Teasy or tummy?

Ace was a bit teasy this afternoon on the right rein, but I am not convinced that his stomach was an issue. First because he didn't bat an eyelid about having the girth on, even though I did it up quite tight quite quickly. Second because he didn't seem upset, just nappy. I was pretty sure that he was just trying to suggest that he should be allowed to go back to the others in the stables. He was refusing to turn off the track, and half rearing when asked to do so with an open rein.

So what I did was to walk circles right until he did those properly relaxed and swinging. Then I asked him to trot a circle and stopped when he refused to keep the bend,  and went back to walk. He got the measure of that and realised that he wasn't getting out of either the bend or continuing to work, so he changed tack. He would trot two thirds of a circle and then spin really (really!) fast left towards the gateway. When he did that I pulled quickly on the left rein to make him complete a 360 degree turn before he had realised what had happened, and then kicked him hard twice to send him forwards again on the circle. It is very recent that I have felt confident enough that he would not dump me on the floor to apply the pony-club-kick aid :-)

It took between, I would guess, 15 and 20 attempts before he realised that he wasn't going to be allowed to stop working until he completed a circle calmly and nicely. All the time he was going well, I said "good boy, good boy" and all the time he was going in the wrong direction I said "NO, NO". He cottoned on to that, I am sure, and began to respond both to the praise and the warning voice.

Again I had a clue that this was napping and not pain, because he would circle very sweetly in the middle of the arena but refuse to go up to the far end further away from the stables. I sorted that with the same persistence until he would circle at the far end and the middle, which earned him masses of praise.

The difference when he had an acid stomach was that he was never light in my hand or carrying himself, he was fretting at the contact, flat, running and poking his nose all the time. Today he was in a fabulous self carriage, just deciding now and then to run for the gateway. So when I did get trot to the right, it was beautiful bouncing rythmic work. I didn't try right canter, it wasn't worth starting another battle over, it can wait to another day.

I rode Jazz then, to practise more half pass. He has definitely improved and I have got more sideways movement in a straighter orientation - up til now, being new to the movement, he has  led with the shoulders too much and trailed his quarters. His ten metre canter circles also had a lot more upwards and forwards punch in them, which was very good progress. On top of that, he has recently, and suddenly, developed canter to halt. I didn't train for this, but sometimes if I misjudge the canter/walk request, he halts instead. I am not hauling him in the teeth to get this; the aid is a close of the fingers and a downwards bracing of the back, but if I put the brace on a wee bit strong we get halt. Since canter/halt is a movement that we will need at higher levels, (enter a A at canter, at X halt, salute) I'm actually really chuffed to have it now.

Tomorrow I plan to hack Ace, as I suspect he may be a horse who bores quite easily if he schools too much. I might hack Jazz too, since he actually seems to enjoy it these days. Did you EVER think I'd be writing that? I certainly didn't!

C