Woody has been here over three months now, and his character becomes clearer every day. He is a nervy boy, but does not have Jazz's excessive over-reactions. But he has a temper that Jazz would be in awe of if he is thwarted in what he wants to do :-)
Now that I know that he has no more serious physical problems, I'm not excusing the inconsistency in rythmn caused by his unstead mouth. I took a contact from the off today and his very first reaction was to dive off forwards, which I blocked, to which his response was a very neat rear pirouette, returning to the floor facing back to where he wanted to go - the stables.
I sent him on into some walk serpentines and they were really quite acceptable. Trot left was really very good, compared to early attempts. There was both rythmn and bounce and his mouth was nearly still. Turning round to the other rein, that all went straight out of the window. He was slowing and slowing and then reacting like a hornet had stung him when I just touched his bum with the whip to send him on.
He just would not give to the contact, or keep a rythmn. I finally cracked it by taking a really short rein and refusing to let his mouth go, and setting the rythmn very, very clearly with my seat, and every time he slowed down, speeded the rythmn up faster than I really wanted, knowing that he would soon drop it back to where I wanted it to be. On top of that, every time he really set his body, I circled 10m in the other direction, which shocked him and broke the resistance. I got a few steps of something really special, and stopped.
A big part of his problem, after his mouth, is that he really has no idea that whenever someone is on his back it is his duty to actively listen for further instructions. So he is either deaf to requests for a change of direction or pace, or he completely over-reacts in his shock that I have spoken to him! He is learning, though, and more and more of his work is of real quality. He has it in him to do a serious dressage test result.
I am hoping that in March we might get him out to see.
C
If Woody were totally green it would be one thing, but retraining to a new style of riding is not an easy job, no matter what. And developing correct dressage is a challenge no matter what.
ReplyDeleteAgain, as long as you are making progress, it's well worth the extra work. And I do like your finding and adopting methods that work t get the responses you need is excellent. Too many riders stick to "textbook" solutions instead of experimenting to find some method--out of the box or in--that actually works.
Once again, keep experimenting. It's working!!
And isn't it interesting, Jean, how with horses one thing will work for a while and then you have to change the approach. Woody is like that, Ace is not. Radar is somewhere in between, closer to Ace.
DeleteWhat fun it makes things :-) !!
C
What were those few steps of something really special?
ReplyDeleteI hope he remembers this ride when you go to ride him next. Perhaps as you start a 10m circle he will immediately remember and give in.
He did about a quarter of a 25m circle with proper bend, a settled contact onto the outside rein and a rythmic strides with real bounce in it. It was very nice indeed. He can't keep it up, so I stopped before he chose to ruin it. Hopefully he will remember it next time.
DeleteC