"Please tell me you always win dressage." "Uhhhh..."

I did the morning shift by myself this morning. Progress. I only forgot to do one thing--one of the horses gets a beet pulp in the afternoons that whoever does mornings is supposed to mix up. Hickory was staked out at the fence all by himself again this morning.

We had our first lesson this morning, too, at 10! I asked for a dressage lesson first. It went about like this: Martha tells me to warm him up however I usually do. So, we're trotting and cantering around, and she goes "Callie." I say, "Yes?" (thinking uh oh what did I do) and she says, "Please. Tell me that you win dressage every time." And I'm thinking this is going to be one of those "tell me you win dressage every time, that's right, you don't. so you better listen to what I'm going to teach you because you DON'T win because you don't know what you're doing" speeches. So I say, "Uhh, no we don't." And she says, "You've got to be kidding me. This horse is too beautiful of a mover to not win dressage every single time. From now on, you will win dressage."

And she asked why we weren't winning and I first addressed our lead issues saying how we thought it was related to him not picking up the canter right when I asked (thanks Diane!) and she watched me and said that was exactly it. So, our lesson pretty much consisted of the following: we trotted in a roughly 20m circle. She noticed his habit of curling up and getting way too light on the bit (which he was doing a lot of as we were going around this little circle). I ended up with a dressage whip in each hand and every time he curled his neck I would tap him on the butt and say "nuh uh" and his head would come up. It made Hickory pretty mad-- the first time I tapped him he kicked at me.. and the 3rd and the 4th.. and several times after that, he says "DO NOT smack me!" And she emphasized that this where I was riding him with his head today was not where the final product would be--that we were just teaching him "not there." And that it is important to catch him EVERY time he curled, so that there is no gray area of "oohh, I can curl up my neck sometimes, sometimes it's ok," and just knows "I don't put my head there." And I have to work more on riding him every stride as opposed to getting what I want and then zoning out and saying "ok, thanks, now just stay there a while." I have to keep telling him this is what I want, this is what I want and not expect him to do it on his own. And lastly, she talked about how when I ride him he needs to be in front of my leg, especially in dressage. That it should be more like I am sitting back on his butt powering along than sitting more forwards and dragging him with me. He should be doing the dragging! And she gave me a different bit to try for dressage next time-- it's a really soft rubbery plain straight "hot dog" bit. She said the bit I have is definitely in the right category, on the right track, but that this one might be a little better with how sensitive his mouth can be.

And at the end of the lesson she said, "Well. I can see now why you don't win dressage. And it's going to be a little harder than I thought to get you there. But you're still going to win dressage!"

I hung around the barn for a while afterwards, there was an AccuPressure lady who came and was doing therapy with some of the horses. She seemed to know EVERYTHING about horses and what tiny physical signs could tell you about their health. I got put on the afternoon shift at the small barn, too. So, same horses but in the afternoon--feed, turn out, clean stalls, fresh water, hay, throw down hay, rake, and new shavings. So, I learned how all that goes and then went back down to the main barn to finish scrubbing some tack!

Definitely going to bed earlier tonight.