Saturday was the second clinic date with Marc, this time focusing on Speed and Accuracy. I had accidentally double booked myself for Aug 1 but then one of the events (a 30 mile endurance ride) got cancelled. Boo... but I didn't have to choose at least.
I splurged on myself and got some purple cross country Majyk Equipe boots for Gwyn
Happy ears
For this session, we started with just the gallop and being able to regulate the power, influence and balance by shifting our own body in our rider positions (gallop, balance, three point, two point and landing). Usually I consider myself relatively fit but THIS was kicking my butt, literally and figuratively! So I've dug out my Rider Fitness book and I'm gonna buckle down with that. Remembering that I was really riding on my toes last time, between the two clinics and at this clinic, I really pushed myself to sink into my heels when I was starting to feel insecure. It definitely helped. I did not have any of the tipping issues over jumps that I did last time! So progress there!
This face tho... (Bend your GD elbows...) PC: Stephani
The big thing that we focused on was using our body and seat to signal to the horse. So the lower you go, like a jockey, the more stretch and reach you want from your horse while they maintain the same rhythm with better efficiency but while covering more ground. So we practiced galloping around, with the image of our chest touching our pommel and then rising upright to shorten the stride and act as a signal to balance and focus on the line. It was very core intensive!
He talked about how you watch 2 and 3 star horses who don't seem to change their rhythm on the xcountry course, but you can see the stride change coming into and out of a jump. For a lot of this I was really recalling my time as a jump judge at WEG and it was pulling memories up confirming what Marc was describing.
Her pointed nose of concentration... 😆 PC: Stephani
I have a conundrum with Gwyn. When she's fresh and ready to gallop, she doesn't offer a lot of steering control, especially if she's magnetized toward other horses or the trailers, etc. And we had a lot of runaway moments, always to the right, where I'd have her nose at my left knee and she was still moving sideways right in the canter. Damn Goober Mare is too flexible. And at one point, she had locked onto a bank complex instead of making a turn toward a steeplechase brush fence. Marc laughed at that and said "She's learning, but she still needs to listen to you." When she started to get tired she was much more willing to rate and steer at the canter. So now I need to figure out how to merge the stamina of fresh Gwyn to the control of tired Gwyn.
Marc really insisted that in those moments I turn her the direction I intended, otherwise she's learning the wrong thing. Yeah, guilty. I'll accept that. Again, I think I need to go recreate those moments and see what I can do in the moment to fix things. I don't think I had all the tools I could have used ( I didn't carry a bat this time or spurs) but I do want to fix it.
And I have to say, even with the corrections he demanded, I never felt bad, instead, I felt empowered. He's an amazing clinician and so supportive of the riders. He was fair and wanted you to ride correctly and improve. He was never mean or bullying.
Once we'd strung together a couple lines, especially working on letting the horse take simpler questions out of a gallop stride where our position didn't change because we were already ready for the jump being in gallop position, we moved on to accuracy.
For this, Marc set up three jump blocks as a skinny jump. Something low but that had challenge in the narrowness of it. We went over it as three, then he removed it, we went over it as two and then down to one block. The goal was to teach the horse to lock on and treat any object you present as a jump, and he described how if you really drilled it, you could get your horse to jump a traffic cone. That's serious goals!
If the horse didn't quite make it over the blocks, we had to immediately halt and back up to put the horse back on the line. No circling around. Back up. It was as much to teach the horse that, no, I want you to try again with a different answer. Gwyn was the most proficient at backing up of the three mares there 😂 And honestly... was straighter backing up than going forward, a fact that Marc joked about.
... and even succeeded a few times with the single! PC: Stephani
We eventually strung all three skinnies together in an S bending line. It was super challenging but SUPER fun and I want to recreate it at home! I think this is an exercise that could really help us.
Simplified diagram by me
Marc used imagery like keeping the horse on a railroad line made from your legs. What I learned from this is that Gwyn is VERY wiggly between my legs. This was tough!
There was a moment where we made it over the first and she turned and locked onto the second and then we turned again and locked onto the short barrel brush and sliced through it like a dream. It was like I was a teen in pony club again with Clyde where we were fearless and he took care of me over any jump I pointed him at. Everything felt perfect and EVERYONE cheered, even Marc. It was perfect and with all of our steering struggles, we nailed it. Just.... nailed it. I am still riding that high today!
The final skinny was a short barrel top with brush. We sliced this one to avoid the harder one that was in a line right after PC: Stephani
The resting period while we all tackled this gymnastics exercise was enough for Gwyn to recover from her long bouts of galloping and when we strung a longer course together with the gymnastics, her steering went wonky again (and Goober Mare was very much present and wanting to GO)
I had half a mind to take her on some trails because we'd only been riding 90 minutes and only done 4.5 miles of work... she was fit to keep going. She keeps reminding me that she's more fit than I credit her for. And by that, I mean, she took off on me in the moment between her bridle coming off and me getting her halter on. The Shadowood crew helped me catch her and since I still had my helmet on, I tied the leadrope back onto her halter and hopped back on to ride back to the trailers. Of course she was steerable in the halter and leadrope 😒 😆
She got a bath at the newly installed washracks by trailer parking and then I made her hydrate by dumping some timothy cubes in a bucket of water.
Mom, dis bag here has the good stuff. Imma bite it.
All in all, it was a fantastic clinic.
Quick notes for myself:
Shorter stirrups for jumping, this also emphasized after a timely Denny Emerson post on similar topics. My lower leg swings back too much. So shorter stirrups it is
Better fitness for myself to be able to hold an effective rider position in the canter/gallop
Straightness straightness straightness!
Correct in the moment and BACK UP if necessary to reset the horse on the line immediately
Tiny jumps in all the ways to work on accuracy!
Pre and post-electrolyting with powerade/gatorade before the clinic really helped this human. Use that strategy going forward for endurance rides and shows. I did not finish with a sun headache like last time
Before I left for GenCon in Indianapolis last Thursday, I had set up a time for my old Livejournal acquaintance/friend J to come out and give Gwyn a massage.
The mare herd. The paint filly has taken a liking to me and Gwyn
Odd cuts on her mouth. I wonder if it's something she's eating in the pasture?
We accidentally got the puppy stuck. The kids ran wild while Gwyn got her massage
Bodyworker's notes included:
overall body condition is good yay!
Tenderness in hamstrings and low back
pelvis was pulled forward into her low back on her right side, stood in a hollow pelvic posture
left shoulders and base of neck were adhesed
poll locked up, more on the left
good lumbar sacral range of motion
good limb flexibility after massage
Follow up:
benefit from hamstring stretches after exercise, drawing hind legs forward under her body
stretching the shoulder forward adn back will help maintain suppleness
She was starting to fall asleep. I think it was feeling good.
Her shoulders were uneven. She's showing me how to do stretches.
Containing Hazel helped by the end.
My friend came out with her daughter for a pony ride. Everyone took a turn and Gwyn was foot perfect, even with giant dump trucks driving in and out of the property. They belonged to a dairy farm in Monroe and they lease one of the far fields and were amending the soil to prepare for winter wheat planting.
In stark contrast to previous times she's been put up on Gwyn, Hazel was thrilled to ride Gwyn, and wasn't scared. Now she wants to ride more. I'm plotting already.
Friend's child
Then I had a lesson the next week with Cortney and Jim. Cortney brought her 'baby' Reign. I worked on applying the stretch to really establishing Gwyn being in contact and not throwing it away or holding it too tightly. Apparently I went too far in the opposite direction from no contact to too much.
Gwyn is dubious, I just got off but the lesson wasn't over...
Demonstrating how it's done.
Sunset in Fall City
I can do it too right after Jim rides her.
Gwyn proceeded to be an absolute ass loading onto the trailer and Cortney and I had to chase her around before finally being able to catch her and load her up. Of course once she decided to load, she was fine. This ultimately was a foreboding incident.
I also got new toys.
Over the weekend I was determined to get out and ride. Between a DnD session that I was running being planned at the last minute, to Eric working an extra day on Sunday, I wasn't sure how I would fit it in, but Eric got back early enough that I thought I could fit in a short, local trail ride at Lord Hill.
Goober knows she's in deep shit.
I decided to load in the resting pasture since it would be fully contained. Unfortunately, it's also several acres in size and Gwyn has... become herdbound and is NOT food motivated. She got away from me twice before I even asked her to load, so she's also starting to anticipate my efforts to mitigate her previous running away attempts by twisting and pulling the leadline out of my hands.
I am not happy with her. I need to get gloves. Or a fucking chain over her nose. Either way, she was cantering and trotting across the pasture for between 45-60 minutes. Then once I caught her for good I lunged her ass from the bottom of the field up to the trailer, tied her to the trailer and got my lunge line set for loading and she walked on with no fuss. She arrived sweaty. And then I made her fucking work on those trails. I had no sympathy.
Cars aren't supposed to use this lot. It's got the easiest entry to the park because horses so the humans use it even though they have a dedicated path that just happens to have more elevation change.
It was nice and cool in the forest. There were surprisingly few bugs and no mosquitoes. It has been pretty dry, though I did see some spots of marshy water.
The light had that beautiful, end of summer, evening golden look to it. It was hard to capture on film.
I didn't bring a whip or crop since I wanted Gwyn to walk all the hills and not power up them through the magic of momentum. She was tired and not at all motivated to move forward.
She did seem to move well with the scoot boots on though, which bodes well! This trail is not barefoot friendly.
There was one other rider who left right before I did. I only saw her at the very end. We ended our ride at the same time. No drama getting on to go home. We'll see if the lesson was learned. I was not about to lose that fight of stubbornness.
Also, her dam's influence shone through on this ride. When she was going away from the trailer she minced her way downhill in the scoot boots and I thought for sure something was wrong and the boots were rubbing or something. But once she realized that we were heading back toward the parking lot, she moved out and power walked up and down hills with no issue. Stella used to do the same thing. She'd gimp her way away from home and the moment we would turn around, the head bob would be gone.
I checked her feet all over at the end. No rubs after 4.5 miles. We walked, trotted and cantered. We'll see how it holds up to longer distances. I'm already planning an outing with Cortney on Saturday. Lake Washington Saddle Club has a Wine Prize ride and we are going!
Gwyn says it wasn't fair. I say if we want to move up to 50s, or even just do LDs out here in the PNW, she needs to get over it.
