David O'Connor Clinic-Dressage

Dana and I set off for Holly Hill on Thursday morning. It was a 6 hour drive, but it was uneventful and fun. And we enjoyed telling everyone about the Middle Eastern man we met at the gas station who told his grandfather bred horses and killed anyone who wouldn't give away or sell their horse to him. He was serious. After he said that and walked around to the other side of the trailer, Dana made me leap into the truck so we could drive away real fast. She said we looked like lot lizards (i.e. prostitutes). I was the navigator and got us kind of lost at one point as were trying to find AR-29. Dana just kept driving. I was kind of freaking out, and her words were "We're going south which is the direction we needed to be going. If we hit the ocean, we know we went too far". 

I had a 45 minute semiprivate dressage lesson in the afternoon on Friday. After watching 3-4 groups before me, I definitely noticed some common themes. David wanted to see the ability to transition within the gait, and he especially wanted to see the forward part in the lower level groups. I saw at least 2 other people from my jumping group ride, and they did the same transitions within the gait but also added changes of direction and lateral work at the end. I was very excited to see David using leg yield against the rail as a exercise. I had done it before but recently read an older Jimmy Wofford article where he talked about it, and I schooled it at home during the days leading up the clinic. 

David asked me about my past experience, and I told him about how I had competed a couple of times at Training, and Tiamo went Prelim with Allison. And I also mentioned that we had gone Novice five times because of some setbacks, mainly the EPM. He asked me if he had any vices or problems, and I wasn't very prepared with an answer and couldn't think of much. I'm honestly not sure what my biggest issue is, but I ended up telling him I needed to get Ti more on my aids and in front of my leg so he isn't either being lazy or carting me around.

Tiamo was excellent, and he was super responsive from the beginning. After watching us warm up, David had us do transitions within the trot on a 20m circle. He had set up cones for everyone to go through to really guide us to make perfectly round circles. One of the first things he asked me to do was really put some effort into posting higher and slower when we collected the trot. We then did the same at the canter, and he pointed out that I allowing Ti to fall in on my right leg. He also asked me to put my weight in the outside stirrup, push my inside hip forward, and bring my inside shoulder back. When we moved onto to some lateral work, it became more apparent why he had been asking me do that. 

I have always had problems with my left shoulder wanting me to more forward, and my right shoulder back. It's not that I don't work on it because I think about it every day, but I realized today how awkward it feels to me when my shoulders are truly even and straight.

Anyway, we started doing the leg yield against the rail, and Tiamo and I were doing pretty great to begin with. David stopped me twice, and it got even better after both. First he stopped me to talk to me about moving my hips from side to side. Leg yielding on the rail off my left leg, I would put my weight left to right, left to right on my seat bones. When my weight went into my right seat bone, my left leg naturally pressed against his side. Then I naturally released my leg when I moved my weight back left. It was something I had never heard before, and Ti really started moving off my leg even better afterward! 

He had me halt again after I started leg yielding on the diagonal to talk about my shoulders. He told me it was much easier for me going to the right because my shoulders naturally turn to the right, but when I was going to the left and thinking about bringing my left shoulder back, I was finally just straight! I had to really concentrate on it to make my left shoulder come back. Fixing my shoulders and using the left-right weight shift helped me get Ti really crossing over and moving over off my leg beautifully. I was barely using my reins as an aid at all. He was very light and just going off my seat and legs. 

My homework is to do some thinking about my left shoulder and ride bareback, if possible, to get a better idea of how his back moves underneath. He said it can help a lot with understanding how to use to my seat better as well as my hip placement and weighting.

Jump School

So yesterday evening I did my jump school as planned. It went decently considering I haven't had a jump lesson in 2 months! Tiamo was fabulous as always. Dana didn't jump Ava, but she helped me set up the grid anyway. It was the one from the first clinic we did with Allison: bounce, 1-stride, bounce. I made one bounce two small verticals and the other two crossrails.

We warmed up over some bounce cavaletti, and he was pretty responsive. He went through the grid well, but the second bounce was consistently too tight (he started drifted slightly in an effort to make more room) until I started paying more attention to the quality of the trot coming into the grid. Dana reminded me of that, and she was right. When I really tried to get a bouncier feel with more impulsion, he bounced straight through. I also cantered around over a few small fences several times, piecing together mini courses, just to practice getting a nice rhythm going.

Clinic Countdown

I've been waiting to write anything about this because I didn't want to jinx it! On Thursday, Tiamo and I are going to Holly Hill in Benton, LA for a four-day Karen and David O'Connor Clinic! Dana and Ava are also going with us, and we're both training with David. We signed up for this clinic in November and have been looking forward to it for a long time! Because of our time off in April, I'm not feeling quite as on top of things as I would have liked, but I'm still feeling pretty comfortable about my riding. Unfortunately, I'm probably a little rusty jumping because I haven't had a jumping lesson since mid-March! I do have a semiprivate dressage lesson and gymnastics/grid day to help me get into the groove and get to know David's teaching. The clinic format is: Day 1- semiprivate dressage, Day 2- gridwork, Day 3- showjumping, and Day 4- Cross Country.

Ti has been doing great! I can't remember if I wrote about his head tossing, but he had been sneezing and tossing his head constantly, especially undersaddle. He did this last fall as well, but it went away after a couple of weeks. He also didn't do it every single day last fall. Dr. Phelps came out and drew blood for an allergy test and ordered some antihistamine to give him for 2 weeks (I think Cyproheptadine). She told me that it might take a few days to work, but it helped after one dose! The allergy test came back and showed the main things he was allergic to are flies, pollen, and a few different types of weeds. He can't show on it, but I'm not going to another event until July so it's fine for now. I decided to have Dr. Phelps order some more so he can stay on it another 2 weeks, and then we'll take him off it and see if the Spring allergies have passed.

I also finally learned how to give IM shots! I've given him his Pentosan shot twice, and he is such a good boy about it!!!!! He doesn't even flinch for shots. I'm kind of bad at it and don't like doing it though. Both times I gave it to him, I accidentally stuck the needle in quite slowly which I know makes it much more painful. I need to learn to do the quick "stab".

He's been feeling great! Today we're doing some gridwork with Dana and Ava which will be fun.

Yay!

Tiamo has been 100% sound the past three days. The little bit of weirdness seems to be gone. Knocking on wood! I'm scared of posting this and jinxing us. I've ridden him three times. We walked for 25 minutes the first day. I trotted just to see how he felt, and he was kind of stiff behind. The next day that stiff feeling went away after a lap around the arena. Then yesterday he felt completely normal from the get go; I had walked him a lot before trotting. We hacked around near the arena, did a bunch of turn on the forehands and backing up, and then trotted. The previous two days we did a line of 5 cavaletti at the walk (at the second lowest height, just a little bit off the ground), and yesterday we trotted over them. His stifles did catch twice yesterday. They were in our trot/walk transitions, and I don't think I prepared him well enough/kept my leg on in those instances. So...looking good so far! I'm going out there in just a little while to ride again. Hopefully the pastures will dry out a little more so we can do some trotting and cantering out there. Dana and I went on a walk hack, but some areas were quite muddy and wet so we didn't do anymore than that.

Soundness Update

After the first visit from Dr. Phelps, Tiamo's scrape healed, and she returned to check out his hind end. Unfortunately, I could not be there because of school, but my mom was there. Dr. Phelps jogged him and then flexed him, and he was a Grade 2 in both hind legs. She took X-Rays, and he had some arthritis in his stifles and hocks, more in his stifles. She recommended injecting his stifles, and my mom agreed. She injected them with hyaluronic acid, a steriod, and a tiny bit of antibiotic to prevent infection. Following that, he had 1.5 days of stall rest and 3 days of turn out before I started riding him lightly. He was 90% better and almost all of the stifle locking/slipping had stopped (although it hadn't been locking frequently before). He was still "locking" once in awhile after standing in one place awhile, like coming out of the stall or crossties. But...he was still not 100%. He was not lame; he even seemed to work out of it a few times, but he was dragging his hind feet a bit, especially the right hind, and he didn't feel normal. I waited a few days, but after it didn't clear up, I called the vet. She came out and jogged/flexed him again, and he was about a Grade 1. She told me I basically had three options: see how he was after getting his feet done by the farrier the next day (He was only just at 5 weeks. Slightly long toes but not bad), inject his hocks, or do nothing. I trusted her opinion and went with my gut, and I decided to go ahead with the hock injections.

He did have a loading dose of Adequan and was getting it once a month. After talking to Allison at the last clinic, we decided to order some Pentosan which we ordered straight from Australia. I'm one lucky girl, and Tiamo is a spoiled horse! Right now, we're going to follow the instructions on the website which say to give it once a week for 5-6 weeks and then wait 6 months. He'll get Adequan before every event or clinic as well. And he's getting Estrone shots once a month for awhile for muscle building. He's going to be poked with a needle a lot I guess!

So Poplar Place Area 3 Championships isn't happening, and I think our next event will be Champagne Run in July. He's on Day 2.5 of turn out (He got turned out in one of the small paddocks for a couple of hours Sunday). I get to ride tomorrow!