Mylo & Myka

Well for our first ever dressage test, I just can't fault her. She coped so well with lorries, horses, boards, judges, bells! 65.9% in intro 1 and 65% in intro 2 for 1st and 2nd.

Ecstatic!! Video clip. (Please just look at the horse not the rider - my hands are too busy, my lower leg not very effective. BUT look how calm and relaxed she is!!)

Oh Myka you are a star.

 
Brilliant! I love this little horse. Please don't sell yourself short, she is going so well and absolutely top marks all around especially for first time out, well for anytime out actually! She is going that well in part because you are riding her, she obviously feels comfortable and willing with you as pilot. So forget any little niggles you are seeing, however you rode it did not negatively impact on her way of going so all is good and can only get better from here onwards and upwards.

Actually I barely looked at your riding first viewing, I was too intent on watching her float around looking pretty. 😊
 
Another few milestones and a setback. It's been an eventful couple of weeks! There have been 3 areas of focus - getting her out and about to expand her horizons, getting her cantering in an arena and getting her out hacking from my yard - which involves road work.

Project Canter

2 weeks ago I had a Joe lesson. It was in an offsite large arena to make it easier for Mkya, and I was late, arriving 10 minutes before the lesson began. Joe was already there and mindful not to waste valuable lesson time, nor keep him hanging around, I just bunged tack on then went to the mounting block. I had a pang of anxiety about skipping all the 'faffing'. But told myself not to be silly - she's been fine for months. I needed to forget the past and crack on. So I did. She was stood still for mounting but her head was everywhere except with me - mainly staring into the gallery of the indoor arena. I did not stay in the plate for more than a few seconds. 'Permission to Come Aboard' is genuinely meaningful for her. With it she is great. Without it she's like 'NO I'M NOT READY GET OFF!' My mantra has been 'no surprises' for a reason!

Anyway I got back on after doing the routine - which is entirely mental not physical - I want her focus to be 90%+ on me. She can look around but needs to immediately come back to me softly when asked. Not just glance at me when asked, then go back to looking around. The rest of the lesson she was fine. It has made me realise I am not being overly nervous/tentative with my routines. I know what she needs and I can sense when she is not ready. I am not talking myself into a non existent problem but reading worry/distractibility and making sure she has dialled back down and got her head in the game before we ride. At home she no longer needs any groundwork before we ride because she is with me from the start. So she lulled me into a false sense of securtity. But in a new place there was just too much to see/think about so she needed a bit more time.

I think it took Joe by surprise too but she really does like her routines. It took months before I could change the saddling routine without her reacting to those changes. Though I did slowly introduce variation and skip steps, and now she is fine with being tacked up any old how in any location. I can now look back at the last time she ever showed any worry over the saddle (in November). And I am confident I will one day look back at mounting in the same way and think 'that was the last time she ever did that'. In the meantime, back to Pre Flight Checks.

The lesson was on canter and we did not really get it. A few strides of 'tranter', an unconvincing couple of skips. But I was given a plan for how to cue her to practice. So the next day I was back in the arena cueing her and it was a mess. It was frustrating because I could feel her trying but not quite getting it and I could feel myself getting more flappy, grippy, messy and noisy. Watching the video from about a week ago (which I do not intend to share!!) even when she gets canter there are clear conflict behaviors - tail wringing etc. She was not confident of what we were doing. Not good!

I was thinking I'd need to get a better rider to teach her a cued canter but that evening I recalled all the stuff upthread about feel vs instructions. And recalled that lovely canter transition in the arena when she offered and I took it. So I decided to quieten everything down and just feel the rhythm of canter in my body and then 'say' ok now. But not flap, kick, move my legs around. Basically I just can't ride well enough to make a cue clear! I am too noisy. But I can communicate with clarity in other ways and that worked a whole lot better :D Some video of canter transitions which seem pretty smooth to me for an unbalanced baby with a wobbly rider. 2 weeks ago we could not canter on cue at all so this is definitely a big step in the right direction.


Expanding Horizons

I have also been offsite again to another new venue for a jumping lesson. This time arriving with plenty of time to spare, and she was foot perfect. I plan to take her new places regularly to expand her window of tolerance. We have now visited 3 different venues so I need to find another new place soon. The jumping is really just schooling with a few cross poles in the way. But she seems game enough and unconcerned about coloured poles.

Project Hacking

I have alo put on my big girl pants and started hacking her from the yard, (eek) with 3 hacks last week. She went first with another horse and a foot soldier. Then just with a foot soldier. And finally yesterday - SOLO. This felt like a big deal because it's on roads. But she met a few cars and was ok with those. So we now have w/t/c/jump and hacking. She is slowly ticking off firsts one by one. It's not been an easy ride but a hugely rewarding one.... She's the loveliest horse to ride. She floats. And just the kindest mare too.

Not enjoying canter last week... Tensed, braced and tail swishing. She feels so much better now. Calm and travelling!

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But loving seeing the world!

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And a well earned drink


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Try not to stress on canter, Beryl will be 7 this year and it has only really fully clicked so its 'easy' in the last 6 months or so. I decided it was clearly something hard for her in the arena, even large ones, so we focussed on just doing it out hacking in straight lines, in the field where we could take big sweeping lines. As she's got stronger we've done more 'schooling' canter and getting it sharper off an aid, but she has needed time to grow and strengthen up.

I am sure we could have got here sooner, but I was happy to take a slow route as I didn't want to make it a thing for her to get all sass and opinionated about it.
 
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I'm pretty happy with her canter considering 2 weeks ago it was non existent. It's interesting that once I stayed quieter she was much more able to figure out what I wanted.

This was also today showing that she does sustain it for a while. So we now have a cued canter in the arena which she can maintain for a bit. I'll take that!

 
That's a good canter for a baby. Mine was 7 before he could balance comfortably in a 20x40 without me holding him together and riding every stride. I can do that but I'm a big believer in them needing to understand how to balance & go forward without a rider micro managing. Hacking was a godsend for strengthening.

I toddled off to Intro tests all over the place to get him used to new venues. Very explosive to start with, especially in warm ups, but I never really cared about the result so the pressure was off on anything other than following my instructions. Cheaper than arena hire!
 
That was a lovely transition and a good quality canter for a baby. I also really liked how you didn't micromanage the canter once you were in it. You just let her operate underneath you and gave subtle encouragement so she could feel confident she could do it without having her hand held every step of the way.
 
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