Spring’s come so early this year! Two weeks ago I took Poe out on the road for the first time. He was fantastic: relaxed but engaged, happy to be out, just marching along. Last week we hit the back field. It’s gorgeous out there, all green grass and birdsong. I think that’s a month and a half, maybe two months earlier than we were out there last year. It’s totally dry, even all the low spots that were boggy forever a year ago. He was really lovely, even a little lazy, and went into the water jump straight away. GOOD PONY.

This past Sunday was the start of lock-in for the pasture horses, which sadly means he’s confined to the front two paddocks for at least two weeks while the pasture grass gets a chance to develop. The good news is we’ve had very little rain (knock on wood) so it’s not the mud pit it was last year. The bad news is there’s really not enough room to run and everyone’s been squabbling at the round bale, so every day I’m discovering some new gash. Play nice, boys!

I rode him inside on Monday to try a new dressage saddle(!!). I’ve been talking FOREVER about taking the plunge and getting one. Flatwork in my jumping saddle is honestly a bit torturous. The twist is so narrow that it tends to chafe. NOT GOOD. It also sticks me in a bit of a chair seat, and I just do a lot more fighting with it than I should. I have a very hard time not bracing against it in my downwards transitions, etc. The more I have been really paying attention with a thought toward a new dressage saddle, the more I’ve started wondering if I should be looking for a new jumping saddle as well…

It’s my habit before any major purchase to research, research, research. I’ve done a lot of reading about saddles and fitting and the woes, OH THE WOES, of saddle shopping — but the underlying theme seems to be that you just have to try a lot of saddles. Sit in every different brand and type that you can. The problem is it’s not just effortless to sit in a billion different saddles. I’ve put out some feelers, mentioned to lots of people at my barn that I’m looking for a dressage saddle — and a few people have said in passing that I can try theirs, but the offers never materialize into actual saddles that I can put on my horse and put my butt in. There are lots of online tack shops that will send out demos — to the tune of $40-50 in shipping each direction. The hassle of all of this is compounded by the fact that I haven’t really ridden in a dressage saddle before, so not only do I have no clue what will fit my horse, I have no clue what will fit me. I could easily spend half my saddle budget shipping trial saddles back and forth.

So, a couple weeks ago I coughed up the dough to have the County rep out to fit His Poeness. County keeps its prices a bit of a mystery (and the range of prices I found on used Countys was crazy wide), so I knew that they were expensive but not HOW expensive. The rep has a good reputation in my area, though, and I was up front with her about my budget when I contacted her. I basically said that I didn’t know how much her saddles cost, but I was pretty sure they were out of my budget, and she said she’d leave me more than enough information to help me find something that would work, whether it was a County or something else.

The good news: Poe is very easy to fit. There is nothing funky about his back or shoulders or withers and he is not a princess. Right now he is a perfect M in a County, standard flap. He fits well in their flat panels. Because he’s just 6 (well, nearly), a MW and using some additional padding for now seems like a very smart choice — something he could grow into. The bad news? The model I felt most comfortable in: $5,000. HA. Hahaha. Ha. That is, for some perspective, about what I paid for the horse, and five times the cost of my other saddle. It does not, if you were wondering, also do laundry or give massages.

So I was a step ahead of where I began. I know to look for MW, and a 17.5″ (maybe 18″) seat. Lo! Behold! Right at my barn, someone selling a MW 17.5″ County Competitor, excellent condition. So I tried it on Monday. We both stood staring at it on him, a bit bewildered. I made the motions I’d seen the saddle fitter make. The tree seems to fit his shoulder well. Concerningly, the back of the panel sweeps up off his back in the last few inches. I don’t know what that means, exactly. Is it something that can be fixed with flocking? Padding? Is it just designed that way? So I stuck it in the back of my mind and girthed up to ride in it. And it felt great! I loved it, especially at the canter. Oh the canter! I felt so with him, so stable. The new Competitors I’d tried when the rep was out seemed to hit my seatbones funny, like they were having a fight with the saddle’s tree. I couldn’t tell if that was just because I hadn’t quite found the sweet spot (your seat in a dressage saddle is WAY different from your seat in a jumping saddle — as my inner thighs reminded me the entire day after the test rides), or because it was the wrong shape for me, or — ? (Should saddles be such a mystery?) This Competitor felt fantastic. No tree prodding at me. So I went home and emailed the rep for her opinion on the fit of new vs old, and I did some more reading.

More sad news: the older models were made with more banana shaped panels (vs the flat panels they now use), which can work well for horses with sway or j-shaped backs, but can otherwise cause rocking. So comfy for me though! I was already lined up to try it in my lesson tonight, so I’m going to ride in it again, and check for rocking, and see what my instructor thinks. I asked the rep if the banana shape was something that could be fixed/altered/mitigated through reflocking, but haven’t heard back. Obviously I am not going to spend all this money on something that doesn’t fit both of us, but it would be really nice if the perfect thing could just land in my lap. I want my comfy dressage miracle!

This post is monstrously long already (must update more often), but quickly — I took him in the back field again on Tuesday. I hemmed and hawed a little about it before going because of the lock-in thing (after my VERY forward dressage ride on Monday I turned him loose in the arena and he ran around like a mad man — even threw in a buck, which he never does), but it was SO NICE out that I went. Probably a mistake since we got nothing done. He was VERY excited. About a minute after we got out there, the horses in the farm behind ours (separated by a line of trees) went galloping in for dinner, and it was all over. I couldn’t get his brain back for more than a moment at a time, and he felt like a powder keg. We walked and walked, changing direction over and over, asking for this bend, that bend, this bend, that bend. It was boring and stressful and not what I wanted to be doing — but you have to ride the horse you have. I always get so in my head in these moments, paralyzed by the thought that I should be doing something else to address this mess. Maybe I should be pushing him on? Let him run it out? I’m afraid if I let him go in those moments we will lose all steering and brakes, and may become a bolting bucking mess. Even though he’s never bucked, and never actually bolted. He has taken off out there a few times, just lost his fool mind and tried to charge off in his own direction. I feel like I should stop that behavior before it starts by not letting him trot when he’s being an idiot. But if I don’t give him a chance to misbehave I can’t correct the misbehavior? But I’m a chicken and I just want him to not misbehave in the first place. BAH. Anyway — we ended up trotting a bit out of view of that field, and through the water (good pony), and I was able to get two short canters out of him. He was difficult to bring back after the canter, though, and kept offering to canter all on his own, so we called it a day after only 30 minutes. I’d really wanted to bring him back there for a long, long trot and some nice cantering to help him get out all that excess energy, and I feel like I failed miserably in that goal. Que sera…

Right now I’m riding regularly with my third and fourth trainers since moving to my current barn. The first one started wintering in Florida. The woman who took over for her that season was a great fit for me — very positive and upbeat, very involved, and fantastic with me and the greenbean. And then she was drafted to the US team for the Polocrosse World Cup, and jetted off to Australia, and then moved down south. So now I’m doing dressage with her replacement, and have done a handful of jumping lessons with another woman whose approach I really like.

I’m not a delicate flower of a rider — I really like being told what I’m doing wrong! — but I am a bit hard on myself, and get into these discouraging cycles of self-doubt — which is part of what was so perfect for me about the second instructor. I never doubted her confidence in me, which helped make me a believer too, and Poe & I always ended the lesson much better than we started. I like the people I’m training with now, but I miss my cheerleader and my funny metaphors and her willingness to have me trot in a circle however long it takes.

SO — you can imagine how excited I was when I got a text a few weeks ago that she was coming up for the weekend, and would I like a lesson?

I’ve felt a bit stuck for a while now. Demoralized. Daydreaming, I will confess, of handing over my sweet red pony to someone who can help him better than I can. Giving over this hard part and coming back when it is all easy and fun. It doesn’t sound quite right that way, because it’s not that I’m not interested in putting in the work — more that I feel like I can’t. Don’t know what I’m doing. Am going to ruin him.

Anyhow — at the start of the lesson she asked me how things have been going and what I want to work on. Softness, I said. Before she left we had a few lessons where we got him feeling incredibly connected, swinging, and sweet in the contact. I haven’t found that feeling again since. So we spent the next 75 minutes working on that (the woman after me was running late, so my time went long). We walked A LOT, and we got the walk good before we started trotting — and spent almost the entire rest of the time trotting a circle. She hopped on him for me for a while, and we all worked our asses off, and it was glorious. There were moments he felt so so awesome.

In the end, as we were motoring around in a circle, him light & lofty and me grinning, she said, “You can do this. You got this — this was all you. You can do this again.” It was hard work, and it took me longer than it did her, and she was there coaching me through it — but I did get it. I could recognize and respond to the feeling, to the moment he softens. Getting there was a fight. It was not all pretty kumbayah. There were times I was pretty up in his face, and I struggle with that. I know in a perfect world you’re just supposed to ride right and the horse goes right — but I think in the real world there’s some unpretty middle ground. There are stages where you have to show your horse strongly what you want, and it’s not going to be perfect right away. But being strong a few times, at the right times, and then being soft when he is right — it works, and I think it’s more effective and kinder than going around and around picking at him, nagging him, and having him just not get it, or decide he doesn’t have to listen.

So, we are trying a little tough love right now. We are getting ugly down by the bench where he’s taken to spooking and ignoring me. (She put it beautifully during my lesson: He can look with his eyes, but he’s not allowed to change his body.) It’s also been effective to approach the bench slowly, to work closer to it in agonizing stages while I totally ignore it — but it takes a long time, and I don’t think it’s doing much to teach him that he has to listen to me even when he’s concerned (or looking for ways out of work). So I’m doing it the tough way, and it definitely escalates things for a while — but it always gets better. Always. And the intervals are getting shorter. So I’m trying to have a positive attitude about it: any time there’s a new coat down there, it’s more practice for this summer, for how he will be at shows. It’s another opportunity to get his attention back on me. Another moment to say Sorry buddy, gotta bend.

We had a pretty mediocre lesson after my last post. I’ve been frustrated with my riding lately, torn on what I should be doing, second-guessing, third-guessing, fourth-guessing… So I’ve used this little holiday time to try to reset, to back off him and myself. I know I’m probably not pushing hard enough, but my gut says to keep things quiet and easy and positive. I don’t think we’ll be having any big breakthroughs, and certainly not fast, but I also won’t be leaving the barn in tears.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I went out to see him midday. It was so fun and refreshing to be out there while it was still light out! Friday I warmed him up forward and loose, then worked on steady contact and bending. He felt great — better than the last couple weeks for sure. A few canter poles were his reward at the end of the ride — and some two-point work at the trot was mine. (Trying to keep my fitness/balance resolution!) Saturday I trace clipped him. I’ve learned from past experience that neither of us has the patience to do a ride and a clip in the same day. Definitely the right call: someone snuck him a treat while I was vacuuming him, and he was pretty incorrigible after that. He’s overall a good (and unflappable) boy and stood fairly well for the clip, but it’s really hard to do anything from the shoulder forward while he’s trying to jam his nose into the clippers, or my hands, or hair, or whatever’s in reach, and begging from passersby… Sunday we had another ride focusing on simple contact and bending, with some trot poles thrown in. Another woman at my barn has a horse built just like Poe (chestnut too — we always joke about doing a pas de duex), so every time we put the trot poles further apart to try to make them stretch we were laughing about how easily and ho-hum they trotted through. We ended with the poles 5 feet apart, which didn’t feel like much work for either of them. Good ponies!

Here are Poe and his pasture buddy coming to look for treats. I love that he comes to me — it’s going to be so nice once the snow’s flying!

Obviously I’ve fallen way behind again. Let’s pretend I wrote about all kinds of things promptly:

The eye recheck: The vet came out the day after my last post; he stained Poe’s eye again, and found the ulcer totally healed, yay! There was a small cloudy spot left, so we moved on to a round of steroids to take care of any of it that was inflammation-related vs scar tissue. Poe will probably always have a small scar there, but it’s just behind and above his pupil, so the vet said it shouldn’t impair his vision whatsoever, and cleared him fully for jumping. Big relief!

Foxhunting: I played hooky from work on a Wednesday morning, and we spent the whole hunt in first field. I was pretty honored (and, I’ll admit, a little freaked out) to be invited there immediately, sitting on my still-pretty-green five-year-old who’s only hunted once before, a whole year ago. When I was introduced, the Hunt Master lavished me with some pretty high praise about my previous horse (who I sold 2 years ago to one of the hunt members). He is a pretty awesome little dude and it makes me unbelievably happy to see him doing so well with his new owner. Anyway, I was a little worried being in first field the entire hunt would be too much mentally for Poe-face, and that our brakes would fail or he would just come apart at the seams — but he was a rockstar. He didn’t stand at checks and the brakes could use work, but I was super proud of him. He was enthusiastic and brave, quick on his feet, and kept his attention glued on the hounds — he figured out fast where all the action was! By the time we got back to the stable he was like a toddler high on sugar and several hours past naptime. Definitely made me grateful that I don’t have to deal with toddlers all the time, and that most of them aren’t 1200 pounds.

The Hunter Pace: We hunted on a Wednesday and the Pace was the following Sunday. I turned him out in the arena once in between to see how he was feeling after hunting (answer: great!), but otherwise left him alone to be a horsey and process all the excitement. When he saw the trailer outside on Sunday, he literally started shaking he was so excited. Lovely. We wound up having quite the adventure getting there. The gathering place for the event is a beautiful private farm in Medina; a front turn-out field serves as trailer parking. Unfortunately, there is a pretty significant swale/dip between the road and the main part of the field. While driving through the gate, over this swale, the trailer (a bumper pull) bounced off the hitch. Just popped straight off. Terrifying! Luckily we were going quite slowly, and surrounded by handy horse people. We unloaded the ponies; we tied Rascal to the fence (such a good boy) and I walked Poe up and down the patch of grass between the fence and the road. He walked and ate and walked and and stared all around while Lennie and a couple other people got the trailer jacked up and put back on the hitch. Thankfully nothing was damaged! A bit shaken, we finally got parked, signed in, and got our ponies ready.

The ride was a blast. Each team (usually a pair, though some teams are bigger) is sent out with a map, and is supposed to ride the marked course as close to the optimum hunting time as possible. This optimum time is a secret until everyone is done — the course is ridden before the event by one of the hunt members to set the pace, and the team closest to that time wins. Last year we took home the trophy, and the year before were in 2nd place by mere moments. This year they added some new jumps and ran the course back to front. Poe was awesome! He was very happy to be out, and we even took the lead over some nice-sized brush fences when his fearless leader Rascal balked at them (he was raring to go, Rascal be damned!). That was probably my favorite part of the day: once we got over the third fence, I felt him totally get it; he hunted for the next fence and dragged me there. Awesomest feeling! We clocked along and came in about the same time as we had last year, even though the course was a little longer. When we went to check our time, however, I got a bit of a disapproving look and a warning that they had slowed things down quite a bit this year. Needless to say we went home empty-handed! I thought it a bit strange that they wouldn’t have told people about slowing things down before sending them out on course — but, honestly, we had such a blast I don’t think we would have gone slower if we had known!

Since then: Poe got a little well-deserved time off, then we returned to lessons and dressage work. I had some really nice rides on him, and my trainer had an awesome school with him, but he was feeling just a little funky to me — stiffer than usual. Then I had a ride where felt downright weird, and I panicked a little and made Lennie come out to give her expert opinion. She felt he wasn’t lame, but a bit sore in the hind end, so I hunted up a masseuse for him. She found some really tight areas, but told me to absolutely continue his current level of work, and that the massage should help him loosen up. AND (best part) she said he had one of the best backs of any horse she works on — not sore at all! Since then I’ve had a handful of rides. He definitely feels better, though he’s still taking a while to warm up and start really bending. Last night’s ride was a total disaster — the arena footing is in the middle of an overhaul, so it was really uneven and strange, and he was distracted and belligerent the whole ride, and I was all frustrated, and it was just a horrible combination. I have a lesson tonight that I’m hoping will be MUCH better!

Goals: One awesome take-away from last night came from eavesdropping on another woman’s lesson. At the end her instructor had her drop her stirrups and practice posting. We all had a chat about the importance of stirrupless work, and I have known forever that I would benefit a lot from it. So, I’m going to really make it happen this winter. I want my head back in the game for the 2012 season, and that starts with getting my body in the game. No excuses!