In Which a Strategem is Discovered

The third blog post in a row! (Well, fourth, if you count the video I posted today). This whole blogging thing may well be verging on becoming a habit. In the spirit of learning from yesterday's lessons, I changed up my approach to my rides today. Since I had to run to the grocery store, and was rather tired today, I was sorely tempted just to ride one horse or the other.

At least, until I remembered something L taught me at the clinic this weekend: A riding session doesn't have to be an hour long. You can go as little as 20 minutes as long as you go in with a plan, and are focused. That's exactly what I did, and it worked really well.

As is my usual preference, I rode Shadow first. The plan was to work on my hands, and keep Shadow stretching in the walk and trot. That's it. forcing myself to only concentrate on two things seems to have been the magic bullet. While I was more conscious of Shadow stretching and me keeping my hands up, it seemed that the other elements of my positioning that I need to fix just sort of fell into place. Moreover, I noticed that when things would fall out of place I could feel when it became "wrong". I would then quickly divert my attention to fixing the issue, and then go back to stretching Shadow and watching my hands. I did spiral in/spiral out on the circle, leg yield, voltes with lengthening and shortening strides and a little bit of shoulder in. They weren't all perfect by any means, but Shadow was very willing, and did a good job of stretching when asked. There are two questions about stretching that I want to ask a trainer the next time I'm in front of one.

1. When Shadow will stretch, after a couple of steps, he'll pick up his head and take away contact. Is that a strength thing, or an evasion?
2. At what point do I start putting more emphasis on getting him to come round on contact?

For my ride with Ziggy, I decided I would devote my focus to my ever-present core problem, since Ziggy will stretch and come round without any problems, and I was kind of bored with concentrating on my hands. Happily, my hands mostly behaved themselves. Keeping my core engaged went pretty well at the walk, but at the trot it was pretty hit and miss, and more miss than hit. Ziggy has a much bouncier trot than Shadow, which is one of the reasons why I decided to work the core thing on Ziggy. I figure, if I'm doing it right, when Ziggy's trot gets particularly bouncy, I'll be able to actually *sit* it, and not flop all over the saddle. The good news is, I did have a few flashes of brilliance, and although I wasn't always able to do anything about it, it was readily apparent to me when I was doing things wrong.

Once, when I had a pretty good trot going, I tried a canter transition on the right lead, and just got a unbalanced, strung-out trot. I then remembered that:

• Ziggy is 24.
• Ziggy is a Thoroughbred
• Ziggy has arthritic changes in his right hock.

It was about then that 2 and 2 added up to 4 and I recognized that our best chance for success was to start the canter on the left lead. After putting the trot back together and changing rein, I gathered him up and asked for canter again. It sort of worked. I did get a pretty good uphill canter, but he snuck in a few steps of trot, which I think was me not being clear enough with the lift of my inside seat bone. The actual canter was really nice. My core stayed engaged, and I played a bit with extending and shortening strides, and even got a bit of leg yield in.

A few times when I shortened the strides, I forgot to use my legs to keep impulsion going, and predictably, Ziggy dropped into a trot. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I learned or, more accurately, internalized something that I've known has been a problem for pretty much as long as I've been riding. On my downward transitions, my shoulders hunch and I curl forward, which makes my lower back arch, and me a hot damn mess in the saddle. I've been hearing it in lessons and from Cash's mom for years, but tonight was the first time I was able to consciously feel, analyze and internalize the transition from everything going well, to falling apart. In an attempt to capitalize on the new information, I picked up the canter again, and re-attempted the downward transition. This time, I felt things falling apart, and was able to at least put my shoulders back into position before becoming a hot damn mess. I wanted to try it again, but by this point, I was pretty much out of light, and it'd been a quite successful ride, so I called it a night, and will focus more on my downward canter transition when I ride Zigs tomorrow.

Ponies 4 eva!

Today, good readers, you will receive not one, but two posts! Yes, I am in a very generous mood today. Well, that and I utterly failed to post yesterday's events immediately after they occurred. Therefore, today you will profit from my laziness! Or my generosity. Either way, you get two posts, and who could complain about that.

Oh yeah, the people who hate me or this blog. Although, if either of the previous statements appropriately describe your feelings, my question to you is, why are you still reading this?! That being said, I'll leave you to ponder your existential crisis, and return my attention to the people who actually like reading this. Or they tolerate it. Or they do it just because they're bored. Either way, they don't throw things at me and hurt my feelings, which I appreciate."That's all well and good," you say, "but GET ON WITH IT!"

Your wish is my command. Yesterday morning, Saga's mom came out to help me out with Zigs. The original intentions were for her to hop up on Zigs and see if she could figure out why he's been blowing off my half-halts at the trot, and to work on jumping. As I expected, he behaved just fine for her, and very obediently half-halted when asked. I was very happy to see that because it let me know, yes, he does know how, and will do it when asked appropriately. After trying both reins, Saga's mom commented that Zigs felt a bit un-even to her. And asked me to get back on him to see if I felt it. I think she said a few more things as well, but as soon as I heard uneven, I sort of tuned out, and immediately started paying very close attention to how Zigs was going. I couldn't really feel anything out of place, but just to be on the safe side, we decided to just work on walk/trot, and trot/walk transitions and leave jumping for another day. One of the first things that was made apparent was that I wasn't waiting until I had a good walk to cue for trot. Hence, crappy walk led to crappy trot. So, we worked for while on when to judge a good walk when I had it. I discovered that I've actually been going past "forward" and into "rushing", because when Zigs is through and round, the pace of the walk is slower, but he feels light in my hands.

The other thing that was made apparent is that I have a nasty tendency to let Ziggy "dribble" on both up and down transitions. On my up transitions, I'm not giving a clear enough cue, and on my down transitions, I'm not riding him "up" into the transitions. I'll be honest in that when Saga's mom first told me that, I totally didn't get it. The whole idea of a down transition is to go slower and-- actually, strike previous. A downward transition isn't necessarily a change of speed, although it often is. It's always a change of rhythm. I think that internally, I realized that when I was riding yesterday, but it just became obvious to my conscious mind. Anyways, now that I've noted that epiphany before it escaped me, allow me to go back to my original train of thought. (Coherent narrative, just another service I provide!). After thinking about what it meant to ride "up" into the downward transition, I realized that it meant I needed impulsion from behind so that when he settled into the walking, he was already stepping under himself from the trot that he'd have a much firmer stance in order to keep driving his hind end up to his front.

Now, as far as the trot goes, the lion's share of the trot is coming up to it from a good walk, and within the first 3 strides, riding the rhythm that I want. One of the things that I'm still bad about is forgetting to ride as soon as I get the transition. For some reason, the whole of my thought process is, "Yay! I got a trot!" and shortly after that gripping insight, my brain vaults out of my left ear, and happily sponges its way off to its vacation home in Tahiti. It never lets me come along, either.

Jerk.

I showed him, though. After a few decent transitions leading to some sub-optimal trots, I finally locked the wayward grey matter into my skull and actually began riding the trot I wanted after I got the transition. Once that was sorted, I had a lot of good moments. Zhi was kind enough to take pictures, and had I actually charged my camera battery last night, I'd include them here. But, alas, they are importing into iPhoto as we speak. In short, I felt like the ride went fantastically well, and I learned a lot. I didn't even care that I didn't jump.

Now, before I leave you to write the next post, there is one last thing I need to share: I am terrible about KEEPING MY FINGERS CLOSED around my reins. I shall endeavor to fix this going forward.

**Addendum**
I also accompanied Duchess' Mom, Saga's mom and Fuzzy Pony down to Dripping Springs to watch Saga and Duchess go in a jumping lesson. My initial intent was to take pictures for the two of them, I was cleverly thwarted by my camera, whose battery I heroically neglected to charge yesterday because I took a nap. You can read all about the lesson over at Saga's blog, but I will say that I was very impressed with Paige, and I would definitely be interested in taking a lesson from her. My number one take-home watching the lesson was Paige's comments about "waiting" for the fence. Saga, Duchess and Zigs are very willing and game jumpers, and they'll jump anything we point them at. So, our challenge is not to push them forward to the fence, but to keep them up and forward and ensure a good approach. That being said, now I'm going to bed for real.

Are You There Epona? It's me, Foxfire

Bless me Epona, for I have sinned. It has been 7 Months, 11 days, 5 hours, 17 minutes, 31 seconds and 1259 nanoseconds since my last confession. I have coveted horses out of my price range, I have eaten before feeding my horse and I have neglected to give my horse treats when he commands. All of these are grievous sins to be sure, but I fear today, I must confess to a far greater transgression. I hate to mention it, but I must.

I have attempted to hose off a horse's head while it was tied.

A most serious transgression indeed. And what possessed you to commit such an act?

Well... I did it to Zigs while he was--

Stop right there.

But, I didn't think th--

Exactly.

But...

SILENCE MORTAL! Lest I smite your ruin upon the GAG course!

Please don't.

That depends. Will you do it again?

Hell no.

Alright, no smiting for you. This time.

Thank you Epona.

Do not thank me yet, mortal. You have yet to hear your penance.

*gulp*

I demand the following: 10 minutes of sitting trot without stirrups every ride for a week. The training level A and B Dressage tests ridden entirely in Two-Point once per week. And there is one final thing.

Name it, your ladyship.

Clean your horse's sheath. I swear, you men ar--

Not a problem,

..What? No squirming? Not even a flinch??

Already have the Excalibur.

I see.

Um... can I go now? I need to turn Ziggy out for the night.

Run along.

In seriousness, Sonata was wearing a breakaway halter, and neither she nor I were hurt. I feel really stupid for doing that, and I know how lucky I am that was the case. You can rest assured I won't be doing that again.

Now that that's taken care of, I can actually discuss my lesson this evening. It started out a little rough, and I was really having to push her forward off my leg. but that's sort of par for the course. At the walk, we practiced getting our horses to stretch down. Due to the way Sonata was trained, there was only so much I was going to get, and she made me work for every inch I got. ;) The trotting went pretty well, and I think I'm getting a lot better at my half halts and keeping my heel down when I have to give strong leg cues. Canter was also quite good, I got it every time I asked, and I did a much better job at immediately fixing the trot and getting her balanced, rather than what I usually do, which is trot around in a hot mess and try to get a walk.;)

For the last part of the lesson, we did leg yields. I think they went OK, but I think that I was letting Sonata pop her shoulder and just walk to the rail rather than cross over. I do, however, have an epiphany to report. One of the things my trainer is constantly saying to me when I'm doing laterals is to "half halt with the outside rein to fix her outside shoulder". It finally made sense today. I don't quite know how to explain what I did, but I sort of thought of building a wall with my outside leg and rein, and using my inside leg to move her hindquarters over to catch up. Tomorrow, I'm headed down to the Houston area to look at a few horses for Zhizhu... It should be interesting. Of course I will make a full report tomorrow.

Ym

Just wanted to make a quick note to preserve a realization I came to while working out at the gym last night. As I mentioned previously, I have a habit of collapsing my right side when I'm going on the right rein. Last night, I think I figured out why. I was doing side planks, which for those of you unfamiliar with the exercise, look like this:

Looks pretty easy, right? Now hold that for a minute. Anyway, when I did the plank on my left side, I had no problems keeping completely still for the full minute. When I switched to my right side, however, about 30 seconds in, I was starting to get a little shaky. Clearly, my right abdominals are weaker than the left, which is probably the reason I'm so bad about collapsing to the right. I sense a lot more abdominal work in my Gym future...

Boing!

I'm probably going to fall asleep writing this post, but we'll see how far I get. Before I go into today's horsy activities, there's two quick additions /corrections to yesterday's entry. They are enumerated below, for simplicity:

1. I tend to drop my right hand so that it is not level with my left. This must end.


2. I am not so much leaning to the inside as I am collapsing my right side. I only do this on the right rein. This must also end.

Now that that's taken care of, on to today. As promised yesterday, Saga's Mom came over to help me out with jumping. I will, of course, go into more detail, but I would like to start things off by saying it was a significant improvement over Pine Hill. Not that Pine Hill was bad, oh no, Pine Hill went quite well! Perhaps that what I should say is that today, Saga's mom was able to help me fix the problems I was having at Pine Hill. To review, they are also presented in a numbered list, for simplicity and consistency.

1. Not being able to rate Ziggy to the jump.


2. Not being able to bring him back down to a trot after the jump


3. My Two-point was weak

Defying conventional chronology, I'm going to cover the problems in reverse order. As it turns out, my two point was weak because while my back was straight, I was rolling my shoulders forward. As soon as I straightened those out, my back instantly felt better, stronger, and straighter. The next revelation was with my legs. I don't want to say I was gripping with my knees, but I was doing something with them that was causing them to become pivot points to throw me forward. Saga's Mom told me that my base of support should be my calf, and that, combined with fixing my shoulders completely changed things. I felt significantly more secure, and the next couple of fences I took him over, it was a lot easier. I wasn't having to work nearly as hard to stay with him. I'd have to check my jumping pictures to be sure, but I think I had been having a pretty bad problem about getting left behind on the jumps.

Fortunately, I never was bad about catching Zigs in the mouth, which reminds me of the of the other problem with my two-point. Because I am so concerned about catching him in the mouth, I tended to throw my upper body forward over the jump, which to a TB (well, any horse, but TBs in particular) means "Run! For the love of God, RUN!". It turns out that all I needed to do was to move my hands forward, and leave my upper body where it is.

The last problem with my two-point form is my heels. As with most new jumpers, I have a habit of letting my heels come up when I'm coming in to the jump. This largely seemed to fix itself after I fixed my knees, but I still had to think about it a little bit, since it had sort of become a habit. Once I had all these things right, going over the jumps felt so much easier. I don't quite know how explain how it felt previously other than that going over the fence was hard. I felt out of balance, and was really having to work to keep everything where I thought it should be. Once I fixed all my positional problems, going over the fences felt like I was just sort of floating. I think that's because I wasn't putting my hands down on Zig's withers to try and balance, and because since my knee was relaxed, I could let my angles close and open back up the way they're supposed to. I wish i had some pictures so that I could go back and review them, but maybe next time. Now that I have jump standards and some landscape timbers I'll be able to get a lot more jumping practice in. (Only once a week, though!)

Now that we have covered the jumps, let's move on to the exits of the jump. I didn't have any trouble whatsoever bringing him back down to the trot. I think this is due to several things:

1. I was no longer leaning forward after the jump, so I wasn't encouraging him to run.


2. My reins were an appropriate length, so when i made it over the jump, I hadn't pitched him away.


3. After fixing my position in two-point, I was in a balanced position, so I was able to give more effective cues

I'm sort of running short on time now, as the vet's due to arrive any time now for Kanemura's brain surgery and Ziggy's annuals, so I'm going to have to shorten up the rest of the post. Regarding being able to rate Zigs to the jumps, I think that I was successful at it for the same reasons above. Another thing I'm getting better at is judging when I've done all I can, and I just have to ride what I've got over the fence and fix it on the other side. The thing is, during my un-lesson, I really didn't think "Oop. This is as good as it's gonna be, just ride.". It just happened instinctually. It may be that I've just gotten better at knowing how many strides out from a jump I am. At any rate, Sunday went a long way towards convincing me that going GAG at Pine Hill is indeed possible, if I can keep riding like that.

Later in the evening, Zhizhu and I drove down to Canyon Lake to check out a horse for her. He was a really pretty, big TB, but he was hotter than the sun, and not for a beginning rider. That's really all I have time to write now, I need to go corral the critters before the vet gets here.

Head up, Shoulders back, Elbows In

I am very happy with how today went.  Saga's mom came over this morning to see if she couldn't help me get to the bottom of my little braking problem.  We started off with walk circles and spiraling in and out.  As I usually do, I had trouble estimating the distance.  So, in a fit of obvious brilliance, Saga's mom put down markers on the 4 quarters of the circle. The concept that I could actually use fixed objects to denote reference points at precise distances was rather revolutionary. I plan to adapt this radical new technology and use it as my own. In addition to exposing me to the latest advancement in spatial relations, Saga's mom also told me something that completely changed the way I thought about circles. What I've been doing pretty much my entire riding career is visualizing that I'm putting my horse on a circular railroad track. What Saga's mom told me was, "I'm not really riding a circle, I'm riding a straight line with my horse bent to the inside." That, in and of itself was a huge eye-opener, but she then continued to tell me that I spend way too much time fixating on one of the quarter points of the circle. By the time I'm 2 or 3 strides out from the quarter point, that quarter's over, and I need to focus on the next one.

As soon as I processed and applied that, my circles improved 100%.So, yay! once I got that down, we moved to trot, and my problems became apparent. They are as follows:

1. I need to keep my shoulders back. They tend to come forward.


2. I need to keep my head up.


3. I'm not keeping my elbows at my sides

I think there's a few more that I'm forgetting, but those are the the main ones that are sticking with me. With my shoulders forward and my elbows not at my sides, it's very easy for Zigs to pull against me and unseat me, essentially making my downward transition useless. When I made a concerted effort to fix all of those things before asking for my downward transition, it was like flipping a switch. As I suspected, the problem was me. Now I just need to commit those things to muscle memory.

That sorted, or at the very least, with those problems identified, we moved on to the canter, where I discovered a new problem. I have the tendency to sit way to the inside, which causes Zigs to fall on the forehand. That one's going to take a while to fix, and I might need to ask Zhizhu to put me on the end of a longe line for a while to get that sorted out. This is true for canter both directions, although I'm guilty of it a bit more on the right lead. I also figured out another one of my problems with my canter transition (outside of the shoulders forward). Yet again, the problem was with imagery. What I had been visualizing is riding the horses hindquarters flat into the canter. I realized that was flawed when I asked for a canter, and I felt Zigs' front lift up to go into the canter and Saga's mom said, "YES!". The next few canter transitions I tried, I thought of getting him to lift his forehand up, and drive from behind, and that went considerably better.

at this point, it's pretty late, and Saga's mom will be coming over early tomorrow morning to do some jumping, so I'l elaborate more on today's rides tomorrow. Till then, I will go to sleep.

A Good Day in the Saddle is Better Than a Bad Day at Work

For the second time in as many weeks, my soulless Korean overlords saw fit to release me from my toils at a reasonable hour, so that I could attend yet another riding lesson. Twice in a row is nice, but it will take three to make a habit, and I have confidence that even now, my overlords conspire against such an event coming to pass. But, the diabolical machinations of a soulless corporation will not sully the triumph of today! No sir! Onward!

As with just about every lesson I take, I once again climbed aboard Sonata. In the warm up, she was taking a lot of leg, and wasn't very round. But today, I would not be deterred. Instead of continually using my legs, I went to my whip a lot quicker, and that seemed to yield significantly better results. I founder her a lot more responsive to the leg, and it was a lot easier to get her round. The primary focus of the lesson tonight was to work on trot transitions. All of us had a different goal, and mine was to keep Sonata round when we transitioned up, and when we were trotting. I had a lot of success getting her to come round once we were trotting, I did have to have some discussions with her about actually going to the corner and staying on the rail, though. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however. I used all of the techniques that I learned last Thursday,( opening my rein far out while supporting it with my leg, posting my inside hip to her outside shoulder) AND THEY WORKED! Sonata dropped her head, went round, and moved where I wanted her to go. The one nit I can pick is that my heel kept coming up when I was having to put my leg on strongly. Once I noticed it, I started making a concerted effort to keep my leg long, even if I was having to really use it strongly.

Of course, this was about the time that my trainer started yelling at me for over posting. ;) I attempted to focus on doing both things, and I actually was able to do both at the same time a few times. I took special care to try and remember the sensation so that I'll hopefully speed its storage into my muscle memory. To cap off the trot, we did 20 meter circles on each rein, (long my achilles heel), and, while not circles per se, they were at least evocative of a circular shape. Plus, I was able to actually keep her out at 20 meters, which was a marked improvement from Thursday.

At long last, I come to the coup de grace. The Canter. I've made no secret of the fact that my canter transition is a source of continual frustration. I am happy to report that tonight was a notable exception. We started on the left lead, and when I first tried to sit for the canter, I basically forgot to ride, and got a really nasty fast trot. So, I re-balanced, and sat again. This time I actually remembered to ride and got a nice canter. I took the whole arena, and as an added bonus, when I went down to trot, Sonata didn't try to stop. I was pretty happy with that, but I had the right rein to contend with, which is typically the one that always gives me fits, even on Zigs. I switched reins across the diagonal, and in the second corner, i sat, asked, and immediately got canter. I was over the moon. I took her around the arena once, and let her quit on that.

As though it wasn't patently obvious, I am quite satisfied with both my and Sonata's performance tonight. Hopefully, my rides will continue moving in this direction. It would certainly make me more confident about doing the horse trial in October!! No riding tomorrow, sadly, as I'll be going to the Gym to start with a new personal trainer. (My Gym buddy's co-worker is actually a personal trainer and has volunteered to help us out.) Wednesday, however, will bring the Alfalfa addict back into service. More then.

Progressing by Leaps and Bounds Or: Hell yes, I cleared a 2'6" Oxer

As you can see, I had a jumping lesson today.  Zigs was fantastic.  There was no stopping, no refusing, and no rushing!  We started the lesson by trotting on both reins, and I made sure to get him on the bit, and nice and light in my hands.  At one point, I had him going in a rather nice collected trot.  Then, of course, we cantered.  I had trouble picking up the right rein, due to my aforementioned problem with my knees coming up.  On the left rein, I made a concentrated effort to keep my leg "long" (as long as it can be with my stirrups at jumping length), and had a much easer time of it.  The only thing I don't like about jumping is having my stirrups so short.  I don't feel like I'm sitting as deep in the saddle as I do with them at Dressage length, but that's the point!

The first fence we did was a simple X with trot poles in front of it. I can't even begin to articulate how nervous I was as I made the turn to come to the jump. two strides away from the trot poles, Ziggy said, "Dude. Got it.", and I relaxed. He trotted in smoothly, sailed right over it as if it was nothing, and landed in the canter, looking for the next fence. We came around and did the fence several more times, and he was steady and consistent. After we'd all made it across a few times, my trainer changed it from an X to a straight across rail. Just like with the X, Zigs jumped the rail fence like a champ, and landed in a canter, looking for the next fence. After we'd all taken that fence several times successfully, our trainer changed the fence from a straight rail, to a bounce with an X. Ziggy took that one like a champ, too. At this point, it was pretty hot, and Zigs was blowing a bit, so I bowed out for a while, and walked him to give him a little more rest. We had also been taking plenty of rest breaks in between fences, but I just wanted to make sure that I gave Zigs as much time as possible to recover between jumping elements.

While I was walking Zigs, everybody sailed over the bounce, so our trainer made an 18" oxer after the bounce, seen at the top of the post. (It was the prettiest picture.) I went over that one with Zigs twice, and again walked him, to take it easy on him. After I'd walked a while, my triner announced the last fence, and proceeded to make a 2' 6" oxer after the bounce. l was expecting her to say, "Ok, that's enough for Ziggy", but no, she sent a few of the more experienced riders over it, and then said, "Ziggy, go.". Being the trusting sort, I picked up a nice, forward trot, and as I made my turn to go on the jump line, one of the more experienced riders asked, "How big is that Oxer?" To which, I replied, "I don't want to know!" as Zigs happily sailed over the bounce and fence. When we landed on the other side he was like, "That was AWESOME!". A picture of the illustrious jump is below:

As you can see, I was left behind, my release is not as high up his crest as it should be, but at least I'm looking somewhere resembling up, my heels are familiar with the concept of "down", and I didn't come off. Since this is only my fourth time jumping, I'm prepared to call this progress.

During the entire jumping lesson, I found Ziggy quite responsive, brave, consistent, and forward, without resorting to summoning psycho pony. I only really ran into two problems with him during the lesson. The first being that once he lands in a canter, he wants to try to canter into the next fence, which I believe is the "correct" thing to do, but not what I'm ready for at my current riding level. The second being that he spooks when another horse drops a rail. It isn't a bad spook, he just crow-hops a bit and tries to run, but all I had to do was half-halt, and he came back to me.

I, on the other hand, wasn't doing a very good job of keeping him straight on the exit to the jump, and as you can see in the pictures above and below, my release leaves much to be desired. But, hey, I didn't come off, and I didn't (as far as I can remember) catch him in the mouth. All in all, it was a great lesson, and I'm looking forward to doing more jumping in the future with him! My hope is that I can do a GAG horse trial with him at some point in the Fall or Winter. But of course, I really need to get a more consistent Canter transition, and going XC schooling would likely be helpful. ;)

I won't be riding Zigs tomorrow, as he is getting a well-deserved day off for being such a good boy! For now, I'm going to bed, as I actually have to work tomorrow.

Thank the Goddess for stubborn horses

They teach you a hell of a lot when you aren't paying attention.  This morning, I went over to The Baron's house and hopped up on Sonata.  My plan was to work on sitting trot, and to work on my canter transitions.  The sitting trot actually went pretty well.  There were brief moments where I was able to sit Sonata's Really Big trot.  Nowhere near where I want to be, but hey, it's progress.  If I keep working at it, I'm sure there will come a point where I can sit it without problems, and then, I'll be able to sit just about any horse.  That's the plan, at least.  The canter, as per usual, was problematic, and at long last, I've figured out why.  

What I thought I was doing was bringing my outside leg back, and just not picking her up with my inside seat bone.  What I was actually doing was pulling my knees up which pulled both seat bones out of the saddle leaving Sonata to say, "Ok, dude.  Seriously.  WTF do you want!?  How about this:  I'm going to trot faster, because that sure as hell doesn't mean canter." Step one is admitting that you have a problem. ;)  I started really concentrating on making sure my leg was long before I asked, and things went better.  My brain knows exactly what my legs need to do, but my muscles aren't necessarily always obeying it.  I was also reminded of a few stretches that will help with that.  I'll make sure to do them during my warmups from this point forward.  Once I felt that I was getting the canter on a more consistent basis, I picked up the lance and took a few runs at the quintain.  Well, I tried to, at any rate.  With the lance in my hand, my canter transition went to hell again, so I decided to simplify.  I put the lance back, and grabbed the dressage crop to hold in my right hand, with the reins in my left.  I finished off my ride working toward getting a consistent canter toward the quintain.  Sonata was pretty tired by that point, so I got a few good ones, and left it at that.   All in all, it was a good ride.  It wasn't necessarily the prettiest, but I feel like I did make some genuine progress.

As a random sidenote, (well, maybe not too random, since it is horse related) after my ride I went truck shopping.  A friend of mine works at a local Ford dealership, and he called to let me know that they just got in an 06 F-250 King Ranch edition, fully loaded with just 27k miles on it.  I went to look at it, and it is indeed tricked out, and a very pretty truck, but when I drove it, while it was very quiet, I found its handling to be a bit clumsy for my tastes.  I'm not sure if it was just that particular truck, or indicative of Fords in general.  To contrast, I've driven two Chevy Silverados from two different model years, and I found them both to be very comfortable, and to have significantly better handling than the Ford.  Plus, Chevy's Allison transmission is awesome, so that's another point in their favor.  On the way home from the Ford dealership, I passed by a Dodge dealership, and since I had nowhere I needed to be, I decided to pull in and see if I could get behind the wheel of a Ram, in the interest of doing due diligence.  (Ok, yes, fine.  I like driving trucks. ;))  I must say that I didn't like the Dodge at all.  (Sorry, Popeye.)  The interior isn't as nice as Chevy or Ford's, the brakes are way too sensitive, and there was far too much play in the steering for my tastes.  I've also heard that Dodge diesels are notorious for needing a new transmission after about 100k miles.  Since a diesel isn't really considered "broken in" until at least 150k miles, that seems an unacceptable lifetime.  I suppose if I really wanted to be through, I should go to a GMC dealer and drive a Sierra.  But really, I already have.  I'll just pretend that the Silverados I drove had a GMC badge on them, and call it good. 

After I got home from the various dealers, Jan and I discussed our current options at length, and we've come to the conclusion to put the truck search on ice for a while.  Waiting will enable us to be able to spend more money, and also to get a better deal, because honestly, now isn't exactly the greatest time to be buying a new vehicle.  We'll likely pick things up in September or October, when the 10s are coming out, but there's still 09s left in stock.  But, that's enough about that, this is a horse blog, so I should get back to horses.  Or, on second thought, since it's almost 0100, and I'm riding tomorrow morning, it might make some sense to get some sleep.  I think I'll do that.