I wasn't getting a handle on her. We could walk, we could trot, we could lope a few strides. But nothing felt right.
Tally felt like a keg of explosives. It was like riding a horse down the alley way of a rodeo arena before a barrel race, or sitting on a bull in a bucking chute (which I did once, but that's a Mort story). There was a feeling of anticipation while I was on her and not a good one.
When I start a young horse I spend the first rides ignoring the terror hamster running on his wheel in my stomach. The rotten rodent spins that wheel through at least the first few rides, sometimes more, while I find out what kind of ammo the colt or filly is packing.
Then one day, I'll get on to ride and the terror hamster will be quiet. It's the day I know we've gotten through the rough stuff and I know the horse under me. I trust the evil little hamster and I'm careful until he quits running his wheel.
With Tally, the hamster wouldn't stop. The weird thing was, she wasn't doing anything wrong. She was soft in my hands and obedient to my legs. She was eerily balanced and smooth as silk. She was also very, very quiet. She accepted direction and learned quickly.
I felt like she was waiting. It wasn't like she was out to get me. Tally seemed to like me well enough. But tension wove through her muscular little body and wrapped around my shoulders like a wet blanket every time I threw my leg over.
She took tiny little steps and went with her head low. Her trot was almost a pleasure jog, with the same feeling of pushing through deep water. Her lope was barely there. She held herself back with everything she had but kept her back up and her legs well underneath her at the same time.
Tally wouldn't relax and wouldn't increase her speed. Having her follow another horse didn't seem to matter. She would tuck into the hip and go along willingly enough until the horse moved out faster than she wanted to go. Then she would just lag behind.
My inner hamster warned me not to push her past her self imposed limits. My inner hamster wanted me to go screaming into the night. I hauled her out to the Big K's instead.
"What's going on?" he asked me. He looked Tally over with a critical eye. We were standing outside my trailer. Tally raised her head and snorted at K then stepped her hindquarters away from him.
"I can ride her, but it's like riding a time bomb. I can just feel her ticking away," I dragged my fingers through her mane. "She won't move out."
"Have you pushed her past it?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because she's scaring the crap out of me."
"You can't know what you've got until you dig down and pull it out of them," K said. This was something he had told me time and time again.
"I'm not sure I can handle what Tally's got and I sure can't talk myself into going digging."
K stood with his arms folded and looked at my little mare for a minute longer. "You're probably hanging onto her face."
"Probably. Trust me, there's something about her that's not only making me want to hang on, but I'm just about going fetal every time she raises her head."
"OK, I'm going to go saddle a pony horse. You saddle up your mare and wrap her legs. We'll do some digging."
I saddled Tally and tried to ready myself for whatever was coming. I had never been hurt while riding with the Big K and he had talked me through some tough situations. I hadn't been able to explain the wild current I felt running through Tally but if anybody would pick up on it K would.
K rode out on Dill, his tough little Reminic gelding. "Bring her here," he called. "I'll haul her around the outdoor for a bit and try to get a feel for her."
I led Tally to him and he took the lead rope. He moved off and Tally planted her front legs. She stood frozen until she felt pressure on her poll from the rope halter and then she bolted. She shot behind K's horse and the lead rope dug into his thigh and across Dill's rump. Dill whirled away from the pressure and turned to face her. K kicked him forward a few strides and gave himself enough slack to dally.
Once he had her secure K started to push Tally's hip around with his horse nose to tail. Dill was relaxed and good at his job and kept Tally moving without scaring her. She tolerated being pushed back and forth, but every time K would give her a little slack she would try to bolt.
Tally slammed into Dill's side, try to crawl over the top of him, even shoved her head under his belly and pushed, once she picked a direction she would run blind until she was wrestled to a stop.
The Big K looked over at me, eyebrows raised and his eyes wide, with his best, "What the hell?" look on his face.
"You've been riding this?" he asked me.
"She doesn't act like this when I ride her," I told him,"but you're getting what I'm feeling. It's just waiting for me."
He shook his head and worked her farther out in the arena. He continued to push her this way and that with Dill, trying to give her a little slack and a rest every time she complied. After a good twenty minutes both horses had rivulets of sweat running down their legs and foam outlining their saddle pads.
The two horses stood side by side and blew. K leaned over and pulled on my saddle, rubbed Tally's neck and butt and flopped my stirrups around. She stood quiet and relaxed for him. Satisfied, he released his dally and began to pony her around in circles. Tally trotted alongside Dill with a free and open trot. K broke into a fast lope and Tally went along with him.
They came down the arena fence and K grinned as they sped by. "I think we got her," he called. Tally spun and shot off in a straight line behind them. The Big K held on as she pulled him back but Dill scooted forward as his weight shifted and he had to let her go.
He stopped Dill and took off after her. Quick as she was, Dill was quicker and K hooked onto Tally like a cow going down the fence. Dill began to work her up and down the long side of the arena. He drove her hard along the fence, then stepped in front of her, turning her into the fence and sending her out the other way.
Tally seemed to relax into the work and K was able to reach over and gather her lead rope after a few more turns. The horses' lungs worked like bellows and I could see a flash of ribs every time they sucked in another lung full of air. K dallied again before leading her to the heavy pipe tie rail just outside of the arena. Tally came along with plenty of slack in her rope.
He sidled Dill up to the rail and tied her off before he dismounted. She stood quiet enough, at least until the Big K stepped off his gelding and was standing in between the two horses. Tally sucked back and reared when she hit the end of her lead rope. She whipped her head back and forth and squalled like a burned cat. K ducked under the tie rail and began to work Dill around to him from the other side.
Tally leaped forward and tried to clear the rail. If she hadn't been tied she would have come down on top of K. The rope held and she was yanked over backwards just as her front feet cleared the rail. She flipped and crashed to the ground.
I waited, watching to see how the big K would react. He held his position and watched Tally thrash on the ground until she got her feet under and jumped up. As soon as she was up he came towards her fast with his hands raised and she sucked back again.
"Hey!' he yelled and waved his hands some more. She reared again, shaking her head and he stepped in closer, shouting and waving his hands like a banshee. It looked to me as if she was going to jump again, but instead she put her feet back on the ground and stared wild-eyed at the big K, still leaning back so hard she was almost sitting like a dog. I couldn't decide who was crazier.
His arms went back to his sides but he held his position. The seconds ticked by like hours as they faced off. Tally finally stood up and leaned forward enough to ease some of the pressure on her poll.
The Big K gathered up his reins and led Dill over to me.
"I think she'll be OK now," he said. "Go grab your bit."
"Do you want me to ride her?" I was trying desperately to keep my voice from shaking. I looked at her front legs. The backs were raw and bleeding from knee to elbow and she'd lost a chunk of hide from her hip bone. "She's pretty scurfed up, maybe she's sore."
"She did it to herself and I don't see any bone sticking out. We'll go in the indoor and I'll pony her around a little more. Then you can hop on and I'll pony her again. I think she'll shake loose and move out just fine."
K was right. Tally ponied around like a seasoned cutter in a warm-up. K cruised the indoor arena for a few minutes and told me to get on up. I reminded myself to breathe and got on my little nut case. Tally moved her feet a little, but seemed relaxed and friendly. I held my reins, but kept them loose and rested my hands on the swells of my saddle so I wouldn't grab at her.
K started us out with the nose to tail turns he had began 100 years before when I first handed her over.
"She's looking good," K said, "go ahead and use your legs to start our turns, just stay out of her mouth."
"So if I die today will you keep teaching Kidlette?"
"You're not going to die, I told you she was fine."
He led us out of our last turn and started long trotting around the arena. Tally stepped out with Dill, calm and quiet. Her trot was strong and flowing, her cadence was lovely. I told my inner hamster to shut the hell up and started to relax.
"How did you know?" I asked him.
"How did I know what?"
"That she was ready to cooperate."
"She quit looking like she was going to kill me."
"Why do you think she's so scared?"
"You think this mare is scared?" K looked at me with the same raised eyebrow s he had for Tally when she first blew up on him.
"Sure she is," I leaned down and rubbed on her sweat stained neck.
"I was watching her eye through that whole deal out there Janet," K's voice was dead serious. "This mare was 100% pure mad at me. If you're going to get this job done without getting hurt you'd better remember that."
He smooched to Dill and we loped off. Before we were done that afternoon I was moving Tally around the arena without K's help. We went through all her gaits, free and easy and at a good clip.
When we were done K said he was going to skip our regular "beer-thirty" break.
"I'm not in the mood today." He headed to the show barn with Dill, his head sunk low between his shoulders as he studied the ground. His black mood rolled over me. I wasn't sure where I was failing him, but I knew it had something to do with Tally.
I'd just have to chew on it during the long haul back to my barn.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
One Step at a Time
One Step at a Time
By Janet Huntington
I have a little dun colt who isn’t particularly fancy. He is a little on the small side and doesn’t have any of the hot bloodlines I’m so fond of.
I am however, very fond of the mare he’s out of and the stud is a very talented cowhorse. The mare was no slouch either. He has a pretty little head and a kind and easy nature.
Since I no longer have the pressures of riding as a professional I have been able to take my time with this horse and have approached his training in a fairly unique way.
I was lucky enough to have him born and raised pretty much the way I prefer. He grew up out in a field with lots of pasture mates and wasn’t even halter broke before he was two.
Other than shots, worming and having his feet trimmed he was pretty much left to do his thing until it was time to start him as a three-year-old.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about the different ways we approach starting a young horse. The idea of desensitizing a horse to every single outside stimulus we can think of has bothered me just a bit.
It didn’t at first. The first several years I was training I used a lot of desensitizing techniques. I created quite a few steady, reliable horses. I learned to take my time, teach the horses to accept all kinds of scary things and to stay calm through new experiences. They did what they needed to in a quiet, trustworthy way.
Then I went to work for a Reined Cowhorse trainer. There were a lot of colts to be started and they needed to learn a bunch of technical stuff fast. There was no time for desensitizing them, we had to get on and get going. The colts learned to deal with the stuff the world threw at them as time passed. We needed them working cattle, sliding, spinning and changing leads within their first year of riding. They needed to react fast to our cues and the action of the cattle.
As the years rolled by I started to really think about the two different approaches I had learned to train young horses. No matter how busy I became I still had stalls to clean and there’s no better time to sort out horse training theories than while you’re wielding a manure fork.
The horses I had turned out during the first several years I were easy enough, but compared to the cowhorses I turned out later,
a little dull. The more I taught a horse to tune out things which would normally startle him, the more I seemed to teach them to tune out me.
On the other side of the saddle, the colts we just started riding and training maneuvers to still seemed to build trust and confidence as time went along, but were also a lot more reactive then the horses of my earlier days.
I started thinking about what horses would tune out and what made them react. It kept coming back to repetition. For example, if I waved a plastic grocery bag on a whip around a colt’s head every day for a month, and nothing ever hurt him, he would eventually ignore the flag. He was also learning to ignore me and my whip. I was showing him there were times he didn’t need to pay attention to me.
I began to think about a hard fact of life anybody who has ever trained their own horse has had to accept. A horse never forgets anything.
If your horse pulls back and breaks his lead rope he’s going to remember it and periodically suck back and test his rope forever.
If he learns how to open the chain on a gate and escape, for the rest of his life he’s going to try every gate he comes across. It’s the nature of the beast.
If I teach him he needs to periodically ignore me then wouldn’t he want to test me, at least once in a while, forever?
Because my colt is kind and mellow I decided to try an experiment with him. I was going to assume he would remember everything I taught him after the first time I showed it to him. Every step, one time. The next time I saw him I would go to the next step and trust him to remember the last.
The trick was going to be to build on each step in a way that related to the one before it. If each step made sense to him I could count on him to be ready for the next one.
It’s been a fun and interesting experiment. I began halter breaking him when we brought all out stud colts in to be gelded. I drove him and stopped, drove him and stopped, in and out through his corral mates, until he stopped and looked at me. Then I quit.
I figured he had learned I could drive him and I would quit when he looked at me.
We went from there.
So far my plan has worked out pretty well. He has learned some pretty decent ground manners, to haul, be good for the shoer and the vet, to walk, trot and take his leads, stop and turn, all from being shown once what I expected from him.
We ran into a bit of a glitch when he learned to run off when I went to catch him in the pasture, but we’ve worked it out. It only took once for him to figure out he didn’t have to let me catch him though, so I guess we’ve stayed on the right path. He also decided he didn’t want to lead anymore, but after one fairly frustrating session with a longe whip he got over it.
Now we’re entering the point in his training where we’re going to have to repeat, because it’s time to begin creating muscle memory. It takes repetition to learn where to put his feet during a spin or how to hold a straight line. Practice makes perfect is starting to come into play.
The nice part about it is I have a cheerful, willing colt who’s interested in what we’re doing every time I get him out. He works hard to figure out what I want and tries to do what I ask instead of tuning me out.
I’m still trying to keep things interesting with very little repetition. I can’t wait to start him in the cutting pen. I can’t help but think the muscle memory he builds by cutting will help him understand his reining and fence work when the time comes.
Working with a cow is different every day and it will teach my colt to think and move without my interference. So far, so good. It’s going to be fun seeing where this experiment takes us.
By Janet Huntington
I have a little dun colt who isn’t particularly fancy. He is a little on the small side and doesn’t have any of the hot bloodlines I’m so fond of.
I am however, very fond of the mare he’s out of and the stud is a very talented cowhorse. The mare was no slouch either. He has a pretty little head and a kind and easy nature.
Since I no longer have the pressures of riding as a professional I have been able to take my time with this horse and have approached his training in a fairly unique way.
I was lucky enough to have him born and raised pretty much the way I prefer. He grew up out in a field with lots of pasture mates and wasn’t even halter broke before he was two.
Other than shots, worming and having his feet trimmed he was pretty much left to do his thing until it was time to start him as a three-year-old.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about the different ways we approach starting a young horse. The idea of desensitizing a horse to every single outside stimulus we can think of has bothered me just a bit.
It didn’t at first. The first several years I was training I used a lot of desensitizing techniques. I created quite a few steady, reliable horses. I learned to take my time, teach the horses to accept all kinds of scary things and to stay calm through new experiences. They did what they needed to in a quiet, trustworthy way.
Then I went to work for a Reined Cowhorse trainer. There were a lot of colts to be started and they needed to learn a bunch of technical stuff fast. There was no time for desensitizing them, we had to get on and get going. The colts learned to deal with the stuff the world threw at them as time passed. We needed them working cattle, sliding, spinning and changing leads within their first year of riding. They needed to react fast to our cues and the action of the cattle.
As the years rolled by I started to really think about the two different approaches I had learned to train young horses. No matter how busy I became I still had stalls to clean and there’s no better time to sort out horse training theories than while you’re wielding a manure fork.
The horses I had turned out during the first several years I were easy enough, but compared to the cowhorses I turned out later,
a little dull. The more I taught a horse to tune out things which would normally startle him, the more I seemed to teach them to tune out me.
On the other side of the saddle, the colts we just started riding and training maneuvers to still seemed to build trust and confidence as time went along, but were also a lot more reactive then the horses of my earlier days.
I started thinking about what horses would tune out and what made them react. It kept coming back to repetition. For example, if I waved a plastic grocery bag on a whip around a colt’s head every day for a month, and nothing ever hurt him, he would eventually ignore the flag. He was also learning to ignore me and my whip. I was showing him there were times he didn’t need to pay attention to me.
I began to think about a hard fact of life anybody who has ever trained their own horse has had to accept. A horse never forgets anything.
If your horse pulls back and breaks his lead rope he’s going to remember it and periodically suck back and test his rope forever.
If he learns how to open the chain on a gate and escape, for the rest of his life he’s going to try every gate he comes across. It’s the nature of the beast.
If I teach him he needs to periodically ignore me then wouldn’t he want to test me, at least once in a while, forever?
Because my colt is kind and mellow I decided to try an experiment with him. I was going to assume he would remember everything I taught him after the first time I showed it to him. Every step, one time. The next time I saw him I would go to the next step and trust him to remember the last.
The trick was going to be to build on each step in a way that related to the one before it. If each step made sense to him I could count on him to be ready for the next one.
It’s been a fun and interesting experiment. I began halter breaking him when we brought all out stud colts in to be gelded. I drove him and stopped, drove him and stopped, in and out through his corral mates, until he stopped and looked at me. Then I quit.
I figured he had learned I could drive him and I would quit when he looked at me.
We went from there.
So far my plan has worked out pretty well. He has learned some pretty decent ground manners, to haul, be good for the shoer and the vet, to walk, trot and take his leads, stop and turn, all from being shown once what I expected from him.
We ran into a bit of a glitch when he learned to run off when I went to catch him in the pasture, but we’ve worked it out. It only took once for him to figure out he didn’t have to let me catch him though, so I guess we’ve stayed on the right path. He also decided he didn’t want to lead anymore, but after one fairly frustrating session with a longe whip he got over it.
Now we’re entering the point in his training where we’re going to have to repeat, because it’s time to begin creating muscle memory. It takes repetition to learn where to put his feet during a spin or how to hold a straight line. Practice makes perfect is starting to come into play.
The nice part about it is I have a cheerful, willing colt who’s interested in what we’re doing every time I get him out. He works hard to figure out what I want and tries to do what I ask instead of tuning me out.
I’m still trying to keep things interesting with very little repetition. I can’t wait to start him in the cutting pen. I can’t help but think the muscle memory he builds by cutting will help him understand his reining and fence work when the time comes.
Working with a cow is different every day and it will teach my colt to think and move without my interference. So far, so good. It’s going to be fun seeing where this experiment takes us.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Mouthy Monday
This comes from FD CR - I have learned to love, love, love finding holes.Sometimes how we learn to find them can be a lttle unsettling.
Worth Every Penny
Having come back to horses after going cold turkey in my thirties, it’s been a slow process regaining something of the skill I possessed as a heedless twentysomething.
There’s been riding school horses, catch rides, short loans, holiday cover, a bit of backing and schooling and manners instalment, with a summer helping with project ponies for flipping and the occasional happy hack when I can cadge a ride.
Rather hit and miss really. So I was thrilled when an old acquaintance asked if I’d like to ride her horse, Socks, for a while. Just to keep him fit and have a bit of fun.
He’s had something of a chequered history – went GP before he was eight, and then a cycle of injury and recovery and competition, rinse and repeat, and finally a bit of a nervous breakdown followed by a long spell in the field and a short, decidedly inglorious career as a schoolmaster for a riding stables.
In his teens now, but he’s still not a novice ride: somewhat stiff, resentful of inexpert riding, a bit of a termagant and inclined to the occasional air above ground when he feels like it.
Loosened up though, he’s powerful, supple, responsive and sharp; a bouncing rubber ball of energy who throws in changes and passage for the love of it and requires his rider to be a movement ahead always. Of course I said yes.
And mostly we’ve had fun, albeit with a few explosions while we got used to each other. It probably doesn’t help that his owner is 5’10 and all leg and I’m 5’2 (ish) and…not leggy. I had to relearn to sit again; it’s quite horrifying how out of shape I was considering I wasn’t outwardly out of shape.
Mostly, it was working out well. However, he just wasn’t quite as through and swingy and carrying me as he was for his owner. It was all good, nice, obedient, energetic, coherent, even almost elegant (a serious achievement for me, even at my best I was better described as workmanlike!); but not as good as it was for her.
She came and watched, and we agreed that it was so. We ruled out physical causes. I varied his varied routine a bit more, thinking maybe he was bored. (Bear in mind I wasn’t training him; he’s plenty trained. Also bear in mind he’s not a horse to suffer in silence; if I was doing something egregiously wrong, he’d definitely let me know about it.) It did not make an appreciable difference.
I asked the trainer at the barn to give us some lessons; she had us a bit more collected, but again it was all very… nice. I don’t know if it’s the same for others, but I personally am not looking for nice in my dressage (although it’s a start of course). I associate correct dressage more with words like uplifting, thrilling, edge of exploding, riding the crest of a wave feeling. Admitted some horses more so than others, but this is a more so horse.
So, money was laid out on a session with a (very expensive and booked months in advance) trainer. We drove over, with a somewhat excited horse – I think initially he thought we were competing, I’d polished him to such a high gloss. I got on, and went into the arena and he told the owner that he wasn’t interested in hearing about the horse or the problem – I was just to ride as I usually did. Not that he used those words – it was more of a grunt and a shut up gesture and a point and circle gesture at me.
So I warmed up and after about fifteen minutes, he waved me over and wordlessly indicated that I should take my feet out of the stirrups.
I did so. Silence ensued. After a minute or so, (and one minor reprimand to the horse to not paw please) he grunted, then walked around us, still in silence. I must admit I was having second thoughts at this point – I’m not keen on trainers who play head games. Still, not refundable so I kept my gob shut and waited.
He came back over and had me remove my stirrups altogether, and gestured us out onto the track. After a half a circuit, he (still in silence) had us halt again, and he came and repositioned my leg. He sent us off again, and we continued walking. He asked for more walk; we gave it and he said “No!” in tones of great irritation. Halted again, repositioned again – not so much of a movement of the leg, just a twist from the thigh, and said: and “Leg off!” We walked again; again he reminded me, “Off!”
It transpired he wanted me to carry my heel further from the horse. Variations of this repeated through trot sitting and rising and canter. He had us shift from working to medium and to extended and back again, mostly via gesture and “More!” The only movement we carried out was an eternal twenty metre circle. Every now and then: Off! Or occasionally: “Sit!”
It was disturbing how much that minor change in position destabilized my position. It was even more disturbing and humiliating how much of a change that minor change produced in Socks.
Light became lighter, and sharper and more responsive; he was keyed in and listening and anticipating my every breath. Supple became swinging and he lifted so much through his back in the trot I was unable to sit it again and had to keep rebalancing myself. The less I did the more I got; it was a case of getting out of his way.
After a bare forty minutes I was exhausted and Socks was getting sweaty, but we were finally moving between the paces without that nagging stickyness that had been present between us from the start. We called it a day, and went out and washed down a perky, pleased with himself horse and left him tucked up on the lorry with a hay net. We walked, (well, Sock’s Mum walked, I wobbled) over to pay at the office and say thank you. His groom offered us a coffee and we watched him working with one of his students. I was relieved to see he was wordless with them too!
He came over – I am not sure but I suspect I was rather woebegone – I’ve rarely had such a crushing object lesson delivered in so few words, and he said: “Not to worry – a clever horse – he’d rather you try than him.” He nodded, took his coffee and walked off.
So I have had a salutary reminder about how easy it is for my body to lie to me and how the real proof of my correctness is always in the way the horse goes. I have another lesson in three months time and something to work on with Socks in earnest and a new (old) mantra to remember: Less is more. And also a new desire to work on my abdominal and thigh muscles, because I seriously couldn’t walk the day after.
Worth Every Penny
Having come back to horses after going cold turkey in my thirties, it’s been a slow process regaining something of the skill I possessed as a heedless twentysomething.
There’s been riding school horses, catch rides, short loans, holiday cover, a bit of backing and schooling and manners instalment, with a summer helping with project ponies for flipping and the occasional happy hack when I can cadge a ride.
Rather hit and miss really. So I was thrilled when an old acquaintance asked if I’d like to ride her horse, Socks, for a while. Just to keep him fit and have a bit of fun.
He’s had something of a chequered history – went GP before he was eight, and then a cycle of injury and recovery and competition, rinse and repeat, and finally a bit of a nervous breakdown followed by a long spell in the field and a short, decidedly inglorious career as a schoolmaster for a riding stables.
In his teens now, but he’s still not a novice ride: somewhat stiff, resentful of inexpert riding, a bit of a termagant and inclined to the occasional air above ground when he feels like it.
Loosened up though, he’s powerful, supple, responsive and sharp; a bouncing rubber ball of energy who throws in changes and passage for the love of it and requires his rider to be a movement ahead always. Of course I said yes.
And mostly we’ve had fun, albeit with a few explosions while we got used to each other. It probably doesn’t help that his owner is 5’10 and all leg and I’m 5’2 (ish) and…not leggy. I had to relearn to sit again; it’s quite horrifying how out of shape I was considering I wasn’t outwardly out of shape.
Mostly, it was working out well. However, he just wasn’t quite as through and swingy and carrying me as he was for his owner. It was all good, nice, obedient, energetic, coherent, even almost elegant (a serious achievement for me, even at my best I was better described as workmanlike!); but not as good as it was for her.
She came and watched, and we agreed that it was so. We ruled out physical causes. I varied his varied routine a bit more, thinking maybe he was bored. (Bear in mind I wasn’t training him; he’s plenty trained. Also bear in mind he’s not a horse to suffer in silence; if I was doing something egregiously wrong, he’d definitely let me know about it.) It did not make an appreciable difference.
I asked the trainer at the barn to give us some lessons; she had us a bit more collected, but again it was all very… nice. I don’t know if it’s the same for others, but I personally am not looking for nice in my dressage (although it’s a start of course). I associate correct dressage more with words like uplifting, thrilling, edge of exploding, riding the crest of a wave feeling. Admitted some horses more so than others, but this is a more so horse.
So, money was laid out on a session with a (very expensive and booked months in advance) trainer. We drove over, with a somewhat excited horse – I think initially he thought we were competing, I’d polished him to such a high gloss. I got on, and went into the arena and he told the owner that he wasn’t interested in hearing about the horse or the problem – I was just to ride as I usually did. Not that he used those words – it was more of a grunt and a shut up gesture and a point and circle gesture at me.
So I warmed up and after about fifteen minutes, he waved me over and wordlessly indicated that I should take my feet out of the stirrups.
I did so. Silence ensued. After a minute or so, (and one minor reprimand to the horse to not paw please) he grunted, then walked around us, still in silence. I must admit I was having second thoughts at this point – I’m not keen on trainers who play head games. Still, not refundable so I kept my gob shut and waited.
He came back over and had me remove my stirrups altogether, and gestured us out onto the track. After a half a circuit, he (still in silence) had us halt again, and he came and repositioned my leg. He sent us off again, and we continued walking. He asked for more walk; we gave it and he said “No!” in tones of great irritation. Halted again, repositioned again – not so much of a movement of the leg, just a twist from the thigh, and said: and “Leg off!” We walked again; again he reminded me, “Off!”
It transpired he wanted me to carry my heel further from the horse. Variations of this repeated through trot sitting and rising and canter. He had us shift from working to medium and to extended and back again, mostly via gesture and “More!” The only movement we carried out was an eternal twenty metre circle. Every now and then: Off! Or occasionally: “Sit!”
It was disturbing how much that minor change in position destabilized my position. It was even more disturbing and humiliating how much of a change that minor change produced in Socks.
Light became lighter, and sharper and more responsive; he was keyed in and listening and anticipating my every breath. Supple became swinging and he lifted so much through his back in the trot I was unable to sit it again and had to keep rebalancing myself. The less I did the more I got; it was a case of getting out of his way.
After a bare forty minutes I was exhausted and Socks was getting sweaty, but we were finally moving between the paces without that nagging stickyness that had been present between us from the start. We called it a day, and went out and washed down a perky, pleased with himself horse and left him tucked up on the lorry with a hay net. We walked, (well, Sock’s Mum walked, I wobbled) over to pay at the office and say thank you. His groom offered us a coffee and we watched him working with one of his students. I was relieved to see he was wordless with them too!
He came over – I am not sure but I suspect I was rather woebegone – I’ve rarely had such a crushing object lesson delivered in so few words, and he said: “Not to worry – a clever horse – he’d rather you try than him.” He nodded, took his coffee and walked off.
So I have had a salutary reminder about how easy it is for my body to lie to me and how the real proof of my correctness is always in the way the horse goes. I have another lesson in three months time and something to work on with Socks in earnest and a new (old) mantra to remember: Less is more. And also a new desire to work on my abdominal and thigh muscles, because I seriously couldn’t walk the day after.
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