When I was doing the lateral work in hand he was anticipating and whizzing around me, falling out with his outside hind instead of crossing his inside hind and taking ages to stop when told. I just kept my patience and only rewarded him for calm, slow crossings. It's situations like this where you have to keep the long game in mind. I don't just want him turning around the forehand, I want him calmly accepting the pressure of the whip and giving me the rhythmic steps that will translate to good work under saddle.
Hopped on and again, he stood like a rock at the mounting block, even when I reached over and ran down then dropped the offside stirrup. Good boy. He got a food reward for that one and looked very pleased with himself.
FLEXION was the word of the day and we started off doing nuchal (crest) flips at a halt. I was giving him a verbal reinforcer ("good") each time he did it and soon started to catch on that that's what he was getting rewarded for. We continued to play with flexions as I moved him around in walk, walking up the inside track and flexing left and right. At first, his forelegs deviated a few steps per change but as he got the idea he was able to stay travelling straight but flex in and out easily.
Then we worked on some spirals and I was so pleased at how easily he followed my shoulder and weight aids to move in on the spiral. Effortless! Then we did some big leg yielding steps back out and again, very pleased with his quick, big response from my minor leg aids. Spiralled back in and asked for counter flexion on the small circle and this was where he said things got hard! I had to keep my shoulders rotated to keep him travelling around the circle and not always wanting to follow his nose out. When this was established and after a few solid repetitions, I put my inside leg on and *bingo* got a few half-pass steps with very easy and soft flexion in the direction of travel. As this is sometimes a difficult concept for horses I was pleased he was accepting of my aids and tried so hard to do what I wanted.
Up to trot and it's feeling much looser and longer, especially when we hit a patch of deeper sand in the arena. I have to be careful to sit very square and straight as he's so responsive to weight that I don't want to make him crooked by accident! Sitting trot still much easier for him to balance under me so will continue to do that for now, with bursts of rising trot on big circles and straight lines.
When it's so much fun to play with laterals it's hard to make yourself do 'boring' basics but I did several reps of trot-walk-trot sequences decreasing the number of walk steps until he was doing two and then neatly hopping back into trot immediately off my aid. It felt brilliant and the downward transitions are just getting stronger and straighter and easier, I just had to sit up and lengthen the front of my body and he flowed into walk and stayed on the contact. Was a good exercise to do going-large around the arena and using the corners to help him balance.
The transition sequences really switched him on to the aids and I used the opportunity to pop him into canter. The canter feels really green compared to how good the trot is feeling but at no point today did I feel like there was any 'naughtiness' coming. Even the tense moments felt relaxed, if that makes sense!? He struggles a bit accepting the hand in canter and thinks that he is being asked for a downwards transition so I just need to really think about maintaining the rhythm with my upper body and leg and occasionally use a voice aid to reinforce that he should keep cantering. Several good circles on the bad side and one really good circle on the good side and we went back to trot and tried some leg yielding from the quarter line to the track. Easy peasy and lovely big crossing steps so feeling like Novice is not so far away with a bit more practice (and the canter a bit tidier!) We also popped over the single cavaletti (cavaletto?) out of trot and he landed in right canter (the hard side) and lolloped along sweetly so he got a food reward for that attempt too. Maybe I will try lunging him over some bigger jumps to teach him the idea without the complication of a rider for now.
We finished with a wander up the road where he felt wonderfully relaxed - we did some shoulder-in along the roadside and it was fun to see him working out the aid even while out of the arena. We went a few hundred meters up one side, then back and past the driveway (small nap/suggestion of going home) so carried on a few hundred meters back the other way including paying a visit to the large boulder he was a bit scared of on Thursday.
Then he gave my 3yo daughter a pony ride around the arena!
No comments:
Post a Comment