Throwback Thursday: Ivan

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Britt

Thinking it would be fun to do a mini throwback series on the horses of my past. Afterall, they are the ones that made me the rider and the horsewoman I am today, for better or worse. So starting with the most recent, here’s Ivan, the sometimes terrible.

Name: Ivan
Registered Name: Padi’s Classic Mountain
Breed: Irish Draught (RID)
Color: Grey
Height: 16.2h

Ivan was one of many horses that seemingly fell into my mother’s lap. A friend of hers had a 2 year old Irish Draught stallion, and simply didn’t have a place for him anymore. So we acquired him, at a hefty 90% discount off his weanling price. The intention would be to raise him for another year, maybe breed a couple mares, then send him through the Irish Draught stallion approval process and sell him as a Registered stallion.

I, as silly teenagers ~~who have watched one too many romantic horse movies~~ tend to do, was immediately drawn to this stallion’s quirky temperament. We’d play tag in the field, and he let me play dress up with him on occasion.

Baby Ivan wears the monkey hat

He grew up for a year, then Ivan put on his big boy pants and went off to training in order to pass the rigorous Irish Draught Horse Inspections. After passing, he came back home, was bred to a few mares, then went down to Georgia to go on consignment with a trainer.

Ivan at his inspection

It was some months before things went wrong. All that raging testosterone was getting to his head, and after her latest fall, the trainer’s husband forbade she ride him until he was gelded. We agreed, he was gelded, and he came back home. Where I promptly fell back in love with this quirky big grey.

First ride on a freshly gelded Ivan

As they say, the rest was history. For the most part. I retrained him in a more classical dressage way-of-going (as opposed to dressage in an elevator bit), and slowly we started working on showjumping courses.

Ivan’s second showjumping competition

Both dressage and showjumping progressed somewhat slowly, as sometimes Ivan’s personality could be… unpredictable. I never knew if it was Jekyll or Hyde that I’d be riding that day, and I can recall lessons where the trainer just told me to ‘wait it out’ until he saw fit to stop galloping a 20 meter circle. Once he got going, Ivan was a train, and his bucks were unbelievably athletic for a horse his size. A fractured ankle (thanks to Ivan) and a maybe broken hip (thanks to Ivan) put me out of commission and were part of our slowish progress. Yet still, I loved him.

Showing first level for the first time

Because of this unpredictability, I decided Ivan would be shown as a dressage horse only. We showjumped at home, jumping 3’3″ courses and the occasional 3’6″ fence with ease.

Athletic, and a bit on the exuberant side

Luckily, his dressage was fairly good as well, and we started campaigning at the local shows at First level, and the ribbons started ~~finally~~ coming our way. 1923424_541191201449_618_n

@ FENCE

Even though he had his terrible moments, in his 6 year old year Ivan started to calm down, and which the naughty side still existed, it was only appeared once in a blue moon. 95% of the time, he was a sweetheart, and a great dressage partner. He toddled my 10 year old sister around over crossrails, and even walked and trotted about with my husband (as his can-you-deal-with-horses test when we started dating), who had sat on a horse only once before.

Ivan and his best friend Bo

Ivan was my heart horse, and for the most part was an exceptionally cuddly creature. He wouldn’t let me bridle him without a big neck hug and a raspberry into his cheek, insisted on grabbing the hose at bath time, and had a huge love of water. Oh, and he used to get into everything- the things I pulled out of his mouth! Phones! Pens! Jackets! Santa Hats! (Sound familiar?) What wasn’t to love?

Ivan’s molar marks in a phone he destroyed

But alas, all good things must come to an end. I completed college and was forced to send him home until I could figure out a permanent salary to support my horse habit. Eventually, when no permanent job happened, and not wanting to see his talent wasted, I agreed to put him on the market. No less than 2 weeks after he sold, I received a full-time job offer with benefits. The resultant horse shopping led me to Foster, so I can’t complain, but I am still thankful to the skills Ivan taught me, and certainly happy for the memories of those years together.

Luckily, a piece of Ivan still lives with my family. Of the 2 foals by Ivan, we kept the Haflinger cross, a darling cob sized gelding named Riley. Not a mean bone here, but a quirky disposition, an affinity for playing with dogs, and a horse that I hope will see his true potential brought to light!

Riley

Things to Celebrate

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Britt

A few things to celebrate this week! The first is Foster’s new bonnet he’ll be getting thanks to Amanda from the $900 Facebook Pony, who chose our logo as a runner up in her logo contest!

Runner up logo design

Secondly, the USEF reversed the helmet cam ban! Although event organizers can still prohibit the cameras, I’m hopeful that the majority will allow us to record our rides for learning and sharing with others.

And lastly.. Jurassic Park IV. It comes out on. my. birthday. I got velociraptor induced hysterics when I saw the trailer. So scared, and SO excited.

Also on the good news front, Foster was a stellar boy last night. I finally set up some canter poles in an attempt to get us started with cavaletti, and he was golden through them, even though they were a bit further apart than the 9′ I meant to make them, and he had to reach a bit in the canter. Continuing work on the walk-canter transitions as well, which we’re getting about 50% of the time. After watching back the videos (thanks Ali) I need to keep working on my elbows- it’s definitely the thing that goes to hell in a handbasket whenever things get hard. It’s always something though!

blurry, but the canter is definitely improving!

It’s about to get frigid cold here tomorrow, so I am desperately hoping to get a mini jump school in tonight before everything freezes over. We shall see!

Dressage Lesson Recap: Shoulder-In and Walk-Canter

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Britt

Let’s just say, if you’re Foster, the last 6 weeks have been kind of cruddy from his point of view. Being left for 5 days, then lame 1, then returning to riding, only to get a chiropractic session and be back sore for 6 days, followed by another slow return to work, then left again for 4 days. Poor Fosterpants.

So it’s no wonder that he’s a little out of shape as a result of that mess. But I was determined to squeeze a Doug lesson in before he heads to the winter eventing mecca that is Aiken. After a casual jump school showed me just how not-in-jumping-shape he was, I decided to try a dressage lesson at his farm.

Hustle, son.

After telling Foster he was not going to be a lazy sod, we had a pretty bright warmup before moving into lateral work. Specifically, we worked on the quality of the shoulder-in. Immediately we were called out for getting a little shorter in his neck and in his step. Instead of constantly holding with my hands through the movement, I need to focus on keeping him soft (to inhibit neck-shortening) and think about lengthening throughout so we get more of a ‘swimming’ motion up front, and subsequent follow-through with the hind end. Another consequence of holding with my hands is that he will tend to lean into them, instead of carrying himself (self carriage) like the big-boy dressage horse he can be.

Asking for a bigger trot, then increasing the angle

A few more notes about the shoulder-in work:

Start posting to allow for bigger trot (and less bracing), then start alternating, 4 steps posting-4 steps sitting
Put weight over outside hip- think about bringing the whole upper body over the hip, and not letting myself get crooked
Keep the inside leg at the girth, should not wander back
In a test, one shallow post is a good way to re-incorporate the idea of posting for reach/freedom

Shifting weight over the outside hip

After a brief break where we watched some theatrics from the farm’s residents, we moved on to walk-canter transitions. While we’ve been doing these in a jumping arena for some time, dressage quality transitions are still relatively new to Foster, and so a work in progress. This part of the lesson was somewhat simpler in theory, though just as hard (if not harder!) to execute. The main idea- straightness. We used counter-bend to bring his withers in line with the rest of his body (in the case of him falling to one side), then getting the inside bend before asking for the canter transition. It takes a bit of putting the pieces together before we get a clear transition, but with time and repetition, this is one that I hope will improve quickly. Also, it’s pretty fun to school. Bonus points for fun dressage.

Voila, canter.

Overall, the lesson was beneficial in keeping tabs on the quality of the work we are doing. I learned (er, was reminded) of many of the rider habits that I have that I can improve on, and have new visuals and techniques for improving Foster’s balance and suppleness through these more difficult exercises. Now, practice practice practice.

Chiropractic Results

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Britt

Foster had his chiro appointment Monday, and the results were both encouraging and somewhat as expected. He was a bit back sore, so the vet examined the saddle fit and found that the soreness is due to his pelvis being out-of-whack rather than due to tack. Always great to hear, because I’m not quite ready for another saddle flocking.

No new photos, so here are screenshots from the lesson

Other than a small adjustment around his withers, all of Foster’s issues seems to revolve around his hips and pelvis. She noted that his pelvis was particularly wonky, and I should expect him to travel straighter as a result of her adjustments. After getting the day off yesterday, today will be a return to work and it would be great to see some improvement as a result of the chiro session, which did not come cheap, sadly. A possible recheck in 2 – 4 weeks may happen as well.

Learning self carriage- better hind end muscling will only help!

Both vets have wanted to start introduce exercises into Foster’s regimen that will help him develop his hind end. Essentially, hills or cavaletti work. Since I am both adverse to trail riding and not familiar with where the hill in my area is (not to mention not having daylight during the week to get outside the arenas), I’ll be looking into incorporating cavaletti into our schoolings. Also, I need to get him to lift his back as we groom, working up to lifting his back 5 times for 5 seconds each, in order to strengthen his back muscles as well.

Can anyone out there point me to a good resource for cavaletti and pole exercises? Of course we will still be jumping occasionally, but other recommendations for hind-end exercises would be great!

Foster may look like a body builder by the end of the year with all this muscle growing! Now I just need to hit the gym to keep up!

Bodybuilding meme that comes to mind every time

Dressage Lesson Recap: Collected Canter, Walk Transitions and Lateral Work

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Britt

Saturday I as finally able to get a jump school in, our first since the cross country schooling over 3 weeks ago. I waffled for a bit over how high I wanted to jump before deciding to set them up between 2’10” and 3’1″, essentially schooling Novice height. I worked on really planning our takeoff spot well in advance, and riding to that spot, which ended up being really helpful in getting our distances. We also got to school a one stride gymnastic which started out exuberant but ended on a really happy note for the both of us.

One stride (second element in an oxer) and a couple other 3′ verticals

Then Sunday I had my long awaited dressage lesson. We’ve been working hard on the collected canter work and walk-canter transitions, and I was eager to get some feedback on our progress. Ali was super kind in videoing the lesson, so I could actually see what it looked like.

One of the themes of the lessons were transitions from the halt to walk and trot. As basic as it sounds, this ended up being a really hard thing for us. By keeping Foster very round and flexed to the inside, I was taking away his use of underneck and asking him to step forward from behind. Many times though, my cues were misunderstood or muddy (especially because I tend to take my leg off in the halt, so when I reapply it he starts to think lateral movement rather than forward) and instead of going forward we would skew sideways, or even backwards, as he tried to understand what I was asking. We started pairing this exercise with the idea of a mental ‘reset’: whenever Foster starts to lean or pull, I halt. Then, depending on how soft he is in my hands, I flip his nucal ligament (the ligament the runs along the crest) from left to right by changing flexion. Then off we go again, with the idea that this is a more relaxed, mentally fresh horse.

Flipping the Nucal Ligament from side to side

Otherwise, we continued to check in with lateral work throughout the lesson- leg yields, lots of shoulder-in to keep thinking about lifting his shoulders, haunches-in (which is super easy for him, and only needs to be practiced sporadically), and shoulder-fore. Many of these movements are becoming more confirmed, and so we discussed keeping him flexible through the movement- as in not just putting him in position and keeping him there, but using parts of the movement/position to keep him adjustable as we work on other things. All about getting more finesse and control for a greater dressage picture.

Lastly, before this gets too long, we revisited collected canter. Eliza commented on our improvement, and Foster is definitely starting to understand the concept of compressing and sitting down, though he still can’t hold it for a long time. For myself, I need to really sit back in order to help him in the movement and put his weight in his hindquarters. We discussed practicing the movement going forward- there are two ways I should approach this in a schooling. The first is practicing the transition from walk to collected canter- focusing on the transition and only staying in collected canter briefly so he learns the idea, but I can repeat this 8-10 times in one session. Or, I focus on the canter itself, getting the transition then staying in collected canter for a couple quality circles before coming back to walk or trot. Gradually he will gain strength and be able to put it all together for longer periods of time, but for now, the game plan is to break it down.

Since as usual, my lesson recaps get a little lengthy, here’s my bullet points of things to remember!

Leg yield right- think about flexing right in order to control the shoulder (so he doesn’t fall to the right too quickly)
Turn my shoulders with the shoulder-in right
Flex my elbows, keep them by my side (this drives me nuts watching the videos!)
Keep leg on into halt (why haven’t I learned this by now…sheesh)
Sit back in collected canter but don’t let go with body

Foster gets to see a chiropractor tonight (lucky boy), which I’m guessing will be followed by a couple days off if the pattern follows. It will be interesting to hear her thoughts on his pelvis and crookedness in general. Post Wednesday with the results!

Frozen Dressage

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Britt

Last night we had one of those rare amazing rides where it feels too good to be true. After a kind of crappy walk warm-up (mostly due to me stopping to let him look at people walking in the dark, since I hadn’t unthawed enough to sit a spook if it happened), we had a beautiful trot warm-up, light in the bridle and nicely forward.

stall photos to break up text

I decided to work on our [dressage quality] walk-canter transitions, starting with the right lead as his departs tend to be better in that direction. A couple times he tried to pull himself into the canter with his neck, but was quickly rewarded when he learned to stay soft into the transition. We were able to replicate our success several times, then repeat the process to the left.

From there I was easily able to transition into collected canter work, which was surprisingly satisfactory. So satisfactory that I wondered if maybe forward was becoming an issue, so we played with lengthenings- which while not huge, were still there even in the small arena.

Hopefully actual riding photos coming soon

I couldn’t put my finger on why he just ‘got it’ last night, especially since it was so gosh-forsaken cold and we should have been icicles instead of pretend dressage superstars. Maybe because I was more deliberate in my cues? Quicker with praise? In any case, Foster will be getting the evening off tonight while I get whisked away to the husband’s holiday work party (not really, I’m the DD), and then Sunday we will hopefully have a dressage lesson and validate whether we’ve been doing it wrong the whole time!

Goal Check

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Britt

Thanks to Viva Carlos and Poor Woman Showing, I realized that crap, it’s December, and oh yeah, what about those goals I set at the beginning of the year? Is there any chance of completing the remaining goals in the next few weeks?

The house goals have all been met, and then some- again, update post coming. Design goals- maybe there won’t be a design blog, still fiddling around with the idea so we’ll see.

One goal conquered- this brush fence!

Otherwise, here’s the list of goals I set for Foster for the winter:

~~Lengthenings, and lengthening-to-collected transitions~~ I’m going to call this checked, since we commonly practice it now, and while not perfect, it’s happening. Finally.
~~Keep hacking away at canter transitions~~ Yup, made big progress with this- still not perfect, but hacked away at, it is
School corners – showjumping style
Angled fences/combinations need to do more of this, but we started
School chevron if at all possible still not sure if this is possible?
Introduce conditioning program
~~Clip all the fur!~~ check.

Go figure the remaining goals to be met are the jumping ones. Of course, this is my weak link, especially when in the winter all I want to do is be a dressage queen. Also, if I’m honest, I find it a struggle to get time in the jumping arena after work with the current lesson schedules and Foster hasn’t cared for that arena in the dark which makes me loathe to go up there alone and jump school anyways. Phew, glad I got that off my chest. Time to grow a pair/make jump schools happen on weekends/find a buddy to watch me jump at night, I guess. Ugh.

Why, yes, I do fancy myself a DQ sometimes.. ill-fitting boots and all.

Some other stuff going on that I haven’t decided if I want to share yet publicly.. otherwise it’s all about the house and updating stuff before the weekend! Yay!

Looking back at the Season – Part 2

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Britt

The second half of the year we continued with our busy schedule, and threw in both a Hunter/Jumper and Recognized show for fun.

Hunter/Jumper Show, August 2014

July – Hunter/Jumper Show
We went to a Hunter/Jumper show for a change of pace and with the goal of getting in jumping rounds in a low pressure environment. Leading up to the show, a series of crap schoolings and trying to fix things instead of leaving them alone left me with a super tired pony who just wasn’t up for what I asked of him. He tried very hard though, and still earned us two 4th place ribbons in a couple classes. I learned a lot about show prep for my horse and about the world of H/J.

FENCE, September 2014

September – Recognized Horse Trials at FENCE
Foster’s first Recognized show, and my first one in about 10 years had me pretty nervous leading up to it. I did my damned best to prepare my horse for it, and overall it was a success. What felt like a fairly good test earned us our all-time low of 30 for dressage, and we debuted the helmet cam with a rockin’ cross country course up a small mountain and coming in well under time. I made a mishap of not getting to the start box as soon as I should, which looks bad on paper, but oh well. Foster was tired on showjumping day and took out 2 poles, which was pretty good considering I was almost concussed in the warmup.

CHP, October 2014

October – Carolina Horse Park Horse Trials
Another show at the Horse Park. Although an unrecognized event, they reused the course from the Recognized show prior, which meant I finally had to jump the dreaded trakehner and brush fences. The footing was super sloppy, which was a first for Foster, but he handled it well. We had a slightly tense test for a 31.7, and added 1 time fault in showjumping with a scrappy round. I thought I was going to puke with nerves before cross country after watching multiple refusals, but Foster came through brilliantly and went double clear. We got ourselves another 4th place ribbon.

CHP, November 2014

November – Carolina Horse Park Horse Trials
… and yet another at the Horse Park. A more forward dressage test and a harsh judge gave us a 35.7, but left us tied for second place. This followed by our most fluid showjumping round, though I made turns way too way big and Foster accidently dropped 2 poles. I then went out to cross country preparing for a fun run around, which I was having when I forgot a fence and was pulled up 3 fences from home. Ended on a Technical Elimination.

Our Season By the Numbers
Total Shows: 10
Number of Horse Trials: 5
Average Dressage Score: 32.65 (67.35%)
Average Number of Poles Down: .85
Double-clear cross country runs: 3 (4 if you count that we probably would have gone clear without my TE, regarding pace and jumping faults)
Number of Ribbons: 6
Color of Ribbons (Placings): 2nd, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th
Times I Forgot Part of Course: 2
Times I dyed Foster’s tail purple: 2

As the numbers show, our tendency is to be at the top of the pack after dressage, then for me to mess things up in the jumping phases. From now on I am holding myself to a mandatory second course walk. But, looking at the positives- we learned a TON. Foster’s confidence at the level has come in leaps and bounds, which in turn has made me more confident. Pace has not been an issue at Novice, though admittedly, there are other venues that run Novice faster than the few I attended. We had one run-out this year, and that was mostly due to my being a passenger instead of kicking on. Since then, my mantra of ride every fence (other than being ironic at the last show) has been a helpful attitude and keeps me from getting too laid back about seemingly easy fences. I should tattoo it on my arm, right next to where my cross country watch goes.

Next year’s calendar will be interesting, depending on how long it takes for us to feel ready to move up to Training. There’s another Running Start Horse Trials in February, and then we would wait until May to do another unrecognized event. Combined Training shows will help us dip our toes into the Training test and battle some showjumping courses, which may be just the ticket. I’ll be spending the winter thinking about our goals and what is the right path for the spring, and hoping the season goes just as well as 2014!

Looking back at the Season – Part 1

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Britt

2014 definitely marks a year of doing more shows than I’ve ever done before (at least with my own horse, because, IDA). Now that the show season is officially over, it’s time to be retrospective and look at how things went.

Running Start, Feb 2014

February – Running Start Horse Trials
This was our debut at the Novice level, and technically a little on the more difficult end of a move-up course. Foster put in a great dressage test (a 35.5 put us in 2nd after dressage), and was about as relaxed as I’ve ever had him. He then went double clear in showjumping. On the cross country course, he came out a little strong, but did his first jump into water and faux trakehner confidently. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep my leg on at the half coffin and he had a silly runout, followed by my celebrating too early and not realizing I hadn’t yet gone through the finish flags, racking up a whopping 26 time faults to leave us at the bottom of the pile placing-wise.

MacNairs, March 2014

March – MacNair’s Combined Training
Somehow I barely remember this show. It was an eh dressage test for a 33.4, and I did a crap job as pilot and we brought down one pole for a 2nd place ribbon.

CHP, May 2014

May – Carolina Horse Park Horse Trials
Our first Novice at the Horse Park, and I remember being pretty intimidated. Instead, I had a solid dressage test, scoring a 31.3. Our showjumping course was pretty sticky, but Foster’s clever feet got us around for a double clear round. Cross country was the first time I really had a blast the whole way around, and we came in with a big grin and double clear. We earned ourself a 4th place ribbon, our first Novice ribbon!

The Fork, June 2014

June – Fork Combined Training
We drove down to the Fork so my mum could see the painted pony in action. I tried for a forward dressage round that may have been borderline rushing, but earning a 31 nonetheless. I didn’t get to walk the showjumping course at all, and it was the toughest course to date- with two one-stride combinations and lots of bendiness throughout. We took out one rail and I believe we placed 3rd overall. We followed the show with a super fun cross country schooling, and practiced our first water-upbank-fence combinations.

Thus concludes the first 1/2 of the year! Tomorrow, part 2!

Dressage Lesson Recap – Starting Second Level

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Britt

No rest for the wicked, as I’ve said before, and after a nice day off after the show, we had a dressage lesson. Now that the season is officially over, instead of doing test run-throughs we can now focus on new material, which will hopefully prepare us for next season and beyond.

Eliza mentioned that she thought we would work on the basics of piaffe this winter, since that is the extreme version of what we have been trying to teach him- to really sit on his hind end and stay active behind and light up front. Since I’ve never ridden the piaffe before, I can tell you the idea of such an upper-level movement is both daunting and pretty durn exciting!

Blue Hors Matine’s famous piaffe

Similarly, we will also be spending a lot of time focusing on collection, lengthenings, and lateral work to teach him to lift his shoulders. We set a tentative goal for next year, which is to compete in a dressage show (which I haven’t done in a long time!), aiming to do a Second level test.

Even though we set these goals at the end of the ride, the lesson did incorporate primarily Second level movements. We worked on collected walk, lots of trot-halt (for half a second)-trot transitions (for sitting back), lengthenings-to-collected trot, and collected canter (gosh this is hard).

Working canter

We also spent a lot of time working on lateral movements within the walk. We started with 180° turn on the haunches, really focusing on making it super correct. I need to think about weighting my inside hip bone and keeping his haunches to the inside so he doesn’t leave them behind in the turn, as well as keeping my inside leg back so that he keeps the bend around it. Talk about a lot of coordination! And something new I learned- the turn on the haunches movement allows the horse’s back feet to travel about the size of a trash can lid, whereas the walk pirouette, which we worked on after, keeps the hind legs within the space of a dinner plate.

Since this post is already getting long enough, I’ll combine my other notes in bullet-point form:

Work on collection and lengthenings in one ride, suppleness in another – it is very hard at this point in his training to demand both within the same ride
Practice square turns at the trot for lifting his shoulders and turning, renvers as well
Lots of half-halts, remind him to carry himself
The moments in collected canter where he *almost* breaks are the moments where he learns
Walk-canter transitions set him up best for collected canter
Demand active hind legs from the first canter step

We’ve been busy, and so tomorrow I’ll tell you guys about the exciting cross country schooling we did his past weekend! Are you guys getting sick of all the recaps? Sorry!