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Every year with Izzy is pretty much the same. By the time summer is over, he is about as steady as can be. He has his jerk moments, but by and large, I enjoy riding him. Then comes the fall, October especially. Suddenly that friendly, mostly submissive horse of summer is long gone, and the horse from hell shows up. By the time we are in full winter, our rides are a series of jerks and spins and I am ready to quit. By February, the hamsters are getting back on the wheel, but the first warm days of spring send him into small head shaking syndrome episodes. By mid-April, I remember why I like him.  Yesterday This year has been different. October passed by with only a hint of the Izzy of the past. November, too had only a few wonky days, but despite the incessant rain and lack of consistency, Izzy made it through the winter in good spirits. In fact, I really don't remember any horrible rides. And this past month, despite having no lessons for the past six weeks, Izzy has been fabulous to ride.  I just finished watching the video from yesterday's ride, and every time I hit pause to study a moment more closely, I saw a horse with a swinging back whose ears were flicked my direction. There was no doubt about it: we were dancing.  I am still an awkward rider, but Izzy is doing his best with what he's got. A horse like Izzy can only be as good as his rider's aids. Throughout the entire video I saw a happy horse who was trusting his rider.  For the entire ride, Izzy's tail was loose and swinging, and he went where I pointed. There were a few moments here and there where his head came up just an inch or so when he thought he heard something that was worth looking at, but for the majority of the ride, he kept his attention on me.  As I watched the video, I was surprised again and again by how many lovely moments there were. Not just we don't completely suck moments, but moments that any rider would be proud of. This one above is just one moment from many. Izzy is reaching towards the contact, he has bend through his body, and his stride is open and moving freely. And while I might not be Charlotte Dujardin - who is?, I am doing a good job of creating this relaxation and freedom of movement.  As we leave winter behind, the thing I am most proud of is the progress I've helped Izzy make in the flying changes. Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage, really helped me break down the flying change so that I could teach it to Izzy without all of the theatrics. Little by little I've gone back to the first steps of the flying change, a relaxed canter and straightness.  Straightening without a change. I've been working really hard on straightening in the canter and then not asking for the change. The more I didn't ask, the easier it was to straighten him. Then came a day that I kept him straight, and he asked for the change. We don't get it every time, but we get it more than not. Yesterday, he gave me one with a ton of effort, and the other one with a lot of sass, but he did it. I have this week off, and I already have plans. Today we're dismantling the arena and reworking our footing, Tuesday I might get a lesson, Wednesday we're hauling out to the park for a trail ride, and that leaves another five or so days for riding and catching up. The more that I ride the horse that I have today - instead of the one I had yesterday, the better we both get.
I am having more fun not succeeding than I was when I was failing. And yes, those are two different things. After Saturday's don't want to attitude, Izzy came out a bit friskier on Sunday. It didn't hurt that the ranch owner was hand-walking her mare as we rode. Once she went out of sight, Izzy's girlfriend leaving alert went off which got his motor revving. I actually appreciated the opportunity to school through a bit of a tantrum.  Even though I haven't had a lesson in a while, I decided to video my ride to see where we stand after a very inconsistent past month or so. To my surprise, Izzy was looking pretty fancy pants, and I didn't completely hate my position. My rides on Speedy always felt great, but video told a different story. Riding Izzy feels like an 8 second bull ride, but the video always shows a pair that looks pretty well put together. I don't know if looks are deceiving or if my feel needs recalibrating. Probably both.  We had another deluge on Saturday night so the arena was even wetter than the day before. The top half stays pretty rideable, but with more water dumped on it, I had an even smaller part of the arena in which to ride than on Saturday. There's not a whole lot you can do on a 20-meter circle besides transitions, so that's what I worked on. With Izzy, lack of submission is always a recurring theme, so I schooled submissive 20-meter circles.  Most of the ride went pretty well, but Izzy did pull a couple of DUDE! moments. He definitely challenges me for most every single ride, and it does get old, but the longer I have him the quicker he gives it up. His biggest spook of the day came out of no where and left just as quickly. This horse definitely sees dead people. The thing that cracks me up about his theatrical expressions is that my face never changes. I just sit through the shenanigans, pop him in when necessary, pat him nearly always, and then carry on. For his part, Izzy accepts the correction, checks in to make sure I am serious, and then gets back to work.  I haven't shared this before now, but we probably aren't doing any shows until late summer, if at all. My husband and I are going to Europe for two weeks in June which means I am saving every non-essential dollar to pay for our trip. And since Izzy isn't helping me earn any qualifying scores, I'd rather use my money for something a bit more fulfilling. In some ways it makes riding easier because I am not pushing for anything in particular. I'm just riding the horse I have today.  I love showing, but I love not being in debt even more. Riding at home for a few months is a good opportunity to continue chipping away at some of Izzy's fears. It's hard to be upset about not showing when the alternative is seeing the world. And besides, Izzy doesn't care whether we show or not.
We're pretty excited to get back to traveling. More details to come. Some days I get off Izzy and swear that I have to be the world's very worst rider. But then there are days like this past Sunday where I am positive I am the worst rider. Until I watch a video. Then I see that what I feel is not anything like what it looks like. Thank goodness. If it looked as bad as it felt, I would have been through with this dressage thing a long time ago.  Just because I am not the worst rider ever doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement, a LOT of room for improvement. In my defense though, Izzy does not make it easy. We've passed the gate corner at least a million times in the past six years, and that is no exaggeration. And yet, I still get this ... Not five minutes later, I got this again, and while it looks like the exact same video, I promise you, it is not. As painful as it was to watch this latest Pivo recording, I found myself fast forwarding while I looked for the disastrous moments. I had just ridden, so they were very distinct in my mind. As I scrolled through the video, though, I just couldn't find the ugly that I was sure had to be there. That's not to say we presented as a lovely pair, but it's not the rodeo that I think it is. In fact, as I watched the following minute of what they hell?, all I saw was a pretty balanced rider tactfully riding a tense and braced horse. She even pats him kindly when he loses his balance/spooks in the downward transition. That is not what the world's worst rider would do. While Izzy isn't easy, and that is a huge understatement, I continue to learn whether I want to or not. Over the past few weeks, my focus has once again centered around issues of control. Those spooking moments in the first two videos only happen in that one particular corner. There is nothing in that corner that he hasn't seen a thousand times before, but it is his way of attempting to take the control away. I am learning to ride with a lot heavier contact than I would prefer, but Izzy seems to need to feel manhandled.  I would rather Izzy just go along with the flow, but that isn't who he is. He's a big, strong guy that wants to bully his way around the playground while feeling dejected that he doesn't have any friends. Be a little more of a team player, dude, and more kids will want to play with you. Sheesh! I hope Izzy knows that his life could be a lot worse.
He could have met me back when I was still endurance riding. I've said this before, a lot of times, but Izzy is not the easiest horse to ride. And truthfully, he never will be, at least not for me. A better rider would be able to do better; I am not that rider. While I am not thrilled with this situation, it is what it is, so I continue to get the best work from him that I can. Winter is always hard for him. I've always ascribed his winter behavior to the cold. He's a big horse, so he doesn't cool down easily. In the summer, it takes a lot to get his engine revved. When it's nice and crisp and the air crackles, so does he.  December 28, 2020 Since I know this about him, it no longer upsets me. I just roll with it. When I rode yesterday, he was his regular winter self - on fire. When we first got to work, I felt myself thinking, just trot like a normal horse, please. Then I realized I was only asking for him to trot on the rail, all the while hoping and wishing to the Blue Fairy for something magical to happen. Suddenly, Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage, was in my ear telling me to start asking Izzy questions. He reminded me that if I don't take charge, Izzy will. Just so we're clear, I wasn't in a lesson, but after doing close to 100 lessons with Sean, all of them with ear buds, I am used to him speaking directly to my brain. Recalling his voice while I ride is simply muscle memory. I immediately moved Izzy off the rail into a leg yield, and then another and another.  It shouldn't be a surprise because Sean has been helping me to get there, but those leg yields felt pretty fantastic. Rather than leaving my outside rein empty as has been the issue lately, I very clearly felt that I was riding Izzy into both reins evenly. Once I felt that I had his attention, I started to switch up the leg yields. As we reached the diagonal, I asked for a half halt, and later, a full halt. Then we picked up the trot and leg yielded in the other direction. Eventually, we were zig zagging across the dressage court. I realized that Izzy had shifted from braced and distracted, to focused with power. He wasn't as supple as I would have liked, but for him, it was a big step forward. In the canter work, I remembered to ask him questions as well. We did some leg yields, counter canter, and haunches in on a circle. Since it is in the canter work that he can really push back against me, I focused on getting him to bend through his body by asking his haunches to move around.  The more I asked him to move away from my leg into my outside rein, the more willing he was to start reaching instead of pushing. One of the things that Sean and I have talked about is using these cold months to focus on a good foundation of training so that when the weather warms back up, Izzy will be that much farther along in his training. When the basics are better established, it should allow us to do better at shows.
For now, shows are many months away, so I am riding the horse I have today. In the past nineteen days, I think I've ridden eight or nine times. I usually count the days I haven't ridden. I am finally feeling fine with being an "underachiever." It has certainly taken a few weeks for me to let go of the guilt of needing time off, but I think I am there. When I woke up on Saturday morning, I saw that the valley was socked in with Tule fog. For those of you who have in lived in California's Central Valley, you'll know that our fog is not like any most have ever seen. It can be so dense and wide spread at times that visibility will be less than 50 feet for miles. It's also really cold. It was in the 30s on Saturday morning with humidity near 100%. I waited until after ten o'clock to head out to the ranch, and even then it was still just a few degrees above freezing.  There is a lake immediately on the other side of our back fence. While it was miserably cold and wet, I was feeling pretty cheerful about a ride, something that I haven't felt in at least a month. I considered just hacking around the ranch, but I figured Izzy and I might both warm up if we actually worked. I was right. By the time I had two hooves picked out, I was removing a layer. Weather has never been a riding detractor for me. Cold or hot, I'm game. So while I have been checking out for the past few weeks, it has had nothing to do with the weather. It was cold enough though that I opted to ride in my tall muck boots. Nothing hurts more than dismounting onto frozen feet. With a flannel jacket, gloves, and my feet snug and warm in my muck boots, I actually headed up to the arena feeling pretty lighthearted, which was a welcome change from the gloomy me I've had to live with the last month.  Good thing he's so furry. I didn't have any kind of riding plan. Izzy hadn't been worked in at least five days, so I knew he'd let me know how he was feeling. Pretty dang spicy was the answer. There was lots of sassy head shaking, ear flicks to see if I was paying attention, and a few little woohoo moments. I love riding in my tall muck boots because they're a bit thicker than my leather tall boots. They give me the feeling of a shorter stirrup along with a wide foot bed. I have a velcro butt anyway, but with those bad boys on, I feel invincible. Knowing Izzy was too hot for precision, I spent most of the ride cantering around. Eventually, I started asking for some shallow loops and fifteen-meter circles. Izzy has figured out that anything done off the track while cantering probably means a flying change is coming, so I tried to reduce his anticipation by not asking for the change. Until I did. It was fugly as all heck, but for the first time in at least two months, I finally got a left to right flying change. So yeah, I am pretty much the bomb.  Maybe if I take another two weeks off, we'll have confirmed changes.
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About the Writer and RiderI am a lifelong rider.
I began endurance riding in 1996 where I ultimately completed five, one-day 100 mile races, the 200-mile Death Valley Encounter, and numerous other 50, 65, and 75 mile races. I began showing dressage in 2010. Welcome to my dressage journey. 
Photo by Lori Ovanessian
About Speedy GSpeedy went from endurance horse to dressage horse. After helping me earn a USDF Bronze medal in the summer of 2020, he is now semi-retired. Speedy is a 2004, 15'1 hand, purebred Arabian gelding. His Arabian Horse Registry name is G Ima Starr FA.
July 2020 (PC AJSK Photography)
About IzzyIzzy was started as a four-year old and then spent the next 18 months in pasture growing up. I bought him as a six-year old, and together, we are showing at the lower levels. He is a 2008, 16'3 hand warmblood gelding. His Rheinland Pfalz-saar International (RPSI) name is Imperioso.
March 2021 (PC Tess Michelle Photography)
Bakersfield Dressage approved!
My favorite breeches!
FOR THE SMALLER EQUINE ATHLETE
I love her stuff!
Watercolor Artist and Friend
National Rider Awards
USDF Bronze Medal - 2020
USDF Second Level Rider Performance Award - 2018
USDF First Level Rider Performance Award - 2015
USDF Training Level Rider Performance Award - 2013
State Rider Awards
CDS Ruby Rider Award - 2018
State Horse Awards
Speedy G - 3rd Level Horse Performance Award - 2020
Speedy G - 2nd Level Horse Performance Award - 2018
Working Towards:
CDS Sapphire Rider Award Third Level: 63.514% Third Level: 62.105% Fourth Level: Fourth Level: 2023 Show Season
Show Rating (***) CDS/USDF/USEF (*) CDS (s) Schooling (c) Clinic (r) Ride-a-Test Clinic 2023 Show Schedule
TBD 2023 Completed … Pending 2023 Qualifying Scores
Regional Adult Amateur Competition (RAAC) Qualifying Training Level 3 Scores/2 Judges/60%: Score 1: Score 2: Score 3: Archives
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