Tack cleaning! And Post-Clinic-Update
Nov. 20th, 2022 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI probably should clean my tack more. It gets done a couple of times a year, which is not as often as the ponyclub world would have me do it, but it's also more often than a lot of folks I see out there playing horse. Anyway, one of the huge benefits of signing up for New Clinican Experiences is that it guilts me into extra tack cleaning.
As a probably hopeless effort to look less redneck at this function, I took apart, cleaned, and conditioned all my tack yesterday. It wasn't horrifically bad but it does look better now. Did my boots, too. Took a freshly-washed saddle pad, even.
One of the things I discovered on my cleaning adventure was that one of the bit rings on Bird's bit didn't move freely. I mean, it would move but it was stiff, not like the other one which was floppy loose. That was weird, so I spent some time with penetrating oil (WD-40) and working the offending bit ring back and forth until it moved as freely as the other. Then I oiled it with 3-in-1 oil and wiped it down a ton so that it would not taste gross to my horse.
The other thing I discovered was that some of the stitching is coming off the cantle of my saddle. It's only like seven years old so this seems quite unfair to me. The cantle (for the non-horse-folks in the audience) is a not-structurally-important part for safety and stuff, so this is just annoying and not safety-related.
Everything did look pretty nice when I was done, though, so yay.
On to the clinic review! Truck and trailer ran well. It was approximately 25F (-4C) out today with a brisk wind, but the clinic was in a fairly roomy indoor with very nice footing. So, we went anyway despite the cold. I bundled up in layers and that worked except for my feet. I cannot fit wool socks (my preference) under my tall boots, so I stuck with boot socks (very thin, slippery socks with no bulk or warmth). If I keep doing riding in winter clinics, I am going to have to come up with a better plan for foot warmth.
The indoor! The indoor was very workable, good footing. Bird was a big fan. It was well-lit and after a couple of laps (with me on foot), he quit looking at shit like an idiot so I threw a leg over and warmed him up. He was fine. Horse friend N. was the rider before me, and Bird knows Gracie (N's horse) so that wasn't a problem at all. Facility also had a good layout for parking, saddling, etc. though host was worried that I'd find the turn around the back of the building "tight". It was 100% fine and not tight.
Clinician asked a few questions about us, what I did with Bird, etc. I think she was somewhat confused about what we were doing there because we don't... y'know... show. I told her I enjoyed working on dressage for personal fulfillment and because I like goals and projects. I feel like "is willing to spend seventy-five dollars" and "is willing to haul out in freezing winter weather" are sufficient evidences of my seriousness but maybe that's not how other people think. Oh well.
Clinician was all "Is he an Al-Marah Arabian?" (No.) What is his breeding?" I guess he's "Mostly Egyptian?" (I do not care about this stuff as much as some Arab people do. One doesn't RIDE the papers, which he doesn't have anyway. He could have them, if I wanted to spend money-that-could-be-feed-or-hay-or-farrier-or-clinics on papers. I don't want.)
Bird's Sire: Mohummed Kazam. Kazam was Al Khamsa, which is Arabian Breeder Nutjobbery for "pure desert-bred" though this does not necessarily also mean "quality". Kazam was mostly Egyptian.
Bird's Dam: GF Hamid's Tamora. Heavily Nazeer/Raffles bred, also mostly Egyptian.
Therefore, Bird is... mostly Egyptian Arabian.
Now, the horse world as a whole (sterotypically) regards Arabian horses as kind of nutjobs. Which, yeah, that's not unfair. They're reactive and sensitive and sometimes that can be a lot. Not everybody wants that much reactivity/sensitivity in their horse. (Folks sometimes THINK they want a horse that notices every damn thing but they don't, not really.) Arabian Horse People, who spend their lives wading in the nutjob pool, feel (stereotypically) that Egyptian Arabians are thrashing around violently in the deep end of the aforesaid pool.
They are, basically, regarded as the nutjobberiest of the nutjobs. Is that a word? W/E. It is now. Look at me go, neologisming my way through life. Ooops, I did it again, verbing the noun. Can't stop, won't stop.
Clinician has us walk a bit, looks at us, offers some thoughts on rider position (Needs Work for reals). I can see it in the videos, still kind of tipped forward with shoulders (though like two inches instead of the four it used to be) and, wow, there's a lot of movement on the lower leg (sigh) and that's NOT the most helpful post I've got going on there. Less forward-back and more up-down would be useful. I'll work on it. Also, wow, I did not think I had put on that much weight. Middle age is doing me no favors and I am going to have to tighten up on that.
Clinician has us trot in fairly short order, which I found... odd. Maybe she didn't feel she could do much with me in the walk? Maybe she feels people can get more done in trot. Not sure. This is different from DLB, who has us do a fair number of things in walk. It's OK. I like trot. Trot is fine.
We trot some circles, work on not-falling-in, filling up outside rein. Out of circles we go quarterline and leg yield to the wall. Couple of goes at that, and clinician would like more... shoulders leading in the leg yield. Uhm. Okay. I thought you wanted your horse squared up and parallel to the long side when you were leg yielding from quarterline to rail... but clinician wanted more of a 'shoulder-leading' leg yield. No problem. Bird is adjustable on that front so we adjusted. (If she was going for more fluidity and expression in the trot, with the front end, she might have been aiming in that direction to see if she could get him to free up his shoulders. I didn't ask why, but that might have been what she was going for.)
Change direction across the diagonal. Work for more fluidity and freedom in front end, better separation of his different parts, more *oomph* in trot, more... confidence in taking and filling both reins, better and more "expression". These were kind of our directives. Much of this stuff is stuff I have heard from DLB, so that was helpful. This clinician ALSO had us work on (long side) buff up trot, bring it back a little, buff it up again, which is another DLB thing we've been doing. Adjustability within gait, it is a thing we should be striving to improve.
We canter. There was rather a lot of canter work -- for this clinician, for my unclipped horse in his winter fur. Canter work involved stuff like "circle, now move him off your inside leg, lovely" and "back to trot, leg yield to rail, pick up canter again" looking for more fluidity in movement and more organization. She's not wrong that he picks up a nice canter, gets like three strides in, and deflates to "damn, this is too much work" levels of half-vast effort. So that needs work.
Clinician said a LOT of "very nice, lovely, yes that's it" etc. which is, I guess, good to hear. She hit me with an... odd analogy a couple of times, to wit: "Like one of those sponge toys, which is super cute and all, but that you put in water and it all poofs up, that's what you have here. A super-cute sponge toy that needs to be poofed up." I could choose to be upset about this but honestly, yeah, he does need to be poofed up some. I mean, I don't think she's, like, super wrong about that. He's a little tight in the front end and I DO think he could be more expressive and fluid. I do not think of Birb as a super-cute sponge toy, but... it's not my analogy.
None of the stuff we did was earth-shaking but it was right in line with what DLB has us working on, so that was kind of... reassuring. Like, if Clinician 1 and Clinician 2 agree on the sorts of things you need to be doing, probably the advice is pretty clearly the sorts of things you need to be doing. I was a little surprised that focus of both clinicians here of late was "quality of gait" stuff which seems sorta nitpicky but maybe we're at the point where you can be a little nitpicky.
Horse was working, enough to sweat up his chest a little even with walk breaks. (We had to spend time -- thirty minutes or so -- at the facility hanging out after our ride to dry him out before I was willing to put him on the trailer for the ride home. If I do this again, I'm gonna bring some towels to hurry that process along.) He does put in a fair effort all the time, every time. Like, he's not cheating and he does have muscles and stuff, you can see them when he's working. Here, look. Also, despite largely ineffectual rider, he's gotten a lot more steady about trucking along over the last few years so that also is nice. Even though he's not 100% confident about pushing into the reins, he is a lot steadier than he used to be. I can definitely see progress.
Was this a good clinic? I think so. It seemed a little short in terms of time, but also horse was working hard and I would not have wanted to sweat him up any more given the weather. Also, clinician made good use of the time and I think she covered all the major points I was more-or-less expecting her to cover. Also clinic attendees can't do/remember more than a handful of directives at a time anyway. I think I got stuff out of it and I think I understood the clinician pretty well. I might go back and clinic with her again, but I'm not sure I will have enough time to work the directives that she has given me between now and the next time she's up. I like to work the directives between clinic efforts because I really feel like if you show up with the same issues, you're probably going to get the same directives, even if you want new ones. You have to chew and swallow the food in your mouth before you get to take another bite, kind of a thing.
Clinician was upbeat and positive (which is a portion of the clinician's job) and I got the impression that she felt Bird was ... a credit to his race? (Yeah, that IS a loaded phrase from The People Use The N-Word In Public Racist Era that existed before our current We Don't Say The N-Word OUT LOUD Anymore Racist Era. My choice of phrasing was not an accident.)
As a probably hopeless effort to look less redneck at this function, I took apart, cleaned, and conditioned all my tack yesterday. It wasn't horrifically bad but it does look better now. Did my boots, too. Took a freshly-washed saddle pad, even.
One of the things I discovered on my cleaning adventure was that one of the bit rings on Bird's bit didn't move freely. I mean, it would move but it was stiff, not like the other one which was floppy loose. That was weird, so I spent some time with penetrating oil (WD-40) and working the offending bit ring back and forth until it moved as freely as the other. Then I oiled it with 3-in-1 oil and wiped it down a ton so that it would not taste gross to my horse.
The other thing I discovered was that some of the stitching is coming off the cantle of my saddle. It's only like seven years old so this seems quite unfair to me. The cantle (for the non-horse-folks in the audience) is a not-structurally-important part for safety and stuff, so this is just annoying and not safety-related.
Everything did look pretty nice when I was done, though, so yay.
On to the clinic review! Truck and trailer ran well. It was approximately 25F (-4C) out today with a brisk wind, but the clinic was in a fairly roomy indoor with very nice footing. So, we went anyway despite the cold. I bundled up in layers and that worked except for my feet. I cannot fit wool socks (my preference) under my tall boots, so I stuck with boot socks (very thin, slippery socks with no bulk or warmth). If I keep doing riding in winter clinics, I am going to have to come up with a better plan for foot warmth.
The indoor! The indoor was very workable, good footing. Bird was a big fan. It was well-lit and after a couple of laps (with me on foot), he quit looking at shit like an idiot so I threw a leg over and warmed him up. He was fine. Horse friend N. was the rider before me, and Bird knows Gracie (N's horse) so that wasn't a problem at all. Facility also had a good layout for parking, saddling, etc. though host was worried that I'd find the turn around the back of the building "tight". It was 100% fine and not tight.
Clinician asked a few questions about us, what I did with Bird, etc. I think she was somewhat confused about what we were doing there because we don't... y'know... show. I told her I enjoyed working on dressage for personal fulfillment and because I like goals and projects. I feel like "is willing to spend seventy-five dollars" and "is willing to haul out in freezing winter weather" are sufficient evidences of my seriousness but maybe that's not how other people think. Oh well.
Clinician was all "Is he an Al-Marah Arabian?" (No.) What is his breeding?" I guess he's "Mostly Egyptian?" (I do not care about this stuff as much as some Arab people do. One doesn't RIDE the papers, which he doesn't have anyway. He could have them, if I wanted to spend money-that-could-be-feed-or-hay-or-farrier-or-clinics on papers. I don't want.)
Bird's Sire: Mohummed Kazam. Kazam was Al Khamsa, which is Arabian Breeder Nutjobbery for "pure desert-bred" though this does not necessarily also mean "quality". Kazam was mostly Egyptian.
Bird's Dam: GF Hamid's Tamora. Heavily Nazeer/Raffles bred, also mostly Egyptian.
Therefore, Bird is... mostly Egyptian Arabian.
Now, the horse world as a whole (sterotypically) regards Arabian horses as kind of nutjobs. Which, yeah, that's not unfair. They're reactive and sensitive and sometimes that can be a lot. Not everybody wants that much reactivity/sensitivity in their horse. (Folks sometimes THINK they want a horse that notices every damn thing but they don't, not really.) Arabian Horse People, who spend their lives wading in the nutjob pool, feel (stereotypically) that Egyptian Arabians are thrashing around violently in the deep end of the aforesaid pool.
They are, basically, regarded as the nutjobberiest of the nutjobs. Is that a word? W/E. It is now. Look at me go, neologisming my way through life. Ooops, I did it again, verbing the noun. Can't stop, won't stop.
Clinician has us walk a bit, looks at us, offers some thoughts on rider position (Needs Work for reals). I can see it in the videos, still kind of tipped forward with shoulders (though like two inches instead of the four it used to be) and, wow, there's a lot of movement on the lower leg (sigh) and that's NOT the most helpful post I've got going on there. Less forward-back and more up-down would be useful. I'll work on it. Also, wow, I did not think I had put on that much weight. Middle age is doing me no favors and I am going to have to tighten up on that.
Clinician has us trot in fairly short order, which I found... odd. Maybe she didn't feel she could do much with me in the walk? Maybe she feels people can get more done in trot. Not sure. This is different from DLB, who has us do a fair number of things in walk. It's OK. I like trot. Trot is fine.
We trot some circles, work on not-falling-in, filling up outside rein. Out of circles we go quarterline and leg yield to the wall. Couple of goes at that, and clinician would like more... shoulders leading in the leg yield. Uhm. Okay. I thought you wanted your horse squared up and parallel to the long side when you were leg yielding from quarterline to rail... but clinician wanted more of a 'shoulder-leading' leg yield. No problem. Bird is adjustable on that front so we adjusted. (If she was going for more fluidity and expression in the trot, with the front end, she might have been aiming in that direction to see if she could get him to free up his shoulders. I didn't ask why, but that might have been what she was going for.)
Change direction across the diagonal. Work for more fluidity and freedom in front end, better separation of his different parts, more *oomph* in trot, more... confidence in taking and filling both reins, better and more "expression". These were kind of our directives. Much of this stuff is stuff I have heard from DLB, so that was helpful. This clinician ALSO had us work on (long side) buff up trot, bring it back a little, buff it up again, which is another DLB thing we've been doing. Adjustability within gait, it is a thing we should be striving to improve.
We canter. There was rather a lot of canter work -- for this clinician, for my unclipped horse in his winter fur. Canter work involved stuff like "circle, now move him off your inside leg, lovely" and "back to trot, leg yield to rail, pick up canter again" looking for more fluidity in movement and more organization. She's not wrong that he picks up a nice canter, gets like three strides in, and deflates to "damn, this is too much work" levels of half-vast effort. So that needs work.
Clinician said a LOT of "very nice, lovely, yes that's it" etc. which is, I guess, good to hear. She hit me with an... odd analogy a couple of times, to wit: "Like one of those sponge toys, which is super cute and all, but that you put in water and it all poofs up, that's what you have here. A super-cute sponge toy that needs to be poofed up." I could choose to be upset about this but honestly, yeah, he does need to be poofed up some. I mean, I don't think she's, like, super wrong about that. He's a little tight in the front end and I DO think he could be more expressive and fluid. I do not think of Birb as a super-cute sponge toy, but... it's not my analogy.
None of the stuff we did was earth-shaking but it was right in line with what DLB has us working on, so that was kind of... reassuring. Like, if Clinician 1 and Clinician 2 agree on the sorts of things you need to be doing, probably the advice is pretty clearly the sorts of things you need to be doing. I was a little surprised that focus of both clinicians here of late was "quality of gait" stuff which seems sorta nitpicky but maybe we're at the point where you can be a little nitpicky.
Horse was working, enough to sweat up his chest a little even with walk breaks. (We had to spend time -- thirty minutes or so -- at the facility hanging out after our ride to dry him out before I was willing to put him on the trailer for the ride home. If I do this again, I'm gonna bring some towels to hurry that process along.) He does put in a fair effort all the time, every time. Like, he's not cheating and he does have muscles and stuff, you can see them when he's working. Here, look. Also, despite largely ineffectual rider, he's gotten a lot more steady about trucking along over the last few years so that also is nice. Even though he's not 100% confident about pushing into the reins, he is a lot steadier than he used to be. I can definitely see progress.
Was this a good clinic? I think so. It seemed a little short in terms of time, but also horse was working hard and I would not have wanted to sweat him up any more given the weather. Also, clinician made good use of the time and I think she covered all the major points I was more-or-less expecting her to cover. Also clinic attendees can't do/remember more than a handful of directives at a time anyway. I think I got stuff out of it and I think I understood the clinician pretty well. I might go back and clinic with her again, but I'm not sure I will have enough time to work the directives that she has given me between now and the next time she's up. I like to work the directives between clinic efforts because I really feel like if you show up with the same issues, you're probably going to get the same directives, even if you want new ones. You have to chew and swallow the food in your mouth before you get to take another bite, kind of a thing.
Clinician was upbeat and positive (which is a portion of the clinician's job) and I got the impression that she felt Bird was ... a credit to his race? (Yeah, that IS a loaded phrase from The People Use The N-Word In Public Racist Era that existed before our current We Don't Say The N-Word OUT LOUD Anymore Racist Era. My choice of phrasing was not an accident.)
