Trial Run

During our lesson this week with PW, we put the pieces together to do some course work in prep for the show this weekend. And, for the most part, those pieces fell nicely into place. I desperately wanted to avoid driving him long and flat, which meant that my pace was, at times, too conservative. But defaulting to the bouncy 9 foot canter stride we start every lesson with isn't the worst thing in the world. Thanks to Hillary for the video this go round.

After our usual trot jump warm up, we moved on to the canter jump warm up. And this time we only had two canter poles instead of three, but things went fine. 

Next up was three cavalettis. They were set at a short five to five or a normal four to four. We easily sat and bounced and got the five. The four to four came pretty easily as well. It is a bit hard for me to trust the longer stride because that's where we got in trouble this spring - long and flat leading to a loss of confidence leaving the ground. But now we've done some back on his hocks short and bouncy canter for about four weeks and PW wants us to start adding the 12 foot stride back in. Deep breath, it's gonna be okay. 

After our various warm up exercises, we started with a short course. My focus was GLUING my eyes to the SAME SPOT on the top rail of each fence. And it went relatively well. I didn't have quite enough pace initially, so we got the deep spot to a couple, but I knew it was happening and stayed with him to the base of each jump. 

Next we put it together for a nine fence course featuring a one to a five stride. The first time through I sat chilly for the six in the line and it felt great. The second round (featured in the video below) I went for the five and got a five and a half. 

PW had us go down the cavaletti doing the four to four again, then circle right back around to do the five to the one. It felt great, but also like he was GOING pretty convincingly. 

Getting the one stride done when we did the one to the five. Not letting go of his face though, sorry my dude. Fortunately this is now the minority of fences, not the majority. 

Headless wonder pony 

Next we added a little "jump off" course, during which I continued to ride without quite enough pace. We did the one stride in the opposite direction, and we got deep to the first and then semi-crashed the second. Butterball kept himself underneath of me though, bless him. PW instructed "Pat that horse!" 

We cleaned it up the second time through for the course seen in the above video. 

One stride in reverse 

Something about this vertical means I don't let go of his face

Weeeee!

He was doing more cross cantering than normal in this lesson. I had walk cavaletti poles out for some stifle strengthening back in February/March, but hadn't replaced them since the last time everything got mowed. So those came back out on Thursday. I'm also going to get him adjusted and magnawaved after this weekend (ideally would be before, but y'know...). He still is jumping great, so I'm not too worried about it, but just a note. And his back is looking better than ever, he's getting some really nice muscling. 

Overall the courses felt much more under control than the last time we jumped a course. Our round at POP honestly felt like a lot of prayers. Building back, little by little. 

My notes for this weekend: I MUST keep my outside rein and I MUST keep my eye on the fence. It would be nice to ask for a little more pace, but PW counseled that it has to be a thinking ride. If he gets into a line deep and a bit sticky, put leg on, but sit chilly for the add from a powerful rocked back canter. If he is moving and hitting things at the right point, go ahead and close leg to get the "correct" striding. 

Getting it Right off the Horse: 2025 Edition

Prior years: 2024, 2023, and 2022. This year is a bit different. 

Since I had that "little sprain" when I made the excellent decision to lean at a scary rolltop, running has been OUT this year. I will confess, and note for my future self, I should have done several things differently: not gone to work that night in order to elevate the foot and decrease the swelling; not gone to a horse show 48 hours later; not kept riding for the two weeks following the sprain. It may have been worse than I was acknowledging, and I am actually still dealing with the consequences. My husband is a PTA and has been sooo helpful. First, he created a legs workout that didn't involve pissing off the already pissed off ankle ligaments. Then he showed me multiple exercises to regain the strength in all planes (there are several, and shockingly motion is required in all of them to ride well) with that ankle. Finally when I had a minor whine session the other night about how it still hurts sometimes, first off he didn't say "I told you so" AND he helped trouble shoot where the ankle still weak. It is still weak in dorsoflexion, so my current ankle rehab is eccentric holds at the top of my range of motion using a forward lean with hands on the wall to offload the ankle to the point where pain doesn't increase more than 2 points. 

In my favor with the ankle is that spraining the lateral/dorsal ligaments meant that riding in the jump saddle was pretty alright for it. It's the dressage saddle and a little bit of medial movement needed with a basically flat foot that it struggled with for several months. 

My general philosophy has also changed some this year as I've dealt with added work stress and need for modifications because of my ankle. I don't have a board of weekly workouts scheduled out for each day. Instead my goal is to workout for at least 30 minutes a day, every day. This gives me the flexibility to just set a timer for 30 minutes and do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, if it is a busy/stressful day.

Widest waterfall in the state of Florida, on the Steinhatchee river

The thirty minutes+ every day almost always includes the abs from Athlean X that have been a cornerstone of my program for three years now. Then I'll add on either the leg workout created by DH or some arms/back. I have been doing more straight arm hangs from our pullup bar. Grip strength is a predictor of mortality and morbidity as we age, so maintaining it seems important. I am still pulling up arms/back workouts from Heather Robertson and Sydney Cummings Houdyshell about once a week. 

With my husband's job came a free gym membership to a gym even closer than the one I have access to for work. I mostly ignored this until I sprained my ankle and then really, really missed the mental relief from running. About twice a week I go to the gym, crank the treadmill up to 13% incline and then walk at 3.0 mph for the better part of 30 minutes. The last little bit I drop it back to 2.5% incline and then run at 5-6 mph for increasing amounts of time to finish out the 30 minutes as the ankle tolerates it. I gotta admit, heading into the ACed gym when it is 95 degrees outside and then trudging uphill while watching NatGeo is pretty appealing. Getting started running outside again as Florida hits the usual summer heatwave a bit early, not at all appealing. So I'm grateful for the gym even if it does feel a bit like cheating. 

Umbra gets gabapentin once a month so I can cut her nails. Dolce always takes advantage of her drugged sister and gets some extra cuddles in. 

The part that is DEFINITELY missing from this routine is HIIT. Even though swimming is extoled as a beautiful workout for injuries, you know what you need to be able to swim well? Good ankle ROM and strength. And you know what you need to do HIIT with running? That dorsoflexion move where my ankle is still the weakest and angriest. Rgh. I tried rowing at the gym pretty early on in this and honestly didn't find it that great of a workout even with the resistance all the way turned up. Which is confusing since rowing is talked about as such a great, full body conditioning exercise. I'm probably to the point where I could get on the stair climber and do 45 second bursts of pretty rapid stair climbing that would meet the HIIT criteria. I also could try an assault bike in short bursts. So that's on the agenda next.

The reason I started these posts and something I haven't done a great job addressing in the past few years is how this is working out for my riding. It's interesting, Butterball is not a horse you need a lot of muscle to ride. Goggles was a "man's horse" through and through in spite of his careful and correct start in off the track work. He definitely required finesse as well, but he could be a bully and was a very large and very strong horse. So one minute I'd have to be half halting with my entire body weight and then the next minute I'd have to be light as a feather again in his mouth, a pound of contact in each rein. It was tricky to say the least, but I often felt just small and at his mercy on top of him. 

Just along for the ride here

Size appropriate friend

                              

Channeling that power for good was tricky

Again, size appropriate

                             

Butterball is more size appropriate and a more sensitive dude in general than Goggles. But since he is the smallest horse I've ridden consistently, I have had to be ultra careful about doing weird things with my own weight. He's also very, very sensitive so any little shift means something to him, whether that's good or bad. And he's quite athletic and does require core strength to stay with him. It is immediately obvious when I've influenced his balance in the wrong way. My own asymmetry is also immediately reflected in him. Which means I need an even and stable core potentially even more than I did with Goggles. I certainly need less of the upper back/traps and even leg strength than I needed with Goggles though. 

Ben fit into this in an interesting kind of way. He had a long history of being ridden by amatuers, myself included, so had some... semi-helpful dullness. He was very, very sensitive and one of my favorite horses to flat by a long shot, but he would... cover up mistakes? It was like he knew the game well enough he wouldn't do weird things that reflected the weird things I was doing. He also had eight inches on Butterball so was a bit less sensitive to every weight shift just became of that. And his jump was a lot of fun to ride, but not nearly as round as Butterball's, making it easier to stay with. 

Okay, maybe it's not strange this is hard to stay with #doingthemost

Side note, typing about Ben and looking at pictures makes me miss him a lot. He's doing great in Cali and is living a life of luxury there with minimal travel, which is something his owner and I decided contributed a lot to his general stress/anxiety/ulcers. But I still miss seeing his always chipper face over the fence every day when I pull in to the barn. 

Butterball is sorta-kinda following the weekly reservations post that I made in January. We do take a jump lesson pretty much weekly. I don't lunge him in the equiband, but he is doing a hack walk in it every few weeks. Lunging him... didn't turn out to be great. The way he wants to get flat and then feel like he can't possibly use his hind end under saddle? Yeah, that's exacerbated on the lunge and it just didn't seem productive. So if I don't have time to ride then we don't do anything. And since he's fine to hop on bareback and tool around, we do that on the days I'm short on time and it is just as fast as lunging. We're also only doing trot and canter sets about once a month... the ground is harder up where I am and I've gotten a bit more protective of his feet since our January-February experience when he was barefoot. Which means that unless I have time to haul out somewhere with softer footing, he doesn't do trot/canter sets each week. And honestly, I've become a bit less competition focused/driven. I'm not sure when/if we're going to move up to training level, but I'm not bothered by that. I want to have a happy, sound horse who enjoys what we're doing as much as I do. 

BOING!!!

Butterball and I joined two friends and their horses at Majestic Oaks on Friday with Lija as our ground crew/emotional support/videographer. Butterball had just done lots o' gymnastics the day before, but in spite of that was still kinda feeling himself. Both friends were on greener horses, so I let them trot/canter away from us rather than leaving them when we started to warm up. This led to Butterball having some feelings in a hilarious way. He immediately wanted to pick up the canter rather than trot in a civilized fashion, so we did. Then he did a little bit of porpoising when I wouldn't let him canter towards his friends. After we went forward and back, we started popping around some fences which all went pretty smoothly. Shortly after that he decided he was tired and could in fact stand by Lija in the golf cart and chill while his friends went and did things. 

I wanted to just pop over a few lines and make sure our work in the ring would transfer out to cross country fences. 

Ft Butterball absolutely jumping me out of the tack 

Same horse, quietly enjoying his hay in the trailer with his eyes closed. Then goes out on cross country and looks like an absolute rockstar. How did I get so lucky?? 

As seen above, it definitely did translate pretty darn well. I also had an INCREDIBLY HELPFUL GROUNDBREAKING REALIZATION. Like I cantered up to Lija in the golf cart shouting about it. I had just botched three of five fences that I had strung together. As I eyed the last one before chipping miserably at the base, I realized something. 

I have been told to look at the dang fence by both JT and PW. PW explained the nuances of look at the ground rail if you want a deep spot, look at the top rail if you want a normal spot. As I stared at the above fence, my eyes did a freaking polka jumping around from one spot to another on the face and the top rail. I didn't like the way the distance was feeling so I looked at a different spot. Nope, not better, let's change again, nope try the first spot, nope, and so on. 

Didn't botch it the second time because.... 

In the above picture, I stared at the top rail and three strides out realized it was going to be slightly gappy. I sat chilly and supported him and he left the ground at the exact spot I knew he was going to. Fucking magic, ya'll. 

I don't think anyone had bothered telling me to stare at the SAME SPOT because telling me not to take my eye of the fence kinda implies looking at the same damned spot. Unless you're me. And your brain thinks that you can change physics by looking somewhere else perhaps. 

Such a good lad 

Anyways, mission accomplished with a chill school before Ocala next weekend. And hopefully mission really accomplished with my realization on how exact my eye needs to be. 

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.