Cob Jockey

After I practiced my running braid yesterday, I got a ride in.

All we did was walk.  And it was perfect.

I focused on myself, and I closed my eyes and allowed myself to simply feel what was going on with him.  I thought about where the energy of his walk was going, and where my body was allowing or not allowing it to go.  I got shoulder ins with a simple shift of my shoulders, and worked a little harder for the shoulder outs, but they'll come.  I sat on my outside seatbone more to help his shoulder not pop out on our circles.  I focused on keeping myself centered.

But best of all, I relaxed, and I enjoyed the journey and my pony.  And that's all you can ask for, right?

Handsome man in a running braid!  And a sweet forelock, too!

Voting time!  Let me hear some opinions in the comments.  His mane is at the point where I need to decide: do leave his mane breed-standard long and do a running braid  (see above) or pull it and do button braids at shows?  These are my current thoughts:

- At least in 2012, my big show will be a breed show (the four-day WPCSA show)
- My other 2012 shows will be unrecognized low level CT's and events
- I have a childish love of his wavy fabio locks.  There, I said it.

In the end, I'm going to do what I want, and therefore I'm leaning toward leaving the mane.  Even if I am getting peer pressure to pull it...but since when do Contender and I succumb to peer pressure?  After all, his name is still Contender, right?

Edit, so I don't get taken too seriously: I'm not agonizing over this at all, in fact, I find it hilarious.  I find it funny that on one side, I have my trainer and my best friend Mary who would love it if I'd just pull it already (and clip his feathers too while I'm at it), and on the other you have me, who enjoys gleefully being a thorn in Mary's side as far as grooming is concerned.  I'm highly entertained by all this, and am just curious what you all think!

I know I just need to shut up and let this roll off of me, but I'm feeling pretty bad about myself after today's lesson.  I am not looking for pity, I'm looking for an outlet to sort through what I'm feeling.

I know that a lot of Contender's problems stem from my problems.  My one-sidedness that's the rest of that kick freshman year, my inability to use my arms properly, my perching, my hyper-mobile lower back.  But for the first time, my trainer got on him today, and suddenly I saw just how much further he could get if it weren't for me.  Her balanced, astute ride made him work so hard and look so good.  She got him on the bit with 90% consistency, had him filling out the outside rein, and made sure to point out that if she didn't get the desired response, she restated the question and made sure he got it.  She worked on his turns on the forehand, and he was actually moving off of her leg.  He did not pop his outside shoulder on the 20m circles with her, and if he did, she weighted her outside seat bone to correct it and all was well.

It was wonderful and very difficult to watch at the same time.  Wonderful, because I know how much he's capable of, but difficult because I am his stumbling block and not his enabler.  This was further driven home when, after 20 minutes of beautiful, connected work with my trainer, I got on and had all of the same problems I normally do.  One major problem identified today is that my arms actually move too much with him at the walk, and the walk movement needs to be more in my seat so that I'm not letting the energy of the walk go straight though my arms and out the front.  More between my seat/legs and hands.  This is one of those form corrections that is going to be so difficult to change.

It's all hard, really.  Look at how much we've changed with my form in the last few months.  My arms were too straight with not enough give in the elbow, my wrists keep cocking, I use my upper arms too much, my left hand (while much improved) still tips to the inside, my hands were much too close to his neck all the time, when my arms are in the right place I compensate by hollowing my lower back...the list goes on.  And she doesn't present it like this, and doesn't present it negatively, but it all adds up to me not training this horse as effectively as I could.  As she could.

We're at such a crossroads right now.  Either I get better and we continue, or I stay the same and nothing happens.  Like Mr. McGhee always said in choir, "The first rule of singing is that you need to be happy with where you are, and the second rule is that you need to be willing to change."  I'm ready to change.  For my Thursday lesson this week, my trainer is going to ride him and I'm going to videotape her, and I'm going to ride him and she's going to videotape me.

Also, we are going to clinic (more of a private lesson with spectators) with Nancy on Saturday.  She is a well-known and respected area Dressage judge/rider/trainer who places a huge emphasis on biomechanics of the horse and rider, so I'm hoping she can help me.  She's been training my trainer, and she speaks very highly of her.  It will be interesting, to be sure.

So, riding videos coming at the end of the week!

I want to tell you a story about gloves.

I hate them.  Passionately.  Despite this, I own tons of them.  I've lined them up for you, because I know you're interested.

From L to R: generic leather insulated work gloves, Mountain Horse Avoriaz gloves, SSG 10 Belows, SSG Deer Suede Winter Gloves, Berne work gloves, Carhartt insulated work gloves, Carhartt non-insulated work gloves, Tailored Sportsman A Rated Hunter gloves, SSG silk glove liners, leather show ring gloves

There's one pair, though, that's different from all the rest.  That would be these:

Mine don't look like this anymore.  Add about fifteen holes and a lot of dust, and you've got mine.

The listing in the closeout section of Dover in 2009 had no picture, and said only "Tailored Sportsman Glove.  Orig $38.99, now $9.95."  That was all the description it had. So, I figured, I had birthday money to blow, I was always getting yelled at for not wearing gloves while riding, Tailored Sportsman is trendy and has well-made products...why not take a gamble?

It was love at first sight.  Turns out they are crochet upper, lambskin palm with elastic-gusseted fingers.  I think maybe they're supposed to be for summer showing, but they became my schooling gloves, and even as a glove-hater, I loved them so much.  If you have to have something between yourself and the reins, lambskin is as good as it gets.  Not sheepskin, not pigskin, not calfskin, not cowskin.  So thin it's ridiculous, and supple, and good until around 50 degrees, lambskin is the perfect material for a glove hater.  Pretty soon, I started to like gloves and couldn't ride without them.  I rode in them like they were never going to wear out.  Only...

They did.  And I couldn't find them anymore.  Anywhere.  My Google-fu was useless.

They did make it through three years of intense riding: riding with my college ring on, trail riding, Cob-halter-breaking, IHSA shows, ISHA shows, WPCSA shows...you get the idea.  But they needed replaced, and the Internet was not helping.  I finally found one pair at a tiny saddle shop in Florida that happens to have a website, they were on clearance, and a half-size too big, but I bought them anyway, and put a comment in the "Notes" section of my order that said that I cannot live without these gloves, and if they ever come across another pair (this was their last pair) to please make a note on my account and contact me.

So this is it.  I have purchased the sole remaining pair of Tailored Sportsman Ladies "A" Rated Hunter Gloves on the Internet, and when this pair dies, I might just have to give up riding forever.  If you, dear reader, ever come across a pair in your local tack shops, buy them for me (size 6) and I'll pay you back double what you paid for them.  And buy you lunch.  With a glass of red wine.

Dear original pair of the most wonderful gloves ever to grace my Cob-loving hands: rest in peace.

Thanks again to Dancing Horses for tagging me with the Leibster Award!  My equine blog list, I discovered as I was going through it, is full of blogs that haven't been updated in a year, or blogs done by famous people, so both of those are out as candidates.  I also culled blogs that had already been tagged with the Leibster Award, otherwise my fellow Indiana eventers Slow and Steady and Princess Diva Diaries would have gotten an award!  With that said:


 In no particular order:

Guinness on Tap: The adventures of a mischevious Thoroughbred with a penchant for self-mutilation, and his owner, my fellow Husky-loving, running-addicted eventer friend Austen.

Equinpilot: Of course I love this blog, much of it is about Contender's full brother and some other Cobs I've known in the past!

Dressage Adventures: I can't get enough of these detailed, insightful posts that depict a horse and rider working through puzzles that are very similar to what Contender and I are going through.  Great writer with a wonderful way of describing things!

Golden the Pony Girl: I am a sucker for any short equine with feathers, what can I say?

Comedic Eventing: Really, she had me at 'a lovely shade of ????'.  This is one of my favorite new blogs, she makes everything feel so much more real and attainable than most Advanced + level event blogs do.  I honestly feel like I'm along for the ride this winter in Florida by following her posts.

Heidi's comment a couple of days ago reminded me that I never updated you all on my on-call problem.  I was sitting in my cubicle on Thursday dodging foam baseballs that my boss was throwing at me, when he said, "Hey!  How about starting on-call next week?"  Here it was, now or never.

In the almost-insubordinate way I that usually converse with my boss, I responded, "Maybe, maybe not.  Can we consider my barn to be inside our county?"

"What?" he said.  "Why would that matter?"

"I thought the rules were that we weren't allowed to leave the county."

"Your barn is totally fine.  Just reply to texts as they come in, get to things as quickly as possible, and let us know if you have a problem.  Psh, come on!"

So, all of that worry over the last year, and that's how it ended!  Thanks for everyone's suggestions! 

One of the primary reasons I am where I am is because I know I'm not capable of critiquing myself at a finite level, and because I know these little errors all add up to equal a confused horse when you're riding a green bean.

As I wrote last week, we're having bending issues that stem from the right hind on both directions.  Two different outcomes in two different directions, one cause.  Today, we didn't start with him, we started with me.  More bend in the elbows, moving from the elbow instead of the shoulder, keeping the shoulders tall and engaged, keeping the hands wider than normal as an exaggeration to counter my normally narrowly placed hands, left thumb on top, chest more in front of my biceps (which brings my shoulder girdle up, something I'm terrible at).  She explains the reasoning behind all this so well, and I never do on this blog, but rest assured it was as much of a biomechanics and physiology class as it was instruction.

And BOOM!  Something clicked tonight and everything WORKED.  I felt incredibly solid, and he was so much lighter, straighter and actually beginning to come into my outside rein.  I could have gotten down on myself here about being the cause of his problems, but I was so elated at how everything felt that there was no way I could feel bad about it.

The big revelation came when she pointed out that I was collapsing to the left when turning right.  Um...no wonder this little pony has a rough time balancing himself.  I'm a small person and he's a good-sized pony, but he's small enough that balance is still really important, especially while he's green.  Along the same lines, she reminded me to think of the halt as if my body was split in two: lower half keeping him active and sitting down while allowing his back to come up to my lifted upper body.

I've also been worried lately that my saddle needs reflocked as it was always off to one side.  Guess what?  I'm not only the cause of my horse's problems, I'm also the cause of my saddle's imaginary problems.

So with all of that corrected, constant reminders from my trainer to keep it that way, and an elastic, happy pony underneath me, we turned out the best 20m circles we've had so far.  His ability to take the subtlest of cues continues to amaze me - she had me use the suspension of my post to ask for more suspension at the trot, and with almost an imperceptible moment more of suspension from me, that amazing swinging trot from last week was back.  She was actually giddy about his gaits, now and in the future.

I'm the problem, but I'm also the solution, and things can only go up from here!

Riding videos coming soon.

*Edit as of 12:26pm: they are now working!  Sorry about that!

Finally, some videos!  They're not very good since I'm, you know, lunging and videoing at the same time, but it's something.  He's moving like a real greenie in these, with his head high and clearly moving with a lack of confidence in the deeper parts of the footing, especially at the canter.  I'm going to talk to her tomorrow about introducing side reins while lunging, since some of our goals are to continue to teach him use himself properly, and to relax the muscles on the underside of his neck.

Incidentally, if anyone local is ever interested in taking photos and/or videos for me, I'd love you forever.  There's never anyone around to do either for me.

My cues for lunging have changed since I got to this barn, with a "Walk on" to move forward, a click into the trot, and a kiss into the canter, with a downward whistle to signify coming down one gait.  I used to use words with different inflections for up and down, but I've adapted.  I like how crisp the click is, and how quickly he reacts to it.  Now I have to work on getting it to be less of a startle and more of a transition...

Side note: I normally include a lot more transitions in my lunging (if I lunge, which I don't all the time), but I was lunging for the video today.

On to the good stuff! 

Not really displaying his nice overstep here, but he wasn't warmed up yet.


We are still working on coming down from the trot.

Everyone!  Contender and I reached an important milestone on Monday!

I jumped onto his bare back from the ground*!

Not-very-impressive obligatory pony vs. human height comparison photo from last August.

Being aaaaaaaaalmost 5'1 with a 6" vertical (It's bad.  Very very bad.), this is a huge achievement and something I've never been able to do with any horse before.  I have a hard time getting on some horses even with stirrups.  It's an outrage that those of us with short legs must also deal with our stirrups being so much further from the ground.

That is all.

Stay tuned for pony videos tomorrow!

*With a little bit of hanging on his mane, kneeing him in the flank, and scrambling my way up like a spider monkey.  (Amazing that he spooks at stupid things, but stands like a statue for ridiculous stuff like that.)

In my life outside of my pony, I work in Information Technology.  I love my job, really, I do.  It's me, a tiny girl, and four very tall guys supporting a network of 400 users, 500 machines and 50 servers, and there's always something fun and exciting going on, and it's rarely very stressful.  It's a good thing I like it so much, though, because starting this month they're going to ask me to jump into the weekly on-call rotation.

What I manage.  Only not this large or cool looking.

One week out of every four, I'll be asked to be on-call for nights and weekend emergencies.  These usually involve 911 or the Sheriff's Department, or the A/C unit going out in our server room, so you can understand that we have a time limit for our response time.  Thus, these are the on-call rules:

• No leaving the county
• No drinking.  Period.

Problem #1: My barn is outside of the county.
Problem #2: Red wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnneeeeeee.

Just kidding.  I think I can live without wine pairings.  I'm not sure I can live without my weekly lesson, or seeing my pony for a week, and I'm even more uncertain about the effect this will have on our training.  When I was just taking lessons, this was a minor problem, but now that I have something to teach and condition and prep for a show season, this is a much bigger problem.

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know that leaving my barn is not an option.  There are no other options in this area, and there's no way I'm leaving my trainer.  I'm already planning on begging and groveling to my boss this week, which has a reasonable chance of a positive outcome, considering that this IS my hobby outside of work.  My coworkers' hobbies are PC gaming and child-rearing, so this has never been an issue for my boss before.  And the rule is that on-call time cannot unreasonably affect an employee's choices during his personal time or else he must be compensated (we are not.)

But that's obviously a long shot.

I've already posted this to the CoTH forums, but I'm interested in hearing from those of you who know me or are getting to know me.  Anyone been through anything like this before?  How did you handle it?  How did it affect you training and showing?  Obviously we're showing small potatoes this year, but I've got big dreams and I like this job enough to keep at it for the foreseeable future, so the problem is not going to go away.

Thoughts?

Since there was a really good response to my Reynauds post, I figured I’d give an update on how the winter has gone so far and how my equipment has helped.  TL;DR version: I haven't even come close to passing out this winter due to abnormally warm weather, improved cold weather gear and strict management of my body.  Oh, and some red wine.

The very beginning of a Reynauds episode, this one post-workout.  In a few minutes, the last two toes will be entirely stark-white, like the tip of the 4th toe is in this picture.  Freaky!

• Smartwool socks
• Thin Adidas socks
• Mountain Horse paddock boots
• Underarmour pants
• Tuffrider winter breeches
• Underarmour shirt
• Long underwear shirt
• T-shirt
• Berne's insulated bibs, and a Berne's wool-lined canvas vest
• SMWC equestrian team coat (absolutely impenetrable to even the coldest Indiana winter)
• SSG silk glove liners (only $6, everyone should own a pair!)
• SSG 10 Below Gloves

• Core: warm and toasty.  Even hot, at times.  Underarmour, FTW.
• Hands: They would intermittently lose circulation, entirely due to pressure and "inactivity" as they did nothing but hang on to the fork for long periods of time.  Each time, though, I was able to revive them just by moving for a few minutes.  I highly recommend the 10 Belows for riding and chores, and the SSG silk liners underneath for things that don't require dextrous fingers.
• Toes: No problems while cleaning stalls, but I can't ride in my MH paddock boots, so that continues to be an issue while in the saddle.  I'm holding out for insulated winter tall boots on clearance this spring.

I'm so close to finding something that works in all but the coldest of Indiana weather conditions, which is very exciting, but do you know what's even more exciting?  It's going to be a high of FIFTY-NINE DEGREES next time I clean stalls on Sunday!

Allow me to summarize the first 20 minutes of today's ride as if it were a conversation:

"Hi!  I'm Contender!  Do I know you?"

"Um...yes.  I actually own you."

"Really?  Neat!  What are we doing?"

"We're going to work on these drills she gave us for the weekend at our lesson on Thursday."

"Yeah, you know...that's not going to work with my agenda today.  Is it cool if I just kinda trot fast, ignore you and turn my head to look out of every window we pass?"

"Sigh...NOPE!"

The second 20 minutes of the ride were so much better, but the first 20 were a challenging puzzle.  I know my trainer would know what to do in times like that, but I struggled.  We ended up going back to something we know - working his shoulders around corners with lots of half-halts - and then going back to trying to engage the hind quarters.  Leg yield is the next big challenge.  He leads with his shoulders, always, which is probably because I have those pretty well now, but I do not have his hind quarter yet.  All things in time.

Also as an aside, a woman who was at the barn watching my lesson recognized him as a Castleberry Cob.  Made me so proud!

My brain is a bit fried tonight, so we'll keep this summary short so that you're not stuck with a real rambler.

- Engage the right hind in both directions.  When circling/spiraling to the left, this manifests itself in that "turning a two by four" feeling.  To the right, he's overbent, especially through the neck.  Same leg, different direction, different outcome.

- Leg yield, starting from the hind end through the front end.

- Using the counterbend to help with the bending in circles

- Turn on the forehand: he's going to have to get over being frustrated as long as I'm setting him up correctly and giving him all that he needs.

Thanks, everyone, for all of the awesome comments and discussion on the last post.  Laura asked about Contender's/Cob movement, and said that the breed is growing on her.  This blog has went through a couple of evolutions in its relatively short lifespan (my longest continuing blog has been regularly written in for over a decade, so this one feels new!), going from Training & Handling II journal, to lesson journal, and finally to what it is now: a blog about bringing up an unusual breed in the eventing world, and showcasing that breed in the process.

Blogging is a selfish thing for me.  With my personal blog, I'm always amazed when I reread what I wrote during my sophomore year of high school and realize how my thought processes have matured and changed over the years.  Riding and horses are the same way.  I have another, hidden, blog called 'Five Mustangs, Ten Freshmen, One Round Pen' that chronicles my Training and Handling I experience (we broke yearling mustangs to halter etc for class my freshman year of college), and I hid it because I want to keep it around, but my ideas on horsemanship have changed so much since then that I don't feel it's a fair representation of me anymore.  Someday, six years from now, I hope to go back and look at my last post and laugh as I remember a recent ride in the outdoor that was perfectly calm and quiet. 

But as much as this thing is a chronicle of our progress, it's also a breed showcase.  Not many Americans have ever been around a Welsh Cob, and I'm all about promoting the breed I fell in love with.  I hope that I can use it as a tool to introduce people to the breed who otherwise would never have gotten the chance, and to prove, much like Stacey and Klein do over at The Jumping Percheron, that unusual breeds CAN do well in eventing.  He doesn't have to be an Olympian, because I'm not going to be an Olympian, but he can be good in it as far as we're going to go!

I'm proud of the work being done by his breeder, by my trainer, and by myself, and I hope to continue to showcase all of us and to promote eventing while I'm at it.

There's my introduction to the new readers - now introduce yourselves!  I need some new reading material.

After Thursday's success, I was hoping that I could get some more of that nice trot on Saturday.  It was an unbelievable 60 degrees here in southern Indiana in January, and our gorgeous outdoor footing was just perfect, so I decided to take him outside.  Should be a good work day, right?

BOING!

Nope!

My reactive little pony had never been in the outdoor before, and was paying attention to everything but me.  He also spooked in place at the sight of his own shadow moving on the white barn, and then proceeded to spook or look at it every time we passed after that.  I just laughed and pushed him through it into a long canter.  We haven't been able to do that in the indoor since the footing and size makes it hard for him.

The rest of the ride looked something like this:

"Hi, I'm a giraffe.  Did I mention I'm a giraffe today?"

As far as he overtracks, it's amazing that he doesn't interfere, though I have thought about precautionary bell boots.

Just past the spooky place.

You can see the white spot on the top of his hindquarters here.  I call it his Rorschach blot - everyone who sees it sees something different in it.

He's reaching so far under himself with that right hind!

Just starting to listen to me.

Terrible picture, but my husband thinks he looks like two men in a horse suit in this picture.

So cute, it's stupid.

For more photos from this set, see our Flickr page, which is linked above.

I'm really cautious to post this Friday lesson wrap-up, because I'm afraid I'm going to come off as a barn-blind "horse mom."  Those of you who know me really well know that I am, after being a student of Dr. Marks for four years, the antithesis of barn blind and am practical and realistic to a fault, so I hope you keep that in perspective as you read this.

About halfway through our lesson yesterday, a Dressage lesson which was entirely at the walk and trot, my trainer said, "He's trying to give you more.  Let the reins out an inch and let him really lengthen his neck and come on the bit."  We haven't pressured Contender into that yet, and have been looking for slightly in front of the vertical with engagement from behind.  I did, and he lowered his head exactly where it needed to be, and I felt his back raise (what felt like) several inches.  She  was silent for a few seconds, and then quietly said, "Jen, do you feel that?  Do you feel how much he's swinging through his back?  He's using himself, he's sitting so far back on his hocks, he's working on everything we've been telling him to do and then some."

I'm having a hard time coming up with words for how good his trot felt.  It wasn't a fluke, either, once he got warmed up we had a solid 25 minutes of truly spectacular trot work, and a good 5 of trot work that was that good.  I've never felt anything like that - so connected, so through.  Schwung, the Germans call it, and I've gotten close, but never as close as I got on my green bean last night.  Even on the school horses.

When we were letting him have a nice long rein and stretch at the walk, she was silent for a bit and then said, "He's going to have an incredible trot with some more time.  I really like him."  "Yes," I said, "He's not a blind trier like some horses I've ridden, where they'll try anything, but he takes what I ask and thinks about it and does it when he thinks he's right."  She agreed and said, "I also like that he tells you when he doesn't get it, and doesn't just keep on being confused."  From her, as an incredibly good trainer and especially being from over the pond where Cobs are like Quarter Horses, it meant so much more than it would from someone else.

Homework:
- Straight lines.  I've been letting him dive in without realizing it.  The arena feels like an oval, so sue me! (Okay really, this is a horrible habit and I'm glad she pointed it out.)  Half-halts on the outside rein as soon as we get around the corner, more stabilization and support on the straights.
- Riding corners with him bending through his ribcage more.  So far, it's been like turning a two by four around a corner.
- Spirals in and out, from a 15m circle to a 10m circle (not as drastic as it sounds, since he's a 13.2hh pony)

Guys...I'm more in love than I ever have been before.  How did I get this lucky?

Suddenly, for the first time in my life, planning a show season is something I can do!  As a lifelong runner/obsessive planner, I love nothing more than staring down a blank sheet of paper and planning the living daylights out of it.  It must be a control thing.

The plan I'm making now is very subject to change since I haven't discussed any of this with my trainre yet, and what do I know about bringing a young horse up in eventing?  Very little.  Perhaps I'll get a chance to show Adagio or Dillon before I show Contender.  Then again, maybe she'll decide I don't need to.  Whatever the case, without further ado, my extremely-subject-to-change 2012 schedule:

May 27, 2012: FF CT
- I couldn't have scheduled this better myself.  He's shown big away WPCSA shows before, but it's still going to be nice to have his first CT show at home.  (Plus, no trailering fees...)  I like the idea of a low-pressure atmosphere for his first CT, and as long as they have an introductory level class, he should be able to do it no problem.  If he's not ready to jump a course, we'll show Dressage only and eat the SJ entry.  Again, I'm in no rush.

July-ish, 2012: Heartland Welsh WPCSA Show
- I fully intend to dominate this show this year.  In-hand, ridden cob, all the English flat classes, and low hunter O/F are all well within reach.  One way or another, this will end up being my $$$ show of 2012.  Knowing that I'm earning local publicity for Lisa and WPCSA points for Dundee doesn't hurt either!

August 19, 2012: FF CT and Mini-Trial
- It's almost as if she read my mind.  My plan from the beginning was a show at the beginning of the summer to get our feet wet, the WPCSA show, and a show at the end of the summer.  Then the schedule gets posted, and I see that she made good on her idle discussions about hosting events.  We will be doing courses by this show, and if we also do cross-country, so be it, but I'm not at all sure we'll be ready for open-field, fixed obstacle jumping by then. 

Has anyone else brought up a young eventer?  Does this look reasonable based on your experiences and given what you know about us?

I almost prefaced this post by saying that I didn't have much of a 2011 recap to write because I only got Contender in November.  But that only lasted a few seconds before I remembered the dramatic changes that occurred in my equine life this year. The condensed version: