Pferd und Reiter

I had quite the busy weekend, and rather than blogging the day's events that night, I very heroically fell asleep on the Soporific Couch™. I of course also rode yesterday. Since there are events aplenty to cover, I'll get right down to it.

Saturday, Zhi's trainer invited us to a clinic at her ranch. I can't for the life of me remember the clinician's name, but he was a Bereiter(Germany's equivalent of a BHS Certified Dressage instructor. Read: Awesome) from Germany(of course.). Unfortunately, I had stayed up until 0300 Friday, and as a result, I didn't get nearly as early a start Saturday as I would have liked. But, undeterred, after feeding Zigs, I headed out to Cadence Ranch to find the clinic already in progress. When I got there, Christine was riding a very nice Hanoverian mare, and since she was the only person there that I knew, I sat by my car and watched. I must say that I was very impressed with the clinician. He had the best explanation of "forward" that I've ever heard. He said, "Forward does not mean rushing. Forward means hind legs are active, and rhythmic." I really liked the way he worked with the horses, and hopefully, I'll be able to ride with him the next time he's in town. I must admit that I really can't remember much more about the clinic than that, as it was pretty hard to hear the clinician from where I was sitting, and I spent most of the time looking at all the fancy Warmbloods that kept getting loaded and unloaded from trailers. Maybe one day I'll be able to have a horse like that when I grow up. Of course, I want to event, so more likely there are more Thoroughbreds in my future. Which I suppose is just as well, as I've become rather a fan of the breed. Anyway, I stayed for lunch with the clinician, and met several people named Linda (seriously), one of whom told me that the local Pony Club was connected with one of the local Fox hunts. In yet another demonstration why I need to WRITE MY BLOG IMMEDIATELY AFTER I LEARN INFORMATION LIKE THIS, Linda told me the name of the hunt. I guess I'll have to ask Google to find them. Surely, they have a website. Armed with that piece of useless information, I ran home to get ready for the next horsy activity of the day: trying out a prospect for Zhi.

The horse's name was Sirus, and he was a 16hh Appaloosa. As we drove down to the facility he was boarded at, Zhi filled me in on the details. As the story goes, he was sired by a fairly impressive Stallion up in Washington, but for some reason, his breeder was unsatisfied with him and was going to euth him. His current owner convinced them to instead hand the horse over to her, and she then spent the next few years breaking him to ride with the help of her trainer. As the years went on, though, she found herself less and less interested in horse stuff, and deceided to put him on the market up in Washington. As the story goes, her mom convinced her not to do that, that instead when she moved down to Texas, her mom would start working with him. Long story short, she brought the horse down here and he's pretty much been a pasture ornament.

When I hopped up on him to ride him, I found him to be still very Green. he didn't really respond well to my outside leg, and was difficult to steer. He seemed to have a good brain in there, but he was a little too lazy for my tastes. We thanked the seller for her time, and went on our way, which brings us to Sunday.

I woke up early on Sunday to go and take pictures for my Trainer, Fuzzy Pony and Saga's Mom at anotherclinic. This one was with my trainer's trainer, Bobbie Paulk. You can see my video handiwork over at Saga's blog, and you can see my still photo work here. I was so busy taking pictures and video and trying to figure out the best place to stand so that I got decent shots of everybody that I really didn't get to absorb much of what I heard. I did learn what a volte is, as well as a technique for asking your horse to come round. The "push the saddle forward" visual was an interesting visual, and I'll be experimenting with it on subsequent rides. Shortly after Fuzzy Pony and Saga's mom's rides, I dashed off to meet a friend who came in from out of town, during which absolutely nothing of horsy consequence occurred.

The same can be said for the hours of Monday, until about 1930, at which point I went and saddled up Zigs for a ride around the neighborhood. Since I had a lot going on in my mind, I really wasn't working on anything, I just walked him around the neighborhood. Apparently, our clearance from the neighborhood dogs had lapsed, as we were once again the scourge of subdivision. To his credit, Zigs was a very good boy about it all. He did spook once, though, when a huge Pit Bull came charging the fence out of nowhere at us. I sat it, and got him calmed down while the dog's owner called off Cujo and apologized profusely. Other than that, it was a nice, relaxing ride around the neighborhood, and when we got back into the pasture, I did a little bit of two-point work. I can definitely tell that my balace at two-point is improving, because I don't have to brace my hands on Zigs' neck nearly as much anymore. I'm still not convinced I'm in 100% the correct position, but there's a chance Saga's mom will be able to come over this weekend, I'm sure she'd be willing to tell me.

So what's on tap for tonight? Well, Zhi is getting changed now to ride Zigs. I'll definitely let y'all know how that one goes!

So That's Where the Eggs Have Been

I have been lax in my blogging duties of late. I rode yesterday, and didn't blog about it. Without further ado, I shall make amends for this transgression. After a very good phone interview(I have another one with the same company tomorrow), I ran outside and tacked Ziggy up. Since I was in such a good mood, I decided that I'd do some jumping. Like I usually do, I set up one jump on a flat approach and another one on an uphill approach.

For a warmup, I took Zigs for a quick walk around the neighborhood. I guess our clearances came through when I wasn't paying attention, because the dogs in the neighborhood were nice enough to allow us to pass by without challenge. The only thing I had trouble with while we were out in the neighborhood is that Zigs always wants to counter-flex, and keep an eye on what's going on on the other side of us. Fortunately, that was pretty easily solved with some half-halts. I'm getting really good at those at the walk. He still blows them off at the trot and canter. I'm not sure how much of that is him, and how much is me. At the canter, I'm almost positive it's my fault. At the trot, I think it's probably a bit 50/50. Once I can afford to take lessons again, that's one of the first things on my list to work on/figure out.

At any rate, after warming up around the neighborhood, I went back into my pasture to start jumping. Before I actually started going over jumps, I trotted around the pasture in two-point, so that Zigs could get a look at everything. Not that I thought he was going to spook or refuse or anything like that, I just always like to give him an idea of what we're about to go do. Of course, I'm not completely sure of the wisdom on that, as some day, when I start doing Horse Trials, he's going to have to jump courses cold. But for now, I'll keep doing it my way. I mis-judged my positioning of the first jump, which made the approach a bit difficult, since it was at a weird angle. It took a lot of doing to come at it straight from one direction. While I was riding, I was cursing my self for that one, but after talking to Saga's mom about it, she informed me that I had inadvertently created a unique training opportunity for improving my approach to jumps! It was very nice of her to salvage my feelings like that. ;) Outside of a tricky approach on one of the jumps, the rest of it actually went pretty well, although Ziggy likes to try to jump fences right of center. Either that or I set him up right of center. I think I had him going in straight. The next time Saga's mom comes over, I'll try to remember to have her look for that. I also don't feel like I was closing my angles enough over the jumps, which I'm pretty sure is due to the fact that I'm not relaxing my hips enough.

That being said, Ziggy was very happy to be jumping, and took to it with great gusto. I am also glad to report that I didn't catch him in the mouth, which is my #1 no no when I'm jumping. I can be out of balance, and look like crap over the fence, but I'd better not catch my horse in the mouth. Anyway, after several good jumps, it was getting pretty hot, so I called it a day and un-tacked. All in all, it was a good ride, and capped the day nicely.

Today was Dressage, and on the docket was canter, and some more work in two-point. I began my warmup by walking on a long rein, getting Zigs to really stretch out and step under himself. After doing that on both reins, I picked him up and started doing an exercise that Duchess' mom taught me. I think I've mentioned it before, but in case I haven't, this is how it works. you walk 10' diagonally, stop, turn on the forehand, and walk the opposite diagonal for 10', and lather, rinse, repeat. Ziggy keeps trying to go behind the bit on my turns on the forehand, and I haven't really been able to figure out why. He does it on both reins, so I'm not sure what's going on. In the meantime, I'll keep working on it, but the next time the Oracle is here, I'll ask her to work with me on it. After walking, I moved to trot in two-point, and did my penance to Epona. I still feel like I'm staying way too upright in two point, but my legs were absorbing the shock like they were supposed to, and I felt pretty in balance, so I guess I was doing it right. After I finished the Dressage test in two-point, I did some cantering in two-point. It went pretty well, at the very least Zigs seemed to rather enjoy himself.

I took a walk break and then proceeded to canter, which still needs a lot of work. I still need to fix my transition, I have a habit of trying to lean back like I'm in a recliner. I did manage to get one up transition without doing canter by Laz-E-Boy, so that's progress, I guess. The other big problem I keep having with canter is that I lose my stirrups. Fortunately, I spend a lot of time riding without stirrups, so when I lose them, it's not a total disaster. Although, I suppose that sort of also works to my detriment, since because I can keep my balance at the canter without stirrups, I'm not terribly worried about keeping them when I go in to canter. This is probably also something I should fix before I show. The only problem is, I can't really figure out why I lose my stirrups. Maybe I'm not keeping my heels down? The next time I ride, I might have Zhi watch me and see if she can see something that I'm missing. After cantering on both reins, I decided to call it a night.

I have another interview tomorrow, and I'll probably go ride after that. Although, it'll be 15:00 by the time I'm done with it, so that might be a little hot. I probably won't ride very long. I might wake up early enough to ride in the morning, but let's be realistic. I'm on vacation. Riding tomorrow night won't work, as Zhi and I are headed over to her trainer's place for a lesson for Zhi. More about that, later!

Fatigue

Sadly, I have not yet managed to ride this week, yet. I've been heads down in release hell for a Big Giant Project™ that mercifully was released today. What follows is an accounting of my ride on Sunday. I had to work Sunday morning, and I finally left the office around 1700 or so. I almost didn't ride, because I was thoroughly spent, but I looked out in the pasture, and Zigs popped his head up over the round bale and pricked his ears. I rolled my save versus cute, failed, changed and went to tack him up.

For the past couple of Sundays, I've been working on jumping. I rather like this arrangement, and plan to continue it, however this past Sunday, I didn't feel up to jumping so I decided that I'd work on Two-Point instead. after warming up, I got up in two-point, and rode the entire Intro A dressage test. Yes, that includes transitions. As an entirely random side note, I have decided to call the preceding exercise "Penance to Epona". Anyway, it felt like I did a pretty good job of keeping my heels down and my shoulders back, but I think I wasn't relaxing my hip enough, because I didn't really feel my hip angle closing. My knees were definitely working properly though. Transition-wise, I actually had more trouble with trot/Canter than I did Canter/Trot. I'm guessing that's probably because Zigs is used to having my seat bones as a cue. He doesn't really know the word, which is something that I should work on. Or, at least, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know "Canter". The handful of times I've tried longing him, whenever I've told him to canter, that apparently meant, "stop what you're doing and turn around to look at me". Silly Thoroughbred.

After Penance to Epona, I cantered around in two-point, which Ziggy thought was fantastic fun. I must say, for this segment, I really wasn't paying attention to my form. After the week I'd had, I just wanted to feel the wind in my hair, and not think about anything. I am happy to report that the desired effect was achieved. I only wish that my pasture was slightly bigger so that I had more room to run Zigs before having to turn him. But, it's more room than I had at the place I boarded him. I finished up the ride by doing an exercise that Duchess' mom taught me. you start out pointed at an angle, walk 10 meters, turn on the forehand, walk the opposite 10 meters, and repeat until you reach the opposite end of the arena.

It went pretty well for the first few turns on the forehand, but as time went on, Zigs started going way behind the bit, and nothing I did seemed to put him back on it. I thought at first I may have been using too much rein, so I let it out until I had loops, and he was still going behind the bit, so I tried pushing him more forward, which didn't help either. The only way I could get him to take his chin out of his chest was to put him on the buckle. I'm guessing it was because his lesson timer went off, but I'll try it again on my next ride when he's fresh and see if I get the same results.

My plan is to ride tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty puny, so it will probably be a more relaxed ride. The weeks of stress have caught up with me, and I think I might be fighting off a little bug. I suppose it would also help if I stopped writing this, and went to bed, so I think that's what I'll do.

Ja! Mein leapen!

No, that's not actually real German. I chose that title because it is silly. I will pause for a moment to allow the shock to wear off.

Are we good?

Groovy. As alluded to on Saga's mom's blog, Saga's mom came over Sunday afternoon to help me with jumping. It was pretty hot, so we didn't work for a terribly long time. We started with trot poles up to a small X as a warmup. I need to work on closing my hip angles more, but I was doing a much better job of keeping my shoulders back and my legs where they need to be. Matter of fact, Saga's mom commented to me that my leg position looked really good, and that whatever I did to fix it, I should continue doing. I think the big thing that fixed everything was keeping my shoulders back. Anyhow, after a while going over the X, Saga's mom set up another fence on the edge of what would be a tank, but due to the fact that it won't hold water to save its life, it is merely a dip in the ground with delusions.

At any rate, I now had a bank up. and a bank down. with a hill coming into it. The fence wasn't big at all, but it was very challenging, because I had to balance Ziggy back, and make sure that he came into the fence properly. I can't say that every fence was roses, I had several bad ones, but when they happened, I was pretty good about riding what I had over the fence.

All in all, it was a wonderful day jumping, even if it was scorching out. I'm starting to feel more and more confident about Pine Hill! More to come tomorrow, when I can write a better post, because this one is not up to my standards.

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.

Must Be a Full Moon

Well, last night was quite the ride. I decided that last night, I would take a break from working on brakes, and instead focus on turns on the forehand, and canter transitions. The turns on the forehand didn't go so well. I did ok on turning to the left, but when I tried to do them to the right, Zigs kept doing laterals instead of spinning. I tried in vain to figure out what exactly it was I was doing to cause it, but came up empty. Maybe I wasn't giving a strong enough rein cue? Dunno. I kept at it until I got at least a quarter turn on the right rein, and I decided that that would be good enough for now, and put him on the buckle to let him stretch down, which he did quite nicely.

After a walk break, I warmed him up a bit with some sitting trot, and worked a little bit on getting walk exactly when I wanted it. It's not 100% yet, but it's getting better. Once I was satisfied with the results I was getting, I picked up a trot, and asked for a right lead canter. What I got was a rushing trot, so back to walk we went. I've been told that when that happens, it's because I didn't give the right cue, so I decided to try it again. I put my outside leg back scooped with my inside seat bone, and boom, instant canter. I don't think that walk/canter is easier than trot canter, so assuming that's true, I'm the problem. we cantered around for a bit, and I went back to a trot on the left rein and tried the canter transition again. He rushed into it, a bit, but I still got the canter. I did some circles with him, and went back to walk, which took me far too long to do. One of the next things on the list to work on is my down transitions from canter. After I've been cantering and I transition down, I tend to let my horse trot forever before I try to go back down to walk. I don't know why I do that, I'm certainly not feeling like I'm going to fall off, and it is well within my abilities to get a walk from the trot. So, it's going on The List™ of things to work on.

The last thing I decided to work on was a little canter in two-point. So, I picked up a nice, rolling canter and then I got up into two point. From out of nowhere, Ziggy started BOOKING it across the pasture. we went from Canter to a full on Gallop. I think Ziggy was trying to tell me that we could have run the Belmont. In his defense, I think I might have gone up into the ground-covering gallop position, because I remember my stomach being really close to the horse. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun, but my pasture really isn't big enough for galloping. After reminding Ziggy that we were not in fact at the Belmont stakes, I decided I had had enough excitement for one night, and walked Zigs out. While I was walking out, I was mentally re-playing my ride, and I have to admit, I wasn't very satisfied. I know the things that I need to fix with him, and I'm working on them, but I know I'd be able to make better progress with them if I was able to ride him with a trainer on a more regular basis. When the Oracle was here last, I got a lot out of my lessons with her on him. I'd like to figure out a way to ride him more consistently with my trainer, but right now, that would mean either buying a truck, (Which is the plan, just not until later in the year), or begging the Baron to swing by on his way to lessons with Duchess and Lucky, and get Zigs. I really don't want to do the latter, as it just feels like way too much of an imposition. They're already being nice enough to bring Sonata for me, and I do get a lot out of riding her, so I think the plan is to keep riding her and just quit my whining. ;)

Must be something in the air...

(Trying out Blogger's post by email function, so if the formatting on this post is weird, that's what's going on.)

Well, it's Tuesday, and since Ziggy got two days off after XC schooling at Pine Hill, I figured it was time to pull him out of his stall and put him through his paces.  Tonight, I decided the ride would be about two-point, up transitions, and practicing the "cruising gallop" versus the collected gallop positions.  I am happy to report that the up transitions went very well.  I had to work a little bit to get the right lead canter, but that's not too much of a surprise, as that's his weaker side.  I was able to pick up the left lead like clockwork, so maybe my problems with the canter transition are behind me??  I can but hope.

The two-point went decently.  I'm still not 100% convinced I have the right form at two-point, and I feel like I'm having to put way too much weight on my hands on the horse's neck.  I'm also having a difficult time reconciling that with the critique I got when we were schooling this past weekend that I hold my hands up too high.  I suppose I could do something radical and ask my trainer: When is it OK to rest your hands on the horse, and when do they need to be off the horse?  Of course, if any of you reading this would like to chime in, feel free.  One of the other things I'd like to do is take a longe line lesson.  I'll probably try to set one of those up next month, as there's several things I'd like to work on without reins or stirrups.  Not that I'm expecting to fix everything in one lesson, but I'm hoping to at least be told what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and what I can do to fix my inconsistencies.  

The cruising galloping position vs. the collected galloping position really didn't work at all.  There were moments this weekend when I could feel it, but today, it just wasn't happening.  Of course, this is something that's apparently three levels above me, so I'm not expecting great strides of progress in it just yet.  I'll keep working at it, and hopefully as I approach that level, I'll get closer and closer to being able to make the switch successfully and consistently between those two positions.  

So, why all of the sudden intense focus on my jumping position?  Thought you'd never ask.  My goal for the summer is to improve my riding to the point to where I would be able to ride GAG at a horse trial, and not embarrass myself, or my trainer.  I looked up the GAG Dressage test, and I think I can do it.  It won't be a sub-30 penalty test or anything like that, but I feel like I can get through it cleanly, and not have people watching saying to each other, "What in the hell is he doing here?".  As far as XC goes, I can make it over all of the GAG fences on the Pine Hill course with one leg on each side, and myself in the middle.  Well, I can make it over the fences one at a time.  I have yet to actually string them together and jump one after the other.  I feel like I need a *lot* of work on both myself and my horse to make sure I can jump XC safely and cleanly.  As far as stadium goes, I've not seen a GAG stadium course, so I'm not sure whether I'd be up to that one as well.  But, at any rate, I will spend the summer practicing as hard as I can, and we'll see where I am come September.  Hopefully, I'll be able to twist Saga's mom's arm into hauling Zigs and I out for another XC schooling sometime soon.I'm falling asleep as I write this, so I think I'm going to go to bed.  Tomorrow I'm heading over to Duchess' house to go ride Sonata.  I was supposed to ride today, but Duchess' mom and I decided that tomorrow would work better for the two of us, so tomorrow it is.  Until then!