V-rails, hackamores, and German dressage masters

Yikes, a lot has happened since last time! I've been trying really hard to remember all the good stuff, though! So here goes...

I did what Martha wanted me to do and on an off day took Hickory up to the jump arena. I took my stirrups off my saddle and hopped on. In my opinion, jumping in a saddle without stirrups is much more difficult that just jumping bareback. I have been a bareback jumping fiend in my past, but saddles are much more slippery and harder to hold on to. So, I trotted around, posted and sitting, cantered, did some downards transitions where I almost fell off, etc. Hopped over some little stuff really trying to maintain proper leg position. Once my legs were nice and jello-y, I put my stirrups back on my saddle and went to work on this "compression" issue we had in our previous lesson. We were supposed to jump the roll top then six strides on a bending line to a smallish oxer. In our last lesson, I couldn't get in more than 5 strides (Hickory was just too excited to be jumping he didn't want to compress and go 'slower'). So, I needed to have a much more collected, balanced canter after landing off the rolltop. But, that doesn't mean that you're supposed to ride into the rolltop 'backwards' either. I finally got the hang of sitting up after the jump and saying 'hey buddy! listen up!' We got our 6 strides and even accidentally got 7 strides once. So, good to know, my horse IS compressible.

Another day, I had an AWESOME jumping lesson. We started warming up and I watched as Martha kept setting the jumps higher and higher and I thought 'hmmm this is fishy. those are getting big.' We jumped this oxer in one direction, then she would move it up a hole, and we would jump it in the other direction, and she would move it up a hole, etc. Until Hickory started knocking the rails. Once comment that will be good to remember during this process was when she said "When the jumps start getting big like this, you can't throw your body at them." You have to be very patient and not chase the jump with your shoulders, you have to sit up straight and wait for it to come to you. And I think, this is just me reflecting, that when you chase the jump with your shoulders that's when you end up getting the big distances (which, remember, you can only safely have 3 of in a round before things start getting messy), but if you are patient and wait for it, your horse can often succesfully add in another stride, which is beneficial if they are an athletic jumper and know how to maneuver their body to take a jump when they get in close to it? hmm. Anyway, the oxer we were jumping, it turns out, was a Prelim level oxer which is 3'6, which I was pretty darn excited about. But, since he kept knocking it, we moved over to a 3'6 vertical that Martha set up "V-rails" on. If you're approaching it, it's an upside down V. Two poles. The point of the v is in the center of the jump as the poles are resting on the top rail of the jump and the spread part of the v is coming out towards you like a chute. So, because of this chute, you have to jump the middle of the jump, but the middle of the jump has this maybe 3" higher point to it. The exercise teaches the horse a different way to use his body which is what they need to learn when they start jumping big jumps. It really makes them sit back and "rear up" in their take off. And MAN it feels like you are taking off in a spaceship! We jumped the v-rails several times, being sure to have an appropriate canter. A few times Hick bucked a little bit after the jump, but it was a 'woah, that was different, mom!' buck because he was using different muscles to jump differently. It was a really cool lesson. Not very long, we stopped pretty quickly, he was gonna be sore the next day!

The next day was Friday, my daddy's birthday and I was leaving to go home for the weekend. So that morning I hopped on for a little bareback dressage ride. We mostly did walk work--leg yields, shoulder in, consistent frame stuff.

Had a fantastic 4th of July weekend at home.

Tuesday I had another jump lesson with the training level group, but that day it was just me and one other girl. We tried something new with Hickory's bit. Took a piece of leather and looped it through both side rings of my snaffle and then took the ends and tied them up really snuggly around the noseband. The theory behind this was that we were trying to take some of the pressure off of the bars of his mouth and redistribute it to his nose--sort of hackamore-like-- to reduce the curling issue. It wasn't very pretty. Not terrible, but not pretty. He didn't curl a whole lot, but there was some curling, plus I had significantly less leverage than normal so steering and stopping were bad. But aside from a little tug of war, he was FANTASTIC. He jumped wonderfully.

Thursday we finally tried out the hackamore (like a bitless bridle). Instead of on the mouth, the pressure of the reins is distributed across the horses nose, and there is a curb chain for leverage. It's really weird, wondering what it's going to be like jumping your horse without a bit in his mouth... how's he going to act? how does this thing even work? But it was phenomenal. It was perfect for Hickory. He never curled up once, and I could stop so easily, steering will take a little practice but was pretty decent, and the overall quality of his canter and jump improved as well. His shoulders were up, he had an uphill canter, and Martha said he looked much "free-er." So, am currently searching out a good hackamore to purchase!

Wednesday and Thursday world-renowned Pferdewirtschaftsmeister, or dressage master, Alex Gerding stayed at Land's End to teach a dressage clinic. I didn't get to see much the first day, but I saw some really cool stuff the second day. One of the riders commented 'this guy is better than Michael Poulin!' Something interesting he said that everyone could benefit from--faulty use of technical term--the "outside" whatever does not indicate the side that is next to the wall/fence/whatever. "outside" refers to side off the bend. So if someone says use your outside leg, that is the opposite leg of the direction your horse is bent, regardless of the wall. He said 'we don't ride in relation to buildings!' In his great german accent. I learned a lot, but it is hard to explain because the things he taught were different and specific for each and every horse. At the end of the day Thursday, (Alex is staying at Martha's house) I was in the house getting ready to go to Junior League in Lexington with Rachel (saddlebred show), which is a dressy affair. So, I was all done up, actually did my hair, was wearing makeup, etc. I come upstairs to put my contacts in in the bathroom and there's Alex Gerding. I smile. He says, "And vere are you going?", noticing I'm dressed up. Me: "Oh, I'm going to Lexington to a Saddlebred show with my friend, and apparently we are supposed to dress up for it." He says, "Yes, yes, I see zis. You look very pretty. Ve like it, ve like it a lot." It was great. And he's coming back to Land's End in a few weeks to do a follow-up clinic. I wish I could scrape together the money to ride with him! The cool thing is is that he gets on almost everyone's horse during the lesson, so you get to watch him ride your horse.

So, there are the highlights from the past few days!