Twirling around at the canter

... aka canter pirouettes. :)

First, make sure you read Megan's far more intelligent post about twirling at the canter.

CLICK HERE.

Second, the day after my visit with my dear friend I was up at 8 a.m. for another clinic with Lainey Ashker. I told you this week was full of ups and downs!

I really like Lainey's positive approach and teaching style. She is quick to tell me corrections, and explain why certain things are happening. Hampton was fresh and a little tense, but we did a lot of super forward trotting for the warmup and he quickly settled. Normally I do not let him trot so forward, because it gets way too fast and unbalanced. But in this case, it worked.

Then we moved right to canter. We started off really making him jump. I will say that Lainey has really brought out a new gear in Hampton. It actually catches me off guard when he hits this gear and truly jumps off the ground in the canter. There is a shitTON of power in there!

From last fall, but you can see the sitting talent is there

And when a 4* eventer says "medium canter," you better burn rubber. Because my idea of "lalala yes here is my medium canter" was not her idea of one! haha! But after outright galloping doing some mediums, all of a sudden I had an uphill, in front of my leg, obedient horse under me!

We started to touch on some canter pirouettes. Hampton has a special talent for these. Of all the dressage "tricks," canter pirouettes make perfect sense to him. He just does them. Even tho I have no clue what I am doing. Lainey helped me prep him, stay in the movement, and then canter out. The only thing I found contradictory to what I have been previously taught is what to do with your seat.

My previous instructors have always told me to "hold" with your seat in the piro ... but Lainey was actually having me activate my seat. Think medium with your butt, but stay in piro canter. I struggled with this, because it was so new, and frankly I think Hampton would respond either way. This is so easy for him. He may struggle with a lot of dressage movements, but the canter pirouettes are not one of them.


We ended up working on some changes which were SO SO SO much improved. I think we are at the point where I can start to play with tempi changes for real now.

Grrreat. Now I have to ride the horse AND count.

So overall another wonderful lesson. It really cheered me up and Hampton was a champ!

And that concluded my whirlwind 3 days.

(because you can bet we spent the next 2 days trail riding haha)

Wait for me to come home

Monday morning rolls around and I drug myself through morning barn chores to drive back up 65, this time to Indianapolis to visit a very good friend.

In hospice.

This person is the woman who bred Hampton, and basically sold him to me for pennies. She also bred my previous horse, T-Bone. She took care of my old Morgan, Sparkles, and made sure she delivered her two babies successfully. Before she was in the breeding business, she was a groom. She was a groom for myself and my sister when we had our Morgan, Doc. She taught me little tips and tricks of grooming and basic horse care.

She taught me more than any other single person in my life other than my parents. Barn management, horse care, grooming, breeding aspects, foaling, how to handle a crisis, handling stallions, how to halter break foals, how to catch loose foals, how to catch feral cats, how to work efficiently around a barn ... how to live your dream and be happy. She is like a second mother to me. She has seen me at my best, and seen me at my worst.

It's really difficult when you go visit someone in a situation such as hospice.

What do you say?

"Oh hi! How are you feeling? Oh, you feel like you are dying? Well, yeah, you probably will."
"Hi! How's the process of dying going?"

We had a lovely chat. I brought her a poster of all the horses I have had in my life that she has been a part of somehow. That has been all of them except one.

We caught up on gossip. Sometimes I would be talking and look over, and she had fallen asleep. I would just sit there until she woke back up again, picking right up where she left off. I will say that hospice is not stingy on the drugs.

A bunch of Hampton's brothers

They have her situation a little more stabilized and she's moving to a different health center this weekend. I am hoping this new place is a little more "home" like, rather than "hospital" like. It was eery at this place. It was so obvious that people were just waiting in their rooms. Waiting to die.

In a way, it's a real privilege to actually be able to say goodbye to someone. How many times do we get that opportunity? I don't think she's that dire yet, but you never know when things can deteriorate quickly. I am planning on visiting her maybe once a week. I feel like I should. I feel like it's my responsibility to offer support when she has been there for me during some pretty shitty times.

I'm sad because I really don't have any photos of her. She was never in front of the camera. She was always the one in the trenches, doing all the work. Sacrificing everything for the horses. We spent many long LONG nights waiting on mares to foal. Her composure in a crisis always impressed me. The way she just knew what to do when there was a red bag delivery, or a shoulder stuck. The way she could read horses (and all animals) was fascinating. She had a gift and at the same time was so humble.

I decided to buy him from her despite the fact that he loved to do this ....

I could go on and on, really, about her. She was my learning champion. A real mentor.

At the end of that night, it was just me, her, her son and the woman I used to work for (who owns Hampton's sire). It was like old times. Sitting there, watching episodes of Simon's Cat of all things. All of us laughing in this dark room. I realized how my life had changed since those days ... and in many ways it has not. My respect and admiration for her will never go away.

I will remember her always.

Kamikaze

So ... I have some catching up to do! I've been a bad blogger as of late. Whoopsie!

The past 3 days have been a whirlwind of highs, lows, seriously depressing shit, and more highs. I am mentally and physically exhausted. Cleaning 13 stalls today did not help matters.

Anyway!

We will start with Sunday.

I decided to haul Hampton up to the Octoberfest show at the HHP. Long-time readers (seriously if you were reading my blog 4 years ago I applaud you!) may recall that I took Hampton to this show as a 4 year old. This is the show where Amy & Steady also joined us. We slept in our trucks overnight and both of us pretty much cleaned up at the show. Amy and Steady pretty much slaughtered the competition again this year but I'll let her tell her own part of the story. They looked outstanding!

4 years ago!

Wittle baby Hampton does a walk trot test at Octoberfest in 2011 I think?

So this is the first time I've been back since. It's such a fun little show. It is so super laid back and thankfully the weather cooperated, too. It was chilly, but turned out pretty nice. It also chased away the DAMN NATS that seem to always be at the HHP.

So I threw Hampton on the trailer at 7 am that morning and got to the HHP around 915. I basically threw his tack on, said hi to my parents and started to put my boots on. In doing so, I knocked over my chair which spilled BOILING HOT cider down my boot. I stood there for a few minutes wondering if my foot really was burnt because it STUNG. My mom said, "You are fine, suck it up." ... lol. So I did. (Thankfully no burns!).

So off we go to warm up.

Hampton was .... amazing. Like the best he has been ALL YEAR. He was fresh, but in a good way. He felt happy to work and was up in the poll, soft and listening to me. He canter had jump and he was in front of my leg and incredible in the hand.

I think this was on a short side during one of our tests.
He is starting to look like an upper level horse!

I was like Ummmm WTF now what do I do now?! So I just played a bit with a few movements and piaffe and went right in. We did 3-3 first and it went alright. I did sacrifice some points because he did try to pull a few of his little tricks that he only does in the ring, like getting stuck in the canter half pass and throwing in random changes. I made a big point to correct him -which is what needed to happen - but it dinged my score. That's actually totally fine with me - it needed to be done. That's the great thing about schooling shows!

Then, I decided oh hell let's take a crack at 4-1. I actually really like this test and I think it flows really well. Our left canter half pass was SO AWESOME. Holy shit I was beaming. He once again got stuck in the right one tho ... flipped leads, which then promptly screwed up the following counter canter and the following lead change. SO that's 3 movements we screwed up. They come right after the other and you have really no room for error. But the rest of the test was pretty good! I was able to kick through the line of tempi changes at the end. Those need polish but I knew that.

Overall, I was VERY proud of Hampton. Not once did he dive down, plow through my hands, kick out, buck, drop behind my aids or get snarky. He was so great.

By the way, I need to do a review on my new Annie's breeches.
THEY ROCK.

I win.

My goals for the winter are to do a schooling show blitz and really learn how to ride the tests better. I need some major polish in how to properly prepare him, and fix things quicker. I don't ride sloppy on purpose, I'm just unschooled. haha. I got away with this at Training and First levels ... and maybe a bit at Second, but now my inexperience is pretty glaring.

After an exhausting day we made it back home safely. I was on such a high, but I knew that Monday was not going to be such a happy day ...

to be continued ....

Charlotte Dujardin Master's Class

Charlotte Dujardin Master's Class - Streaming Archive



Worth watching for sure!

Choosing your (battle) path

I had a whole lesson plan in my head as I led a lazy Hampton out to the arena today.

I picked out two exercises from 101 Exercises for Dressage riders that catered to his specific issues right now. Balance, and flying changes. I had visions of nailing the exercises and really focusing on an upright, bouncy canter.

Those with horses probably see where this is going.

I had not even made one lap around the ring at a walk before Hampton started snorting and spooking at two people who were working on a trailer in the indoor. There was a lot of tensing of the neck and craning his neck around to have a look. I wouldn't really call it "spooking," I would say his general attitude was:

"Oh! What's going on over there? I want to look. Stop asking me to work. Shush up there. NO. I am going to look at what's going on!"

This is what I like to call "going off the grid." It is when Hampton is so distracted that ALL of my aids stop working. If you get after him, it REALLY turns into a pissing match. I have almost gotten bucked off a couple of times because I got after his ass when he was off the grid.

In the past, I would have gotten irritated. I would have picked a fight and MADE him work past the "scary" spot. The session would have ended with us both dripping in sweat, hating each other and I would have written up his sales ad in my head.

FOR SALE: One Indiana Warmblood with no brain!

But today ... instead I walked him calmly out of the ring and to the back fields. We did hill work with PLENTY of transitions. I am talking walk-canter one stride-walk repeatedly up a rather steep hill. I was quiet with my aids, but gosh darn it if that horse didn't sit and lower his haunches. We also did lateral work up and down hills, and extended trot going up hill. I also asked him to back UP a hill a couple of times. He was grunting by the end.

And not a lick of distracted behavior.

So instead of ending the ride hating my horse, he got cookies for working so hard. Instead of wanting to sell him to the first bidder, I'll keep him another day.

All because I picked a different path today.

Up a creek

"The only goal is in the process. The process is the thing - -with little flashes of light --those are the gigs, the live shows …

it's the life in between. That's all I got."

Sleepy pony

I can't say if the barn's Theraplate has had any effect on Hampton's occasional sore muscles or looseness, but it's pretty obvious it at least has a soothing, sleepy effect on him.

Also, today Hampton stood like a gentleman to have his front shoe put back on. The farrier burned the shoe on and everything. NO DRUGS. It is a damn miracle people.