Giving the inside rein...
Here she was asking to stretch, she was definitely in stretchy circle mode when I shortened the reins a little in preparation to canter (we cantered to the right first, so these trot pictures were before we cantered to the left).
And this sequence is a demonstration of going into Sophie's problem corner of the day. These and the following sequences are trot pictures taken before we cantered, which is why they look different, lol.
Starting to realize we're coming up to the corner...
Aack, the corner! No idea what the problem is, but for the first half of the ride she does this in the same spot of the arena (it moves about from ride to ride)...this is about the worst she would do with me and you can see that it's more of a gradual raising of the head, not a serious head flip at least...
Coming into the corner again...
Still coming into the corner...
Uh oh, getting closer!
This one wasn't nearly so bad, I think I nipped it in the bud earlier as well, you can see me squeezing her over with my inside leg, too bad I can't do it without turning my toe out...
Still inside legging it and moving on from the problem area...
Look, a new corner, straight ahead!
Grrrrr...
That didn't take too long to "fix"...
It's like nothing happened...
I don't know, maybe I should get after her more when she does the head raising and tensing up bit. I mainly tend to ride her forward, using a lot of inside leg to push her over and inside rein to ask her to soften. When she acts as though she's going to rear I push my hands forward so that she has no contact and a wide open door, push her forward, and within a couple of strides she was trotting like you see in these pictures. Once she's trotting I ride as though she didn't just think about rearing, but just like we're on a regular ride and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But does that mean she doesn't learn trying to rear is bad? And it's not an issue solely because the inclination doesn't come up in her head again, not because she knows better? I just don't know.
4 comments:
Yeah I know... I'd love to have a free 3rd Level horse.
Nice pictures... and I love the captions!!
I used to try to ride my horses on a bit longer reins, but since I've been with Lindsay she's encouraged me to shorten them up a bit to start. In fact, for my first couple lessons she had me ride Grady far deeper than what you'd want for a dressage show. But riding him that way REALLY got his attention and now I ride him on a longer rein, but he is far more solid and consistent on the bit. Riding him deeper was combined with riding him WAY more forward.
1: I like a longer rein length, which is totally appropriate for a horse at her level of training or for any work that doesn’t require collection – when in doubt, err on the side of too long than too short…
2: i think it’s great to test for carriage by giving the inside, but her head is going to the outside as if she thinks the release means she should turn into the outside rein. She might not be ready for this yet - I might experiment with giving the outside rein for a while and see if you get a stretch instead …
3: pulling herself down onto the forehand and balling up against the contact
4: still a bit balled-up but better
5: good – I’d even give her more rein and let her really stretch down – and then maybe take her off the circle and let her ride some straight sides like that…
6: here you’re bringing our inside rein directly back which is crunching her neck a bit
7: when she starts to come above the bit, don’t fight her
8: here I’d raise my hand and lift the bit into the corners of her mouth, but still not fight her or try to get her head ‘down’
Skipping ahead to 15: here you seem unhappy about her head position, but I think it’s fine where it is – at least her poll is highest and she’s balanced – don’t fight this!
16: here you’ve ‘fixed’ it by getting her broken behind the poll and falling on her forehand – I like the before picture better! when in doubt, the ‘above’ picture is the lesser of two evils…
17, better, but she still looks like she’s tipping her poll into the bend again
Other thoughts: I would not get after her when she’s tense or when she raises her head. Here is where you want to take your legs off, follow her mouth up, gently flex her to the side and release until the tension in her neck subsides. Go back to walk if you have to, or halt even, but don’t get after her or ride her forward into your hand at all. As for the rearing, if you release your hand every time she threatens to go up, you train her that whenever she wants to get rid of your hand she can threaten to rear. I would keep a very light contact when she does that, but the main point is that if your hand is causing her to WANT to rear to evade it, it’s way too restrictive, and you need to find another way to get what you want from her without provoking an extreme reaction. She’s trying to tell you something isn’t working…
Thanks guys!
I don't think my hand is causing her to want to rear because she only does it at the walk when she gets distracted or mad about something. (Her closest to rearing was when the other horses left by walking in front of the big arena door when we were walking and the second was when I was walking toward my husband to say something to him and the pony in quarantine whinnied)
In a past lesson she would falter at one spot in the arena, but she would have an issue in that spot during most laps. And the spot moves from ride to ride.
I'm going to try riding with a longer rein and getting her to stretch more today.
Kristie, my instructor says that Sophie needs to be ridden deeper and that it's better for young horses to be ridden deep in the beginning, but honestly, I really don't believe it. Maybe it works for some people, but I don't see it working for Sophie, I'm too worried that she'll get in the habit of being BTV or deep and resort to that. Which is why I'm really trying to figure out what to do now, while she isn't set in any one way.
thanks, that info helps.
some horses do actually rear just when they are afraid (i have a 17.2 warmblood whose instinct when spooked is to impersonate a high school horse and rear/leap into the air rather than run away :-\
but the fact that she does it when she gets mad or wants to follow the other horses can be an issue. most times 'nappy' horses like this have respect issues, largely because they don't accept or trust your aids - generally they are too behind the hand and not in front of the leg enough.
i'm not saying you're doing anything wrong with your hand that is causing her to rear, but that she's not prepared to accept a contact or direction from your hand. this goes along with the leg issue, as many nappy horses don't respond to the leg because they feel trapped by the bit - which is why i think the 'legs with no hands' transition exercises might help. and i'd be sure to also use the rein with no legs, especially for stopping, so there are never conflicting 'go-don't go' signals which frustrate horses and can cause them to tune you out or start rearing.
as for riding deep, i don't believe in it - period. but it would be ESPECIALLY harmful to do with a young or green horse. one always develops a young horse through long frames and very gradual collection. if you want a green horse to stretch its entire topline CORRECTLY, jump. but don't ride deep - it doesn't stretch the topline properly - it only stretches the neck - the back must contract for the horse to go deep, so it teaches them 'poor posture' and can even injure them.
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