Magic ribbon works again.

Ace and I went out on a hack today. I wanted to see if the draw reins would work out on a hack as well as they do in the arena.

All the way out, I could see them in his shadow swinging gently, not taken up at all. His nose was well in front of the verticle and he was walking out loosely and nicely in a way he never has before on a hack. Just occasionally, he tested whether he could pop his head right up, and found that he could not and carried on walking nicely.

He was absolutely Jazz-level silly at a parked car, spinning twice. The third attempt to pass the car was the only time I actually engaged them. They worked a treat and he passed it totally safely. Then he passed a turning-for-home point where he would normally have an opinion. Barely a  murmur. Then a drain with rushing water in it that used to send him demented. Hardly noticed it.

On the way home, he went calmly past a copse where a lot of horses, usually including him,  get nervy for some reason. Then, to my utter astonishment, on a piece of road where he is normally skipping and hopping around damp patches, he stretched his nose to the floor as if sniffing the road surface, and did an enormous relaxed walk all the way to the bottom of the hill up to home.

As if that was not enough, I picked up some contact to go up the hill and a fully antlered magnificent red deer stag jumped over the right hand fence, crossed the road no more than fifteen feet in front of us, turned and stared insolently in our direction and hopped over the left hand fence into the wood on that side.

Ace did not bat an eye! He was barely even interested. Most horses I have had would have been utterly freaked by a stag that close.

So - what is going on???????????????????????  I do not even have the draw reins operating, but they are having some miraculous kind of effect.

I think it is two things.

1. I think Ace is an immensely sensitive horse who needs a rider who is 100% fearless. I have not been that rider, I have probably only reached 95%  He has picked up on my fear, even though I was convinced I was not letting it affect me, and behaved spookily. This has created a horrible self-fuelling cycle of spook/fear/spook/fear that I could not break. With draw reins on him he would be so thoroughly under control if I brought them into action that I am indeed fearless, and he responds.

2. I think Ace is a horse who is comforted by having no options. It means that he does not have to worry for himself which option is correct. In draw reins, if he attempts to use an option to think too much for himself it results in him raising his mouth above my hands. The draw reins act like a martingale in that situation, they stop the head-lift.  He's a quick learner and not a fighter like Jazz was, so he only needs that to happen once or twice and he doesn't try again, he just hands over control to me.

I don't suppose anyone will be surprised that I intend to keep the draw reins on him for as long as it takes for us to restore total confidence in each other. If he will hack nicely that will really help us relax together and make a change for him from endless schooling. We are also thinking that we may teach him to jump. He has a heck of a pop on the lunge with a perfect bascule!

I am happier today than I have been since before he got his splint and had to rest.

C