Furry Yaks and Kelly Lessons

Wow, didn’t take me long to fall off the blogging train! Not sure where September went, and now most of October, but life has been busy and I have a lot of catching up to do. I’ve now written three posts and failed to actually post them, so this one is going up sans pictures. Well, I have two at least.  Read if you want, but this will probably be long and boring. I do like the idea or record keeping, especially for lessons, so I have a feeling many posts going forward will be more for me than anyone else.

Last time I posted I was sitting in the airport waiting to board the plane to NJ for my friend’s wedding. Post to come on that front, maybe, but for now I’ll catch up on some Goose things.

Being a draft cross, Goose quickly turns into a wooly mammoth. I left for NJ on September 21st and he was starting to get fuzzy, but by the time I got back a week later on the 26th, he was a full-on yak. Usually I can get away with waiting until end of October to body clip, but there was no chance of waiting this one out. It’s been in the 90’s and humid and my poor horse was MELTING. I went out on Thursday and he was standing in his field sweating. Not just sweating, but dripping sweat. I pet him, told him sorry, and tacked up anyway to make sure we had steering and remembered how to move the shoulders and haunches independently. He was ridden while I was away, but he likes to utilize his selective memory to forget the harder things when I get back from a trip. 

Who ordered the roast Goose? Taken before I got on.

After mounting said yak, I knew this was going to be a tough ride. It. Would. Not. Move. It must have taken an insane amount of energy to grow all that hair and left none left with which to move forward. It was probably the slowest ride I’ve ever had on him, and that’s saying something. We never went faster than a slow, shuffling walk, and my poor guy was now truly drenched. For the record, so was I. It’s not easy steering a mammoth in 98% humidity!

My plan was to clip him that weekend, so when I got a text from Hannah saying that Kelly was coming out again on Sunday and would I like to lesson again, I knew I’d HAVE to get him done Saturday. None of the delay tactics I sometimes use to push off clipping as long as possible. The sheep needed to be sheared. Goose was bathed Thursday after I rode, and when I got to the barn Saturday he was surprisingly clean. Show sheen was used generously, and the big Andis clippers started the task. Seriously, best investment I’ve ever made and I can’t recommend them enough. They cut my clipping time in half, and with an abominable snow monster like Goose, every second counts when clipping. There’s just so damn much of him! The only downfall is that I manage to clip off approximately half of his mane every dang time. Eventually, I will learn my lesson and clean up the mane line with my little clippers, but at least he has such a thick mane you can barely tell I thinned it by half.

The easy way out was taken when I decided to leave his legs furry from the hocks/knees down, but hey I’ll have to clip him again in a few weeks anyway. It’s now been about 10 days since I’ve clipped him and he’s already getting fuzzy again. Remind me why we moved south again? (Note, it’s now been three weeks post-clip and it’s like I never even clipped him. You can’t even see the saddle patch I had left on his back).

After a very decent ride on Saturday post-clip, my friend and I went to Tryon to watch some Gladiator Polo. By a series of unfortunate events, we only watched about five minutes of polo before the match ended. Who knew matches are only an hour and a half?

Sunday dawned slightly overcast and cooler than it had been in a few weeks. Jackpot! I was really hoping Goose would have energy without too much sass. He sometimes enjoys acrobatics post-clip and a lesson is not necessarily an appropriate place for the big doofus to showcase his bunny hops rodeo bucks.

The plan had been to get on Goose about 15 minutes before the lesson before me was over so I’d have time to really march him forward and make sure he was on his best behavior. Making the most of our lesson time is important to me and I wanted any arguments about moving off my leg done and over with before we were on Kelly’s time. Unfortunately, I basically got on and she was ready for me so I picked up my reins, walked into the dressage arena, and Goose said NOPE and shuffled forwards. He. Would. Not. Move. This wasn’t his “much sleepy, none forward” walk, this was his sucked back, feeling fresh but not going to cooperate and go forward walk. This behavior is best nipped in the bud so I turned my toes out to hit him with the spur and was greeted with the world’s biggest grunt and a kick out from the monster. Thanks Goose, great first impression you giant lug! Kelly laughed at him and I mentioned that he had just been clipped and might be a little sassy (you know, the typical fall clip ohlordmyhorseisnakednowandtheworldmightend disclaimer).

Luckily, that Goose was a total rockstar for our lesson. Aside from a few baby leaps and bucks, he really does think it’s too much effort to get his ass off the ground, he worked hard and listened to everything I asked. Nothing was perfect, but it was a total improvement over our last ride with Kelly when I basically forgot how to ride. We marched right into the walk and went into a few turns on the forehand, haunches, and leg yields. I was reminded to be giving with my hands (but a huge improvement was noted, yay!) and drop my leg lower and not bunch up. It’s so easy to fall back into H/J habits when I’m concentrating hard, and it’s not necessarily something I think of often. More homework!

We moved up into trot and Goose went immediately on the bit when asked. Warmed up for a lap or two, we went right into some leg yields at the trot where I admitted I had not been working as hard as we have been at the walk. Our leg yields have drastically improved at the walk, but trotting is a different ball game and something I haven’t been as diligent about. We played around with those and Kelly offered some great insight before calling us back to walk. We worked on walking up the long side, slightly off the track. Shoulder-in until about half way up, straight, haunches in the rest of the side. With this exercise, I discovered that when I essentially switch my aids from shoulder-in to haunches in, I completely pull my inside leg off his side, effectively letting him wiggle all over. What do you know, apparently, you need both legs to ride! More homework for me, sorry Goose you’ve gotta bear with me while I basically learn to ride. Sigh.

Goose is still tricking me a bit with his leg yields at the walk and especially at the trot. Instead of actually yielding, he tends to just drag us in the direction I want to go. When we were discussing how I’ve been working on the leg yields and how I felt that to the right they were actually easier than to the left, Kelly disagreed with me. We talked about this (shoutout to Kelly who is willing to discuss things with me instead of dismissing me!) and what we think is happening is he’s a lot harder to move off my left leg than my right. Since I have to work harder, it works out to be a more successful leg yield whereas when asked to move off my right leg, he’s very willing to give a false drag-me-to-the-track and I’m willing to think that it’s correct. Whoops! We worked on fixing that and had some lovely moments. We also played around with renverse and I’m excited to keep working on these newer movements and tools.

Towards the end of our lesson, I was back on a 20 meter trot oval circle at the end of the arena. Earlier in the lesson we worked on stretching down at the walk up a diagonal, and I mentioned it’s very hard for me to get him to stretch. Well I’ll be damned if that horse didn’t stretch better than he ever has before! GOOD BOY! I brought him back up and let him out a few times, working on keeping him bent and low and reaching without turning into a jumbled heap. Just goes to show how far we’ve come: I really need to switch my mentality to “this needs work” from “we struggle with this” because while many things still need work, we’re really not struggling with anything when I ask correctly and he learns what I want. He’s no longer the horse that fights me every step of every ride and I couldn’t be prouder. We had some fabulous moments of stretchy trot and I worked on keeping my leg long, and by the end he got some well-deserved pats.

Somewhere in there we cantered and did a baby buck/leap thing but Kelly once again commented on how lovely his canter is and the one thing I need to work on there is just getting him to soften a bit more and submit.

Overall, Kelly said we had many visible improvements. There was only one occasion where she reminded me not to let him sway his head side to side, and when I asked if she just hadn’t said anything earlier or if it was that greatly improved, she said that it was not there this ride pretty much at all. WIN! We had marked improvements on our leg yields, submission, and position and I’m so pleased that our homework has been paying off. We still have a lot of homework, some the same, some new, and I’m excited to keep working hard. Instead of feeling like a fraud in dressage tack, I’m starting to really feel like we’re coming together. Goose is going better than ever, my riding is improving, and my horse now feels like my true partner instead of that annoying kid in a group project who contributes nothing to the team. That sounds harsh and I’m more than aware my horse is gracious enough to carry my ass around, but truly there have been so many rides where I feel like I’m the only one who showed up to practice. It’s an amazing feeling to get on and have him ask, “okay what do you need me to do now?” This is huge for us and I love that goofy horse more than ever.

Things to work on:

1. Keep leg longer – lots of no-stirrup work should do the trick (prepping for no-stirrup November?)
2. Consistency through leg yield in BOTH directions
3. Leg yield, shoulder-in, haunches in at trot
4. Sit up taller and focus on myself when I can (gotta kick these H/J habits!)
5. Work on ending each ride with a stretchy trot and add in some free-walk during the ride. This one I’m adding in for myself, I need to be more comfortable asking him to stretch without my hands doing the jive.

I said it last time and I’ll say it again: Kelly is awesome. I accomplish so much in one lesson and need to find a way to keep riding with her when she comes in. We’re hoping she can manage to get to the farm once a month, so fingers crossed my money tree starts throwing me some dollars. The other riders get a lot out of her lessons as well, and I continue to be impressed by her fairness to horse and rider, no-nonsense attitude, and lack of condescension that I’ve found so many trainers to have, especially in a clinic setting. She never stopped watching me and Goose our whole ride and had such excellent advice.

Showing has not really been in the books for me the past few years for many reasons. Like the fact that I have to feed myself, Goose, and Zuzu. Hopefully next spring or summer we can get to an event or even just a dressage show because I’m feeling good about where we are and that we wouldn’t be wasting our time or my money. Showing has never been about ribbons for me, but I really want to get a feel of where we are and I think entering something would give me a good base to go off. For now, we’ll keep practicing and I’ll get back into the jump field instead of drilling dressage every ride. I’m waiting for the brain to switch and for him to run me out of the arena to avoid the dreaded flatwork, but so far, his brain is holding up well. Here’s hoping!

Sometimes he's looks majestic in pictures. Other times he looks like an accident. <3