canter. Didn't matter which lead I asked her to go for, her hind end always picked the opposite one. She may have done this on purpose when she discovered I would ask her to come back down to trot when she did it.

2) Pick up the wrong lead and then flip around to make a beeline for the arena fence. This was my personal favorite, since there was never really any telling when she would choose to do it, and I could never bring her back down fast enough to prevent it. I learned very quickly how to hang onto her mane for dear life, so there's that.

3) Tokyo Drifter impression. Ever see those souped up rice burner cars that love to spin around in circles? Yeah, imagine that, only with a 1600 pound fuzzy freight train. She would pick up a canter, then instead of going forward in a circle, she would canter sideways until she hit the fence. -_- If we were in like, fourth level, I'm sure she would've gotten some good scores on those fancy moves!

I decided over the summer to take Ms. Sassypants to a clinic held by the cowboy that had helped us with some of our other respect issues. Yeah, the same guy that we had to abandon one week in to our month long training program because Little Miss Thang went lame one week in. My plan was to use the rest of the money we had paid for the month of training toward the clinic. I figured it would be a good way to get her off property to see how she would react before taking her to an off property show. If she was terrible, at least there was someone there that I trusted who could walk us through our issues. I hoped we could also work on our trailering woes, because holy crap getting run over by such a huge animal is no fun. My goals were trailering and despooking, I figured nothing else could really be accomplished in 3 days.

I actually still have mixed feelings about that clinic, but some great takeaways were that we worked through Big Mama's trailering issues quite well, she was a complete angel at the clinic, which was also a little shocking for me but awesome, and the best part of all is that we left WITH A CANTER TRANSITION!!!!!

I'm a really good pony.

I was told that our biggest issue was that Big Mama had no gas pedal. Well, no argument there really, she only has one when she sees a squirrel. So basically we worked on cantering more than anything else, which was the one thing I figured we wouldn't be able to fix for months, or maybe even years. I just had to continually stick with asking her until she gave it to me, no matter how ugly, how often she picked up the wrong lead, or how often she wanted to tear off in the other direction. We worked on what the clinician called a "digital 8", or basically, cantering half the arena, trotting through the center, and picking up the other lead and going the other direction on the opposite side. Over and over. Big Mama was really only fit enough to do about 3 of those before she was totally spent. But regardless, we did it and came back home able to canter!

Cowboy dressage

I say I had mixed feelings about the clinic, because it brought up some emotional things in me that I wasn't really expecting. Several of the other clinic participants hadn't been on their horses in years, so it was kinda strange being basically the most advanced rider of the bunch. When you are riding intro level, and being called a DQ, it definitely does a little something to your ego!

A few of the other horses and riders were an absolute hot mess. While on the one hand, I get it, you think you're doing a good thing by "saving" this poor horse, then you suddenly discover you are in waaaaay over your head and are not sure where to turn. I was there, I know how it feels. On the other, I really wanted the clinician to just say, "Look. You need riding lessons, a dead broke schoolmaster, a saddle fitter, and a therapist for you." I only say this because, well, it was this exact cocktail that got me moving forward in my horsey journey. Instead, he had 7 complete novices all cantering at the same time in a tiny ring with no clue about any sort of ring etiquette or knowledge of things like, how to steer a horse. It was kinda horrifying actually. I was constantly cut off, people dove through my patterns like they had just downed a fifth of Jim Beam after robbing a bank, and now were drunkenly trying to find an escape path out of the arena. Despite all this though, Big Mama wasn't even a tiny bit phased. So, in that sense, we did exactly what we came there to do. Find out if she could handle the stresses of performing off property. The answer was a resounding YES!

Fast forward to today in our lesson. We have gotten so good at our cantering that we actually warmed up at the canter before our trot work! She can canter on 20m circles consistently, picking up the correct lead most of the time. We've even been able to start incorporating a little bend in the rib cage and poll.

I think that will actually continue to be our biggest challenge of all, getting Big Mama to not be so much of a redwood tree trunk. She really is immovable. Getting her to flex and bend has been very challenging, but we are starting to make tiny bits of progress. Plus, moving her to her newer hybrid heartbars with solid pad and gel filling has also helped keep her sound enough for heavier work.

I haz fancy custom fabricated kickz.

We've also switched from a single jointed snaffle to a fatter, double jointed snaffle, and it has seemed to make a world of difference in allowing her to bend at the poll without getting popped in the roof of the mouth with her bit. Wish I would've learned that a long time ago.

I wish I had some video or pictures of our current canter transitions! Guess in the next lesson I will have to buy the other half a six pack and bribe him to come take some pics! ;)

Happy riding!

OK, let's try this again!

What a whirlwind year!!

My Sassypants mare and I finished our first year of showing dressage, and it went better than I could've ever imagined!

We showed intro level last year, doing the walk trot tests since our canter was so weak at the beginning of the year. Our first show was in April. I was so terrified that it was going to be an utter disaster, but I told myself going in that my expectation was only to not die. As long as there were no mortal injuries, I would count that as a success. Since the arena where the show would be held is so close to where she boards, I was able to take her through the tests after they set up the dressage arena for the show, which was a blessing because we were able to get the meltdowns over the night before the actual show.

The list of things that Big Mama was terrified of that night included:

The letters
The white chain
The judge's tent (DEAR CHRIST, MOM, DO YOU SEE THAT PONY EATING TENT?!?!?!)
The table under the tent
and finally, to top it all off, a circle in the sand leftover from where a barrel stood in the arena. -_-

Yes, Big Mama, leaped ever so gracefully over the scary, scary dirt circle.

Needless to say, by the next day I was kind of a wreck about how it would go once we also included people, dogs, small children, other horses...

To my complete amazement, once we entered the ring for our final warm-up, an absolutely incredible thing happened. She took a long look at all the people and horses looking at her. She was center stage! Suddenly the only thing in her head was all the attention, and a confident sassiness came out in her that I hadn't seen in her before. She was a star! Her adoring fans were finally able to see her for what she was, a beautiful, fancy, black princess!

She puffed up and trotted through her tests like they had been written just for her. When she halted at x at then end of the test, you could just feel how proud she was of herself.

Big Mama being so fancy!

I was really hoping that we might've pulled off some scores in the high 50s if we were lucky. When the scores were posted, however, I nearly fell right off my horse.  She had earned a 70.625 and a 73.75!!! We won high point in our very first show!!!

I was on a high like I couldn't even imagine for the next couple of weeks. I couldn't believe how well she did.  The most exciting part though, was that she did even better in our next show, scoring a 78 and an 81!!



Also over the summer, I trailered her out to her first overnight clinic, and her first off property show, but I will save those for another post because they were experiences all their own.

Right now, we are gearing up for moving to training level. I am so excited with how far Miss Thang has come!!