Lesson from Teo

I know, another blog post already?! Well, the other day I rode one of the Kim's horses in order to improve my outlook and just get another perspective. D and I were doing really well and then we hit a pretty rough patch which I'm glad to say was much better yesterday. But, back to Teo. Teo is a Dutch Warmblood school master that Kim has had for about 6 months or so I'd say. I always feel like I have barely enough time to work my horse let alone get on another horse, but I think I will make sure I ride a different horse in Wednesday night lessons at least once a month. 

In order to ride Teo well I had to relax my seat, loosen my reins and drive more from the legs. I also had to trust him, as is important in all riding but sometimes you forget when nothing is working. Teo and I cantered and jumped and just had fun although I'm not sure there was anything awesome to write home about my jumping, technique its been about a year since I've jumped. Teo is unbalanced and can get quick just like D. I needed the reminder that our challenges are not blind challenges but riding challenges. 

Yesterday when I got on D I relaxed my seat and loosened my reins and I reminded myself that for better or worse we are a team. He was still quick and unbalanced but he listened better and we managed to have a fairly successful ride. Yay!

In other news, he is not shedding his coat. I researched blind horses and shedding but came up with nothing but Kim read that some of it has to do with the amount of light absorbed through the eyes. D is obviously not getting any, so we shall see... 

Spring Fever

Back in February my post was all about the common place cantering D and I were doing and yes, he does still canter but we're having to go back to basics a bit as well. D has some pretty severe spring fever currently at least that's what I am going to call it. We are back to bucking and calling out which never works well with balance and I have resorted to working over poles just to get his attention. His answer to that is to get fast and pull so we do a lot more transitions.
On Tuesday D started bucking and we were too close to the bank in the dressage ring and he lost his balance and then tripped over the poles that were on the side and essentially we both fell. I have really no idea what happened or what I should have done differently. Kim, however got a front row seat, and her take away from it was that the way he went down was impressive in that its the first one since we've known he is blind and actually its only the second time he has fallen with me (the first one was over a jump). The other thing she liked was that he made it very easy for me to get off by the time he went down. To his credit once he goes down he stops and waits for direction. Too bad he didn't think of that that beforehand, huh?
So at the moment I am not loving riding D because we have gone backwards in my mind. But if I get my mind and ideas out of it I just dial it back. I work with him on transitions at the walk and we work slowly over poles and we don't go beyond a trot until he can handle it in a sensible way. I have a hard time just seeing the bad rides as just that, bad rides and he'll come back and get it together. I start freaking out that I have lost him and this is how it will be forever, which is irrational. D is a 13 year old thoroughbred and yes he is growing up and for awhile became the trusty old man. I had the audacity to say I was getting a bit "bored" because he was becoming complacent. What I meant was I wanted to try new things and wanted to be able to use his new willing, cooperativeness to grow. Instead, D has decided to get creative. He is a horse and he is young and he is dealing with a lot of things that are not normal. I have no plans to show, I have no plans as of right now to jump, so honestly, we have time. Time to re-calibrate his brain. Time to get his right lead to bend a bit better. Time to remind him that leaning on my hands is unhelpful. Time to remind him that using his hind end to create impulsion is so much more helpful than just being on the forehand. We have time right now and that is a luxury that not everyone has and so we will continue to ride... blind.