Shake it off

Over on the blog Behind the Bit, she posted a video about a horse having a bad day in the ring. It happens. It happens to ALL of us. It happens to our horses. It happens in ALL levels and it happens in ALL events.  None of us are immune.

Some days in driving, for me or my pony- it all goes to total and complete crap! Hunters/jumpers or eventers- same, cutting- same, barrel racing- same, roping- same, gyhmkanna- same, trail riding- same, green horse- same, seasoned horses- same and the list goes on... It doesn't seem to matter what you are doing, what you are practicing for, what you set out to work on that day, you, your horse or both of you, just can't seem to get it right for whatever reason.

When this happens you just have to stop for a moment, shake it off, take a deep breath and let it all go. It's tough to do sometimes though. We get caught up in the moment of IT not coming together, we feel pressured at a show or event to do well, impress people and show off what we have learned or taught the horse and it all. falls. miserably. apart.

Frustrating? check
Aggravating? check
Annoying? check
Feelings of failure? check
Feel like you want to cry? check
Pissed off? check

Have I listed the range of emotions we have all gone through at one time or another? If I missed any, feel free to add them in the comments.

There are times when all we can do is swear like a sailor under our breath, fake a smile, hope nobody could read our lips and laugh it off, when we would really like to scream and knock the holy living snot out of something.  Boy have I been there! When Kat had an almost absent halt at the end of our dressage test at the CDE, got fidgety, stopped on an angle and offered to rear before asking him to back up... I wasn't happy with him at all. He is soooo not like that at home.

What could I really do though? I quietly swore at him, laughed at his bs and just sucked it up as best I could. I asked for the 3-5 steps back, walked him forward, halted and saluted the judge while smiling (thinking my pony was a rotten [insert liberal swearing] for pulling that stunt) and left the arena.

When you think it is all going horribly wrong- the horse is shying, trying to bolt, crowhopping, offering to rear or any of the zillion other things they can do, while it FEELS like it was a huge buck, feels like they bolted and ran laps around the arena or feels like they did any number of things in a big way- what it LOOKS like to spectators, the judge, your coach or trainer is often not nearly as bad as what we as a rider, driver or handler thinks.

When Aruba wasn't listening to my leg, not responding and I spurred her one to 'wake her ass up" and "get her attention", the resulting leap up and forward felt like an arched back/crowhop almost bucked and she was not happy. Hubby happened to get it on video. It was a leap up and forward, but in reality it was only a couple strides of canter before she stopped and put her head up. That was her little tantrum. When Kat had his meltdown at the horsepark, I remember him taking two nose dives in the dirt, him rearing, leaping, jumping and bucking and I swear it felt like we made at least two laps around the arena. Hubby watching said we made a lap and a half if not less.  I wish he had gotten that on video.

In our minds we tend to feel it happening so much bigger, so much worse and so different than it often does in reality. We may remember it differently too. What others see it as, may be a half step to the inside, a crowhop not a full on buck or a buck, but not a horse going NFR on us. Now I'm not saying the horse never has a total meltdown on loses it on us, because sometimes they really, really do. But a lot of times we imagine or feel it being so much worse. 

In the video, you can see a few times when the horse has a 'moment' the rider stops, reaches down and pats the horse to reassure him and they try again to move on.  The best thing we can do is stop for a second (or ten), take a deep breath, give the horse a break and try to start over. Start with something simple, something they can do without issue, let that be our happy note and quit there.  If you are in the arena, you might get ding'ed on your score, might slip a placing or two in the lineup, but if you can stop, correct things and go on with a quieter horse, sometimes you will be moved up a placing or two for how you handled it.  Instead of an all out war, you had a slight 'bobble'.  It's ok, because life will go on and you can improve on things from here.  It happens to all of us.

Pop, pop, pop

I am trying to get more pictures of this mare under saddle, but with the twins it is not always easy to have a photographer on hand. We did have some fairly good workouts over the weekend though.

Saturday morning the farrier was out and Miss Aruba is now sporting size 5's on her front feet. For anyone who hasn't seen shoes that size- hold your hand up, spread your fingers out as far as you can and imagine connecting the dots of your fingertips and you will come pretty close. She has some Huge feet! I would rather a horse have bigger feet than not.

She wasn't actually due for a trim for a couple more weeks- at least on paper, but looking at her feet as I picked them out before a ride- she was due. The farrier agreed we weren't going to get away with a trim again for a while. Although he tried to explain some things about what and why, about her shoes, he didn't really get to as we kept talking about other things and getting distracted. Lucky enough though, I get it. Without him having to explain it I understand he had to bring the shoe back some under her foot- putting it where it should go to help things get sorted out as far as balancing the hoof.  No problem here and fine by me. 

As it goes, life happens and I wasn't going to be riding Saturday night since my sisters birthday party was right in the middle of when I would be tacking up. I did manage to slip in a ride on Thursday night. She did ok considering. She started off a little fast and really responsive, but as we worked she leaned on my legs, hung on the bridle and got exceedingly lazy.

What was really funny was that one of the neighbors to the north of us was shooting off fireworks. At first it caught her off guard. She sorta startled and stopped. When she seen the sparkles in the sky in front of her, she looked up, ears pricked and was interested.  I told her they were for her because she was doing so well. That was all it took.  Every time we came around the end of the arena looking towards the fireworks, her head came up, ears forward and she looked at her fireworks. Not scared at all, interested and curious, but not afraid. 

Last night as I fed, the neighbors to the west of us were shooting off fireworks.  Aruba couldn't be bothered and as the hay was put in front of each of them, the rest of the horses became less concerned with the sparkly sky and all the popping noises.  It's nice to know that if I am out riding and get caught out in the neighborhood after dark, that my horses won't be rattled by fireworks.

English vs Western

When my friend said she didn't want to see my mares movement wasted through western riding, I thought of this video. The first one I had seen before and sent it to a new acquaintance to show them the differences between disciplines. When looking for it to post here, I found the second one too.

 

 

 

I like the music selections. 

 

 

Watch closely as the western horse is making his way out of the arena. The rider is cueing for lead changes and getting them, but they are a bit 'bouncy'.

 

While most of the four horses performances are not letter perfect, it clearly shows that you CAN ride either English or western and pull it off either way. If you can ride and know the basic cues of moving the hip or shoulders over, balance, contact, collection and everything else that goes with it- you can do it in either saddle wearing whatever clothing you like.

 

Now when I said their performances aren't letter perfect- I am talking mostly about the spins on the western horses. Neither one plants their pivot foot worth a damn, but I digress... Also the big bay dressage horse- the hind legs in the canter piroutte seem to hop together at times and should move more independently. Granted it is one movement out of how many??? But IMO, they should work on that and do it well or not at all. Is that really too much to ask?

 

Lynn Palm proved on Rugged Lark, that you could do a canter piroutte and go into a reining spin. I'm not a fan of her riding or training, but she was the first person to take the time and inititive to train the horse in both reining and dressage and actually DO IT. Now I'm not going to try turning my mare into a reiner or think she is anywhere near doing canter pirouttes, but hopefully one of these days I can get video or at least pictures of my mare under both sets of tack, doing the basic gaits. The movement and cues are all the same, just different tack and clothes. How many western riders have you seen posting? So why the big fuss or fight over which set of tack you use or what the gait is called? I have no idea.

One thing the hubby said to me was that I need to choose what I am working on with this mare. "Is she going to be a western horse or an English horse? Pick something to FOCUS on." This is along the lines of- Do one thing and do it exceptionally well or do a little bit of everything and be just 'ok' at all of it.  Ultimately she could go either way and looks equally as good under either set of tack. Did I mention she ground ties? Could you imagine her as a rope horse? That coming out of the box after a cow would be a helluv an adrenaline RUSH!  Lol!  

 

For now we will continue to work on the basics- rhythm, relaxation, balance, forward movement and a soft, supple horse. From there- we can go any direction. Once that's established it is up to the horse as to what she excells at and Wants to do. If going slower and collected is her thing- western it is. If she does well under English tack and my hunt saddle fits- we go that route and try cross rails to see if low hunters is something that excites her... Time will tell.