I cleaned a heap of leather today. Good for me. Did it properly by taking it apart. After all thats why it needed to be done, the leather was stiff in the buckles. If you oil your bridles without undoing the buckles, then you are leaving the driest stiffest pieces to get worse.
I also gave a lesson to a novice rider. She’s using one of my horses and is a fairly coordinated person so things are going well and she’s learning quickly. I have another post to talk about a bit change I made for him.
I had plans to ride another of my family’s horses, who has just finished a season of polocrosse. Prior to today I’ve lunged him and ridden him several times already. Today was our first day lunging outside of the round yard. It went well.
I don’t need a lunge whip, only the end of the rope. The first two lunging sessions we had he was quite reactive so I didn’t even pick the whip up. I use the end of the rope to swing lightly at him, but as soon as he moves off I stop the swinging to remove the pressure. This way he knows that he has done the right thing. This way I encourage him in the way I want him to be going: relaxed and steady.
Remember that lunging works only on pressure and release (and any associated voice commands you have trained), so it is an easy pitfall to chase your horse around wildly when you don’t have good timing at removing your pressure.
His upward transitions are timely, but he has plenty of energy and cardio fitness and not quite the understanding to go down transitions on command yet. We are working on it. I remove the pressure and wait until he looks like he’s about to change down, and then I present the cue I want him to learn e.g. ‘Wooo walk’. I also use my hand to help signify the stop. He stops on the circle but sometimes continues walking forwards when I’m carefully gathering the rope up to approach. This is made more difficult by his tendency to stop when on the right hand rein and make as if to turn around. I have to take up the rein and send him back out again to the right. In this way my approach to send him out again and my approach to pat him look a little similar, hence the trouble. So I try and distinguish the two, with different body language and eye contact.
I also distinguish ‘trot’ from ‘canter’ upward transition commands. I click with my tongue to trot, and to canter I say ‘hup’. My body language is also different with greater movement for faster paces. As soon as he canters my rope stops swinging and I say ‘good boy’.
Surprisingly at canter he is not as balanced as I expected. I can see this when he disunites (his back legs switch to the other canter lead, so the inside hind strikes the ground first). He often fixes himself up with a trot stride in between. I let him do this without any pressure because its really important he gets to feel which way is best.
This disunited canter is a sign of either (sometimes both) a lack of strength in his ability to support his weight on his inside hind, or simply a lack of balance which is more likely in younger horses. Given that this gelding is quite competent at polocrosse his problem won’t be balance. In addition, the way he disunites, and then picks up the correct lead again, shows that he can balance, but for some reason its too hard for him to maintain the correct lead.
Although this was surprising, it was still understandable, given that I know his rider and his history. His rider does very little deliberate flat work and has no interest in lateral work. So a lot of his ‘flatwork’ has been straight lines with stops and turns on the hind. Turning on the hind is done with quite a straight body. Those horses who do it without remaining straight are freaky flexible and strong (you do see this at polocrosse).
As for circles, he has clearly done few that are smaller than 30m diameter, and his turns he copes with by dropping his shoulder into the turn. This means that the whole horse is leaning into the turn. This is very helpful to pick up the ball, but does sacrifice impulsion, which he clearly isn’t great at. Thanks to his ability to turn on his hind this habit does not make him forehand heavy, as it would with most horses in pony club.
Impulsion requires strength to support himself on the inside hind. This is why our trot diagonals have us sitting as the inside hind strikes the ground, because we are in balance with the horse this way and not making it harder for them. The same is for the canter. The tighter the circle, the more support the inside hind is bearing, and it is often on the ground for longer.
Another trait of this horse is that he spends a lot of his time in canter in the air. In other words he stays suspended for longer than usual. The first time I saw him do this on lunge (when he was quite reactive) he reminded me of a llama. So this all means that the way he naturally moves doesn’t require the strength that circle work does.
He’s actually really comfortable to canter on, especially in a stock saddle. With an english saddle its only comfortable once I ask for some roundness (he has a long back as well which makes all of this a bit trickier for him). He is improving in this regard.
So all this means is that my job with him is circle work, lateral work, working towards impulsion (can’t force this as he does not have the strength), and polework. I will continue lunging before every ride (this assists me since my asthma makes improving my fitness slow and sometimes painful) and I need to encourage his head carriage to be lower with correct bend.
This last point about head carriage is part of what he finds difficult due to his lack of strength so I don’t need him to maintain an outline for a full circle. Instead I just ask for bend and thereby a smaller circle for a bit, allowing him to work out that its easier when he lowers his head. I often establish a lower head carriage before making the circle smaller than 30m.
To do these smaller circles my inside leg needs to help support him and maintain the forward movement (with a smaller circle this thereby increases impulsion). If he cannot maintain it I don’t mind. This is about his strength. The more little bits we do the stronger he becomes. If we do too much too soon he will only form a negative assocation.
I will also begin to use long sidereins during lunging, with the inside rein slightly shorter to encourage correct bend. This will be quite new for him so will only walk and trot at first. The reins I expect to flap, and then flap more when he lifts his head, so its important he learns that they are harmless and nothing to worry about. This is basic conditioning in the form of desensitising.
Approaching these problems in small steps is the best way to train a great calm and happy horse. Doing too much too soon increases stress, which makes it harder for him to learn, and introduces more problems in one session than are easy to fix. This is all about strength fitness. This guy is great at cardio, sprinting, and stopping, but straight lines are his forte. Don’t mistake me though, his aids are excellent and our lateral work at walk is improving rapidly. I really enjoy riding him.
HorseWork 