Ach! He warmed up beautifully. So much so that one woman stood watching him told me how beautiful he was and how wonderfully he moved. Then I took him up to the arena, and suddenly he was all spooky about the letters. A-gain. I dropped my whip as the bell rand, which took the pressure down a notch, and I was very pleased with all his trot work.
The free walk is followed by a walk to canter which takes place between C and H, looking right at H, the letter he hates most, for some reason. At this stage in the test he has already passed it in both directions several times without much problem. But asking for a canter transition, he exploded. Bucked, reared, the lot. I started him off again but at K on the same side he did the same again, and the other rein wasn't much better either.
I was so upset. If he can just keep his brain in his head he scores around the 70 mark without even trying. But he is so, so sensitive, and at the moment he has it in his head that he is scared of the letters at that venue. He never used to be this bad, it started in earnest when it was raining one time and the drops were falling in the puddles on top of the letter stands.
So it's back to square one. Unaffiliated, two tests, so that we have a second try if the first is dreadful and he doesn't get to finish having got away with evasive behaviour.
I've never had an introvert like this before, he's beginning to really upset me! We chose him specifically because he was quiet and calm and now we find it's just a protective front that he puts on, and it only lasts until his anxiety level rises to a point where he cannot hold it in. He scored two over-70's before he got the leg infection. I am beginning to wonder just how badly being in hospital and Jazz's disappearance have upset him, because I haven't been close to that level of calmness in a test since.
Suggestions please?
C
I'll go with a ulcers as a first course. If he were mine, I'd treat him. The additional stress of the arena just might set him off. I know you are managing his diet, but he's had a lot of stress lately.
ReplyDeleteDo you have dressage letters at home? If not, then a set of them would help. Nice bright, white on black. Add some flowers or other decorations now and then.
Also, if he does shy at home, then you need to "do the Kenny," back and forth in front of the scary thing always turning towards it until he decides it's not scary. After a while, just the warning of starting the back and forth will stop the spook.
Be careful not to punish him for a spook, by the way. My Russell would react even worse to something he'd spooked at if I hit him with the whip when he was bad. Some horses are like that. They associate the "scary thing" with getting hit and it makes it even worse.
Practice those canter departs at home a lot until they become automatic. Be determined about it. If he's a little "nervy" in a test and you put your leg on, if he's not automatic to the aids, you actually might surprise him.
Do you have some kind of "soothing" noise or technique you can use? A "purr" with your tongue is one. You can associate that with something kind, even a treat now and then, always using it to settle him. (I use it for downward transitions and if my horse starts a nervous jog on a hack.)
Don't let your own eyes or attention focus on whatever he's scared of. IF you know where the scary thing is, don't look at it. Look somewhere else and perhaps try a bit of shoulder in as you approach. Ride a shoulder in past it, as if that's what you wanted to do all along.
In a test, if there's a way, a slight shoulder in or lateral move can often avert a spook by making your horse have to concern himself with balance instead of badness.
A lateral move might....might...also help avert a buck in a case like that. It gets a bit hard for him to buck if he's pushed sideways. You'd still lose the score but you need to deal with the behavior.
And don't lose heart. As the Canadian rider whose horse totally lost his mind in the Grand Prix said,"That's horses."
The big thing is to determine whether Ace is willfully disobedient, or just plain scared. If it's pain or really scared, then you have to do what you can to desensitize him at home with lots and lots of strange things in the arena for him to encounter.
On my very short ride yesterday, Tucker did the same thing on a canter depart. It wasn't as violent, but when I slapped his shoulder, he reared up a bit, totally insulted and mad that I'd hit him. Then he kind of half bucked into the canter. Not sure why. Could be that his hocks bother him, or, more likely, that he was--I was riding on a loose rein with minimal contact--not really prepared to canter. Were I competing him now, I would work on making that canter response to my leg totally automatic so that no matter what frame he was in, he would canter off.
Hope something helps. I'm feeling sad about your disappointment. Having a talented horse like Ace who just doesn't perform up to his ability must be really frustrating. Sending hugs. <<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>
He is still quite young. Perhaps in a year you will look back and say, "so glad he outgrew that". I don't really have anything to add to Jean's thorough comment, except that I wonder if there is somewhere you can take him for a lesson/schooling session that has lots of scary things so you can take your sweet time to de-sensitize him without the pressure of a scored test.
ReplyDeleteJust thought of something else. When I taught Tucker to canter, I used a voice command, a kind of "s-h-h-h-h" sound. It helped because it prepared him for the leg aid, and often he'd canter without any more cue. That way, if he's resisting the leg, you don't have to use it much at all.
ReplyDeleteSorry you had a disappointing day.
ReplyDeleteMy horse used to be so spooky in a test situation that I often felt like giving up, I knew he was talented but test results were just hideously low.
I just had to repeat and repeat the experience, I did as you plan which was to go unaffiliated and just gritted my teeth through the low percentages. Slowly he got braver and braver and the marks went up and he became much more consistent and started to show his full potential. Once he gained this confidence there was little which bothered him and it became hard to believe that he was ever like it! He can still throw in a mad spook now and again but it's a rarity rather than a regularity, my mantra used to be he could look with his eyes but not with his body. I am sure with time it will all come good for you, the talented ones are often trickier initially if that's any comfort.
He does it in two situations:
ReplyDelete- At home when he feels he has done enough work or when I introduce something which he finds hard work. I make him carry on until he submits and does something halfway decent.
- In a competition when we get about half way through and he can't contain himself any longer under the pressure of having to perfrom in public at set points in the arena.
He is not afraid of the letters or anything else unless he is in one of those two situations.
He was fine when I took him to a new place for a lesson a month back. It's the competition environment that gets to him, not being in a strange place.
Like Kate says, I think we are going to have to keep going and going until it's so totally ordinary for him that he gives up the explosions.
I've tried not hitting him Jean, and he was worse today than he has been since the start of the season. I am beginning to wonder if he is a horse who can only be confident with a dominant rider. He's certainly been much better out on hacks since I started flicking him with the whip when he hesitates or drops back.
In an arena, he isn't scared until the work gets difficult, so it's an evasion. I don't think it's pain, because he will do it just because we have had a free walk on a long rein and he thought he was going to be allowed to stop work.
He's never completely recovered from Jazz disappearing. He now gets separation anxiety and will try to refuse to leave Radar for us to do some work. And he also needs to be tickled with a whip to load, which was not the case until Jazz went, either. I know he needs time and more experience but boy am I frustrated that he can't keep his brain in his head in a one-off dressage test after nearly eighteen months since he first did one :-(
C