New Saddle, a Mild Colic, and an End of Summer Update

 

Things have been ticking along.  I've been riding Cruise 5-6 days a week with auxiliary lunging, in-hand work, and a lesson every week or so.  I feel like we are making real progress on our homework, including swaying in the flexions, a smooth reverse pirouette both ways, improvement in the counter bending, and generally with him being more responsive under saddle.

I still felt like something was missing for both of us though, and decided to test ride an EQ Saddle Science Frankie.  I've had the saddle about a week into a two week trial, and so far everything has been seamless, from measuring him myself, to the shipment and Google Meet video fitting before my initial ride.  So far I am in love.  See a quick shot from my second ride HERE.  I really like how this saddle positions me with my legs more underneath me, it's so much easier to sit upright, and Cruise seems to love it.  The flapless thing is really cool and makes me feel closer to riding bareback with all the security of having a tree and stirrups.

In not so great news, Cruise had a mild colic  about 3 weeks ago.  It resolved with oral Banamine and light lunging but confirmed my suspicion that he might be working up some ulcers.  He'd been a little low appetite for him and had dropped some weight after the clinic in July.  I'd been wondering about ulcers and the colic confirmed it in my mind.  He's been on Gut X for a little over 2 weeks and it's been kind of amazing.  Appetite back, gained 50 pounds at least, and dappling out.  Amazing stuff.

Anyway, that's the update for now.  We've got the Pippa clinic in early October to look forward to and hopefully some cooler Fall weather.  What are you and your ponies up to as we head into the season of pumpkin spice and crunchy leaves?

A Few Gems

 

As I was going through my clinic notes from March and July of this year, I found a few gems that I thought you might like.  Enjoy!

Aids to request or to restore but never to maintain.

On using aids-as little as possible, as much as necessary.

Look forward to your future!

Belt buckle to turn-matching the horse's spine.

Transitions make the horse but only PROMPT transitions.

Spinach before sugar.  Ride like a trainer, doing tricky thing, easy thing, tricky thing.  For example, Cruise's harder side is tracking right, so any exercise or figure going right first, then left, then right again.  You'll be shocked by how often you do the opposite during your rides unless you really think about it.

Not just physically on the line of travel but mentally on the line of travel.

Make the horse own the correct posture or position so you aren't constantly filling in holes.

It's the horse's responsibility to maintain whatever energy/speed/tempo you have set.

Of all of these, spinach before sugar is the hardest for me to consistently do.  I'm already seeing big payoffs though, in his way of going being much more symmetrical right and left.  See what I did there?

Sleepover Camp, Homework, and General Thoughts

 

After a couple of weeks to process, I have some thoughts about our recent Pippa Callanan Clinic.  

First up, Cruise did really well for his first sleepover camp.  There was a lot of chaos with 2 young stallions, different horses in for the day only, and multiple stall changes for him to accommodate others' needs.  When I showed up Thursday at 6:15 a.m. for my 7 a.m. lesson and he was whirling in his stall because of running turned out horses, I was pleasantly surprised that he was able to focus on me and with some quiet ground work he was ready to learn by our time slot.  We need many more of these experiences, but it was really great how he was able to focus on me with chaos going on in multiple situations.

Our homework includes:

*Getting a swaying in the in-hand flexions from left to right with the correct arc/bend/weight shift at the base of the neck.

*Reverse pirouette to eventually renvers/travers/half pass in-hand is also on my to do list (it's pretty rough right now).  

*Under saddle I am to warm up with no stirrups and dangle my legs.  Apparently, I have python legs which tightens my hips and is part of his forward problem.  After I pick up my stirrups and get him forward, he must maintain or to the spur I go, no squeezing of the leg, no expecting him to "jog in a corset'.  Riding in descent de jambes all the time.  This is a killer for me.  

*The next exercise is flechi droit on the straight to a volte to a counter bent volte to a volte in neck extension.  First at the walk, then at the trot with 15m circles replacing the voltes.  

*For canter she wants me to do a  counterbent turn to canter to the end of the ring, trot, do the other side and repeat multiple times.  After the balance gets better then add in longer canters, circles, straights,  and etc.  Also, keep working on his rock back at the halt and refine the rein back.

The clinic as whole, was a wonderful experience, and I feel like I have found my people.  Pippa was very complimentary/surprised by our progress and I felt like she took me a bit more seriously this time with more complex exercises and homework.  She did tell me she thought the key exercises for his development would be renvers, piaffe, and counter canter.  Which sounds intimidating, but watching the horses just a step ahead of us I can see the progression.  Exciting.  It was overall such a positive experience and I can't wait to do it again in October.

Pippa Callanan Clinic July 2026

 

Cruise's first sleepover camp went well and we learned so much with three days of lessons plus a lot of auditing.  Bonus, we were stabled next to KL who brought Cob Jockey's Disco to the clinic.  He is gorgeous and KL was everything Jen describes in her blog.  I really enjoyed watching her sessions with him.

I have a ton of homework and a lot of thoughts that I will break up into some separate posts as I work my way through things.  The gist though, is that Pippa was very complimentary about our progress on balance and posture, and gave us more complex things to work on for Cruise and quite a bit of position stuff for me.  I'm going to share video of our last session with the homework at the end and you can watch it HERE.  I think it's really representative of how Pippa teaches.  Unfortunately, I didn't get video of the flexions or the renvers pirouette, but maybe next time, because they are integral to the French Classical system.  

Excited to get to my homework!