That's Suspicious. That's Weird.

So, we're one ride post my most recent Destello adventure. Some extra context is needed.

The week that I didn't ride Fuego, he ended up being ridden lightly that day by the same boarder that I took a lesson with a couple weeks ago. After that, he had two rides that I know of. The first was with one of the younger riders who I've seen show Destello. She's very competent and confident. I assumed that the ride would be fine, but she, unfortunately, pulled too hard on him one time too many, and Fuego absolutely lost it. Being soft with him is a huge learning curve; if he was a little bit more forgiving, I likely wouldn't have learned that lesson as quickly as I did. He was giving her sideways approaches and just in general not wanting to go forward to the fences, especially to the right. The day before my lesson, he had a flat lesson with another student and was foot perfect, as usual. They jumped a teeny tiny line of crossrails a couple times, and he was apparently great.

Last piece of context is that Fuego has been on two calming supplements for at least the past month, maybe a little bit longer. One is fast acting and recommended for horse shows but can also be used daily. The other is a standard daily supplement. Even though he's obviously been the goodest, bestest boy for me, I've had this inkling that the supplements aren't actually making a difference. And that could be the case. It could also be that only one of them is working because I realized after this lesson, he hadn't even touched his breakfast grain. Happily munched on hay, but wasn't interested in his grain at all. If he doesn't eat his grain, then he doesn't get the fast acting supplement, which could be working better with his body than the other supplement. It's a strong maybe, but a maybe nonetheless.

As a general disclaimer, I don't own this horse and have zero say on what he eats.

Derby photos are edited, too. Look at this handsome man.

He came out with a touch more energy than usual, despite running around in the pasture all morning. Literally, he was already sweating a little bit when I took him out to tack up. The nice thing about him having a pep in his step is that I, uhh, don't have to do so much work to make him trot lol. He was willing but noticeably fussy. When tacking up, he also shook his head several times before bridling and cleared his nostrils. I figured it was bugs or itchiness, but now it seems like it could have been related to the ride. There were a lot of good moments of softness, but they came in between head tossing and general giraffing. It wasn't awful by any means, but it was frequent enough and unprompted enough that I took a mental note and continued to soften my hands. His canter transitions were much nicer than usual. He didn't break to the trot at all, and he gave me a couple strides each way of really nice, bouncy, soft movement. I haven't worked on our Dressage in a bit, but I'm hoping to in the near future.

We started the jumping with my trainer deciding to "tempt fate." We tried the black and white line going to the right, which is the direction he had the most trouble with earlier in the week. He went through it fine a couple times, but I could feel him getting stronger each time we went through. He has done this before, and it didn't escalate to anything dangerous. I can't remember what we did next, but essentially, he broke down, started running at things, and overall became extremely tense.

We tried a different approach that my trainer referred to as roulette. She had me trot around the ring acting as if I'm just doing flatwork, and she would call out fences for me to jump. We did this a few times with two or three fences/lines in each try, then a walk break, then try again. It was hands down one of the most confusing moments of horse behavior that I've ever witnessed. Some lines he did great, others were awful, sometimes he came back quickly, other times it took half a lap around the ring. He was extremely sensitive, wanting to canter boldly when I asked for a trot, and just overall could not stay calm. That's not to say that he didn't have several amazing, calm, slow efforts, but they would be followed by the most bizarre, tense, rushing effort.

We tried to finish with the black and white line again after a few good lines. He came in amazingly straight, didn't rush, didn't go sideways, and stayed straight as an arrow afterwards. Three strides out from the second fence, he drifted left and ran out. I ended up decapitating the standard with my leg. Guess all the squats are paying off . . . Even as I write this, I'm beyond confused as to why this happened. The previous attempt at it not even 10 minutes prior was beautiful. Trainer T's only explanation is that he maybe (like, maybe) became nervous because the last attempt had a slightly long spot to the second fence. And by slightly, I mean slightly. If I had added another, he would have chipped, which is what we typically do. After missing the fence entirely, he didn't even want to go near it. Poor boy was mortified. We walked around the thing a ton from both directions, slowly getting closer and closer. We walked up to it, we stopped, we turned away, walk up to the other side, turn away. When he felt ready, we did a walk fence, he popped over it like a champ, and we called it a day.

*blep*

I know we typically say blame the rider, not the horse. And I know how to hold myself accountable. But . . . there's something that feels weird here. I've never had a horse be completely fine with an exercise one moment and then have a meltdown in the next. I'm not upset with him at all, just somewhat at a loss about what I can do to set him up for success. He has overall had a slightly lower workload lately, but otherwise, nothing has changed since I started riding him. I also know that some of his reactions to me had to do with the lesson earlier in the week.

He was still a very happy, cuddly boy after our lesson. Watching me trying to change my boots is apparently very interesting and worthy of his full, undivided, close-up, hands-on (or, muzzle on?) attention. It's always refreshing to know that he's not, like, traumatized by human interaction. He did yawn several times, which is new.

Some thoughts moving forward:

• Chip. Always and forever. It might not have been the root issue, but that distance very likely could have exasperated things.
• Trainer T wants to swap him back to his D-ring. Right now, he's in a French link Pelham with a converter. She's worried that the D-ring won't give people as much breaking power, but I shared that I felt breaks aren't the main issue, and a bit change might help him feel more comfy, which would prevent the running off. I also suggested doing two reins on the Pelham so the curb can be used in case of emergency, but because he is so sensitive to increased pressure, that could also make things worse.
• Trainer T's best guess is that it's pure adrenaline when he goes to fences. Based on my very limited knowledge of biology, I think adrenaline can somewhat override whatever hormones come before it. See this article for an explanation of why I feel this way.

That's all I have. Genuinely interested to see what others think or if you've had a similar horse in the past. I've considered running this by an animal behaviorist because all of this seems to be a lot more complex than just a hot horse.

Running around like a fire breathing dragon makes the big boy very sleepy