Clinic Recap

It has been seriously forever since I have participated in a clinic! I was SO nervous for our clinic on Saturday - worried about riding with a new-to-me clinician, worried about Jetta behaving, worried about whether the money had been well spent, etc.

Luckily, I needn't have worried about any of those things! This was actually my first time auditing JW but I had heard nothing but 100% positive things about her from quite a few people, which I feel is rare in the horse world, so I felt fairly confident diving in without seeing her teach first.

I got to watch the two lessons before me and I thought she was very fair and encouraging. I had heard that she was blunt, which worried me because sometimes people who are "blunt" are actually "mean" but JW was awesome. But I also don't want someone that tells me how amazing my horse is while we're failing around, I really appreciate honesty while at the same time providing structure for how to improve. I've had bad experiences with clinicians who tell me I'm "ruining my horse", but I've had good experiences with very blunt clinicians who will yell at you until you follow their directions, so it can be a mixed bag of what works for me.

I did get a little bit more nervous watching people in front of me because she liked to use a leg yield at the canter to get the hind end more under the horse and engaged, and recently that has been a sure-fire way to get Jetta completely amped up and running away from me. Luckily that wasn't an exercise she had us do.

Anyways, Jetta was on her best behavior. We had a TERRIBLE ride the day before, mainly because I got the idea to try a new bit on her - just a plain loose ring french link that was slightly fatter than her Myler - thinking that maybe she just didn't like how thin the Myler was. Hahaha you would think that I had put the harshest torture bit possible in her mouth. She hated it. She finally got to the point that she could somewhat put in work, but it was not a very good ride as a whole.

At least we were matchy?

And puppy was perfect for her first trip to the barn!

At the clinic we did a brief warm up and she was paying attention to me fairly well. I didn't canter but we did some trotting, counter bending, shoulder-in, and threw in a couple halts. JW called us over and I told her a bit about Jetta - 12 year old Thoroughbred, had almost a year off for a baby, then has been under saddle again for 3 months. Not currently riding with anyone, we've been having trouble with our canter-trot transitions and lengthened trot. Currently riding first level. She's fairly hot, forward, heavy in the bridle and likes to anticipate things and get wound up.

She watched us go for a minute and started right in on our issues. While I normally find it annoying if a clinician gives me the same exercises that we've been doing at home, this time I felt it was more reassuring than anything that I was on the right track with her, plus she did it in such a way that the exercises were building on eachother plus I had a person on the ground to tell me when I was letting Jetta get away with doing stuff only part way.

We did some transitions in the trot - she had me start with a big working trot, only a little bigger than what we'd show with. JW labeled this as a "5" trot, then had me slow her to a 4, 3, 2, 1, keeping her rounded and on the bit. The main thing I've been letting her get away with is not keeping her round on both reins. I have her nicely on my inside rein, but let her drop the outside rein. We kept playing up and down with this scale of trotting, and JW would occasionally call out a number for us to go to or tell us to make a 10 meter circle.

At home, we've been doing lots of 10 meter circles, figure-8's and serpentines. We've also been doing bending and counter bending. This theme was reiterated in our lesson. JW had us exaggerate our inside bend and counter bend, getting Jetta to accept my leg. That's the other thing that we really need to fix is her not accepting my leg, instead she's running away from it. I've been trying to work on it at home, but I guess I haven't been as committed to it as I need to be.

Then we really got to work. Enjoy my artwork of our exercises:

First exercise at the trot

Second exercise with canter-trot transitions

We did these until we were getting more consistent transitions. Still not great by any means, but Jetta was staying rounder, definitely trying to do things correctly, and the quality of her trot had improved quite a bit. JW ended by saying that while I think Jetta likes to come up with avoidance techniques for everything (and while I don't try to let her get away with it, she still does in some capacity), she liked how Jetta wasn't resentful about anything. I'm just needing to expect more from her, focus on keeping her round and on the bit at all times, keep my leg on in transitions and circles (especially my outside leg!).

Some favorite quotes:

• "Good struggle!"
• "Don't fight with them... think of it as a clarification of expectations"
• "Why do you let her do that?" "I don't know" "Well figure it out!"
• "Is she bending on both reins?" "No" "Then why haven't you fixed it already?"

Overall, I enjoyed the lesson. I like that she didn't go easy on us, she seemed to easily pinpoint the two underlying problems we're having. Her exercises made sense to both me and Jetta and didn't make Jetta upset or make things worse. She wasn't mean though and seemed to think that I was competent despite my many failings and that Jetta was a nice horse. I would definitely ride with her again!

Round 1 Part 3

Well Round 1 part 3 of vet school is underway (also known as the third term of my first year). I can't believe I'm already 1/6 of a vet and by the end of this term I'll be 1/4 of the way! And I've got lots to update (plus a huge photo dump)!

So far so good. All my classes seem really interesting but not overly difficult. We're finally starting large animal gross anatomy so I'm really excited for that. Plus immunology, pathology and physiology. Lots of -ology's! Plus I've got to do lots of fun veterinary-related horse stuff recently. I did my first dental, first castration and my first ultrasound of the tendons in the lower leg (lameness exam). So this term is off to a good start!

Spoiling Jetta by picking grass for her. And it's her mini-me!

Jetta's mini-me, Chester. I am going to steal this adorable pony

I'm loving the extra light, while the actual transition of time for Daylight Savings was rough, now I feel like I can get out of school and actually go ride before heading home to study. But then again the study load isn't that heavy yet, so we'll see how well I stick with my plan of riding at least 3 times a week.

Lots of riding outside

Love my new gloves

The ponies have been good and I've been getting a lot of good rides in on Misty. Jetta has seemed a tiny bit off, so I'm giving her some more time off and then we'll decide what we want to do about it. But Misty has been really fun! I think she's finally gaining some fitness. I'm set on competing her for reals this summer and am planning out our calendar. I want to show at First Level (probably just 1-1 and 1-2 for now) meaning we've got lots of work to do on our leg yields. 

She's doing well with the leg yields and we've even started doing them at the canter! I stole the fun idea for canter leg yields to flying changes from the Jumping Percheron. They're really fun! The main problem we're having is that our leg yields are too steep (I've never had this problem before) so I have a few new exercises I want to try and get a better angle to the leg yield.

We need to work on her posing skills. But she's cute!

Four off the floor!

This is the trot lengthening we need...

Show off

At least she's pretty

so sassy

I went to audit a clinic with Eric Smiley with a vet school friend over spring break and it was really fun. It was outdoors and the weather was quite bipolar (it's raining! now it's sunny! now it's cloudy and windy! and so forth) but I really enjoyed listening, he seemed like a great clinician to ride with and I definitely picked some things up and since then I have been torturing poor Misty with lots of trot poles. I think the main take away that we need to work on is that Misty needs to take ME to the jump, I shouldn't have to be pushing her over the jumps. If she's being lazy I can correct it and tell her to wake up and get it together, but I shouldn't be having to do the work of pushing her over every fence. That and he also told a couple riders that if the course didn't go like you wanted, then change something. I know I'm definitely guilty of this as well, riding the same pattern over and over and hoping that one of these times it'll work out correctly, but I'm not changing anything about it in order to help it work.

Other little tid-bits

• If you know you're off of your striding, he advocates for pushing them forward (lengthening their stride) instead of holding them back 
• Recognize if your striding is off when you're 3+ strides out. You shouldn't be changing your length of stride 1-2 strides before the jump
• Don't ride corners, they're hard. He did a lot of circle work
• He set up lots of narrow ground poles perpendicular to the jump to make the horses straight, he would even stand directly in front of the jump to the side a bit to make the horse jump through the middle (slightly nerve-wracking to watch!)
• It's the horse's job to pick up their feet and pay attention, hence the trot poles

One of the riders in the clinic posted a great write up on COTH so you should go read that if you're interested!

And lastly, I finally got to go for a trail ride last Friday! First trail ride of the year and first trail ride in such a long time. It was gloriously nice weather, the trails were very empty and we had a short, fun ride. It was perfect!

While Misty's feet are awesome on gravel, I wanted to be extra careful not to throw a wrench in our plans this spring and get a stone bruise since it's still pretty wet out so Misty's hooves are a tad soft. So I discovered that Jetta's easy boots that go on her hind feet fit Misty's front hooves absolutely perfectly! They didn't rub her scar at all, though it was a little tight getting the gaiter to shut on her scarred foot. But they did perfectly even when we had ourselves a nice little gallop. 

Her "tennis shoes"

Dressagin'

Finally had a dressage lesson, it's been way too long! I can't even remember when we had the last one, probably sometime this past spring? I never got around to hauling out for a dressage lesson over the summer, though I definitely meant to.

I feel like at this point in Jetta's training, we've reached a plateau where she's as far as I can take her. There's a lot of little things we can work on, especially to get her back to how well she was going over the summer, and I can start teaching her the second level movements and building the basics for third level. But that's as far as I can get in dressage with her without some outside help. And if I want to make things really correct and improve our scores at first/second level, then we need a trainer's help.

Anyways, the lesson. I of course thought that it would be a wonderful idea to take the first lesson spot at 7:30am (I was organizing this clinic for the dressage team). I also thought it would be a good idea to commit to volunteering at 9:30am. So I woke up at a gastly time of 4am to drive to the barn, grab the horses and then pick up the girl that would be riding Misty and get to the barn for our lesson. I ended up planning everything perfectly, but geez it was awful. Not to mention, why on earth are there no coffee shops/gas stations open at 4am?! I needed my caffeine badly...

This is what it looked like when I got there for my lesson. Sunshine where are you??

Add in that it was absolutely freezing, a whopping 21 degrees when we pulled into the barn. Having Jetta and Misty together there was interesting... I haven't trailered them together to an event at all and they've gotten pretty attached since they're now pasturing together. Thus, Jetta was not on her best behavior. With not riding her a ton, I knew she wasn't going to be great. But she was also really tense because she was worrying about where Misty was the whole ride.

That said though, she wasn't completely awful. We had a lot of good moments, showed some clear improvements from our last lesson with KB and she tried.

What we worked on:

• Leg yielding on a circle to get her paying attention to me as a warm up when she was really worrying about Misty.
• Leg yielding up the center line, getting her to lower her neck, which is a huge issue for us right now. She has improved a ton since our last lesson, where we also worked on leg yields. She now moves nicely off my leg and doesn't over bend. She's a touch too leading with her haunches, but I'll take it over being sluggish off my leg. Now we just need to work on the neck. KB had me half halt with the outside rein (the theme of our lesson). "Outside rein controls the position of the neck". If Jetta popped her head up, we did a 10m circle and asked for her to lower her neck and tried again. Worked. Like. MAGIC.
• Cantering, we worked on our shallow serpentine. Turns out, while you're required to show bend in the direction of your lead, I'm asking for too much bend which is throwing her off balance (which is why she rushes in the second half) so I need to ask for her to stay straighter in the neck. Big improvement. 
• Lengthen trots. Our homework for improving that is to play around with getting her biggest possible trot on a circle, then coming back to a smaller trot, then bigger again. All while asking her to lift the front and and not fall on her forehand. KB said most horses will "discover" their lengthened trot off of this exercise, so we'll see. She said we're going in the right direction for the moment though. 
• Another tip for the canter was my seat. I have a driving seat, always have and I can't get rid of it. Even if there's some magical way to quiet my seat, I just can't make it work. But instead of making my driving seat quiet and non-existent, KB had me just sit deeper and drive Jetta into longer strides, instead of the short strides that my seat was previously asking for. Also magic improvement.
• Shoulder-ins were good, KB said I was doing a good job teaching/working on those. Sometimes we get a little bit too much angle and sometimes we drift, but we'll work on that. 

Overall, it was a good lesson. I was disappointed that Jetta didn't behave herself (lots of gnashing on the bit and pulling and rushing, etc) but it wasn't a total loss and we got some great exercises. KB said her gaits are looking nicer than last time (when she was behaving herself anyways) and that she's developed some nice upper neck muscles, despite still bracing the underside of her neck.

Then Misty was next! Another girl on the team rode her. She's not a super advanced rider, but she's not a beginner. Misty was okay for her. She tested her a bit and they struggled with some things that I don't have an issue with, but it was just because they didn't know eachother and KF (the girl riding) had no experience with green horses.

I told KB that Misty was just green in the area of dressage, mainly just because of the contact. What I'd been working on with her was just pushing her forward into contact, getting her more round especially through transitions and working on a nice forward, even tempo. So that's what they worked on again, it was nice to see that she did some of the same things I'd been doing with her.

• She had  KF start out with a light contact. Misty was being kind of obnoxious and flipping her head/dropping contact, so eventually she had her pick up more contact and if she flipped her head, she'd bend her to the inside to make her stop.
• When they moved into the trot she had KF really push Misty forward into a really fast trot, just to get her out of the habit of her lazy trot. Misty's auto-trot speed is between a dressage trot and a jog. It's still got nice impulsion and it's pretty, but it's not as fancy as it could be. KF really struggled getting Misty to move forward, which I don't have a problem with, but I think that was just a bit of Misty testing her and KF not knowing exactly how to ask. Misty has some really great looking moments when she was moving out and carrying herself nicely with just the minimum of contact.
• Cantering was lovely, though KF had trouble asking for it just because she doesn't have a completely independent hand/seat connection. So she'd ask for it and Misty would go to canter but she'd get caught in the mouth a little and it would be a little bit awkward transition. Once they got into it though, it looked very nice. 
• Transitions, she had some nice improvement. KB had KF sit deeper and ask, instead of letting her hips go with the motion, that way they were able to eliminate the little baby trot steps that happen in the trot to walk transition, mainly going off the seat instead of the reins so that she wouldn't brace. 

Overall, Misty was really good and I really enjoyed watching her go. Plus, KB LOVED her which was awesome. I love it when other people also love your horse :) She really liked her movement and said that she was going to make a nice dressage prospect! So that was awesome. 

I totally meant to take pictures of Misty getting ridden, but it was so freezing (it warmed up to a balmy 23 degrees at the time), that I didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets, even though I was wearing gloves, and I just chatted with KB while I watched. I love getting to talk training theory with someone who knows what they're doing! It's awesome. So we discussed how to teach the flying changes which was really interesting and now I have a lot to mull over in that department.

After we finished up the lessons, I stuck them in their stalls, dropped KF back at her house and went and did my volunteer project for an hour and a half, then picked the ponies back up and went home. I got home at around 12:30, but it seriously felt like 4pm I was so wiped out. Turned Misty out and got to work clipping Jetta. I've been meaning to do it forever, but I finally got my new blades and having a jumping lesson on Sunday was the perfect motivation to get it over with.

I was going to do the same clip as last year, a blanket clip, but got impatient, so I didn't end up clipping a small amount on her flank/hip, but I don't think it will matter that much since she's really only getting ridden 2-3 times a week. But it will make cooling out SO much better. I love having a clipped horse.

Jetta was great for it. I tied her up to do her neck so she couldn't graze. She loved having her chest area and her throatlatch done. Her eyes got half closed and she stayed very still. Then whenever I stopped she'd wake up and fidget. I untied her to do her belly so she could graze. She also loves having her belly done. She'll stop grazing and her lips will wiggle. I'm so glad she loves it! It makes it that much easier. I definitely didn't do my best clip job because I was super impatient. I just eyeballed the whole thing and got it to be relatively even and straight. As long as it wasn't super embarrassing and it was functional, I couldn't care less!

Half naked pony. Now all we need to do is get her mane under control and she'll be looking good!

Photography Workshop

Over the weekend I got to go to a photography workshop with one of my favorite equine photographers, Mary Cornelius. I've always admired her photos and have wanted her to take photos of my and my horses forever, but have never gotten around to having her out for a session or attending a show where she has been the photographer. In fact, one of my greatest regrets is not having her out to take pictures of Grady. She was doing an elder horse project of horses 25 and older, so I was going to have her out this summer to get some shots of Grady, though for obvious reasons I will never get to have those pictures done :(

Anyways, the day was not off to a good start. I live in a townhouse near campus in the city. We have a garage and assigned parking spots. My roommates all leave their spare keys in case we need to rearrange cars since we essentially have three spaces, but they're all in a straight line. We typically only use two spaces unless a boyfriend needs to park overnight. Anywho, I woke up at 6 and went out to my car to leave at 6:30, opened the garage door to find... a random car. In our space.

I woke up one of my roomies to make sure she didn't know whose it was (I'd never seen it before and there was no one random spending the night at our house). Having decided that we didn't know who it belonged to, I went outside and made sure no one was around to whom it might have belonged. No one. I'm guessing it belonged to a guest at our neighbors who had a ridiculously crazy party the night before. College, I'm telling you. After calling the towing company whose name was posted on the "Do Not Park Here unless it's your space or you'll be towed" signs and determining that only our manager could have a car towed, I called him and he answered! Major cudos to a manager who answers his phone before 7am. He was great and arranged to have a towing company come move the car.

Getting towed...

An hour later and I was finally on my way. I felt fairly bad about having the truck towed since they would have to pay for it, but at the same time I was really mad. I mean, who does that? It's one thing if you were parking there for a few minutes, or even if you just parked there for a few hours but still left in the wee hours of the morning. Like at 3 am or something. But the truck didn't get towed until 7:30am so that was way past the reasonable time to move it and still no one showed up.

Rough start behind, I made it to the workshop, albeit 40 minutes late. I was quite mortified to be so late (though I did call ahead to let them know I was on my way but late) since I'm one of those people who routinely shows up half an hour in advance to everything, just because I don't want to be late.

We started off almost immediately taking pictures of the foals. They were getting turned out for the day so we all went out and arranged ourselves in the different paddocks to get some good shots. Mary was helpful in deciding what settings to use - she wanted everyone to try to shoot in manual and while my camera does have an auto mode, all other settings are manual (there's an aperature and shutter dependent setting, but you still have to manually set them). It was good because even though I've had my 70D Canon for over a year, I still have no idea what to do with it and I'm finally learning the relationship between aperature, ISO and shutter speed. So it was nice to have someone there to reiterate those ideas and give tips.

The foals were SO CUTE. I want a baby warmblood! The moms were totally nonchalant about us being there and pretty much went straight to grazing but all the foals of course had to zoom around. We spent over an hour taking pictures of the babies and then the stallions got turned out so we took some pictures of them. Two of the three stallions obliged us with some nice movement, but one of them went straight to grazing which was slightly amusing, but gave Mary a chance to talk about trying to capture expressions, not just movements, which is what makes her so good. If you have a chance to check out her blog with some of the elder horse project photos, I recommend it (http://shuttermonkee.blogspot.com/search/label/elder%20horse%20project). She was able to take some great pictures of older horses, some of whom could only graze. We then went back to the classroom to discuss.



Mary told us a little of her background, which I found really interesting. She started off doing film cameras which I find fascinating since of course I've never really dealt with them and they seem like a lot of work to operate and get good quality pictures. Anyways, she got burnt out doing show photos and took a hiatus for a few years, basically refusing to take any pictures at all. Once digital started coming out though, she got back into the game and started focusing on dressage shows only and doing farm calls for portraiture, etc. She said one of the reasons that she loves taking pictures is because for a lot of people, your pictures are your most prized possessions. She said that when people get interviewed after a natural disaster where they lose all of their belongings, the one thing that most of them regret losing the most of their material belongings is their photos. She said that she wanted to be able to give horse owners pictures of their horses because it is so important to them and she didn't want anyone to be without photos of their horse when they passed away. My heart just kind of broke then because it's so true and it's why I'll always regret not having more pictures of Grady and I. It's not that I don't have any, I just don't have as many as I'd like and I have no professional photos of either him or us together and it just makes me sad.



Anyways, I loved seeing her photos before getting edited because she has such a great artistic eye to be able to look at a photo, possibly one that I might personally pass by, then crop and edit it so that it really looks like an amazing final product. She discussed different elements of good photos, beyond just the typical "rule of thirds" which was helpful, I really liked what she showed with framing and leading lines because it's something you do unconsciously when taking a photo, so recognizing what it is was helpful for saying "Oh, that is what I do and it looks good, so I should recognize that more when taking pictures."



Finally, we went out to take pictures of some of the other horses - we took some pictures of a little herd of mares, then a pair of 3 year old stud colts, then the two herds of yearlings (divided into colts and fillies). It was a lot of fun and I took a ton of photos. I haven't even had time to really sort through all of them in detail and edit my favorites, so I've just shared a couple of my favorite unedited pics. Overall, I wasn't too happy with my photo taking for the day, I guess it was just an off day, but I did get some ok shots and I can't wait to sit down and go through them all in detail!



And I have to say, the barn that it was held at was STUNNING. It was so pristine and nice, I just wanted to live in one of the barns. Yes, that's right barns plural. There were three barns on the property, I believed they were segregated to be the show horse barn, stallion barn and mare & foal barn, though I'm not sure. The arena was big and gorgeous, perfectly groomed. There was an outdoor arena as well and the rest of the property was all fenced pastures for the horses. Amazing. If I got to come home to that every day I think I would feel like I'd died and gone to horse heaven.

Successful

Yesterday was successful for several reasons: 1) I didn't fall off! 2) Jetta tried really hard and we actually improved in several areas and 3) We actually managed to garner some compliments! So successful all around. Sadly, I did not get anyone to be my paparazzi so no pictures :(

Now successful doesn't mean that everything went well, but I was happy with what we did do. Here's a recap of the day:

Our show jumping lesson was at 11:15 am so we arrived and watched a bit of the lesson before us. Jetta was pretty wired at first, really being heavy in my hands - pretty sure she was solely feeding off my nervousness though. I had entered Novice and got grouped with two Training level riders. Ah! I'm not ready to jump that high! Was what I was thinking. I was super nervous that we'd be pushed too far out of our comfort zone and have another accident like last weekend.

Luckily though, even though the trainer, KH, did push us farther than I would have thought possible for our level, Jetta stepped up to the challenge nicely! While Novice is 2'11" max height, I haven't really jumped that high... mostly at all. We've been doing a lot of 2'9" jumps. Anyways, ended up doing a huge long 3' course. Way to go pony! I was so proud of her, these were some pretty big verticals and oxers, all around 2'11" to 3'0" tall. Of course it wasn't perfect, there was a triple combination that was quite hairy. I told KH that we had trouble with combinations so this was great practice. Jetta repeatedly ran out or refused at fence 2, a little (large) picket fence. But by landing super straight and "staying close to the horse" I was able to get Jetta through the line, a little rough, but we ended up doing it twice. Success! At one point when I was going through the combination KH yelled Sit up! SIT UP! And I did! It's nice to have someone to yell at you :)

And to top it off, we rode our first fence at an angle! She did so good, not even trying to refuse, although you could tell she was a little confused - do I jump it or not? And then riding a bending line to another fence on a diagonal. Such a pro. And we jumped a swedish oxer (love!) and although she took a good hard look at it, she went over. I was so happy with her by the end. It was rough and unpolished, but she tried really hard.

Homework: Sit up! Use the outside rein to turn the shoulder. Land straighter.

Ready to do some xc!

Then we had three hours until cross country. So I took a nap :) Jetta is very well behaved with being tied to the trailer as long as she had hay. What I love about her is that every time I offered her water throughout the day, she'd drink it. Jazz would never drink at a show unless she spent the night, so it makes me feel better when they actually drink!

Cross country came, this time with another trainer, DR. She was the more experienced trainer and obviously very knowledgeable, so I learned a lot. Another proud moment - Jetta jumped down a bank! And we cantered into and through the water! And we jumped down into the water! The only thing that we didn't get to do that I wanted was working on ditches, so that will have to be next time. Otherwise, this first part was awesome! It took quite a bit of convincing to get her to go down the banks, she did not want to. But another rider with an awesome flea-bitten gray pony let us tail her super close so Jetta just followed her off the edge. Once she did it once, she was like Oh! This is actually kind of fun! I can do this!! She was super proud of herself afterwards.

The jumps however, were still not very good. She's still afraid of them :( I wish we had never gone schooling last weekend, because up until that one jump that I fell at, she was doing amazingly. So we schooled the same set of jumps over and over and over again until the roll top wasn't quite as scary.

Homework: Again, sit up! Work on riding softly and forward to the jumps. Collect six strides out, then ride forward the last three strides with giving hands.

Overall, I was very pleased with Jetta. She worked hard and I'm so excited about doing the banks and also about how awesome our show jumping was. Can't wait to enter a jumper show :)

Clinic Recap

Had a good clinic this weekend! I was super nervous about it, like always whenever I plan an event for the dressage team I stress incessantly all throughout the night.

The clinician was super nice (I'll call her TS) even though she had to fill out a ridiculous amount of paperwork through the university which I felt bad about, but I have no control over unfortunately. I feel like trainers and judges dread working with the team because it's so difficult! But TS was a good sport about it.

I did mess up with the ride scheduling unfortunately. TS said she wanted 45 minute lessons so I scheduled them for 60 minutes so that no one would feel rushed and there would be time for warm-up and cooling off since there was only a small indoor arena. Oops, I guess that was not what she wanted! But it ended up running smoothly, especially since I was hauling three horses so we all rode in quick succession so we finished earlier than originally projected.

I have a three horse trailer but I've hauled three horses in it a grand total of three times (including this weekend) and all of the horses were from different locations and lots of backing and turning around in small spaces was involved. But I handled it like a pro if I do say so myself :) ML moved to a new barn, which I'm not a huge fan of because it's pretty far from my barn and there's no turn around, it's at the top of a tall hill = not fun at all! Essentially I have to back up a large hill to turn around without falling of the cliff. With three horses in the trailer. Yikes.

The hauling all went smoothly, though Jetta did get nicked on her hock, but I believe that was from her trying to kick the gelding in the slant next to her. Mares...

When it was my turn to ride, we warmed up on the loose rein like usual but didn't get a whole lot of time. TS had me work on getting her to slow her rhythm down and have a lower neck set so that she'd use the muscles in her neck closer to her withers which is where she needs development. Jetta wasn't awful, but she was trying to rush around on her forehand and I think if I had just given her a couple of half halts, it would have gone a bit better.

She really liked Jetta. She thought she had good conformation (she commented that she had good bone!) and that I had found a good horse. I'm proud of my $750 horse :) And, get this, she told me that she believes that Jetta has FEI potential. Wow. That is the best compliment that I have ever received about Jetta, though everyone who sees her tends to like her ♥ I've never even thought about ever being able to go that high. I was hoping to get to third level! And this is coming from a Grand Prix rider. She commented that she had amazing gaits and her movement allowed her to mask her improper carriage - holding her head correctly and tracking up, but not lifting through her back.

We worked on getting Jetta off of my left rein as she tends to hang on it in both directions. With lateral work, she had me do a shoulder-fore down one long wall to prepare her to do a leg yield down the quarter-line on the opposite long wall, keeping her inside hind leg engaged as well as slowing her rhythm.Another helpful tip on the cantering front - transition up as I go towards a wall, which will help back her off and not rush as much into the canter. She thinks that her sloppy transitions are just due to a growth spurt which is why we have so many ups and downs in our training. Not that its a good excuse for her bad behavior though!

The neat thing about TS is not only does she have Grand Prix experience and has worked with trainers of international fame, but she's also a veterinarian who does chiropractic work and will do minor adjustments during your lesson. She told all the riders in the clinic that she wants them to do carrot stretches, tail pulls and pelvic tucks on the horses on a regular basis to help keep them in top form. Unfortunately, probably because of this, she's quite expensive. She regularly charges $100 per lesson, though she reduces her rate to $75 for the dressage team. Definitely not something I can afford on a regular basis! But we've got three clinics left with her, so I'm really looking forward to them.

I did get some pictures of the other riders during their lesson, but apparently I've exceeded the picture storage on this blog??? Has anyone else had this problem and what did you do?

Steffan Peters Clinic

These past couple days have been super good. I really enjoyed auditing the Steffan Peters clinic. It was neat to see someone that almost everyone has heard of and you see all the time in horse-y news and on the interwebz in person. I really liked Steffan Peters - I liked his laid back way of teaching, he seemed very nice and tried to make the riders comfortable in such a large crowd. A lot of dressage trainers I've worked with aren't very nice, but Steffan Peters (I feel the need to say his whole name every time, lol) was.

I took quite a few pictures, though unfortunately they're all poor-quality cell phone pics, but hey, at least I took some pictures!

Here are my notes from the clinic. I was super good about really paying attention and getting what he was talking about in the beginning, but by the time lunch was over I was getting sleepy and it's harder for me to focus on the GP movements when I've actually never ridden a Grand Prix movement, much less trained it.

"We need to train the horse within its comfort zone. Each horse requires something different. We probably wouldn't train a hotter horse like this, for instance a thoroughbred or other breed." This was evident in how he asked the rider to work with each horse differently. No two horses were the same, thus they all had to be ridden differently.

"Bracing in the transitions - its not because she's young and maybe not strong enough in the back. Teach her to be supple and the strength will follow." This was in reference to several young horses, I think there were three horses that were 5, 5 and 7. Steffan doesn't like to rush horses, but he doesn't want the excuse for not doing something to be that they're just young. Ride them and it will all fall into place.

"Don't kick, that only gets their attention, driving aid is leg on for a full second and cluck."

"Everything comes from the proper reaction to the leg."

"I have three rules - suppleness, suppleness and suppleness."

Steffan seems to have three major things that he focused on for this clinic. 1) Getting the horse in front of the leg, 2) suppling the horse and not allowing the horse to brace and 3) neck position

"Neck position depends on the horse. You choose the position." Each horse will have a different neck position while training. If the horse is using long and low to evade the bit, then that horse must be ridden higher up, while the horse that travels much like a giraffe will be ridden lower and deeper than the other horse. It has to be the position that allows the horse to perform the best, but it also has to be the position that the rider picks, not the horse who might be doing it to evade the rein aids.

"Leg yield - create a reason to let go of the inside rein." This was something that struck a chord with me. I've found that teaching Jetta to do a leg yeild has worked wonders for, well, everything. What Steffan says is to get the horse to release that inside rein and stop bracing is to create a reason for it, with the leg yeild being the simplest exercise to create submission and relaxation.

"A bad reaction is better than no reaction at all." You'd much rather that the horse takes off at a canter when asked to trot than have a horse that doesn't respond at all to leg pressure. It's easier to train a horse that's in front of your leg.

4 of his international competition horses were 18 years old. Interesting tidbit there. I think this was kind of in response to his thoughts on rushing a horse. He wants young horses to have the building blocks to do the upper level movements and won't use the excuse that "oh, they're just young" but he wants to train the horse in a way that won't cause them to break down.

"It has to feel right. I don't care what it looks like to the trainer or the judge, if it doesn't feel right, you have to fix it." This was very nice to hear from a trainer. Oftentimes as a rider you have a moment where the instructor tells you "There! That was perfect!" But it sometimes feels terrible or like the horse could really do a lot better. So fix it. He says that the rider is the one that feels everything, so if it doesn't feel right, it will look even better if you fix it. I think one of his most common comments was "It's no problem. No worries." When for instance it took the rider half the arena to prepare for the canter when he asked for it at the other end of the arena. He wanted the riders to take the time to prepare the horse so that you'd get it right. No rushing.

The first horse was one that I really identified with because she had similar problems as Jetta. Trouble in the trot canter transition, diving on the bit and occasional disrespect (ignoring) the leg aid. The first thing Steffan Peters had her work on was getting the horse in front of the leg. If the leg goes on, that horse goes forward. The first quote was something he said with this horse though. This was something he'd do with a horse with a relatively laid back disposition, not a hot and already forward horse because this would just make them even more crazy. He had her put leg on for a full second and get after her if she didn't go forward. And forward movement was rewarded, even if she took off cantering when they only wanted a trot. Then he fixed her neck position. She was traveling in a kind of "baby position" with her neck long and low, but she was curling behind the vertical. Steffan got on to show her how it was done and brought her head more up so that she couldn't evade the bit and it really did change her whole way of going for the better.

Another horse that I really liked watching was a 7 year old drop-dead gorgeous gray gelding. He was pretty hot and spooky, so they worked on a lower neck set that looked less like a llama. The rider was a very nice, competent rider and the horse was obviously very well trained. They worked on getting him to "come back" by doing a lengthened canter, then coming back to a collected canter almost like you would do in a pirouette. Another thing that Steffan Peters reiterated with all of the riders is that if you ride the canter at one single pace, it's not going to improve and often the quality of the canter will decline so by sending the horse forward and bringing them back you're actually going to get a better quality of canter. Interesting. It obviously worked with several horses, especially on a I-1 level mare whose canter wasn't the best of her gaits.

One woman that rode had a GP schoolmaster that she was riding in third level (I think) and competing in classes for the handicapped (I don't remember what she called them). I don't know if she is going for the Paralympics or not, but I know that she's going to a show in Florida that Steffan Peters is going to (and his competition - Totilas!) so he said that he would see her there! How neat would that be?? Anyways, she had the most wonderful horse. He reminded me a bit of Grady in his try-his-hardest personality. At one point he got confused on what they were asking him to do so he went through his "bag of tricks" trying to figure out what she wanted him to do - piaffe? passage? travers? half-pass? What a nice problem to have!

I'm sure there's a ton more that I could talk about, but that'll probably pop up in my future posts. Overall, I'm glad I got to go and watch and if I ever get the opportunity to ride with Steffan Peters I'm jumping on that chance with no hesitation!

WHAT?!

The clinic is cancelled. And I'm really, really disappointed. I was getting so excited to work with Will Faudree and I had it all planned out to be a fun weekend. I had created lists of things I needed to do before I went (clean tack, wash trailer, pull Jetta's mane...) and a packing list and everything.

My mom and I convinced my dad to come with so it was going to be a little family vacation almost. We had picked out our hotel and took the trailer in to get serviced. I had everything planned: we were going to go up on Friday, go for a hack around the xc course then get Jetta all settled. Go for dinner and then find our hotel. Saturday was to be a show jumping clinic and then we'd go to the BBQ that night. Sunday was xc jumping clinic and then we'd pack up and head home. Sigh. But it was not to be. I hope they end up asking Will Faudree to come back. I guess they just didn't have enough people interested. But why?!

Clinic - Here we come!

So I signed up for the clinic! Ahhhh! I'm super excited, but super nervous now. So nervous.

I'm really looking forward to working with an Olympic level rider for the first time ever and my mom and dad are coming too! Well, maybe. I talked to my mom about the clinic, telling her that I really wanted to go but I wasn't sure because it was 6 hours away and I didn't want to go by myself since everybody else that might want to go either couldn't or didn't. She, after some reluctance, agreed to go! And we convinced my dad to come too, which I'm excited because he doesn't usually come to my shows, or if he does, he doesn't stay long. Of course, after I sent off my entry my dad said, "Oh, I have to check something" and found that my brother has a shooting competition that same weekend. Sigh. I think my brother has some friends that can take him, so hopefully my dad is still coming.

I searched the internet for a little more information about Will Faudree. Here's what I found:

His website

Blog - though he doesn't seem to post very often! Being a professional event rider and all ;)

A good interview by Three Days Three Ways

Here's a little bio that was posted on his website:

"Will Faudree was born on October 4, 1981 in Midland Texas. He grew up on a cattle ranch, learning to ride at a very young age. When he was about thirteen he became interested in eventing, and started to compete. After graduating high school, Will moved to Pennsylvania to ride and train with Phillip Dutton. In 2003 Will set out on his own and moved to Southern Pines, North Carolina with his dog, Kemper, where Gavilan Farm is currently based. Will also competed in the Pan American Games that year. The team won a gold medal. The following year, Will was named the traveling reserve for the Athens Olympic Team. Unfortunately when Will returned home from the games, he found his house and barn had been struck by lightning and burnt down. Luckily no horses were on the property at the time, but the damage was too great. Will had to find a new farm and replace almost all of his personal belongings as well as his horse equipment. With the help of Will's family and close friends, Will was able to put things back together and moved into his current house and barn in January of 2005.

With the continued support of friends and family, Will's career as an Equestrian continues to grow. He represented the United States once again by riding on the US team at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany, and is working towards riding for the US Team in future international competitions."


Will Faudree and Pawlow




Will Faudree and Andromaque

And a video! Of him with Andromaque at Barbury by Eventing Nation. Enjoy :)

Messing Up

Well I messed up. I had finally decided on going to the Dressage Sport Horse Breed show that's next weekend and what did I do? I missed the deadline. Phooey.

I had it in my head that the closing date was the 6th. I had planned on mailing in my entry a day early (which would have been a huge success for me because I procrastinate, a lot!) but I forgot. So I sat down on the 5th to fill out the entry form and what did I see? That the closing date was August 5th. And of course it was 8 o'clock in the evening so there was no chance of making a last minute run to a post office. I ended up emailing and asking if there was room and if the late fee could possibly be waived because I contacted them the same day as the closing date. They haven't responded and I'm a little afraid that I've offended them by asking them to waive the late entry fee, but I really can't afford to pay double class entry fees. Ugh. I need to learn to not procrastinate so much.

I am really bummed about missing out on this opportunity, but there is one last chance. There's a big end-of-the-year show coming up in September and it's a championship + open show. I could enter the open show and do Training Test 1 & 2 as well as the Materiale class. It's a little more expensive and I wouldn't get to do the conformation classes, but it is my last chance to do a Materiale.

We'll see but this gives me time to plan ahead more! Other shows in our near future? Well, I'm hoping to do a combined test in October with Jetta which I'm really looking forward to. Unfortunately, the clinic that I attend every year with Clay Wright (who has to be my absolute favorite clinician/trainer to work with EVER) got canceled. Boo! He lives in Utah and while he comes up to do several other clinics in the state, I already missed them all. There are two other clinics that I could attend. I'm definitely wanting to go to the Gerd Heuschmann clinic, though it's pretty spendy at $130 (without a horse, mind you) in October. There's also a clinic with Will Faudree that I am eyeing. I'm very tentative about signing up though because I don't think Jetta is ready to clinic I'm ready to clinic on Jetta. It's in September so I might still be able to use Jazz, but I think it would be better to use Jetta. I'm just afraid of making a very poor impression in front of an amazing rider of his calibre.

I was reading Katherine's blog where she got to do a clinic with Jim Wofford. "Jim immediately layed into me, saying that I was a bad rider who didn't have good enough balance to stay with my horse when I wasn't choking her to death with the reins. He then suggested I take up waterskiing instead so then I could at least lean against a boat, which didn't care, instead of a horse, who did." This is what I'm afraid of. I would probably burst into tears at this point. Especially because I try really, really hard, but sometimes it just doesn't happen or you need a few more tries to make it happen. And hasn't everyone messed up? I don't think you'd take a clinic if you weren't interested in trying to improve yourself and your horse, but that's just my opinion. So of course, I'll probably think about it for too long and then miss the deadline to enter the clinic! Hopefully not :)

I'm wanting to start taking lessons again regularly for the remainder of the summer. I think if I actually do start taking lessons this will give me a little more confidence and motivation.

Youth Clinic Day 3

The last day of the clinic dawned bright and early again at 6:30 in the morning. At least I had a better night's sleep!

My lesson time was at 8:00 again, but today it was actually kind of cold out.

I got Jetta ready, I was super glad that I had brought two sets of white polo wraps because after a couple rides they start getting really gross, lol. I should have brought two white saddle pads though, because just the one gets really dirty. Anyways, I got Jetta tacked up and lunged her. I was thinking that it was going to be a super good ride because Jetta was actually acting lazy on the lunge line. Ha. I think she was just still half asleep.

I went to the arena where we were riding for the day. One good thing about this clinic was that we changed arenas every day, so it was really good exposure for Jetta.

Our warm-up sucked. I was trying to work on what we had done the other day, but Jetta was still rushing with me. It was a little frustrating. Meredith showed up and we started right into our lesson with trotting a stretchy circle. Jetta started really rushing again and didn't want to stretch at all into contact. Sigh. Frustrating again because Jetta's actually really good about stretching down on the circle while trotting. Eventually though, it was like a switch went off and she started stretching. Meredith had me ask for the stretch by exaggerating the bend to the inside, pushing her into the outside rein with my inside leg and asking her to follow the contact down.

Meredith wanted Jetta to stretch down only a little bit, enough for her to lift her back and you could notice Jetta doing just that when the hollow in front of her withers filled. Once we had the stretch well-established, we went out around the arena and whenever Jetta sped up or braced, I asked her to stretch, especially in the corners. It helped so much! She wasn't trying to run away with me and was no longer bracing against my hand.

We worked on it in both directions. After a short break I used the stretch in trot-canter transitions. I tried to maintain the stretch in both the upward transitions and downward transitions. It was so awesome!!

After that Jetta was bathed and I put her cooler on because it was actually a little cold out (weird summer weather). My friends and I ended up going to the morning lecture so that we could leave early, nothing else too interesting, it was on Barnby notes and learning styles again. No surprise there, I learn best through reading/writing.

After that, it was back to home!

I really enjoyed the lessons and it was worth it just because of them and meeting new people. Meredith was one of the only instructors who didn't compete on the JR/YR circuit, but instead she did Intercollegiate Dressage (IDA). I'm trying to form a team for this next year so she said that I could contact her if I needed any help or if I had any training questions. It was really neat to meet her and make these connections so that if I have questions I know someone to ask.

In relation to the other riders and horses, I think about half were little kids and half were 14 or older. There were about half warmbloods/sporthorse/sportponies and the others were your average horse, nothing fancy. There were only a couple kids all decked out in fancy tack and clothing, so at least I didn't feel outclassed :) I saw one horse that looked like a thoroughbred, but he couldn't possibly be because of his amazing extended gaits. Only one girl rode in a double bridle, and I don't really think she was ready. Her collected gaits didn't give the impression of being powerfully collected, but instead appeared too compressed and broken - his gaits were short and choppy and I think his hindquarters weren't under himself enough. I really enjoyed seeing the different horses and riders - how they rode, what kind of horses, what kind of tack/clothing, etc. Very interesting!

Overall, a good clinic :)

Youth Clinic Day 1 & 2

So much to write about! I was going to try and write a post earlier, but there was just so much to talk about and I was exhausted. This is going to be an incredibly long post, so just be forewarned :)

So, Tuesday I made my way up to the clinic that was at Devonwood. It takes me about 2 and a half hours, so it's not a terrible drive, but just feels so long. I got there and settled Jetta in and checked in. The schedule for the day was to have lunch, do introductions, have a group schooling session, dinner and then a lecture.

Our stall set up

Everyone was assigned a different instructor, mine was Meredith Crawford who trains at Donida Farm. At first I was a little tentative about having her. She was more quiet than the other instructors, not quite as bubbly or outgoing.

We had our schooling session and Jetta was okay. Not great, but not terrible. Meredith didn't really have me do anything - just commented that what I was doing (serpentines, circles, and transitions) was good and mentioned a couple things she wanted to work with me on later. I was a little worried because everyone else's instructors were working with them on specific exercises, while I only rode for maybe 20 minutes out of the full hour.

It was so hot! This was about 4pm and the sun was still full strength. Jetta got rinsed off and then put in her stall. I loved how this barn was set up, the facilities are gorgeous! There were temporary stalls set up for people coming to shows and three wash racks for competitors to use.



One of 6 gorgeous outdoor dressage arenas.


That evening after dinner we had a lecture on sporthorse conformation by a judge and breeder. I really enjoyed the lecture because I'm interested in functional conformation. She was a little bit negative about breeds other than warmbloods (I think good conformation is good conformation no matter the breed!) but of course warmbloods are bred to do dressage so it tends to come easier for them. She made a comment that "We're breeding elite athletes here!" which made me think, well aren't all horses bred to be athletes? I don't think jumping or reining or racing horses are any less of an athlete than a dressage horse! But it was a very good lecture and she had some great explanations for the why certain traits are good and bad. I thought it was awesome.

After dinner we had time to clean stalls and feed/water the horses and take them for walks. We went and grazed for a bit, then it was bed time! We had to sleep outside on the grass, which sucked because 1) the dew in the morning made everything wet and 2) I'm allergic to grass pollen, so sleeping on grass is not ideal. I slept absolutely terrible that night. I was freezing and the little kids were so hyper! How can they have that much energy?! Anyways, we were up at 6:30 in the morning to have breakfast and care for the horses. My lesson was at 8am which at first I was hoping for a later time so I could sleep in, but it was actually the best ride time to have because it was still a little bit cool out!



Jetta grazing



I had a fantastic lesson on Wednesday with Meredith. While I felt that she had some interesting ways of describing what she wanted me to do (in response to me lower leg swinging: pretend that the horse's barrel is a nut and your legs are a nutcracker and you want to crack the nut! Me: umm, ok? do you really want me to do that?) But Jetta was her usual brace-y and rush-y mess, though half way through the lesson the change was amazing! We worked on softening Jetta by playing with the bit a little, doing circles a lot and opening my inside rein a lot to help her bend. We also worked on my position, which I know is terrible on Jetta. Since she's always trying to yank me out of the tack, I've developed a defensive position which I know is terrible. She had me lean back more, especially in the canter which in turn helped me to still my lower leg (opening hip angle -> helps knee to point down and not allow it to swing as much). Weighting my elbows was something she had my work on to help lower my center of gravity so I couldn't be pulled out of the saddle as much. It's a hard concept, but it worked!

After our lesson, we walked around on the trails. They're kind of wimpy trails, but well maintained and nice to be able to walk around on. Jetta's feet were so great with all of the gravel! She got rinsed off and then I went and audited a couple lessons. I really enjoyed watching the different instructor's styles. I made friends with a group of girls, they all had adorable Arabian horse and they were super nice.

After lunch we had two different lectures. The first was about Centered Riding. At first I was a little skeptical, but a lot of the ideas seemed to make sense. She mentioned something about using your elbows to lower your center of gravity which reinforced what my instructor had me do in my lesson. Unfortunately it was more geared towards the younger kids (this camp was for 7 to 21 year olds) which was really disappointing. After that we had a lecture on using a training notebook, by Barnby notes. It was a little bit geared towards marketing the Barnby notes, but there was more information that made it educational too. I like having a blog as my training journal because I get to share it with other people and make it my own personal space to talk about whatever might be on my mind, not just training. The Barnby notes program is similar because you can have an open, online journal to write about your rides and people can comment on it, so it's more of a focused type of blog really.

Conformation clinic

We had dinner, then took care of the horses. We had another lecture by a vet. I was really excited and hoped in would be really interesting and something that I could learn a lot from. Unfortunately, I was really disappointed. It was geared towards that little kids (again) and basically he talked about how to be safe around your horse, some of his interesting cases that could have been avoided by using safety practices. It was super boring and I was disappointed.

Again, we had to sleep outside, so I stole Jetta's cooler so I could be warmer :) At least this time they had a movie going inside so that those who wanted to sleep, could! I was looking forward to our lesson the next day and wondering what we were going to work on.

To be continued...

New Video!

Finally figured up how to upload videos from my camera! So here you go :)



This is Jetta and I schooling the other day, please ignore my bad equitation. As soon as I know someone is watching, it just falls apart. And I had been working so hard at it! This video got sent in to apply to ride in a clinic with Jane Savoie at the Northwest Horse Expo, so we'll see if we get accepted!

Kathy Casey Clinic

Well the video refuses to be loaded. I'll put it up eventually because it's a great comparison to see how much she has improved since the last video that I posted and you can hear some of what Kathy was working on with me.

I really enjoyed the clinic, it was very helpful. I'm not sure that Kathy really liked me, she was pretty strict and severe in her judgements on me, but I liked her. I've gotten used to dressage trainers being really strict. I think the only really "nice" dressage trainer that I've worked with is Clay Wright and I just love his teaching style.

I've ridden under Kathy several times for shows and she was really lenient in her scores (first time I got a 70% at a recognized show!) and gave great feedback that was effective and clear.

Anways she commented (well, a better description was that she complained) that I was being too nice to Jetta and was riding in a manner like "Oh I don't want to get in your way or make you upset." So I need to start demanding more of her and now that she's coming five we get to work on the "real" stuff, especially making her do an actual working walk, trot and canter.

She had us warm up by doing leg yields with the nose to the wall. Then she had me shorten my reins waaayy up to force her to work in a rounder frame so that she could lift her back and develop better muscling and she wouldn't have her hind end trailing. She wanted the neck to drop slightly and for her head to hang straight down from the poll. I could definitely feel when Jetta was doing it correctly because her back came up, she didn't lay on my hands and I could feel her stride become freer and more swingy.

She really picked apart my position, for which I was really glad, but she hated how I rode. I needed to have my elbows back by my side (funny story there, I know that I need to work on keeping my elbows closer to my body. Two years ago working with Clay he actually ended up duct taping my elbows around my waist. He recommended I polo wrap them to myself in order to help myself remember where they need to be. Maybe it's time to break out the polos again...) I also needed to "drape" my leg around the horse, turning my heels out and stop squeezing with my heels, which by the way was super hard for me because Jetta was getting really tired by the end. She lamented my hunter position (which funnily enough my jumping trainer complains about my position in that I'm not riding huntery enough) and had me really thrust my hips forward and shoulders back which felt super odd, but I'm sure I was sitting straight when I did it. I also needed to really sit up and back for the canter in order to keep Jetta from falling on her forehand.

Kathy said that Jetta was really cantering on her forehand which "wasn't natural for a Thoroughbred and should have been prevented much earlier in her training because it's easier to prevent than fix later on" though I must say it's been an uphill battle ever since I started cantering her to get her off the forehand so I'm not sure how I could have prevented it. It would be something good to know I'm sure.

One thing that bugged me a little was her comments on my bit. I've heard Mylers being referred to as severe by dressagy people simply because they are a little thin but she was kind of passive aggressive about it, saying at a rest when she was rubbing Jetta's forehead "I know baby, I'm sorry, that bit is just so severe for you, poor thing." Umm, really? That's pretty rude. And I could have picked a bit that was way more severe. I mean, it's an average diameter, the most common bits that I see are that size and it has the comfort barrel in the middle so at least it doesn't collapse on her bars in the way a single joint would do with the "nutcracker effect". I'm perfectly happy to try another bit, I do have a hollow mouth french link I've been meaning to try out. At least I didn't have a twisted snaffle or anything right?! Oh and she didn't comment on anyone else's bits even thought they were all the same size as mine... Humph.

At least she seemed ok with my saddle. We had lessons in pairs and the other girl riding with me had a close contact saddle that Kathy didn't like because it put her in a bad chair seat position and didn't allow her to ride effectively in a dressage position.

I think the reason she was so hard on me was because I had a young horse. She wanted to help me train her correctly so I can see where she was coming from. She did apologize afterwards for being so harsh, saying that she only had an hour with me and she just wanted to try to fix everything that she could in that short time period. Overall it was an enjoyable and educational experience. Jetta tried really hard and behaved very well. I hope to be able to clinic with her again, maybe by that time Jetta will be more developed and we can give her a better impression!

Oh and a great quote from her, "Where are your spurs? You're not riding with enough weapons!" Which makes me laugh every time I hear it. I think the first time I heard it was from the Dressage through the Levels clinic with Debbie McDonald and Janet Foy...

So because there are no pictures, I'll just leave you with the gorgeous sunset that we've been having every night.