Sorry I’m doubling up!
Moments like this! I don’t generally get photos or video, but was riding at the same time as a friend today. She had tried to stop, I touched with my leg, one stride she surged then this was the next. It felt like she does frequently some rides, but today I think she was a bit tired from the week so we didn’t get as many good moments… cool to see how good the good ones can get!
That’s lovely netg 
I’m sitting here googling, looking for fall/winter clinics, shows, ANYTHING. I’m like a dog with a bone, I just want to DO this already!
Cool. How does it feel to ride this? My Standardbred goes-to pace at the drop of a hat…i’ve never ridden it yet, we are just at a walk. He’s just barely starting under saddle…like 2min rides is all we are doing so far.
Well, I could trade you. I signed up for an October clinic awhile ago and now I’m regretting it ha ha! At the time I wasn’t sure from maybe taking my young horse would be a possibility. But right now I think physically it would be just a little too much for him. So I’m supposed to take friends horse. We did a practice ride last night. It was rough. I just can’t ride his canter well at all!! It’s a must to the point where I just feel I need to get up in two point! Lol But this is a dressage clinic, 
I have had no problem sitting in the canter in my dressage lessons on the lesson horses. Even for my jumping lessons. Even my young horse. But my friend’s horse is a real doozy. He’s an older horse but greener for his age and has some issues but they are managed. He just wants to canter very downhill, fast and crooked.
I guess there will be plenty to work on for the clinic but I’m definitely getting some cold feet!
Oh, I would TOTALLY get cold feet. I would worry about his breed, my clothes, getting leads, is the bridle too old/out of fashion? Does the saddle fit, do I look like an old lady re-rider?
His canter is good but we have a hard time with left lead. Balance has to be perfect and me being the old lady re-rider, constantly makes him work too hard to stay balanced. And his endurance is still a major work in progress (as is mine!)
That said, I bought 101 dressage exercises and am working my way through, starting from page one. I’m doing all the exercises at walk and trot right now, working a little bit of canter, and once the canter is improved will go back and work them in canter as well. I love the variety the book gives me, and it gives me purpose for each ride.
And the old man is in heaven. I thought it was a fallacy but he truly likes to work. Not too hard, maybe, but he practically glows when an exercise clicks for him and he understands the ask.
Good luck at your clinic!
Easy!
Getting her there is a challenge because she’s learning about balance and power and swing all at the same time, and it’s hard for her to maintain still. Right now she has moments of second level-ish carriage, but the difficulty she has holding it shows she’s not yet close. It’ll come with time! But for the rider, when she gets uphill and powerful and balanced, it’s easy to ride. It almost feels like a seat belt holding me into the saddle because as those hind legs come under it’s like they suck me in, and she has to be swinging to get there. And she’s light in the contact! A month ago we couldn’t steer or do anything else while in this type of engaged work, now we’re working lateral work in it. That will help build strength and make it easier for her to carry well.
But she is just FUN. I discovered she has a medium trot coming out of this which is even easier to ride - it feels like there’s little happening because of the softness of her back in it, but it apparently looks great. Again, not something she can maintain for long, but this is why we train our horses for years, right? 
Not the best photo but I’m just having a blast with my new guy!! He has been so game and smart. Not to mention level headed. He’s a bit of a spookier/looker type but level headed…
We’ve been working on a lot of different concepts in our lessons, just little pieces of the basics and introducing the idea of lateral work.
Yesterday we rode in the “hunter/dressage ring” as the barn calls it. It’s a little bit of a spookier arena with where it’s positioned. There is a lot of distractions including a paddock with horses spooking in it right next to us. It was a busy arena and my guy just handled it so well!!!
I’m feeling much better about my clinic Saturday. I decided that I am going to ride my friend’s horse in a western saddle. It is the saddle that fits the horse the best and I actually feel more comfortable in it than the other jumpings had all that she has available. I already cleared it with the organizer and the clinician has showed a little bit Western dressage anyway so I don’t think she’ll be too offended by the tack! We are just making do with what we have. The clinic style is supposed to be more laid back so that helps.
good luck in the clinic! or maybe, have fun.
my joy is dampened today 
The old man has had a week and a half off (maybe more) because of torrential rains and so today he was back to feeling like an old man. I’ve been reading/watching so much that when I swing my leg over I’m anticipating this big, powerful trot… so when I get his little daisy cutter, “do I have to??” slog, it’s very frustrating.
C’est la vie! My latest decision is to just ride ride ride, be a good rider, and then buy a new damn horse and hope like heck my kids stay interested so he has a job in a few years.
A month or so ago I decided to see how the half retired old girl went with a schooling session (she’d only trail ridden for months and months) and she just blew me away with how good she was…so now she’s getting some regular light work and I think it’s doing her really well! She’s 20, has some physical issues but she still knows her job, tries and loves nothing more than getting to go for a bit of a zoom at the end. I can’t wait for my trailer to be built so I can take her out to better trails next year! As an added bonus, riding the baby for the last six months seems to have totally fixed a long standing fiddly hands problem I had and I’m pretty sure this old girl was thinking “finally!”.
I had the best ride yet on my baby boy. Last week we worked on getting him in front of the aids and did lots of transitions, including halt to trot.
Today he actually was connected and started to get more round. It was the first time in canter that he really came from behind and was a bit round for a few strides.
Also, in my lessons on school horses, I’ve done the best leg yields of my life… truly took years ha! And nailing shoulder fore/in, tof, serpentines, and simple changes in a line. Nothing I haven’t done before or even for years but for some reason after the clinic last weekend so much clicked this week for better quality work! Yay!
You guys look wonderful! What fun.
what does this mean?
I kind of accidentally merged two terms there, ha. Basically working on “getting him in front of the leg” or “on the aids.” To me this means the horse is so with you that when you use an aid (like leg or seat) there is a quick response. So for my horse, doing halt to trot and transitions in general is a part of really getting him on the aids. He’s not one that natural wants to be super forward so getting him more sensitive to my seat/leg is a must.
thanks for the defination! (so much, including lingo, is in the learning curve)
so, when you say getting him in front of the leg, you’re speaking of him moving forward when bidded. On the aids, means …attentive, paying attention.
is that right?
That’s how I think of it, although very closely related and close to the same thing. You don’t really want forward without the listening though so it goes hand in hand to me.
Transitions are WONDERFUL for this for many horses. It’s kind of cool to see the process so clearly with my 4 year old.
He’s getting much better to listening to the leg for forward (seriously almost left me behind when trainer asked us to ask for a slight lengthening in the trot. I put a little leg and he truly got it. And halt to trot transitions? I never would have thought we’d get those so early.) But he’s also learning to listen to my seat. So he will transition down with just the seat, no rein needed. And today was responding to half halts with the seat. It’s a great feeling. Not 100% of the time and different degrees each day. But such learning.
Joy entry here: I’m a convert from hunter/jumper land, trying to reeducate my 11 year old jumper-bred mare to be a dressage horse (I needed a different kind of riding life, and she had some issues that jumping was exacerbating), and it’s going…freaking great. Three months ago she was a total giraffe who went around inverted all of the time and reacted to the bridle with open hostility; now she goes smoothly into contact pretty much as soon as I get on and is starting to volunteer some really genuine self-carriage. Sideways is still a challenge (she’s just not as quick or educated about leg aids that mean anything other than “go faster”), but she’s sooooo much more smooth and balanced than she was, and we now finally have a real, honest-to-god seat-based half-halt (which, ps, is like apparently magical sorcery you folks have been hiding from the H/J crew for all this time 
). And who knew — we thought she was a pretty ordinary mover, but now that she’s super sound and healthy (from better riding and better living conditions, including much more turnout) and going correctly, she’s like quite flashy and fabulous. We have a long way to go, but, every time I get on her I think about where we came from and I am just thrilled.
Lesson yesterday after a rare one-week off.
Well, both horses loaded together (stock trailer).
Both horses calmly got groomed and tacked trailer side (while weed-whacking and other trailers pulling in and leaving went on)
Standardbred maybe 1 hr total under saddle so far, moved forward with a bit of heel pressure, and he stopped with slight tension on his bit. He turned right and turned left. And stood quietly at the mounting block.
and my mare!! garnered compliments galore from my coach (who i suspect may be looking in on this bb?) because she had me trotting a LOT. And she’s having me put more collection on the bit. Which is so foreign to me! Finally, something i do not already know how to do… I think during this next week, now that i know it is a new expectation, i can become ready to ride this mare with more of a connection to her mouth.
edit: Oh! forgot to elucidate the compliments ; 
Her body is changing with the good kind of weight in all the right places.
She is a Quality Horse
She’s asking you for more connection
She likes to work
Like a lever…her rear goes down and her head comes up…(so TAKE her head…she needs contact) lololol…this one is new to me.
Oh, and she likes my Standardbred guy. He will not be a dressage horse (lateral gaits) but he’ll learn equitation under my coach’s tutelage.
Today my Trainer was able to do a full round of super Passage with my mare 
. 6 months ago we thought we were far away from it and now it’s there . Now the only thing missing are the ones and only because my trainer didn’t start to do them….
I am really getting exited about my horse who might be a GP horse in the near future 
… will try to get a video of the Passage, I think she looks impressive !!
Yay!!! Looking forward to video.
Sheer joy. A barnmate captured this picture as we left the ring after my last test of the last show of this season. I had wanted to scratch and not ride this test. We had the bronze medal scores we needed, and another score from this judge wouldn’t count towards anything. But our morning ride was rough and I wanted to see if we could pull it back together. We did 
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