Pepé Le Pew

Butterball and I took another lesson this week with PW. My friend arranged it so that we could do back to back lessons and snag video for each other. But then she asked if I was okay doing a group lesson. "Uhm, yeah, but we don't jump things the size that you do."

Turns out we were doing almost exclusively gymnastics so it worked out okay to ride together. And multiple people have told me now that Butterball could jump 1.10 easily. Yes, guys, I KNOW. Again, hi, I'm the problem it's me. Although, really, there are worse things in the world than having people tell you how lovely and talented your horse is! 

We started with our usual trot jump. Man, the keeping the outside rein through the turn, just magic for his straightness over the fences. PW commented that Butterball is so clever, when he's deep to a fence, he still cranks his hind end up over it to make sure he clears it. Can confirm. Also not super easy to stay with, but I'm trying. Then we did canter poles up to the vertical that then became an oxer. Ride to the first pole, the rest will fall into place. 

After that we introduced Butterball's new fave exercise. A line of 7 bounces. He came in a teeny tiny bit backed off the first time, but really not bad at all. And then merrily bounced through it. The next time he was confident from the first and felt just delighted. My coworker compared him to Pepé  Le Pew happily bouncing along, which is exactly right. The two larger horses we were jumping with didn't look nearly as thrilled by the exercise. 

via GIPHY

Then we moved on to the last exercise, a line of four square oxers set at one stride apart. We built up to what was in the video. The first time through Butterball's eyes did bug out a bit and I had to tap him between the first and second. But after that, he merrily sproinged on through those as well. Ride to the first jump, keep him straight with your outside rein on, the rest just happens. 

Finally we put all three things together and did the one strides, left hand turn to the single oxer, left hand turn to go through the bounces. And I rode the canter while keeping my eye on the top rail of the single, and we hit it perfectly out of stride. GOOD BOY BUTTERBALL! 

Easier time with my equitation with the single fence as well 

I don't have a lot to say notes wise because this is coming together with me feeling like I'm doing two (simple) things: 

- Creating a bouncy canter by being PATIENT and holding my outside rein. Don't rush the canter transition, don't rush the canter itself. Make it quality. 

- Riding to the first pole or rail and then letting him do his thing

PW told me Butterball is too nice to event, but I told him we'll just clean up our show jumping and then he'll be a super event hony with a beautiful show jumping record. He's too fun out on XC and too nice in dressage to not event! 

Wednesday Walks: Clicker Training and A Love Story

My clicker training of touching trash cans for treats seems to have been a bit too effective. 

Snack 'n hacks take a bit longer on trash day. Yesterday Butterball "took off" with me and joyfully porpoised down the side of the road in his hackamore. I love that I was just laughing the whole time instead of being afraid for my life. 

It occurs to me as I put this together that I never shared pictures from my hack with my coworkers. Butterball fell in love with my coworkers mini. And with a mule we met. He encouraged the mule to lean over his barbed wire fence and almost break it. He is the friendliest pony ever. 

Hi, I love you

WHY are you yelling at me???? 

And why does your voice sound like that??? 

Now that you're done yelling, do you want to be friends?? 

Butterball is pleased, stud donkey not so much

He's Fancy, He's Sophisticated

And every little detail matters with this horse.

Backtracking a bit to last week, Butterball and I had our second lesson with PW. And in the way of all things, I had taken our sloowwwwww trot and canter a bit too far, and Butterball needed some jazzing up off the leg. Trainer said that Butterball is not strong enough to jump from that forward canter right now. HOWEVER, when I close my leg he needs to respond with forward. Huh, where have we heard that one. And, my supposition, is that we aren't going to get stronger in that canter if we never practice it. 

We landed and halted after the first two trot fences and then were instructed to CANTER FORWARD away from the fence instead. After we warmed up over the trot fence, we spent the entire lesson over the same vertical and then oxer with three canter poles in front of it. 

Screenshot from the first lesson because there's no new video from the second lesson, but we did get some from the third!

It reminded me of Carly's post on the single pole friend. Because ALL I had to do was ride to the first pole. I did a LOT of different things other than riding properly to the first pole though. I cut in to the left, drifted out to the right, (both leading to jumping the left side of the fence, funny enough...), met it on half-strides, lunged at it, etc etc. 

For whatever reason I had a more passive feeling that whole lesson. I think maybe due to other stuff in life I was feeling some decision fatigue. So I did more letting things happen to me than making them happen. PW got on Butterball and called him a super fun to ride pocket rocket, which is always fun to hear. And shockingly, with him in the irons, pony was super straight and just incredible over the fences. So then we planned a 100% gymnastics lesson for this week. 

Honestly, the most exciting takeaway of the lesson this week was how well my horse goes when I don't drop the outside rein all the time. This helped our canter transitions, helped our turning, and helped our jumping. In order to not drop the outside rein, I had to essentially press my outside knuckles into the fleeciness of the mattress pad that we use with the jump saddle. We started out the lesson mostly drifting left and so got ourselves a set of placing poles down the left hand side of the gymnastics. We also got nailed for lunging at the first pole. PW kindly told me not to let him do that, and I didn't confess that I was actually asking him to do that not just allowing him to do it. I had to go back to the feeling from the first lesson where my only focus was the single ground pole we were cantering. Then I had to keep my outside rein through the turn and stare down the first pole. A little leg between the fences and then we had some magic. He was jumping great and stopped twisting over the fence when I kept him straight with my outside aids (I know, I know, reader, this is serious ground breaking news). 

PW got onto me about two things. The first: I booted Butterball into the canter once when I felt like he was slow off my leg. He bucked, and we accidentally jumped a stack of three poles. He said "that was on you" (meaning me, the rider, again, shock and surprise that I'm the problem), and that Butterball wasn't balanced so couldn't lift into the canter. And again, once I slowed the trot down, half-halted, and then held onto my outside rein, he just lifted up and did some really lovey canter transitions.  The second: Don't drop him in front of the oxer. While negative directives aren't supposed to work as well as directing what should be done instead. That whole adage about not thinking about the purple elephant. But, uhm, I stared at the oxer and internally screamed and definitely shoved my hands at him, completely dropping the contact. So telling me not to do that was completely fair and very effective since I had consciously done just that. 

It is so exciting to feel the jump that we're creating with this work. I purposely included the line where I held too much to the first pole and he broke to the trot and then still jumped through the gymnastic so handily. This pony is scopey, ya'll. Ben felt great over fences this size, but the roundness of Butterball's jump is something I have not experienced before! 

Slowwweeerrrrrrr

Butterball and I have now taken two lessons with a jumper training. We're trying to sort out what clicks for me to get the canter right for him to leave the ground confidently and powerfully. This is a recap of the first lesson.

We started with an extensive walk-trot-canter warm up. In each gait we were supposed to slowww wayyyyyy down and then allow forward again. Initially we worked on going slower than I thought we could before allowing forward. Then we started doing about eight strides slow and then eight strides allowing. There was A LOT of swinging different pieces of pony in different directions. And apparently that's okay. I was NOT supposed to do weird things with my seat, legs, or hands trying to push or pull him straight. In the canter in particular, slower came from inside leg, the whole of it, to outside hand. The outside hand was half halting as his front feet were on the ground. He also corrected my wanting to lean back a bit and drive when I allowed forward. Instead I was supposed to just close my hip angle slightly and go with him as he went forward. And in the canter we were told we needed to practice straight lines as well as circles. Even though the straight lines are hard, we had to do them and then go into a slowwwer circle. If we only practice circles we'll never get there on the straight lines. And TBH, I feel that because it was way back in January we took a lesson with a dressage trainer who said stick to circles for now. And now we're three months later, and here we are, still weak in the canter. 

We started jumping with a placing pole and then a vertical. Initially I was posting in, but then he switched to having me lightly sit the trot in with the slow trot. 

Then we moved on to cantering a pole on the ground. With the instructions to "make him wait, fit it in". He also explained that you get ONE LOOK and said that if you look at the pole, jump, whatever, then look away, your brain already started to pick out your position and therefore your striding relative to that the first time. If you glance away and then back again, you still have the first idea in your head, but not adapted to where you are now. HUH. Looking and committing was certainly not a new idea, but the explanation of why was interesting. 

After a few figure eights over the pole, looking for essentially that second picture, we moved back to the vertical with three placing poles at bounce lengths in front of it. I immediately got nailed for my floating hands and told to press my damn hands into his neck and use my voice to slow him down if need be. 

Even then, my directions were to SLOW HIM DOWN coming into the pole. He said BB isn't strong enough right now to come powerfully and quickly. He said that will come, but not right now. It was AMAZING the rideability we got from this. And I wouldn't have said he was unrideable before this, but with this slow canter in, I could just close my knee and thigh and fingers after and he would trot or halt easily. We did do a lot of halting in a straight line after the fences. And unlike most all of our other halts, ever, he kept his hindquarters straight behind his shoulders almost all the time. 

Square behind! 

And out of that slow deliberate canter, he was jumping AMAZINGLY and LIGHTLY. 

That's very nice, Butterball

Next we moved on to singles of a line, again asking for the slow canter on the way in. When you want to leave from the base, you look at the ground line. When you want a normal distance, you look at the top rail. Okay, cool. And it worked great. Slow canter in, halt after. It all felt just so easy and light. He was light in my hand and responsive. When we put the line together we did it in either six or seven. When we moved up to do it in six, it felt so easy, just allow a little more forward down the line. 

We ended the lesson "leaving him waiting". It felt very easy to do it in six, but I had to again compress and ask for the sit behind to get in the seven. It's a cool feeling creating the rocked back power to then just allow rather than push to open up his stride. I'm excited to see how this continues to progress. And mayyyyy be getting talked into taking him to WEC in June to do a few jumper rounds in the air conditioned indoor arenas there. 

Keeping it Casual

Butterball and I joined a few friends last week to pop around a few jumps at Sweet Dixie. My goal going out was to give him a good release and stay out of his way. And we had a great time doing just that. It wasn't all completely smooth, I botched a line of a roll top five strides to down bank three strides to up bank multiple different times in multiple different ways. But I mostly kept my hands down, and after from advice from a friend, my leg quietly on. And he was perfectly content to have me screwing it up as long as those conditions were met. We also jumped the skinniest thing I've jumped on him,  a log chunk that was only about 2' high but maybe 3' wide? He seemed a bit confused as we cantered up to it but was totally game. 

I just love this picture, such Florida vibes with such a cute pony 

Look at me not smacking the saddle with my butt

Weeeeee

One of the times through the line I did *not* keep my hands down, sorry bud

Better here

And up!

This was part of a line that I completely failed to look ahead and steer through, oops

But he still jumped things like a good boy anyways

Hands are still a work in progress, not reliable when piloting pony over spooky hanging log

And my favorite picture of the outing

All photo credits go to Michelle Beck

April Wrap Up

Photo credits to Madren Photography 

 

	Butterball
Training rides	4- including 1 jumper round at POP
Lessons	3
Hacks	2 bareback hacks, 1 hack at a friend’s house + lots of pre-flat school hacks
Ground work, lunge, long line	0
Flat rides	10
Conditioning rides	1
XC school	1
Shows	3- 2 HT and 1 schooling jumper round

 

Butterball worked 25 of 30 days this month, hard working pony! We did a few combo training rides + short lesson afterwards that were really helpful for getting him sharp to the aids and sitting on his butt. We also competed in two horse trials: Rocking Horse and Ocala International. At both events, our dressage was a definite highlight. It's getting so lovely, we just need to move that quality canter over to the jump arena now. 

Stretchy circle that probably would have earned us a 9 if not for an unfortunate stumble in the las quarter

Unfortunately neither show had the jump rounds we wanted, with both being indicative of our current struggles. We had a not-so-pretty clear stadium round and then a stop cross country at Rocking Horse. We went and schooled cross country at Naked Horse the week before Festival and that paid off with a beautiful clear cross country run, but we did have a stop in stadium. 

However, I heard this quote the other day and it struck home: 

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

Moving forward we've got a plan, and we've also got time to execute said plan before Area III championships at FHP starting the last day of the month. 

I did join RideIQ this month, using their two week free trial and hoping to win the $2K of show and clinic entries. Sadly I did not win, but I did very much enjoy a lesson from Holly Hepp Hudspeth on soft and through in W/T/C. My phone service is kinda sketchy ever since we moved to a cheap carrier that uses AT&T towers, so I'm going to track how many lessons I am able to pull up in May and decide if it is worthwhile continuing. **ETA I found the download button on the lessons, but will still log the number of lessons I do to see if it is worth continuing**

Finishing off this already scattered post with a few random pics...

Butterball got his rabies vaccine and confirmed that he DOES NOT like vaccines, noted and will be scheduled accordingly, sorry dude

He also tromped his way into the tack/feed room once or twice

And enjoyed a belated birthday cake - March was too busy for me to make one, but he enjoyed the April celebration just as much! 

WW: Doing the MOST

Pre-jumper rounds on Sunday, most tired, soon to be most toasty pat of Butter after just two rounds

Toasty because in spite of shedding out really nicely and being a very sleek pony for a few weeks, he grew... extra... in April... is this a Welsh thing? We're not on the foggy, chilly moors, my dear. This pile was less than half of a clipped pony. 

But at least there were beautiful dapples waiting under the extra fur