Two more rides on Billy, one very good, one .... challenging.
First the good one.
This was two evening ago. I arrived at the yard and waited for the outdoor school to become free. When it was all the kit was taken out to the school followed by Billy. We ran through the normal plan and in the prepare to ride section I was particularly working on maintaining gait and transitions as we want to start trotting very soon. Transition walk to trot is very easy, but getting him to go trot to walk is way more difficult. If I have asked for the transition to trot I go very slowly through the phases to get the walk again, but this still often arrives at a good deal of commotion in phase 3. If however he breaks the walk gait and trots without my asking then I go straight to phase 2/3 matching the energy he has broken gait with. This was getting results, but then another rider came in to do some jumping. Two jumps were set up and she then cantered around the outside of the school (with the odd spook in one corner). This was fine by me as it gave me the opportunity to make sure Billy was listening to me, not the other horse. However the rider was upset by my "rope wriggling" and it became obvious that I had to leave.
We moved into the indoor school and after a few minutes of preparation work in this new environment I mounted. The ride was brilliant. Follow the rail was a breeze with very few stops. As a result there is very little to report. Even the indirect rein was much better especially so if I was very light on the rein and concentrated on body position and leg aids.
Ride two.
As I suggested at the beginning this was not nearly as good. Again there were riders outdoors and so I went to the indoor school, confident that after the previous ride in there all would be well. Again preparation went pretty well, transitions a tad easier. At the risk of showing a loss of focus I should mention that as I mounted the sun was setting and shining full on into the school through wooden slatting. As soon as I mounted it became obvious that Billy was not at all happy to move towards the setting sun, which to be fair was blinding. Lateral flexions were however very good so I was confident I could stop him if required. Asking for walk the rail towards the sun resulted in lots of little bucks and stamping of the front feet in a real tantrum. I tried this for around 10 minutes but it was obvious that we were not going to go towards the sun without putting a huge amount of pressure on him which I did not wish to do.
I was now in a difficult spot. I did not want to get off until I could get him left brain confident again, but was also confined to a small section of the school. Fortunately I had a couple of cones there and so set about utilising them. After just walking back and forward in the shady end for a while I started doing small circles around one of the cones. This is a pattern he knows well on the ground so after around 4 or 5 laps I could feel him relax and soften. There being two cones I then centred the circle on the second one which was closer to the sun. A few laps of unconfident behaviour and then he was fine again. To keep things progressing and interesting I then moved to figure of 8 pattern around the cones. Of course this meant a short straight line towards the sun with more confidence issues. Once he realised I was not going to push him past his threshold (about half way down the school) he softened yet again. We also did some more practise with the 9 step backup, which is getting very good, and indirect rein with which I achieved a full turn for the first time with no biting on his part.
Upon dismounting I removed the saddle and gave him a quick rub, but this was not lesson over. I needed to get his confidence at the spooky end so we did several laps of zone 3 driving which revealed the problem yet again. Zone 3 driving was continued until we got three nice follow the rail circuits on each rein.
I should have done this before riding of course, but made a mistake by not doing so. Then again as Mark Rashid says "it is only really a mistake if you don't learn from it".
First the good one.
This was two evening ago. I arrived at the yard and waited for the outdoor school to become free. When it was all the kit was taken out to the school followed by Billy. We ran through the normal plan and in the prepare to ride section I was particularly working on maintaining gait and transitions as we want to start trotting very soon. Transition walk to trot is very easy, but getting him to go trot to walk is way more difficult. If I have asked for the transition to trot I go very slowly through the phases to get the walk again, but this still often arrives at a good deal of commotion in phase 3. If however he breaks the walk gait and trots without my asking then I go straight to phase 2/3 matching the energy he has broken gait with. This was getting results, but then another rider came in to do some jumping. Two jumps were set up and she then cantered around the outside of the school (with the odd spook in one corner). This was fine by me as it gave me the opportunity to make sure Billy was listening to me, not the other horse. However the rider was upset by my "rope wriggling" and it became obvious that I had to leave.
We moved into the indoor school and after a few minutes of preparation work in this new environment I mounted. The ride was brilliant. Follow the rail was a breeze with very few stops. As a result there is very little to report. Even the indirect rein was much better especially so if I was very light on the rein and concentrated on body position and leg aids.
Ride two.
As I suggested at the beginning this was not nearly as good. Again there were riders outdoors and so I went to the indoor school, confident that after the previous ride in there all would be well. Again preparation went pretty well, transitions a tad easier. At the risk of showing a loss of focus I should mention that as I mounted the sun was setting and shining full on into the school through wooden slatting. As soon as I mounted it became obvious that Billy was not at all happy to move towards the setting sun, which to be fair was blinding. Lateral flexions were however very good so I was confident I could stop him if required. Asking for walk the rail towards the sun resulted in lots of little bucks and stamping of the front feet in a real tantrum. I tried this for around 10 minutes but it was obvious that we were not going to go towards the sun without putting a huge amount of pressure on him which I did not wish to do.
I was now in a difficult spot. I did not want to get off until I could get him left brain confident again, but was also confined to a small section of the school. Fortunately I had a couple of cones there and so set about utilising them. After just walking back and forward in the shady end for a while I started doing small circles around one of the cones. This is a pattern he knows well on the ground so after around 4 or 5 laps I could feel him relax and soften. There being two cones I then centred the circle on the second one which was closer to the sun. A few laps of unconfident behaviour and then he was fine again. To keep things progressing and interesting I then moved to figure of 8 pattern around the cones. Of course this meant a short straight line towards the sun with more confidence issues. Once he realised I was not going to push him past his threshold (about half way down the school) he softened yet again. We also did some more practise with the 9 step backup, which is getting very good, and indirect rein with which I achieved a full turn for the first time with no biting on his part.
Upon dismounting I removed the saddle and gave him a quick rub, but this was not lesson over. I needed to get his confidence at the spooky end so we did several laps of zone 3 driving which revealed the problem yet again. Zone 3 driving was continued until we got three nice follow the rail circuits on each rein.
I should have done this before riding of course, but made a mistake by not doing so. Then again as Mark Rashid says "it is only really a mistake if you don't learn from it".
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