Ace's behaviour is definitely the spring grass coming through and not a sore back. He was free and easy today and I did not put his exercise sheet on - the first time since last autumn, in fact probably the first time since I bought it.
He was a lot less explosive feeling than he has been, but he was looking for a fight with the blue barrels as badly as he was last year. This is really interesting - he had begun to ignore them completely, and now a bit of green grass has sent him looking for the evil bogeymen to jump out from behind them. At least I know it's not me :-)
My strategy worked just fine. I decided to warm up as close to them as I could easily get him, no battles, and ignore the quality of the work. By the end of ten minutes or so he was trotting past in both directions hardly even looking. This was a major breakthrough considering that when he started he would not go within 5 metres of them.
I then went onto figures of eight away from the boards and got the changes of bend without breaking rhythm or outline. That was pleasing.
I did some rein back and it was the best ever, much more fluid than he has ever done it before.
The last exercise was canter walk canter, which I tried to get on a figure of eight. Unfortunately he started to anticipate the canter so badly that he would not relax the walk. I had to take 10 minutes out to re-establish a rhythmic walk. Then I did walk canter walk on a circle instead of a figure of eight and he got a nice one on each rein and I let him stop.
It was a beautiful spring morning and the grass is finally beginning to green up and make the place look and feel more cheerful.
C.
ps I put it in a comment but for people who missed it, the new Errol has automated parking - he parks himself!!! I can't wait to do a "look Ma, no hands!" reverse into a parking slot only 80cm longer than the car :-))))
Hmm the arrival of grass is definately a two edged sword isn't it.
ReplyDeleteGlad you explained about Errol, very jealous, you'll be going round looking for tight places to park!
I will!!
DeleteC
Glad your strategy with Ace is working. I have a set of blue barrels too, but my Boys push them all over the paddock so I can't quite say anyone's afraid of them. They're kind of like big horse toys instead. *G*
ReplyDeleteHow much fun is Errol going to be, eh? There was a commercial on TV last night with a car that parked itself. Quite impressive. Just think, he'll be as handy as a good horse! *G*
he's got a saddle too ;-) Well, leather seats anyways.
DeleteC
The car parks itself!?!? Wow, am I behind the times!
ReplyDeleteThoughts on diet... Doesn't it seem strange for a horse to have such a noticeable negative reaction to spring grass, after all it is their natural food that they evolved to eat. FIrst, these horses are bred by humans, who select for other characteristics than nature does and, of course, unintended characteristics pop up like intolerance to lots of green spring grass. Second, diet has a huge effect on mammals. For some reason that I don't fully understand, I can no longer eats lots of types of food that everybody else eats - things like gluten, yeast, fruit, legumes, dairy and sugar in general. While I miss these foods and wish I could eat them, I have noticed that I have tons more energy, among other very positive effects now that I avoid these foods. So it's no wonder that changes in diet, like spring grass coming in, have a big effect on horses' behavior.
Horses were genetically designed to eat scrub, not fresh lush green stuff. And when they did get fresh green stuff they were generally coming out of winter very thin with plenty of room for the calorie excess to be used up.
DeleteThe behaviour change is due to sudden gut imbalance from unaccustomed food and the fact that fast growing grass is low in magnesium. The spring behaviour change is well documents in the UK.
Ace is a very sharp fellow, it only take a little change to make him feel explosive :-)
C