Wrapping Up 2010

Well the end of the season has come and gone. It's bittersweet because I have more time, but it's a tough time of year to stay motivated. I've been so busy at work and I know I need to keep moving forward with Hobbs and Legacy, but I kind of just want to rest. They both had off enough time this summer that they don't need down time, but I do :). It's also tough because I want to keep riding while the weather is somewhat decent...ugh, I HATE winter.

I had a lesson with Danny yesterday on Hobbs and Legacy and it helped to motivate me a bit. Legacy was really good. We worked on getting him to jump better and teaching him to stand off the jump and use his shoulders. He's never been very good because he doesn't have to try very hard at Training level. Now that I have him honest again, it's time to work on the details of jumping. Danny said there's basically 2 things a rider could do with a horse like Legacy....1) completely throw the reins away into the jumps to let him wear a few so he learns to stand off or 2) hold him tight on the way to the jump and just let him pat the ground...aka WAIT! So I've been helping and holding him for so many years, I'm not ready as a rider to just throw the reins away. So we worked on a single vertical on a circle. I want to focus on a longer more powerful stride since that's where he tends to jump flat. So I would get that canter and then out of the turn I would bump him up and balance him and then I would hold against him, sit up straight and wait for the jump. I could really feel the difference when I did it right. It basically boils down to I need to do less and let Legacy learn a few things on his own. I can't give him a reason to quit and blame me. I rode the same exercise again today and it went really well. I just have to make sure that when I hold against him, he doesn't get stronger and it doesn't spiral out of control. I'm going to ride like this for the next month and then hopefully I can back off and let go a bit and he will learn to stand off the jumps on his own.

Then we went to Hobbs. I told him about the Rubicon Rodeo and we decided the best thing was for us to work in the roundpen. It was a great decision. I know Hobbs can jump, so the main problem is to fix his mental meltdowns. Seth and I had been working him in the roundpen doing Dave Webber's exercises, but Danny had some slight variations that make more sense for Hobbs. Danny's main focus was desensitizing him and clarifying the type of energy being used (which was really an aha moment for me). He put him on the halter and lead and just tried to rub and flick the whip all over him...Hobbs was really nervous at first, but then working through it he started to settle. He worked on that for awhile and we realized that he was much worsed on the left side for some reason. Then I got on and was just bumping him with my legs and almost petting him all over...meanwhile getting him to stand still. He is a very nervous horse and I think if we can get him desensitized I will have a plan for when he meltsdown. Danny was saying if I get a routine I can just do that at a show as soon as I get him off the truck so that I completely desensitize him and he's mentally stronger. My plan is to work him in the roundpen for the next month and see where he's at. I worked him today and he was much better than yesterday...of course I think being in a new environment also adds stress, so perhaps we'll have to find another venue to test him mid-December.

It was a solid end to the season. Danny is headed off to Texas for the winter, so we won't have any lessons until the end of January unless a dressage lesson comes up. I've got to power through and keep next season in mind. It's hard to get excited after what happened last year and I think that's playing into my mood. Even though I have a new horse that is completely different and honest, I'm still weary of having plans of grandeur. As Seth would say, my pessimism is showing through :).

Last Show of the Season

This post is a little late, but I do have an interesting tale about my last show of the season on Hobbs. We were down at Rubicon last weekend and it was a brisk fall day. Anyone that knows horses knows there is a period of about two weeks in the fall where they all go berserk for no reason and act like crazy madmen. Well lucky for me this show caught that period of Hobbs' fall season. We warmed up for dressage and I could tell he was definitely more nervous than at Radnor. There was this one particular HUGE gray horse...it had to be 18 hands that really freaked him out. So my test was not very good...very tense and I had switched to a metal snaffle and I should've stuck with the Happy Mouth b/c he was also sensitive to the bit which made him even more tense...so we left the ring with a 43.6...yuck!

Next onto Stadium...my times were close together so not much downtime in between. It was awesome because both my brothers came to watch and they really have never seen me ride at this level, so it was exciting. Well I start trying to warm up Hobbs and he flips out. He becomes ultra sensitive to any of my aids and he periodically decides to jump in the air, twist, buck, rear, etc. He didn't want to be in the warm up area at all. Once again the gray monster horse was there galloping around sounding like a jet engine/earthquake. So I basically cannot do anything with him and I'm just trying to stay in the saddle...I'm now distracting everyone and my time has come and passed and I'm just trying to decide if I should scratch....lovely since my brothers were there and all they got to see was dressage. Well my wonderful Seth comes up with the idea for me to go over to cross country warm up and see if he gets better. One important piece of info was that the stadium warm up was right next to all the trailers and the XC warm up was across the facility. So we go over to the other warmup and he's completely fine. So I decide to go for it...the round was a bit crazy and he was a maniac in between jumping, but I felt much more comfortable on him at this show. I feel like it's flowing a lot better and we are more in sync. We had one rail, but he was being a bit cocky, so I was glad for it :). After all of this I decide that I'm not even going to worry about time and I gave Seth my watch...I just wanted to be in control on course. So we finally get out on course and he feels great...all of the combos rode great...I feel like he gets more attentive when there is something to think about. I do think that he's bored with Training and he doesn't respect the jumps. He was hitting a lot of them and will focus on people on course instead of me if I let him. There was one moment where we came into the field next to the trailer and had to turn away and jump a max table...we didn't come close to making the turn and we almost took out a group of folks walking the course...oops. Nonetheless we went clean, but had some time faults...which shocked me b/c I thought we were moving good. Anyway, without those time faults we would've been in 3rd or 4th...but we finished in 12th. I was really proud of the outcome of the day though. I felt like I had overcome a huge obstacle with the way he was acting throughout the jumping warm up and I don't know if many riders would've been able to keep their focus and ride through all of that. I definitely think that XC is his forte and hopefully when we run XC before stadium he will be more rideable in the stadium ring. There's definitely still a lot to learn from each other, but I definitely got to see another side of Hobbs!!