Sometimes I think when I talk about Saxony or write about her, I make it sound like I think she is dumb. She isn't dumb. She taught me something big the other week, something I was way overdue on learning. It's simple what she taught me: that she is fully present when I am fully present. What's dumb is how hard it was for me to see that.
The Friday before last, I felt an urge to go out to the barn and see her. I drove there with no plan in mind, just gave myself the freedom to go. She came right to the fence line, as usual, when I pulled up. We did our looking at each other thing. In the barn, I groomed her, and I really sank into it. I felt I had that time, a perspective which has been rare for me during the last few months. And grooming her opened something in me, enough that I let things fall away from the foremost agitation in my mind. She sighed at some point, deeply, and sort of wrung her body out, like a clenching and releasing of all her muscles. After that, it felt right to tack her up, and that's what I did.
I've ridden her here and there through the past couple of months, mostly bareback, mostly contained wanders and idles in the ring. I haven't wanted us to go in full tack. It's me. I haven't wanted to go in full tack.
We did a ride of purpose and intention. I wasn't thinking about anything else. I finished transitions, up and down, rode her up into the walk from the trot and reverse, corrected myself when I began to drift away from my seat. I stay tuned to her, feeling how she was going. Whenever I felt I might float up into my hamster-wheel head, I picked one of the letters mounted on the top fence rail and rode to it. Then another, and another.
She's an inquisitive mare, likes to look, and wants to move to see better whatever has drawn her attention. I don't want that. She can look, but she doesn't need to head toward the thing. We worked on that. I rode her to a square halt in the center of the ring. We stood there and practiced just looking, together. I told her, "There are the horses across the street. That's that guy on his tractor. There's Gracie on the porch. Over there, they are trying to load Gambler into the trailer." We looked at all of it. After a few moments, she turned her head to touch my booted toe with her nose. That's when I understood that she was fully present, she was connected to me. She'd just been looking around, but not away.
I have been away from lessons for two weeks for moving back to the city and it will be a few more weeks before I resume them, but they have left an expected echo that could sustain me until I can get back.
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| Lesson Notes |
After my sixth lesson, I realized I hadn't ridden Saxony since beginning the lessons. To be fair, she'd been recovering from an ulcer in her left eye, but that had healed by mid-October. It occurred to me that I was putting off taking her out because I felt so changed as a rider. What an odd thought, coming unbidden into my mind just when I felt exhilarated to be standing at a new verge as a rider.
Typical disarmament, I thought to myself. The old check-rein of nerves insinuating its way into a galvanized me. I thought, You can't ride her like you ride that schoolmaster. There, the conditions are artificial and rigged for success, aren't they? Don't test it by riding in the real world.
But the Saturday after Lesson 6 was beautiful and I just had to know, so I went to the barn. The first thing I did when I tacked Saxony was remove the knee blocks from my dressage saddle. The saddle I've been using during the lessons rides like a close-contact saddle and I love how my leg and seat respond to it. Liner note: Where practical, minimize the middleman between horse and rider as much as possible.
At the mounting block, she stood motionless. I've worked on training her not to walk off, but it hasn't quite reached Golden Rule status in her mind. But she stood like a statue there because that's what the schoolmaster does, so I wasn't expecting anything else. Liner note: Where possible, believe in and expect the desired outcome.
After walking a few strides, I dismounted and lowered my stirrups two holes. Oh, they'd felt awkwardly short to my newly-lengthened leg. Statue-like again, Saxony waited for me to remount. We walked the fence line of the ring. The stirrups were still too short. I had to question whether it mattered that much, but I dismounted and lowered them another hole. That's when I knew my laziness wouldn't trump my desire to learn, to better myself in my relationship with my mare. Liner note: Best to go to school when you're ready and willing to let yourself learn.
Riding her offered a kind of multi-tiered revelation. My long leg let me feel her in ways I hadn't so far - hadn't felt her or any other horse, for that matter. I felt how unbalanced she is, how right-handed she goes, her bracing when moving to the left. I put her on a straight line right through the middle of the ring and she rippled her way across, warping each stride just a hair under me. I was aware of that happening. I felt my mare and she felt me. This is what my lessons have given me. Liner note: Lots of good forward walking will do wonders for both of us.
Lift-off is imminent. I've been prepping on the launch pad for two weeks. Tomorrow my life will be commanded entirely by the 10-day run-up to opening day of the event I work for. It's a ceaseless hurtling toward that moment, the home stretch still demanding and startling despite this being my 11th year doing it. I will work for 150 hours or more, frantically hacking off a bit of time here to spend another bit of time somewhere else. This is Hell week. Everything else becomes subordinate to it.
I went to the barn to see Saxony and Scout tonight knowing it would be my last chance. I had to hunt out the time, stalk it, isolate it, and then take it. I took S with me and we met K there. After picking our paddock, we each took a horse, speed-groomed, bridled, put on our helmets and then clambered on bareback.
Oh, that feeling of settling on your horse's back after days away, settling there along that impossibly strong, tensile spine. I can't believe the crap that melts away in me. Forty-five minutes idled past as we drifted up and down, around and through the long outdoor riding arena. We walked, letting gravity seduce our legs long, draping them against the horses' sides. Gambler, Saxony and Scout met each of us halfway; welcoming the easiness of it, they settled into well-strided, forward walks. They sighed and snorted contentedly. Together, we all walked and it was wonderful.
It was like I was buying time, in the best way, buying breath, energy and resolve. We were there for just two and a half hours, but I banked enough time for the next 150, all I need to carry me to opening day.
Just about a year ago, I wrote this post about a Steffen Peters clinic. I said I would never forget a remark he made to one of the participating riders, "Tension has nowhere to go in the un-supple horse," and I haven't. I said in the same post that I don't find clinics all that useful. Until yesterday. K and I watched a Peters clinic that offered such bounty, I feel we'll literally be better riders for having seen it.
In effect, Peters presented Part 2 of what I saw last year when he said, "The horse will not offer suppleness." It was a simple sentence, but its deeper meaning reverberated when applied to the second rider appearing in the clinic.
First, because the next scheduled event was canceled and it was Peters' last clinic of the day, he really settled in and went much longer than he did last year. Both riders won for that, but we watchers also won when Peters decided to ride one of the horses himself.
As usual, both riders were lovely and gifted (so I'll say right now that just once I'd like to see Steffen Peters do a clinic with riders who aren't remotely close to FEI Grand Prix, see basic instruction from him instead of the delicate surgical adjustments he provides to high-level riders.)
Of course, the horses were lovely and gifted as well. Both were high and nervous over the terrible wind tossing the banners at one end of the coliseum. The first horse was a nice bay something-or-other well matched to his adept, petite rider. While Peters worked with them, the other rider warmed up her big red Oldenburg (I think), and that horse was very tense, very doubtful. Every now and then he would balk, spook or half-rear. His rider kept him moving as Peters worked with the bay.
After working with the first rider on the timing of aids and letting go of reliance on spurs, Peters coached her through canter pirouettes, reminding her all the way to keep her horse forward and up. (And I'll say here that both horses were often behind the vertical, sometimes neck-achingly behind the vertical, but that didn't draw comments from Peters, which I hope reflects more on my lack of knowledge as an observer than on his skill as a clinician.) The bay's rider was quiet and engaged throughout the session; she remained patient and steady when her horse lost his temper, backed up and reared several times.
The worried Oldenburg had been in warm-up about 40 minutes by the time Peters summoned them right into canter work. This huge horse seemed to contain within himself the very force of nature. He was a lofty horse with tremendous lift. His rider braced against him with locked elbows. Because her body was otherwise so relaxed, the rigidity of her arms was striking. Peters addressed that immediately, albeit indirectly. He was subtle, making choices that seemed to reveal a genuine reluctance to embarrass the rider. (And I was in awe of her, frankly. She was struggling with her tension in front of strangers and a world-famous instructor. I couldn't do it.)
It was interesting the moment Peters decided he wanted to ride the Oldenburg, as if by riding him, he'd be able to separate whose problems were whose. Of course, that's exactly what happened. Peters rode effortlessly and the monster gave him a gigantic, beautiful 15-minute ride, opening up and forward, displaying astonishing lift and range in his gaits. It was actually thrilling, but I wondered if his rider also saw it that way. I hoped she wasn't mangling herself along the lines of why can't I ride him like that, why doesn't he go like that for me, etc., etc., etc.
As soon she was back up on her big red powerhouse, Peters said, "The horse will not offer suppleness, you must ask him for it." I saw this as an example of the art of deflection at its finest. Instead of changing the rider's relationship with her horse, he meant to change the horse's relationship with her. By addressing the horse's tension, he spoke directly to her own. "Why so straight, why so straight?" he asked while she trotted a large circle. "Give him a little time. Trust him to give what you are asking for." Peters shifted the entire focus to the horse. I felt like all eyes were on the Oldenburg then, not his rider, not Peters. The heat was off and we were watching this fine horse gradually move into splendid self-carriage and collection under a rider who was more relaxed and open. In spontaneous delight, the audience offered applause.
By the end of the session, this brave rider had slipped back toward riding with locked elbows, which has probably become a habit by now, but she had felt a different horse beneath her and it was easy to see bright, bright light at the end of the tunnel for her. I will carry all that I saw, learned and felt during this fascinating Steffen Peters clinic right into the coming spring, and I know my horses will be better for it.
Spring has been previewing around here for the last week or so, prompting me to wonder ahead.
My horses: the work, the rides. The rides. With my wondering comes, always, no matter how slight, the twitch of recognition of my fears, doubts and anxieties. The sense of it ripples through me, familiar as a muscle, makes me stretch my neck, wring out my shoulders. No matter the prospects, it lives. I'm used to it.
In Saxony, I have such possibility. In Scout, I have such history. I'm looking forward to being with both of them now, feeling like I'm ready to move into all of it, in part because of this really good post from Olly at her young new blog, It's Harder Than It Looks. I recognized so much of what she said; I'm used to so much of what she said. Somehow, realizing that has cast how I see my fears in a different light. They aren't as big as I imagine they are. I'm used to them and they have become old. It may be time to discard some of them. I think maybe I will.
