Hippoi Athanatoi

This week continued the trend of improvements from Heddvig but a slight feeling of dissatisfaction with my own riding. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, so it might just be my general mood, admittedly.

We stayed focus on cantering this week too, though we started with an unusually lengthy trotting section. That gave me plenty of time to feel out my own seat as well as my effect on Heddvig. I tried to focus on the corners, in particular, and on using them together with half-halts to get her more together and off the front-end. I suppose I had some intermittent success at this.

It does seem to have set her up well for the canter, at least. To begin with we just cantered 20-meter circles to get a feel for what they were like on the day, and Heddvig showed quite remarkable improvement in her left-lead canter; she was able to keep a much less rushed pace and was able to take cues to keep it up for several laps. The right-lead canter was still a bit more rushed than what is practical to manage several full laps when there’s other horses around, but it was improved as well. Ulrika told me that now I need to make sure to switch gears, basically, and adjust to being able to ask for more of her. It probably will take me a little effort to make that change, because I didn’t expect her to improve this fast.

Of course, the next exercise was still rather tricky; going from canter to counter-canter by riding a figure-of-eight. At first I made the angle too steep when crossing over from the first circle to the second. Then I had issues with shifting my seat too much so that I ended up sitting as if I wanted to switch to the regular leading leg once on the second half of the figure-of-eight. My co-ordination (or lack thereof, rather) definitely becomes an issue with counter-cantering, but I must say Heddvig did quite well. I really didn’t think she would start developing like this when its gone fairly slowly up until now. But maybe she’s reached a stage of fitness and balance that allows a lot of pieces to fall into place all at once.

A so-so lesson this week (last week, btw, was a theory lesson I was unable to attend as it was scheduled later than our usual timeslot). I had a choice between Heddvig and Nelson and went for the former, but considering the amount of cantering, Nelson would have been a little wiser. Especially since cantering Heddvig went far less smoothly this week than it has recently.

The lesson started off well, though, with Heddvig chewing on the bit and coming up a bit through the back of her own volition. She couldn’t keep it up in the trot, but I think its showing her continued progress. We warmed up with quite a bit of trotting, during which I tried to focus on good corners and my own seat (and not looking down!), and then went straight into a good deal of cantering. At first, just along the whole of the arena, paying attention to good, balanced corners. Ulrika reminded me not to just let her canter until she fell back into a trot once it became too difficult but to transition back down to trot regularly to make sure it was done when I wanted it done.

After some of that, we moved to a circle at a walk at the start of each long end of the arena, canter out of the circle and down the length of the arena, trot along the short end and back to walk for a new circle-to-canter at the start of next long end. Going clock-wise, she struggled a lot to get the right canter, though once I kept her pretty straight, kept myself still and was quick to apply the whip on the inner shoulder, we managed a couple of times. Going counter-clockwise, the main issue was how she’d launch herself into canter, which took some adjusting to. On one occasion she almost lost her canter part-way down the arena and I managed to remind her to keep going, but then we ended up going back down to a trot too quickly after that. Ulrika told me that its better for her learning that if I have to reissue the canter aid to keep her going, then I should keep cantering some distance after that to avoid confusing her.

There were bits and pieces that worked, and bits and pieces that didn’t. Pretty normal, all considered. Though going to the stables and being there still doesn’t feel normal; I just miss Murphy too much for that. And right now, its quite a struggle for the riding school as a whole, as we have lost a lot of horses this year and we have a lot of sick or injured horses right now. It doesn’t look so good for getting another horse I can ride, either.

I’ve been bad about updating what’s going on with Ringo, but rest assured, he’s going strong the usual way. Which perhaps isn’t all that great. ;P

The cold, snowy winter meant a distinct lack of training outdoors, so a few weeks ago I finally got us signed up for a class at the local boxer club. I wish this one had been offered a year ago, because I am getting some good help both with how to train Ringo for the possibility of a working dog competition and, more importantly, with how to work to calm and balance him. They’ve worked with boxers like him before and its helping a lot so far.

Unfortunately, it did not help one bit yesterday when we finally got around to doing his second mentality evaluation as part of the process called “korning”. It is test for working dogs, which if they pass earns them the title “Korad”, that looks at their mentality and conformation. The conformation went just fine, but he missed passing the mentality evaluation with 10 points. We had all been worried that his fear of fireworks would mean problems with the gun shots (plus, up at the regular club he has had issues with shots, though I have a theory or two about why), but that part he passed with flying colours. However, he missed a huge chunk of the test completely when he was too wound up to actually grip and tug on the test object. Instead, he just kept jumping up on the person handling the test…

In part, I feel he failed this section (which he did poorly during the first mentality evaluation too) because he was allowed to spot the toy used for the next part of the test and ran off to play with that instead. His concentration is poor, so a distraction like that made it so much harder for him to get it right. The more I think about that, the more annoyed I get ... but, oh well. Can’t do anything about that.

Overall, the evaluation showed what we expected: he’s extremely high-intensity and he goes over the edge into stress a lot of the time. I did not agree, however, with the evaluator’s feelings that once he had worn himself out a bit on the initial, quite physical tests, he became more passive out of being a little weighed-down by the following tests which are more about challenging his nerves. No, he became more passive because he was exhausted. He was also given a 3 for whether he approached the scary obstacles on his own or needed help. The 3 is supposed to describe that he needed help several times, but he only needed help once, which should have been a 4.

In conclusion, I will be annoyed about this one for a long while, especially after considering it a bit more. He was never going to get fantastic points, because he has his issues, but I think his chances at the “grip & tug” part were spoiled by him being allowed to spot the other toy and I think that there was one incorrect 3 that should have been 4. So, yeah. Annoying.

But, we’ll of course push on with the class in hopes of some future competitions if he becomes a little calmer and more balanced. We will also be going to a boxer show next weekend and two or maybe three more of those during the summer. The local one sure, and the Swedish Championships, but the rest depends on how it fits together with vacations and such.

So, yesterday was “proper” jumping (as opposed to dressage with a suspicious amount of jumping), but this time I was on Heddvig and I had stirrups. If not, I would probably have found myself on the ground once or twice, I don’t think I am quite ready to jump her without stirrups. Though, Heddvig did start off being a little more laid-back than usual as well as more attuned to my aids right from the start. Quite a difference from just a few months ago. She also cantered quite well during the warm-up, again showing continued progress with her transitions.

And then we moved on to the jumping. We started with the same curved line as last week, going into it at a trot, cantering in-between and landing at a canter after the second jump. Once again I found it very easy to place Heddvig just where she needed to be, as long as I have a good eye for where I am going. She’s quite responsive and, I think, quite well-balanced, even at this stage in her canter.

The second jump we did, a diagonal line over a white-and-black jump, gave her a little pause at first. Coming one way she hesitated but jumped and then when we later went the other way, we had one refusal. But the second time she sailed over. She did have issues, however, with landing in the correct canter when going to the left. To the right worked, but she’s a bit slower on her left. We tried a few times, but decided not to tax her too heavily; I was doing it right, Ulrika said, but she was not quite sorting it out yet.

Overall, though, it was a very nice experience, and I’ll definitely have to get some photos and film of her jumping, to see how its looking from the ground (both for her and me). She’s eager, agile and learning fast, not just when it comes to the jumping, and she does suit me very well. I don’t have the emotional connection to her that I had with Murphy, but at least I am starting to feel as if I am having an effect on her and that we’re starting to move forward together. I asked after the lesson if they instructors have been riding her lately to educate her further, since she’s made such progress, but no. She’s just learning from the lessons, and Ulrika said that my riding her does leave lasting effects on her each week. So, I am a bit hopeful.

Hearing something like that feels very good in several ways, because at this stage in my riding I am very much interested in improving both myself and the horses I ride. I am well past most girlish fantasies about riding competitively (unless I do win lots of money soon ;P), so just improving my own riding isn’t quite as satisfying as also improving a horse at the same time. And improving the partnership. I may be a little of a one-horse person when it comes to that aspect, which admittedly is awkward when you ride at a riding school.

Tonight was the first training session of a course I’ve signed up for at the local boxer club. It appealed to me because the idea is to work on the various exercises that are part of competitive obedience and to do it focused on what each dog already knows, allowing for a group with very mixed experience. Seeing how up and down Ringo can be, it seemed like it could suit him.

Tuesday was good and bad. Bad was riding Nelson who is now stabled in Murphy’s old stall, and it was hard going in there. Bad was also finding out that Martino, who came to the stables from the same previous owner as Murphy, had died from colic during the weekend. We’ve now lost four horses this year, and Fleur just before the end of last year, and we have several currently injured. After a very good 2009 in terms of overall horse health, 2010 is looking bleak.

Good was the mishap down in the arena which ended up firmly distracting me. Last week someone had put on Heddvig’s stirrups the wrong way, so that the safety rubber band was on the inside instead of the outside. I ended up fixing that a little clumsily by opening the stirrup leathers and switching out the stirrups instead of just switching the whole stirrup from one side to the other. This week, Nelson’s were wrong too, and I decided to do it properly and pulled off the whole stirrup on each side to switch them.

And then neither me nor the instructor could get them back on. Oops. So, I had to ride without stirrups. For dressage on Nelson, not so bad in general. Except we were doing preparatory work for jumping and some actual jumping. But I did it, and I stayed on. And after jumping I got some really nice trot out of Nelson too, that seemed to get to his back and hind legs very effectively. I felt quite accomplished, and it was a very good distraction.

This week felt less odd than last, but something’s definitely feeling off for me when I go to the stables. And I can’t quite focus as well as earlier.

That said, we had a different instructor since Ulrika is on holiday, and a different way of teaching means you pay attention in a different way. You’re not necessarily more attentive overall, but I feel you need to concentrate a little more on the instructor when its someone unfamiliar. So, that kept me from focusing entirely on myself and Heddvig but it also limited the random thoughts.

Going to the stables this Tuesday wasn’t easy, but in the end I decided it was best to get it over with. I suppose it won’t be as bad from now on, now that I’ve been there once with no Murphy waiting for a treat in his stall. But I am not looking forward to it in the same way. The riding still helps me refocus and clear my mind, but going to the stables has lost some of its lustre when “my” horse isn’t there.

Still, Heddvig is a darling. A very opinionated darling, but I do like those best. And we are making progress. Just some weeks ago, I could not canter her without helping her out with a little tap of the whip on her shoulder. Now she is taking canter cues much, much better. We even counter-cantered several times, and kept it up past a (very shallow) corner. I am not sure if the instructors have been riding her some to get her to improve like this or if its more a matter of me figuring out how she works. Either way, it does feel good to make that sort of progress.

Its done now.

I had more contact with my instructor over the weekend, and she really felt it was a very bad prognosis, especially in terms of Murphy’s discomfort. The spavin in his hind legs had not yet fused, according to the vet it was at a rather painful stage of inflammation. That was why the inflammation in the front legs just kept worsening over the last 5-6 weeks, even with the rest from riding and just hand-walking that was done. He basically couldn’t relieve them enough with his hind legs being at that stage.

It was perhaps not impossible, looking at what I have been told and what I have read over this last week. But it wasn’t certain that it could work out either, and I guess one would want better odds to put a horse through that amount of discomfort and a lengthy rehabilitation process.

My main regret is that I couldn’t give him a few years in a quiet little stable, away from the riding school. He had probably been kept mostly outdoors before he came to Sweden from Ireland (and apparently he came here as a stallion too, at 5 or so) and at first he really disliked being indoors. He settled in with time, but he was always insecure about having lots of people around him when he was indoors. If you came in early in the day, though, as I did for private lessons, he was so much more relaxed and eager to socialize.

He’ll be sorely missed, not just by me. He wasn’t a favourite for a lot of people (which just made me identify more with him), but he was a very safe, solid and dependable horse for the less experienced riders and amazingly willing to work when he liked how you rode him.

A while ago I got what I thought would be the text message that my instructor had promised to send after it was done.

But, no. An emergency elsewhere meant a delay until early next week. I am trying to tell myself it doesn’t really matter and that it doesn’t mean anything will change, but of course something is whispering at the back of my mind, telling me to ask more questions, search for more answers on the Internet, and so on.

But I am pretty sure its just fate really, really expressing its dislike of me.

Rode Heddvig today. I got a somewhat better grasp of how to bend her properly and how to ride her into a counter-canter out of a corner. I tried too hard to slow her down when she ended up rushing in the trot, because I felt I needed more time to bend her. But that made it easier for her to just continue with the trot, so I had to demand more in the trot so that the canter felt like an easier option. In the end, we got what we wanted and she even cantered through two (shallow) corners. First time for her, Ulrika said.

But…I also said goodbye to Murphy tonight. On Thursday, he will be put down. I am not sure I have fully grasped it yet even though I was told on Friday evening. Since then, I’ve tried to come up with a solution, but it wasn’t to be. He has been resting for the last 5-6 weeks, but until he went back to the vet last week, they had not realized how bad it was. His hind legs are affected by spavin and his front legs by an arthritic inflammation, and the rest had not improved his front legs at all since even resting he won’t take enough weight off them to give them a chance to heal.

If I have understood the second hand reports from the vet correctly, he would need to work his hind legs regularly to keep them from going to stiff, but he needs to rest his front legs to give them a chance to heal.

I always thought that eventually I would, somehow, end up buying Murphy. He’s been at the stables for seven years and my riding has improved so much thanks to him. He has also improved alongside with me, and he has done this despite physical problems that probably have affected him for a long time. If only he had shown something much earlier, perhaps something could have been done. And now, if only it hadn’t been so bad, I was fully prepared to buy him and sort out the economy of it somehow, even if he would have needed a year’s rest before he could be ridden again and then just for walks in the woods.

Right now, I just keep thinking how I wish I’d noticed something, how I wish I could just get to ride him one more time and that I don’t know what to do next Tuesday. For the last few years, the last thing Elio has told me each Tuesday as I left for my lesson has been “say hello to Murphy”.

And today I had to say “goodbye Murphy”.

Late again, I’ve had a lot of work this week with both subtitling and the Westeros website. I am writing this now to get it done and because I need to keep myself occupied anyway, but I am not in the right mood for it. So, just some short thoughts about last week.

This week I got to trade in my little black tank for a little white one. Heddvig had done her share of work for the day and so I ended up on Nelson. He’s Murphy’s next-door neighbour in the stables, so I am very familiar with him breathing down my neck when I am grooming Murphy as he is terribly jealous of any attention not directed at him. He is in fact quite the brat.

But, he’s a brat with very good canter who jumps very nicely. It was almost too easy, actually. He has a very round, steady canter. So steady, in fact, that trying to affect it is easier said than done. I found myself a little frustrated during the warm-up once we got into cantering, because once he’s off, he’s off and I wasn’t really able to do much with him.

The jumping did force me to get him a little more responsive to my cues, especially the “hello, no racing around this circle at full speed!” cues, and when we got to the final exercise which involved one curved line between the first two jumps, I got to feel what you can do with an easily placed horse with a good, steady canter. I am usually not very good at judging distances, but with Nelson I seemed to get a feeling for how to adjust the line so it’d be the right distance for him.

So, while I couldn’t actually shorten or lengthen his strides, I was able to place him right because his rhythm was so steady. Compared to Murphy and Heddvig, that was certainly a new experience.

Almost Tuesday again. Where did the week go? Oh, right. Eaten up by watching the Olympics and by going to the Göteborg Horse Show on Thursday and Sunday. This week will be spent trying to get my sleeping schedule a little back to normal (which still isn’t all that good) and letting my back and legs recover from sitting on those terrible seats at the Scandinavium arena for many, many hours.

But, it was good fun. Saw some exciting show jumping, an interesting clinic, some awe-inspiring dressage at liberty with Honza Bláha, fun mounted games and agility and did lots and lots of drooling over riding clothes at the associated fair. I think I could collect riding coats and jackets and breeches. ;P So much more stylish than other sports wear, and more to my tastes in terms of colours and everything. Though finding breeches that fit me is always an adventure; apparently someone imagines all riders are tall and do not have hips, and certainly not stocky legs.

What about last week’s lesson, though? Well, thanks to (and I do mean thanks to) too much snow on the arena roof, we had to ride out. I was hesitant at first, since Murphy is the only horse at the stables I’ve dared to ride out on, but at least Heddvig is the right size. And once I got up on her outside, I was calmed immediately. She clearly liked it without being too excited, and the total lack of tension in her body made me settle right in.

Then the fun started. I don’t think I’ve ridden out in winter since a riding holiday some ... 20-22 years ago. To start with, we don’t ride out at the stables during winter, that’s for late spring and early autumn. Plus, we haven’t had this sort of winter for ages. I just hope I get another chance soon, because it was amazing. We rode in deep snow in the wooded area where we have a few trails (its not great around the stables these days, too many new residential areas) and it was quite dark, with just a bit of light reflecting off the snow. Everything looked a bit spooky and magical, almost all in black and grey and white with the dark sky, the trees and the snow. We galloped more than we ever do in summer and we and the horses loved it.

I brought the camera to snap some pictures, but my hands were too cold, so I just managed a few when we got back to the stables. Will try to get one or two of Heddvig up somewhere soon.

Between being tired from watching the Olympics at insane hours (figure skating between 02.00 and 06.00 is painful) and having too many little jobs to do, I’ve had a scatter-brained week. And of course the riding report fell between the cracks.

I was on Heddvig again, and while the overall result was no more than adequate, I am definitely feeling as if I am getting the handle on how to ride her. That doesn’t mean I am always doing the right thing, but at least I have some ideas for what to do. Not without exception, though. One lingering issue is getting a proper bend to her left; she overbends her neck so easily there, and with her short neck and short body I am finding it difficult to have the right effect on her.

I am also finding it hard to get a feel for when she’s escaping work, especially to the left. I ended up getting a bit of a rude wake-up call, though. After the warm-up, where we had just ridden circles in each corner, we added moving into a shoulder-in down the length of the arena. When I was told she wasn’t really bending right and tried to ask for it…she gave me shoulder-in with bucking.

At least it told me that I was on the right track.