jumping

throwback

Posted on September 22, 2017September 21, 2017 by abigailcossetteryan in Draft Cross, foxhunting, horse, horse crazy, horse training, horsemanship, liberty training, show jumpers, Uncategorized

I stumbled on some old pictures while looking for something else the other day. Oh Midas, memory lane! Before Midas, I rode and trained a cremello gaited large pony, and rode a retired show pony. Midas wasn’t the sole focus until 2013.

2011: Midas loved the Minstrel. Picked him out from afar and decided he was the nicest one of us. But…he still gave the Minstrel a plenty hard time. I wonder if he reminded Midas of whoever started him.

2012: This was the day I learned to bridge my reins. I’d heard of it before, even been taught what it was, but never before had I really learned to do it. It was also the day he took off with me. Down a hill. Bucking. In front of like forty other riders whose horses did not bolt. I did not fall off. I rode the rest of the ride without incident (though, not without r.i.d.i.n.g. every single step).

In his defense, this little looker was taking all my training focus.

2013:

From this picture, it’s hard to tell that this is very same summer Midas dumped the Ham three times the same day. I believe this is the same summer we started doing Clinton Anderson’s book.

He was a different horse in a halter in the saddle paddock. That’s always a good indicator there is much more going on than there appears.

2014: The year of Clinton Anderson’s Downunder Horsemanship. Ground work, liberty work, the one-rein stop, cruising, all finally starting to solidify and show real results. We also started jumping with all this new found partnership. Midas and I went to a dressage show. He bolted out of the ring and I jumped off (stopping him in the process) in our first test. In our second, we got a ribbon. Judge commended us for staying in the ring this time. I also start bringing random people to the barn and feeding them to Midas. I mean…teaching them some basic ground work and letting them ride him. As part of his training to be nice to humans, regardless of their skill level. This is a very difficult lesson which we are still working on.

2015:

The spring started with huge promise–we were cantering in the ring in a halter, Midas was happy, I was fairly fit. Midas was loving liberty work, and very good at it. We had a good outing working crowd control…and then I broke my foot (not at the barn) and I was sidelined for the summer. I rode vicariously through the Ham until fall, when I had to re-learn how to ride like a rider and not a hunt seat model. It was a rough set back.

2016: We got back on our feet, caught the groove again. Mostly. We train more seriously with jumping, having finally made jumps no big deal. I get myself dumped a little jumper show, and the Mice start to come riding again. Such a juxtaposition. Jumping 2.6 and crowhopping like a green OTTB off farm, patiently babysitting littles on farm.

Early spring.

Blue=clear round. Third place for third fastest clear round.

Turning into a babysitter

2017: I start pursuing riding bridleless with more deliberate steps. Who would have thought THIS picture would ever be possible:

Posted on November 25, 2016November 15, 2016 by abigailcossetteryan in Draft Cross, horse, horse crazy, horse training, horsemanship, show jumpers, Uncategorized

The Ham and Midas performing the same exercises I’ve been doing with Midas.

I originally thought that Midas bucking after fences was what caused his owner to fall off in the hunt field a few years ago. Now, after watching things unfold after I took a tumble at the jumper show, I think that the first fall was just because stuff happens. And I think that it freaked Midas out, and that is why he charges and bucks.

It’s like jumping becomes tearing off a band-aid–do it fast! And the buck is a precaution to stop the evil from landing on his withers.

It took a lot of schooling to be able to jump him reliably–he has athleticism in spades but expects the worst and his instincts tell him to believe he’s on his own. He’s a challenge to ride because you really do have to ride. But he’s so rewarding.

So we took all our practice at trotting combos like a pro and threw something really outside his comfort zone at him–new place, a course, and actual 2′ verticals which we really didn’t school over ever. At All. Prior to. My bad.

I’m pleased it took the verticals to cause him to revert 2 years back in training to believing the worst and that he’s on his own and he doesn’t know what to do. So he balked, rushed, and bucked. If I’d ridden better (the Great IF) and stayed on, we probably wouldn’t have this baggage about combinations.

Now he thinks “bad stuff happens when I jump, I KNEW IT” and I’m back to gently saying “No, it really doesn’t, don’t worry about it.”

First, stepping onto the grass where the jumps are got him all up and wired. Much walking onto the grass and walking of poles–under saddle, bareback, at liberty–now the grass isn’t a cue to panic.

Then we up the anti to trotting on the grass, trotting the poles and walking the half-built x rails. Also trotting the half built x-rails in hand (man, I need to wear running shoes to the barn).

I need him to sort out his own body–no rushing, take your time and do your thing. You got this. This is why I worked him in hand.

Then, in a riding lesson with my trainer, we incorporated trotting the poles, halting immediately after, then trotting the half built x-rails with a halt after.Repetition of this led to a horse willing to think about the poles, and think about the x-rails, and be ready and willing to halt immediately after.

We slowly added things: first the jump standards (one by one), then the other x-rail poles to finish it to a real x-rail. Each addition he reacted with less inclination to rush, but always he listened well. I should add that I hardly used my reins at all in this exercise–not even for halt. We’ve been working so hard on polishing up our leg and seat aids that I’m actually able to rely on them. Reins are finally relegated to their proper role as “just another aid” rather than “the aid we rely on most.”

So now we do a lot of this. A lot of “no really, you know how to use your feet, and I can ride it, you should listen to me, we’re a team.”

Then, then maybe we can add canter. Golly, what a thought. Rating the canter…we’ll get there.

Sport Horse Fan stuff

Posted on October 28, 2016October 25, 2016 by abigailcossetteryan in artist, Eventing, foxhunting, horse, Photography, Redbubble, show jumpers, Society 6, Uncategorized

If you have a tack shop, a coffee shop, a restaurant, a house, a tack room, a spare wall anywhere, I’ve got cool stuff for you to buy.

Some of my favorite shots are now up in my Redbubble shop, paying tribute to foxhunting and the fine sport of eventing.

What is it about fences?

Posted on October 7, 2016October 5, 2016 by abigailcossetteryan in horse, horse training, Uncategorized

Midas is a foxhunter. Though, he hasn’t gone much in the past 4 years. The hunt he typically goes out with isn’t really a break-neck crazy crew. They jump teeny logs at a run through the woods, sure, but if they come up to anything remotely serious they stop and going over one at a time in a pretty orderly fashion.

Midas is fully capable of jumping big fences from a trot.

But when we first started popping him over tiny jumps he charged them. Like, itsy bitsy x rails and he would launch at them from several strides away and hurl himself over, often bucking on the other side. I noticed that he often bucked after hopping logs, too.

It could just be exuberance.

We spent two summers casually sneaking in work over small jumps, endeavoring to teach Midas that jumps are casual affairs. No charging necessary or desired. Last year the fruits of that labor really started to show, we could randomly and casually take a little bounce that was set up in a corner of the ring. Midas would ride up like a gentleman, own the bounce in style, and canter out slowly. He was happy, we were happy.

Progress.

Well, then we upped the anti–maybe too much?–with that little jumper show. We schooled pretty hard for it in the few days beforehand, and then had a very exciting little show. In which Midas owned the trotted x rails with only a little nervous rushing, and then we had a disaster on the 2′ fences, and then we came back and jumped individual fences quietly, but didn’t even remotely mess with doing a course.

Now, in the midst of prep for the show my trainer asked me to pick up canter with the intent to canter jump. Midas did something he hasn’t done at home with me–ever–and gave a genuine buck and took off. He didn’t get far, I stopped him, and then we had a nice obedient canter depart and left cantering fences for a different day.

By the end of the lesson he was being a serious champ about trotting whatever combination I asked of him. Even some with tricky steering.

So, at the show, he kind of ducked and crow hopped after almost every 2′ fence. Except fence 4, which according to the trainer there was an inviting fence–and fence 5, which was the first of a simple line that had three canter strides between 5 and 6. Well, shame on me, I didn’t sit up enough for those canter strides, got jumped out of the tack on 6 and this time fell off when he did his duck and crow hop routine.

Then we had digging out to do in the warm up, and it didn’t occur to me until too late today that Midas hasn’t jumped a combination since then. I’ve been traveling, we’ve had visitors, and I felt like I had a bit of sweeping up to do to remind him of all the things that haven’t changed.

The Ham was riding Midas today–the Ham is 17, and has been riding with me for 6 years, much of that time on Midas. He went to pop over the teeny tiny x rail in and out. Shouldn’t have been a big deal. Two months ago I don’t think it would have been a big deal. Might be wrong, but…

The ride, up until the moment he pointed Midas at the combination, had been exceptionally quiet and easy going. But Midas launched himself at the first x rail and then lurched sideways–running out from the second fence and making for the gate.

The Ham rode the run-out fine, but the saddle slipped onto Midas’s side and the poor Ham was dumped roughly on his back.

Midas stopped a few feet away and stood like a statue. He didn’t move a muscle and starred at the Ham as the poor guy struggled to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him. Once the Ham was on his feet again I went to Midas, who continued to stand so still that I was afraid he was hurt. I checked him over. Nothing that I could see.

I fixed the saddle, tightened the girth, led him to the mounting block and got on. He felt sound but hesitant. Like he expected something bad to happen. We did some transitions up and down, he wasn’t wound up, but rather hesitant and almost nervous.

We went to grassy area with the teensy x rails and walked around them. He was nervous again–now Midas’s nerves do not mean skittishness and shying generally, Midas nerves mean head up and charging. We walked over the tiny jumps, threw in some trot transitions. Each time he would seize up and get tense, and I’d have him walk again. I had the Ham put the tiny x rails down to poles and we walked and trotted over those both ways, then he put one up to an x rail and we walked and trotted that a couple times.

Midas would start to tense, then listen when I soothed him. He trotted the solitary x rail reasonably, even if he needed to be ridden up to the base as if it were a big scary jump.

Then the Ham got back on, good man, and basically started the whole procedure over again from scratch. They didn’t get to popping over the one jump, but they started from a more nervous place and ended relaxed. Mostly relaxed, anyway.

So what is it?

I’ve noticed that when there is a fall, Midas gets freaky about what he was doing when the fall happened. Never mind that he’s usually a contributing factor to the fall, but he gets squirrely about doing that thing again.

It’s like his thought process is “Nope, last time I jumped two in a row someone fell off and it was scary and I got in trouble so I am NOT jumping two in a row.” or “Last time I cantered a jump it didn’t go well, not happening.”

Susu, our trainer, with whom we only get to ride a few times a year, says that he doesn’t have any tools in his toolbox to deal with jumping. He’s got athletic ability, and has relied on that to survive.

This would explain the charging.

I know that I don’t have a lot of experience cantering fences (neither does the Ham). I was never stellar at seeing distances, and only cantered courses a handful of times in my high school days (yay for the constraints of a 20 x 40 dirt arena in the north). There just hasn’t been opportunity since. I know that I don’t necessarily ride him as strongly as he might want or need when there are two fences in a row. So there is that.

This would explain the abashed behavior when people fall off. He always seems so surprised when he loses a rider.

If Monty Roberts is right about the wiring of horses, I need to approach this the same way I would approach a person who had something scary happen. Keeping at it in as low pressure of a fashion with as much support as he needs to not panic and figure out that he can, in fact, handle it.