2016 year end awards

Our local USDF GMO held its annual awards banquet this weekend, and for the first time, hubby and I attended. It was a fun little dinner, although it's so weird to see people without their helmets on! I swear I'm better at recognizing horses than people, which made for a few awkward moments while I figured out who everyone was.

Taran had a pretty amazing year last year, especially considering where we started. He ended up 103 in the nation at First level, with an average score of 65.687. He was also Champion at First level for our GMO, and Reserve at Training. We snagged a couple of saddle pads, because who doesn't need more saddle pads?

The only problem with having a saddle pad with "Champion" on it is I feel like if we used it for a lesson, he'd be a complete jerk just because. These will probably be used for rides at home... no point in tempting fate, you know?

Shoulder in! Renvers! Leg yield! Travers!

Our last session with Alfredo focused on getting Taran to be more mobile with his shoulders and haunches, and hotter off my leg. As Alfredo pointed out after I'd switched my whip for the 20975th time, Taran doesn't respect my leg unless I have a whip to back it up. That's all fine and good until you ride a test where you don't get to carry a whip, and then you're screwed (ahemGAIGchampionshipsahem).

We worked on the new, slower warmup, which seems to do good things for Taran:

Hellooooo, gorgeous stretchy trot. Where have you been all my life?

And then we transitioned to doing shoulder in to renvers on a circle. The difference is bending, which sounds easy, but it's challenging for me to rearrange all my body parts quickly so that Taran can make the transition from one to the other smoothly and without losing the trot. We've done this exercise with Alfredo before, but I admit that I don't practice it much at home. When I do, I'm not asking for the level of bend and obedience that he expects... because this kind of smooth, obedient movement is a whole new thing for us:

I really liked the feel that I could put Taran's body anywhere I wanted and I would get an immediate and BIG response - that goes with being more demanding of both myself and him. Plus, it's much harder to do shoulder in/haunches in on a circle than it is on a straight line (which is what's required in all the 2nd level tests), so if we can can do these movements well on a circle, we shouldn't have any problem when we have to do it down the rail. Plus it's easy to see in the video how a half pass could come out of these movements, if I just placed it slightly different, so that's exciting. Who knew Taran had so much crossover in those short little legs of his?

Finally, we did an exercise down the long side where we stared in shoulder in, switched bend to renders, then flipped to face the rail in leg yield, then changed bend to travers. Sound confusing? Try riding it! I messed it up the first few times, but eventually we kinda got it right:

Whew, I felt like I needed a translator! These movements (except SI) aren't really automatic in my head yet, so it takes me a moment to figure out what each one needs and then ask Taran for it.

We've definitely got our work cut out for us, but I got a lot out of the clinic. My biggest takeaway is that I really have to be more demanding of us both... Taran can do the movements, and do them big, and I need to push for that. We don't have fancy gaits to help us out with our scores, so it's important to ride every step for 110%. I'm excited with all that we accomplished in just a few short days, and am really looking forward to working on everything at home. After all, our first show of the year is just 2 months away!

A more effective warm-up & riding for better scores

The second day of the Alfredo clinic, we worked primarily on more shoulder in and renvers. But what stuck most in my mind about this lesson was what Alfredo had to say about warm-up.

At home, we usually take a short trail ride to the field where we do most of our work, so we have a 10+ minute walk warm-up. Then I do some trot and canter on a long rein, take a bit of a breather, and then consider us ready to get down to business.

Alfredo's suggestion was much different. Instead of doing long stretches at any one gait, he had us do perhaps a circle or a half circle of one thing, then a circle of walk, then pick the reins back up, do something else, walk, etc. Essentially it was a lot of very sort bits of bending and flexing, working lower and then asking for a few steps of collection, working lower, back to walk - just lots of gentle transitions, gentle flexing, and gentle laterals. I posted the trot the whole time to let his back warm up (I normally do a lot of posting so that wasn't new).

Longer rein at the beginning of the ride

Asking for him to come a bit more together

As the session went on, we asked for more sustained stretches of collection, more angle in the laterals, more bend, and a faster response off the leg. Again, Alfredo's method is very short stretches of good work, followed immediately by a walk/reward break when the horse does the exercise well the rider does the exercise correctly.

Flexion left with a bit more collection

Really asking that hind leg to come through

The trot near the end of the ride

I can certainly see the benefits of shorter chunks of work, especially with an older horse, but I do worry a little about building more fitness and also the horse expecting that he only has to work for short periods of time (ahem).

We did have one fantastically excellent spook when a pitchfork that was leaning against the side of the arena slid down the wall and onto the ground...

Thank goodness for saddles with ginormous thigh blocks! 

Another super interesting thing Alfredo said was about getting better scores on a movement. If your movement starts well, then the judge is likely to have in their heads a 6.5 or a 7. If you ride half of it well and then it falls apart, you might end up with a 6.5 or a 6, depending on where you started. BUT, if your movement starts off really badly, the judge might have in their heads a 5, and even if the second half of the movement is great, you're unlikely to score more than a 5.5 or a 6. So it's really important to set up the movement well and make that good first impression, even if it falls apart later. Easier said than done, of course!

Meh

Better

THAT's what you want to come out of the gate with!

"You need to be more demanding"

Hubby and I are attending another clinic with Alfredo this week. As usual, Alfredo insists on good work, and in our first session, about halfway through he said something that really stuck with me.

"You need to be more demanding."

He's right. At second, judges want to see a sharp, workman like test. The halt needs to be trot-halt-trot, not trot... walk a step... halt... stutter back to a trot, like was acceptable at first. When I work on my own, I try to make my movements correct and precise, but there's a whole 'nother level of accuracy when someone is yelling at your in a lesson. Everything needs more bend, more expression, more obedience, more precision.

Take our walk-canter transitions, for instance. I thought they were decent (I mean, we didn't have one like 3 months ago), but decent - with a step of trot - is not enough. THIS is what he wants:

Ignore the part where I push his haunches to the inside the step before the depart and look at how awesome my horse is.

We also worked on improving his gaits, especially the trot. We did a lot of renvers on the circle (ok, I tried to do renvers on a circle, but it's hard and I'm struggling with timing and body position).

I really need to step in the direction I'm going and get my hands right. But Taran is trying hard and the sky is so pretty!

But when we go straight after a few steps of renvers, this magic happens:

All the time like this please.

But riding that uphill, balanced, expressive wave is hard, and it's all too easy to get a little quick and on the forehand:

Half-halt needed. 

So, I gotta be more demanding, of both myself and my horse. Maybe that's my mantra for 2017?

What about you? What's your biggest struggle right now?

What I hope will happen in 2017

Goals with horses are a tough thing. They get hurt, they don't stick to timelines... sometimes they progress by leaps and bounds and sometimes they plateau for months. Those things are really out of my control, so that makes it hard to set goals. Plus there's me... sometimes I get new concepts quickly and sometimes it takes me forever to retrain my body to do it right. Combine those things and it makes me wary of setting goals.

Having said that, I'm kind of a goal oriented person. If I have shows on the calendar, I'll be damn sure to get in all the lessons and ride 5-6 days a week and have A Plan. But at the same time, I don't want to expect too much, you know? So this year I'm breaking my goals down.

Absolute must:

1. Keep Taran sound, healthy, and happy!

Hopefully Pretty Doable:

1. Qualify for Regionals at first level again (need 1 more score)
2. Qualify for Regionals with a first level freestyle (need a freestyle)
3. Get my bronze medal scores at second 

Stretch:

1. Qualify for Regionals at 2nd level (2-3 looks impossible right now, ack!)
2. Qualify for Nationals with the first level freestyle (last year I think 4 of the 5 first level freestyle riders in Region 9 scored over a 68%, so maybe there's hope?)

Oh but hell, while I'm at it...

Really crazy:

1. Figure out how to do flying changes
2. Ride a 3rd level test 

NopeNopeNope:

1. Get bronze scores at 3rd level

Oh and if you're wondering about how I did with last year's goals? My one big goal was to memorize my damn tests. I only went off course once in 2016, so I'll consider that a success!