One of those days

I just love starting a day off crying in frustration with my big toe throbbing thanks to a well-placed hoof to the boot.  Don't we all?

 =

courtesy of horse nation

No, nobody?

Yeah, me neither.  Though I can probably count the number of days in the last year that I've cried in frustration and anger, they were basically non-existent before Murray came into my life.

Today's incident was over nothing, as it always is.  I just got a new saddle, and the billets are a bit shorter than on my old saddle.  I don't need to buy a new girth, but Murray thinks that it's just a bit toooooooo much of a squeeze to get my girth buckled at all on the new saddle, and he ought to be able to run away instead of accepting it.  I thought that I had trained Murray to accept girthing, but clearly not; I've just covered up his discomfort with distraction. So great, back to the drawing board on that one.

As I was trying to get the girth buckled, Murray, misbehaving out of both discomfort and rudeness, took a wry step and stood on my big toe. When I pushed him, he didn't move, and continued to stand on my foot until I screamed at him and threw the lead rope into his face.  Really, standing on someone's feet is not acceptable.  Murray flew backwards, then skulked back up to me guiltily.  I did get his girth on, after calling him several rude names and reminding him that he doesn't decide what size girth he wears.  (Especially when one matches my new saddle so perfectly.)

Don't get me wrong, while I do cry easily I'm not known to cry over just getting stepped on.  But a morning of fighting with my horse about something as simple as tacking up -- we've only done it 200 times since I met him! -- followed by a stomped toe pushed me over the edge. I know that it only upsets me because I care -- if any other horse stepped on my foot and stood there, I would have unleashed a holy war upon them and they would have been the ones crying in the middle of the barn aisle.  But Murray.... Murray is the only horse who has regularly reduced me to tears.  I try to be the stone in the stream, the leaf in the wind: I let myself have a cry, then get over it.  The younger girls I ride with have even realised that it's not a big deal when I cry any more, they check in to see if I'm really hurt ("do you need ice? are these tears of frustration?") and then let me get on with things.

Zen, my friends. This is why we need so well to find our zen when dealing with baby horses.

And wine. Wine helps later.

Camelot Horse Trials -- but mostly tribulations!

This weekend I attended the first of the Summer Horse Trials series at Camelot Equestrian Park.

If you live in Northern California and haven't heard about Camelot, you should get on that link!  Camelot is an amazing facility for all riders!  With multiple dressage courts, two stadium arenas, a cross country course catering to riders from intro to intermediate (with more jumps being built every day!!!), miles of trails and hills, there is something there for every rider.  They take meticulous care of their footing and provide plentiful, safe housing for horses staying overnight at a great price.  And they have events for all -- two-day horse trials (and their first rated event next Summer!), hunter/jumper shows, dressage shows, hit the trail for life, ride and dine.  Did I mention their super, super, super reasonable pricing?  XC schooling for the day is $15.  FIFTEEN DOLLARS GUYS.  In short: GET THERE AND CHECK IT OUT!

Their footing is so good Murray couldn't help but roll in it!

Murray and I entered at intro. Though we have schooled up to 2'9" at home (ok, one jump) I wanted our first horse trials to be a relaxed event for both of us, with an all-positive cross-country filled with running, jumping, and no baby horse/Bad Eventer antics.  Recently Murray and I have had some problems that I haven't been able to get to the root of.  At our most recent XC school at a nearby facility, Murray kinda.... melted down.  He couldn't figure out how to go forwards, and spent most of the second half of our time out there going sideways and backwards unless directly pointed at a jump from a few feet away.  M has melted down a few times at home too, and has been really strong and opinionated in our jumping lessons (bucking before and after jumps, through the changes, and grabbing the bit and running away, to mention a few of his opinions).  I wanted to enter at a level where I was beyond confident we could do the jumps, so I could just concentrate on getting the job done, instead of that job we had to get done.

Our cross country school the night before the event went really, really well.  Murray acted up in every way I thought he would: he panicked at a cloud of dust brought up by the wind, couldn't stand still, and refused the tiniest jumps; only singing "Yellow Submarine" kept me from tears (a coping strategy provided by DStew, more details on this later).  My trainer (Alana) and our assistant trainer (Tatiana) worked me through it though, and we ended on a really strong note after jumping all over the course.  (Another benefit of Camelot as a show location for inexperienced horses and riders: they let you school the course before you do it!)

Thankfully, ponyface loves the water

The morning of dressage was a little more eventful than I had wanted.  I was running a little short on time after braiding and Tati offered to bridle Murray while I changed into my show clothes.  As I closed the tack room door, I heard that all-too-familiar cry: LOOSE HORSE*.  My last show at Camelot, one unfortunate soul's horse got loose four times, and I had just been reflecting on how lucky we had been that there were no loose horses so far.  After a second, I snapped to: that's probably MY HORSE that's loose.  Sure enough, as I opened the tack room door, I saw Murray bucking his way across our line of stalls, dressage saddle slipping precariously back and pad nearly completely shed.

Like this but without the rider. He has a great buck.

Thankfully, Murray stopped for a chat with his friends and we managed to get things righted.  It only took four of us!  In warm up, Murray got out a few more of his baby nerves bucking at the canter and giraffing around the arena.  Thankful for shows that run late, we got a bit more time to warm up and relax before entering the ring.  We put in a solid dressage test, an improvement from a schooling combined test back in April, with some really lovely moments.  Murray couldn't relax enough to really show off his beautiful neck and back, but there were times when he shined.  We even got an 8 on the right canter circle!

Sleepy sleepy pony after dressage

Cross country warm up was an utter disaster.  They were running an hour late as the YEH judge was nowhere to be found, and the warm up arena was packed with galloping ponies.  Murray immediately reverted to panic mode: sideways, backwards, half-pass, turn and spin were the order of the day.  Instead of panicking, I employed some of Alana and Tati's tactics from the day before and took Murray to a quiet part of the warm up to do some polite canter transitions and quiet canter circles.  This worked beautifully, and when things calmed down a bit in the warm up we did our warm up jumps.  That was a bit challenging, as Murray was still pretty distracted, but after six pretty spastic solid jumps Alana and I thought we were warmed up enough for intro.

When we got to the start box, Murray was still a little confused about what the plan was.  We did get into the start box though, and out of it.  Once we got about six strides out to the first jump, Murray locked on and broke into a canter, which is honestly the best feeling in the world.  We ran a fast intro round (30 seconds under optimum, oops) without any run outs or refusals, and Murray locked onto every single jump.  There were a couple of moments when he wasn't sure exactly where we were going, but steering isn't his job, it's mine!

Stadium on Sunday morning was also fantastic.  Warm up was much of the same: too many ponies + too much action = distracted baby horse.  We leapt over the X and vertical a few times and called it good.  Waiting for stadium was honestly the worst: Murray couldn't stand with any of the other horses, but he couldn't stand to be away from them.  He couldn't watch the stadium rounds because it made him nervous, but he couldn't look away.  Some cleverly timed and over-bent figure-eights (thanks Tati!) helped him get his brain back together, and I was extremely proud when the gate opened for our round and Murray marched right towards it.  Wait until the other horse gets out maybe?  Nope, Murray is going, and I'm not stopping him.

... our first jump could have been more graceful.

Once in Stadium, Murray was confused again. Where is jump one? What is this sea of crazy? Where do I go? Oh god, what is that whistle?!  My plan of cantering him around a bit to settle went out the window, and we rather uncoordinatedly trotted towards jump one.  Fortunately for us, Murray's instincts kicked in: once pointed towards jump one, a little kiss got him moving and he became very rideable for the entire course.  I am super lucky to have a horse that is just spooky enough to be careful over everything and weirdly braver away from home, but who is also willing to listen to me when I say "no for real, we're jumping this jump."  We didn't even have any of the over-tired pulling problems from our recent lessons, and Murray still jumped things that I aimed him to poorly.

Murray flexing his sweet abs during our mini victory gallop

Over all, a super, super successful weekend where I accomplished all of my goals and more.  We lived and made it through all three phases without getting eliminated.  Even better, we finished on our dressage score!  I worked out some of the kinks in our riding, and figured out how to warm up without killing my horse or crying in frustration.  Murray proved to me that he does like eventing and is capable of everything I ask and more!  A shiny red ribbon was just icing on the cake.

* My trainer heard this in the warm up as well, as Murray galloped toured the stabling area.  As people around spread the word and half-heartedly attempted to catch my bucking steed with nothing to grab on to, Alana recognized Murray and said "Oh, it's just Murray."  Evidently, the other trainers found this quite amusing.

Stop yelling at me!

Murray and I had a great dressage lesson Friday, which is encouraging because our first horse trials are in a little less than two weeks now.  This close to a show (and definitely not the week of a show) I don't like to tackle big new concepts that we're going to be tested on at the show.  There's no "let's see if we can really do a 2'7" course!" (I would hope if I had entered beginner novice I would be confident at my horse's ability to jump a 2'7" course) or "I want to nail the flying changes!" or even, "I need to get him to keep moving over his back through the transitions".  These things take time and practice, and I don't personally feel that worrying over them or stressing your horse out with a new thing right before a show is good for either partner.*

But this is a good time to tune up the things I know we probably have in there, but just aren't quite up to snuff.  Chief among these are our transitions.  Murray is a "go, go, go" kinda guy, so down transitions were pretty easy for him to get the hang of.  Up transitions are another matter entirely.  I often feel like Murray isn't listening to me when I ask for an up transition ("la la la la la oh you were saying something?") and when he is listening, he's a bit sluggish to hop to.

Dem Dressage Skyllz

This has resulted in a horse who reacts to the aids instead of responding to the aids.  This is a contrast I got from Emily Beshear when she was on the USEA podcast (check it out here: http://usea.podbean.com/e/meghan-odonoghue-emily-beshear/).  Emily pretty much perfectly describes our progression: you put your leg on, so your horse's head comes up. Then you add more rein, to help control your horse's head, and in return you have to add a bit more leg... and so on and so forth.  Not only that, but he often doesn't respond to me the first time I ask for a transition, which is sloppiness I'm not willing to have.  Since I'm quite sure dressage judges are not looking for a carousel horse or horse-going-to-war during the transitions, I knew we had to fix this.

Now cannnnnterrrr....

When it came time to canter, the transition was late and filled with resentment -- hollowed back, head shaking, pony resentment.  Alana's philosophy on transitions is that rude ones mean you go right back to the previous gait and ask again, aiming for sass-less transition.  So down to trot we went, and again I asked Murray to canter.  More of the same.

"I just feel like he's not LISTENING to me!" I complained to Alana. "I ask him to canter and he's too busy thinking about something else to canter when I ask to."

Alana disagreed.  "He's cantering, and his face is saying 'what is your problem? I'm cantering aren't I?'" She thought his confusion was more to do with my contact.  Racers, she reminded me, are trained to lean into the contact, and nobody cares if they use their back or not when cantering (not that they really canter much).  So instead of fussing with the contact, Alana told me to just keep my inside leg to my outside rein while I asked, and not worry about where Murray put his head.

So we tried again, inside leg to outside rein, with less worrying over the contact.  We were even going left, his better direction, and every transition was a disaster.  At one point, Murray surged forward for 10 trot steps, straight towards a jump in the arena, before throwing himself into right lead canter and somehow barreling around the corner.

"How are you asking him to canter?" Alana asked me.

"Well, he's been getting the wrong lead a lot lately, so I make sure he's bent around my inside leg, ask him to leg yield out a tiny bit, then put my outside leg on to ask him to step into the canter."

Alana's response: maybe, ask with less.

So I asked with less. I didn't leg yield, I didn't inside bend, I just asked with my outside leg.  And of course my trainer was right. Of course.  It didn't happen instantly.  At first, Murray was inclined to respond just like he did before -- inverted pretzel tranter -- but after a couple of trot-canter transitions and walk-trot-canter transitions, he was stepping into the canter with minimal fuss.  This isn't to say his form is perfect, by any means.  He still loses connection through transitions, and clearly that's something to work on, but this will suit us just fine for our intro horse trials next weekend.

Clearly, I was asking way too much of the monster. How could he leg yield, stay connected, bend, and canter all close together like that?!  And his response was just that: HOW CAN I DO THIS?!  And instead of explaining it, I was yelling at him to do more.

Murray is the one crying, this time.

By asking with less, instead of louder, I gave Murray the chance to actually do what I was asking.  And he stepped up and did it.



* Exceptions to this exist, of course.