Training Blog #1

So here is the cool thing about technology-- it gives us the power to be hypercritical. Since I have no mirrors, often ride alone, and mainly ride in clinics instead of having regular lessons, it can be hard to really "see" where things are at. I ride hugely off a "feeling" but just like many others probably find sometimes what feels good is "a bit BTV" or "too quick" or "not enough bending" etc. I recently picked up a Pivo for like $50 off of Ebay and with the lovely addition on my new Iphone 14(thanks to my lovely fiance) I am able to video a few of my rides a week to pick apart. See whats good, see if what i feel is matching what I see, etc. 
Apart of this blog I guess I will begin some training posts to discuss how my guys are coming along and what bumps we are experiencing. This is two-fold for me as A. maybe someone else will see this and go" I am experiencing the same thing or what you did was super helpful to my horse and I" and B. Maybe someone will drop me a message and ask, "have you tried this" and it will give me some new ways of progressing my guys. I feel like information should be shared, discussed, and seen so that we can all improve for the horses. 
I will begin with Jeriah. All my horses got a bit of time "off" due to poor weather-- we were single digits for about 10days followed by a week of rain. Things were pretty yucky there for a minute. I only have an outdoor so I am at the mercy of the weather to an extent. Usually I dont mind giving these guys a bit of time off this time of year and honestly it was nice as I got settled into my new job. 
Unfortunately, Jeriah wasnt in a great place in his training when we began our time off-- we were butting heads and getting approximately nowhere. So for the first week following his break it seemed like we were in the same place. He can be a sensitive horse and despite how he seems he can be quite stiff and pull with his shoulders (theres that harness horse kicking in). When you apply leg to encourage him to push to the bit but don't give him a long rein he as become quite claustrophobic and upset. Unfortunately, we regularly have this discussion and its one we have to ensure we have in the warm up. I spent the week getting him through to the bit and not overreacting to the leg to hand aids. There was quite a bit of turbulence. Jeriah isnt the kind of horse who takes "pressure" well and so high level dressage can be quite anxiety inducing for him which then he immediately goes to "no,no,no,no" and is hard to get mentally back on your team. The issue is that if you always leave him alone then he drags himself around the arena on his shoulder and you essentially cant ask for an ounce of bending without overreaction. My system in the warm up is to check his "come back, step under, shoulders up" in some transtions between and within the gaits in addition to some loose, low necked lateral work. If he stays rideable there, usually then we can progress to more difficult work. Given that none of my horses are currently at peak show fitness currently I do "splits" in my training, just like if you were a weightlifter. For Jeriah generally we do sit work, changes, and lateral work, but sometimes I'll do with him what I do with Melman and Monty and do trot work, canter work days. 
The video on 2/5 I got the ride in on Jerry on my lunch. I decided I wanted to do a canter focused ride. He felt honest in the warm-up. I started with walking, then did a long, low frame trot with leg yields from Qline to the longside then a 12ish m circle to both directions. I used that primarily because he has been very stiff when turning the last couple weeks and I want to check that in a low frame he would be rideable. Then I did a few trot-walk-trot and trot-halt-trot with a piaffe/quick hindleg light shoulder feeling. He has been pulling hard with his shoulders recently, so I wanted to ensure he was listening to the sit aids when doing downward transitions. From there I did some basic stretchy canter then leg yield a few strides to and from the wall maintaining the lead to check rideability to the leg and suppleness. I always give a bit of a walk break following the warm-up. From there we began work and I typically start my canter work by riding a long half pass(to centerline or across the arena) to check on suppleness, drive from the leg, and then usually rideability in counter-canter to the change. We began the change work after that, which is where today we discovered that in fact our long time good change became the bad the change and our normally bad change became good. Gotta love horses... I wanted to school tempi's today, but after a few change lines I decided to bail on that as the rideability of the change aid was no good. I gave a walk break and started my pirouette work with a walk pirouette to canter pirouette in both directions before riding half pirouettes on quarterline then full pirouettes on quarterline. Once those were successful we worked the changes til I felt they were rideable, but did no tempi's as that was not on HIS list for the day and it is much more important that we found success in a few single changes on the aids then running around trying to get the 4s,3s,2s. 

Melman has also been a bit out of sorts after a little break. He has EPM so we are kind of just seeing what he will be able to physically and happily long term. He is a BIG horse with BIG movement, so it always feels far bigger, and more jarring than it looks. We do a bit of the same things as with Jeriah when warming up and usually incorporate some lateral work to get his big, long body starting to connect. Unlike Jeriah though, he tends to stay up in his shoulders well. I try to get his trot forward but base of the neck low, but the canter I want to feel it be non-flustered and semi-coordinated without me micromanaging it. This is kind of the entire premise of his rides at the moment. He can do all the things but its really been a slow development to get confidence and throughness to stay consistent. Additionally, he has a very tricky neck and its like 10ft long and due to the EPM his neck, topline has been slow to muscle. I usually fluctuate his training sessions between bringing him up more and then asking the neck to be almost "too low". His changes are huge and jump you out of the saddle and then he loses his balance. Essentially the ongoing theme for him is just seeking an "ease" and balance within the movements, because he can do them BUT you often feel like you have to ride a lot more than ideal. ​

My little "attitude" Monty. He is also tricky in many ways-- he is 17H and about 2 inches long. He has been very difficult to start trying to get the neck out. Obviously as you will see its just not there yet, but if i give 3 more inches of rein he becomes not committal to the contact, so I am seeking moments where he is taking the neck out even just a bit with me pushing the hand forward. He is a fairly adjustable horse but tends to be quite tail swishy about the leg and a bit anticipatory. We are slowly gaining the 3rd level work, but it's a bit of a balancing act between teaching the new things and working on the contact. He is still a little bucky to the changes-- keep in mind he has maybe been working on them 2 months and approximately 15 rides so they are GREEN GREEN. Since he is so sensitive, we have to constantly check that he stays rideable with the leg on and is willing to allow guidance. He has also decided to become early behind in the changes-- quite the cheeky lad. He will get it eventually. 
There is a lot to tear me apart about here-- I think any couch jockey would problem be tearing out their hair and freaking out about the short neck. Thats fine, I'd welcome those people to come show me how to do it better. Only those of us who have ridden it and developed it know that there are phases with horses that can be unavoidable. Everything takes time to become good, then better.