Dressage as a 4-year-old

Calvin has now been under saddle for about a year. I believe in starting horses slowly, both for their mental and physical well being. So far this approach has worked because whenever he sees me, he's very willing to get out of his pen and see the world. I started him slowly with walking trails and our arena work consisted of learning how to stop, go, and turn--the basics. We progressed to more "difficult" arena work this year which I've already touched on in previous posts, but this mainly consists of helping him learn to seek the contact with the rein and move off my leg.

You can see his progress in these videos, he's doing a great job of traveling forward and reaching down. I'm not forcing him into any headset, but I place slightly more rein pressure when his head comes up so it just feels uncomfortable to him and he is rewarded with very light pressure when his head is down. You'll notice that he is distracted easily and that's the four year old brain showing.

I'm trying to keep that forward movement, Calvin has more "whoa than go" so the dressage whip is only used as a secondary cue when he ignores my leg that is asking him to go forward. I don't want to have to squeeze him with my legs every step he takes to remind him that he needs to keep going at this speed, so when he slows down I slightly tap with the whip. If a tap doesn't work, he gets a stronger tap until he listens. You may be wondering, isn't that what spurs are for? No, in Classical Dressage, spurs are only used for higher movements such as lateral work (moving sideways), piaffe, passage, etc. because the spur delivers a pinpointed cue on the belly/sides that is very specific. Using spurs too liberally can dull the horse which creates tension in the riders leg from constantly spurring their horse to respond.

Now, we are throwing transitions into the mix: walk to trot, trot to walk, trot to canter, etc. What is nice is that there are dressage tests for four year olds, so I can kind of see what is expected in a dressage four year old class and model our training after this. This is what a full size dressage arena looks like, there are letters on the outside (visible) and letters on the inside (invisible). So when they say medium trot at A, you're supposed to make your transition right at the A marker. This means your horse has to listen to your cues immediately, but smoothly, easier said than done. One of the other dressage riders mentioned how when her horse was first learning transitions, she called it "doing the Phoebe," which is probably the perfect description. "Friends" fans will likely remember what I'm talking about, but if not here's the clip.

Anyway, we are a work in progress, but stay tuned for more updates :)

Weddings

First, I have to say that this post is not directly related to Calvin. In fact, I haven't seen him in a week and I miss that little boy! Why I haven't seen him though is because I went to Northern CA for a wedding this past weekend. As usual, Northern CA was absolutely beautiful this time of year. 

Cliché driving over the Golden Gate bridge picture! SF is one of my absolute favorite cities

What are all these green things? Driving through Sonoma

NorCal is much more horse friendly, but I was surprised to see this bad boy in my janky hotel's (really...the hotel was awful but that's another story) parking lot. What is a CWD trailer you might ask? Oh, they just sell $5,000 saddles, no big deal. They cart this trailer around because when you're willing to drop a down payment on a saddle, they come to you (or set up at horse shows) and customize the saddle to your horse. Needless to say, I was very tempted to hitch up and take off.

The wedding venue, to my surprise, was actually held at a horse farm. I use the term "farm" loosely here as it was more like an estate. In other words--my dream horse facility. Between the ceremony and the reception, I was able to wander on the property and snap a few pics of the facility. I also managed to take pics of some gorgeous stallions, because if there are horses, I will find them.

View from the wedding area: the far right of the picture shows a roof, that is a covered arena. To the left are three large day pastures. You could hear the horses neigh during the ceremony, so cute! 

Even more pastures, Calvin would think he'd died and gone to heaven.

This indoor arena was literally five feet from the cocktail hour. Now this is arena is super fancy, other than the obvious beautiful beams and killer arena footing. Notice it has mirrors on the right and the walls are slanted so your horse can't smash your leg into the side, these are things us commoners dream of! Note: this is a different arena than previous picture. Yes, that makes TWO covered arenas alone...it doesn't even rain that much in CA.

The outdoor dressage court--breathtaking.

This stable specialized in Iberian and Boroque (Spanish) horses. Needless to say, I was drooling. The stallion barn was next to the reception area, so I "got lost" and found these guys: 

This guy was very friendly! Note: grass hay (yay!) and 3 feedings a day, not bad at all.

Gorgeous!

So you're probably thinking, "this place must be obscenely expensive." Well, depends on what you're used to. Pasture starts at $420/month, regular board $600, stallion barn $700. This is "average" for my current location which means that if this facility was located where I live, it would probably start at $600/month for pasture and go up from there. I guess if you live anywhere that has land in abundance, then this is expensive. But when land is at a premium, you pay more to house a glorified lawnmower horse. Overall, great times in NorCal and I hope to visit again soon.

Calvin as Teacher

This weekend Calvin doubled as a lesson horse! You may be thinking "what? A 4 year old mustang as a lesson horse for beginners? You are crazy!" Well, you'd be right. But I only have one horse and if you want your boyfriend to learn how to ride, you have to make due with what you have! 

That being said, I've been teaching beginners how to ride since I was 14. I actually really enjoy teaching horseback riding, something about watching the lesson click in someone's mind is really awesome. I would have actually enjoyed teaching riding as a career, but I have no desire to be competitive and such, I can't charge enough to make a living. Plus, most horse trainers have a reputation as being borderline. The horse world itself often is so toxic that I didn't want to be a part of it. I could write a novel about all the personalities I've experienced with trainers...but not in this setting. Therefore, teaching has become something more of a hobby for close friends and family. 

Now there's riding a horse, and then there's riding a horse. The former being where you jump on, learn to stay on, and voila. The latter is having a formal and sophisticated understanding of the horse, its mind and body, and how you influence the horse to form a partnership that makes the horse happy to do what you ask. Obviously, this deeper engagement is what I strive for and what I teach. 

Therefore, when teaching beginners the fundamentals for English riding, I teach the "proper" way to ride. First, how to hold your position at the walk: tall and straight upper body, heels down, and soft hands (aka soft steering and stopping). Mainly, how to increase balance and position to keep you on the horse. 

Here's a video of the boyfriend learning how to post. Posting is rising out of the saddle in rhythm with the horse's trot, ideally you should be standing when the horse's outside leg (one closest to the arena fencing) is forward. This is known as the correct diagonal. Anyway, first you have to learn to rise with the horse's rhythm, it uses lots of inner thigh/calf muscles and is much harder than it looks. Honestly, this is the hardest stage in riding because you have so many things you need to be doing. Gripping with legs, sitting up tall, steering, heels down, not pulling the horse's face, etc. 

J is on the lunge line here because then he can focus purely on his position and legs without having to steer. Also, I have Calvin in side reins so he's getting a lesson too by learning how to reach down and into the bit. Also, it keeps Calvin focused and busy, got to keep baby brain working. Although having Calvin's head this low does make him more "downhill" and hence a tendency for the rider to fall forward, but J is doing a good job regardless. 

Overall J was just starting to get the hang of the post before his muscles gave up haha. Also, he really needs breeches and boots before advancing further. Both from a safety standpoint as well as comfort. In case you're still confused on what posting is supposed to look like, here is an older video (Jan I believe?) of Calvin and me at the trot. It's very easy when you've been doing it for 14 years, but we all start from the same place :)

Riverbed Trail + Trailering Practice

I've been trying to plan a trail with M for a long time and today it finally came together. I was excited because Calvin was going to be able to conquer crossing water and we'd have some wonderful company. Luckily, M was kind enough to offer trailering assistance over to his place (thanks again M!). Trailering Calvin is always a challenge. Well not the trailering itself part so much (even though he certainly enjoys pawing and screaming his head off), but it's more just loading into the trailer. He isn't afraid of the trailer mind you, he just...doesn't like it. Why he doesn't like it... I can only speculate that it's because trailers mean leaving home, a place that he's more-than-happy to stay. It also means being away from another horse for more than 10 minutes, the horror! Well Calvin, to that we say "man up" and that he did...eventually (and with lots of "encouragement").

"Get me off this thing"

Once at M's house, he loaned my boyfriend J a horse and we set off! M was nice enough to take lots of pics of us. I was busy trying to focus baby-brain and J was trying to figure out this horse-riding thing. 

Setting off--Calvin and Noor.

 

Going through lots of sand, great for his feet and legs!

 Calvin's introduction to water was...unique! Although I shouldn't have expected anything less from my goofy boy. M's horses walked right in of course, having done this trail many times. Calvin then had a moment of "hey guys wait don't leave!" He snorted at the mud and water for a second... then walked right in. But then he realized water was well...wet...and definitely trying to eat him! So he managed to run sideways to try and escape it? I don't know. He managed to get both of us even more wet than necessary in the process. 

This picture was taken by J from the shoreline. You can see that Calvin basically ran sideways (as he's doing in this shot below haha) like "ew get this stuff off of me!" M and his horse Iskra, to the left, took a more direct approach to the other side. They missed out on the more exciting sideways approach ;)

"I'm just half-passing mom!"

He eventually calmed down

Here I am brushing off the sand/water off my legs and saddle, glad I rode in my endurance saddle today!

"Oohh who's this pretty lady?"

"I'll follow you anywhere!"

Dry land momentarily, hanging out by the graffiti under the freeway. This graffiti changes all the time, interesting to see what people come up with.

Then we had to cross the water another time, under the freeway. Here we hit some deeper water, but nothing like peer-pressure to encourage him to get through, good job baby! 

All finished and heading home

Overall a great trail day!  This experience was also so good for his brain, he needs to get out more. We had lots of fun on new trails and we got to cross some serious water for the first time, for both myself and Calvin. Hopefully we'll be able to have some more trail rides soon, we love getting out and exploring, especially with friends! Now... to go look at horse trailer listings...

I wish.

Play Time!

We may train hard, but we definitely play hard too! I've let him lose in the big arena to just burn some energy and be a horse. Both times I had people with me and they were able to shoot video while I made sure he didn't run into me. He loves having the wide open space to run!

This second video includes my mom's dog chasing Calvin. It was crazy windy so if you have your volume up, you'll definitely hear it. Now this is really dangerous for the dog and I would not recommend anyone let their dogs do this, including my own who is wisely laying off in the shade outside the arena. However, my mom knew the risks involved and still decided to let her dog do it. Calvin is actually pretty good with dogs as he's used to my dog following behind while riding.

Weekend of 4/18

This weekend my equestrian center was hosting a horse show. It was a small unrated or county show. This is largely different from what I used to compete in, which was considered "A" or "AA" show and was governed by USEF. A whole different, expensive beast with more $$ thrown into it as well.

I didn't enter Calvin in this tiny show, although it would have been fun if I had the time just to see how he'd do. Regardless, I decided to ride him and walk him around where the show was happening. Anyone who has attended a horse show knows the "vibe" that goes with it. There's a sort of electricity in the air. Fueled by nervous horses and riders, adrenaline, and competition. I talk about this electricity because horses usually always act differently at horse shows unless they are seasoned. I got on Calvin and right away could tell it was going to be a fun ride. 

He was so distracted by the show it was hard to keep him focused in the arena! This meant lots of training to keep his mind busy which he didn't really enjoy, but was good practice for "focus on me not the other horses!" I had to work him harder than usual and that did eventually tire him out. Once he was tired enough that I knew he wouldn't spook at everything, we decided to walk around the show grounds. I would have taken pics except I was more focused on making sure he didn't throw me or take off. It was good for him to see new things and feel that electricity without the pressure of having to actually compete. 

The next day, after the horse show was over, I turned him loose in the big arena and oh my god did he run. He ran so much that it's a miracle I stayed on the day before with this much pent up energy! You'd think living in a pasture would give him that outlet to run but apparently not. I guess I'll be turning him loose more frequently. All things considered he was very good this weekend. He even got some compliments on how handsome he was. Hard to disagree, he looks so spiffy in his dressage tack! 

Here are some pics from just hanging out in his pasture:

His "omg that's the spot" itchy face

Nothing beats a good roll after a bath, also that's his new fly mask. He seems to prefer the ones with ear holes as they don't make him as sweaty.

 

He loves to cuddle

More Trails and Yacht Rein Review

Got back on the trail again this Friday to go a bit farther than we had previously. He was "awake" that day-- distracted, sensitive, and very alert. Not naughty by any means, but just... kind of on edge. We rode next to the edge of the dam and there were some fishermen there. But they might as well have been monsters from the deep because Calvin stood there refusing to move forward just snorting at them. Or I'd ask him for a trot by *lightly* squeezing and he'd launch into a canter. Not to mention the great blue heron which flew out of the water which caused an identical spook to the one that got me off last time. Luckily this time I was in a saddle and I was able to get him back under control. Yeah, definitely on edge.

Finally we moved past the dam onto some quieter trails. I decided to take him off the path and into the brush. He doesn't even think twice about the plants being up to his belly, good mustang!

 Summer coat means showing off his awesome brand again

Off-roading. The good thing about him being distractible is it makes for good ears-forward pictures ;)

My full trail bridle set up includes a $20 western bridle (which I can't stand because the throatlatch keeps riding up into his throat kind of defeating the purpose of the throatlatch, but you get what you pay for), my nathe snaffle bit (which I absolutely love so much I'll probably do a separate post on it!), and yacht reins. Definitely not your average trail get up, but then again we're not your average trail horse and rider! My next "upgrade" will be to a better fitting bridle, perhaps a biothane one for the easy upkeep, but in the meantime I need to find a way to fix it.

I used my new yacht trail reins on this ride and was really pleased. If you've been keeping up with the blog, you'll remember that the last time I ate it Calvin decided to step on my reins and they broke. Because I didn't want to spend $$ on decent (read: expensive) English reins, I bought some yacht reins. They're softer than leather and lower-maintenance, something I'm all about for trail riding! I bought the 12' length which is *perfect* for trails and letting him stretch down to sniff or eat, I love long reins. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the clips to the bit, whether they'd be too loud with metal on metal, but I found that it wasn't too distracting and Calvin didn't seem to mind, which is really what matters most. 

I miss my old trails which were more challenging for both of us in terms of elevation and technical difficulty. Also, I miss riding with other people and their horses! Looks like I'll have to plan an adventure soon when I have more free time, maybe this summer :)