Kristin's Blog post # 3

Connecting and Connection

I don’t know that I ever understood the importance of a great connection until I felt it for the first time. I had spent years (over a decade….) with my horses waffling between my legs and hands. Granted, Trance is one of the most sensitive and difficult horses to flat, so he often feels like a ping pong ball on crack that is lurching forward then back, left then right, halfpassing then cantering, etc. To truly get him supple through his entire topline and have that moment where he rests between my legs and arrives in my hands takes a whole lot of effort.

He is also a very mental horse, so he finds dressage rather difficult. If he does give me a great shoulder-in, five strides in his ADD takes over and he starts wondering why we are still doing a shoulder-in. Why don’t we change the angle? Why don’t we shift to a half pass? Why don’t we speed up? Why don’t we slow down? Sometimes he gets so bored having to go ALL the way down the long side of a large ring that he starts twisting his head funny ways and giving me looks. Sigh. He can quietly jump around a two-star, but finds it VERY difficult to just be mentally “quiet” on the flat.

I'm thinking, "Good shoulder in!" while he is thinking, "bird! faster! shiny ball! Jump?! Leap! Clouds!"

Some horses are happy to enter that spot of quiet mental happiness, where the rhythm of the movements take over and the test unfolds in front of you like a well executed dance. Trance is not that horse. He desperately wants to be reacting to something. If I so much as shift a millimeter of my weight during anything, I get a reaction. He hands me no forgiveness when it comes to unintentional aids.

Shockingly, I wanted to just do a normal corner, I didn't ask for this beautiful movement.

The process of taking Trance, who is downhill, ADD, and naturally moves like a cow pony, to being competitive at the upper levels on the flat has been a long, dark, frustrating, bumpy road. But now that I am on the other side, and have learned what those “connected” moments feel like, and learned what it means to have a horse truly “on the aids,” I can find a joy in the flatwork that I didn’t before. It does not mean it is easy, or that I don’t have days when after 45 minutes I find myself STILL piaffing while just wanting to trot calmly. It does mean that I have developed a level of patience for all those things that are inherently him. He is not built to be a dressage horse, but over the course of ten years he has become a horse that scores solidly into the 60s at big dressage shows, and finds himself in the top after dressage at events. He is a mental horse who will never “zen” his way through a test, but has learned to contain a lot of his energy for parts of the test when he gets to propel it out (like mediums).

Trance in a "good" moment while doing a medium trot in Advanced A. I would like to add he also melted down about 3000 times this lesson.

Some horses come with no knowledge, like one of my past horses, Finn. I found it very easy (albeit time consuming) to teach him to stay between two legs, go to the hand, and be a nice 5lbs of pressure on each rein. He was TB, but quiet as a mouse in the ring, steady in the hand, and happy to hold a movement, pace, or rhythm for as long as I liked.

Lizzie, however, raced. And I have ridden a LOT of OTTBs, and many come with a great mouth and understand rein connection. Lizzie came with a very sensitive mouth, and lived in fear of connection. If she felt the bit in her mouth at all, she would flail her head around and panic. It made it impossible to even practice a 20 meter trot circle. I had some options:

1. Tie her head down with draw reins or the like.

2. Get more demanding with my hands and “work” her head down

3. Keep doing patient trot circles with wide soft hands for as long as it takes for her to decide to soften….which after three weeks was starting to wear thin with no progress and her still feeling a bit distraught.

4. Find something else

I have never used draw reins or anything on my horses, and I didn’t really want to start now. I had her in a very kind snaffle, with just a normal noseband (no flash). I made some phone calls that led me to being on the phone with Dale Myler, creator of the Myler bits. I went over in detail her issues, and asked for any suggestions he could come up with. He made me a custom bit with a level 2/3 mouthpiece so she wouldn’t feel the tongue pressure that she so hated, and it had a 3 ring contraption on the outside. It was a custom version of their “combination bit,” which is a bit/noseband combo that works together with pressure. The noseband was built through the three ring, so that – depending on which ring I chose – I could alter how she felt pressure. I went with the second ring, because I knew from in-hand work she understood nose pressure. This allowed my reins to first “speak” to her nose on the leather noseband, then to the poll, then when she yielded she could feel the bit without it being the dominant form of control.

I was skeptical, but also out of other ideas. I put her in the bridle and like magic, Lizzie was happy with the bit. She was a foaming, happy horse that finally held a rhythm instead of panic. She no longer ran herself into the bit, nor did she panic when she would lift her head up and feel rein pressure on the bit. She understood this bit, and it worked for her. By the third day she was stretching so far down at the trot that she literally got footing on her nose.

The story of Lizzie’s connection is a work in progress. There are already many more chapters and discussions I have had, so this was just phase one. I would love to hear of other experiences with this bit, and other “programs” to move forward. My current plan has just moved on to lunge work now that she understands connection, especially so she can learn balance in the canter. From there I hope to move to the first ring of the bit, then back to my normal snaffle and noseband.

All for now and hope everyone is enjoying the weather!

Oh, and a fun video, this is Lizzie jumping clean (albeit distracted!) around her first schooling show at baby novice. Yay for trotting fences and yay for Lizzie!