So today Ace was wearing not only a pair of wings but a halo to match. He was a complete angel. He worked well, accepted correction and completely ignored the barrels, which he has not done since just before the ulcers kicked off nearly four weeks ago. If he was trying to make up for yesterday he certainly went a long way towards achieving it.
I have visions of riding the only horse working Prix St George at home and competing Intro walk and trot tests!
I also rode Radar and did the best walk session he has ever done. Having said that, all that means is that he tried to do a trot transition every 5 to 10 strides but I was able to keep him nicely in walk. But it's an improvement on the dashing about and shrinking back that is normal before he will consent to do some relaxed walk.
All in all I am a lot happier than I was yesterday. True, we expected to hav e a horse competing at medium by now, but the best laid plans of mice and men, eh? The fact that Ace can completely ignore the barrels when he chooses makes me believe he can, eventually, consistently do exactly the same with the letters on the dressage arena when he has the pressure of having to do set movements exactly when he is told to. Certainly I feel it's too early to give up and that there are a few more hoops to jump through first.
He is lucky though, that he is so good looking, so sweet to handle, so talented when he works well and that I have calmed down in my old age. A decade ago he'd have been out on his ear!
C
Hey, all my horses do Grand Prix at home! (We do pretend piaffe and passage, and sometimes real tempi.) *G*
ReplyDeleteThere is a guy who runs clinics around here to despook your horse. He does the basic police horse training session. I still have to get to one to see it, but Stacie went and says the first thing he does is test a horse out to see what kind of brain he has--well, how he perceives the world. I want to take Chance sometime. I'd be afraid to take Tucker because he has inspired the coward in me and I can't sit his bucks the way I may have when I was younger.
Age mellows us emotionally, but it also reminds us of our fragility.
If you just think of those shows at walk trot as teaching him the arena is OK, then you'll be fine. Get the notion that it's beneath his training level. It's not. His training level is emotional baby. Remember too how long it took Jazz to somewhat settle his brain, and at times he looked farther away from the upper levels than Ace does now.
Dressage Anyhwere? I compete all the time in my own arena. Tucker's last score was over 90%!! *G*
But where did you drop the last 10% Jean- that was careless of you. VBWG
DeleteC
you do have letters in your arena, don't you Caroline? presuming you do, it surely can't be just the letters that he doesn't like
ReplyDeleteIt's stress related Claire, he hardly cares about the letters until the stresses build up too far. The final straw for him is having to do canter movements exactly on the markers.
DeleteLightbulb moment!!!!!!!!!!!
I had been making him work at home exactly to where I chose in advance and recently I haven't been doing that.
Thank you Claire:-)
C
:-)
ReplyDelete