Our Beginning

Last night, I met my best friend Meghan and our awesome dressage rider friend Kymmy for what has become our weekly evening of dressage schooling. It is great!

Usually, I get on and warm Homer up while Kymmy rides the older Orion (Megg's horse), but last night, we reversed it (Kymmy thinking that maybe she would catch Homer in a better mood if she got on him first - see previous posts for details). Homer was absolute perfection. He didn't fight, didn't buck, didn't try to run Kymmy into any of the jumps. I was completely astonished; Kymmy said that she had been expecting him to have a breakthrough day like this. Wow.

We had been told not to ride them too hard, since they'd just gotten booster shots - their 2nd of a three-part vaccination for strangles - so she did not ride him for too long before I got on. We worked on cantering. This is the hardest gait for both of us right now, since Homer needs nearly as much work in it as I do.

A short history of my life with Homer. When I got him, five years ago, he had been off the track for less than a year. He was brought to the farm where I had been riding with the trainer who coached the West Chester University Equestrian Club by my trainer's sister, who snapped Homer up when it became glaringly apparent that his racing career was over (four lifetime starts; four last place finishes). When he'd first arrived at the farm and we curious onlookers crowded around his stall, what we saw was completely unlike the horse that he is today - he was skinny and depressed and oddly sad.

Horses just coming off the racetrack have huge adjustments to make. They are unused to turnout, and especially to turnout with other horses, having been in a stall for most of their careers; they sometimes have vices, like cribbing (here's looking at you, Homer), or stall weaving, or wood chewing, or anything else that they developed to break the boredom; oftentimes they have drugs in their system that need time to filter out; ulcers from stress; and deeper psychological issues.

There are many benefits to acquiring a horse off of the racetrack (in my one-horse experience with Homer). First, they generally don't mind crowds. Homer's one exception was the first show that I took him to (complete disaster), though for most of the shows since that he's been very well behaved. They are used to seeing a lot of equipment, and are usually traffic broke. They are used to training with a bunch of other horses, and are usually okay - in fact, usually more comfortable - with other horses in the ring.

There are, of course, a zillion other things that they have not seen and that they need to get used to, but they are a hard-working and intelligent breed, and mine has soldiered through with aplomb.

When Homer and I first started training in dressage, we had no idea what we were doing. I had mostly ridden him in walk, trot and canter in the ring with his nose poking out (collection? what was that?). We'd jumped some. Gone trail riding a lot. Gone fox hunting once (to cross it off of our bucket list), and to a couple of paper chases (those were exciting). Made it to a few hunter shows, and even received a few ribbons. But I had wanted to teach him more, and didn't have any more to teach, so I joined up with a local dressage trainer to become a working student on my summers off, and it was exactly what we needed.

We had a long road ahead of us - truthfully, we still do. We spent most of the first summer working to get him thinking forward, and then on flexibility, and on building his topline. Basic stuff. I think we cantered a handful of times (he enjoyed launching into the canter with a good buck - there are still dents in my dressage trainer's indoor). Intro level. Last summer we built on everything, and started to really ask him to get on the bit and stretch over his back. We learned his favorite movement so far (extended trot), and worked on lateral stuff, on more complex movements, and finally fixed that awful buck-to-canter transition (a life changer!). We moved to Training level.

Over the winter, after Homer's obligatory cold weather injury (each year it is something different - this year he stuck a few together into an exciting popped splint - thrush infection combo that left him work-free for two months), we worked on first getting his confidence back (which was surprisingly a big issue for him, to put the try back in to his movements), and then catching up on lost training time. We worked on transitions, that canter, flexibility, and staying on the bit. For me, I had to work on sitting up, and on keeping my right leg back and straight, and my left leg pressing down into the stirrup (it sounds worse than it looks, I think). We developed flying changes, and a decent stretch-down circle at the trot. Sure, Homer had a few Thoroughbred days, but overall, progress was made, though about the beginning of March, I really start to pine for dressage lessons!

Enter our professional dressage riding friend Kymmy. She rides our horses for nothing, after her long day of work. She schools them, and then schools us, and we are the better for it. She is a great instructor, and when I watch her ride my horse, I think back to the days when we first poked our noses in to dressage, and realize how far we've come.

Of course, now that our canter is improving, we need to work on collection, impulsion, a steady rhythm, straightness...