Without mistakes, I'll never learn

Sorry folks, this post is really just for me. I've found that the best way for me to remember things is to write them down, and this is something I really need to remember.

I had another cruddy lesson this week. I ended up fighting with the pony I was riding, Scout, the entire time. (I've ridden Scout quite a bit, we do normally start the lesson with some "discussions" but generally we're a pretty good team.) It started when we were trotting past the far end of the ring and the horse in front of us spooked, so Scout spooked too. Then he spooked in that spot every single time we passed it. Add to that his counter-bending the whole dang way around the ring which continued into our fence work, and the end result was an incredibly frustrated me. I wanted to wring that pony's neck.

I was still pretty frustrated about it today so I went looking for some help. Jessica Jahiel to the rescue! Looking through her archives I found this page, which was just what I needed. Jessica gave the following advice to someone else with a similar problem:


"It's very important for you to be aware of your own body and your own aids. If you lean to the inside as you approach the scary corner, for instance, or if you collapse over your inside hip, your body is telling her to go to the inside of the arena, AWAY from that corner. If you pull her head to the outside to "make her go into the corner", she will bend her entire body AWAY from the corner, and be going left bent right, which isn't very useful. If you pull her head to the inside, she will fall over her inside shoulder, lose her rhythm and forward movement, and move away from the corner -- again, not useful. If you hold your breath as you get to the corner, your physical tension will make her tense and convince her that there IS something really bad in that corner. So you have a very active role in this, but it's more to do with YOU than with the horse: sit straight, post rhythmically, look out and ahead, and BREATHE deeply and steadily. If you do those things, and your mare is already in position (very slightly bent to the inside), you will be making it easy and comfortable for her to do what you want, and you will get through the corners without a hiccup. 

Be ready to add a little leg if she starts to slow down -- but that is probably ALL you will need to do. If there's any hesitation or uneveness, just keep breathing and push ON. Don't reprimand her if she hesitates -- send her forward. Don't comfort her afterward -- she doesn't need it. It'll be easiest for you to do this at a trot, since her head position and your hands will be very steady, and you can regulate her rhythm by regulating your own posting. 

Don't try to go into the corner by pulling her nose to the outside -- keep her IN POSITION, and send her forward into that corner, as if you were going STRAIGHT into the wall. Don't change your own position, her bend, or your posting rhythm, or your breathing (keep your breathing slow and deep and steady, in rhythm with her gait and your posting) and keep looking UP and OUT between her ears. When she is about to reach the new wall, look down the new wall and ride her through the turn without changing anything. Don't chat with her or comfort her -- just ride her through the turn and up the next wall in a steady rhythm, and then ride a circle halfway up the next wall. When you come back to the rail -- still in position left, still keeping the same rhythm -- come down the rail to your next wall and do the same thing. The circles on each side will prepare her for the bend through each corner -- you aren't going to ask for a sudden bend, all you want is for her to go where you send her and not change her position."

Basically I was doing everything wrong with Scout. When he kept spooking I got mad, and after I got mad I started riding off his face. It's like I forgot I had legs. He defended himself by counter-flexing all over the place, which further annoyed me so I pulled on his face some more. Add to that the fact that I stop breathing when horses act silly and what I got was a disaster.

Ugh, I hate when I ride like crap, but this is how we learn, right? Fortunately I CAN learn, and I was determined to be a better rider for Coriander today. After I mounted, I took up a light contact with his face, told my hands to "stay," and put my legs in charge. Success! Except for one time when he really, really wanted to turn the other way (because he wanted to go eat in the field), I kept him on track with just my legs. We had a ride I was proud of.

Lesson learned: My hands need to shut up already.

Now I just need to go apologize to poor Scout...

The one rein stop/ disengaging the hindquarters

Friday's clicker training lesson was all about preparing my horses for lateral work. I had originally planned to use Coriander for the lesson, but when I arrived he was hobbling around pathetically on three legs. I picked up his sore foot and found a twig sticking out of his frog, poor boy! (He's fine now, time and some bute took the soreness away.) Instead, Gwen got her introduction to the one rein stop/ disengaging the hindquarters.

I'm pretty sure most of you have heard of this, in case you haven't here's a link. Some people refer to the one rein stop without mentioning disengaging the hips or vice versa, but in my mind you can't have one without the other. Just pulling your horse's head to your boot does not a one rein stop make, I've seen videos of horses that learned how to run right through that, to make it effective the horse has to move their hindquarters sideways along with their nose.

This is a very handy skill for your horse to have before you climb into the saddle for the first time. Check out this demonstration and note how the hind legs cross when the horse swings sideways:



Gwen and I worked with the halter and lead rope and really focused on getting those hind legs to step in front of each other. Every time she did that, click and treat. She was really getting it by the end of the lesson and we quit before she got too tired.

Saturday morning I got to the barn bright and early to check on Coriander's foot, he was doing much better but still a little ouchy. Since I couldn't ride him I decided to do the next best thing- take Gwen for her first trail walk!

After applying some fly spray and the western saddle, we departed on Gwen's first excursion. Almost right off the bat she found something to spook at. A horse-eating canoe right next to the driveway set her off. She didn't spin or jump or try to bolt, it was basically just a plant and stare. I moved so I was between her and the canoe, providing a buffer, and with gentle pressure on the lead and inviting body language I asked her to step forward. At first she really didn't want to until, all on her own, she put her head down to the ground, took a deep breath, and was totally fine. Frankly I was a little flabbergasted, it seems that she really understands what I'm asking her for when we practice head lowering, maybe even better than I do!

After that there was no more spooking but she was VERY forward. Do you know what that meant? Time to practice the one rein stop! Every time she surged ahead of me provided a chance to practice. I would slide my hand up the rope, turn towards her shoulder, and click to her every time I saw those hind legs cross. Worked like a charm, ten minutes into the walk she was thoroughly tired of it and just started to stop as soon as I slid my hand up the rope. Good girl!

I also would like to note that she took no notice of the saddle and the flapping stirrups on her back through all of this. Operation Make Gwen a Riding Horse is progressing!

The dirty spook

If you're going to ride a horse you're going to experience a spook. Every horse, no matter how bomb proof it is, has something that freaks it out. It's just in their nature. In my experience there are three kinds of spook: 1) the plant and stare, 2) the jump sideways and bolt, and 3) the spin. I call the third type a "dirty spook" because it's the one most likely to deposit me in the dirt.

I don't want to give anyone the impression that Coriander's introduction to trail riding has been completely calm and spook free, because it hasn't. He spent most of his life on 5 acres in southern Florida, now he's in NY surrounded by flora and fauna that he's never seen before and it freaks him out. This week, for instance, he planted and stared at a raccoon in a tree and a baby bunny, he also prompted me to dismount due to his body trembling fear of paint horses (Interestingly, the first time he spooked under saddle was at a gray horse. Poor boy had never seen one before.). This kind of spooking doesn't bother me at all. It's mostly harmless and exactly what I'd expect from a horse that hasn't been anywhere or done anything before.

Today, though, he pulled out a dirty spook. We were about to turn off into a trail when we flushed a fawn and it took off into the woods. Coriander freaked and spun right, fast. Somehow I got my torso to the right even though my seat went left and I managed to stay on top. It was pretty close though. Good thing I didn't get dumped because he would have run off and learned a bad lesson. As it was I was able to get him to go past that spot and continue our ride, proving that spinning away from something he was afraid of wasn't the right answer.

The last time I rode a dirty spook I was still in high school. We had an off-track standardbred who had a nasty habit of spinning every time he spooked, and he spooked a lot. I decided to take him out one day to give him some exercise, since his usual rider had been too busy with work to get on him. I had taken him a couple miles down the road without a single spook until right before we got to the spot where I had previously decided to turn around I noticed a leaf skittering across the road. BAM! All of the sudden I was hanging in the air to the left of the saddle while he was booking it to the right. I tried valiantly to stay on but with my right foot hanging over the pommel it just wasn't going to happen. I then got a much closer look at that leaf in the road. Fortunately my Mom was home and came out looking for me when the horse arrived sans rider. Of course when I got back he was happily grazing on the lawn. I grabbed him up, got back on and we TROTTED back up the road. I have no idea whether that got the right message to him or not, but I was a teenager and I was pissed.

Anyway, I'm not going to pretend to be the world expert on spooking but I do know one thing- don't punish your horse for being afraid. Stay calm and patient when your horse gets upset and he will learn that the world isn't out to eat him.