Two steps forward . . .

One step back.

Not surprisingly, considering someone's sudden behavioral issues and distraction due to being a schoolmaster, we had a setback for our Mary lesson on Friday.  After three lessons were we showed marked improvement, we had a lesson where it was 'what happened?'.  Mi papi was not having it with this idea of stretch down and go forward at the same time.  Just not having it.  It was the exact same stuck feeling I'd been having since he started having his August blow up.  He wasn't going to give and stretch, so you could just go pound sand.

Poor Mary.  She had to get up and chase us with the lunge whip for most of our lesson.  As she put it, it's all I can do to manage the neck right now, someone else has to manage the butt.  Theo had locked me out again.  Not as bad as our first lesson, but not nearly the nice connection we had in our third lesson.  We've had a relapse while trying to find the forward.  It was all we could do to get to the point where we could trot and canter in a stretch in both directions.  My shoulders were absolutely killing me and my left hand was throbbing so much.

Oh, right, I took a massive chunk out of my knuckle on my left hand while cleaning my trailer.  Just my luck.  I was getting some sawdust off the ramp while it was up and managed to bash against the window frame in a perfect way.  Blood.  Everywhere.  I wrapped it up, asked a nurse friend, and was told it wasn't a candidate for stitches.  Elevate, pressure, ice, carry on.  I wore a glove on that hand to make sure the bandaid stayed put.  I looked like Michael Jackson.

So our lesson was brief but brutal.  I got a firm comment on my fitness.  It's fair, I'm only riding three times a week right now.  It won't do.  It's hard to get us both fit at the same time.  I need to ride more, be more fit.  Her working student could have mi papi bouncing along like a firecracker, but she rides seven horses a day.  I remember being that fit.  It was a long time ago.

So we've been ordered back to downtown and to find someone that will chase us with a lunge whip.  It really is the best way to get him popping along as opposed to trying to pop me off.  I didn't find any volunteers last time, now it's a number one priority.  I'm sure I can find someone if I try hard enough.  Who would think it would be hard to find someone to chase me around with a whip?  You'd think I'd have a line!  But yeah, we need to find someone to chase us because holy crap he's powerful once he's done being resistant.  Mary managed to shove us through the wall and get us clicking again.  My goodness he's got a lot to offer once he's going.  Both shoulders were aching, my legs were shaking, my hand throbbing, no damn oxygen, but we got him to stretch to the dirt and chew while cantering.  That woman does not give up.

It's going to be an interesting couple of months.  Mary is traveling at the end of September, so I'm going to do two more lessons in a row.  Yikes.  And then in the beginning of October when both his leaser and I are traveling, I'm dropping him off with Mary for some boot camp.  He's going to get a week or two of 'love' from the working students under Mary's supervision rather than sitting in his field or teaching beginners.  It'll be good for him!  And then Mary can teach me what else I'm doing wrong after Theo's been worked properly for a couple weeks.  Sure, he may eat her barn and try to kill her employees, but I did warn her.  It's ethical to warn her that my horse was pretty dramatic in his dark past and might lose his shit with zero warning.

Today we trail ride.  We've been super intense lately, I want to make sure we keep things positive.  We're coming out the other side of the temper tantrum, I need to make sure he's well rewarded for his return to work.

Push

I knew I was jinxing myself, posting about how my horse is so good with the trailer and how well it's been going.  I got up on Friday to absolute downpour.  The forecast was for the rain and storms to continue all day and into the night.  Local flood advisories were going up.  But my lesson was already scheduled and I'd already taken the afternoon off from work.  Hell or high water (literally), I was going to my lesson.

I budgeted a lot of extra time since I figured the drive would be slow.  I arrived at the barn and tried to back into the paved parking lot.  Nope, not going to happen when it's raining so hard that my back up camera and mirrors are borderline useless.  It's an angle going down hill over uneven terrain, the trailer just was not going straight and I didn't want to hit the rock wall.  I gave up and went to my usual turn around spot.  I didn't want to turn my truck around in a pasture in the pouring rain, so I tried to turn around by backing out.

I'll just skip to the part where I got myself so tangled up that I ended up between two paddocks with no wiggle room and a horse laughing at me.  About this point, I realized that I am really not that good with the trailer yet, especially when all of my mirrors are useless.  I extricated myself enough to point my hood at the Ritz, opened the gate, apologized to Trainer A, and turned around in the Ritz like the rookie driver I am.  With four wheel drive the truck had no problem with it and fortunately left only one small mark.

I got all of my junk moved to my trailer without getting it too drenched.  I pulled in my rather wet horse, cleaned him up as best I could, and let the summer campers rub his ears while I put on his shipping boots.  I tried to wait for a break in the rain, but it just kept coming down harder.  I finally gave up, grabbed my horse, and headed down to my trailer.  Important note here:  I couldn't find a chain shank anywhere, so I went with a regular lead.  And his regular halter.

I dropped the ramp, said 'Up-up!', and walked him up.  He got his front feet on the ramp, stopped and backed up.  Huh.  He does that sometimes.  I shrugged, turned, and started over.  Nope.  He suddenly decided that he does not know anything about loading into a trailer.

I did figure out that it was the absolutely torrential rain on the roof of the trailer.  It sounded like a freight train in there and papi wanted no part of that.  But I had a lesson to go to, so we spent about fifteen minutes getting his butt on that trailer.  I eventually got some help so they could grab the butt bar (and lend me a chain shank).  I was ten minutes behind schedule, absolutely drenched, and my horse was throwing a temper tantrum in his trailer.  Great.

I hit the road, dropping down as far as 35mph in a 65 zone when the rain was just unbelievable.  And all the cars around me were doing the same, so I know it's not just me.  I managed to still make it to the lesson with 20 minutes to tack up.  Mary is really sweet and let me park my wet, upset horse in the aisle to tack up.

After all of that drama, I was not expecting much from my lesson.  And Theo has been rather studish this week.  I think the mares are cycling and I looked back at my August entries for the past two years.  He always acts up this time of year.  It's little things, like being a bit too quick with those front feet and looking to bite when we'd mostly stopped that behavior.  He didn't want to focus and was giving me little temper tantrums while I walked and warmed up for Mary.

In the end, we had another good lesson.  Once he stretched and started working, it was okay.  It wasn't his best, but as Mary said, she doesn't want to see him at his best.  She can help more if he's at his worst. And as Theo's worst is being distracted and some head shakes, I think Mary is starting to actually like him.  She was very happy with our work on stretching and the much more honest, even connection.  She tested us with some leg yields and while we've got work to do, he can now leg yield neatly without bracing through his neck and throwing his head up.

Our new focus is going to be the push.  He doesn't have enough thrust right now.  His neck is now lovely, the connection is an actual thing, so now we're putting all attention on the hind end.  A lovely connection is worthless if there's no energy coming forward.  She described him as having this big gap in the middle and the energy isn't cycling from the hind to the bridle.  It has to cycle or nothing works right.  His trot is currently his natural gait, the one he chooses.  It's not a working trot.  He needs more push and not because I'm begging him.

First exercise was a lengthen canter right into a 10m canter circle.  Papi did not like that much.  The reasoning was that he doesn't have enough oomph to do a 10m canter circle right now unless he comes in with some extra power.  Getting him to come back without breaking to trot is doubly hard when he's in a bad mood and wants to suck behind my leg and stomp his feet.

Mary nodded, got up, and picked up a lunge whip.  Wuh oh.  20m circle, trot - canter - trot, with a little outside influence to get him in front of my leg without me begging for it.  She wanted me to feel the correct transition with no hop or head pop.  I have to say, the powerful, correct transition?  That's something worth working for.  It felt awesome, and frankly, I think Theo enjoyed it himself.  Once he was actually up in front of my leg, we went large.  Mary would get behind him in the corner and help drive him forward into a lengthen trot.  And we never came back down.  We just added and added, pushing him to really find what he can do.

By the end, he was over tracking by about half a hoof print.  Mary's sure he's got a medium in him which by her definition is overtracking by a lot (it looked like a foot, she put her hands up about that far apart), he just has to find it.  He was puffing hard after that trot work.  I can't remember the last time I felt him stretch and push like that and certainly not down a whole long side.  I may have never felt it before.  I can't do it on my own currently, he just says no.  So we have been assigned fitness for our homework.  Yes, work on the connection and softness and transitions, but mostly go forward.  Not our current forward.  More forward.  Still more forward.  Take him out for a gallop, do hill work, jump, raised trot poles.  Anything that gets him forward and using his hind end.  He's too weak right now, he needs to be stronger and his cardio needs to be better.

Well, gee, that I can do.  That I know.  And I'm sure Trainer A will be more than delighted to chase us with a lunge whip to assist with our trot sets.  Gallops and hill work and gymnastics are a go!

I told her about our schooling show and getting an 8 on a stretchy circle.  She said 'See?  Stick with me, kid, I'll get you through this'.  She also reiterated that I'm not to show First right now.  When I go back to First, she wants us completely confirmed in the bridle, in the impulsion, and in the movements.  I will be going back into the ring to win, not to get a 60%.  Which is kind of a new world for me.  Me?  And Theo?  Winning at shows in New England?  I'd never considered that.

This is what I needed.  This is so simple for her.  She's been doing this longer than I've been alive and for her, getting a perfectly reasonable horse ready to go First is bread and butter.  Well worth driving through a monsoon.

Prepared

I showed up to my second fancy dancy dressage lesson with the goal of looking prepared and not agreeing to anything that makes me uncomfortable.  Theo and I had spent two weeks working on the basic concept of him flexing right and not looking like a giraffe.  We'd had some bad rides, but we'd fought through it and I felt like we'd made progress.  I felt like I could honestly say I don't want or need mechanical help.

You know that feeling when you try really hard for a project in school and it's time to present?  That's what it felt like when I picked up my reins.  Okay, Theo, here we go.  Don't choke and please, please, please don't let us get another F.  I've had my fill of F's in the last two months.

Spooking at a chipmunk that ran under a trailer, he's such a dork

I guess I didn't need to worry.  Mary was, for lack of another word, delighted with our progress.  She said he didn't look like the same horse and once we were really rocking, said he looked like a real dressage horse now.  I swear I could have cried.  It's really been a bad couple of months for us.  Mary's not crazy with the compliments so that felt amazing.

When I updated her on what Theo and I have been doing, I said I was uncomfortable with the draw rein and didn't want to use it.  Her response?  Okay, how about a lunging exercise for the days when he's trying to tear your right arm off?  She doesn't appear to have a strong opinion either way.  Use it, don't use it, whatever works best for you and your horse.  So that's some weight off of my shoulders.  I won't be using a draw rein any more and she won't be asking me to use it.  I asked about my noseband and she likes it where it is.  It's a hole higher up his face and a hole tighter, no flash.  He can still eat treats and I easily get two fingers under it, it's just tighter than my usual completely decorative fitting.  So I guess I don't need to stress over any nefarious plan to crank his nose shut.  She also likes his new loose ring bit, a 12mm stainless steel (that I might have doctored with some Bit Butter, my latest addition to the tack box).

After checking our work with that flex right, we moved on to our next step in fixing the contact issue.  When I put pressure on the reins, Theo's first reflex is to go up and against the hands.  With Theo flexing nicely, I asked him to go low.  Lower.  Even lower.  All the way down.  Don't give away the contact, show him how to follow the contact all the way down to the ground.  Now ask him to go forward.  Don't let him fling his head up, show him that he can do this without throwing his head.  I swear, I felt like I was riding a headless horse when Theo really got into it.  Huge sigh and stretch.  Cantering like that is freaking unnerving.  Where's the rest of my horse???!!!!

Theo training hard at being low

My homework for the next two weeks is to keep working on his flex and softness, but now to show him that contact doesn't mean throw your head up and brace.  It means soften and follow.  Down is to become his new home.  Theo really likes stretching down already, so Mary is pretty sure he's going to take to this like a duck to water.  He just has to learn to stretch on a contact.  Stretch doesn't mean jam your nose out and take the bit away from me.  An honest stretch, not his jerky, half ass attempt he likes to give me.  As Mary pointed out, there's a reason the stretchy circle is at Training level.  It's a fundamental part of the basics and he needs to be honest about it.  He needs to realize what a lovely place down is, to stretch down to the contact and swing over his back.

She wants to see him following the contact down and working like that while keeping his forward with an alive, chewing contact and a flex in both directions.  Which all makes sense to me and I'm entirely comfortable with this.  After seeing his aptitude for stretching down (which got us a 'fantastic!'), Mary said she doubted I'd even need to use the lunging exercise.  After he figures out how to really stretch and release, all those little aches and cramps in his poll are going to start to go away.  Even now, just with the flexing and movement through the poll with some chewing, he's happier to have his poll handled.

So I had a good lesson.  We showed a lot of progress and Mary is very pleased.  We're on the same page as far as what I am willing to use with my horse.  It turns out that the next thing we need to work on is something Theo and I have done before and he enjoys, so this should be a good couple of weeks.  It will still be hard, he's got muscle to build and he doesn't like upward transitions while low, but he really does love to stretch.  I think she was pleasantly surprised to see that we do have the stretch trained, just not perfected.  Woohoo, not missing all of my fundamentals!

And next lesson?  She said we can start to play with the First/Second level frame and some shoulder in, see what he can handle without bracing.  If he braces and locks up, we'll stretch him down, release, and try again.  So that's why down needs to be locked in.  I'm excited!  She's talking about us learning to be a real First level pair!  I feel like I'm actually back on track!

The picnic is over

Today was a huge day for me.  I've never in my 30+ years of horses taken a horse somewhere by myself.  Ever.  I didn't have a trailer and even if I did, the idea of driving a horse terrified me.  Today, I did it!  I drove 130 miles with a horse trailer and no one died!

Theo was pretty chill about this change in routine.  He hates changes in routine as a rule, but I bring enough cookies, he can cope.  He didn't really want to load into the strange trailer with no other horses even in the vicinity, but I convinced him to hop on while I got the butt bar.  Many cookies for the poor, confused pony.

I can't believe this rig is mine 

It took me about an hour to drive to Mary's place and it was almost entirely on highways or interstates.  It was an awesome way to rack up miles with a loaded trailer.  No lights, no lane changes, just lots of time in one lane with a big shoulder available if I needed to move over.  I got my trailer turned around at all of the parking spots and didn't get stuck.  I even loaded and unloaded my gear completely by myself.  I was completely autonomous!

As for my lesson?  Well, Mary is exactly as her reputation describes:  friendly, helpful, very honest.  Very, very honest.  After watching me warm up for a couple minutes, she asked if that was the way I showed him.  I said no, I usually wait to pick up a contact and establish forward first.  She said okay, show me the neck you have when you show.  So I picked Theo up and asked him to come onto the contact.  She watched for another minute, asked me to canter, and then flagged me over.

As she put it, I have a horse that doesn't bend right.  At all.  Even when tracking right, his neck bends left.  He never releases his right jaw, doesn't chew the bit on that side, and is not supple.  We don't have a good contact.  I asked if we were at First and she said no, it wasn't good enough for First.  We're not ready.

It stung.  I won't pretend it didn't.  It was blunt and honest, exactly what I wanted.  We're not going at First right now.  We don't have the required connection.  So I asked what I should do.  Then we got our asses kicked from one end of the ring to the other.  Theo would not flex right.  At all.  So she set us up to turn down the center line and then leg yield off of my right leg to the wall.  But not a text book leg yield.  She wanted his shoulders to lead significantly while keeping his bend to the right.  This was to push him to stretch muscles he wouldn't release.  And once he had the idea, we started asking him to supple and carry his neck in a round way while leading with his shoulders.

Theo was so resistant to this new plan that after twenty minutes, Mary slapped a draw rein on my right side.  As she put it, she didn't want to watch me struggle and was going to give me some leverage.  I'm a h/j rider, I'm very familiar with draw reins.  I was surprised to have one put on during a dressage lesson, but it sure made the point to mi papi.  It took another fifteen minutes, but I knew the exact moment he released his jaw and flexed through his poll.  I felt it through the entire front half of his body and Mary yelled 'yes, there, finally!'.  He started to work his mouth on the right side rather than keeping it clamped shut because he was being asked to submit to the bit.

New shipping boots!

While tightening my noseband, Mary told Theo 'the picnic is over'.  No more trotting around looking like a giraffe.  He is to come into the ring, pick up a contact, and get to work.  She saw absolutely no sign of curling from him, even under pressure.  Assuming the curling was a problem before, we've fixed it.  Draw rein, lots of pressure, and he didn't offer to curl.  I'm under instructions to work on getting him into a First level appropriate outline because curling is not a concern.  Now he's locking me out and that isn't allowed anymore.  I am to work that leg yield off of my right leg to force his neck to flex right properly and not do that weird snake thing while he avoids the true bend.

It was really cool the moment when he gave through the right and lifted his neck for me, coming onto the contact like I'd been hoping for all this time.

I feel some pride that no matter what adjustment she asked for, I could do it.  Supple him, poll down, leg yield, move his shoulders.  I've learned to manipulate my pony if nothing else.  And no complaints about our forward until the end of the lesson when he was melting in the heat.  We certainly haven't been wasting our time, just lost track of where we're going.

So here I am, accomplished and slightly broken hearted.  I'm dropping down to T3 and F1 until further notice.  Apparently the judges aren't blind.  I am.  I have a lot of thinking to do on all of this.  Mary was exactly what I hoped for, an emotionally detached and very honest voice of experience.  She seemed to like Theo, thought he was a good match for an adult ammy with a history of concussions.  He was a very, very good boy under pressure.  He never offered to quit or actively fight, just some stubborn evasion.  But if I want to progress with him, we have to fix this fundamental flaw.  He needs to submit to the bit.

It may take me awhile to reconcile the different feedback I'm getting.  But I know Mary's trained up several Grand Prix level horses.  I have to believe she knows what this level takes.