Ike and I want to be like Charlotte and Valegro.  They again have blown away the competition in London http://www1.skysports.com/olympics/story/15234/8340462 with a Grand Prix score of 84.447%.  WT…??!!  Amazing.  Simply amazing.  They ride in such harmony with a fluidity in the movement that is like moving poetry.  No herky-jerky Elaine-dancing moments, snotty noses, or awkwardness.  I may be 44 and she is just a babe at 27 years of age, but I feel like a star-struck, gawky teenager when I watch her ride.

My greatest accomplishment in dressage was with Ike’s brother Cigar; we earned a 78% for an Intro Level test.  Pathetic huh?  It is okay to snicker and point.  Ike and I achieved at 70.8% in an Intro Test and then moved on to Training Level and unfortunately didn’t cross the 70th percentile mark at Training Level this year.  I cannot even imagine getting a score sheet back with a number that started with an 8.  I think I would scream like a banshee, scare Ike, and then wreak havoc on the show grounds as Ike cavorted around without his rider who fainted after screaming.

Well we certainly aren’t going to earn an 80% numbers in the show ring with our work the past few days.  We have had flashes of 8’s in our free walk, fleeting moments of 7’s with our medium walk and trot, and solid 6’s with our canter work.  I won’t mention the disobedient moment on Saturday that would have gotten us excused by any judge worth his or her salt.

Our best ride of the past five days was today.  Maybe having yesterday off helped both Ike and I, because today there was no rein yanking, bolting, or sucking back.  Ike was nicely forward, responsive, and to my estimation, about 75-80% through and over his back (that is about as close to an 80% mark we will probably ever come).  Ike’s canter was slower and more rhythmic without any leaning on my inside leg.  It is days like this that I wish I set up the video camera.  You will just have to trust me when I say it was nice.  It was also nice to not have to fight to maintain a trot rhythm.  When Ike sets his mind to it, you could set a metronome to his trot.  Today we floated along effortlessly tracking in either direction.  And yes, he seems to have that power to decide how much or how little I will need to work.  Stinker.

Ike still has a lot of growing to do.  He won’t be 5 until the end of April.  Perhaps I need to plaster the walls of his stall with pictures of Valegro and Ravel, the recent “rock stars” of the dressage world.  They can be his inspiration as we continue on our centerline adventure.

Nine days.  Nine.  N-I-N-E.  That is how many days there were in between my lesson last week and my lesson this week.  Work, New Orleans, and Norovirus keep me out of the saddle on the days sandwiched between my lessons.  Let me just say that I cannot be out of the saddle that long and expect any sort of decent performance.  I felt like Elaine in the Seinfeld episode where she thinks she is dancing well at a party but looks like a hot mess on the dance floor.  My aids were not coordinated, reins were too long, legs were in the wrong place, and my weight seemed to sway from side to side and always be in the wrong place.

Ike tried testing the waters during our warm up.  “Hmm, Mom has been away for a few days, can I get away with snatching the reins from her hands?”  Ms. C made us stay at walk and stabilize our connection before we were allowed to trot.  On a normal day, Ike and I sync up after just a couple of minutes.  It was 15 minutes and counting and Ike and I were still having discussions…No, Ike, you may not snatch the reins from my hands.  My reflexes were a bit slow, so big boy would get the best of me and Ms. C would fuss that I was a day late and a dollar short.  Grrr.  I hate when I know what I need to do, but for whatever reason, cannot execute appropriately.  Can I blame it on my weakened state from the virus?  Or am I just a goober who can’t get her act together after being out of the saddle for a few days?  Sadly, the goober answer is closest to the truth whether I like it or not.

We also struggled to find our rhythm with the trot.  Again, cue the Elaine video where the movement and the music are nowhere close to being in the same neighborhood, oh heck, they might not even be in the same state.  It didn’t seem to matter if I tried sitting the trot or posting.  I half halted until my carpal started flaring, and we were still a quarter beat off from a solid rhythm.  Ms. C kept telling me to change my posting rhythm and half halt to get Ike to wait for me.  Excellent in theory, usually sufficient in practice, but today we couldn’t even meet expectations.  Another Grrr moment.

Our best work for the day came in our canter work and then in our lateral work.  Go figure.  This is typically where we struggle.  We nailed our canter transitions even without me carrying a whip.  Yea!  Starting to ask for canter with just my seat rather than seat+leg+whip.  Do we always get it?  Nope, but Ike tries and today we succeeded.  It is something we need to master since I don’t want to have to carry the whip as a crutch forever.  We also had success with our leg yield and shoulder in today while tracking in both directions.  Yes, the left is easier than the right, but the right is coming along.  Ike is strong enough and balanced enough to start schooling lateral movements.  This time last year, we would have run into the fence had I asked for a leg yield.

Things are starting to fall into place.  Hoping we come out of winter even stronger as a pair and at least capable of establishing a rhythm.  Patience, Alison, patience.  All in due time, after all, no one masters all the dance steps in a day.

The lesson of the week?  Control the shoulders to control the horse.  Seems simple enough, but try telling that to Ike’s right shoulder and my aching arms.  Ike’s right shoulder is rather pushy.  It is the shoulder you would want with you while fighting the crowds at Black Friday sale.  It regularly bulldozers through my leg and attempts to direct our movement.  It is responsible for us drifting out while on a circle to the left or causing a death spiral while circling to the right.  Because of this, Ms. C had us work on shoulder control during our lesson this week.

After we worked through Ike’s warm-up crankiness, we began the lesson with trot circles to the left with normal left flexion.  Despite my best effort with my outside rein, that pushy right shoulder kept moving in its own trajectory.  Hmm, I tried shifting my weight to the left.  It was soooo tempting to overuse my inside rein but I resisted temptation.  That right shoulder resisted submission.  Clever Ms. C had me slightly counter flex Ike to the right and really step down into my left stirrup.  We rode 3-4 circles in this counterflexion, easily fed off onto a circle to the right, and then when we circled back to the left, we resumed normal left flexion.  The benefit to this exercise I discovered is that it helped Ike stand up on that right shoulder by shifting his weight to the inside.  And a lightbulb moment for me…my overuse of my inside rein can actually cause Ike to fall onto that right shoulder and exacerbate the problem.  Oh.  Crap, rider error again.

The lesson also included schooling or attempting to school shoulder in tracking to the left and to the right.  The photo with this post is our attempt at shoulder in to the left.  It is actually the easier direction since that right shoulder gets to lead the way.  As you can see, we are nowhere near where we should be, but I think it is an okay attempt for a gangly four-year old horse.  Tracking right is harder and I mean it is exhausting.  That right shoulder does not want to yield, “thanks, but no thanks” it seems to say.  To overcome this struggle, we have found that it sometimes helps to leg yield for three to four steps and then half halt the front end to stop the lateral movement.  Some of our best shoulder in right steps come after this exercise.  You do what you have to do to teach the concept.

We do have our struggles, but compared to where we were at this time last fall, we are succeeding and progressing.  We are seeing less and less Marmaduke; some days we can even make a passable go at being a dressage team.  Any bets on where we will be next December??

As 2012 winds down and we head into the madness of the holiday season, Thanksgiving is a great day to take stock in all I have to be grateful for during the past 11 months.

I am grateful that my husband reintroduced me to horses for Christmas 2004.  If you had told me then that I’d now own 2 horses along with all their paraphernalia and a horse trailer, I’d have laughed and said you were out of your mind.  Both of my equine buddies are special and deserve all that I am able to do for them.  Don’t believe them when they say that they are neglected and hungry.

It has been said before, but it is worth repeating – I have the best husband.  He is my chauffeur, my boot wiper, the pooper scooper, and my best cheerleader.  He is the test retriever and ribbon presenter.  We try our best to make him proud.  I can only hope the day will come when we can participate in the GAIGs and hopefully be part of the mounted awards ceremony.  I would love to present that ribbon to my husband since it would be just as much his as it would be mine…I would of course hope that he’d let me keep it with the rest of the ribbon collection. 🙂

I can’t say enough about the people I’ve met through my horses.  No matter what are lives are like away from the barn, the love and near insanity our horses bring to our lives binds us together.  Where else can you get sweaty and smelly, get covered in dust, dirt, slime, and god knows what else, but still have a smile on your face.  During our lesson today in fact, Ike flung some mouth slime at Ms. C and it hit her in the face.   She delicately wiped it off and then patted Ike with her now slimy hand and told him what a nice boy he was.  You have got to be a true horsewoman to take that in stride and not miss a beat.

I can only hope that my horses are grateful for their station in life.  They don’t have to worry about running through an auction pen with keen eyes watching their every move.  They need not worry about what happens if no one bids on them…there is no question that there will be a meal to fill their bellies twice a day, good quality hay, and plenty of fresh water in which to dunk that hay.  I am a walking treat dispenser filled with peppermints, carrots and horse treats.  They know they are loved and they are safe for the rest of their lives.

Ike and I would be lost without our lifeline packaged as a 5’3″ dynamo we call Ms. C.  I’ve been to clinics and stared at numerous judges as we head down centerline, but it is Ms. C who has molded us and imparted her wealth of knowledge on us.  Ms. C will patiently explain a concept to us, and explain it again, and again until it finally sinks into this thick skull.  She is selfless and generous and one of my dearest friends.  I am indebted to her and grateful that she is an integral part of my life.

May you all have a blessed and wonderful holiday with your families and friends.

As I’ve progressed through life, as many people before me have also discovered, that it is better to have fewer, but better quality things over lots of cheap crap that won’t last the year.  The better quality stuff also stands the test of time and the rigors of daily barn use.  I tried the “pleather” tall boots about six years ago.  If they had only been used once a week, they would have probably have been just fine and stuck around for a while.  They departed this world and into the bowels of the local landfill after only six months.  What can I say, Bigfoot is hard on her shoes.  Interestingly enough, my pricier Ariat leather tall boots have been with me for over 5 years now and still look fabulous even with regular use.  I am definitely getting my money’s worth out of them.

I’m also learning that the same holds true for training a young horse.  Even with fewer days of work and shorter time spans when working, you can see positive progress IF the time is used wisely.  (Cue the wise old owl.)  And lets face it, most of us have to work full-time to support our equine obsession, and we have families, and a house to take care of, and all the other To-Do’s in our lives.  I can’t spend all day every day with my horses.  My barn time is limited, so I’ve got to make the most of the time I do get in the saddle.  Ms. C also keeps me focused and is always reminding me that Ike will only be as good as I am.  If I space out while riding and paddle around in a half-hearted trot, then we aren’t really accomplishing anything with our training.  If I mount with a game plan in mind, and keep myself focused, then we can accomplish a lot in a 30 minute ride.

And probably like many others out there, I do my best riding while under close scrutiny of my trainer.  Am I right?  There is no wasted time during my lesson.  It is most definitely high quality saddle time.  Got my weekly lesson in today since it was a day off for me.  Since show season is over, we’ve stopped schooling the test movements and are focusing on getting Ike through and really using his back.  There is also quite a bit of time spent making me a better rider.  I’ve got to work on the timing of my half halts if I ever hope to progress beyond First Level.  Luckily for me, Ms. C is a patient woman.  She is also generous with her verbal instructions – it is almost like she is riding the horse and performing the aids herself.  If I’m struggling to figure out which aids to use and when, she will call out the sequence as if she was calling a dressage test, “Squeeze outside rein, put you inside leg at the girth, relax your shoulders, look up, half halt, half halt again, remember to release after you half halt (oh, yeah, oops).”  Those verbal instructions plus her saying, “Do you feel that?  Do you feel what you have right now?”  Um, yeah, sure.  “That is your 8 trot.  That trot is through; Ike is coming up and out of his withers and you are recycling the energy.”  Okay, I think I’ve got it.  Then we take a break, and then Ms. C tells me to try to recreate what we had.  Sigh, sometimes I nail it and sometimes I struggle.

Ike’s work was spot on today and I didn’t do too badly either.  Fewer struggles today which always makes me happy, but  almost all days at the barn are days to smile.  Love that quality barn time with my equine partner.

So Ike and I had our weekly lesson yesterday and the take away message for the day: turn off the cruise control and be present with every stride, i.e., get better timing for and be more frequent with my half halts.  Aaargghh!  Those darn half halts will be the end of me, but I do realize that they are what Ike needs to learn to become more balanced and use his topline.  I need to learn how to teach Ike the concept of a half halt.  There are days he does seems to do well with the concept and other days, like yesterday, he steamrolls along, singing, “La, la, la, I can’t hear you.”

Ms. C and I have many discussions about half halts and how I need to execute them.  Subtle finger squeezes are not always the answer when riding a steamroller.  Full body half halts are still commonplace.  I assume that we will eventually move beyond them, but that day seems so very, very far away.  Ms. C always tells me to try the quiet, invisible half halt first, but if Ike ignores it, then I have the right to be a little louder with my request to get the intended response.  Of course that means that we are well into the turn before Ike responds rather than getting the response before we turn or feed off onto a circle.

And I must confess, that once we get going, my mind will wander.  I will gaze at the trees or at the horses in their paddocks until I hear, “where was your half halt?”  Umm, well, ah, I then have no good excuse and must admit my digression.  Ms. C then talks me through what I should have done which is always much different from what I actually did.  Cruise control is great for trail rides, but not for training a four-year old horse dressage concepts.  Her explanations involve half halts every 2-3 strides.  Oh.  Sometimes I’m lucky to do one successfully before the mind wanders and I worry about the sweat dripping in my eyes or trying to sit the trot.

Yesterday we practiced square turns at the trot and attempted them at the canter.  This exercise really made me focus and stay on task…the fear of running into the fence kept me motivated to execute the turns rather than crush the fence.  If we were scored on successful turns at the trot, we’d have been given a 55% at the most.  I’m too late with my half halt to make the proper turn.  Ike can’t bear the blame for my error, but he can take the heat for lack of listening when I do give the correct aids.  I guess equine four-year olds aren’t that different than human four-year olds.  They are starting to develop their own identity and will challenge authority from time to time.  Hopefully Ike’s challenges won’t go much beyond the current level.  I don’t think I could handle a 1,200 pound tantrum.