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Today, Max was subjected to a lot more pressure than usual. Since tomorrow he is getting a day off, I decided to give him a pretty tough workout, both physically and mentally. Physically, I warm him up and then canter and trot him for about 10 minutes. 10 minutes may not sound like much, but it is pretty strenous to keep up a good clip for that amount of time. Next we worked on having him work with a rider on the Lunge. The last time I saw him buck was on the lunge and I wanted to make sure that we worked on that area.
In this video below you see me and Emma working the horse on the lunge:
With a rider and a lunge, he was fairly chargey and does not have stop on him. This should not be a surprise since we have not worked on that yet. Stopping can be traumatic and applies a great deal of pressur on a horse. Horses are built and bred to go and so stopping is a movement that is harder to teach than going. Today we began to introduce the stop. The first form of stopping is the one rein stop. Every rider who has ever had a lesson is taught the one rein stop. The trouble is that riders seem to know it better than the horses. In fact, I have encountered a number of horses that have never heard of it, and thus do not respond to it.
In order to teach the one rein stop, we have to make sure that Max has Lateral Flexion of the neck. This we have been working on for quite some time but we still are struggling with it. In the following video, you can see Max being fairly resistant to the pull of the rein. Along with lateral flexion of the head, you will see me then ask for the Hindquarter to yield to the leg. So the sequence goes as follows:
1. Raise the rein, the horse should ready himself for a command.
2. Slide my left hand down the rein three times. Hopefully, the horse should bend his neck the first time I slide my hand down.
3. When the horse resists the sliding of my hand, I will grip the rein and ask for his head to turn to the left.
4. When I grip the rein, at the same time I lower my right hand and grab the horse's mane. So if the horse comes unglued, I will have a safety handle.
5. When the horse moves his head, even slightly, I drop the rein in my left hand. If I want more bend, I can pick it up quickly and ask for more.
6. When the horse's head is fully bent, and in a position where it is very difficult for him to buck or use his strength to take the rein from my hand, I place my left leg against his side and apply a bit of pressure.
7. I hold the rein, and the pressure of the leg until the horse moves his hips to the right and crosses over the outside back leg with the inside back leg.
8. When the horse moves over, I immediately release the pressure of the leg, and the rein.
9. Repeat for 5 minutes.
10. I do not always ask for Hindquarter yield. Sometimes I just ask for the head. I make the requests random so that he does not anticipate giving the hindquarters just because I asked for the head.
This time you see my student Emma performing the same movement. You will see that she has to wait for a bit for the horse to move his hindquarters. Do NOT escalate the aids, the position of the horse is sufficient motivation for him to move his hindquarters EVENTUALLY. And after the first couple of times, he will move it immediately. Do NOT kick, he doesn't need it. Do NOT gore him with a spur, he doesn't need it. Do NOT press harder and harder with your heel, he doesn't need it.
In this next video, you will see Emma working Max so that he performs a one Rein Stop from Trotting. Bear in mind that we made sure he knew had the previous lesson that you saw in the last video :
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on June 27, 2009
at 6/27/2009
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