Dressage Day by Day

NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS! I usually love reviewing my goals, progress and dreaming up new goals for the coming year, but this year was a tough one with the loss of my dear Gadget. I read a great set of articles on the Chronicle of the Horse by Matt Brown about how to shift your thinking about goal-setting. He makes the argument against fixed, outcome goals and to instead set more of "growth mindset," process-oriented goals.  And here's a link to the first article:  http://www.chronofhorse.com/article/a-case-for-not-focusing-on-your-goals-part-1  They are totally worth reading. I think dressage requires a strong focus on the "process" and I've always enjoyed thinking about the little things that build to success. However, I will totally admit to being outcome goal driven. I love setting specific score goals and even the goal of mastering a movement. Just as Gadget taught me lots of humility and patience, Iggy is going to drive those lessons home in a who

It's been a long time since I have actually written any updates about Iggy. Partly, that is because it is difficult to write about things when you are still very much in the experimental stage. I think I have loved dressage since I was a teenager because of the constant experimenting, strategizing, and problem solving of every ride. I love the intellectual side of it. However, puzzles are more fun when you are making progress toward solving them. They are less fun when you spend a lot of time wondering if you have made progress, stayed the same, or actually screwed things up. From Iggy's first show - trying to keep the big canter in one piece! Iggy is my puzzle. He is a puzzle that makes my eyes light up and my heart sing when I see him. He has this sweet baby face and the personality of a labradoodle. When I look at him, he is everything I ever wanted. Yet, our journey has not been quite as straight forward as I thought it might be. When I sat on Iggy for the first tim

There's so much to catch up on that it's hard to know where to start! First, Iggy is now a show horse. He attended a schooling show at Horse On Course. He was very well behaved in frigid temperatures. His back was tight, so our canter was a mess. However, he was brave and pleasant, so I chalked it up as a win! (And he did win his Training 2 class even with his mistakes.) We then attended our first recognized show at Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia the following weekend. It's a beautiful facility and we had a great weekend with friends. Iggy settled into the show grounds eating and drinking perfectly. He seemed to like the busy show atmosphere as a spectator, but the warm up arena had his little mind spinning. We don's ride with other horses at my quiet boarding barn very often, so the busy atmosphere was a lot for him to handle. He did well, but he took a distinct dislike to the cute draft cross and the upper level horse schooling with us. They were worthy of some

Although I did not hear Michael say it, Hani insists that Michael said I should ride 20 minutes every day as opposed to 40 minutes a few times a week. So I've decided to take his advice to heart and try to get Iggy into a steady 5 days a week of shorter, better quality work. This new boot camp began yesterday, since it was 60 degrees and beautiful. I did my in hand work with Iggy outside, and he was very good as usual. We then did our walk on long rein to relax and loosen around the jumping ring. Then we moved into the power trot getting him to "take me forward" and moving into the contact. It is easier to the right than to the left. But the jumping ring feels like a great place to work on this since it has a slight grade that will encourage Iggy to really push with those hindlegs. We then moved to the dressage ring (freshly drug and delightful!) and went back to our big forward trot down the longside, counter flex through the shortside to keep him in the trot while

Iggy and I are still struggling with the canter. It's almost ironic that I bought this incredible horse because of his huge, amazing canter and it is now the thing that is giving us trouble. Because it is so big, it also requires more strength. I had a great clinic with Michael B. this weekend and he really challenged me to get Iggy truly in front of the leg and connected to the bridle. He said that he cannot get strong if I do not build the strength pushing to the connection. Both of my rides were difficult. It was a new balance for me and Iggy. I had been riding Iggy on a very light contact and he can mostly hold the canter in that light contact. But when pushed up to the bridle to actually feel the bit, we fell apart. So we have homework: 1. Hands down on withers. 2. Stabilize the hands. Quiet right hand. Left hand forward. 3. Careful about leg position that inside legs is not too far back pushing his hindquarters out. 4. Inside leg forward. Push the canter forward from

I wrote the below in mid January but it was too hard to actually finish this post at this time: It has been a long day. After nearly 9 hours in the car for the trip to Ohio State to the equine hospital in PA to home, I am physically and emotionally spent. After getting positive updates the last couple days, I was looking forward to seeing Gadget without the furrowed brow of pain. However, again Gadget was toe-touching lame this morning. It has been 7 weeks that we have been fighting the infection and the pain. He has been through countless procedures, and even when clearly in immeasurable pain, Gadget tries to do as we ask. My emotions have been close to the surface for weeks, but it is when I think of the pain that Gadget has and continues to endure, that I can no longer stop the tears. I want with all of my heart for him to get better and I feel like we have tried everything available - surgeries, 5 antibiotics, countless lab panels, MRI, and more than 4 weeks of hospitalization