Lovely session playing with horse last night. We both went down and I played with Filly whilst Ritchie did a prepare to ride with Bonitao.
The session with Filly was mostly about the circling game again. She is improving quickly. We are mainly working on her "maintain direction" responsibility. But at an advanced level.
It's not about her keeping going at trot in a clockwise direction but about it being a nice smooth circle. She has a tendency to do ovals rather than circles keeping to close when away from the gate and pulling when close to the gate. Her idea is to get into a nice warm stable full of hay and I can't blame her. However she has responsibilities to uphold when she is circling and it is my job to gently coach her into upholding them.
If she pulls away on the halter that means she is pulling into pressure which is not a good thing for a horse that is ridden in a bosal. There are several ways to correct this behaviour. Meet the pull with an ounce more pressure to move her head back onto the circle is one but might mean she pulls harder. Driving the hind quarters out onto the circle is another and this also creates a better arc in her body that conforms to the circumference of the circle. Sometimes it is the shoulder that is pushed in with the neck out, then she is in counter arc which is really bad. So correcting this tendency to pull out on the circle is a fine balancing act of applying pressure to the zone that is causing the problem. It is not just about pulling on the head.
Where she come in too close the job is much easier. I just wave the stick and string around in a friendly game attitude. If she stays on the circle it can't touch her, if she comes in it can. It's her choice.
Once we had established some nice circles is was time to give into her desire for a warm stable and lots of hay.
I returned to the ménage to find Ritchie riding Bonitao. He's going really well at the moment. The bosal is helping us communicate the idea of collection to him very well. Ritchie was working on shoulder in when I got there. He tends to travel around the school with his haunches in so that he is not travelling very straight. To help correct that we are over correcting him at the moment.
Once Ritchie had finished riding it was my turn, just for a few minutes. I started by making sure that all my leg signals for turning were working well and also that he would stop on my body position. I felt so happy with this that I decided to take the bosal off and just ride with a string tied around the base of his neck. The string is only there so that if he looses mental connection with me I can get it back easily.
It was the first time I had ridden Bonitao bridleless, though I had done it often on Filly. But he was a complete star. We even managed sideways over a jump wing and sideways over a pole on the ground. His direct and indirect "rein" were great proving they really come of the legs and body position not the reins.
It was great feeling of freedom to be riding without reins again. I look forward to doing it often in the future
The session with Filly was mostly about the circling game again. She is improving quickly. We are mainly working on her "maintain direction" responsibility. But at an advanced level.
It's not about her keeping going at trot in a clockwise direction but about it being a nice smooth circle. She has a tendency to do ovals rather than circles keeping to close when away from the gate and pulling when close to the gate. Her idea is to get into a nice warm stable full of hay and I can't blame her. However she has responsibilities to uphold when she is circling and it is my job to gently coach her into upholding them.
If she pulls away on the halter that means she is pulling into pressure which is not a good thing for a horse that is ridden in a bosal. There are several ways to correct this behaviour. Meet the pull with an ounce more pressure to move her head back onto the circle is one but might mean she pulls harder. Driving the hind quarters out onto the circle is another and this also creates a better arc in her body that conforms to the circumference of the circle. Sometimes it is the shoulder that is pushed in with the neck out, then she is in counter arc which is really bad. So correcting this tendency to pull out on the circle is a fine balancing act of applying pressure to the zone that is causing the problem. It is not just about pulling on the head.
Where she come in too close the job is much easier. I just wave the stick and string around in a friendly game attitude. If she stays on the circle it can't touch her, if she comes in it can. It's her choice.
Once we had established some nice circles is was time to give into her desire for a warm stable and lots of hay.
I returned to the ménage to find Ritchie riding Bonitao. He's going really well at the moment. The bosal is helping us communicate the idea of collection to him very well. Ritchie was working on shoulder in when I got there. He tends to travel around the school with his haunches in so that he is not travelling very straight. To help correct that we are over correcting him at the moment.
Once Ritchie had finished riding it was my turn, just for a few minutes. I started by making sure that all my leg signals for turning were working well and also that he would stop on my body position. I felt so happy with this that I decided to take the bosal off and just ride with a string tied around the base of his neck. The string is only there so that if he looses mental connection with me I can get it back easily.
It was the first time I had ridden Bonitao bridleless, though I had done it often on Filly. But he was a complete star. We even managed sideways over a jump wing and sideways over a pole on the ground. His direct and indirect "rein" were great proving they really come of the legs and body position not the reins.
It was great feeling of freedom to be riding without reins again. I look forward to doing it often in the future
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