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Kristin's Blog post # 7
In Time All Good Things Come
Lizzie arrived on my doorstep on September 1 of this past year. That means that as of tomorrow, we will be at the 5-month mark. Lizzie raced in May, then had downtime, then had a couple weeks under saddle before she arrived. If you recall, I bought her off a few Youtube videos, sight unseen (from Hillside Haven Farm, GREAT source of OTTBs).
Lizzie arrived on my doorstep on September 1 of this past year. That means that as of tomorrow, we will be at the 5-month mark. Lizzie raced in May, then had downtime, then had a couple weeks under saddle before she arrived. If you recall, I bought her off a few Youtube videos, sight unseen (from Hillside Haven Farm, GREAT source of OTTBs).
I reminded myself she was an early 4 years old. Looking at Trance at 15, I know the right thing is to use the next decade to produce her slowly and correctly. I don’t feel suffocated by the slew of 4 and 5 year olds out running around training and prelim. I am ok having an upper level horse that is 7/8/9 and well educated over a young one that makes a bad call and flips.
There were some things that were perfect about her from the start: her work ethic, her boldness out hacking, her curiosity. There were some things that were overwhelming off the mark: her connection in the bridle, her ability to canter, her focus, her rhythm.
Lizzie was a very good racehorse, which means she knew how to lean hard into the bit, go straight at top speed, and gallop on the forehand “pulling” herself along with her front legs. Being a good racehorse is very far from being a good dressage horse or jumper. We want our horses light in the bridle, balanced in lateral work, and engaged in all three gaits (using their hind end to push).
The most glaring issue was her connection, and I literally spent the first two months walking and trotting with a big black head being thrown in the air in front of me. I didn’t mind much; if I have one good quality it is patience.
Lizzie, like most OTTBs, was incredibly one sided. To deal with it I first worked her in the round pen at all three gaits. She literally could not canter on a circle. She would double pump behind, hit herself and take off bucking, constantly swap leads, etc. So we spent the four months (you read that right) only working at the walk and trot. I tried to teach her to slow down, soften, and bend from the ground. The roundpen evolved into lunge work, which led into long lining.
After a couple months, her connection came around. This meant she spent less time throwing her head around and slamming herself into the bit than she did holding some version of a connection. It was a funny connection even when she got it – her head would be lopsided and her ears flopping around.
After four months, she could trot on the lunge with side reins, bending well on 10-meter circles and staying connected and forward in transitions. Under saddle, she would keep her head and neck in a respectable zip code, but she still wavered in the bit, weighting one side then grabbing the other. Her rhythm still shifted constantly.
Like Trance, Lizzie finds it incredibly stressful to just school in a dressage ring. What is the point?! She gets over reactive to my aids because she has nothing to focus on. Her anxiety sometimes leads to a downward spiral of despair. Enter cavalettis.
I am a HUGE believer in cavaletti work. It gives the young horses something to focus on and forces you to use your aids. It also makes your aids relevant. Take this exercise:
I just did it at a trot. You can enter the ring with an explosive, hyper reactive 4yo OTTB, but within 20 minutes have a calm responsive horse. Why? 1. The cavalettis force the horse to focus, quieting their mind some. 2. The pattern forces you to use your aids. The biggest trick to riding hot horses is learning to PUT YOUR LEG ON. The circles make you push that inside leg on at the girth, hold with the outside leg, firm up that outside rein and take the contact, and gently massage the inside rein to soften the poll/head around. 3. The horse learns pretty quickly that you have the magical power of knowing which way you will turn (vary it throughout the exercise) and begins to listen to your aids. They become relevant for the horse.
After each time through, I then change diagonal across the ring and “angle” over one of the polls. This makes me ride with both legs on and both hands steady. In one exercise you are teaching all the fundamentals, and preventing yourself from spending an hour praying to God that he take 80% of the energy out this rocket you have strapped yourself to while you make random turns and your aids are all over the place. Make the flatwork make sense to the horse.
So that brings us all the way to this week, 4 months and three weeks in. I finally decided to revisit the canter. I have tried about once a month to “check in” on her canter under saddle, and usually spend 30 seconds on a panicked and unbalanced mare flying around a circle and literally swapping leads every stride. Then I say “not for another month.” So the time came for the monthly check in, and it was in a lesson with Skye. Lizzie has been jumped about 6-8 times since I bought her, about once every 3 weeks either through a grid or trotting around over random things to keep her interested. We decided to do a jump lesson, and Lizzie was being great.
So, Skye said she knew it was a bold move, but could I land and keep her canter? So I did. Then we got REAL wild and decided since her canter was suddenly so….there…..we would try and canter a fence. So we did. She was perfect and her canter was rhythmic and balanced. Skye and I stared at each other, laughed, then Skye told me to jump a course. I said a prayer, mentioned we were testing our luck, and headed off. And that mare jumped the whole course, and cantered beautifully, and took any ‘ole spot she came to. Further, she was jumping through her back like never before now that her panicked anxiety was gone.
I thought it might be a fluke so I took her out yesterday, set some random poles around the ring, and flatted. After some astoundingly good SITtrot work (so balanced, quiet, even in the bridle) I decided to canter. I prepared for fireworks and asked for the canter. She just cantered. Like an adult. So we just kept cantering. We did circles, we did straight lines, we did more transitions. It was just effortless. AND she stayed in the bridle, quietly.
At 5 months I finally have three gaits. It took Lizzie this long to sort out her balance, find where all the legs go, and adjust to having me sitting on her. We did a lot of hacking and hills over the months to help with strength, and she finally hit the threshold of where she needed to be. And overnight we went from a walk/trot pair to a pair pretty comfortable at novice height courses and dressage. Go figure.
Oh, and I jumped a skinny today and cantered three strides to a hogsback. Some weeks…some half years….you make little progress. And some weeks, all the patient work pays off and everything becomes easy.
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