Facebook has been reminding me of what Izzy and I were doing last year at this time. We were still regular riders on the struggle bus, but the good moments were coming more frequently. We could pick up the canter going both directions and the shenanigans were happening less and less. We put in a lot of miles over the summer, and by fall, things were really starting to come together.

I don't think I've had a bad ride on Izzy since before Christmas. The last real doozy of a ride that I can remember was the first time I got on him after being so sick last fall. Chemaine Hurtado, owner and trainer at Symphony Dressage Stables, rode him the next day, and they had a come to Jesus kind of ride. Since then though, our rides have all been really productive.

When I rode on Sunday, he was so rideable that I was throwing in some of the elements from Second Level. We picked up the counter canter, did some canter to walk transitions - those are effortless for him, shoulder in, and the 10-meter half circles. I still can't get his stride to lengthen, but his back is definitely getter looser.

One thing that really helps his back to let go is the leg yield, especially when I insist on a BIG move over. We did a few of them in each direction. All of a sudden, he gave a leg yield that was huge, balanced, and absolutely effortless. There is no doubt in my mind that it would have scored a 10! I have never ridden a leg yield that felt like that.

This boy is so talented. If I keep working on him, I'm going to have a second star in my barn. Look out, Speedy G. Izzy's on his way!

I haven't written much about the big brown horse lately, but that's because things have been sailing along quite smoothly. I put in a lot of rides over the summer that must have finally done the job. Over the fall, things clicked into place for him. This spring, our rides have been about improving the connection and working toward getting a longer stride.

I am tackling the stride thing two ways. First, before I even start grooming, I do some "body work" with Izzy. I flex his neck towards his rib cage, stretching only as far as he wants to go. As he loosens up, he usually starts reaching further and further so that I have to back up. His incentive, no, it's not a carrot, is getting to grab some part of my clothing. He'll stretch a mile if he thinks he can nip my t-shirt.

I follow that stretch with a jaw/poll wiggle with his head hanging straight down. I nearly always get a variety of pops and cracks from his poll when we do that. He seems to enjoy it. I also cross a hind leg in front of the other to get a hamstring stretch. He'll hold the stretch by himself, but not for long. That stretch is boring without any opportunity for playing with me.

The second thing I am doing to increase stride length is actively riding with a long and low frame in mind. Everything we do now MUST be done with a longer neck. When we leg yield, I am focusing on doing it with a long neck and then a big step from behind. If his neck isn't long, I half halt until he'll stretch down. 

And that's where the half halt to the hind leg comes in. Since Izzy wants to keep his neck so short, my half halts weren't doing anything. With a short neck, his stride just gets shorter and quicker. To remedy that, Chemaine Hurtado, owner and trainer at Symphony Dressage Stables, had me think about half halting all the way through to his hind leg. 

She's been saying that for however long, but I finally got it. Simply tugging with the outside rein isn't enough. When he actually transfers more weight to the hind, he can slow his front end which allows him to stretch down without falling on his face. If I don't feel a difference in how he's going, we didn't achieve a half halt. Another palm to face moment.

Over the weekend I got a really good feel for it at the canter. I half halted until I felt his hind leg through the rein. It was as though that outside rein was actually connected to his leg. I don't think I've ever had that sensation before.

The work we're doing now is fun; it's not about just trying to stay on. We're actually working together as a team to build something exciting. We may actually make it to Training Level someday!

We have maybe created a new and better problem - sometimes, I can't get Izzy's nose OFF the ground. He is now DIGGING this long and low neck thing.

Since Chemaine Hurtado, owner and trainer at, Symphony Dressage Stables, showed me a new exercise for helping Izzy to get a longer neck, he has been eating it up. Over the past year, Chemaine has helped me show Izzy where his happy place is. As he has gotten broker and broker, his happy place has continued to change.

Right now, flexing him to the inside while asking for vertical flexion at the same time has become his new happy place. As soon as he gets choppy, I ask for it. If his head flies up, I ask for it. If he gets quick, I ask for it. Rather than feel irritated or pressured, he seems to find relief in being shown a way to stretch down. It's as though I am finally asking for the stretch down in language that he can understand.

​Another step forward!

I wrote a post the other day which generated some not-so-constructive criticism. In the post, I shared an exercise that my trainer thought would be helpful. In essence, she suggested I over-flex Izzy to the inside and then use a firm half halt to flex him vertically. The purpose of the exercise was to slow him down, bring his shoulder in, get him round, and help him focus. I said to think rollkur. Here's a photo from that lesson.

Here's how Izzy wants to carry himself...

I am very honest on my blog. While I don't share every disappointment, frustration, shortcoming, or ineffective moment, I don't sugarcoat things either. When we're successful, I share it. When we suck, I share that too. I get lessons as often as I can, which for a long time has been about once a month. Lately, it's been twice a month. My trainer is based more than two hours away, so I don't get a lot of trainer rides either.

While I am not a trainer, and I've never even hinted that I could be, I am in essence training my own horses. Poor things. Little do they how good their lives could have been.

With that said, I have to rely on the help that I do get. And while it isn't weekly, I know in my heart of hearts that the training I get is good training. It's correct training. My scores on Speedy offer proof. We've finished each level (Intro, Training, and First) with scores in the high 60s and 70s.

I trust my trainer. She doesn't use shortcuts. She doesn't use gadgets. She wants horses to progress with a solid foundation. She treats each horse as an individual which means not every horse learns in the same way. When she suggests an exercise, I know she is trying to get through to the horse to teach him how to move more correctly. 

So what is Rollkur exactly? Basically, it is the practice of forcefully pulling a horse's head into an extreme low, deep and round position, often for an extended period of time. That's not what I am doing. And anyone who has ever seen me ride in person knows that. 

Instead, what my trainer suggested I do was create a situation where Izzy wants to stretch down. When I flex him to the inside, there is no force. He flexes easily. What he doesn't know how to do is to lengthen his neck. By over-flexing him to the inside, and then flexing him vertically, it is showing him that there is a more comfortable position that he can choose.

Within moments of putting him in this "hyper-flexed" frame, he immediately lowers his head and asks to stretch down. I am NOT holding him in hyper flexion. I let him stretch down, and if he'll take it, I'll give him all the rein.

When I rode him on Friday afternoon, I "felt" how the exercise can do even more for him. As I over-flexed him to the inside and then half halted to flex him vertically, I realized that this straightened him so that I could then push my hands forward and ask for a longer stride. 

In no time at all, he started snorting and swinging over his back. I don't think that's what rollkur does.

Izzy keeps giving me moments. Some of them are bad of course, but there have sure been a lot more good moments than bad of late.

I already told you about riding with a new friend on Saturday. What I didn't mention was that I rode Izzy before she got there. I got a late start to the morning, long story, so I was feeling rushed about getting my ride done before she got there. Historically, that is a recipe for creating a crappy ride. I know that, so I made a very concerted effort to tuck my "hurry energy" back in my pocket.

Izzy is HUGELY sensitive to my mood, so if I am stressed, he's stressed. If I am rushed, he rushes. If I am relaxed, it's much easier to get him to relax. So, I took a deep breath and forced myself to slow the heck down. 

As we were doing our walking warm up, the vet came driving by from the south end of the property. We don't see cars come from that direction very often. I cringed inwardly hoping this wasn't the end of my quiet, relaxing ride as that's the kind of distraction that knocks Izzy's brain loose.  

To my complete joy, Izzy barely glanced at the truck and kept working. As it turned out, the vet idled his truck while chatting with the ranch owner at the gate end of the arena for the rest of my ride. Izzy didn't put a foot out of place. He worked hard and completely ignored the distraction.

Oh, how I love Good Moments!

I am not even kidding. I almost didn't ride yesterday afternoon. It was 71℉ at 4:00 in the afternoon! Since I don't blanket my boys, they have full on, polar bear winter coats. When I went to get Izzy, he was sweating. It's January. What the heck?

It seemed silly to waste such a lovely day however, so I saddled up anyway. I know I've been filling this space with My Horse Is Now Awesome types of posts, but I have to add another one.

Even though the gardener was using a wood chipper to dispose of some piles of leaves, Izzy only gave him three seconds of a hairy eye-ball, and then shrugged it off.

Since he was so relaxed and already kind of sweating, I made the executive decision to keep things at a walk and trot. Feeling that he was ready to be pushed a little though, we did all of the walk and trot work from Second Level (except the turn on the haunches).

He's got a sweet shoulder in, and his travers is way better than Speedy's! We did those fun little 10-meter half circles, and for the very first time ever, I was able to get a baby trot lengthening.

When we were finished, he was actually drier than when we started. I think some clouds rolled in, and we picked up a small breeze. Either way, I decided to make sure he got a good drink that evening by giving him a dose of electrolytes with his dinner bucket. It was supposed to be in the 30s over-night.

Chemaine Hurtado, owner and trainer at Symphony Dressage Stables, will be here for another clinic this Saturday. I sure hope he keeps it together, but if not, I know how to help him put his brain back in. And if I can't, Chemaine knows how to kick his butt even better than I do!

And it wasn't a good one. After several weeks of really great progress, I took a day off from riding to head up to Lake Isabella and Kern River Brewery with my husband. It rained cats and dogs the next day. I guess two days off is more than Izzy can handle.

I knew it was going to be a rough ride. The wind had howled the night before, and I mean HOWLED. Like banshees coming to take your soul. Or whatever banshees take. The sky was dark and moody, and everything was just dripping. My mantra these days is it doesn't matter. Izzy doesn't get any more breaks; this is it. This is his life. At nine, going on ten, he now gets to just suck it. Sucking it up would be preferable, but whatever.

As soon as I got on, I knew I was in for a doozy. Right away I felt I had no inside bend to the right, but I decided to take a page from Chemaine Hurtado's book (owner and trainer at Symphony Dressage Stables). When she rode him a few weeks ago, she spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time bending him to the right and booting him in the ribcage. Later, when I asked what the purpose to that was - never doubting that there was a purpose, she explained that she wanted him OFF her inside leg and listening to it. Hmm...

So, I bent his nose until it was practically resting on my right knee while I booted his ribcage with my inside leg. Sometimes it was in a turn on the forehand, sometimes it was a leg yield on a circle. The exercise worked, but not without a few oh, crap moments.

He was really stuck on that inside right shoulder. It was bulging into my leg, and his version of I won't move it is to swerve left or to rear. At one point, he actually hit me in the face as he went up. The thing is, it's hard to go all the way up when your face is crammed into someone's knee. His face, my knee. It took a good 40 minutes, but I won the day. 

So even though yesterday was technically Speedy's day, I really needed to reinforce the previous day's lesson with Izzy. It took 17 minutes. He clearly remembered the ass kicking he had received the previous day.

Rather than (ahem - excuse the expression) pussy foot around, I went straight for the far end and asked for a right bend. He was coiled into a very tight ball and was literally bouncing around, but he moved that ribcage over and bent to the right.

​Winner winner, chicken dinner!

In the game of Get This Horse Really Broke, I make it my mission to outscore Izzy at each opportunity. He may get points on me now and then, but I always pull off the win at the end of the day.

Like I've already said, Izzy is getting his butt hammered each and every day. Why does he need a day off? He spends 23 hours a day doing whatever he wants. All I ever ask him for is 20 minutes of try and pay attention. If he doesn't pay attention, he's out there longer, but nothing I am asking of him right now merits a day off.

Over the weekend, the ranch owner had family visiting which included two young grandchildren. I rubbed my hands together in glee (and maybe even gave a sinister laugh) as I saw them head out the front gate on their roller skates with dad and grandpa right behind. I was just saddling up to ride, and I knew they'd be coming back by me while I rode.

Izzy warmed up well and was working quite happily when the roller skaters and their escorts came walking back down the road. Now I get that roller skating kids have the potential to be terrifying, but these guys were under ten years old and were walking more than rolling. There was nothing scary about the entourage. No one was screaming or zipping around. It was a group people out for a warm weather stroll on a nice day. 

As they came back onto the ranch, at least a hundred fifty yards away, Izzy lost it. Or tried to. He head snapped up, his back hollowed, and he slammed on the breaks. Kind of. It was a full on Dick Move, but I was ready. Unfortunately, I had let the whip go some time ago, so all I had were my hands and feet, but I put them to good use.

I am not going to lie or exaggerate. I went full on crazy lady kicking him as hard as I could while jerking his face off. The higher he tried to get his head, the harder I jerked. The more he balked, the faster I pummeled his sides. Within a fraction of a second, he lowered his head and MOVED. He wasn't happy about it, but the moment I got his head back down, I yanked it around in a bend and booted his ribcage until he started stepping under. 

It wasn't pretty, but I kept him working the whole time they walked past us. I never let him take a peek. I told him quite clearly that he has 23 hours a day to gawk and look at whatever he wants. I am asking for 30 minutes of focused work and by all that's holy, I am getting it.

As they drifted down to the house, Izzy's focus really did come back to me. Without a moment to rest, I opened up the circle and insisted on a balanced right lead canter. I think he was too shocked at the frenzied butt kicking he had received to even think about refusing. 

After all of that, we then did some quiet walking with square halts. By the time we finished up, his coat was soaked and the earlier shine was long gone. I didn't care one whit; he dropped and rolled as soon as I put him away anyway.

I left the barn feeling like I had scored a huge point. If anyone wants to stroll through the front gate while I am riding, please drop by. Izzy needs the practice!

I trust her for one ride. One ride! And what do I get get? A busted, broken horse, that's what. All I can say is FINALLY!

Of course, I doubt he's permanently broken which means I need her back on him the second he starts to act unbroken.

While I would love to give Chemaine Hurtado, owner and trainer at Symphony Dressage Stables, ALL of the credit, I know I also had a lot to do with it. It's taken us several years, but Izzy has slowly gotten on board. At our lesson in November, both Chemaine and I were quite surprised at how rideable he has become (most of the time).

When I got so sick a few days after that November lesson, I was pretty frustrated at the ground I was sure we would lose. Rather than ride him myself during our December lesson, I asked Chemaine to hop on board. I just didn't have the physical strength to ride him through any hooligan moments. We all know that turned out to be the right call as Chemaine ended up working him for nearly two hours. It was during that ride that she broke him.

After that ride, I got on a totally different horse. He was so submissive that I wondered if he was drugged. Over the past two weeks he's kept her lesson in mind, but he's not quite as soft and malleable as she left him. However, with her strategy in my mind, I am keeping him pretty respectful. 

So what magical powder did she coat him with? As far as I can tell, it was called BEAT HIM WITH A BIG STICK; apply as needed. Yep. She pretty much just called his bluff. For so long I've felt that there was a fear element involved in his spooks and resistance. Nope. He's just a jerk. Chemaine called them Dick Moves. And when he pulled them, she beat him with a big stick. Sometimes literally and sometimes metaphorically.

Remember that this horse is nearly 17 hands. And it's not just height. He's big. He's strong. And he knows it. He's also very opinionated and not at all reluctant to share said opinions.

Chemaine insisted on one simple rule: his attention was to be on her/me EVERY SINGLE MOMENT. That meant that he is no longer allowed to look around, ever. That includes walking to and from the arena. Getting groomed. Being tacked up. It doesn't matter where we are. He doesn't get to look around. And if he does, hell fire is about to rain down on him.

I am sure someone is asking why I didn't just try that three years ago. Yeah, I know; I wish it was that simple. It's just that now he's ready for this rule. In a few months, he'll be ready for a new rule that will get him even more broke.

Again, it's a good thing I like this horse!

To be totally honest, it was actually only seven minutes and fifty-eight seconds. But who's counting?

After Chemaine spent several hours kicking Izzy's butt on Sunday, I wasn't sure what I'd get the next time I got on him. Would he be resentful and sour or meek as a lamb? Since I am a Pollyanna at heart, I decided to be prepared for awesomeness.

As I was grooming, Izzy felt the need to snuggle, which is okay, but the rule is NO TEETH. There were teeth. I smacked him with the tail end of my lead rope as he flew backwards the entire length of his paddock. "NO TEETH!" I yelled.

After the mouthiness discussion, I walked him up to the tack room and plopped his saddle on with zero ceremony. Each time he tried to stare off into the distance, I jerked his halter back into my hemisphere. I wasn't about to waste one ounce of the ass kicking he had received the day before. I wanted him to remember how uncomfortable his life can get when he insists on being the boss.

I don't hold a grudge, and I was still prepared to see some awesomeness out of my big brown horse, so I led him up to the arena with a happy-go-lucky attitude. If I had known how, I would have whistled.

I did some quick stretches, snugged up my girth, and got on. Izzy dropped his head and spent the next eight minutes giving me a yes ma'am as often as he could. Just to check his buttons, I asked for a small leg yield off my right leg, and when he didn't jump away from it, I swatted him with the whip right behind my leg. The next time I asked, he fairly leaped away from my leg. That's right, mister.

We crossed the diagonal, and when he threatened to pop his head up for a look around, I gave him a sharp wiggle on the rein and said, don't you dare try it. He could not get back into shape fast enough. When I asked for a halt, he stood still. And even though he was tempted to take a quick peek, he knew standing there listening to me was his best option.

The eight minute ride - there is absolutely nothing better!