While Duke is in rehab, Mr F goes to work

 Feisty is a 4 year old OTTB, who was "too lazy" to race. He's been with us three weeks so far, and what we've done is:

- Learn to stand tied (not cross-tied) in the aisle.

- Stand quietly for feet picking, grooming, and tacking.

- Load and unload in the trailer quietly.

- Go on rides in the trailer (haven't accomplished quietly).

- Lunge both directions at walk, trot, and canter.

- Graduate from little turn out to medium turn out, to middle pasture.

- Wear shipping boots and a fly mask.

- Have the fly spray squirted NEAR him (not ON him, my mistake the first day).

What's coming next is standing quietly next to the mounting block, and then after that is being ridden at the walk. I figure that will take a month, and then we'll start trot and canter in August (hopefully!).

It's a little slower going than I thought, but every day we do some work together (not the same thing two days in a row) and make it a little bit harder each day than it was the day before. Sometimes he struggles to figure out what I want, but he's a good boy and works through it.

The goal is to get him into regular lessons with John by the fall, so that next year he can go to derbies, and hopefully progress BN to N.

Rehab

 In January, Duke felt a little off. It got progressively worse. Six months later, he's had an MRI, two ultrasounds, platelet therapy, a few shockwaves, a couple months of lasering, ligament supplements, and stall rest. He was in his stall plus a 12x12 paddock most of the time, and I'd take him out to graze and "walk" 15-20 minutes per day.

At first, he didn't want to put weight on his right hind, but a couple months ago, he started standing on it and perked up a lot.

He has ligament damage in both hind legs, and he had coffin bone damage in his right hind, where the ligaments pulled the bone and made it jagged.

His follow up exam, the ligaments had not filled in, but had not gotten worse, but the coffin bone had smoothed out.

His rehab is going to be a month of walking (building up to 30 minutes, we just finished the first week of 10 minutes by hand, and two 10 minute rides under saddle), then start 2 minutes of trot and over two more months building up to 12 minutes of trot.

So that's July, August, and September.

Then in October and November, we'll add in canter. And in December, jump again.

It was really great to get back on him yesterday, after five months off.

John said:

- If he recovers, he's going to need more icing and care.

- He probably won't be able to go above prelim, because the speed is too hard on the ligaments.

- He needs a job, mentally, to be a happy horse.

- Walk him on the hard pavement a little, to help "toughen" the ligament.

Disappointment and revitalization

 Last week, Duke had one of his meltdowns. It was (probably not coincidentally) after a few unpleasant days at work (after a few unpleasant months at work). But for whatever reason - like when we got eliminated at EI last fall, it just crushed me. Despite a few days of nice weather, I just couldn't bear to get back on him, and when I got to John's for my lesson, I asked if I could just ask questions instead of get on and ride.

John's plan:

- Duke comes for a month to Caber, John does most of the riding (4x). I take a couple lessons, maybe ride once a week by myself. See if I miss him. John thinks I will.

- Ride Duke with his metal bit, not his Happy Mouth.

- John will think about making me a weekly schedule for me to follow. But if Duke is having a melt down day, I have to respond to him, not strictly follow the schedule. He'll also think about how I'm prone to do exactly the same exercise we were working on in a lesson until he teaches me a new exercise.

- John comes to teach me at my house, to see how Duke is 5/7 of the time I ride him, instead of how he is at Caber.

- We stay strict with the Duke at Caber 1/2 of every week, with 1 John ride, two lessons, and a ride in between. 

- Duke gets leased to someone for this year (maybe next year) when I am working too much to ride him enough.

- I get Duke a companion - either a project horse (not enough time) or a pasture mate. 

- Duke gets boarded:  either at Jess's or John's, depending on Covid (not enough time).

- Duke gets sold.

John's thoughts:

- Duke is quirky, and I am underestimating how well I ride him. John can see the improvements from when he got here 4 1/2 (?!) years ago, but I can only see the flaws.

- He thinks that like the refusing to be caught, Duke knows how to push my buttons and does it sort of on purpose, where those aren't John's buttons, so John just ignores it when Duke does it.

- Sometimes I need to just have fun with him. Like just ride him around in the pasture and sit on him.

- Try to unwind from work before I get on him.

- Try to unwind from work. John thinks that working from home is not good for me. I am working too many hours, not doing anything else, and heading towards burnout because there's no break. 

- Duke will be easy to lease, but there are a lot of disadvantages, and harder to sell for what he is "worth" because he needs a particular rider. He's not difficult, like John's other horses are, but he's not easy.

- John thinks I have too much emotionally invested in Duke ("like a Jewish mother") where he's just a horse that John rides. Like "I bought you this 5 acres, why can't you bend left for me?"

- He thinks that bending to the left is Duke's pitfall. And so I can't do "bend, bend, BEND!" even though I "should" be able to, because Duke gets it in his head that he's unbalanced and then he has a panic attack. He said it has to be "bend, bend, Bend, Bend, BEND, BEND!" (Andrea was saying today that Cheeto - another OTTB - also doesn't bend left and just gets idiotic about it, where he goes totally normal to the right. Duke was too, the first year, and has gotten better, but still hates bending left when he's going right.)

- Re the emotional investment, he doesn't have a problem with me riding another horse - especially if it is one that isn't mine. I will look at it as riding, not as ego.

- I need to jump him more regularly. Riding Duke dressage all the time isn't fun for him or me. Jumping him reminds me why I have him - his snotty arrogant attitude on the flat is WHY I have him - for cross country.

- John says don't underestimate that Duke took me around prelim clear. He says it's not a big deal to me, but it's a really big deal to him.

- Finally, I do need to ride him different at home because I don't have an arena wall. So when Duke is drifting left instead of bending, I need to use the outside rein to make a fake wall. We practiced on a circle.

Increasing the depth is using outside hand and inside leg

 Because I was all frazzled about an upcoming appellate oral argument, I knew I was going to have trouble focusing, and so John only gave me a few things to remember. So I hopefully can remember them all.

First, when I pick up the reins, or make any other movement, I don't have to do it huge and abruptly. I like GRAB the reins and move jerkily. I can be more subtle.

Second, John suspects part of Duke's anxiety isn't so much from "noisy" hands (like I was thinking, after he had a few days with John and then had to "listen" to me), but from me giving too many aids too quickly. He said Duke isn't terribly responsive, so I give an aid, he doesn't immediately respond, so I give a different one. He said give Duke a second or two between aids, to make the communication about each aid more clear and distinct.

Third, we worked on making Duke more round (more deep). The aids are simple, but have been elusive for me. It is getting the correct amount of inside bend, holding inside hand steady, and then doing squeeze/release with outside hand to make him round. And inside leg to that hand to keep him moving forward, and then sometimes outside leg to keep him from bulging out on the circle instead of going round.

So. Simple.

Yet has been completely out of my grasp until yesterday.

We also talked about Duke's incident at Caber 1.0 and why it wasn't the same at Caber 2.0, and what to try different. We both agreed that last year's approach (lesson Wed, John rides Thurs, I ride Fri, lesson Sat) helped me learn much more quickly than just lessons twice a week. There was something about riding him after John rides him that really helps. John thinks I'm just more confident in my feel, but I think that Duke "talks" to me better after he's been ridden by John. We'll see if that helps.

A few days with John, and it's like riding a different horse

 Duke felt completely different today. He was balanced, he didn't chew on the bit, he didn't yank on my hands, I didn't have to nag him with my leg, it felt like his back was lifted. When I gave an aid he responded. I don't quite know how to describe everything that was different, but he was so easy and comfortable to ride. He didn't plunge towards the fences, it felt like we were going slow but we covered the ground.

John says for the show, to ride him in his jump bridle, that he likes it more, to leave him at Caber, he thinks it helps with Duke needing to pee, to wear the ear nets, and if he stops, to drop my legs out of the stirrups to try to surprise him into thinking I'm getting off. He said Duke can't learn that it's ok to stop and then he doesn't have to work anymore. (Although I also should have gotten back on him at Caber and just ridden the holy shit out of him in warm up.)

John said he wore ear nets (no real difference, because ...) Duke didn't really act up for John. He got tense once, but that was it. John says he thinks Duke is clever enough to know the difference on who is riding him, and he does what he thinks that rider prefers. Like John likes to add a stride and I like to lengthen. 

We did a little warm up, where I had to get him more round, then jumped a little cross rail, a vertical, and then a baby oxer, then an oxer 4 strides to a vertical (the first time we did it in five) on a bending line to the right, then oxer 5 strides to a vertical, and then oxer, 5 strides to vertical, right hand turn to a hard right turn to an oxer, 2 strides to a vertical, left turn, angle the oxer hard for a straight line to a vertical.

Duke was smooth and easy.

So I don't know if I'm mad or happy. Maybe a professional (or a better rider) could ride him. And if he's smart enough to not do it with John (granted, not at a show), then if we can just figure out what I'm doing that I need to change (too busy with my hands? inconsistent aids?) it will make Duke happy and me a better rider. But riding him feeling this good was also good/bad because I realized how stiff and unpleasant he is to ride most of the time.

John said the big thing on the flat was that Duke doesn't want to do the final bend. He gets stuck and gets mad and John just had to push him through it - make him bend and keep asking, don't give up.

For jumping, he said Duke wanted to grab the bit and rush at it (not quite those words) and he had to be patient. He said he was like "look asshole, you know how to put in a stride". 

What's next for Duke

 John asked Malcom to leave the speakers, so he will ride him with the sound. He thinks (like I do) that it is the speakers, and the sudden noise, and that it likely comes from something on the racetrack. He said that after last time, he rode Duke near the radio, but couldn't trigger the same response. We'll also try the noise muffling ear bonnets. When I said that it isn't all speakers, John said that it's the location of the speakers. The ring at Caber was right next to them (while the other rings aren't), at Aspen they're up on a hill, at Rebecca they're only in warm up, and at Spokane they're right next to the warm up. So it's the proximity too.

The other fix was that I was right to put him to work, but I shouldn't have given him a break. It's possible if I had kept him going (I misunderstood how many horses were before me before we went in) he might not have thought "whew, I'm done" and then been so angry when he went back to work.

And the last suggestion was to drop my feet out of the irons, to kind of snap him away and make him think I'm getting off.

John said it isn't about me as a rider, and that when Duke did it to him at Spokane it was 4 minutes of frozen, and he (John) couldn't get Duke out of it. But he said Duke's advantages outweigh this, and we just have to figure out a workaround. He said I'm the screw up (my words, not his) on cross country and jumping, that's on me, but this is 100% Duke and some past traumatic event (in Duke's mind). 

Eliminated in dressage at Caber, on second movement (halt)

Same as Whidbey, he got scared, had a panic attack, froze, and after a minute of refusing to move, we were eliminated. Then he spun in circles until the judge made me get off and lead him out. She thought he was going to start rearing.

Show record:

Preliminary

Caber - August 2020 - Eliminated dressage

EI - September 2019 - Eliminated cross country

Aspen - September 2019 - 2 refusals xc - 17/26 (17/18 finishers)

Caber - August 2019 - 1 refusal xc - 17/23 (17/20 finishers)

Rebecca - July 2019 - 2 refusals xc - 21/24 (21/21 finishers)

Inavale - June 2019 - 12.4 time xc (schooled water) - 7/18 (7/14 finishers)

Aspen - June 2019 - Eliminated cross country

EI - May 2019 - 1 refusal xc - 11/21 (11/15 finishers)

Modified

Spokane - May 2019 - 2 rails SJ - 6/12

Training

Spokane - October 2018 - 2 rails SJ - 9/29

Aspen - September 2018 - 3 rails SJ - 13/17

Young Riders - August 2018 - 2 rails SJ - 8/17

Rebecca - July 2018 - 4 rails SJ - 12/24

Whidbey - July 2018 - Eliminated dressage

Inavale - June 2018 - 1 rail SJ - 5/14

Aspen - June 2018 - 2 rails SJ - 7/21

EI - May 2018 - 3 rails SJ - 14/21

Spokane - May 2018 - 4.4 time xc - 9/14

2017 was a couple Novice shows, he didn’t get to WA until June

Horse Camp, Derby

This week we went to horse camp (cross country with Brooke, show jumping with Marc), schooled the cross country course and the dressage test, and then rode at the Prelim derby.
Brooke and Marc both had the same observation - shoulders back. Brooke said think that there's a parasail pulling my shoulders back and that I'm leading with my belt buckle, Marc said let Duke come up to me in the fences, don't throw myself forward like an 80s rider (especially the weird flourish overdramatic crest release).
Duke did great at dressage; he got three 5.0 or 5.5, but the rest of his scores were respectable 6.0 or above; he definitely seemed more consistent, relaxed, and forward and obedient than last year.
For show jumping he got his first double clear, despite a crazy ass left hand roll back turn and only 4 of us in prelim (out of 11) went double clear in show jumping (the others got one rail down).
He jumped into the water like it was no big deal, but our issue was the corners. I tried to line them up correctly, like Brooke said on Friday when we schooled, but he ran out (to the right) at the first one and then did a dead skid to a stop at the second one, even though I thought I had him on his haunches, lined up correctly, and was using my right leg.
So a few things to work on, but overall, actually really good.
What makes me uncomfortable is that I was super happy with him, even though we ended up in last place. We could have been in 5th! Against pros and intermediate horses! But instead we were dead last; two other horses had one stop, but he was the only one with two. Maybe I'm just getting delusional. And maybe we're not cut out for prelim. But it sure felt better than end of the season last year.