A chilled Filly

Monday 25 November 2013

An unfortunate incident and an important lesson

A few days ago I was preparing Filly to be ridden in the outdoor school. I do a prepare to ride every time. It was going pretty well but she was a bit spooked by a guy who was loading stuff in a van next to the school. I just took note of this and worked with rather than around the problem.
We had got to the point of saddling up and the saddle was on her back the man lifted a long step ladder off the roof of the van. He was stood the other side of the van where she could not see him and from her point of view this ladder just floated up into the air. Big spook. But the saddle was not done up so as she spooked she felt it move and bucked. This made it move more so she bucked until it came off, then stood there snorting.
Great. She has now learned to buck something off her back, not something I ever wanted her to learn.
So back to the colt start plan "accept the saddle" section. Having got the saddle on her I went about getting her confident with it again. I sent her out on a circle and she did a fair few little bucks. When I moved her up into canter she was doing an odd gait where the front legs cantered, but the hind legs stayed next to each other so that every stride was a little buck. Fortunately there was a little jump (and I mean little) set up in the school already. As the jump is the same gait as the buck I sent her over the jump to put her bucks to use. This made her think about her gait a little more.
After a while I could see the gait getting more regular and her ears stopped flicking back to the saddle and showed more interest in "looking forwards. The jump helped with the forward thinking as well of course.
Once she was forward thinking then she had a short rest before testing it out again on the other rein. It took very little time to get her forward thinking and so we just continued with a normal prepare to ride session. My current emphasis is sideways with impulsion at trot.
The following ride was quite normal and good fun. No bucks, just a normal ride.

Thank-you James for teaching me to always prepare to ride, what to look for when preparing to ride, how to get a horse confident with a saddle and recognising that confidence.
The anniversary of James death has just passed but he still lives with me everyday and he is still teaching me to be a better horseman. Surely that is the mark of a great teacher.
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