dancinghorse | The Cynosure of All Eyes

So I'm limping (@#$%!! fibro feet grumpfmle) down to the barn to retrieve the Teacher notes I left there, and I see da Pook strutting around the back corral, with every single mare on the place lined up at the gate outside, watching him. "Damn, I'm pretty," says da Pook.

We should all be so sure of our place in the world.

It's been one of Those weeks, psychologically speaking. I have them at intervals and they always mean I'm about to watch the plateau turn into a staircase leading (we hope) upward, so in a way they're reassuring, but being in them is rather draining. It goes like this: I'm stuck in a rut, I'm never going to get anywhere, I'm no good anyway, it's never going to get any better. Happens with the writing, happens with the horses. This week the writing is going pretty well actually, but the horses, oy. I was feeling it first because we have that big clinic in July which requires major preparation, then my Pandora ride on Tuesday was all about teh suckage. She was persistently stiff, counterbent, and resistant, and then she started rolling her hindquarters and being generally alarming to ride. I had visions of major unsoundness surfacing because the work level has ramped up, needing vet and/or chiro, having to have her worked on, maybe this would be it (neighbor has had to retire her 20-something horse just this week, his knees can't do it any more, and Pandora will be 19 next month). Needless to say, writer that I am, I was spinning some fairly depressing scenarios.

So here are my two clinic horses: one apparently showing back and/or stifle problems, the other unridable probably for another three months because of da feet. And then comes the local dressage-club newsletter, which can hit about like Locus when you're down--everyone else always seems to be doing so much better and moving so much further ahead in the career. In fact someone who used to ride with us, who dumped Teacher for a Grand! Prix!! Trainer!!!, just bought an upper-level schoolmaster to go with the shadbelly she bought last year, and got a grant to spend a week training with Grand! Prix!! Trainer!!! Much burble in the newsletter about all the wonderful new tricks and the wonderful new horse and so on. And here I am, permanently sub-Intro level and getting nowhere.

One is glad she's happy, of course. (One is glad one's old sf-con buddies are bestselling multi-award-winners, too. Of course.) But it can make one feel ever so substandard.

Luckily, reality doesn't always bite. I did reflect that perhaps Pandora was having saddle-fit issues. She's been filling out quite a lot with regular work--her chest and butt are considerably larger, and her back is muscling visibly. Sure enough, this morning I removed the gel pad I've been using, put in a thinner neoprene pad instead, et voila. Teacher rode her to confirm, and she looked wonderful, if Strongly Opinionated about having to move straight instead of comfortably crooked. Opinionated we can deal with. When I got on, I had my Pandora back. And happened to remember that the refusal to straighten and the scary butt-shimmy also occurred when I rode her in the old saddle. Saddle pinching, yep. The new one is still a bit wide for her, no worries; when she's fully muscled it will fit well. With the gel pad it was effectively two sizes smaller. Now she just needs one size smaller.

As for the colleague envy, that too is misplaced. If I really wanted to ride the fancy stuff on a horse I didn't train, I could go in that direction. I must remember that I did this long ago, before I moved out here; Capria happened because my haute!! ecole!!!! trainer!!!!!! told me I was ready to bring a young horse along from the beginning. Which is a compliment in haute-ecole-speak--the SRS riders are not called riders until they've done this. With him I was riding all the cool Grand Prix tricks, and he showed me how to ride and train the levade. But, he said, and he was dead right, I wouldn't really understand the tricks until I trained them myself. For that, I needed to start with a 4yo. Hence, Capria.

Capria of course never got there because of a whole lot of injuries--but also because, well, 9 years ago Teacher showed up and showed me I wasn't anywhere near the rider I thought I was. Then she took me apart and systematically put me back together again.

Fast-forward to now. Capria is comfortable with collection, could do a decent second-level test with a couple of months' worth of systematic schooling, and it wouldn't be all that hard to get her to third level 1 from there--if I wanted to push her in that direction. But do I?

Actually, no. I don't feel, classically speaking, that pushing for tricks is the right way to go. And they would be tricks. There's a difference between riding patterns in a frame, hitting all the letters and making sure the transitions are dead-on, and riding in correct collection on a correctly prepared horse. Many judges can't see it and unfortunately most competitors can't, but if you saw the SRS performances and compared them with Olympic or World Cup rides and recognized the difference, then you know what I'm talking about. (One very subtle and longterm difference is...soundness. Retirement sound at 26 instead of broken down and held together with joint injections and painkillers at 17.)

What I need to do is keep working on those basics, that balance, that feel, that precision. And keep training the greenies. I've done a Lot of that in the past nine years. Very few FEI-level trainers will do this--it's a completely different skill than riding trained horses. (You might be surprised how few "champion" riders do their own training, and how many of those have never ridden a horse below FEI level. There are people who are willing to back and start the young ones and to bring them along to a certain point, and there are people who take them from that point and turn them into champions. Not invariably, people like Debbie MacDonald are real riders in the sense of having trained their champions from the start, but I'd say she's more in the minority than not.) Greenies can be dangerous because you don't know what they'll do and they may wipe out with rider on board, which is one reason the top riders avoid them if possible, but another and compelling reason is that they will show up the gaps in the rider's knowledge like nothing else. Because they don't have the DWIM switch that gets installed as the horse matures and becomes inured to rider error, they do everything you ask, literally, without pretense--and if you don't know how to ask, they let you know that, too. It's very, very humbling.

(Does not mean FEI horses are easy to ride. Oh no. There are a lot of buttons and it takes finesse to know how to push them--and in the case of competition horses, a lot of physical strength, too. But pushing buttons is a bit less complicated than installing them.)

I not only have greenies. I have Lipizzan greenies. As in, hardwired to be ridden one way and no other, and Seriously Opinionated. So, you know. It's a challenge. It's very hard if not impossible to fake it with them, and they never do develop a DWIM switch. I'm continually amazed by the level of sophistication they demand, and the apparently "advanced" response to aids, even as young and unbalanced and uncertain as they can be. This can make them hard to train because they're sending graduate-level signals from an elementary-level box, and if you expect graduate-level knowledge, you can get yourself and the horse in trouble as he tries to work 'way beyond his level of either strength or skill. He will try, too, to the point of damage to body or mind.

So, all in all, I think I'm doing more than I look as if I'm doing.

But I need to push myself, because this is a bit of a rut. That's what the SRS clinic is about: not just taking lessons with this world-class master to say I did, but to pick up the attitude these riders bring to their work; to stop settling for perpetual training level and start seeing the mountain above the plateau. It's awfully high but I'm not as far down it as I keep thinking--and I need to go higher. Pook and Camilla and yes, the older mares too, need me to do that.

Which brings me to today's lesson neep. I did the saddle-pad fix, then Teacher rode Pandora to see what she was up to. I was able to evaluate her from the ground, which is always useful, and she looked sound, even, and full of Opinions--but no physical problems. I will have Feelgood Lady (aka Amazing Chiro-Acupuncture-Vet) out before the clinic to check her out and make sure all's well, but it's not an emergency; it's a saddle issue is all. And a training issue. Of course.

Teacher's notes have graphics this week, so I'll try to translate.

Pandora
4-13-06

-Shim up hollows behind shoulders to lift saddle front--keep saddle up off spine

-Be the leader of the dance--show Pandora how to be a follower. [Old alpha mare wants to call the shots. Young stallion does too. And young War Mare. I'm just saying.] You both can't lead. Define (and be definite) about the figures and lines--she must softly flow between all your aids--not anticipate and throw her body around the figures without you...not allowing her to barge or run through the aids

-Keep thighs wide so as to follow her back down when it drops out

-elongate the front of you upward while thighs stay open--without leaning forward press spine forward between shoulderblades to help her lengthen neck and lift back--Think of these as balancing aids. [Teacher was riding more erect than I usually see her, really Reeeaaaalllly playing that military-uprightness-without-tension thing, and said Pandora was making her do that.]

WATCH OUT FOR AND AVOID
-hollowing your back
-leaning forwards or backwards

-If she barges into your aids--move her sideways and forwards off and away from your aids--soften when she's centered.

Graphic: circle with horse and rider on it. Horse throwing haunches out: wrong--too much outside hind push--needs inside rein lift, inside leg. Horse throwing shoulder out/counterbending off circle (P's big thing): too much inside hind push, needs outside rein/leg. Horse correctly bent on circle: just right, equalized hind ends.

The above scenarios can (and probably will) happen 1000s of times each ride.

I rode Pandora after Teacher did, and got the feel of the saddle fitting again and my Pandora being back. And that was good. And Camilla was waiting amazingly patiently for her turn.

That was interesting. She had a jaw-lock today, but instead of setting against me and refusing to relax, she came right into my hands, showed me where the knot was, and cooperated actively in loosening it (I was pressing my thumb on it and rubbing gently, until she relaxed and lowered her head; once she needed me to go to the other side for a bit, where she was soft and squoodgy, then she let me go back to the locked side and finish unlocking it). This took very little time. Our in-hand work went well, too; I'm keeping my body upright and the contact steady for the most part, though I need to keep her neck straighter and lift the inside rein if she gets unbalanced, rather than become a monkey and pull it toward me, which drops her on her inside shoulder and makes her upset. This takes some coordination. Must practice.

She really has made a conscious decision to participate in this process, as her response to the jaw-unlocking shows. Her ride was short because she tried too hard on Sunday and was sore on Monday; I just asked her to walk up the long side, curve around and over a pole, then back for a good halt. She started off weaving like a drunken sailor. "You're overthinking," I said. "Relax!" And just like that, she did. (How Smart Is Your Lipizzan? scenario number 20332a.) Then she was able to walk out more or less freely and without excessive wobble.

She's about ready to pull out of lessons and go to one-on-one two or three times a week. Which is good because I need to tune up Pandora big time for the clinic--and Pook needs tuneup, too. As Teacher said, he's half the age and has testosterone (i.e. fast muscle development), but he still has to have some work to help him along. Plus Capria has to have her innings or she gets stiff.

I am contemplating, meanwhile, Boot Options for da Pook (anybody know anything about the Boa Boot?), and Bit Options for Pandora (anybody know if a 6.25 KK Ultra 18mm would work for a horse for whom a 6 stainless loose-ring French is just a hair small? or are they effectively the same size?). Teacher agrees I should take both, and Pook being younger and boingier should go first and do his in-hand work, then Pandora can rest and get acclimated and do the rest of the clinic under saddle. It sounds like a plan. I like the idea of taking a backup horse. It would be awful to haul 900 miles and have no horse to ride for one reason or another.

So there we are. Teacher wants Pandora to canter under saddle by the clinic. She may have to do that, it will need Seat of Steel. But we can work it out, and UK Torture Lady will be here at the end of May and will be able to help.