Inside Turns

According to Fuego, this tiny 12" fence needed maximum effort

So, remember what I said about Fuego and I not being ready for tight turns yet? Well, I guess we are now, lol.

I've also officially chosen his nickname: Eggo. For some reason, in my brain, I always say his name as Fuegoweggo. Wish I could explain, but I can't. Anyways, Eggo is short and cute enough and will suffice until I inevitably pick something else.

Trainer T's back to back lessons have had a little bit of overlap lately. When that happens, she informed me to go ahead and start warming up. My lesson was a semi-private with V, and we had maybe five minutes or so on our own before Trainer T joined us. I really really really like hacking Fuego. There's never been any horse before that I've envisioned so much success with when it comes to Dressage . . . which probably sounds weird considering I rode with a Dressage trainer for years. But, I don't know, I just feel like I'm finding new buttons every day. And he just approaches the flatwork with so much more umph these days without being hot at all.

On approach to the wishing well fence

My warm-up with him is pretty solid now. Most of the time is spent doing changes of direction across the diagonal, and I don't end up spending a ton of time on the rail. I've always struggled with changing directions at the start of my rides because of my lack of lateral balance. It doesn't matter which direction I start, once I change diagonals, I feel completely off balance and the trot feels slower for some reason. Constantly changing directions pretty much nixes the issue. One of the big shifts that we've made is that I don't take a break before cantering. Once the trot work evolves into including extensions, I use that momentum to step into the canter. The leg I'm on doesn't matter, we just do it. Not only has he been fantastic about it, I haven't noticed any fussiness with this method, which is always a good sign with my sensitive little man. We do one transition from the trot, then switch directions and do another from the walk.

Trainer T was happy with this warm-up, and even in the lessons since this one, she's given me some independence and is consistently happy with how he's looking. He genuinely has the potential to be a competitive lower-level Dressage horse.

The gymnastic was slightly different than the week before. As opposed to three fences set at one stride apart, it was compressed to two fences with one stride in between, followed by a moving four strides to an oxer. Fun Fact: Fuego can make it in three. Ask me how I know.

The course was definitely more complex overall than what we've been doing. It started with a three fence bounce, followed by a three fence bending line at five strides between each, then the gymnastic, and finish on the wishing well.

Because the gymnastic is in the center of the ring, the turns going in and coming out are tight. I found it very difficult to keep him balanced around the turns and had to keep straightening out. It wasn't a huge deal coming up to the wishing well because we had more space, but the turn into the gymnastic was ugh. And he's known to get heated when there's a sharp change of direction. So, yeah, um, gymnastics don't *always* slow horses down.

good egg :)

Everything else about the course was picture perfect, but he really kept pulling me through the gymnastic every time. That was also happening after we had already gone through it beautifully on its own multiple times. I've started using "whoa" and "easy" more frequently on my approaches to try and keep him settled. It works almost too well. Like, he'll be super tense 50' away from the fence, but if I say "whoa," he'll just stop dead because standing around and doing nothing is his favorite thing. But then I'll leg him back into a trot, and he barely lugs himself over whatever we're going towards. This is fun. I swear we're having fun.

Again, other than the gymnastics, I was super happy with him. He was an angel through the bounces and literally floated through the bending line. We've been pretty solidly getting around 2'-6" courses, which is just insane to me considering we were jumping the ittiest, bittiest, most babiest cross rails back in December. There's definitely room to improve in the technical area, and it's on me to keep building my core strength so I can support him better. Only way from here is up!

Bonus: Quick voiceover of pretty much the same stuff above but with appropriate visuals.