Sigh... Dude... dressage is hard! And Dan drives me batty but I love him.
Freddie came this morning. And Dan made snarky faces at him. He really doesn't seem to like Freddie, which makes no sense as Freddie is very fair to him. But he was extra today. Freddie even asked if he was in a bad mood. I said "he's always like this" but then Dan was snuggling with me. Like... nuzzling on my jacket and my cheek. Weirdo. He rarely does that. So nope, definitely not in a bad mood. Anyways, after that we checked the weather and it said only 11% chance of rain til this evening so I checked in with Rana and she said to come and get a lesson at 2:30.
Yet... when I started to load up around 12:45, so I could get there early and warm him up and get gas, it was looking like it might pour. Stupid weather channel. And sure enough, it rained on us on the way there and was sprinkling to lightly raining when we got there. But we manned up did it. We rode... in the rain.... in the arena with "obstacles". We powered through and did our dressage. And it was not pretty. It was not a fun ride, nor a pretty ride, or even an effective ride from the riding part. But it was educational.
I had told Rana about our ride the other day so she watched us go. And basically she said that he's just not through and using it to his advantage. She said that he is getting straight and bracing and using his underneck. And it's subtle enough that it's not obvious and he can kind of cheat, but it makes it really hard for him to do the things. And then he can't respond to my aids appropriately so I get frustrated because I think I'm doing the right things and he's not doing what I'm asking him to do. She basically said I'm not doing anything wrong. This is him. Well great... I can fix me... how do I fix him? So we spent the lesson working on getting him to go into the left rein. It was riding outside leg to inside rein. When I'm cantering to the left, he is faking the connection. He's not truly in my outside rein and he's definitely not anywhere near connected to the inside rein. And he's falling to the outside, so when I touch him with my outside leg to straighten him or move him off the right side and get him back to the center, he props and falls apart. And I can just barely breathe on him on the right side and it's an excuse. So she had me almost overbend him to the left, hold that inside rein, and really ride outside leg to inside rein. I was pretty much riding haunches in or half pass the entire time. And STILL he was wanting to drift right. But when I had him overbent, he couldn't use his underneck because he can't do that unless he's straight, so... he was able to move off my leg without propping. So yeah. Then going to the right, it's not as obvious but he still isn't really in the connection, especially on the left rein. So basically, I'm supposed to ride him haunches in both ways, and ride outside leg to inside rein, and keep him bent and through. That is the utmost importance for the moment. And that helps me stop over using my inside (especially my right) leg. So then she got the draw reins and put them on him. She explained that she HATES them... and that they are horrible in the wrong hands and used for the wrong purposes. But she also said that... basically, I need help. Dan is too smart and too big and too strong and too sneaky that it will behoove me to use these for a bit. It just gives me an extra tool so that Dan is fighting against himself instead of against me, and making me sore and tired.
Which... is depressing. I mean... I hate gadgets.. I hate that I have to resort to them. I hate using them cause it's an extra rein to have to deal with. I'm depressed that I've created this big hole in my horse's training... and it's just... sad. But, I'm hoping that I can just use this crutch for a tiny little bit, get some muscle memory for us both and some strength for us both and then go back to not using it. So we'll see.
So, a helpful lesson, but a depressing one. Although the exciting part is that when he's through and really using his back, he feels really good. And I'm pretty sure that we got a lovely clean change (on accident) when he was through. So.. .maybe we'll just have to embrace the suck for a moment and fight through this battle and then we'll come out wiser and stronger and prettier on the other side.
And then... I was feeling all defeated and untacked him and put my saddle away and saw this. I do love this freakin' goober!
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