We’ve had a howling beast of a winter. Snow and snow and more snow and interminable stretches of sub-zero. But this past week we’ve finally gotten our first sweet whisper of spring. We’ve gotten up into the 40s. The sun feels warm and bright again; everyone’s waking from their long winter grumps. And on Monday? On Monday I rode outside.

The days have been getting longer and I got to leave work a little early, so when I got to the barn the sun was still peeking over the trees, glowing orange and promising pink. I gave Poe the most cursory brushing ever, chucked his saddle on, and we wove through shoulder-high snow drifts to the outdoor arena. The top of the three-step mounting block was peeking out from the knee-high snow, so I lead him over and hopped on. He marched right out into the drifts (which in half the arena were up to his knees too), ears pricked, happily checking everything out. I may have mentioned it before, but: I love this horse.

We weren’t out for long — after 10 minutes or so of wandering around in each direction I brought him to the indoor so we could do a bit of real work. We were in there for maybe a half hour, doing the same-old: connection, leg-yielding, a few canter transitions. The footing’s gotten pretty greasy in spots and he slipped a little while cantering, so we went back to just trotting. Plenty of work to be done there.

Yesterday Lennie and I started talking about the season’s competition schedule, which is both exciting and extremely nerve-wracking. I can’t wait for spring, but that first outing is coming up awfully fast…

Poe and I had a lesson tonight. We’re on a sort-of every-other Thursday schedule (sometimes we go every Thursday, just depends on how things are looking for me and for the girl who I alternate with). We’re working with Laurie, a new-to-us instructor — she’s my third in the last two years, since the first started wintering in Florida and the second is headed to Australia to train for the Polo World Cup.

My experience so far has been fantastic! We’ve only done flatwork; I really feel like we’re on the same page with it. Everything she’s suggested has made sense, and she immediately picked out a few little things for me to change that have made a huge difference. Like, for instance, not chucking my outside rein at him in the canter transitions. THAT was a revealing lesson. She hopped on him — I believe it was my second lesson. I love having my trainer ride every so often, so that they can get a better idea of what’s really going on. Sometimes things feel WAY different under saddle than they look from the ground. Anyway, she hopped on him, and he completely lost the ability to pick up his left-lead canter. I have no idea what crazy thing I’d been doing to get him into it, but he didn’t at all understand the idea of the rider maintaining outside rein connection while he picked up the left lead. I’ve been mostly leaving the canter alone since I started back in serious work. Most times I ride I’ll go a couple times in each directions, but I’ve felt like my time has been better spent concentrating on getting him connected, supple, and balanced at the walk and trot. The canter will come.

Anyway, in my last lesson two weeks ago we worked a lot on maintaining the proper flexion on circles, smooth changes of bend, and leg yielding. It’s amazing what a difference the leg yields can make in his trot (when I can keep them held together properly). So that was my homework over the last two weeks, and that’s pretty much all we did. Lots of working on accepting the contact, changing bend, and leg yielding. I had some really fantastic rides and some really crappy rides, and missed two days I’d planned to work this week because it was just too effing cold. Our indoor arena is heated, but I’m a wuss and I’m iffy about riding when it’s single digits — and Tuesday and Wednesday this week were both below zero when I left work.

Tonight the arena was empty when I went down there, and Poe was kind of a pain in the ass when I first got on him. He wouldn’t stand for love or money (so much for my previous post about having cured this problem). We had a five or ten minute argument about it (probably it was more like five; felt like an hour), where he tried to walk off and I stopped him, and he tried to walk off and I stopped him, and — yeah. He finally — Finally! — gave up, and sighed. I couldn’t completely tell if he was on board with me or just suddenly interested in watching the door, but I snatched the opportunity and got to warming up. Whereupon he informed me that along the north wall? that wall there, the one we’ve been riding by with no trouble for the last, oh, year? Well, along that wall, there is a very – scary – horse-eating – shadow – of a horse.

Like I said. Pain. In. The. Ass.

Sometimes, though, these pain-in-the-ass days make me man up and ride much tougher than I usually would — and, lo and behold, he comes to work for me and we make real progress. That’s what happened tonight. When he finally tuned into me he forgot about his oh-so-scary shadow and tried his ass off. I probably didn’t give Laurie much hope when she asked how he’s been doing since our last lesson and I first told her about all the days I hadn’t been able to ride, and that we’d been, you know, working on stuff, and it had been okay. On days when the leg yields are really not working, we start with turns on the forehand, graduate to the walk, and only then move on to the trot — but tonight I was already trotting, so I blithely said we could try starting there, and always dial it back if need be.

Well, he was awesome. There’s still a lot of work to be done, particularly to the left (moving off the right leg), but she said we obviously really HAD done our homework, and we were so much better than last time, and I refrained from actually doing it but in my head? Total fist-pump of victory.

After that we did a pretty cool weird-figure-8 exercise, where we tracked left, then turned up the center line, changed to right-bend, leg-yielded a few steps to the left, then turned right. Using the center line gave us lots of room and time to establish the new bend and get him moving off the inside leg into the outside rein. We’re trying to teach him to balance and support himself on his inside hind when he turns. Awesome to the left, less awesome to the right. I think it’s going to be really good homework for us over the next week or two.

And then — AND THEN — the canter work. I’ve spent the last few lessons quietly muttering that I don’t do sitting trot, my sitting trot is a disaster, and pretty much just ignoring the idea of doing the sitting trot before canter transitions. I’ve gotten away with it because we haven’t worked much on the canter and when we do there are other, more glaringly obvious problems. Well, Laurie forgot that I don’t do sitting trot, and told me to switch to sitting trot to prepare for the canter transition, and I once again said I Don’t Do sitting trot — but this time I then shut up and tried it. And it was not comfortable and I felt like an uncoordinated monkey but damned if we didn’t have some Nice canter transitions. Way nicer than the ones I get posting in. So, more homework. He got his left canter lead every time tonight, but it was always either late or unbalanced, so we’re also going to work on getting crisp, balanced transitions to the left.

I hopped off him right away after his canter work — he really was trying his guts out — and he was quite sweaty, so I walked him around the arena a while. The horse-eating horse shadow returned and he pretty much jumped out of his skin trying to escape it. Way funnier when you’re not in the saddle.

Last night I met up with my friend Lennie at the barn for a little jumping. I need to do a whole post some time on support systems, on Team Poe if you will (I totally want Team Poe t-shirts; maybe I should add learning to draw/design to my to-do list?). Anyway, for now: Lennie is awesome and is always ready to remind me to breathe and stop being an idiot (two very useful pieces of advice for working around horses and for life in general), and also knows how to set appropriate grids. Yet another thing on the to-do list…

So! Last night was Jump Night, the first time Poe or I have seen a fence since October. We’re signed up for a two-day jumping clinic at the end of March; I dropped my entry in the mail on Monday feeling woefully unprepared. The feeling carried through last night as I was warming him up — a little walk/trot/canter, me preoccupied with how strange my shorter stirrups felt; a little work over some trot poles; and then up the quarter line to our first little cross-rail, me feeling (and riding) like a particularly inept, drunken monkey. By the end, though, we breezed through a two-stride vertical combination, the last fence 2’9″ but feeling like nothing, and I could not have felt better about our prospects for the clinic. We still need a lot of regular work between now and then, but it’s completely do-able. We’re going to have a blast.

I feel like I should say something about our jump work in light of Poe’s age. There’s quite a bit of controversy in the equestrian community about the proper age to start horses, about the type and quantity of work that’s appropriate for young horses. The Dude’s birthday is May 17; when I got him (he passed his vet check December 28, 2009) he was just beyond three and a half. He’d been professionally started under saddle the previous summer, as a three year old. The earliest work was done by someone who starts babies, and he spent a month getting some trail training with a western guy; the rest of the work was done by (or under the supervision of) a professional jumper. She started him over fences, and I jumped him over some baby stuff when I first tried him, to see how he went. The first five months I had him we did nothing but flatwork: steering, relaxation, rhythm, ground manners. I took him over some jumps on his fourth birthday, and the rest of the summer we jumped once a week at most, in very short sessions. He has always been happy and interested in it, and usually calm (he does really love it, but the excitement of Mr. Poe is not like the excitement of, say, an off-track Thoroughbred). He’s a big dude (16.3hh) with jumping bloodlines and nothing I’ve pointed him at has felt anything like work for him. He has a great mind and I am so, so grateful for his professional start.

I think I’m doing the right thing integrating small amounts of over fences work into his routine now. He feels mentally and physically on board for it. I plan to spend the season at BN, and see where that takes us. I have to admit I have my fingers crossed for a 2012 move-up to Novice…

I can’t even remember now when I bought this domain name — sometime last fall? And I’ve been waiting to do any posting because I (obviously) don’t have any grand (or even not-so-grand) design ideas (I spent a while browsing the WordPress Themes directory, and am trying this stylish, simplish one on for size for now), and I just couldn’t summon the effort to do the big First Post, the Introduction, the Here Is My Horse and He Is Wonderful. And I entered serious riding slacker mode in November, so there hasn’t been much to report anyhow.

But now we’re gearing back up. We’ve had a couple fits and starts, but the last two weeks have been pretty solid work-wise. They’ve been pretty frustrating too: we’ve both lost quite a bit of fitness and flexibility. Poe came back from vacation really ready to work and feeling great, but lost a bit of that somewhere. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting his attention the last couple weeks, and just a whole slew of frustrating and mediocre rides. I know we can be better. A LOT better. It’s tough letting go of where we were, what I know is in there somewhere, and just riding the horse I have that day, but that’s what I’ve been striving for. I’ve been digging deep for patience, to keep things simple, and to praise him at every opportunity.

And last night, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I have my horse back. We still have a lot of work to do, but he felt really willing and listening and like he was finally remembering the stuff we’re trying to do together: soft contact, working over the back, supple supple supple, listen to the leg. There are a lot of things I love about owning a horse, but one of my favorites is being able to leap off of them after a particularly good ride, or even just one good moment, and lavish them with praise. I love being able to tell him what a brilliant, good, hard-working boy he is, how clever and spectacular, what an amazing thing he’s just accomplished. I think he loves it too: he gets a sort of glow in his eye, a spring to his step, a brightness. He is such a pleaser, and I think these times when we nail it really buoy both of us up.

Two other things I’m super proud about: Since I got him last year, I’ve been working softly, just a little bit every time, on him standing at the mounting block. He is a really good boy; when I get on him he wants to go straight to work, and staying still right then has always wound him up. I can feel him get more and more tense; it’s like sitting on a powderkeg. He’s never done anything untoward, never bolted or bucked, but I’ve also always taken care not to push these tense moments too far. So, I let it slide a little bit. I’ve always corrected him, made him stand for at least a few breaths (some days are better than others and I’ve always let his mood dictate how far we can take it), but I’ve always had to correct him at least a little — until last week. Last week we had a small Come to Jesus. I was very stern (I hate being too stern; I always feel like a bully). He twitched and sidestepped and pawed and got himself all balled up but finally, finally, he stood and relaxed. He sighed, and I made a huge deal over him. Since then? He no longer takes that single step when I swing my leg over. It’s still early, but he’s been really solid on this the last few rides. It seems to have finally clicked. I know I could’ve enforced it harder earlier, but this timeline worked for us.

Thing two! Related to thing one, really. He can be Mr. Antsy-Pants in the cross-ties. He dances a lot, and paws, and I feel like I’ve been working nonstop for the last year to try to discourage all that annoying nonsense. It’s another one of those choose-your-battles things, and I’m taking a long-term view of it. I have definite small goals (he is not allowed to bulge into my space or he gets to jab himself into the business end of the hoofpick, no pawing, etc), and as he gets more solid on those he can graduate on to more complex goals. He is usually more receptive after we’re done riding, so that’s when I leave him off the cross-ties as long as possible and try to teach him about ground tying. It’s much easier when there aren’t a lot of people around (Poe is under the impression that pretty much anything that moves needs to have his nose stuck all over it), but he’s really starting to get this one too. Last night I stepped away to grab his brushes from the next grooming bay over — I wasn’t more than two horse lengths away, but he kept his feet glued to the spot and when I turned around he had his ears up and he was staring at me with the most earnest look on his face, absolutely bursting with pride that he had stayed right there, and that was what I’d wanted, right? Right? (I’m pretty sure I look like a complete lunatic throwing these seemingly random parties for my pony, all “AAHH Good Boy, What a Smart Dude! Look At You!”, but hey, it seems to be working.)

I didn’t actually intend to go off on this big, specific tangent, particularly not before I actually did the Here Is My Horse and He Is Wonderful thing. So: Here is my horse, and he is wonderful:

His registered name is Reliant, but I call him Poe, and I plan to show him this coming season as Poseidon. I got him at the very end of December 2009, after a long, arduous search, which is probably a tale for another time. (My dear friend Lennie helped me, and sometimes on these cold dark nights sitting in her Durango I have flashbacks to last winter, and feel an immense rush of gratitude that I’m not still looking.) He’ll be five this spring, and we’re eventers. We spent last year doing a lot of flatwork and some baby jumping, lots of larking around in the cross-country field, a handful of shows, and a fall full of trail riding. He is an absolute joy, and I still feel so lucky every day to have him in my life.