# Learning Dressage and Other Horse-y Adventures



## Espy (Feb 25, 2015)

I've actually been meaning to start this journal for some time now, but keep not getting around to it. In my first post, I'm going to summarize what's been going on the past few weeks since I started taking dressage lessons.

Originally, I was planning to take dressage lessons on my 16 year old Arab x saddlebred gelding (Link). Unfortunately, as I tried to get him into shape to do so, it became pretty apparent that he's not sound. I considered trying my 29 year old TB (Disney) but ultimately decided against it because of his age. I don't think he would be able to keep up with the physical demand of lessons. So, at my new trainer's suggestion, I decided to go ahead and use my 10 year old 12.3 hand welsh pony mare, Ember.

Emeber has fairly minimal training. I've always ridden her for fun. She can walk, trot, canter, and jump about 2' 6''. She doesn't really know how to move away from pressure, how to bend, how to give, how to flying lead changes, or really any of the advanced stuff. But she is a good pony. Very willing, very sensible, and I actually trust her quite a lot.

She hadn't been trailered anywhere in about 6 years before I decided on this lesson. I was nervous for sure. But the morning of, she loaded like a dream and off we went. Came out of the trailer fine, we tacked up, and went into the indoor arena for my first lesson. We spent a long time just walking, mounted, in the ring while my trainer and I got to know each other. She was pretty scared of the mirrors in there, and had lots of liquid-y poop. But I was very proud of her. She didn't do anything wrong at all. And this is great, considering that she used to rear when she was frightened. We didn't do much in that lesson, my trainer just helped me start the process of unlearning my huntseat in favor of a seat suitable for dressage. She even let me use an old dressage saddle so I could get a feel for it. It's very hard for me. My body just wants to fall into the correct seat for hunter. Ember was great, though.

After the lesson, I took her home and came back to watch another lesson. A woman was riding a beautiful grey Freisian x Andalusian mare. At the end of the lesson, she offered to let me ride her. This was a great experience for me, because that horse was trained more in dressage, so I was able to try out some of the things my trainer had suggested and see how it works with a trained horse.

My lesson the following week was much the same. My trained had me try to do some leg yielding exercises with Ember, and this is where I realized just how lacking her training is in that area. She thinks that any kind of leg pressure means go faster. Doesn't matter where it is. My trainer manually came over and showed me how to work the reins and my legs to see if she could get Ember to do it, but no luck. Ember wasn't getting it, and she was getting upset when she would pick up a trot and then immediately be corrected. This lesson was really not very successful. The trainer suggested that next time we do work on some lungeing techniques to begin the process of teaching her to give to pressure. Once again I took my pony home and returned to watch the next lesson. And once again, I was allowed to ride the grey mare. I practiced leg yielding and was much more successful on her. We tried walking up the center line and pushing her over to rail, parallel to it the whole time. We also tried walking the long side on the rail, bending her towards the rail, and having her to move sideways sort of diagonal to the rail. This is new to me, so I probably am explaining it clumsily.

I tried to ride her once in between that lesson and the next to see if I could teach her. Very unsuccessful. Occasionally I got a few good steps doing it diagonally off the rail, but mostly I get an upset and frustrated pony. We quit early and I waited for my next lesson instead of annoying my pony.

The next lesson which was 8 days ago was probably the most useful yet. My trainer showed me how to use a surcingle. She has Icelandic horses, so she had one that fit my pony. I had never used one before. We went to the round pen and hooked her up. my trainer had this really long lunge line with clips on either end. One clip went on the bit on the outside, through a ring on the surcingle, and around her butt so it was resting on her hocks. The other one went through a ring on the surcingle and clipped to the bit on the inside. I watched my trainer lunge her for a little bit, watching how she used her hands. My pony was responding a little bit by lowering her head, but she was sucking her face back rather than stretching her neck out. My trainer had me run the inside line through the bit and then down between her front legs and clip it to the ring down there. Ember responded much better to this and soon had her head low, her neck stretched out, and her stride nice and long. My trainer commented that she was a very fast learner and a spectator said she had great rhythm. I was very proud of her! I took over so my trainer could teach me the right technique, but I found the lunge line being so long and continuous really hard to deal with. Still, I felt pretty good about it and thought it was a great lesson.

I didn't have time to take my pony home and come back this time, but I still wanted to watch the next lesson. So I made a mistake here. I loaded Ember into the trailer with some hay and left her there with the front window thing open and went to watch the lesson. I thought she would just stand there and eat hay. I was very wrong. About 10 minutes into the next lesson, I hear a lot of banging from outside and I knew it was her. When I came outside, I found that she had put both of her front feet up where the hay goes and was trying to climb through the window I left open. Luckily someone saw what was happening and came running to help. She held my pony where she was while I went around and started opening the doors so she could back out. She got down and I lead her around and let her graze a bit. She was shaken, but didn't injure herself. That was very scary, so we loaded up and went home. Definitely need to do more work in the trailer. It was unfair of me to do that to her. She obviously wasn't ready.

I ordered my own surcingle when I got home, and opted for two lunge lines instead of that long continuous one. It didn't arrive until last Thursday. On the same day it arrived, Disney (29 year old TB) got sick. He didn't eat breakfast and was very lethargic. I took his temperature and it came to 104. I called the vet, gave him bute and banamine, and started him on Unipram antibiotics. Unfortunately there hasn't been any change. He's been buted up and in quarantine, but each day his fever returns until we give him more bute. I'm afraid for him. He doesn't have any other symptoms. No drippy nose, neurological signs, anything. Just a fever. It goes down with bute and he seems normal, but it always comes back. His serum amyloid came back in the 1600's, suggesting a pretty severe infection of some kind. His other bloodwork was fairly normal, with WBC count only slightly elevated. His kidney values were slightly elevated, though, and the vet said that it's probably kidney disease in his old age. We're changing his diet to include less alfalfa. Today he's been buted all day, so in a few hours we will see if his fever comes back again. I really don't want to lose him.

But the show must go on. I've used my new surcingle and double lunge line system on Ember twice now. The first time was very clumsy. I don't have a roundpen, so was just doing it in the arena. I didn't anticipate that she would suddenly forget she was supposed to go in a circle. When she did that, I put pressure on the inside line to turn her in a circle. I forgot that the inside line was looped through the bit and then down between her front legs. So pulling on that inside line didn't really turn her, but cranked her head down. She panicked and started moving faster, I tried to slow her down with the outside line, but it made it worse. She started turning in circles and before I knew it was completely wrapped up and tangled in the lunge lines! I'm so glad she is a very sane pony because instead of bolting, she stopped. I was able to go over to her and untangle her. I felt terrible that I let that happen. I was a lot more careful after that, and we were pretty successful. She was much more willing to round her back and all of that going to the left. Going right was much harder, and I didn't ask for as much that direction.

I used it again yesterday. We didn't have any more tangling issues, and had another very successful session. I asked her for a canter going to the left (her good direction) when her head was in the right position, but she couldn't quite maintain it. I didn't push her. I was happy with the 2-3 strides she did manage. Going to the right was better this time. Much less rigid. Still not as good as going to the left. After I was satisfied, I did a little bit of ground driving. It was fun, and went well! I was really happy with that session. I think she'll make a great dressage pony.

And now it's today! Once it gets cooler I will probably do another lungeing session with her. I need to some more trailer work as well. I decided not to go to my weekly lesson yesterday in case what Disney has is infectious. I didn't want to make any other horses sick.

I'm going to try this journal thing out. I've never really done it before. So we'll see how it goes!


----------



## CharlotteThePenguin (Apr 2, 2016)

I wish you the best of luck with your dressage! Also, your pony is adorable!! She has the cutest face!


----------



## Espy (Feb 25, 2015)

CharlotteThePenguin said:


> I wish you the best of luck with your dressage! Also, your pony is adorable!! She has the cutest face!


Thank you!! I love her to death. <3 I think she is the cutest thing.

I think I'm enjoying this journaling thing, so time to make another post!

Ember and I had a lovely evening. The past two times we practiced with the surcingle were rough. I was getting frustrated, and my pony can be very sensitive. The more stressed she got, the more frustrated I got, and eventually I just called it quits because I knew it wasn't productive. There is something to be said from learning something together. We are both trained in hunter/jumper and we both have to learn something new. I know it's not ideal, but in some ways I prefer it. It feels like more of a journey than having a push-button horse. I'm sure I'll learn dressage a lot slower this way, but that's okay.

I took a break from training yesterday to get my head together. I don't want Ember to feel stressed during training. I decided to take a step back and vowed to get a handle on getting frustrated. Today I started up again, only this time I did not loop the inside line through the bit and down between her front legs. I just went through the surcingle and attached to the bit on both sides. Maybe if I had a roundpen then doing it the way my trainer did would be good, but I'm not sure it's fair in an arena where my pony has to guess how big the circle is. Doing it this way, it was harder to get her to give to the bit and go long and low, but we managed. Had a very nice session. Right is still harder than left, but she is really starting to understand.

For our cool down, I decided to go ground driving up the road. I've ridden her out a couple times, but I always feel like it's not a good idea. She doesn't have much confidence and I don't want to get injured on the road when she spooks or tries to spin and go home. I also don't want to fall off and have her running amok on the road. I don't know if people would consider taking a horse out on a surcingle dangerous, but it worked well for us. She got to practice leading in unknown territory and I could safely stop her from spinning. It was fun! I think I'll make more of our cool downs like that. Than maybe I can ride her out sometimes.

I was thinking about this while ground driving her. When I first decided to take dressage lessons, I was nervous about using a pony. I felt like it would be so much better on a horse. I was maybe a little disappointed. But the more I work with her, the more I think she's just fantastic and that this situation is perfect for me. I think I'm a pretty confident rider in general, but there are things that scare me. I'm afraid of trailering. It scares me to load horses and it scares me to drive with them. I'm afraid to take horses to unknown places and ride them. I'm not really afraid of falling off, I'm afraid of being fallen on. 7 years ago, when I was still a beginner and could barely post a trot, my sister and I took a couple horses out on the trail. It was a little muddy, but no big deal. Except there was one part of the trail that was narrow and was on a slant. The horse I was riding was old and not very sure footed, so he slipped on that part and fell right on my leg. Luckily it didn't break my leg, but it hurt. It also scared me, because if he had slipped and fallen the other direction, we would have taken a tumble into the ditch. If that didn't kill me, I'm sure it would have seriously injured me. It just spooked me. And I never did quite get over it. I'm still afraid of horses falling on me. When a horse spooks really bad and frantically dances around, I get scared not because I could fall, but because the horse could fall when it's panicking and not paying attention to its feet. Anyways, my point is, that a pony is perfect for me because of these specific fears. It's so much less intimidating to load a pony into a trailer (especially a smart one like her), there is less weight in the trailer so I don't feel as nervous driving it, and the fear of being fallen on is just much better. Not only do I trust this pony's footing with my life, but if she did fall it would so much more mild than a full size horse falling. But you know, typing this out, I think the most important reason why I'm happy now that I'm learning on Ember is that I trust her more than any other horse. I've had her since she was 2, I helped train her, I know her inside and out. Maybe all of this would be the same with a full sized horse that I trust too, I don't know. But I decided today that I'm really glad it ended up being her that I'm using, and I'm extremely grateful that my barn is full of such nice people and no one seems to care at all that I'm an adult riding a pony. Besides all of this, Ember is sound and healthy. Since my first horse with PSSM2, that is something I will never take for granted. I don't have to worry about whether or not she is misbehaving because she's in pain, because I know she's not.

I'm very happy with our session today and just feeling really grateful for my adorable pony. She's the best.


----------



## Espy (Feb 25, 2015)

Well, all I can say is I can't wait for my lesson on Saturday! I feel like we're a hot mess.

I got a little bored of just doing the surcingle training all the time, so I figured I would try to ride her and see if I could try to imitate what the surcingle does to get her to give to the bit. No dice. I kind of feel like maybe I shouldn't mess with her until Saturday. She's starting to develop a bad habit. She does it on the surcingle, but she especially does it undersaddle. When I ask her to give to the bit, she bends her neck, puts her head down, and then sticks her nose out to try to pull the reins out of my hands. That's pretty much all I was getting when asking her to give to the bit the way my trainer showed me, so I stopped doing that, figuring I was doing more harm than good.

My next approach was just to ride her using the body position my trainer showed me. She thinks anything I do at all means to go faster, so the new body position was just making her faster (at the trot). I tried holding her back, but that was making her stick her head up. So instead I just let her trot around like a mad-woman while using the correct (or at least the best I could do) body position. This got her head lower, but still not where I want it. Head was lower, but she was still sticking her nose out instead of bending at the poll, so really not giving to the bit at all. She did eventually slow down, at least.

That's pretty much all I got done today. I guess I'm probably lucky she is a really even tempered pony. I think experiments like these are beneficial to me, and they don't seem to affect her much when they fail. 

I guess I'm just not going to do anything with her until my lesson on Saturday. At least now I have some specific questions I can ask so I can learn how to approach this better. I said in my previous post that I was kind of glad to be learning with my pony, but I can also definitely see the downside of it. It's hard for me to understand exactly what I want her to do, and therefor is hard for me to be able to ask correctly and reward at the right time. But we will figure it out. We'll work hard


----------



## whisperbaby22 (Jan 25, 2013)

I see that you are not using the throatlatch on your bridle and can't tell whether it has one or not.


----------



## Espy (Feb 25, 2015)

whisperbaby22 said:


> I see that you are not using the throatlatch on your bridle and can't tell whether it has one or not.



It does have one, but it is too short for my pony. I need to buy her a new bridle. That one was always meant to be a temporary. Long story, but I'm waiting for some money to be able to afford a new bridle for her.


----------



## whisperbaby22 (Jan 25, 2013)

I ask because I am interested in bridle design, and don't think that dressage bridles should have a throatlatch. If an individual horse needs one, that's fine, but asking a horse to collect with a throatlatch bumping on the throat is counter productive. If I was you, I would cut off the throatlatch on the bridle you have and just continue with that.


----------



## thecolorcoal (Jan 28, 2015)

The throatlatch serves the purpose of preventing the bridle from slipping off the head should it break, so it's not useless. There is a way to fit it so it doesn't interfere.


----------



## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

The throat latch is there to keep the bridle from being rubbed off, pulled off or depending on the activity or bit and rein usage from coming over the ears and falling off. It is a safety feature that has a purpose and if fitted properly (along with the rest of the bridle) is not going to impact the way the horse moves or collects.


----------



## Espy (Feb 25, 2015)

I'm going to get her a new bridle. Soon, once I have the money.


Anyways, today we finally had some success! Our lesson on Saturday was pretty shoddy. We spent some time trying to find a dressage saddle that fits her, but it's hard. She is small and very round. I was hoping to not spend a fortune, but I guess we'll see. My instructor suggested I get a saddle that can be re-stuffed and have the tree altered so that I can fit it to a new horse sometime in the future, since it looks like I might be spending a pretty penny.


After all the saddle stuff, we mostly walked. I really couldn't get her to give to the bit much, but it helped to have my instructor watching and reminding me of flaws in my seat that I wasn't noticing. There are so many things to concentrate on. It's like learning to ride all over gain. So it was good for her to remind me when my shoulders got too stiff, my back too hollow, my arms too straight, my seat too forward, etc.



Today we started by lunging on the surcingle. She always responds well to it. It must be doing something that I am not doing with my hands when I ride. We did probably 10-15 minutes of lunging in the surcingle, mostly trotting. I find that she is fussier at the walk. I think she doesn't have as much to focus on when she is walking as opposed to trotting, so she tosses her head and evades the bit more. At the trot she more often bends at the poll and gets on the bit.


After lunging, I rode. We walked for a while, going to the left first (her good direction). Then we walked to the right. I focused on what my instructor and I have been working on; moving with the horse. Relaxing my shoulders, letting my hands bob with the motion of my pony, my pelvis follow the saddle. I have been failing to understand what my instructor means when she tells me to "play" with the bit and let it glide. I was pretty much doing it randomly before. But today I feel like I'm starting to understand how to actually ask my pony to give to the bit. She doesn't get it much yet, but there were flashes. Sometimes we head would go down and then back up. She'd go behind the bit, then in front of it, try to pull the reins out of my hands, etc. I figure these are all things she is going to try until she figures it out. And I think she is starting to, and so am I. Today I focused a lot more on my seat than I was before, and I think I'm starting to understand more how you are supposed to ride in dressage. I'm used to sitting pretty forward, hollow back, hands together, shoulders pulled back, etc. Today I focused on sitting back, not hollowing my back, relaxing my shoulders, relaxing my hands.


I was having a little success at the walk, but I thought maybe the trot would be better since she seems to do better at the trot on the surcingle. Of course, just as I wanted to start trotting, the weather started picking up. It started to rain a little, and the wind would gust randomly, and there was thunder. Ember was getting pretty nervous. It looked like just one big raincloud passing over to me, so we rode through it. She did pretty well, a little spooky.


Once we were trotting (to the left), I started having more success. I feel like some things were clicking for both of us. As she got more tired, she got less willing to bend. She started sticking her nose out again, and pulling against the bit. I know she is still developing the muscles to move like this, so I didn't want to push her too hard, but I didn't want to end with her head in the wrong position. So I just kept asking and eventually she gave me about three excellent strides. Pretty much for the first time, She really bent, I felt her back lift, and her stride get longer. So we ended on those three strides.


It's baby steps, but at least we are going somewhere!


----------



## whisperbaby22 (Jan 25, 2013)

She sure is pretty.


----------

