Lancey Dancing

 First, thank you all for the concern over Magic 💜 He is hanging in there and being the best patient, as always. God's will prevails 💜

Thunder's leg also finally felt a lot better to me last night, and is even better this morning. It's a difficult place to ice, but I think I've gotten the hang of it now. Of course, the big guy is also being a super patient. He had a little run around in the field last night before he came in, but that was right before the leg felt a lot better, so it might actually have been just the thing to shake off the last of the edema. It's not hot anymore, at any rate.

On to the actual riding this week. Despite the disgusting weather (August arrived with a vengeance) and all the other chaos, Lancey and I did fit in some training. I didn't get to him Monday (deadline) or Tuesday (taking Magic to hosital) so I was a little worried that I might have a f e i s t y Arab on my hands for Wednesday's lesson, a fear that turned out to be entirely unfounded.

This was the first lesson ever where Coach J started out by asking what we were working on. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as normally Coach is not particularly interested in my opinions and works on what he sees. I told him about our super awful score in test 5 at the show in June (I totally disregard the 51% for test 6 because lil dude was spooking so much) and that he was obedient and put in a clean test but was kinda hollow throughout. Coach first gave me a little bit of a pep talk and said not to put too much stock in the scores at a single show. "One show isn't a pattern," he said. "Three shows is a pattern. Not three tests - three shows." I felt a bit better after that. To be fair, this was our first proper dressage show together and his first one ever, so I can cut us a little bit slack.

the stuff this poor coach puts up with

Then we got to work, and Coach, as he does, immediately identified the issue. Lancey was being obedient and doing his transitions like a good boy, but he wasn't truly forward off my leg. I was pretty surprised to hear this because he feels forward and responsive compared to Thunder (and honestly most of the Friesians), right up until Coach said, "OK, now do a medium" and we did a medium and he then said "Right! This isn't your medium trot. This is your working trot." My mind blew a little bit.

Turns out that just because Lancey feels so petite to me, compared to the Friesians and Thunder, I've been riding him like he's a pony and has pony gaits. "You've been playing too much My Little Pony," said Coach, possibly in reference to the giant hearts on my horse's butt, causing my manbeast to snort in amusement. Lancey actually has HUGE gaits when I actually ask him for them, and as soon as I pushed him up into my hand and got him really flowing forward, he rewarded me with the most balanced, powerful trot I've ever gotten from him. I've been trying to balance him by slowing him down in the front, when I should have been pushing him up from behind. (Amazing how applying, you know, the basic dressage principles makes your horse... more dressagey).

Coach's actual words: "You know this, woman!"

The weird thing is that I do ride most of my horses really up in front of my leg, except Lancey. Like I say, I think somehow I just expected him to have tiny gaits. But when I really started getting that big trot... wow. He felt amazing. Best of all, my aids felt like they were actually going through him. I could bend him, put his bum out, put his shoulder in, send him forward, bring him back - he wasn't blocking me through his neck the way he so often does, because he was over his back and into my hands. He also gave me a great feeling in the connection; not curling and soft, but no longer pulling and setting his jaw and constantly grinding his teeth, either.

I had a lot more trouble applying this in the canter, but his canter is naturally his best gait, so we still did some good work there before Coach called it a day. Watching the video, I am SO happy with how he looked by the end. He was pushing forward, using his back, lifting his neck, and not curling up at all, but he also wasn't hollowing every 10 seconds.

Our homework is simply to ride him forward - borderline running, at first; we'll regain the rhythm and balance once he is truly obedient off my leg - throughout all of the normal exercises we always do. Shoulder-in, but in something that feels like medium trot to me. Canter-walk-canter, but covering much more ground in the canter. An exercise we did a lot during the lesson that I really liked was just to trot in shoulder-fore on a 20m circle, then straighten for a circle, then shoulder-fore again for a circle. It reiterated to him that my leg always means something, that he needs to balance and not just run forward when I'm asking him to go more forward, and it will build up to doing better shoulder-in since that's where he always wants to block me and hollow or curl up and lose his hindlegs.

I was unhappy with my position on the video, as well. I'm not sure why, but I was reaaaally wanting to go back into my chair seat. I lost my lower leg a lot in the trot. I think perhaps this comes from the amount of tension I was carrying in my arms - elbows lifted and wrists cocked - which is from my anxiety that he's going to hollow. Riding him more forward will help me to relax my elbows and fix my hands, and I hope this will help for the rising trot. The canter looked OK, which is nice because historically I have been really bad at sitting up on his canter. I think my old Wintec's tiny knee rolls also don't help when I'm very used to sitting deeply in the new Wintec Hart and Bates Isabell that the Friesians wear.

He was also supremely well-behaved to load, wait in a stable, and ride, despite the howling wind and cold. He is becoming such a solid little citizen for everything 💜

Coach clearly didn't think that the penny had actually dropped during the lesson, because he called me later that evening with "Did you understand what we did in your lesson???" just to be sure. It was nice to talk over it and just hear it reiterated, so I was very grateful for that.

Thursday the wind was really awful, about 9m/s, but the kids came to ride anyway and my tiniest tot wanted to go out on Flash unexpectedly so I threw Lancey's bridle on and scrambled on board. It kinda blows my mind that I wouldn't even canter him outside the arena a year ago, and now I go on bareback outrides in the screeching wind. Definitely something to celebrate. He was perfect, of course, except for one hairy moment when Blizzy came exploding out of the woods behind us. Flash noped right the heck outta there with the poor kiddo clinging on for dear life, and I, acutely aware of exactly how round and slippery Lancey is, bailed off before Lancey could move. He only cantered a step forward and then stared at me with big eyes, like, "oh no mom did you fall off??" No buddy, mom's just a ninny. The kiddo got Flash reeled in very quickly, I found a bank and scrambled back on Lancey, and we went happily on our way.

Wild as Thursday was, yesterday was one of the most miserable days weather-wise that I have ever seen. The wind was even stronger, blowing our poor little Pekin bantams across their pen, and it was overcast and unbelievably cold. Some of the crazier riding school kids showed up for lessons and clung to their plunging, snorting ponies for dear life while I shouted over the wind, which was miserable, but I appreciated their commitment.

It was so windy that just getting Lancey's tack on was a challenge. His quarter sheet and numnah kept blowing off while I was trying to put the saddle on. He was angelic for all this, even when the quarter sheet was snapping deafeningly around his legs, and I tried to ride for about 15 minutes. The wind was gusting so hard that the jumps had all blown over, and of course Mr. Araby McArabface had to snort at those a bit (standing in place - the dude has the quietest spook ever, thank you Lancey). He also didn't like the gusts of dust sandblasting his poor feet at times, and his quarter sheet kept blowing up over my back, which, to his credit, he didn't seem to mind at all.

He did express some distaste for my new ideas about moving forward into the contact by throwing a couple of his giant bucks, but I stuck on and booted him, and he quickly abandoned that idea and settled down for some really good trot and canter work on a 20m circle (if we tried to go in straight lines we would inevitably end up with his bum to the wind and the quarter sheet threatening to go over my head). I experimented with a couple of canter-walk from this bigger, more engaged canter, and they were actually a lot better. It's almost like basic dressage principles improve the moments, go figure.

Erin and I were going to do a long ride with our neighbors on the other side today, but various circumstances intervened, and it is yet another freezing and blustery day so Lancey earned a pyjama day in the field. I'm looking forward to all the rain that this wind must be bringing us.

I am so so grateful to have this wonderful little horse that I trust so much. God really does know what we need long before we do 💜 It sucks not to have Thunder in work right now, but it was really nice to spend extra time on my Lancelot.

God is good.