The Art of Negotiation

Occasionally, someone jokingly asserts that working with animals is easier than people because they don't talk back.  This statement always makes me smirk, because it reflects quite a bit on the person talking.  Which is probably how they deal with their animals, by talking, not listening.  

Nothing drives this point home more than riding mares.  Once upon a time, not so long ago, I owned a little buckskin QH who enjoyed jumping quite a bit and was under the impression dressage was created by man to torture horses.  Nothing could get her ready to go like the whistle starting a jumper round and nothing threw on her brakes like trotting down center line.  So, she spoke and I listened.  Our relationship was not entirely balanced, though better than that she had with others who tried to ride her.  It was best described as a truce by Sue Berrill.  Unfortunately, the truce as written did not leave room for negotiation after years of very firm training of the rider by the horse.  Or, rather, the point became mote as she was of retirement age before I gained the skills necessary to put alternatives on the table.*

During and after that time, I rode quite a few other horses, most geldings, and got along with the majority fairly well.  Geldings are different, there's no suprise there.  For the most part, you ask and they either listen or you ask a little louder. If they find something you do offensive, they soon forget or become dull to it and generally move forward with life.  

If I don't listen to The Atomic Mare, she informs me my ignorance is unacceptable in very clear terms.  Slowly, she tried to do what that little buckskin did so well: train me.  In some ways, she was successful.  But, much to her dismay, I grew savvy to her agenda as I was a significantly more experience rider.  And, when I was unsure about how far was fair to push, I enlisted some help to ensure I remained fair in my requests.  Slowly, but surely, I became more adept at negotiation and dancing the fine line between too much of one aid, too little of another, and what sort of acting out was valid versus an attempt to circumvent my instruction via her own version of teen drama.

One such negotiation was the warm up.  I have been struggling with various philosophies of warm up.  In my life, I have been presented two schools of thought: work into the hand right away and loopy.  I have also had horses that prefer different warm ups as well as those who are more predisposed to moving leg into hand.

I tend to prefer to loopy warm up, but I could not figure out how to convince Suki to refrain from going Mach 10 at the trot without some contact.  So contact it was.  This made her bounce between a wretch and happy for the first 20 minutes of most rides.  Finally, I gave up and decided to try a method I had seen Denny use that also reminded me of the method used to teach a dog to walk on a loose leash.  Off we went, loopy rein, in half-seat (something done every ride, even in a dressage saddle) and if she got quick, "whoah."  If she didn't respond, firm tug on one rein.  If she blew that off, halt.  If she gave me a perticularly cranky response, calmly back up.  Rinse, repeat.

After a few repetitions, one rein was enough (potentially because once upon a time she had a one rein stop at the walk).  Then, it was whoah by voice.  This allowed her to have a looser warm up and, low and behold, a happier horse when I started picking up contact.

Note: posting on the buckle in your dressage saddle, fighting the urge to pick up contact at all, and keeping "light in the irons" is a great position reminder.  Also, pulling out the old up-up-down exercise on top of it can be quite the work out while your horse doesn't suffer (versus the bribery necessary for a horse to tolerate badly sitting the trot).

* She now leads a very happy, spoiled life as a therapy horse at High Horses.  Nothing pleases the anti-dressage horse more than a life lead being ridden off the halter and children ready to treat her like a princess.  I am very grateful she is able to give back and have such a loving home.

USEA Area 1: Enabling Life Long Learning

When I opened the email congratulating me on my USEA Area 1 Scholarship, I squeed just a little bit. That February, I had moved to Strafford, VT, conveniently up the road from Denny Emerson.  My two young horses were a few months back into work after a five month hiatus, and I was grateful to be at Huntington Farm with an indoor.  Things had been progressing with Suki, my six year old OTTB mare, on the flat with the help of Deborah Dean-Smith, but starting back jumping had been, well, somewhat heart stopping for onlookers.  A line of rails on the ground had almost landed me out of the ring and onto Route 132 when Suki decided it was such a big deal to trot through that her best bronco impersonation was entirely necessary.
Clearly, I needed help.

When I applied for the USEA Area 1 Scholarship, I had to lay out how I wanted to spend the funds.  This was an easy choice for me, as my experiences with Denny Emerson in the past had been very rewarding.  I have always appreciated his desire to teach bigger concepts and his honesty.  As someone who enjoys the act of learning and discovery for its own sake, I knew that I could not only gain positive experiences from working with him, but I could learn concepts that I could apply to my other youngster and those to come.

Learning with young horses does not start when the instructor walks in the ring.  Depending on the horse, even hauling to a lesson can be a learning experience.  Lucky for me, Suki did remember how to haul, how to stand quietly to mount, and that is about where her memory stopped.  She was excited about being in a new place.  And there I was, in a ring that has always made me nervous, probably because I love to pile too much pressure on myself, trying to convince my mare there as no reason to be excited.  As Denny walked into the ring, he quickly assessed the situation.  He had me approach a tiny cross rail and Suki balled herself up and sprang over it, not exactly the picture of nonchalance.  He told me to walk and trot around while others jumped so she could get used to the atmosphere and we could play over small things at the end, but that it would not count as a lesson.  I was blown away by his generosity when he also gave me an invitation to bring her up to the farm a few times to just walk around and get used to her surroundings before having our first "real" lesson.

9" or 2'6"?
Atomic Mare isn't taking any chances.

We took Denny's advice, hauling up to the farm to hack around, and Suki was a bit calmer when we began our first lesson.  Lucky for me, it was quite a warm day so Denny emphasized using the heat to tire her out a bit.  She needed to learn to approach a jump calmly at the trot, hop over it, and calmly saunter off.  Anytime she was too excited, she "earned" more tiny fences until she was consistently casual.  That was her end of the bargain.  As an "intense" horse and rider pair, I had my end of the balance to work on.  I had to work very hard not to grab when she got quick as it accentuated her desire to get quick because of her anxiety about being trapped.  It was very hard for me to just let go.  However, by the end of the lesson, between repetition and heat, we had both knocked our level of anxiety down several pegs to end on a very positive note.


The horse I brought to the second lesson, though she looked exactly the same, behaved in an entirely different manner.  She was very relaxed, so we got to do a bit more.  After calmly hopping and plopping small fences in the ring, we introduced cross-country elements on the longe.  Though she had gone BN as a four year old, the refresher without any rider input was necessary to maintain her level of relaxation.  Denny determined she was a very sensitive horse and if I get at all tense, our collective level of intensity would leap upward.  She also was introduced to cows, which she was completely calm about.  Apparently, she had remembered that part of her experience roading hounds passed cows.  We jumped some more under saddle and ended on a very positive note.  My homework, my permanent homework, was to work on not internalizing all my worries.

Our third ride turned out to be a surprise cross country school.  Suki warmed up softly, jumping casually, and off we went with Denny on Cordi to go school cross-country.  We worked on jumping with terrain questions, something that I was not entirely comfortable with on her yet.  She has always had this momentous hind end that pushed the rest of her along with it, and I need to let go and be confident in her ability to balance herself.  Funny thing, she is much more able to balance herself without my nitpicking.  She was game to jump everything, including a cross rail in and out of the water.  I was pleased.  Denny told me my horse had given me a great wedding gift in that ride.  I suppose I should mention that this lesson was a few days before my wedding.  No one at Tamarack or at Huntington could figure out how I was riding, never mind jumping, right before my wedding.  But there I was because, quite honestly, it was the only thing I could do and feel like my head was screwed on straight.

The Flying Sausage!
(According to *someone*, my TB is "fat")

Our last scholarship enabled lesson was a group lesson with two women from Flatlands that were getting ready to go Beginner Novice at GMHA.  Suki showed up that day with her "A" game.  Denny discussed the importance of balance versus impulsion, some that is a very fine line to dance, particularly with a horse as sensitive as Suki about aids.  It is very easy to get enough impulsion with her, but sometimes hard to negotiate requests for balance without crossing the line into making her feel trapped.  We also worked on counting the rhythm for the canter, out loud, which helped me maintain a quality canter.  She is sensitive enough that the act of thinking about the canter I want with the rhythm I want, is generally enough to cause the subtle changes in my body required to get that canter, rather than over applying my aids.  We approached a set of barrels with a rail, and she approached it perfectly, jumping out of her skin over the top of it, and as I landed gasping because she damn near cracked me in the sternum, I heard Denny yelling to me, "Did you feel that?  Make her do that again!" as he ran for his camera.  And while I could not make her jump quite that big again, she was jumping miles from where she was just a few lessons before.

I did not stop riding with Denny after my scholarship ran out.  Suki has come even further since then, jumping gymnastics like a pro and channeling her intensity for good instead of drama.  And, somewhere in all of that, I have become a whole lot more comfortable riding her.  Its not so much that I have ever been uncomfortable with her antics, per say, but I have this overwhelming desire to not make a mistake that results in a complete lock up.  Denny helped me significantly with my want to be good by putting the situation in perspective: if I wanted to keep riding my mare, I needed to become the kind of rider she needed me to be.  I needed to stop trying to be so controlling and allow my horse a bit of independence.

What keeps me coming back to Denny for help with my youngsters is his demand that his students be students of riding, not in it for the quick fix or one magic exercise; but, diligent pupils that accept that "things take time."  He is so supportive of starting young horses right that he also allowed me to bring my four year old, Salt, over to school in the ring and, subsequently, was very patient when I tried to have my first lesson over fences on him.  When I say tried, I mean he was not quite ready for working around other horses, but he learned a great deal and ended up trotting boxes under saddle as well as school XC on the longe.  Next year, I hope to bring him to Denny's and continue our education.  But, until then, I will be slowly laying down the foundation for that endeavor to be successful.

I will never forget the day during Adult Camp many years ago, when I was struggling with my horse Spot, a OTTB that lived most of his life behind the vertical, and Denny told me that I really ought to keep him at BN instead of moving up.  Years later, having competed Spot Training under her tutelage, Sue Berrill told me that they were pretty sure I would not come back after getting that honest response, as many don't.  But, I did.  Why?  Because I will also never forget the story Denny told about riding being able plateaus and suddenly realizing that the one you are on now is much higher than the one you were on before.  That before you know it, you'll be a mile ahead, not by focusing on how dreadful things are now; but, by sticking it out and accepting all good things come in time, with hard work.  If you had told me during that first non-lesson lesson that my horse would be casually schooling gymnastics and jumping a novice sized oxer off a long approach when the windchill made it below freezing this fall, I would have stared at you in disbelief.  However, through the generosity of Area 1's scholarship program, the patience of a great teacher, and a lot of hard work, it happened.  I have found myself a mile further on my journey as a life long learner.

"I don't know how to do this"

"Yes, you do."

"I can't."

"Well, can you find the density of this substance?"

"Yes..."

And so the conversation goes, until the student figures out the answer and I don't actually tell them much of anything.  It usually ends with my saying, "I thought you couldn't," and walking away with a wink.

This process is one I seem to go through constantly as a high school math/science teacher.  Both these subjects seem to be wrought with a whole lot of, "I can't possibly."  So does, it seems, training young horses.

The similarity hit me when trying to teach my leggy (not allowed to be) 17h OTTB to canter on the longe in side reins.  He couldn't possibly.  He could possibly prop, throw a fit, buck, run backwards, bolt, and do a very believable impression of a Standardbred.  But not canter on a circle.

So, after dancing a futile dance, chasing, clucking, cracking the whip, ducking, weaving, and doing my best impression of waterskiing, I decide to change the game.

"Do you remember how to whoah and yield your haunches at the walk?"

Yes.

"Do you remember how to trot off and whoah, square to me, when I drop my shoulder?"

Yes.

"Can you do these things until you're head is down, you're chewing, and relaxed?"

Yes.

"Can you canter?"

Yes.

Learning new things, especially when you are young or underconfident or both, is all about building on what you know.  It is about building confidence and maintaining a positive affect while being faced with new situations.  The worried mine, the stressed mine, hopped up on adrenaline and/or cortisol, cannot learn as effectively.  It does not matter if you are a horse or a human, "I can't possibly" is not a mindset that is conducive to learning.  Set your horse (and yourself) up for "can possibly" moments by building in small steps.  It's like trying to learn math, start with pre-algebra, not Calculus.

Take the Ball and Run with It

A few weeks ago, Denny summed up the entire personality of my horse in one short phrase, "free spirit."  He told me she was inclined to want to do things her way and I was just going to have to learn to deal with it, abandon my tendency to want to over control, and go with the flow if I wanted to ride her well.

This idea has change a lot about my riding, not perminantly (yet), but my approach has changed.  I was having a heck of a time with left shoulder in, so I let go of the left rein and, go figure, there it was.  Canter work, particularly left, has been hard because she does not enjoy feeling out of balance.  I let go of trying to force her into balance and started playing with exercises the force her to balance herself on her own terms, such as shallow serpentines.

I took that information and applied it to something my dressage trainer, Deb, told me: hold the right contact going left.  I thought to myself, do I even have right contact?  Or is what I'm holding just pressure with nothing behind it.  So, again, I left go of what I thought Was contact and asked her to come into it with a lot of exercises and a lot of encouraging outside leg.

Let go.

Set her up for making the decision herself.

Try not to be a control freak.

These are the driving ideas behind what I am trying to do with my mare.  I took a concept and ran with it.

And I'm sure it will run me into some trouble, it already has.  Suki does not always make decision I agree with.  For example, she turned 10 feet too early onto a "trail" at a dead gallop in the woods while I was trying to retrieve a stirrup.  But, I survived and she did not put a foot wrong.

Somehow, I doubt that's what Denny intended for me to do by letting her be the free spirit she is, but I can tell you he commented on how much more comfortable I seemed on her during my next lesson.

I suppose any time you go through thick forest on a horse, burying your face in the neck to avoid being cracked by a branch and shoving yourself back on by pushing off the trees she is dodging, your participating in some sort of trust building exercise.  It's like submersion therapy for the type a personality type: relax and go with it or have a Wylie-Coyote moment with a tree.

"The greatest of teachers won't hesitate"

"The greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself chained to fate" - Live

Depending on who you are, what you want from a riding instructor can differ greatly.  Personally, there is even a difference in terms of teaching style between what I want from my dressage instructor and that I want from my jump instructor.  Lucky for me, I have two very different instructors that fit my very different preferred learning style for each discipline.

My dressage instructor, Deborah Dean-Smith, is well verses in working with sensitive mares.  She was also an upper level event rider before becoming a Grand Prix dressage rider.  She teachers very methodically and works very hard to make sure exercises as well as the attitude of the rider set the horse up for success.  She instructs every step of the way, whether it be to, "flex a little to the outside right...now," or "ask for just a touch more from the inside leg," and so on.  For dressage, I find it much easier to learn via exercises, incredibly direct instruction, and very specific homework.  After years of riding in group lessons for my IHSA team where it was assumed I knew how to ask for shoulder-in because I could get a lesson horse to do something that slightly more resembled the general idea of maybe the horse being on different tracks, the transition to "real dressage" has been a wonderful thing that has transpired through the help of several knowledgable instructors.  Now, I am very happy to work with Deb who somehow manages to always stay right next to me, no matter what I'm doing, and has impeccable timing to help my timing with my aids.  She is also fantastic about providing me with very specific exercises to work on that I can then easily expand upon in between lessons.  The icing on the cake has been the tone she sets for me right before I walk in the dressage ring.  What she said to me, I'll never tell... but, it made me laugh enough to relax both myself and my sensitive little mare.

I have been working with Denny Emerson to hone Suki and my jumping.  He is a vocal advocate of starting young horses off slowly and correctly, so he was the perfect person to go to when I was transitioning Suki from my back burner project horse to my main competition horse.  His enthusiasm for the OTTB and "it takes time" is one of the things that inspired my essay for the Area 1 Scholarship I won this year, the results of which will be the subject of a blog post next month.  However, this is not the only reason I have been jumping with Denny.  The most important reason I jump with Denny is the way he teaches works very well for me.  He teach broad concepts and then expects you to figure out how to apply those concepts to the exercises he has you go through.  The instruction is not usually as direct as "KICK NOW" (though it can be), but tends to be more on the Socratic side of the spectrum, "what did you think of that jump?  Did you feel that?  What could you do better?" with a good mix of, "what on EARTH were you thinking?!" which is what I want when I'm jumping.  I like to think of myself as a reflective person, someone who tends to analyze (and maybe, sometimes, overanalyze) aspects of a ride to improve up what I'm doing for the future.  With the focus being on discussing the physical concepts behind what I am expected to do, I have an easier time doing.  That, and a swift, appropriately timed kick in the ass occasionally never hurt anyone.

Both my instructors, however, approach my horse similarly.  They respect her as a sensitive, athletic horse that, sometimes, requires just sitting, waiting out, and abandoning a little bit of my inner control freak.  Making the effort to understand my horse as an individual is the most important criteria I have for anyone I train with.

usually, only the embarrassed are the ones that remember that moment

Today probably goes down as one of the worst lessons I have ever had.  Take your pick as to why: being mortified by crying out of frustration, my not stopping horse throwing on the brakes at cross rails, or my back refusing to stop seizing.  The last bit started when I tried to clean my house earlier and my husband told me I should not try to ride.  Lesson learned: don't clean my house (and maybe listen to my husband, but only maybe).

It highlights something the atomic mare has been forcing me to do lately: keep everything in perspective.  I found out three weeks ago If she doesn't jump for a month, she starts making a to-do about jumping again.  So it is back to square one, though going forward does not take as long.  Her flat work has taken more patience that I knew I had and trusting the trainer I started working with this past spring, even when I was totally giving up hope.  I am eternally grateful that asking for the left lead now results in the lead I want, sometimes, rather than running sideways at Mach 10 or kicking out hard enough that I see feet flying next to my head (still can't figure out how that works).  Staying in the game has required a lot of reflection on the three steps forward, two steps back phenomena... Remember, this means you still get some where, just not as fast as you think you ought to.

Where you think you ought to be, now that's a funny thing in itself.  What is that really based on?  Erroneously, I base my thoughts on everyone around me.  I see people the same age as I am doing things faster with horses than I do and go the places I dream I go.  But, basing my ought to-s on that is a mistake.  It does not take into account all the other factors or what they do to achieve them and what personal goals I have already accomplished.  Comparing yourself to others is not worth while, especially when you may not even be aiming for the same goals or have the same obsticles to clear on the way.  Hell, some of their accomplishments may come at a price you wouldn't be willing to pay.

Here are some things I have always wanted... And I mean little girl dreams:

- have my own farm

- get a track horse and retrain it (I started applying for the TRF adoptable horses as soon as I moved to MD at 14 and based a spreadsheet analysis of why I should own a horse versus lease on buying a track horse, which was presented as part of a larger plea to my parents)

- compete at Fair Hill on a horse I found and built up from scratch

Here is how far those dreams have come:

- I own 23.5 acres in horse country and my husband is building a run-in shed.

- I have two OTTBs I found myself and sold a third a while ago

- well, once we get to BN, who knows ;)

Guess I'm not doing so badly.

Last spring, I could not canter without the atomic mare exploding nor could I go near a cross rail outside without massive drama.  Rails on the ground one day sent her broncing badly enough we almost jumped out onto the road.  So, today may be on my current top ten list of terrible rides, but I can't remember some of the former list makers, so they can't matter that much in the big scheme of things.  

help me help you

I'm writing this while waiting for riders to come through the water and, depending on their division, jump the fence afterward.  The walkie-talkie lets me know when a rider is headed my way.  Behind me a brook runs.  The air is dense with mosquitos and I am coated in chemicals I'd rather not think about.  Since it's a schooling show, I have my rubber boats on and have led two eliminated elementary riders through my obsticle.  You might wonder why on earth I would want to spend my time fending off bugs and carefully watching a fence.  It's two fold.  One, watching people jump is very educational.  You can see what works and what doesn't.  You can learn to see and hear a good canter as well as a distance.  I have, for the most part, learned to see trouble from further out than the rider probably notices (I have also been that rider, taken by surprise, on several occasions).  I also sit here because someone has and will sit here and elsewhere for me.

Several course walkers have thanked me for volunteering.  My response is, "you're welcome," but, inside my head there exists a shpeal.

Please, walking rider, volunteer so there is someone sitting out there when I go out.  If you do, thank you.  If you haven't yet, what is holding you up?  I've boarded at two different barns that hold events and have watched them scramble for judges.  I've judged three or four fences at a time.  This leads me to believe there are many riders out there that have not spent their day sitting, watching, waiting, and taking the brunt of rider frustrations.  What are you waiting for?

I ask you, people who thank me, thank me by scheduling in not only those competitions you plan to ride in, but those you plan to volunteer at.  If your horse goes lame and you have to scratch, go anyway.  Professionals, i know you can't always volunteer, send your non-competing clients in for you.  It is important to keep your profession going.  I know there are professionals that do this.  

Organizers need you.  They need you not just to jump judge, but to scribe, ring steward, and run for rails.  They may even need you to help set up the day before (before 3, of course).  So, get out there.  The jumps don't set themselves and the scores can't be posted online if no one is out there judging.

Forgetting How Green Green Is

Yesterday, I took my green OTTB to Denny's to get my first hop-n-plop lesson with him.  I had previously hopped him over a xrail, both in hand and under saddle, and he had visited Denny's, in hand, once before.  Recently, I've been toying with the idea of cantering as I has assumed walk/trot was going well enough, so I focused more work on longeing with side reins to get the canter.  Yes, this horse is quite green.  He was purchased from a trainer at Suffolk as a two-year old and I turned him out for a year or so because his sheer size (16.2h at purchase) and awkward movement on anything but a straight line suggested waiting out the overgrown puppy stage was beneficial to all involved.  And it did, he grew into his legs as a four year old.  But, still...

Green.

He has hacked out some and had negotiated the fake ditch as well as the real water at Huntington, so he is at least willing to give various things a go.  So off to Denny's we went.

Longed, mounted, and started walking around.  Everything was going fairly well for a first excursion until the horse we were riding with started cantering.  Enter ants-in-pants horse.  Also, I did not quite realize how powerful, short backed 17h of horse could feel when balled up.  Back to longeing.  Denny, being put-in-the-time-with-young-horses guy he is, sent the other horse around our longe circle, keeping him far enough away to be safe and had him keep coming close enough to be part of desensitizing Salt.

This is when I realized I was spoiled by the first OTTB I pulled from the track myself, Suki.  She never cared about horses running behind her or around her.  We were over taken on our first XC course and while I saw my life flash before my eyes, she saw no reason to hurry.  I was spoiled.

Green is green.

So, I got back on after Denny returned from taking the other horse on a XC school (reasons I love riding with him: I can trust he won't push for my youngsters to go into an unsafe situation).  Salt was pretty good, reasonable about the next horse to join us.  On the other hand, I do not need to treat my youngsters like they are made of glass.  This is usually around where I start riding badly.  Much like throwing myself up my horse's neck is not an effective driving aid, curling up into semi-fetal position on my horse does not make them more comfortable.  Riding like they know a little more than they do seems to encourage much more confidence... Just do it.

Even still, I forgot how green green is.  He was wiggly.  He is not steady.  At one point turning right because very difficult.  Then, not leaving the ring became difficult.  Funny thing, he definitely chose the "gate area" which is further from the trailer as the gate and acted as though leaving the ring closer to the trailer was not an option since we had not traversed there.  It was like an invisible fence (Denny's ring is not enclosed).  

Our homework:  find a steady eddy to hack a lot with to avoid Salt getting a bit nappy about the ring.

Which means finding a good rider to hack my other horse with me (or taking Denny up on his generous offer to let me tag along on trail rides at Tamarack).

Why?

Because green may be very green... But Suki is finally moving into more of a chartreuse hue.

What color is a well broke horse anyway?  What gradient are we on?

Getting Back Into It

The last time I can remember the jumps going up in the show ring and my riding improving I was fourteen.  Something had possessed me to enter the high jump competition at a local show having already eaten stone dust at 2'6".  Ben, my trusty steed, was a massive 17.3 h Selle Francias/QH.  What he lacked in good conformation, he had in heart.  We cantered down to that big cedar fence, my mom freaking out because I refused to gallop down to it as the other competitors did, and my horse sailed over the fence time after time.  A rub knocked us out at 4'2".

Fifteen years later, the heights I'm jumping aren't glamorous and my horse is a 16h OTTB I picked out and rebacked myself.  But, I don't think I could be having more fun.  I went to Tamarack for the jumper show on the 31st.  Suki was a good egg at 20".  She was a better egg at 2'.  She was better than I could have hope for at 2'3".  A few people were surprised I entered her at 2'3" in the end.  I think the quote was, "I know you said that you were going to, but I wasn't sure if you actually were."  But, I did.  I did because, for the first time I can remember in a long time, when the jumps got a little better, everything got a little better.

When I let my mind clear, and somehow when I'm on her it actually does, I get a little bit hypnotized by that feeling of 3-2-1-jump you get when it all comes together.  This is the wonder of having a horse that jumps like she has crosshairs, of a horse that sight sees a bit around the ring, yet isn't fazed by the shock of "suddenly" facing a jump.  If Suki were a human team mate, she'd probably have been happy I finally gave up and drank the Kool-aid.

Speaking of that Kool-aid, I wandered by Denny's today and I watched a XC school.*  He was joking with an older male rider about how he, the rider, had gone to type-a rehab.  Suki is my type-A rehab.  Cause, g-ddamn it, she's going to jump the jump and if I want her to jump it nicely I need to relax. And relax is the one thing you can't do on command unless you make a habit of it.  The only way to make something a habit is to repeat it over and over again.  I guess I'll just have to jump my horse.  Darn.

*This to could happen to you, if you're willing to give up whatever world it is you understand, move to VT, and pick a brand new career so you can stay like I did.  I just hope you like your winter to potentially go from October until May with some odd extra season called "mud season" crammed in there.

Cut Yourself Some Slack

The other day, having heard my grumbling about my poor performance during a dressage test, a good friend of mine asked me how many events had Suki been to...

"Four"

...

"in the past three years."

...

"and she is only six."

Throw on top of that the last test I put in was in 2011 on a horse I had been riding and heavily competing for five years.

This would be an instance when I ought to cut myself some slack.  Generally, I err on the slide of being a little too understanding of my horses... but me?  No slack what so ever.

I am my own worst enemy and it gets a little bit exhausting after a while.

Schooling on the flat can be a mental work out.  Not just all the little bits of adjusting, deciding when to try something new and what exercise will set a horse up perfectly for what I wan;, but, not becoming so frustrated with the gap between what I am physically doing and what I know I should be doing that I start in on internally berating myself.  For example, my left hand ends up sitting down and locked.  I'm trying like crazy to pick both my hands up more.  I watch videos and the trainer at Huntington, Deb Dean-Smith, trying to imagine what it feels like to ride that way.  Whenever my left ring finger hits my saddle because it's too low it takes everything, and I mean everything, to not scream at myself.

Or when I can't get the left lead on my notorious to pick up the left lead on mare, I have to choke down the thoughts such as, "why do you bother riding at all, obviously, you're no good at it, you still have this damn problem" (though I am making a lot of headway: tonight we nailed it first try).

All this negative self talk is horridly counter productive.  Conditioning myself to not produce these thoughts is really difficult.  I am have found putting what I'm frustrated with in perspective really helpful.

For example, frustrations with Suki's flat work can be put in the following context: she did nothing but foxhunt her 5th year and has not been doing "serious" flat work for all that long: since February, after having almost five months off.

Prior to that, whoah, go, and a vague notion of moving leg into hand was all she had.

This is slack I am allowed to give myself.  Enough to accept where I am, but not so much I am satisfied with stagnation.  Much like fat shaming does not lead to weight loss, ripping myself a new one whenever things don't go well wont motivate improvement.

It's also why I find the most peace working with really green horses.  It's based on building expectations and allowing plenty of slack with new things.  There are no expectations to start.  Then I put down some very basic boundaries.  We build from there.  Tonight, I worked with a youngster just starting to longe.  He was allowed to figure out "walk on" was different from "yield your haunches."  He was cut no slack on "whoah."  This is something I can expect him to know at this point based on where we are at in the sequence I use.

Now, I just need to figure out how to scaffold my expectations of myself.  It's so easy when it comes to the horses.  I wasn't mad at the mare when she pulled an Idontwanna moment at the water at HPF until we got the big E and she stepped right in.  How do I put less energy into beating myself up over the improper placement of my right seat bone, for example, and more into fixing it all from the bottom up?

love will tear us apart

A few days ago, the working student posed an interesting question.

"Do you tell your horses you love them?"

"No," I said.

"Well, do you love them?"

I nodded.

"So-and-so has been teasing me for telling my horse I love him," she replied as I went to turn one of my horses back outside.

Loving a horse, that's a complicated thing.  Having a horse isn't like having a cat.  My neighbor handed me a kitten the other day, told me he was a hungry little guy he'd found by the side of the road.  George is currently sleeping on a pile of saddle pads, happy as can be.  I can feed George for a minimal amount of money and none of my life goals depend on his ability to hunt mice.

When someone loves you and they hurt you, it affects you personally.  If they do something that hurts your feelings you can, in a perfect world, express this and expect some sort of apologetic feedback.  When you openly love your horse, love him or her like you would love a person, you run the risk of taking it very personally when your horse inevitably acts in a manner counter to how you would like them to act.  When your horse spooks at something he sees daily and suddenly he's acting "stupid," your assumption might be the horse is acting that way on purpose out of spite.  It becomes personal, when you love a horse this way, if they are not progressing in training the way you expect.  The two steps back for every three steps forward carries a heavier emotional weight.  If only they loved you the way you love them, then they would jump higher, come rounder, and stand better.

Instead, if you have respect and genuine care for your horse, not the love like one would have for a human, these bumps in the road can be looked at through a clearer lens.  A horse can't be "stupid" on purpose; they are not capable of acting out that way.  This is far easier to see when your emotions aren't quite so wrapped up in the situation.  Training struggles become significantly less emotionally draining when they can be abstracted from a horse doing (or not doing) out of love.  No more, "g-d damnit horse, can't you just do it?  It means so much to me!"  All you're left with is asking, waiting, asking again, riding out the bad and rewarding the good.  The mainly black and white world of the horse is so much easier to see when anthropomorphized love isn't muddying the waters.

Loving horses is also a tricky thing because horses require a lot more financially than the fluffy kitten sprawled across my lap.  In part because I want to avoid selling one of my young horses, my "little mare" went thirty minutes down the road to try a new career as a therapeutic riding horse yesterday.  For the second time in the past year, I did what I thought was best for both myself and my horse.*  Deciding to give her up was one of the hardest thing I have done.  This is a horse who's mane I have cried into, the horse I have cantered bareback through the woods, and did my first horse trials on.  I love her.  Actually, this is the third time I've tried to retire her; this time I know I need to do it.  Looking at her bridle today, hung up next to the youngsters', I almost burst into tears.  I will keep loving her.  However, I had to do what was best for her and best for me.  She was not getting the attention from me she deserved as I was, and am, selfishly absorbed in young horses.  Sixteen year old me would probably go up one side of me and down the other for letting go, but teenage me also went to watch Fair Hill back when it was long format and decided then and there THAT was what I was going to do.  Teenage-me was not as able to comprehend the necessary sacrifices as almost-thirty me is.  It doesn't mean I am any less capable of loving a horse, it just means I have had to learn to approach the connections I make with these animals more pragmatically.  In the end, I think this lends itself to a healthier existence for all creatures involved.

*Spot is now a Pony Clubber's horse and I just received a video of him jumping with "his" new kid.  They look like they are having a blast.  I couldn't ask for a better situation for him.