Twin Recap: Dressage

So this has taken forever for me to post...better late than never right?

Gatsby and I had a great time at Twin, ultimately I would have like to do a bit better but, seeing as we hadn't competed in 2 years, I think we pretty much rocked it:)

Friday: Dressage

Our ride wasn't until 4:18pm which was actually nice because I wasn't able to get down until 9:30pm on Thursday and didn't have time to bathe or braid. I took him out for a warm up ride around 10 to get some crazies out after a day off on Thursday. He was really nice, relaxed, and forward...until we walked back to the barn. Freak. Anyways, I was pleased but also slightly nervous that he would then flip me the bird when I went to get on him a second time that afternoon; you never know with this horse. I spent the rest of the day bathing him and braiding and watching other riders from my barn and it felt like 4:18 was literally forever away. When I finally did get on I was surprised to find that Gatsby was still nice and relaxed, not as forward and engaged as earlier in the morning but oh well. Unfortunately another rider from our barn was scheduled at 4:12pm so we warmed up in the area near her arena. Looking back, this was a bad decision on my part but I didn't event think of it at the time. I also think that I warmed up for a touch too long and Gatsby was on his last legs for the day. When we finally sauntered over to our warm up area, which, even though it was right next to the other one, was a completely horrifying place to my horse, the wind picked up. Great, now my horse is annoyed, spooky, and tense right before going into the ring...ughhh. Given the circumstances, I think we had a nice test and I was really happy with how I handled him and kept it together. I was disappointed that we didn't get better marks for our lengthenings and also that he picked up the wrong canter lead going to the right but those are things to work on next time!

Hmm....He actually doesn't look half bad here.


Look at that adorable face:)


My favorite picture from dressage.

Well my lunch break is over now but I will recap stadium and XC later:)

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

I have been a terrible blogger lately. I usually post during my lunch breaks but I just took on some additional responsibilities at work so I have been neglecting blogging. Hopefully I can get back on track before Twin though!

I wasn't able to get out to the barn much last week, sadly. I actually only got in two real rides which is depressing:( We did a serious dressage school on Wednesday. Gatsby was back to his old ways, tossing his head, ignoring my aides, running through the contact, and heavy in the bridle...UGH!!!! I started to get really frusterated but fortunately caught myself before doing too much harm to our ride. I decided to try something new with him since my usual tools were getting COMPLETELY ignored and I did some rapid-fire transitions, lots, while also leg yielding. All of a sudden, I had an responsive horse under me. Our work still wasn't quite as lovely as I wanted but actually, I think it was better than I am giving us credit for. Instead of working through our test as a whole, which I think was frustrating both of us, I broke up the different movements and threw in a few extras to mix things up. Our extended trots are getting quite lovely and I am really happy with the direction our transitions are going in. The one big issue I am still having is with the lengthening at the canter. When he is completely relaxed and responsive he does this beautifully, but, that is about 10% of the time tops. Usually he responds to my lengthening aides but I lose the front end and his head shoots up and our nice frame is done for:( also, he is then resistant to coming back to working canter. Thoughts anyone?

Thursday we had a jumping lesson. It went really well but I could tell I wasn't riding as well as usual which was a bit disappointing. What was nice was that Gatsby kept his cool and took care of me:) We worked on some tight turns and bending lines and finished up over a skinny corner. I could not be more proud of my boy!

Alexis rode him over the weekend and I am super excited for our dressage school today and for our upcoming rides as we prepare for Twin. Hopefully we can get everything figured out an have a successful showing!

Stopping at fences is a good thing?

If you read the title to this post you're probably just about as confused as I was during my jumping lesson last night. Fortunately, Alexis is very good at explaining and I ended up understanding his point.
We started our lesson last night working on keeping Gatsby straight; he tends to pop his outside shoulder out a bit. We worked at the trot and canter on a circle with me focusing on my outside aids as well as keeping him forward, relaxed, and stretchy. Gatsby is a very smart horse and he loves to please so he caught on very quickly and we moved on to trotting some low fences. We wanted to keep him in that same relaxed mind frame that we got him in last week, once again my horse is very smart and he knew right away what I was asking from him. After popping over a cross-rail a few times we moved on to a small vertical on a diagonal. I'm sitting there thinking how great my horse is for staying so relaxed and responsive when all of a sudden SUPRISE! Gatsby stops. My horse rarely stops so I am a little surprised but I rein back and trot him over it...a little messy but he goes over fine.
After a few more rounds of that we moved on to the tough part. Alexis had me ride a line from a vertical to an oxer, both approx. 3 feet. Gatsby jumped the verticle smoothly, I half-halted, sat back and stayed quite to the oxer (we're working on me not doing anything on the approach and him staying relaxed and figuring it out on his own). BAM! He stops again! I have no idea what is going on at this point and I am racking my brain trying to figure out why my horse is all of a sudden refusing simple, low fences. That's when Alexis says "That's exactly what I wanted to happen." What?!?!?! After a little explanation I understood his point; Gats is used to me riding him to fences with a strong leg and a short rein. He usually rushes to fences and has a very short and elevated stride and it is necessary for me to pick up a strong contact and really guide him over the jump. When we took away all of this "discussion" in the approach and had him come to the fence at a nice relaxed, reaching canter with loose reins, he didn't know what to do. After a few more stops and some very ugly fences Gatsby figured it all out and hopped over the oxer without a second thought.
This whole exercise really got me thinking about how I have been riding him in the past and why we started having problems on course all of a sudden. That's when what Alexis said about him not knowing what to do without me really made sense. I've been letting him do things his own way and accommodating his bad habits by overriding instead of just training him to things the right way. I think that this new style will actually help us develop faster once we're both more used to it. I would have been terrified to ride him around a Prelim course the way we were going before but if I can get him to stay calm and figuring things out for himself, I think I will be much more confident.

Lessons!

So last week Gatsby and I had our first two lessons with our new trainer, Alexis Helffrich. Alexis was highly recommended to me by everyone at our new barn including an old friend and instructor of mine so I was very excited to get his input on my somewhat knuckle-headed steed. Our first lesson was a jumping lesson on Thursday. Since neither Gatsby or I had jumped in over a month *gulp* and Alexis had never seen us go before, we kept the jumps pretty small. We worked on keeping Gatsby relaxed and forward and Gatsby was just wonderful.
To start the lesson Alexis had me trot Gatsby back and forth over a small cross-rail. After noting Gatsby's tendency to rush to the fence and then back off at the last second, Alexis set up a short course for us set on a serpentine. Having those tight turns to help keep Gatsby relaxed and balanced is REALLY helpful for me. Alexis also pointed out that while I have a very strong and stable lower leg, I rarely apply pressure from my thigh so I worked on that as well. We did the course a few times and I worked on keeping pressure on from my whole leg, keeping my hands quite, staying back and letting him find his spot. This worked wonders! By the end of the lesson Gatsby was cantering around the jumps super relaxed and more forward than ever! I immediately texted my friend Nicku to thank her for recommending such a wonderful trainer
:)

We had our second lesson with Alexis on Sunday and this time we worked on dressage. Alexis hopped on Gatsby at the beginning so that he could get a feel for him. He concluded that Gatsby seems to have the same issues in dressage that he does jumping, he gets too tense and agitated and rushes through everything. When I got on we worked on giving Gatsby very precise and correct cues so he knows exactly what I want from him. Being able to rely on me tends to keep him much more relaxed. On that same note, Alexis also had me working on being much stronger in my corrections, as Gatsby tends to be quite rude at times. Especially at the canter, he will start bobbing his head all over the place and refusing to hold a contact. To remedy this, Alexis had me hold my outside hand very strong and steady at his withers so that when he bobbed his head he would catch himself. At the same time, I was giving him an open, leading rein with my inside hand and pushing him forward from my legs. Once again, this worked magically. Gatsby continued to try the head bobbing trick to see what he could get away with but by the end of the lesson he had pretty much given up. I am sure this is something we will continue to work with.

Unfortunately, since then I haven't been able to make it out to the barn:( I had to work late last night because of month end and I will be staying late again tonight to make up for arriving late after a dentist's appointment. We do have another lesson scheduled for tomorrow though! I am uber excited and have started planning out a shoe schedule for us this season:)