After a week of the usual pre-clinic chaos—lame horses, sick riders, people who can’t get their trailers out because of an inability to operate a shovel—Lendon called me at noon on Friday to inform me that all of New England was getting whomped by—Surprise!—an epic snowstorm. Her flight had been cancelled, and when Lendon Gray, a tough-as-nails Mainer, says the weather is cataclysmic, I believe her.
Rather than try and patch together a one-day clinic, we vowed to reschedule for March. And instead of throwing the whole weekend away, I patched together a hail-Mary Open House on the farm for Saturday. We had chili ready to go, so what the heck? I worked four horses, answered questions and had a really lovely time.
First I rode Douwe the Friesian, and he was terrific. His back is a tricky saddle-fitting shape, and between that and the fact that he’s changed SO much since he’s been here, we haven’t gotten him a saddle of his own yet. It’s meant playing musical saddles with what we’ve got here, and this week I made a really good switch to something he seems to like more than anything else we’ve tried. As a result, he’s been very, very good in the work—transitions between trot and canter improving, a little easier to keep uphill in the trot. All good stuff. I’ve opened the door to the counter-canter, which is improving his balance quite a bit. And it was fun to answer audience questions about him, and other “off” breeds.
Next was Fender. He’s been a very good boy this week, so I was curious to see how he’d do with a major change to his environment. I walked him into the indoor, and he took a look at all the people in the viewing gallery…and then sighed. Whatever. People, schmeople. Good boy!
He was great to ride. Forward, uphill. A little noodley in the bridle, which he hasn’t been since the very beginning, so that’s worth some exploring, but on the whole he put on a very nice show. He also opened the door for me to talk about my thoughts on young horses—how often I like to work them, what kind of work, yadda yadda yadda. And everyone told Fender how pretty he was, which he enjoyed very much.
I was very glad to have my own personal photography crew out en masse—fellow bloggers Sara Lieser and Coree Reuter—which is great because a) I love them, and b) I don’t have any Fender photos, but also c) it was great to see their photos. I’ve been so panicked about riding Fender forward enough, but without any eyes on the ground, it’s been unclear to me as to whether I’ve succeeded or not. Photos show that I’m actually right on the brink of running him out of balance. Hoorah for feedback!
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Rode Midge next, and he was pretty good about keeping the spooking to a minimum, but was a big of a turd about the tempi changes. They’re not his favorite thing, and every two weeks or so he shuts down and flips me the bird. Why do five changes? Do you not know what lead you want to be on? Pfffh. So we had a little conversation about them, then I gave him a walk break and said well, let’s try and salvage this demo by doing some piaffe and passage.
And OHMYGOD! Midge was a ROCKSTAR.
He’s had a few big ahas in the last week or so about the passage, and I think he understands it now. And he felt so good yesterday that I said “Hey, let’s try and make a piaffe transition.” And he DID! It wasn’t flawless by any means, but he kept a two-beat rhythm, kept the neck as out as his neck can go right now, and most importantly kept COOL. He even made a perfectly adequate transition back out to the passage. Sweet!
Last was Ella, who’s been really great all week, too. She felt so nice as I warmed her up that I decided to try showing off the Brentina Cup test—the first time I’ve ridden it all the way through since December (when we really shouldn’t have). This was markedly better, though there are still some hiccups. Mostly, I have an equipment problem. The spurs I like for the piaffe are a flat rowel. I find that I just have to touch her with them once in the beginning, and she trucks along like a little freight train. In a rounded spur, she doesn’t quite have the sensitivity to the aid that I’m looking for, so I have to ask multiple times. I can make her more sensitive, but ultimately it’s way easier just to switch to the thinner spur.
Problem is in the changes—in the rowel, Ella gets tighter and wilder in the ones. I don’t even think I use it in the change, but I think she knows it’s there, and since there’s a lot going on in the ones (not a lot of swinging legs or anything, but I do alternate my calves), maybe she gets nervous, anticipating the spur? No idea. All I know is that by the time I get through half the canter tour, between her back being fatigued from having a long test and the nerves about the spur, her brain flitters away.
I re-rode that part of the test until she calmed down, and I had to do the same to the last extended trot before the final pi-pa centerline. Maybe it has nothing to do with the spur and is more about the test itself? Not sure, and Ella’s not telling just yet.
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At any rate, she was awfully good yesterday, made it through everything, and the stuff that she stayed cool about felt great. I actually liked her walk a lot yesterday, something I very rarely say—she has a HUGE overtrack with bad natural rhythm, and gets lateral quite easily. It’ll never be a 10, but yesterday she maintained as good a clarity as I can get, so yay for that.
Last, but certainly not least, my mom rode Cleo, and I taught her a little, a demo lesson. Cleo was, of course, awesome, but I was really thrilled with my mom, who’s not the bravest in a crowd. She stayed way cool, rode well, and managed to breathe through it all. Go Mom!
The people who came out all seemed to really enjoy themselves, and hopefully they learned something, too. Or at least just enjoyed the chili. Up next, since I’m freaking out because I truly have not had any eyes on me since early January, Scott Hassler has managed to squeak me in for two lessons on Monday. I’ll be driving three hours each way, up and back, for two lessons, but I’m SO desperate for help that I leapt at the chance, and I’m grateful for him twisting his schedule for me. So Fender will take his first field trip, and Ella will go too.
And I’m 99 percent sure we have a rescheduled date for Lendon in March, right before our first recognized show, so I’ll at least get a few days of lessons before then. Of course, that weekend will be the biggest snowstorm yet, if you believe the Farmer’s Almanac. Great.
