The latest hive theory didn't work

From the last post, instead of 1 orchard grass, we did dinner as 2 alfalfa and 1 local.
Didn't work.
The hives are an unusual pattern (mostly hive-free on his side (ribs) and only small ones on his butt and belly, but his neck is pretty hivey), but I was hoping for the miracle from a week ago where they were almost completely gone for two days.
If they're still bad Saturday, I'm going to switch him to:
am: 1 alfalfa
lunch: 1 orchard
pm: 2 alfalfa, 1 orchard

And see if it is the local (doubt it).

I also ordered Equi-Derm from Riva's Remedies, which I had forgotten we tried last time; I gave him an extra wormer tonight (Ivermectin; he got Anthelicide EQ last week when the farrier was out); and I ordered him some Strongid feed through wormer in case somehow this is coming from worms.

I also emailed Dr. Mansmann at NCSU, who got his PhD in horse allergies, and he asked some questions and I passed along Dr. Mike's contact information.
Beyond that? I have nothing.

Also, tonight I couldn't ride because of the wither hives, so Willig got lunged and it was either the cold or the alfalfa or the combination, but he got the crazies a couple of times. He's in his space suit blanket for this week, with nights below 30 and the days barely above 40.

More about the hives

Willig's hay until Friday the 26th:
am: 1 alfalfa
lunch: 1 local
pm: 3 orchard grass
This variation, we know, causes hives with the "winter" purchase (maybe the 1st cutting from the year??).

Willig's hay on Friday and Saturday:
am: same
lunch: same
pm: 1 alfalfa and 2 orchard grass
This variation made the hives noticeably decrease by Saturday afternoon. (So Friday night's meal alone made a huge difference.)

Willig's hay on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday:
am: same
lunch: same
pm: 1 alfalfa and 2 timothy
This variation made him break out in fresh hives. Yesterday (Monday) there were some huge ones, and a lot of new ones. Today there were a lot more, but not as many huge ones.

So I am going to try for the rest of the week (Wed, Thurs, Fri):
am: same
lunch: same
pm: 2 alfalfa and 1 orchard grass
And cross my fingers that this combination, combined with the Platinum, can keep him hive free until the barn works through the big load.

What I don't get is that the timothy works for the other horse with exactly the same problem (she clears up within 2 days), and the feed store thought that horses with allergies were more allergic to alfalfa and less allergic to timothy because it has fewer minerals in it.
Willig seems to be more allergic to timothy, then orchard, then alfalfa.

The poor guy seemed a little depressed today, and itchy too. He kept his tail in the air a lot, which isn't like him either. I also suspect it's making him "itchy" on the inside, because he seems to get smegma faster, like maybe it's like the people who are allergic to wheat and their intestines act up? (His poop looks fine.)
Have I mentioned I'm frustrated? Why isn't there anything about this on the internet?

My mom's photography

She took 24 pictures and a few videos. There was one decent picture and a whole lot of hilarious ones.

Hives!

Argh! Two years ago, when Willig moved up here from California, he got hives that we couldn't get rid of. If you look back at the blog, I spent all kinds of $$ on the vet and drugs and trying various things, none of which worked.
I moved him and put him on Platinum Skin & Allergy at the same time, and they instantly went away and didn't come back until about a month ago.
My vet had heard of one other horse that had something similar, and that's why he recommended the Skin & Allergy. Willig's blood work for allergies showed almost nothing.
So I was delighted to hear that another horse at the barn had hives, that she got them last year, and that they instantly went away when she switched from the barn hay (a great orchard grass) to timothy from one certain place.
In anticipation of the big switch, on Friday Willig's dinner went from 3 flakes of orchard grass to 2 flakes of orchard and 1 alfalfa.
Saturday, the hives were noticeably reduced.
Sunday, he got his new hay, so he is getting 1 alfalfa and 2 timothy.
Today, Monday, full hives again - new big ones. Not ridiculous, but nothing like Saturday's big difference.
Argh. Argh. Argh.
If ANYONE has heard anything about this, please let me know. I am going crazy. I am going to give him two more days on this timothy, and then try a different timothy. Then we will switch back to the orchard grass and alfalfa. Then I will tear my hair out.
The photos are of Thursday hives (bottom picture) and Saturday hives (top picture).

Jim Wofford's Recommended Reading List

From the 09/09 Practical Horseman:
Francois Robichon de la Gueriniere
Gustav Steinbrecht
Federico Caprilli
Wilhelm Museler
Brig. Gen. Harry D. Chamberlin
Bertalan de Nemethy
Jack LeGoff
George Morris

Another wowza lesson with Mike

Despite my growing anxiety about a big deal thing for work tomorrow, it turns out lessons with Mike have been one of the best ways to calm down. I completely focus on what he is saying, and the 45 minutes just flies by without me thinking about work once. I usually go back and tackle it with more gusto after the lesson is over - AND I don't spend that day feeling guilty for not riding. My office should pay me to ride - I bet I'd be more productive (and I know I'd be happier!).
Anyway, today we worked:
- Scary end of the arena (one head bob, then not a big deal at all)
- HEELS DOWN (Mike called my heels lazy. I agree with him. I am amazed at how much concerted effort it takes for me to "relax" my heels. The second, literally, I stop thinking about them, they spring back up.)
- A big trot, with a bounce in it. I have already forgotten the word for this. It is the moment he lifts up (like skipping, instead of shuffling) and I feel the float. It turns out he is quite capable of moving quite nicely - I just haven't been making him do it.
- And then some work at the sitting trot and canter without stirrups. We did me looking up, me adjusting my seat (on the pubic bone, on the tail bone, and then balancing in between), and holding on. We also worked on the transitions - turns out that when he does something that surprises me (this is wildly obvious in sitting trot with no stirrups) I clamp my thigh, he thinks "Cougar on my back!" and then his head sproings up and he tries to bolt. If I hang on and feel it coming and force my body to relax, he is able to use his hind legs for the down transition and come underneath himself.
- We also worked on how to change the whip from one hand to the other (kind of like the canoe paddle), which I had no idea how to do, and I'm going to venture, this is going to be one of the embarrassingly hard things for me to do.
Willig was great - yet again.
Still got hives though.

Jumping photos

T came out and took some pics of us jumping little stuff today.
My heels aren't down enough, I still jump ahead, and Willig hangs his left knee a little. But it felt pretty good compared to the past, and Willig was sweet and calm about it, even though he had half an eye on the poodle's house (it was foggy, and he seemed to expect the poodle to come out of the mist).

Theme of last lessons: Lower leg

I am woefully behind in my Willig news and my lesson reports, which as it turns out, makes it very difficult for me to remember my take away messages from the lessons.
First, the barn news. Willig has had a few spotted hives on two or three occassions now. Oddly, they seem to go away when I ride, and they don't seem to bother him, but they're bothering me as an ominous sign they might be coming back. He also seems to have, if he has a couple of days off from riding, puffy lower legs. Odd.
He has continued to rub his tail, and I've just about exhausted the things to try (MTG, that sweet itch spray stuff, betadine soaking, iodine shampoo, regular shampoo, lotion, panacur powerpac, and now baby shampoo followed by aloe). Today, however, I cleaned his sheath - something I was trying to wait on until I was going to bathe him to clip him (next weekend, probably, and in phases - just not enough hours in the week), but he was actually quite dirty for him. Three beans and a lot of smegma. So if that doesn't clear up the tail itching, then I'm going to have to call the vet.
Second, my last two lessons. Last week I had a great jump lesson with Shannon and a great time watching Mike ride Willig again, and then a half a lesson. Although I remember the Mike lesson as magical, by the next day I had completely forgotten how to do everything he told me (which was getting Willig to lift up into the canter instead of stumble and run into it). This was an unusual amount of forgetting, but I'm trying to take a lot more lessons for the next six months, so we "fixed" it this week. My jump lesson with Shannon was outside, and we continued to work on my lower leg (that dirty stinking moving lower leg), and we took my stirrups up another hole (we actually had to twist them and then I punched a hole after). They are SHORT. And therefore, I feel solid. Willig did great.
Finally, this week's lesson with Mike. Mike helped by giving me the take aways at the end:
1. Work on my lower leg. I hate my lower leg.
2. Work on my following hip. I also hate my stiff, rigid hip. (This is work without stirrups, holding on to the pommel with one hand, and thinking about relaxing my legs and pushing them down and back, while thinking about a headlight on my belt and the bouncing, moving ball.)
3. Work on my half halts (first, though, a forward aid, which I'm also working on - a flutter for an aid instead of the long, steady squeeze where I raise my heel), so I think of Willig rearing, or popping a wheelie on a bike. This is especially easy to work on in canter.
4. Work on Willig's bend/counterbend. In circles, on the straight line, the backward bend, serpentines, and doing a little bit of a side pass (?) coming down the long side. Turns out I'm heavy on my right hand and leg. Coincidence with how Willig "leans" to the left?
Mike also pointed out that Willig has a really good walk (when he is, ahem, moving forward) and that he has been quite sweet about all this "new" stuff.
Until today, when he tried to spook at something (I have no idea what), but thanks to my rotten lower leg (that is a better lower leg than it was a few months ago), which meant I didn't tilt, which meant I kept my rein aids, which meant I was yanking his head to the left as he was trying to buck, which meant the whole thing was over with almost immediately after it started. Nice.
Mike also said it usually takes about a year of work to move up one level, depending on the horse's and the rider's "disabilities". My lower leg is perhaps what he had in mind.
Seriously though, there are two lower leg positions - my jumping position and my dressage position. Dressage is this standing position, where I think from my hip to push my leg back and back and back. What I haven't been doing, it turns out, is straightening my knee (that's how I think of it), so my lower leg comes forward while my thigh is going back. Thinking to straighten my knee makes the whole leg in the right place. My heel always wants to be up and my toe always wants to point out, AND I grip like I'll fly into space if I don't grip with my upper thigh. So one of the many, many checklists in my head is from my hip all the way down to my heel now.
Jumping, on the other hand, is a feeling of pushing my leg out in front of me (and my butt back over the saddle for the "hinge" to close and the position to be solid). Oddly, though, the pushing in front is the same feeling from the knee down - a flattening/straightening of the knee, and that relaxed but pushing down to get the solid heel down feeling. I can only get it if I think "relax."
Willig has been doing great. Today I noticed some floppy ears for me while we were working. I think he actually prefers to work most days of the week (like 6) although he has been working so hard that I've had a couple days when he's so tired I end up giving him the next day off.

NY Times on Horse Prices

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/business/businessspecial3/29HORSE.html?_r=2&em

Mike riding Willig is an amazing sight

For my lesson this week, I wanted Mike's input on Willig, now that I've had Shannon and John ride him. This ride went a bit differently.
I had Willig warmed up in the indoor arena, Mike watched us do a few laps, and then he got on.
Willig had the prettiest round neck and the floppiest ears. The only times his ears went "radar" was when he looked back to see what Mike wanted. Mike's take away (or my take away, at least) was that Willig is uneducated, but trying.
What I describe as being stiff on the left is actually falling into his left shoulder - so much that when his head is crooked, that's what it is.
The rest of it was so far above my level, that it was inspiring to see Willig move like that, but also kind of depressing to realize that I will never, ever ride that well and I will never be able to make Willig look like that. It's like a waste of Willig's time to have me crashing around up there, legs flopping, hands zigging and zagging, seat pounding around.
Even if I took lessons every day for the rest of my life, I don't think I could look that good.
That being said, I got on, and Mike showed me (he is just so good at describing things!) what's been wrong with my jump seat since oh, I started riding. It's the same as the lower leg.
My lower leg has actually gotten good at the walk (and the canter, I felt it the next time I rode) but it still needs a lot of work at trot.
And I need to keep working on everything else.
I asked Mike what he thought about my approach, and he was realistic - the more time I can spend in lessons and on training, the faster Willig will progress, but there's a time and budget limit. Once a week just means we'll progress slower than twice a week. But he thought Willig was a nice horse.
Shannon ended up riding him the next day and said he was really good for her - a bit spooky towards the end, after he saw something through the door - but nothing unmanageable. Plus, they BOTH got sweaty that ride.
I took him on a trail ride today, a mental workout but not a physical one, and although he was a looky loo, I thought he did really great for him.
So - there is still plenty of road ahead. I'm trying to feel inspired by how much Mike can teach me, instead of daunted by how much I don't know - semantics, but the positive spin makes all the difference in the world.

Snorting = good; chewing? not necessarily

One other really important nugget from this week's lesson was that the snorting sound is a good, relaxed sound, and I should reward him. I always thought he was just blowing his nose.
The chewing may not be relaxed - it might be evasive, so I shouldn't reward it.
Who knew? (Please don't post a comment saying everyone on the planet knew but me.)

The importance of the outside hand

Today we had a lesson with Shannon. Willig's time back from John's has been spent ... not working the snot out of him, but basically he's been on vacation. Out of desperation last week, I asked Shannon if she could start riding him once a week for me. I am slammed at work, and I just don't see how I can make more time in the week to ride him.
We worked on three things during the lesson: moving forward (but not strung out), bending to the left, and walk/canter transitions.
Thanks to the cool weather (in the 30's this morning, already!), some sunshine, and the pony club kids, Willig started out thinking he was going to find something to spook at.
Overall, the lesson was a roaring success because he didn't! He worked! But it also gave me an opportunity to work with Shannon on him paying attention to me, which sometimes involves a big crank on his head.
So first, moving forward. I give an aid. He ignores it. I give the aid and he gets smacked with the whip. He leaps forward. I reward. It's that simple. Yet I have been screwing it up by: a) giving the aid, he ignores, I give the aid, he ignores, I give the aid, give the aid, give the aid, he ignores. I give up. or b) I give the aid. He ignores. I smack with the whip. He leaps forward. I give the aid. (No reward!)
Honestly.
Second, staying together. This one is a bit more complicated. I give the aid, but I give sort of a half halt at the same time. I do this one better by feeling - he moves up and forward into my seat and my hand, and I kind of restrain him. When he rounds up, it feels divine.
Third, bending to the left. Well, this one was also my fault. I don't hold constant, steady contact with the outside rein (and I'm worse with my left hand, and so, coincidence? he is worse to the left). We worked on the spiral circles, and by worked, I tried to keep that hand steady and not give away the contact. Everything else is the same - using my legs, keeping impulsion - but when I think of planting my elbow on my hip (another good visual is thinkig of my arm as the side rein), I feel the connection and I feel him move into it.
Fourth, canter/walk transitions. To help him not be so strung out, Shannon started this last week when she rode him. Since we're just starting, they're ugly, but they're also a good example of how Willig actually does try to learn and do it properly. What's nice about these is it pulls a lot of things together for me. I have to keep that outside rein connected, then I push him into the outside rein with my inside leg, then I ask for the canter. He is trotting a couple steps (up and down), but he actually trots a couple steps when he's being naughty in the trot/canter transition, so I think it's progress. And after a couple times each direction, I can feel how much more collected he is.
Finally, with the things to look at, we did some big corrections, which really tamed the behavior. He was actually working with relaxed ears (as relaxed as his ears ever get) even with all the stuff going on out the scary door. It was me being prompt, sincere (a BIG yank), and then rewarding. I'll ride him in circles (or leg yield) past something scary, but I don't ever give the big correction and then the reward, and he really responded well to that.
This was a great lesson. At the end I was really happy, and again, I feel like this sort of progress suggests he can one day become an ok horse.
Along those lines, Shannon echoed John. He's not that much fun to ride and it's a total workout. For Willig's pride, I won't belabor the point, but it is reaffirming for me to hear that I'm not crazy because I find riding him to be a total chore instead of fun. We have maybe a few good minutes, if I'm really lucky, each day and that's it. Although he has been sweeter on the ground. Shannon also pointed out, something I was really glad to hear, that he's a pretty safe jumper. He isn't doing anything dangerous with his legs, he's just kind of lazy and distracted, and lazy isn't the worst thing in a guy as big as him. The distracted we really need to master before he goes to another event.

Willig at home

Well, back to the grind.
The fabulous feeling of the low head and the impulsion? Gone. Instead we spent the evening being scared of ... (jaws music) the mounting block.
Seriously. A hard day of work, I raced home on my bike, wolfed food, patted the dog, raced out to the barn so I could give him a good workout and we spent 45 minutes being nervous about the same mounting block that has been there since February.
Tom came to video (coming later, when I have more time), the new, improved Willig after his training, and his observation was that Willig looked pretty much like he always does, i.e. not at all like he did yesterday for Mark, then me, then John. (Until the end, when I got this fabulous trot with impulsion on the bit that just made me grin.)
While it was not one of Willig's "good" days (neither was yesterday), I was pleased that with a dog barking in the distance, riding in the dark, with Tom popping in and out of the shadows (until I asked him to cut it out, I only need one "learning opportunity" per night), and back at home, he did as well as he did. I guess that's my lowered expectations from two years ago.
Also, when I ride, I remember a lot more of John's instructions. Something gets lost in me trying to get it all written down at home. One of the big Mike ones from my last lesson is to ride like a belt is around my biceps. Instant improvement when I visualize that.

My fortune tonight, after picking Willig up

"You can make the best of a bad situation - they make diamonds out of coal."

My plan

Ok, no matter what, the next six months are the hard market, so I might as well work hard with Willig and see where it gets me. Since John, Shannon, and Mike have all identified pretty much the same issues, here's my plan:
From now until March, try to get 6 "lessons" a month - two from Shannon; two from Mike; and two rides from Mike with mini-lessons at the end.
I'll work really hard during this time on the consistent message from all three - riding Willig forward and with impulsion, using my new and increasing tools on dealing with his mental issue, and if necessary, sending him back to John for a bit. We'll see how this week goes by myself - if I immediately lose the progress John just made, I'll send him back down and go down there for lessons for a month, but if I can keep it up working with Mike and Shannon, I'll hold off on more training until spring.
Then from March - August (or so), I'd like to take him to those local dressage shows, keep up my "6" lessons and add 2-4 more - with John weekly or every other week. I'll have to cut my hours at work for that, but if I don't have a heavy litigation load, I think I could handle one afternoon off a week, and hopefully trailerpool. I'll also try taking him at (huge sigh) Hopeful, just riding him around on the show grounds and schooling, and then maybe, hopefully, we could also ride Beginner Novice at unrecognized stuff if he's showing some good improvement.
Here are the big factors:
- If we move back to Seattle, even if I am working down here four days a week, I seriously doubt I can make the time commitment to really work him consistently the way he needs it. That would probably lead to his sale and me getting an easier, more reliable horse.
- If my work goes up considerably, which I suspect it will over the next few years, same as above. If I'm working 60-70 hours a week, he's going to get the short end of my time stick, and I think he works more consistently on the upper end when he is getting worked more consistently from me. (Although he never acts hot, he seems to have more trouble focusing.)
- If at the six month point or one year point we haven't made much progress, even with a lot of training aid, I'm willing to admit that I'm just not an advanced enough rider. One alternative is to send him for intensive training, but more likely he'll just need a better rider. It would be nice, though, to improve, although I have NEVER, ever wanted a project.
- I weighed this with what if I had infinite money and infinite time? Yes, I'd like to improve and I'd like to be able to ride more types of horses. Do I think I'm that good? No. But with trainers helping me, there's a lot for me to learn. Alternatively, if I knew I was only going to ride 10 more years, then we'd move back to Seattle and I'd have to give it up? Then I don't really want to spend my last 10 years riding on him. I want to be on a horse that's fun. But 10 years from now? I'm probably going to be too old to have a horse who bucks me off. I better get good now, while I still bounce a little bit.
- John also pointed out, when I asked what if it was 10 years of him being inconsistent and needing work, and then 5 good years - and John said, no more like 1. I'm going to assume the 1 replaced the 10, not the 5. :)
So that's the sort of stuff I'm thinking about. I'm not overmounted, but Willig is not an easy horse, by any stretch of the imagination. He's not a pleasure horse, and he's probably never going to be one. But John also agreed, when he has a good day, he is a pleasure to ride.
The most ominous sign, I think, is the lack of "heart" towards the fences. He's just not a jumper by nature, and he doesn't make the effort to clear them. This might not ever matter for novice, the highest I think I would ever take Willig (and the road to novice seems very, very long from here).

John's pointers

I watched his student ride (and jump), then I rode him just for a bit to feel how he was doing.
I love the lower frame and the impulsion and moving in front of the leg. That's what Shannon and Mike have had me working on, but to feel what it is supposed to feel like - wow. I hope that I don't ruin this and we can keep it up. It felt great.
We worked on bending him to the inside (on the LEFT) and planning the inside bend ahead of the "periscope" zone, then I actually, counterintuitively, loosen my hands (just straighten my elbows a tiny bit) and ride him forward off the leg through the spook zone. I also do a bit of a side pass - pushing him out into the spooky place. This worked incredibly well, but was really hard for me to do. Willig is bracing himself on my hand, and I'm also doing all the thinking for him, which will not do me any good out on a cross country course down the road.
Then when we went RIGHT (his easy bend side), I held my right hand steady and then did the squeezing him into the bend using my left hand. This was funky but also worked.
So the big tip was the arm straightening to loosen the reins and ride him forward off the leg.
Also, John was a lot more easy going about him being spooky or scared. He was just like "eh, ok" and then made him work harder towards the spook, so it was less work for Willig once he figured out it didn't serve him any purpose.
John pointed out that there's a big difference between, in my words, being frustrated and beating your head against the wall every time you ride, and making slow but steady progress. He thinks Willig can make progress, but I've been viewing it as a head-beating since he's nowhere near where I originally expected him to be. So, again, it depends on what I want. I took away the message that with a lot of time, a lot of lessons, and some training, Willig might turn out alright - but I will almost certainly be a better rider for it. But Willig should not have been sold as an amateur horse.
I really enjoyed the quick lesson from him. I felt like he did a great job explaining everything, and it feels like he keyed in on what I've been working on with Shannon and Mike, only he was able to do it faster and better. I think lessons with him, down the road, would be really great. Of course, he's got different preferences than Mike, and I can see how Shannon's lessons with him affect her style a bit. It was really educational.

Summary of John's Comments

John had Willig pegged after 10 days and the short version is I'm not crazy and I haven't been imagining the problems and they're not coming from me.
- John said that when I called Willig a "challenge", it was a total understatement.
- He and his students didn't enjoy riding Willig. They also pointed out that he was a much nicer horse than many they have who are there for training because of issues (i.e. he isn't BAD bad).
- They didn't enjoy him because he's inconsistent. He would ride like a dream one day, then the next day spook every time he went past a sign, or a spot, or the sun, or whatever.
- John cured him of the bucking the first time he rode. He made him halt after the fences. Willig tried once, John didn't put up with it, end of bucking story.
- The spooky nervousness on the other hand - John doesn't know that it's curable because it's something inside Willig's head.
- John said that Willig is not an amateur horse and he wasn't the best choice for me. (Finally! Someone who knows something about horses said it! I'm so relieved.) He has odd, complicated training aids, and doesn't respond to very basic, simple aids (like opening your inside rein).
- John and his students preferred jumping him to dressage - the opposite of what I would have expected. They rode him in a much lower frame which I enjoyed quite a bit when I rode him.
- But he is a lazy, lackadaisical jumper. Even when they were jumping him over a 3' oxer with a few strides to a twisty vertical (another oxer, I think), he only lifted his feet just enough to get over the jump. Obviously he could jump much higher than I need him to, but he approaches the fences like he's bored.
- John thinks some horses are born great; some can be taught to be good; and some are just plain bad. He thinks Willig is in the middle category, though he doesn't think he has a ton of potential (as in, Willig is never going Intermediate, which is not news to me, but was still nice to hear someone with a lot of experience say). But the teaching takes time, money, and experience.
- If I want a horse that I can putter around on whenever I have 30 free minutes, Willig is not the horse for me. If I want a horse that will give me such a great work out that I don't need any other form of exercise, then yes, Willig is worth a shot.
- It was such a relief to watch John's student ride, then John, and to see Willig try the same bullshit on them (after 10 days) that he does to me. This alone was worth the 10 days, to know that it's not me doing something wrong.
So ....
There was nothing black and white. I really appreciated that John just NAILED Willig's personality and quirks so quickly, and he obviously has a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge about what to do, what the limitations are, and the ability to do it. But that didn't give me the answer about what to do next. I had actually barely mentioned, if at all, the spooky, when I dropped him off, because I was so focused on the bucking, but that was their predominant comment.
John's tips and my plan for the time being are coming up next.
Oh yeah - and I can load him in and out of the trailer no sweat now. We did like 7 times in a row just walking in and out and in and out when I got him home.

Willig leaves in two days for a month(ish) of training

I'm actually pretty nervous about it because it pretty much sets the wheels in motion.
He's going to Caber Farm, http://www.caberfarm.com/index.shtml, for training with John Camlin.
John said he'll know in about 10 days about how long Willig will need to be there. He's got a show in about three weeks, so it'll depend on how he's doing whether he comes home before or after the show.
My goal is to go down there once a week for lessons while he's there.

Lesson video clips

I have to start with the confession that I feel so much better when I ride that I'm not even sure I can call what I was doing before riding.
Having said that - I am mortified by how I look in these clips - what the hell is my heel doing? When am I going to have a decent lower leg? How can my butt be that big?
And ... looking back - I really don't see that much of a difference with me or Willig than back in April. I mean, back in April we quit being able to go over fences, and his head swings a bit more, but I still look floppy with that damn heel going up and down.
Then again, back in April, sitting the trot - even at baby steps - was totally out of my reach.
http://vimeo.com/6426176
http://vimeo.com/6426281
http://vimeo.com/6426385
http://vimeo.com/6426447

Hot off the press - lesson summary trumped by poodle success

Twice in the last two weeks, armed with a bag of treats, Willig and I have gone out to the terrible side of the outdoor arena where the terrible, terrible monster poodle lives. Both times he has happily munched treats with no sign of the poodle.
Today (drum roll) he did the same thing - with the poodle galavanting around in the yard. The poodle was out as we were heading in, and while his ears flicked in the direction of the poodle, that was all it was - a flick. Then they flicked right back onto the bag of treats. Although the poodle went in after a only a few minutes, it was a few very, very satisfying minutes for me because Willig acted like he could have cared less about the poodle's existence.
Granted, he was just ridden vigorously, and has had two positive experiences, and I haven't been working out there and stressing him about the poodle, but I think we've both learned a couple valuable things.
(Treats work wonders, and I am not so smart because it never even occurred to me to use the treats until Mike suggested it.)

As to my lesson.
I'm going to try to just hit the high points, so it's easier for me to review.
Lower Leg
- My lower leg is creeping forward again. We worked on this by doing the standing 5 strides/posting 5 strides, and feeling the spot where the lower leg is totally, absolutely rock solid and secure. Mike says when it's in that spot, it's an 8 or 9. We are ignoring my upper body.
- Once my leg is in that spot, I have to keep thinking about pushing my *(#&^*(^&*# heel down. I can feel it when my leg goes into the right position, but the second I stop thinking about it, sproing - it's right back to a heel up.

Leg Aids
- Wake him up - a few tippity taps.
- Then ask, with the drum swing (not the heel squeeze) once - firmly and briskly. The second time, add the whip. (I didn't need the whip - the tippity taps and then one firm ask was all he needed.)
- Give him 1-2-3 "heads up" information before I change gaits (up or down).

On the Bit
- The reason he can fling his head all around is because I ride around with the draw reins all droopy. Tighten my draw reins.
- And we practiced by looping his rein-reins and riding in just the draw reins so I could feel the proper contact.

Sitting Trot
- Slow him down, and then just keep practicing bigger sits. It will come, just more slowly than the first leg of progress.

Transitions Up and Down
- STOP THROWING MY CONNECTION AWAY!!! Every up transition (and some of the down), I just throw my hands forward. Think of the 1-2-3 (above), give him a clue I'm doing it, pull him together (push him into my hands which STAY STEADY CONTACT), and then ask with the braced back. When I can get myself together, he just lifts right up or down. When I throw my hands around or fold my body up, he flops or runs into it.
- Also, don't let him be lazy. If he's dragging around in the canter, ask with the quick drum aid to pick it up.
- We practiced this by trotting and then halting or walking. I know how to do this (braced back, braced hands) but I don't do it going up - I fold my shoulders in and throw my hands forward. So I need to really concentrate on changing that habit.

Willig is responding really well. I have a lot of ideas for where to go next with training (more lessons, Mike riding him), but first I want to tackle whether he'll go to John Camlin's for a month.
Mostly, this still seems to be coming from me. Although he has had those naughty moments, I'm letting those few moments control how I ride the rest of the time. When I ride him properly (and now we're into learning new stuff about how to ride him properly, so it's harder and I need to practice it more), he just rides beautifully. He just is green, not bad.

Quickies

Last lesson from Mike:
- Willig is using poodle as excuse to be naughty
- If he bucks, turn him in a circle, so his hind legs cross
- My interpretation: we're dumbo with his feather (I hope) for the draw reins - Mike pointed out they're slack a lot of the time.
- We're making smaller (dressage arena size, not full arena size - I'm so lucky to be at Forest Park) circles so he isn't "surprised" as he comes around the corner.
Although after that lesson, I felt like I didn't "get" anything (but should have, and wanted to) - now that I've been working on it, I actually retained a lot more than I thought.

Willig in general:
- He's too skinny. Even though he is eating a hefty amount for how hard I work him, he's showing some ribs and hips. I'm going to Panacur PowerPac him, and we're going to try some probiotics for a few months.
- The plan is to try training for a month - hopefully in October if the weather hasn't gotten too horrible, keep working on me, and then maybe do some tune up riding when he comes back, if John Camlin thinks he's still got potential to be the horse for me.

Lesson with Shannon:
- Keep my outside rein contact! I drop this ALL the time.
- Keep thinking about pushing my legs forward. This position feels so much more secure.
- Plant my hands up on Willig's neck as we approach the fence, and hold my fingers so I don't let go of the reins. The reins need to be much shorter than feel "normal" to me - almost like my arms are extended.
- Let Willig figure it out. If he is a goof and rides around a circle on the wrong lead with three opportunities (x the number of times we go around the circle) to change it - let the light bulb go off in his head.
- I'm not a terrible rider and doing terrible things to him to make him act up. He needs some training because he's green, and I can't do it myself.
- We worked on a big circle (20 m) with three little cross rails, and it took me a looonnnggg time to not jump ahead, not let go of the reins, not yank my hands, etc. etc.
- We also worked on some flat, keeping him held together and engaged and actually working (I think squeeze and release on the inside rein, and push with my inside leg like I want a half pass going past the scary door), and those things combined mean he's too busy to look for the poodle.

We also started walking outside (twice now) with a bag of treats, and eating treats next to the poodle's house. Fortunately, we have been able to do it twice sans poodle, but the second time, Willig was about ready to jump in the yard where the poodle lives if I would just hurry up and give him the treat.

Wormer Schedule

Two way:
Jan/Feb - Pyrantel pamoate
Mar/April - Ivermectin
May/June - Pyrantel
July/Aug - Ivermectin
Sept/Oct - Pyrantel
Nov/Dec - Ivermectin

Three way:
Jan/Feb - Pyrantel
Mar/April - Ivermectin
May/June - Oxibendazole or Fenbendazole
July/Aug - Pyrantel
Sept/Oct - Ivermectin
Nov/Dec - Oxibendazole

Pyrantel: Strongid paste, Rotectin P, Strongyle care
Ivermectin: Equimax, Zimectrin Gold, Rotectin 1.87%, IverCare
Oxibendazole: Safe-Guard, Panacur, Anthelcide EQ

Lesson Review: Shannon & Mike August

Last week I had a jump lesson with Shannon in the (horrors) outdoor arena - what is to Willig the terrifying range of the poodle. After I spent quite a bit of time venting about how frustrated I am, we got on, rode big canter little canter, then jumped the little cross rail closest to the least scary side with ground poles 6' out on each side. After a couple of times stepping on them, and a couple times jumping all the way over the outside one, Willig pretty much got it.
The same can't be said for me. All I had to do was stay out of his way and point him at the jump, slowing his canter down on the way in. Yet that was too much for me, with dropping my reins, forgetting to look where I was going, steering all crazy, letting him go in sideways ... honestly - I'm not even sure why I ride sometimes.
After Shannon managed to wrestle me into some semblance of control (sit up! look where you're going! legs forward!), she set up two more of the cross rails with 6' poles on either side, so we had a serpentine AND the "condensed body" practice.
Willig did it all like an angel.
I need to work on thinking about pushing my legs forward (to make a steady base) and getting myself together faster in the event of a slip up (or just in the event that I fall apart). When we made the turns in the serpentine, it would take me half the turn to sit up and get ready for the next one.
Shannon and I discussed some of the options given poodle-hysteria. (By the by - although Willig started on the lunge line as a total ding bat giraffe, by the time Shannon got out he was mellowing out because the poodle hadn't come out, and since it was mid-day, much to my relief the poodle never came out.)
I can take some lessons with the trainer who works on desensitizing, and she will travel to Shannon's (and I think is there already for someone, sometimes).
I can have Mike ride him.
He can go to training; Shannon recommends her jump trainer, John Camlin at Caber Farms.
Given my level of frustration, Shannon thought it would be appropriate to try some training, see if that naughty streak can be corrected, and then see if it is me who can't ride him (I'm overmounted) or if I just need some help figuring out how to respond. She said the down the whole arena bucking is not acceptable.

Then today I had a lesson with Mike and once again feel like I know nothing, and the world is limitless as to how much I can learn. (In short, a very bad and a very good feeling.)
I explained, again, about the poodle, and what I've been doing to try to correct it, and how we basically have giraffe neck or snaky neck. Mike got treats, went to the scary side of the arena, I rode down there, and Willig proceeded to - once - do a very small snaky neck. In 40 minutes.
What he did do - interestingly - was take it up a notch. By "take it up" I mean, "fool me" and make me look like an ass in front of Mike.
Instead of doing giraffe neck or snaky neck, he started going very, very slowly. Like we were in slow motion. And I'm squeezing and grunting, and finally we go back to super beginner level 0 basics - how to apply your leg. A kick like to a soccer ball, not a squeeze up with the heel. Followed by a harder kick, and a sharp smack with the whip, and praise praise praise when he accelerates. Within, I don't know, 30 seconds, Willig is just prancing around in this gorgeous trot that he just keeps doing. With his head down.
(Oh yeah, and for snaky neck/giraffe neck, my job is to make waterfall neck.)
Ok. So this is frustrating because he NEVER rides like this when I'm alone.
It's also very positive because it feels great, it's consistent with my lesson with Shannon (if he has impulsion and is working, he can't act up), and I feel like, ok, maybe we can get this and be a good team, and maybe, just maybe, I'll learn something about how to ride a horse.
So Mike gave me a set of tools for the poodle problem: big, huge praise for not reacting - praise him ahead, talk to him, pat him, tell him he's the bravest chestnut in the universe; ask for this new level of WORK; no tolerating acting up or him being the boss - I'm the boss - if he rears (which he only did that one time, out of surprise, ages ago, when I bopped him in the mouth too hard), hang on to his neck, then ride the heck out of him, if he bucks, pull his head in a circle to the inside so his back legs have to cross each other and then ride the heck out of him, if he goes in slow motion, ask him and then smack him and praise him for moving forward. Willig did none of those things. Even when we changed direction, there was hardly an ear flick towards poodle-town.
So for now, Mike thinks taking him outside is setting him up for failure. Let him build confidence and learn I'm the boss and learn what I want inside - then start moving him outside. He said we can do an outside lesson with him in the future.

I feel like there were a few big lessons here, even though there was no grinning, beaming breakthrough like in my prior lessons. First, I was in a bad mood, tired from work, and frustrated with Willig, and definitely not looking forward to working on the least fun part of riding him. So I had a bad attitude. Second, aside from figuring out the sitting trot, most of what Mike has done so far is (very very quickly) reposition me to the proper way of riding - something that in theory I already knew (or should have known). Third, so today we moved beyond what I already, on some level, knew - into tools I have never learned before. I think that's why today's lesson was very hard and slippery for me to grasp. Although some of what we've done has felt really great (and different), it isn't entirely strange to me. This - how to react - was. And I feel like this is the missing piece. I've been riding horses as a passenger, not a boss, and Willig is just willful enough to not respect that. And that's my fault. I'm "teaching" him to do the wrong thing because I don't know how to teach him to do the right thing, and my communication skills aren't good enough to fix it once I've taught him wrong. I know something is wrong, but I don't know how to fix it, and the tools I have are not the right ones.
Willig may have a limited repetoire of tricks, but it's more than I know how to respond to, and my tools haven't been very effective, while my "un"training has been extremely effective. This is nice because he's pretty smart, and he gets it pretty quickly when I ask him correctly. So I just need to learn how to ask for everything correctly. Oh, just the universe of how to ride a horse.
So I don't think he needs more training. I think **I** do. I don't think it would do any good to send him to someone else to ride him. It would fix him temporarily, and then I would undo it and teach him the wrong thing again. I think I need more lessons. On him.
There were more little details (don't collapse my upper body; keep those &*&#*(&# heels down), but this was the interesting piece - this slowly dawning realization for me (not very intelligent me) on how to approach riding differently.
Also, from now on, I'm considering tears emotional sweat.
P.S. The poodle ran at another horse too. I was beginning to think it was an imaginary poodle that only me and Willig could see.

Artistic Light Willig

Sadly, not Martha riding the sitting trot on a misbehaving Willig, due to camera malfunction.

Silly Willig

Willig has developed a cute habit (other than the not-so-cute downward dog he does after a hard/stressful ride). He likes to drink out of the hose when he's getting hosed off after a sweaty ride.

Slight jumping improvement

Although my back is rounded and my heels are up, this is a considerable improvement over giraffe-neck Willig.

2nd jump lesson with Shannon

Willig and I had a much more ... show-and-tell jump lesson last week.
Shannon started us with a gymnastic, which was really cool.
There was a ground pole 9' away from the plastic blocks (that I think make a 2' vertical) as a cross-rail. You head into it from a trot.
Then it's 18' to a low vertical (probably 2' - I haven't measured, but it's small).
Then 9' plus a roll to another ground pole.
That's how you start: pole, cross rail, vertical, pole.
Then you add from the vertical, 21' to an oxer, but start it as a vertical, and then add the second pole for the oxer after you've done it a few times.
So it's: pole, cross rail, vertical, pole, oxer.
Willig did it just gorgeous over and over. What we worked on was me not jumping ahead, steering him through with my legs, planting my hands about 5 strides out on his neck and pushing against them, and keeping him moving forward and through. This was all much harder than it sounds.
After we did this several times and he was just great (he did one little half-assed head shaking buck at the end of one line), Shannon set up a course for him.
And this is where he gave her a full-on example of how he is naughty.
We came off the gymnastic, had a big wide left hand turn, and had plenty of space to approach the fence and see it coming.
And even though he's jumped that particular fence at least 20 times, he decided to run out to the left, buck, and do the little "whee!" with his front legs.
My reaction time was too slow, so he got away with all that, I didn't yell at him, AND I was getting ready to stop him, but Shannon had us canter on a smallish circle several laps, then move the canter circle out, then jump a little cross rail a few times each direction.
And then Willig panted and was tired.
Then we did the gymnastic line again, and then the course.
Willig gets a bit - headstrong - it feels like rushing to me, but Shannon says it's not, but he is kind of strung out.
So our homework before the next lesson is to work the course, a figure 8, whatever, over and over and over again until he is bored with it, and to work in between fences on control, and to work on the flat on me speeding him up and slowing him down at will.
And to continue using the super fun and fabulous gymnastic to work on my position.
It was kind of frustrating - he had been doing so well on the gymnastic that I did not see or feel the naughtiness coming at all, and then I spent the rest of the lesson not trusting him and having to really work at sitting up and riding into him instead of curling up into a scared little ball.
Shannon's other tips were to growl and, if possible, smack, at the first sign of naughtiness, to make it harder work to be naughty than to just jump the fence already, and to not lose contact with my outside rein on circles.
Of course, I probably threw all this to the wind with our poodle follow up the next time I tried to ride him. We'll see how he does next time, I guess.
Shannon says our next lesson will be on condensing his body - instead of the 9' to the fence, make it 7' or so, and he'll have to learn to squish his body up instead of spread it out. She said it helped a lot with one of her horses.

Poodle timing

For my own records:
June 25 (Thurs)
July 19 (Sunday)

Gory picture alert - don't look if you can't stand blood!

I gashed my elbow yesterday falling off of Willig.
The short version of the story is that I was working him on the gymnastic exercise from my lesson (which will be the next posting), and the new neighbors on the other side of the arena were standing in their yard, drinking beer, with the spastic poodle on its leash thrashing around every time it saw Willig.
Because I had T with me, I decided to try to work Willig anyway, despite the fact that he is scared of that particular poodle ever since the day it ran onto Shannon's property, lunged at him, made him rear, and in general, terrorized poor tiny delicate Willig.
Although he was not stellar at paying attention to me, he was doing a great job basically doing what I asked and jumping the gymnastic really nice.
But at the end of the jump, the poodle couldn't take it anymore, started barking, Willig started bucking, the poodle barked more, and Willig took off bucking down the long side.
Miracle of miracles, I stayed on almost the entire length of the arena (which is, when you're on a bucking Willig, a very, very long side), maybe 5-6 bucks, T estimated.
But the last one, I was yelling at him, trying to jerk his face up, had lost both my stirrups a few bucks earlier, and decided to go for his neck to swing off, and that launched me off the side.
I hit the arena footing in a roll, and it gashed my elbow open.
Willig then proceeded to run for about 10 minutes straight, in a full blown panic, while T went over to talk to the neighbors. The only one left in the yard was the husband - the wife (who had been yelling at the dog the time it chased Willig) and the guests were already inside.
Blood got all in my glove and on my dressage crop, but once Willig quit running, he calmed down right away.
I rode him back and forth past their now terrifying yard (his body tenses up to jump as we go past) several times, did some trot and canter to make sure he could listen again, then we did the gymnastic reverted back to baby level twice, and then we put him away and I went to urgent care for stitches.
The location ended up not getting stitched, because the doc thought it would get infected, and the nurse gave it a - shall we say - vigorous - scrubbing with a toothbrush. Thank goodness it was numbed.
My big fear now is that we're going to have to go back even further, now that poodle incident #2 has happened, or, heaven forbid, he'll start bucking again.
Now, these weren't malicious, get-off-me bucks - they were oh-my-god-that-poodle-is-going-to-eat-me-if-I-don't-get-out-of-here-NOW bucks. I think he completely forgot I was up there.
Also, he's got about 5 hives. I put his flysheet on and put him back on garlic, but I hope this isn't the return of the hives. Ech.

Two videos of Willig jumping a gymnastic

http://vimeo.com/5688240
http://vimeo.com/5688276

Sit down for this one. Literally.

For both of you who regularly read this, you will need to be sitting for this posting ... just like I was - at the trot - not posting, but sitting! (That analogy had so much potential, but I got carried away.)
Unlike many of my prior "ah-ha!" moments with riding, where my crafty and clever body figures out a way to continue not to ride properly until my next lesson, the movement I thought was the proper sitting trot last week really, actually was.
Now, I know for most riders, this isn't a breakthrough.
For me, however, it is. I have been trying to learn how to sit the trot since I was about 16, so for those of you counting, that's about 17 years. Yikes. That was a little hard to write.
And thanks to Mike, I got it.
Now, I can't do it all the time - I can only do it for a few laps, but I can now do it at something slightly less than a working trot - not just the plodding around western trot, and I can also do it with "no hands" (i.e. hands on the reins, where they belong, and not one finger on the pommel).
So Mike was suitably impressed, and my lesson was great. We still have tons and tons to work on, because now we can really get to work.
I started with sitting, and asked him to look at it, to see if I was somehow faking it.
He showed me a better way to cross my stirrups (pull 6" down, twist the bottom over the top so it lies flat and doesn't bruise your inner thigh), and then we worked about half the lesson on sitting trot without stirrups.
He worked on getting my legs longer and straighter, which requires a lot of effort from me thinking about dropping them straight down.
And then we worked on picking up the pace a bit.
He said it's a great start and a world of difference from my first lesson, just a few short lessons ago.
We talked a bit about lower leg - he thinks it's good to work on sitting trot without stirrups (that it's the 2nd stage of a 3 stage process), but that it's not as good for posting trot.
Then we worked on trot to canter transitions. He wants me to think 1 (get ready), 2 (you're about to go), and 3 (ask for it). I sit at 1, slow him down and give him half halts at 2, and then 3, ask for it, is a series of steps: outside leg back with a quick aid (not my squeezing headlock aid), sit tall and up, and ask for it by thinking about getting forward momentum on a swing set (the firm hands on the chain, the stiff back pushing forward). He had to try a variety of analogies for this one, and it was really a struggle. But when we started, Willig ran into the canter in about 4 hurried trot steps, and by the time we ended, it was just 1-2 steps without changing speed. Plus, the one time we really, really got it, I felt it. He just lifted up into canter and it was so smooth.
Willig has been really great. He has been very obedient and listening, and almost ... gasp ... patient. I think now that he's figured out I'm actually riding him, he's got more respect for what I'm asking him to do.
Yesterday we worked on our "homework" jump again. I didn't have the martingale, but I didn't really need it. He did 5-7 jumps over the fence each direction, with a couple little rubs on the ground pole each way, but nothing major, and absolutely no acting up. Then I just jumped off him and put him away.
I got him one of those ear nets with the crochet headpiece, which I think are for bugs, but I've seen the show jumpers wear. It made no difference at all.
There was, of course, much, much more detail to my lesson with Mike, but we're getting to the point where I can't quite articulate what I feel. I definitely feel it, but I've never had riding go so well, and I'm not sure how to put it into words yet.
I can say, however, how wonderful it feels to really be riding Willig instead of just struggling with him. He's happier, and I'm happier, and I'm glad we pushed through it because I feel like a better rider now.

By George, I think I've got it!

I don't want to jinx myself or anything, but a few days ago, I noticed the sitting trot had suddenly gotten much, much easier.
Tonight, both the sitting trot and posting without stirrups were ... a cakewalk. I didn't even have to do the baby slow western trot.
My back is moving different, which lets my hips do the nordic track, but I'm not doing it on purpose. It feels great. I hope I can keep doing it.

Stop the presses! A good ride on Willig!

I had a lesson a few days ago with the owner of my barn, Shannon, who has been riding for years, and just got fourth place at Inavale in Novice on one of her horses. It was a great lesson.
She pointed out a lot of little details, including my now teeth-grittingly bad lower leg, listened to my description of the woes we've been having, and then we did one simple exercise a whole bunch of times. This included a spectacular stumble where Willig almost went on his knees, and one time THROUGH the jump (so he learns it's easier to just jump it for the love of god), all down at the scary end of the arena where the new neighbor's poodle ran out at him last week in an incredibly ironic attempt to make him LESS scared of that end. All of this is build up for today's ride, where I brought T out (in case Willig had another stumble in which I did not stay on), where he ...
floated over it.
Over and over.
And over and over.
With scary things under it, he just jumped it.
He got it!
Willig IS smart after all! Shannon thought at the end of our lesson that we would have no problems coming along together, and while I was glad she thought that, I wasn't sure I 100% agreed since the last 18 months have been, well, tough.
But in explaining things to her, I realized that a) he has no xc experience, so his bad habits have been taught to him by me, and b) he just genuinely doesn't know what or how he's supposed to do things, and I don't know how to teach him. So we've needed a trainer, and simple exercises.
I had sort of come to the conclusion, which this sort of cemented, that I pushed him too hard too fast (he didn't need to work on a ditch or a bank yet), and now I've wasted time because we have to go back and build his confidence up. This is good though, because I'm learning how to teach him too.
So the lesson in detail:
Our jump was just a vertical with two ground poles on those little plastic stands that you can set at different levels. Then 9' from the center is a ground pole on each side, but tilted a bit in, so it makes a side of a circle.
Then we cantered it in a big circle, each way.
My homework is to do that until it's boring, which I think will only take a couple times after today. During his lesson, he was trying to jump the vertical, AND outside the next 9' pole, so he kept hitting it with his front or back legs, he'd stumble, I'd open my hands and the reins would slide out, he'd be on the wrong lead, and I couldn't collect everything back again in time for the next circle, so we'd have to make a medium circle to get collected.
Today, however, he had, upon reflection one presumes, figured out how to bounce in and out, and it was just a cake walk. There were a couple little knocks, but nothing like the lesson. And people (horrors!) were even walking around next door and he put one ear on them, but stayed focus on his job - the jump.
I am so impressed. After each perfect jump, I made a huge deal over him and he got a break, so today we didn't do it until boredom, but just two good ones in a row and then something different (other direction, scary barrel underneath).
Anyway, my lesson:
Heels down, toes up. Make my stirrups a hole shorter, and practice riding without stirrups to improve my lower leg.
Mostly we need to clean up on the little details (and he needed, for example, to learn to condense his body, not jump all splayed out), but it's not bad.
He needs to pay attention ALL the time. When I'm sitting on him talking, he doesn't get to fling his head around anymore. When we lead, no more stopping and looking around. No giraffe neck, no looking. So when I lead him, now I walk with my crop on the inside hand so I can tap him (like my leg would) if he tries to look. He's also caught onto this pretty quick.
When I'm riding him and he wants to fling his head around, he does extra work. Like if I wanted to walk in a straight line, now we make a circle and he has to leg-yield.
So, Shannon thinks he's a good horse, but I pushed him too hard too fast, which was my mistake, in thinking he had the nerve and the knowledge to do it.
And Shannon thinks I have a good seat (if a terrible lower leg) because even though he almost went all the way on his knees, I stayed on him. I had to grab around his neck, but it was a decent save.
We also tried different gear. A bit, I'm blanking on the name, that has the long shanks up and down so it has a bit more leverage on his cheeks, and a cute little martingale that fastens to the breastplate. Shannon had a horse with a similar personality to Willig, and found that those two pieces of equipment helped a lot with controlling his attention. It certainly seemed to help today.
Shannon said he's not getting too strong, when I feel him go towards the fence, but she said just to sit up and do a half halt and make sure I can slow him down, but otherwise, let him go to it. She said it's a great sign. She said it's also great that after he had to walk through the one fence (because it looked different, and I didn't ride him assertively to it even though *I* knew it would look scary to him - I am quite the passive jumper), he came to it the next time intending to, and actually jumping it. She said a bad horse would have come in planning to refuse even harder.
She said he's paying good attention to the fence, and just doesn't know how to use his body properly yet.
I asked her to ride him for a few minutes, and she said he is squirmy, but to work on giving him a task - like going over a pole, making circles, doing transitions, etc., and then he does better. And to get him to lesson, respond immediately (no four steps before the transition), and to make sure I get a nice working trot - not too fast or too slow, which I'm usually doing on him.
It was a great lesson, and I absolutely encourage anyone in the Oly area who needs a jump lesson to try Shannon out. I thought she was great to work, and I've made more progress with Willig with that lesson than I have the entire time on my own or at the clinics. (The ground work was really consistent with what Mike has been telling me too, and my lessons with him are also making huge improvements. For the first time, I really feel like me and Willig are going to learn a lot, be a good team, and have fun!)

Another incredible lesson with Mike

This week I had another lesson with Mike, after a bit of a delay with our schedules.
And - although I worked diligently on my "homework" the first few weeks after my lesson, Willig had about 2 1/2 weeks off because of my work schedule (I spent a week in Colorado, so I really had an excuse not to ride), a short vacation (to TN to visit my family, another solid excuse), but also some general malaise on my part because of Odin and general lackluster effort.
My big question for him was about feeling pulling my legs back - towards Willig's butt - which generally just makes my knees go up. The sitting trot is improving - very very slowly, but at least there's progress, and my seat got really solid with the new leg position.
However, the first thing Mike noticed was my heels. Which will NOT stay down, whether I think to keep pushing them down or pulling my toes up.
And I was complaining and complaining how burned out I was on Willig and what feels like constant shenanigans and me not knowing what I'm doing and not being experienced enough (or good enough) for him, and how it's HIS fault I can't keep my heels down because I'm so busy up above trying to get him to quit flinging his stupid head around looking at everything.
So after a few minutes, Mike went and got draw reins, which I have never used before.

And the angels sang.

My lord. Willig put his head down and got to work, and he was SO easy and delightful to ride, and I could actually semi-sit the canter, and we made these glorious circles and it was another ride where I was just grinning ear to ear, and Mike said, once again, he thinks we can make a nice horse out of Willig yet.
And no, it did not cure my heels. It's my own damn fault my heels don't stay down, so this month I am working on my heels down/toes up and I have no excuse if I don't make progress before my next lesson.

Mike said when I normally ride, to give Willig more breaks - he expected Willig to be sore from such constant work over his topline - and I WAS sore from actually riding (and sweating! I love it!), but to think about the number of times I have ridden Willig incorrectly (18+ months) to estimate how many times I'll need to ride him correctly to fix it.
He also pointed out that it's not like I can sell Willig right now, and if I learn to fix it, then I won't want to sell him.
AND - he said after a while of working like this, he's going to just go right over the ground poles, then the little rails, then the jumps. He thinks (and I believe him) the cure is on the flat. I just don't have the right tools to figure it out myself.
It was great.

Then yesterday I volunteered for the morning at the show. It was pretty cool, because I was the bit (and spur and whip and body) checker, which I haven't done before, and the rules are a little different from eventing to dressage. It was neat to feel all the different kinds of bits and the different ways the horses reacted (the FEI level horses just opened their mouths and let me look!), but what was coolest was watching the riders. The show didn't go from training level on up, so I got to watch a bunch of different levels and different riders.
And every horse is different. (Duh.) But the lower level horses were more consistently spooky (not necessarily in messing up their movements, but being afraid of the mirror, judge's stand, wheelbarrow, noises, etc.), while the upper level horses weren't. So maybe there is hope for Willig, that he just needs that experience and miles under his girth.
AND - they almost all were nastier spookers than Willig! His little jerky spazzy spooks actually looked really mild next to some of these guys! And the riders just rode them through it, so maybe I have been having too high expectations and being kind of a chicken.

Anyway, the ride with Mike felt amazing. And best was how cool it was to feel what it should feel like, so now I have something to work toward (a while back Practical Horseman had that "what kind of learner are you" and I'm kinesthetic, so feeling the proper movement is way more useful to me than having someone tell me or show me what to do). Plus, it was great to know Willig and I can do it. The "real" way is to ride from your legs to the bit, but Mike is going to teach me how after we improve the other stuff (like my stupid heels).

Willig vs. the dead mole

Last week, after lunging, Willig had another turn-out opportunity. He was doing pretty well - following me around but eating, and not too much staring at the barn or running around all crazy man.
But then as we were heading back on our last loop, he was in the middle eating, and then he stopped, sniffed, snorted, jumped with all four legs straight, sniffed, snorted again, and ran over to me and almost ran me over.
So I walked over to where he'd been sniffing, snorting, etc. and there was a dead mole (or something) that the lawnmower ran over.
Willig followed me over to investigate again, and repeated the whole performance.
As we walked back to the gate, he stayed right on my shoulder - like twice he stepped on my heel, and I couldn't get him away from me.
So apparently Willig is afraid of death.

Giraffe on course!

More coming soon, but we looked - like usual - like a couple of yahoos.

Quotes from a Yoga book

I was looking for hip openers, and wasn't successful, but did find these quotes, which may or may not be inspiring:

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier - not that the nature of the task has changed, but an ability to do it has increased"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing would be done at all
if we waited until we could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it."
- Cardinal Newman

"Practice is the best of all instructions."
- Aristotle

Mercury is at his "new" home

I was very fortunate to send Mercury back to the owner I bought him from four years ago. They were very excited to see him, and he seemed happy to be home. He even gets to go out with his old pasture mate, and will get to just "be a horse" and go on trail rides for a bit. Julie is a very experienced rider, so I have high hopes she can figure out what weird thing was going on this month and cure it and turn Mercury back into a happy horse.
www.aspenfarmperformancehorses.com
I am, of course, going to miss him very much. He was a great horse for me, and just the horse I needed during the time I had him.

Monolith's gas mileage

A distressingly low 9.8 mpg.
That is, however, on a warm day, towing the horse trailer (1/2 way with 1 horse), over one mountain pass and three "hills" (1-3000 feet each), averaging about 50 mph.

We went 339 miles that trip and used 34.6 gallons. Before we left, I fileld it (17 gallons). At $2.85/gal for biodiesel blend, not cheap. ($150!)

And next weekend I have to drive it mucho more miles.

Willig at work on Sunday

Good news - he's making an effort.
Bad news - I'm fat and STILL - after all these years and a real effort not to - jumping ahead.

Mercury & Willig - I guess slow and steady will win the race

Merc update: I have been blissfully ignorant for the past fifteen years that there is a bad habit called "balking". That's exactly what Mercury is doing, and thanks to the internet, I've now done quite a bit of reading on it (and found it in some of my horse books too).
According to Cherry Hill, balking is "refusal to go forward often followed by violent temper if rider insists" and it is caused by "fear, heavy hands, stubbornness, extreme fatigue" and the treatment is "Curable. Review forward work with in-hand & longeing. Turn horse's head to untrack left or right. Strong driving aids with no conflicting restraining aids (no pull on bit). Do not try to force horse forward by pulling -you'll lose."
Many of them mentioned the "violent temper", but none of the causes apply, except, dreadfully, stubborness.
I talked to my friend J today, and she said that her horse does it too (but not "violently"), about 2-3 times in the 10 years she's been riding her, so she gets a wild hair, tests her authority with J, and then they go back to work. J says she gets off and lunges her until she's in a froth (what I've been doing! yay!) and if she's on her and can't get off, turns her head to spin her if she tries backing/sideways movements. She says it is NOT inappropriate to get off when they're being ridiculous becuase otherwise they are learning that they can indeed boss you around.
She suggested a week off, since Mercury has totally pushed my buttons and I'm pissed, with lots of lunging, and then just turn his head and lunge the bloody hell out of him if he tries it again as long as it takes.
She also thinks a month "with a cowboy" would do him some good, and that he could still find an appropriate home where he won't feel like he needs to test. I think it's going to be much more difficult now, but I'm feeling better.

Today Willig just got turn out on grass. At first he looked like he was frolicking and having fun, but I think it was actually more nerves.
Sigh.
Regardless, he cantered and bucked way off in the field, far away from the gate, and once I came back in (I had walked the dogs from the car to the adjacent turn-out and back, and with Odin, that takes forever), he went back to eating grass instead of running around. I actually consider that progress. He wasn't a wild man crazy.

The good news is that willig has NONE of the Cherry Hill "bad habits in horses" which include, in addition the dreadful balking, "barn sour/herd bound, biting, bolting when turned lose, bucking, can't catch, can't handle feet, halter pulling, head shy, jigging, kicking, rearing, running away/bolting, shying, striking, stumbling, tail wringing". That's pretty cool. And Merc's balking appears to be on the very mild end of the scale from the stuff I read on the internet. Still - how do I NOT know these things? I know basically nothing about horses.

I'm going, in the days that already don't have enough hours, to try to start doing yoga and some strength training at home. My legs are getting fat and I'm losing flexibility in my old 30's. (I also have GOT to find time to run and bike. I'm going crazy with the routine of work, sick dog, bad horses, try to keep house a tiny bit clean.)

Quote

This came from Real Simple, but I thought it was amazingly apropos for riding:

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony."

—Thomas Merton

Lessons with Mike are completely amazing

Unfortunately, today's lesson and all I learned has been overshadowed by the problems I had with Mercury right after the lesson (blog post below).
We started with me describing the jumping problem at AF derby, and my theory - that it stems from me doing something wrong on the flat because I also have problems getting him to pay attention to me other times (at home, for example - the "easiest" place to pay attention).
We started with my position, and Mike gave me several homework assignments:
- First we did jump position. Again, a total miracle. There is a spot - god knows how I've made it this far in my life without ever feeling it - where your balance is just - absolute. It is the back arched, butt pushed back over the saddle, and legs - to me - forward. The alignment is like the stars aligning, and all of a sudden it is a spot you could be in forever. It's totally solid and I have never, I swear, ridden in it, because I would have remembered it.
It's also very, very hard to find on my own. Even with Mike's guidance, I would get it, feel it, and lose it.
- Next we worked on my seat and hips. This was kind of agonizing. It was different muscles than I usually ride with (not that my riding muscles are all that strong right now anyway, which is probably a blessing), and required some hip opening that I don't have, so it's back to the yoga mat for me.
Ok, so from the bottom up:
Heels go down. Down, down, down. But they go down by thinking "toes up" and what helps with "toes up" if I think "open knee" and open knee means "push your leg forward". Now, of course, it doesn't. You don't ride like a chair to have an open knee, which makes your leg long, which puts it underneath you, which helps you drop your heel. But that's what I had to think to make my leg do it.
This is out of order, but when we finished working without stirrups, when Mike said to pick them up, I picked up my legs, put them in the wrong place again and plonked my feet into the stirrup. So another homework assignment is to drop the stirrups, then pick them up by lifting my toes into them, instead of lifting my foot and dropping it down into the stirrup.
Toes also go IN, thinking pigeon toed, which actually just makes them only slightly out. I had to imagine keeping spurs off his sides to even get my legs close to pointed straight forward. Interestingly, for the brief moments I could hold the proper leg position, it felt really good and solid.
My leg goes back. Like I am pushing down against his stride and pulling back at the same time. My leg is way too far forward on the saddle. This was a really interesting feel. We did some sitting trot, and I held onto the pommel with one hand and thought about pushing my legs down into him instead of him pushing me up, and then tried to do loose hips. It turns out I can only hold about 3 new instructions in my head at any one time.
Mike said work 5-10 minutes every day without stirrups to work on this - the feel and loosening my hips and the sitting trot.
- Ok, then canter. It was similar to sitting trot, only I am bad about letting him run into it (his trot should not get quicker!), and I slouch in and collapse my chest. I am thinking about posture with a book on my head and consistency from him, and we tried how slow can I trot and then ask for canter. It is also thinking "leg back" but only my leg moving.
The canter movement is the same - pushing down with my legs and back and thinking of that pommel feeling, but it was harder for Willig with me shifting around, he kept breaking to trot and I kept not catching it in time to keep him going.
- We have a whole lot to work on in transitions.
- In general, Mike says lunging without side reins is not a good use of time. I am going to dig mine out and start using them again, but we'll start the next lesson with them to make sure I'm doing it right. He also said he thinks we're about "three chapters" away from jumping, and that he thinks a lot of the problems we fix with me will help Willig over the fences, but that it's likely he'll always be an insecure horse. Mike can help me with some baby jumps, and we'll work up to it - a pole, then 6", then cross rails. But first we are fixing me and the flat work.
And it felt great - there is so much to work on and it was so wonderful to be able to feel the difference and have something to strive for in between the lessons.
What was actually quite incredible was neglected Willig, while I've been dealing with Mercury, was really good (for him). He didn't do anything wild, and while our circles when I had one hand were more like amoebas, and he doesn't like it when I ride him inconsistently, it actually helps me know that I'm doing it wrong - he tells me. It's a nice way of looking at it - he's helping me improve.
I really like Mike's style. I had considered doing my lesson on Mercury since he was having problems, but then he was so good Tuesday I figured I didn't need it. I was wrong. Post-vet, I'm going to try to do an extra lesson with Merc if Mike has time as my first step towards what to do next with him.

Now we have a Mercury problem - help!

Ok, Merc went up for sale, and after lots of emails, a few people wanted to come ride him. Because of my schedule, it took a few weekends until I was in town.
I wasn't riding him much, and a couple days before the first rider, I lunged him, the next day rode him, and he was his naughtiest ever.
The first rider came out, and although she had a nice calm demeanor, he was really unpleasantly naughty with her too. (I'll define naughty in a minute.) When they left, I lunged him, and he worked himself into a lather, and I had noticed he was chubby when someone else was riding him (his first chubby ever in 4 years!), and so I cut back his grain and hay, figuring he was just hot.
Unfortunately, I couldn't ride for three days, so three days later (this Monday), I lunged him (he lunged himself into a foamy lather), then rode him, and he was great until I asked for lateral work, then he was naughty, but we worked through it and ended fine.
Tuesday he was mellow on the lunge line, mellow under saddle, not very resistant for the lateral work, and we even popped a couple fences.
He got Wednesday off because of my pesky job.
Tonight he was the worst horse I've ever ridden.
He made me so scared I was sweating.
He deliberately tried to buck me off twice, which wasn't the worst.
He was erratic and difficult - throwing his head in the air, balking, jigging, running sideways, trying to back into the wall, trying to slam my leg into the wall, doing some half-rear things that weren't quite rears but were definitely front end oriented.
Usually, when I ask him to go on the bit, I squeeze the reins like a sponge. He would just throw his head up in the air and open his mouth and nothing I could do would get his head back down. He'd also run backwards.
He's actually quite athletic.
A smack on the whip would usually result in running sideways or backwards. The light leg tapping working up to leg slamming was just ignored.
And this is - I would ask him to walk and then stop and then walk again. EASY stuff.
We were fighting almost two hours. He had been mellow on the lunge, did one quick head toss when I first started riding, and then was good all the way through trot (with lots of serpentines and bends), and right lead canter. When I changed direction to do left lead, all this nonsense started, and he just went downhill.
I finally - after a huge struggle - got enough of a walk that I felt I could get off (without rewarding him for being bad), put him on the lunge line, and he was already - from fighting me, pouring sweat. And he lunged himself into a lather, I got back on, and then we had intermittent success. He'd walk a couple laps, on the bit, no problem, and then I'd ask for a halt and he'd just start running around sideways. Or we'd walk, no problem, I'd ask for a halt, get it, and then when I asked for the walk again he'd run around sideways.
It was absolutely terrible.
I have no idea why he's doing this if he's not hot, why he hasn't done anything like this before in the 4 years I've had him, or what to do about it. I'm not comfortable riding him alone if this is how he's going to act, and I certainly can't sell him like this.
I'm going to have the vet out next week to check for soreness and check his teeth, but he's not the least bit sore, gimpy, or sensitive, and he's not the kind of horse to stoically hide it.
He has a completely different personality. The only other thing I could think of was that I'm asking him for more because I'm learning more with Willig. But over the past 4 years, we've been on a slow and steady up, and he's never fought me - even when I ask something he doesn't know - he doesn't fight it.
Any thoughts? Suggestions? I am at a complete loss.

AF Derby Dressage Test

The high point of the day:
http://vimeo.com/4407056
At least we have improved at something.

How do you solve a problem like Willig?

(To the tune of "How do you solve a problem like Maria?")
After our terrible experience on the xc course at the derby, I am feeling pretty low. As best I can tell, trying to be objective, Willig has gotten WORSE at jumping, not better. Although it took me months and months to jump him the first time after I bought him, last summer we went to two derbies (both intro) and a clinic with Jonathan. There were no refusals, and he wasn't refusing at home.
Then he got a few months off over the winter with the problems at the prior barn, and this year my goal was to move him up to starting to experience Beginning Novice, since the height is no problem (he's 17 hands!), and he needs to see the different types of jumps. I think we've been on a steady decline since February.
I don't really know what to do about this. I think we're a bit stuck - I'm afraid he's going to refuse, and therefore, he refuses. Then I gather all my confidence and ride him assertively to a fence, but he's learned to refuse that fence. And the refusing started before the fall, but that big fall off really, really shook my confidence in him. It doesn't help that he randomly tries to buck me off now. (He did it again today - working circles (I WANTED to be working stretchy trot circles; instead we worked rhythym instead of racing around circles), and out of nowhere, a buck. Now, it was half-assed, and I gave him a good pop in the mouth, a yell, and a smack, and he didn't try again, but still - what the hell?)

So, the problems are:
- He's an insecure horse, and I'm not riding him confidently, and that's my fault, not his.
- He's also an inexperienced horse, and he's going to be wary of fences that look new and different - which is most of them so far in his life.
- He's also a jerky face, and so on a course, when there's a lot to look at, he's going to look at it, and I just have to be able to ride him through that - getting him straight and looking at the jumps as far away as possible.
- I'm scared of the big, solid jumps. This is new - being scared. And I'm scared because he's not a reliable jumper. And the only way he's going to get to be a reliable jumper is if I keep jumping him.

My plan of attack is this:
- Work at home on:
- Bigger fences (2'9" to 2'11")
- XC fences and "spreads"
- Courses (12 fences in a row)
- Everything at the canter
- Drop back down to Intro for the next couple of shows to build his confidence (and mine)
- Haul him to some of the recognized shows for the day for him to get the show feel without the nerves and expectations

And my goals are this:
- Ride him BN at a show with no refusals by this fall
- If I can't, send him for a month of training with Jonathan in the fall or spring
- And then if I still can't ride him, sell him and get a different horse

But I'm really perplexed why he would have been so completely unfocused at the derby when he did so well at the clinic. The obvious answer is my nerves, but I KNOW how to ride a show, and even if I'm nervous, I know what to do and was trying to do it. I just got ZERO response from him.
I don't want to sell him. I also don't want to screw him up. I've really never had a horse like this that is this much of a challenge. Although I noticed today, riding Mercury is SO easy. I think Willig is making me a better rider, but I'm so insecure about everything with him. I feel like I am just ruining both of us.
Here's our one fence (the first one) at the derby - note I am, horrors, jumping ahead. Argh.