Captain Awesome Meets Collection

My trainer, JL, has me working on some new stuff with Sydney. My goal for the summer was to get a consistent right lead canter. It's there, and I can get it just about every time, but occasionally, Sydney is too tense, anxious, or stiff to offer a nice canter departure. But since I can still usually eke it out, JL thinks we're ready for more, and I agree.

It took a few lessons for me to understand what she wanted from me, but after the work we did during last Wednesday's lesson, I see where we're going, and I LOVE it!. For the first time ever, I felt my horse's croup tuck under as he sat deeper on his hocks.

It was quite the sensation. Sydney's poll (and withers) came up, and his croup went down. If this is what true collection feels like, sign me up for more. Feeling all of that power underneath me, waiting for me to send it somewhere was truly an awesome moment. And now that I've felt it, believe me, I am going to be looking for it again.

What's interesting to me is that I don't feel Speedy's croup lower when he's working really well. Instead, he just feels more engaged and forward. It could be that Speedy is not carrying as much weight on his hind end, or what I think is more likely, is that Sydney has a much harder time stepping deeply underneath while it's easier for Speedy.

Our very first dressage show.

This July.

From the beginning, Speedy has always been able to step relatively deeply underneath. I suspect that has a lot to do with his conformation and because he put so many miles on the trail as an endurance horse. He doesn't have any hock articulation in the first photo, but at least he's stepping forward. In the second photo (excuse my horrible position - work in progress), there's more articulation, which is hopefully leading to more collection.

How are we even going forward here? He has zero stride length.

Photo from May, but notice how much lower his croup is and where his inside leg is landing.

The first photo of Sydney is beyond horrible, but it illustrates my point exactly; he is not stepping un himself. The photo is from a clinic in October 2013. He was very tense and tried to bolt repeatedly. I wish I had a photo from our lesson this week to show the comparison, but I don't. You'll just have to believe me when I say that I truly felt his croup lower and his front end come up. And while the second (really crappy) photo shows what I was feeling, this was the first time I actually felt it myself and made it happen on my own.

JL was extremely pleased with Sydney's frame and even happier that I could feel what was happening. The only way for his croup to drop so much would be if he had finally learned to step deeply and rock back onto his haunches.

My homework for this week is to repeat the suppling exercises that she gave us so that I can continue to get the same level of work from him as during the lesson. I'll share more about those exercises in the next day or so.