Started today with lunging, like always. I'm still noticing head tossing, ear pinning, and resistance when I ask her to go faster on the lunge. I'm not sure how to go about fixing that...she complies with what I say, but just is obviously unhappy with having to work.
After lunging, I stepped on and began to walk in a figure 8 around the cones, just like yesterday. I found some ground poles, and set up two, 2 feet apart from one another. She is doing fairly well with the figure eight, but she likes to turn either too sharply or not sharp enough. Usually, clockwise (to the right) she is either pretty good, or doesn't turn quite enough. I'd rather her not turn enough then drop her shoulder. Now, going counter clockwise (to the left) she gets stiff and resists my pressure for a while, once I apply enough, she'll usually turn 180 degrees fairly quickly. She'll drop her shoulder at times, and quite often speed up during those turns. I'm not quite sure why. I've heard horses are usually better on one side than the other. I think that's showing with Gunny. I've just got to be patient and keep working on things.
For just a little additional work, I would walk out of the circle and have her cross the two walk-over poles. The first time we crossed them, she clunked them with all four feet. She's stepped over things before on trail rides, so I was rather surprised. I tried it again, making sure my reins were loose and she cleared it completely, no problem. I did it about 3 more times (encorporating it into my figure 8 pattern) and she did fine, never hitting a pole again. She picked her feet up nicely, and went fairly slowly over them. There were a few times I felt her going too fast approaching the poles. I stopped her, let her relax, and then proceeded at a slower pace.
Her "whoa's" were much better today. I only had to touch the reins a few times today to enforce the stop. I felt more confident with her stopping...she got anxious a few times and anticipated walking off again, where I just said "whoa" again, and she stopped and relaxed. I was very pleased.
I also had a neat experience when I put her back into the pasture. She's not usually a very affectionate horse, but when I turned her loose I just pet her head, neck, and withers. She went to go get a drink then came back to me. I gave her a little bit of attention and she seemed to enjoy it. I'm liking the bond we're creating, even though it's very slow. It made my heart smile to know that she enjoyed being with me a little bit.
Supposed to be mid 70's tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be a better day to ride and get a video. :)
Meaghan,
ReplyDeleteI had Don read your blog..
He said you are doing the same thing I used to do with Babe when making turns...not bending her around my inside leg.
In addition to tipping her nose into the direction of travel, you need to use your inside leg (placed slightly forward..about where the girth is) and "hold" her up. It takes a lot of leg. I ended up having to use spurs as Babe ignored me at first.
You don't apply any additional pressure with your outside leg.
Tip her nose in the direction you want to go, lay the opposite rein on her neck (if you are neck reining - but don't use it to "push" her around) and apply lots of pressure with your lower leg and heel. As long as your lower leg and heel are against her she should keep turning...so you need to release it to go straight - or switch sides of doing serpentines.
If we can I'll make a video...we've been riding really early in the morning because of the heat. Over 100 degrees today with humidity at 70% this afternoon. I'll try to get organized and get a video made...might not be until this weekend.
Eleanor