Jazz isn't playing nice with flying changes at the moment so I am going to give up for a while and let him get himself out of the pickle he has tied himself into mentally. He can do them, of course, but he is very reluctant to try. Meanwhile, I know his hocks aren't too bad, because he is still offering a stupendous extended trot and he couldn't sit and punch that out with bad hocks. I think what happened was that yesterday I asked him for them when he was tired and didn't want to bother, and he has now set his brain on it as being "too difficult". With a break of a few days he'll probably start throwing them in when he thinks they would be fun, like normal.
Ace was flighty today but it was cold and windy and he is clipped now and seemed to have slightly cold ears. He only chucked in a couple of bucks, so I won't hold it against him. I've given him a thicker rug now. He was very stiff and very reluctant to work in an outline. I got it by jogging. I wanted walk but he kept jogging. When I trotted instead he was stiff through the back. In the jog he was nice and loose, so we jogged. After a few minutes of jogging around nicely loose and keeping the looseness through a change of rein, I sent him forward into a proper trot, which was lovely. He offered to extend it, so I asked him to and that was super, almost a medium trot already. We stopped then before we both got bored and cold.
RadaR. Sigh. Some lovely trot today and then he decided that he could not walk a 10 metre square. Every time I changed direction, he ran for it. Pain! Repetition, repetition, repetition was the answer, combined with keeping him out in front of me with little flicks of the whip. We finally managed to do a figure of eight square without him throwing himself left, right or forward, and stopped. I'm sure that this schooling is doing him a lot of good, and teaching him how to carry himself in the most efficient way. It's certainly making him think before he acts, which I am hopeful will carry through even a tiny bit into hunting.
Talking of which, I had already packed to go to visit my brother when they changed the hunt meet to a great one near home. I thought hard about cancelling the trip but I'm glad I didn't, we had a lovely time in Andover with him.
I'm shattered this evening. None of them were simple today!
C
Do not despair. It is very common for a horse to "forget" how to do a flying change as he is learning them. It's one of those "takes a while to fully process" exercises. Same thing will happen when you start teaching the tempis and get all kinds of rhythm messes along the way. Don't fret. The changes are there and will become solid soon.
ReplyDeleteCurious about Ace. Wonder if something is bothering him physically? Muscle soreness somewhere?
RadaR...no more be said. He is RadaR. *sigh*
Looked at the UK prices for some of the various styles of plastic blocks. Too bad. They are expensive compared to some of the US prices. They really are nice to have, but that is a big investment...whew!
I'll keep looking around to see if any cheaper options show up somewhere.
I'll be they don't cost more than a couple of quid to make, either Jean!
ReplyDeleteC