Today's Ride

I finally managed to get some saddle time today and it felt good to be on the back of my horse again.  For reasons known only to Dusty today she had a rocket up her butt.  In all fairness, the weather was cold and she hadn’t been ridden in two weeks so I was willing to overlook a little misplaced enthusiasm on her part.  

We started out trying to walk around calmly to warm up but she kept thinking it was a good idea to break into a trot.  After a while we had a discussion and she decided walking wasn’t that hard after all. I know Dusty is a very bright mare so I was surprised to feel that she has forgotten everything she knew about bending and softening in a mere two weeks.  Needless to say we had to take a step back and revisit previous lessons until she remembered how smart she was and how far she has come from where she began.

After her epiphany we did some easy yet challenging work to keep her interested in her lesson.  First, walking over cavelletti in patterns to refine her steering just a tad followed by trotting over the cavelletti in figure eight patterns to keep her bending on a circle.  I should say that we’re not big fans of drilling a lesson; usually we don’t do it more than three times before we quit, whether she got it perfect or not.  My feeling is, as long as she is willing to go forward and try to do what I ask, we can refine the exercise at a later date.  Dusty considers cavelletti work great fun and so I’ve decided to include it as a training tool  regularly.

We ended on a good note by regulating her pace to a medium trot, bending and softening.  Today I used the turning seat. In order to do this I simply sat up correctly, weighted my inside seat bone slightly, looked to the center of the circle, positioned  my inside shoulder slightly behind my outside shoulder and followed her mouth with a light connection.  Dusty really picks up on things quickly and it  worked like a charm. 

It always astonishes me how the slightest little movement on my part can influence her movement.  This is why I don’t believe in any sort of harsh treatment of horses in their training.  I feel it’s simply not necessary to  overdo the aids to get what you want. This, of course, is just an opinion that I have come to over the years.  With proper training and a little understanding on the parts of both horse and rider, there really is nothing that cannot be accomplished.  I'm of the opinion that we make training  much harder than it has to be.  Simple, direct and kind aids are very understandable and amenable to the personality of most horses. 

Until next time

Quote for Today
Correction does much for the horse, but encouragement does more.

A New Training Aid

This weekend we added a new training aid to Dusty’s repertoire.  Because of her left-sided stiffness/crookedness, she needs to work on her positioning through softening and correct inside flexion.  We’ve been trying to achieve this with an opening rein alternating with an indirect rein behind the wither, a giving outside rein combined with some inside leg cues.  All worked for the most part on different circles sizes and at times spiraling in and out.  And while this is working to help keep her fresh and not boring her to death, something was still missing, so we decided to try something new.

Today we introduced her to seat aids.  Basically, it’s dropping more weight into one side of your butt or the other depending what direction you want to bend in.  No leg cues whatsoever except for creating forward motion.  Instead of using leg to help with flexion, sitting with more weight on the inside apparently causes a horse to naturally bend slightly in that direction.  That combined with the rein aids is enough to get a nice balanced bend.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, but once I got the hang of dropping my seat and resisting the urge to use my leg, I’ve got to say it worked like a charm.  Dusty relaxed, lengthened her topline and softened very nicely.  This only took maybe two times around the circle until she was a different horse.  The most amazing part is that she felt more upright and balanced through her turns.  She’s still crooked on her left side but she was really trying and she did get straighter and started to round up in her back a little.  That’s what we’re looking for, just a little try.  I should add that it was only necessary to drop the seat bones in the corners and not the entire way around; that would have been overkill and I’m sure she would have gotten annoyed eventually.  There has to be release and a lot of pats and praise, especially for a strong-willed girl like Dusty.

And so we had some very nice rides and, believe it or not, you can even steer a little bit with this method alone.  I took her over a few cavelletti’s in patterns at the walk and she did great. Then we moved onto trotting exercises over the poles for fun because she thinks she’s a hotshot jumper, no matter that the poles were on the ground!

Until next time
Quote for Today
There are many wonderful places in the world, but one of my favourite places is on the back of my horse.
    - Rolf Kopfle