"He's using his cuteness against you"

“He’s using his cuteness against you.”

My trainer told me this last night. This is a very polite way of saying “Your horse has your number and you need to do something about it.” Whoops.

See, she’s been riding him for the past week while I was helping Hubby with the jousting competition. And she apparently learned a lot about what it’s like to ride him, in addition to having a few very serious discussions with him.

Apparently, taking things seriously is hard for him.

Exhibit A: The mounting block. Paddy happily walks off the moment my butt touches the saddle. No more of that, trainer says. You get on, he stands until you say otherwise. Shockingly, he’ll stand still without so much as a toe hair out of place now. Huh.

Exhibit B: Walking. There’s a fine line between walking politely and using his butt and, well, not. I am learning to keep my core super engaged at all times to “hold” him to a polite medium (without pulling on the reins, of course), making sure our tempo is very consistent and he doesn’t get the chance to speed up and fall over his front end. We’re doing this more in the free walk too, “holding” while allowing him to stretch, but still riding the hind end. The nice thing is that our transitions from a polite walk to a trot are just that much better, and it’s so easy to feel when he’s falling over his shoulder that I can mostly fix it very quickly.

Exhibit C: Trotting. As my trainer puts it, “He’s taking over… HE’S TAKING OVER!!!” In the space between one step and the next, Paddy can go from politely trotting to tucking his nose in and bowling for dressage letters. She was impressed at how good he is at this, and noted that the MOMENT you pull to get him to stop/slow down, he pulls twice as hard and just keeps going. (Note that he also does this at the canter, times 10.) To counteract this, I have to ride. Every. Step. Quite literally, I am riding every step his inside hind leg takes. I cannot allow him to go straight – we have to be sliiightly shoulder-fore at all times. If I relax for even a moment (or, heaven forbid, think “Hey, this is pretty nice…”), next thing I know he’ll be charging off, ignoring my seat like he’s never heard of a half-halt before.  But IF I’m paying attention, and I’m quick, I can give a half-halt with my seat and apply some inside thigh to re-focus him and get that inside hind back under control. Our trot work has magically slowed down (it feels like we’re crawling, although I’ve been told we’re not), BUT he’s also much more obedient. I know we’ll get marked off on not being relaxed over the topline, but if I ride like this, maybe we’ll also not get comments about rushing and pulling? One can hope.

We’re not even talking about the canter. Things are getting worse before they get better, but damn, we have our work cut out for us on this one.

Oh and Paddy? Trying to commit Haffie-cide three days before a show is sub-optimal. I know cantering is hard but did you REALLY have to try to bank off a panel in the round pen, get BOTH front legs caught, and flip over mid-stride? Because you almost gave me a heart attack.

Scrape on back of heel/pastern

Slight ding on inside of LF

Rumpled hairs

Don’t worry, he’s sound despite me thinking I’d killed my horse. A bit stiff of course, but no heat and no swelling – just a bit of rumpled hair and a cut on his pastern. Thank goodness!

Brego rocks Lysts on the Lake 2015

The short version: Brego ROCKED the jousting competition this weekend! He had zero problems in the lane, was happy to engage in mounted combat, and thought the jumping part of the obstacle course was THE BEST. Hubby couldn't be happier, and I doubt Brego's had so many treats (often provided by his extensive fan club) in years.

The long version:

Although we had worked a lot with Brego over the winter, at his first competition in March he decided that he really did not like the idea of his rider getting hit, and chose not to play. He would either not go in the lane at all, or would stop dead in the middle, at the impact point. Since then, hubby and I have worked a LOT with him, getting him used to having his rider hit, having his rider move about, etc. Hubby went to a couple of practices where he probably got hit over 100 times while walking and trotting down the lane. While Brego had gotten better and better, he still hadn't been able to do an actual run where both riders had lances and were targeting each other. In an ideal world, we would have had another month to practice, so we were both quite concerned about what the big guy would think about actual jousting. Had we gotten him over his fears? Would he play?

Here's a video of how the first joust on Friday went:

Note that these are in reverse order ('cause I'm an idiot with iMovie), so the last runs in the vid where you hear me clucking are actually his first runs.

In short, Brego has gotten TOTALLY into jousting. He did his job, ran perfectly down the lane and stopped at the end. You'll even see a few vids where he flips leads after the hit to keep himself under his rider! Hubby actually made it to the finals, and by the end, was able to run Brego with no reins. Talk about major improvement! We couldn't be happier, and Brego couldn't be happier with all the treats and praise he got for a job well done.

CHARRRRRGE!

There was also a mounted combat competition, which is something that hubby has won repeatedly on Red. Alas, with Red happily retired, Brego has had to step in. He's not as maneuverable as a zippy little 14.2 hand MFT, but he's definitely getting the hang of going around bashing opponents. This was another game he just wouldn't play in March, and while he's still not interested in being the aggressor 100% of the time, you can see he does quite well considering all the excitement:

Back at the barn, Brego was quick to make friends with all the ladies. His favorite girl is a big Belgian mare named Peaches - they were practically inseparable. (Peaches mom made up the following song about the two of them.... "Brego and Peaches, sittin' in a tree... CRASH!!!") However, there were a number of PerchX mares and one PerchX gelding, all of whom thought he was pretty hot stuff. By the end of the weekend, Brego had an entire harem of his own.

Brego (in the middle) and some of his girls.

The final contest was a mounted obstacle course based on the hunt. There was apple chopping, boar stabbing (a fake boar), a drag hunt, and jumping ditches and hay bales (Brego's FAVORITE part). I don't have any pics of this since I was jump judging, but hopefully there are some pro pics coming.

Brego also had an enormous fan club the whole weekend. I am pretty sure he mooched more treats than any horse there, and he got a bit impolite about asking for them. We ended up having to tell anyone who wanted to pet him to keep their hands "above his mouth" or else they were in for a bit of a slobbery surprise! I think he may have gained a few pounds from over-indulging, but it was well-deserved.

The only thing better than adoring fans is adoring fans with cookies.

Of course, there is a huge amount of work that goes into putting this show on. Many thanks to the organizers, all the ground crew, and all the other competitors for making it such a wonderful event. We had a great time and can't wait for next year!

Oh yeah. 

Jousting: Hitting tip-to-tip

In short: Big jousting tournament this weekend and all our work with Brego paid off! He was a jousting STAR!!!!

I've got a ton of pics and videos which I'll post when I'm done processing them, but for now, I leave you with a sequence of shots where the jousters hit tips, which is very unusual. 

See the tiny "poof" of the initial lance break just above the lances?

Hubby's lance is still on target for his opponent's shield.

Juuuuust about to hit...

... and the follow-through!

4 points for hubby and Brego, since they broke on their opponent's shield AND broke more than half of the lance tip!

Brego: "My humans are crazy. Please send help."

It's been almost a year since I moved back to Texas. At first, I thought this would be an easy gig - more eventing and foxhunting, and plenty of people to properly worship me. And then we started doing this thing called "jousting".

Jousting is a dangerous sport for humans, and a rather terrifying prospect for horses. You're supposed to let some guy wearing a big metal suit HIT YOUR RIDER. Seriously. I know they say eventing is dangerous, but this jousting thing... NOBODY hits my rider, NOBODY. I have tried to convey the danger involved to New Dad, but my every attempt falls on deaf ears. Refusing to go down the lane, stopping in the middle of the lane - how else can I explain without words that this is simply Not Safe?

My New Humans seem to think I'm being silly. They have reassured me constantly (and fed me a lot of treats) that it's OK for New Dad to get hit. At home, he's been letting New Mom hit him with a "sword" (I swear it's just a big stick) while we practice, and that's not so bad. And then I figured out that I get close to other horses, New Dad would hit THEIR riders! Well, everyone knows that I, BREGO, am boss of the entire universe, so having my rider boss other riders seems entirely fair. Also New Dad is quite adept at not getting hit, so that is good too. So now I am shouldering in to other horses so New Dad can hit their riders when we do something called "Mounted Combat", and this is kind of a fun thing.

Then, this week, we tried another crazy thing. Apparently there is a game called a "drag hunt" where someone on horseback drags a thing behind them, and then we gallop up to it and New Dad has to try to spear it from my back. I am pretty sure I did a lot of drag hunts when I lived with Other Mom and it was NEVER like this, but anyway. To practice this, New Mom got out a Scary Blue Thing and put it on a string. Then she ran all around while we tried to stab it.

(Jen in here: the things we do for our spouses, I swear.)

Going in for the kill

New Dad learned not to stare at the Scary Blue Thing so that I won't stare at it too. Because you know, when humans stare at something it usually means it's scary. Anyway, I figured out my job, and New Dad stabbed the Blue Thing a few times, and then I had a better idea: why not just stomp on the Blue Thing to stop it moving. That seemed to be the goal of this game, so I, BREGO, decided to help.

For some reason New Dad and Mom found this very funny.

So just in case you ever wondered what it takes to be a jousting horse, I am here to tell you that it's much harder than eventing or even foxhunting, and that humans must be a special kind of crazy to do this. I am fairly certain I deserve extra carrots for putting up with this.

 In action

Going round and round in circles

I've been longeing Paddy quite a bit of late, mostly to let him work on his balance in the canter without having to deal with a less-than-stellar rider as well. I haven't really done this before because at some point in his life, Paddy learned that longeing means to run around the human as fast as possible in each direction, randomly slamming on the brakes and spinning around to change direction. Not precisely what you want for a productive longe session. He's also a pro at throwing out his shoulder and bolting off if you're not longeing in a round pen. After being dragged across the pasture a few times (we don't have a round pen), I took the coward's way and decided we would just skip that whole longeing thing.

Until now. It's become glaringly apparent that we have got to pull out all the stops to work on his canter. Sure, we could try things like a little shoulder fore in the canter, or maybe some shallow counter-canter serpentines, but his canter is literally such a mess that I can't do anything with it. Cantering more with him splatted on his forehand isn't going to help, so we opted to try about a million trot-canter-trot transitions on the longe line in hopes he would be able to sort himself out a bit on his own, and get a little stronger so that when I'm on his back we don't flail quite so much.

Our first try was with my old stand-by, side reins. When I had Cash, I used to longe him often, just for a few minutes. I wanted him to have a chance to feel the bit contact without the instability of a rider's hands, and over time, side reins definitely helped him. With Paddy, the goals are different - steady rhythm and tempo, and better balance in all gaits but especially the canter.

Paddy in side reins. Note that he's BTV and tight in the base of his neck.

One thing I discovered about using elasticized side reins is that Paddy likes to lean on them. That meant when I got in the saddle to ride him after longeing, he was SUPER heavy in my hand (and having him more in my hand is really not somewhere I want to go). I also tried side reins without elastic, and he sucked back behind the bit the entire time with those. So while the elastic side reins might be OK if I'm ONLY going to longe him, they aren't great if I'm also going to ride.

Based on a little research and recommendations from other bloggers, I decided to try a chambon. The action is entirely different than side reins - it works off poll pressure and bit pressure when the horse raises his head. When the horse lowers his head, all pressure is released. He's allowed to go with his nose poked out or in and his head way down or slight up, and the chambon won't activate. It's only when he flings his head in the air that it kicks in.

Paddy with a chambon. Note how he's relaxed along his neck and top line, stepping under (for him), and has his nose poked out and down. This is actually a GREAT free walk for him!

It took him a few sessions to figure out the action of the chambon, but now he goes in a big, relaxed, swinging walk, and he's relaxing into the trot more and more. It's interesting to see how hard it is for him to balance in a trot over his topline for more than half a circle without anything to lean on, but he's getting better day by day. The canter is still very hard for him, but it's only been two weeks and he's finding his balance a bit more. I'm keeping sessions short, maybe 10-15 minutes total, mostly walking, and it's definitely making a difference under saddle. His walk is much freer and his trot and canter are both a bit more balanced. Yay progress!

Do you use longeing as a regular training aid? 

When you realize your horse isn't competitive against the big boys

I realized something really important at our first USDF rated show: We are unlikely to win much of anything at these venues.

I'm sure most of you are thinking "Quit it, that was just the first one and of course you're going to get better and your scores will improve." And you're right, we WILL get better and our scores WILL improve.

But they're not going to improve that much. Not ever. Because there's a fundamental difference between Paddy and the horses that we were and will continue to be competing against, that no amount of training can overcome.

You see, the other AA horses we were up against, even at Training level, were mostly warmbloods or WBXs. Those horses are bred for dressage, for loose, long movement, for big walks, for free shoulders and lots of push from behind. Paddy, on the other hand, is basically a miniature draft horse. He's got a more upright and heavier shoulder, a more upright trot, and let's not even get started on his canter. At his very best, he overtracks a tiny bit in the walk, whereas these horses might overtrack by an entire hoof print without even trying.

The horses we were getting 8s on their free walks - because they naturally have a very nice, loose walk with lots of overstep. A free walk has a coefficient score of 2, which means it's actually worth twice as much. So our 5 or, on a really really good day, 6, is going to be 4-6 points less than anyone else we're competing against. That's an entire percentage point (or more) on the total score - on one movement.

Same thing goes for collective movements. These horses are getting 7s and 8s on their gaits, because they really are nice movers. We're getting 5s or 6s. Even on our best day ever, some day in the future when I have Paddy relaxed over his topline and pushing from behind, we'll be lucky to get a 6.5 or maybe even a 7, if the judge just loves him. Those horses that we're up against? Pushing from behind and relaxed over the topline is going to get them an 8+.

I competed against an AA whose horse wasn't really engaged, wasn't really through. It was a pleasant test, but the figures weren't terribly accurate, the horse swapped leads, the rider went off course, and also didn't post during the stretchy trot circle (posting required on the test). They ended up with a 65 and change. We got a 62 on the same test. In other words, other riders can make MULTIPLE ERRORS on their tests and STILL have a significantly better score than we do - not necessarily because they are better riders (this person got a 5 on the rider score), but because they simply have much nicer horses that are better suited for dressage.

In all fairness, I wasn't very happy with our performance at that show. We do many things better at home, and I need to ride a lot better when actually IN the sandbox.  We have a long way to go and a lot of work to do, and plenty of room to improve.  But the fact is that even if we put in a stellar test, we're unlikely to get much above a 65, or maybe  68 - certainly not the 72% that won most of the Training level classes. We'll probably always be in the bottom of the field, especially in the qualifying classes. That's a little depressing if you're in it to win it.

Not blue, but it'll do.

But, the nice thing about dressage is that you don't have to win in order to get the scores you need. You see, the USDF has a number of awards programs that are based off percent scores. There's a Rider Award program at each level, which requires 4 scores over 60%, under 4 different judges. We have two of those scores already at Training level. There's also qualifications for the Regional Championship - two scores under two judges over 61% on Training 3. We have one of those scores. There are qualifying scores for Nationals (don't have any of those), and once we move up to First (you know, maybe some day when we can canter) we can qualify for Bronze Medal scores. All those awards require scores in the low 60s, which I believe is totally doable for us - especially once we get our act more together. :)

So, while we're unlikely to be bringing home any blue ribbons at a rated show, I have every hope that we can qualify for some of the USDF awards. And I'm really glad that the USDF has a program where people with less-than-amazeballs warmbloods can still play.

And who knows, maybe if we can get this kind of movement on a regular basis, we can beat a few of those Warmbloods. :)

Snakes. Why did it have to be... snakes?!?

Megan, you probably don't want to read this post. ;)

Every spring, we have one or two rat snakes come hang out at Wyvern Oaks for a month or so. They usually hang out around the back shed/chicken coop, and when they move on, we have no more rodents. They're shy creatures, not at all aggressive, and are quick to move out of your way if you encounter one. Although it can be somewhat disturbing to find a 5+ foot snake hanging out in your shed, I'm always grateful for their presence.

Last week, Fuzzypony found one in the chicken coop. Apparently this one didn't get the message that he's supposed to eat rodents...

Well hello there!

Contemplating an easy snack...

Omnomnomnom.

Yes, rat snakes also eat eggs. And I'm more than happy to share if they also kill off a few rats! Good luck, little fellow!