All about that contact

Ahhh contact, how I despise thee. Trying to get an ex ranch horse to take a true contact on the bit may be the most challenging thing I've ever attempted in my life. I know that this is done all the time and that cross-trained horses are very common among the competitive scene, however, it's proving to be quite elusive to my amateur training skills. Luckily, I have a wonderful trainer that is helping me to decipher the minute discrepancies in my horse's performance. Here's where we're at:
Roanie went around wonderfully in the dressage arena last year in a nice long, low, relaxed frame. We scored well and placed respectably at our numerous shows. So now it's time to step up the level of work and start pushing Roanie to collect herself, sit, and push into a more upper level frame. It's tedious work and is incredibly frustrating at times. It has involved a lot of lateral work, tempo changes, temper tantrums (from both me and the horse,) and lots and lots of lessons about riding my horse into the contact from the hind end to the front end in order to get the proper weight in my hands.

Long and low frame August 2014

Starting to come up in the front January 2015

Here's the challenging part: Roanie is an 11 year old mare and has the attitude of a grounded teenage girl. She over-reacts to everything, which is incredibly helpful jumping XC and is the source of her 'go get em' attitude, but also means she's incredibly unforgiving in the dressage arena. She doesn't like to change her frame, bend, tempo, or gait. It offends her and leads to the recurrence of our dear old friend the llama (not to be confused with her raising her head up so that she can shift her weight back.) So most of our work has just been establishing with her that these changes are necessary and she hasn't done anything wrong and she just has to keep working through them. Her ability to stay engaged and relaxed through these changes has made a world of difference in her ability and the desire to lean on the bit and take contact. It's a slow process but everyday we get a little bit further!

Taking MUCH more contact now.

Jumping into 2015

New year, new goals, right?! Of course! This years goals are going to be a bit more ambitious than last years. It's time for Roanie to put on her big girl breeches and start playing at the big horse trials. My goal is to be going training level by the end of the year. As I said this time last year, however, I don't want to overdo the showing. It really is about having fun and making progress, and I feel like we're at a point in our training where competing is fun and fits in with our conditioning program! So what better way to ring in the new year than with a phenomenal jumping lesson.

3'9"

3'6"

Running Start Horse Trials!

Well, after spending ALL YEAR showing dressage, you are probably expecting to hear how wonderful dressage went for me and Roanie at Running Start. I mean, after all, we did win horse of the year for dressage... Alas, we put up our absolute worst score yet. It went so poorly that the judge commented on how cute Roanies color was and the photographers walked away.... Ouch. I don't quite understand what happened that Saturday morning but Roan clearly did not show up to the same dressage ring that I did. She was 100% convinced that those test directives were mere suggestions and that she really could go wherever she wanted at whatever speed she wanted. Oh well, I put it behind me and went to walk my XC course a few times to avoid tying her to someone else's trailer and pretending she wasn't mine. Like I always say though, who goes to horse trials to do dressage? It's all about the cross country. And lemme tell ya, after XC, I wouldn't trade that mare for the world. Yet again, the only problem we had was making sure we didn't come in too fast. Instead of slowing her down I just took extra long lines between fences, it was good to get the extra galloping time in for our move up in 2015. In the end, we finished in the middle of the pack but had a phenomenal time jumping! 2015 here we come!! Hopefully with better dressage scores ;)

USDF updates!

I apologize for not keeping this blog updated. My last update was the weekend before the biggest show of Roanie's career. Sorry to leave folks hangin' like that! Raleigh Summer I and II went marvelously for my little quarter horse. The nerves that her and I had prior to going down that centerline at our first rated show were substantial. The warm-up arena alone was intimidating enough for me to want to go home. My tests were right in between the third and fourth level tests so we were warming up with tons of other riders in the arena.... Roanie's favorite thing... Not. I think that the sheer number of other horses invading her space helped us with our actual tests though, Roan was so relieved to have some space to herself that she put in wonderfully relaxed tests. We came out of our first USDF show arena with a 77.2% and a blue ribbon! Our other five tests (yes, we actually did six tests) also went better than expected and we came home with five blue ribbons, one red ribbon, one proud trainer, and one even prouder horse mom.

Raleigh Summer

 These results not only surprised us, but they qualified us for NCDCTA Championships AND launched me and Roanie into first place for NCDCTA Horse of the Year. So, we came home, worked our butts off and a few weeks later headed back up to Raleigh for the Labor of Love championship show. We had some stiff competition and slightly more elevated stress levels but we managed to win Reserve Champion!

NCDCTA Championships

 After Labor of Love we spent a week at home and then headed right back out to show at Tryon's Borderline dressage show. It rained all weekend. All weekend. Every minute of the weekend. The arenas were sopping wet mud holes. Horses were slippin' and slidin' all over the place! Riders were scratching left and right. Not us though, we're eventers! The mud made that whole dressage thing much more interesting. Although my big tough ranch horse definitely didn't care for the windshield wipers that were set on high speed on the judges SUV. They must not have windshield wipers out west...

The weekend long thunderstorm rolling in.

Not a totally worthless weekend though, four firsts and one second! 

All in all, I couldn't be more proud of my USDF season this year! Not a single place below second all year, 2014 NCDCTA Reserve Champion AA Intro, and 2014 NCDCTA Horse of the Year AA Intro!
We never set out to have a season in the dressage arena but things just sort of happened that way. I have high hopes for our 2015 season, Roanie will be making her transition out of the USDF arena and back out into the wonderful world of eventing! Our final show of the year will be Running Start Horse Trials!

Raleigh warm up

This weekend is the big Raleigh USDF show! Yay. It's been such a long road to get where we are now and I'm so thankful for having such wonderful horses and people in my life to help me along the way! This weekend we went to Rivendale to practice getting in the dressage arena away from home.

 I am sticking with the intro tests for Raleigh even though our canter has improved vastly, it still isn't quite ready for the show ring. In between Foxtrack and now, I've made a ton of progress with my riding. I've learned to disengage myself from Roanie's drama, stay calm, and just re-ask her to participate. It has helped her become much steadier in the bridle. When she throws her head up or shoves her haunches inside I don't take it personally anymore, and I just tell her that I need her head and haunches in the correct place. I've also learned that she takes FOREVER to warm up, and the longer I ride her, the better she gets. Learning these two techniques has been crucial in making improvement. The week leading up to Rivendale I actually was feeling confident that the show wouldn't be a total disaster, which is a rare thing for me!

When we arrived at the grounds, Roan was good and calm. I went ahead and tacked her up and hopped on. In typical horse show fashion, you never know how a show will run time wise, they could run ridiculously early or late. I made sure that I gave myself PLENTY of time for warm-up. We trotted with loose reins around the warm-up arena, cantered some diagonals, didn't nag her for anything for the first twenty minutes or so. The warm-up arena was on a hill which helped us get really warmed up and balanced. We did some serpentines up and down the hill, all the while just letting the terrain balance her and slow her down. She was lovely and I couldn't have asked for a better warm-up. Test time.

Walking over to the arena I said a prayer that the test would go as well as the warm-up, and tried to keep myself calm and steady. The judge honked the horn and it was show time. We picked up the working trot and headed down the centerline. Roanie was a rockstar. She was soft, supple, and obedient. I couldn't even believe the horse I was riding. While the downward transitions were a little bit rough (not surprisingly) the rest of the test was wonderful. The judge agreed and we came out with a blue ribbon and a 71%

One test down, two to go. Intro B went even better than A and we came out with another blue ribbon and a 72% Time for intro C. The test with the dreaded canter. Six months ago had someone told me that we would score a 7.5 on a canter, I would've laughed at them. It wasn't an issue at all in the test (aside from tripping stepping into it, oops.) We came out of that test with yet another blue ribbon and a 69%

Overall, it was a wonderful day! T-minus one week until Raleigh. We're going to keep working on transitions and adjustability within our gaits this week to see if we can't be a little more consistent in our transitions.

Dom schramm clinic

A few weeks after our wonderful horse trial Roan and I had the opportunity to clinic with the awesomely Australian eventer Dom Schramm. Seeing as our barn hosted him, I was chucked into the only group that had an opening as we tried to accommodate everyone else before we picked our levels. The class was 3'. While Roanie and I have jumped plenty of fences at that height we had never jumped a full course at that height range. To complicate the course of large fences further, the clinic was being held in the covered dressage arena due to disagreeable weather. I was very nervous to be riding in front of so many auditors in a clinic height a little out of my comfort zone and Roanie definitely picked up on it. We didn't spend much time warming up and Dom went straight to canter adjustability.... Which you all know how adjustable Roanies canter is....  Adding canter strides in between fences is so hard for me and Roanie you may as well ask us to do a somersault in midair over the fence. We gave it our best and took our criticism well.

From there we worked on lead changes over fences, which everyone breezed right through, then Dom started putting fences up, then he put them up some more, and then up again. They just kept getting bigger and bigger which seemed to make the arena smaller and smaller. Despite the fact that I was so nervous I think I forgot to breathe for the first half of the course, Roanie took care of me and jumped everything beautifully. We did have trouble with one fence rolling back off to the left. It was a big airy vertical and we just couldn't keep our balance to. But, we worked through it and I learned that I sometimes have to sacrifice perfect balance for enough forward to keep a good quality canter.

This was the vertical that was so challenging! Finally got it though :) 

It's always such a fun learning experience riding with Dom. He definitely pushed me way outside of my comfort zone and really proved to me that the bigger fences are no issue for us. A huge thank you to him and Jimmie for coming all the way down to NC for one day to do a clinic with us!

Horse trial time

We've spent months and months of preparing and training and working our butts off in preparation for me and Roan's first horse trial, and it was so worth it. After getting off the trailer at the show grounds Roan was a little bit frazzled. As much as we've trailered for schooling, clinics, and other outings, it's hard to recreate the busy and exciting atmosphere of a horse trial. As soon as all of her feet were off the trailer we started throwing dressage tack up on her and heading to warm-up. We had a bit of a delay while pulling in (deep Southern Pines sand got us stuck a bit and we needed some assistance from the tractor) which didn't leave much time for warming up. Subsequently we put up one of the worst dressage scores of the day. But hey, all four feet stayed in the arena and as terrified as Roan was in the dressage ring, she did somewhat listen to me and didn't take me back to the trailer like she really wanted to. She felt like a cat dropped into a filled bath tub, totally frantic to get out. Just getting dressage out of the way was a relief, besides, everyone really goes to horse trials for cross country and boy were we ready to get on course.

XC warmup was one of the best feelings after a frazzled dressage test. As soon as I pointed Roan at the fence she perked up, took me charging at it, jumped well over the top of it, and galloped off. Perfect. Into the start box we went! Then the countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Have a nice ride! And we're off! The only thing I had to worry about on that XC course was time, and I don't mean I had to worry about making time.... Halfway through I looked at my watch and was a solid minute too fast... Oops. Trot break... We ended up coming in double clear and headed over to stadium. 

The stadium course had lots of interesting bending lines and broken lines, things that we hadn't really practiced much back home. Oh well, the jumps were tiny and Roan was a fire breathing dragon after XC, I figured I'd just point her at the jumps, help her balance a bit, and otherwise let her figure it out. She is learning her job and I try to encourage her to be comfortable handling challenges. We went clear again and ended up with a pretty white ribbon! Not bad for a cow pony's first horse trial ;-) 

We have a lot to work on, and have several schooling shows planned and a big USDF show in Raleigh next month, all to get us prepared for Full Gallop in August! Roanies first sanctioned horse trial.

Don't rush your fences

Well folks, it's been a while since I've written anything, spring has sprung and the roan horse couldn't be happier to see the cold leave. Her canter has improved by leaps and bounds (ha, get it?) and we've put her back on jumps! One of the reasons I haven't updated this blog in a while has been because we haven't really done anything new with her; lots of consistent lunging, groundwork, and flatwork. Consistency has made all the difference. It's amazing.

We went and schooled XC in preparation for our first horse trial next month. It amazed me that taking six months off of jumping would improve her balance, and therefore her jump, by as much as it did. I'm so glad that I took the route I did with her this winter. Dressage is boring, repetitive, and challenging but the rewards unbelievably outweigh the hardships and I am looking forward to a wonderful summer of jumping, competing, and improving :) 

These pictures are actually quite embarrassing for me but the top ones are from September 2013, the first time Roanie went XC schooling. The bottom ones are from May 2014. Yay, we're making progress!

Green grass.

Guys! Hey guys! I see green grass! Winter might almost be over! 

Spring?!

A hack before the rest of the snow storm showed up and dropped another 5 inches.

Good news everybody! We survived the snowpocalypse! What an unbelievably rough few weeks we have had here in North Carolina. There was almost a foot of snow on the ground for nearly a week! Even the covered arena had a good solid three inches of snow in it. Needless to say, not a lot of riding has been done this month. Nevertheless, Roanie has been phenomenal for the rides we have gotten in. We also managed to get a saddle fitter to come out in between the blizzards to fit Roan. She now has a sparkling new Albion dressage saddle and no excuse to be a witch when I tack her up (she still is though, we're working on that... Mares...) During our rides lately we have been focusing on down transitions, mostly from the trot to the walk, as she is perfect coming down from the canter to the trot. From the trot to the walk she likes to throw her head up and get "stuck" with her legs. Basically we lose all connection as well as impulsion and engagement from her hind end. We are working on keeping her hind end muscles relaxed. When she tenses her hind end she is physically unable to stay in the bridle, keep moving in a forward manner, and transition to the walk all at the same time. She literally needs to unclench her butt cheeks and relax. It gets better every day and we now have several good transitions, mixed in with a heaping amount of bad transitions, each ride. Progress! It's so exciting to see.

I also had a wonderful opportunity this month to attend the Western Dressage Association of America Train the Trainers clinic (what a mouthful.) Lisa and I spent a wonderful 3 days at the agriculture center in Lumberton learning about teaching and judging Western Dressage. It's always scary going to a clinic where fifty trainers from different disciplines congregate and spend three days in one classroom trying to agree on a single subject, but everyone was very friendly and expressed their views, training methods, thoughts, and concerns in a helpful and insightful way. I learned so much and got to spend a lot of time talking with all sorts of horse trainers from all over the country. It was a very cool, but exhausting, three days! 

Brrr

Emily and Chip, Me and Roanie, Caroline and Deja.
Out hacking with a high of 25° and driving wind.

Well, it's beginning to look like the cold weather is here to stay for a while. I guess it's time to come to terms with the fact that going to the barn now entails having three pairs of pants, six jackets, two hats, and a gallon of hot coffee (you think I'm kidding....) I have devised an ingenious and remarkably accurate way to determine if I'm wearing enough layers for the daily arctic temperatures: If I can put on all my clothing, walk from my bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen without physically breaking a sweat, I don't have enough layers on.

It may seem like I complain endlessly about the cold weather, but believe it or not, there is someone who hates the frigid air more than me..... Roanie. My big tough ranch horse sure has adjusted to barn life. I am in no way one of those owners that has twelve blankets to be mixed and matched for every degree change throughout the day. Roanie does, however, always have a blanket on whenever it's below 40° (and she has several on when it's below 30°.) Whenever the days are cold and windy I always know I'm in for a more challenging ride. Starting with attempting to remove Roanie's blankets. The blankets have to be removed slowly by folding the back of the blanket in sections up towards the front, grooming as I go. As soon as there is room for the quarter sheet, it better be put on fast, before she gets cold and starts squealing and flinching as I touch her. If I manage to get a cold saddle put on her back without her jumping away from me or kicking out, then I consider it an accomplishment. After she's completely tacked up, and miserably grouchy, it's time to attempt to have a nice calm relaxed ride.

This past week we've been working on collection. We have worked on counter bending Roanie and using haunches in to really help establish an outside rein connection. Subtly straightening her with my outside aids then subtly bending her back inside helps keep her in the bridle and helps me control her outside shoulder, which likes to bulge to the outside. As Lisa says: Your horse should be in between your legs and you should be able to push them around like you're skiing. If I put my right leg on, Roanie's hind end should move to the left. If I put my left leg on, her hind end should move to the right. By asking her every few steps to move her hind end to a different location (inside bend, outside bend) I'm able to help loosen her whole body up by asking her to consistently push her rib cage, and therefore, hind end in different directions. I am also able to keep her from bracing at her poll. If she is able to brace her poll, she is able to contact her inner giraffe and invite said giraffe out for a visit. Which is very frustrating, but ultimately, something that has improved tremendously.






Oh, and did I mention that the aforementioned exercises have also helped with her canter? Having control of that hind end, and the poll, have improved the canter phenomenally. It is starting to feel like a canter that I would feel completely comfortable riding to the base of a fence on.

It's so exciting to see the progress continuing to be made with this mare! For now, it's time to bundle up, get some coffee, and weather this nasty winter! We can't wait until spring time, but with snow in the forecast for tomorrow, I think it's safe to say that springtime is a long ways away. Stay warm.

Wintertime blues.

What an unusually difficult winter we've had here in North Carolina this year. With the "Polar Vortex" plunging our normally mild mid-January weather into the mere single digits, our training regimen has greatly suffered. Roanie has had several days off each week for the past few weeks. It's been exceptionally challenging to keep her conditioned enough to make any sort of progress with her flat work (hence the lack of blog entries lately.)

We started the month with a lovely vet visit... Roanie was getting extremely grouchy when it came time to saddle her up. She has always been one to throw her head and pin her ears when it came time to swing the girth under and fasten it to both sides. We attributed that to having a western saddle thrown on and tightened immediately, but here lately, it had gotten much worse and she was acting sore and I wanted to see if our vet could determine the origin of the soreness. Well, it turns out that Roanie's topline has changed and raised up enough that the saddle wasn't sitting properly on her back anymore and it was pinching one little spot on her withers. Ultimately it's a curse and a blessing. On the plus side, I know for sure that all the hard work Roanie and I have been doing has been paying off. On the down side, my favorite dressage saddle no longer fits. Dangit.

After we figured out the dressage saddle was causing discomfort we took her off work for a few days, which was well timed, because it was unbelievably cold and I had no hard feelings about having one less horse to ride in that weather. We brought her back into work slowly with lots of lunge work and we added back in the hill work in the field. Every ride now begins with a ten to twenty minute hack in the field consisting of walking and trotting. This greatly loosens her hind end up and allows her to bring her hocks up underneath herself. When we decided to temporarily quit jumping her we also took all field work out of the equation as well because she would get too hot after trot sets to do anything productive with for a few days. We sacrificed her fitness for a few days of mental stability. Being able to add in trot sets before ring work without her going bananas has been truly exciting and shows me that we are well on our way to having a mentally balanced event horse. Hooray!

2014 Goals

It's that time of year! New years resolutions! I don't typically make new years resolutions, but I do like to sit down and evaluate my goals for the new year. I also feel the need to clear some things up about what I don't want to accomplish this year.

My number one goal for this 2014 year is to make sure that my mare enjoys her job. I want to make sure that she is as happy working as I am riding her. There is nothing I hate more than riding a horse that I know is miserable underneath me. Making sure my horse maintains her good positive and confident attitude is my number one priority throughout this year. I don't follow the "they'll have to get over it" train of thought that a number of riders have while attempting to force their horses to perform tasks that they don't understand or enjoy. I think that there are certain occasions that this applies. Every horse occasionally needs a bit of an attitude adjustment when they refuse to perform their jobs, but as I've said before my horse's happiness and health is my number one priority.

As far as performance goals go for this new year my only goals are to continue to improve my dressage scores. My first show of the new year is January 11th, it's a schooling dressage show. My goal is to improve on Roanie's consistency in the bridle and her ability to yield to my aids. Following the German training scale, my goal for the next year is to be able to achieve true "relaxation" in my dressage tests.

"We can therefore perhaps characterize correct equestrian Losgelassenheit as a type of behavior in which the horse yields completely to the rider's aids and applies all of his strength and all of his muscles towards the energetic and impulsive execution of the present demands without feeling constricted."Lieutenant Colonel Gustav von Dreyhausen

Another goal I have for this year is to get Roanie fit enough to do a long format three day event. To compete at beginner novice three day I have to qualify at three beginner novice horse trials. Southern Eighths long format is in April and I originally thought that maybe I should try to qualify for it and compete. However, it wouldn't be fair to Roanie to rush her through the qualifying trials and then throw her into her first long format a few weeks later. I don't want to kill her confidence and I don't want to ruin her enjoyment of the job.

I feel the need to clear the air about what some of my more long term goals are with my riding. Some people seem to be confused with what I'd like to accomplish in my career and I'd like to set this straight. I have no desire to become part of the upper echelon of riders that compete at an international level. Every girl has her dreams, but I'm realistic and recognize my physical, mental, and financial limitations. I have no desire to make a career out of competing... I don't even enjoy competing that much. I feel so much more rewarded from knowing that I'm progressing logically and correctly with my horse and her training. Occasionally showing to test and make sure my training is progressing in the aforementioned manner is all I'm interested in doing. Showing every weekend is a waste of my money, no horse makes enough progress in one week (or even three weeks) to justify sinking hundreds of dollars every weekend to read the same comments from the judges.

That being said, I do enjoy the barn management side of competitive riding. Working in a barn full of horses that competes on a regular basis, managing each individual horses needs, and experiencing first hand how good management (and good ownership) makes a difference in performance fascinates me and is definitely the direction I want my horse career to take.

And if you have managed to keep reading all the way down here, there is just one more thing I have to say....

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

From me and Roanie 

Becoming consistent.

Lisa and I have decided to keep Roanie's feet firmly planted on the ground until next year. No jumping for us, Roanie gets too hot and tense and we lose valuable days of dressage trying to calm her down again and get her focused. At first it was a hard decision to make, because honestly, jumping is too much fun. However, after two weeks of just doing dressage with Roanie, I know without a doubt that it was the best decision I could have made. She has made so much progress in such little time that I frequently feel the need to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. Every week she spends a few days on the lunge line, with side reins set to a consistent contact, just so that she can become more comfortable and confident with my hands being there. This is making a world of difference with Roanie accepting the contact and becoming steady in the bridle. It has tremendously improved her ability to stretch downward too. Without the extra weight of a rider on her back she is much more willing to really stretch her topline. We have now installed buttons on her so that she understands when my inside leg is on her head should be down. It's so exciting!

We're becoming consistent. 

Our next big training challenge is having her keep the contact during a downward transition. To begin addressing this problem, I've started to ask her to come down to a walk on a 20 meter circle, if her head comes up, I close my inside leg and ask her to go forward again. It's like an exaggerated half halt. When I gently push her forward with my inside leg she reengages her hind end, re balances herself, and puts her head down. Then I gently ask for walk again, only allowing the walk if she does it softly in the bridle. Every day she makes improvements, every day it takes less and less attempts to get her into the walk properly. It's also extremely exciting to see her lips get frothy and know that she is enjoying her job and keeping her jaw relaxed and chewing. 

So much progress.

I love to just reflect on where Roanie was in October when I bought her. She has made SO much progress...

October....

Every single trot stride looked like this... yuck.

Now....

Streeeeeeeetch.

Today Roanie and I had one of those "Aha moments," where suddenly, something that my trainer has been telling me to do for months finally sunk in and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. For years, before I began riding with my current trainer, Lisa, every dressage lesson had been focused on me being relaxed and loose, because if I had tension in my body, the horse can't be relaxed and loose. It's a very common riding style among amateur riders, we see loose floppy ankles, over exaggerated pelvis movement, and bumpy unsteady hands. A lot of instructors train their pupils to ride like that.

Since I began riding Roanie, Lisa has been telling me to "squeeze" my legs against her when she drops her nose out of the sky and quits being fussy with the contact. In my head I couldn't comprehend why on Earth I would want to squeeze after she did what I asked. It seemed so backwards and I couldn't really commit myself to doing what she asked of me. In my dressage lesson today Roanie was especially fussy with the contact and wasn't staying consistent in the bridle. Lisa was telling me every other stride when her nose would go down to squeeze her with my calves, but stubborn old me had been drilled from other trainers that tension is bad. Finally after about twelve frustrating twenty meter circles of Roanie flipping her head up and down I gave in and squeezed the daylights out of her. I assumed she would rush forward and get in touch with her inner giraffe but what happened surprised me. She instantly relaxed, accepted the bit contact, and settled into a lovely trot.

I learned that with Roanie, because she's so sensitive, when I'm not squeezing and holding my body still she assumes that every time I move, I am telling her to do something. She was suffering from sensory overload. When I squeeze, my body stays still, and Roanie doesn't have to decipher what every single leg wiggle is asking her to do. After this shocking discovery we were able to do something with Roanie that we hadn't been able to do at all with her, ask for the stretchy trot. She was able to stretch down for the first time and keep the contact. It was so exciting!