Cold day today. It took some fortitude to go to the stable! Not like the cold in the USA, but a damp cold. Still, horses still need training whatever the weather and so we arrived at the yard around 3:30pm. Started with Billy today as Filly gets fed at around 4:30pm. For around an hour before that she gets pushy and excited, not a good frame of mind for learning. It's a shame that all the horses get fed around the same time everyday as it develops and expectation in them and lots of stress. However on a large livery yard doing it any other way would be too difficult to organise so the trick is to be savvy enough to realise that there is a potential problem and work around it.
Billy is not that worried about dinner time so can be worked during the feeding frenzy. We started with all the usual games and then worked up to putting the bare back pad on again, but cinched a little tighter this time. We then played all the games again whilst I pretended that there was nothing on his back. The idea is for the pad to be as accepted as well as a rug is, and not to immediately associate it with being ridden. We also worked a bit on the hind quarter driving game, which was not up to speed. Once this was going well I started on hind quarter yield towards me. This is a very useful manoeuvre when using a mounting block. Rather than chasing the horse around the school with the block the horse is taught to approach and stand next to you when you are on the block. This has many advantages. The main one is that the horse is then used to standing still next to the block and so after mounting is more likely to remain still rather than immediately move off (a potentially very dangerous habit which many people let their horses develop). Hind quarter yield towards is achieved by lightly tapping the horse on the far hind quarter until the hind legs step towards you. Now Billy is kind of tall so this presents a few problems. To start I reached round his chest so that I could tap with the tip of the stick on his hind quarter. If he tried to move into the pressure then I increased the strength of the tapping, if he stood still then the taps were gentle, as soon as he even seemed to think of moving in the correct direction the tapping stopped instantly. Timing is of the essence.
Filly finished dinner and was in a mellow frame of mind. Time to work up to sitting on her again. This followed the usual formula and today included the fitting of the bare back pad. She was also made to move around with the pad on, finishing with the rope around manoeuvre to check that the neck flexion was working well in case it was required to stop on movement when mounted. Ritchie and I took it in turns to lie on her back for increasing lengths of time until she would stand still easily. We found during this exercise that it was actually easier bare back than with the pad. The pad was too sticky and prevented being able to smoothly slide on and off Filly. After removing it I again sat on her properly, but for a longer period this time. She did look a little unconfident, but did not move more than a few paces. I sat very quietly, trying hard not to squeeze with my knees, until her head lowered. Recognising a sign of relaxation and submission I rewarded this by quickly dismounting. A few more sessions of this and I hope that all signs of unconfidence will be gone. I know that this is very very slow progression by the standards of many, but this is the first horse I have trained and I am perfectly willing to take a very long time over it. As a reward, we finished off again with a session of Liberty which Filly loves so much. Another good day!