Blog posts I still need to write:

• Hives, allergies, treatment (we have progress on this front!)
• Green horse problems: I fell off four times this year and we’ve made some changes as a result
• Mounting and anxiety
• Saddles, saddle fit, princess and the pea, all my saddle accessories are costing me more than the saddle did

But instead we’ll start with a lesson recap, as the most time-sensitive of the bunch!

Long-time readers might recall that I took lessons with Confetti in our first few years, scattered between different trainers. I didn’t love any of the barn trainers. An old hunter trainer did a few lessons over the years with me, but it’s quite the drive for them, and they aren’t teaching regularly these days. I finally settled for just flailing our way through things at our own speed as I couldn’t get anyone out regularly.

Current barn had one trainer when I started and doesn’t allow outside trainers. There’s nothing wrong with that trainer. I was comfortable enough that she used Confetti in a handful of lessons. However, it wasn’t a match for what I wanted in my lessons, nor for how I wanted to start Polly’s way of going. Perfect world I would have taken some lessons on Polly when she was at training, but.. well.. lameness then stifle surgery really threw a wrench or three into all those plans.

So I stepped into the world of BTTM. I’m not going to try to go into a lot of what it is here, there are far better explanations out there than what I could put out. The theory is around connection to the horse and really focusing on the basics rather than forcing them into movements they’re not able to do correctly. Philosophically, this rings true to me. As always with any trainer or methodology: take what works for you! I was able to do two remote sessions with Celeste early in Polly’s rehab, once before we’d even started under saddle, once after we’d gotten things going. There was a nearby clinic last year that we hauled out to, newer BTTM trainers working with us under Celeste’s guidance, and I found that valuable too.

Current barn now has a second trainer on-site. I don’t agree with everything I’ve seen, but overall, I’ve been really impressed. We finally connected for a lesson this month. My introduction was, maybe literally, “I have a green horse who’s been very good and I’m anxious about things she’s given me no reason to be anxious about.”

First lesson was a lot of “ask Polly for trot and then actually ride the big trot she offers instead of shutting her down with hands and seat. Oh. Oops. Sorry pony. And we did it, and it was fine, and I did not die! Plus we worked on downwards transitions, walk to halt, trot to walk, trot to halt. She should come down off seat and voice and not so much hands, and it shouldn’t take forever. This actually went passably OK given our amount of schooling on that (see: near-zero). Also some extension and collection work in small doses, really just getting us both on the same page as to what that means and that Polly really can do it.

Second lesson we moved to addressing her right hind. She’s not engaging it, she’s lacking muscle there, this probably explains the head tilt I’ve been seeing for all of 2023. Bring her nose right, move the hind leg over. This is really hard for us. She doesn’t want to respond to my right leg, probably because it’s hard, so we need to do some work with it anyway to build that strength and muscle. Think about asking for a trot off a small circle, almost turn on the haunches – and oh yeah, school some turns on the haunches to ask for that lateral movement too.

So far, so good. More lessons to come this month and we might just keep it up for a while til our confidence gets back to where it should be!