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I don’t have a lot to say today. It is Halloween after all, so I have to get back to eating candy. I just want to say that Leo slid today for the first time. Everyone in the arena who saw cheered and his owner ran into the arena and hugged his horse. I want to say it was a ten foot slide, but it was really only about 2 feet….maybe a foot and a half.
The funny thing is that I didn’t even really know that it happened. I was just trying to show Jim how well Leo was doing with flexion at a canter. He was keeping his head nice and low and giving to the pressure of my hands. I went around a few times and knew he wanted to stop, so I just leaned back a teeeny weeeeny bit, said “Whoa,” and pulled lightly on the bit. They said he looked fantastic and really tucked his butt under. Continue Reading »

I was told by this very knowledgeable horse trainer (Les Vogt) that if a horse is dropping out of frame all of the time (like drastically dropping it’s shoulder in a canter all of the time), it is possible that the horse could have sore hocks. Les says that it can be hard for a horse to be that out of frame, and it could be pain that is causing the problem. I was told about an easy test you could do with your horse to see if it may have sore hocks. I won’t go into the “how” to do it. If you follow this link and watch, about half way through it you’ll see Les demonstrate how the hock test is done. Leo (horse), Jim (owner), and I (fledgling reiner) tried out the hock test first thing Saturday morning and Leo passed. Wheeeeew! So it turns out, that his lean is not the result of pain, but more the result of a faulty rider. Before we did the test though, I did a little online research and found out that sore hocks are not uncommon in the world of performance horses. This is a good article I found on the topic:

Sore hocks: To inject or not to inject? by Michael Scott, DVM

Les mentioned one more issue that could be causing the problem, so I skipped ahead in my training book a little and read about how to cue a horse in a canter. One of the things that I wasn’t doing in circles at a canter was using my inside leg. I was so preoccupied with everything else that I completely forgot about my legs. I tried it out today and yesterday and it works like a charm.

I ‘ve spend enough time trying to get these circles right that I’ve now identified our problem areas (or “challenges”):

Circles to the right: he loses his bend and gets straight.

At a walk: we’re pretty good there, but I notice that on the side of the arena that leads home, his outer shoulder (zone 2) breaks out of form and starts to head home. His neck stays plenty flexi though (ugh!). I use my outer leg and touch his neck with the outside rein to correct him. This works ok at a walk.

At a trot: he completely bursts out of the reins with his shoulder at the “spot that leads to home.” Since we’re going faster, he almost trots right out of the arena in shoulder first head still aimed toward the circle he’s supposed to be in, so I start really tapping him with that outside leg and pull on the outside rein. This causes him to straighten up because I’m forcing him to go back. With no bend I try to put him back and he cuts off part of the circle. It’s a mess. I think we’re making a pear, not a circle. Really really bad to the right.

At a canter: I try to keep him in a bend, but I notice he’s just pointing his nose in a lot of the time. He seems to get tired very quickly, so I have to keep urging him forward. But he’s not collecting. He’s sort of slamming down on his front end if that makes any sense. He’s getting better about the leaning, but is definitely not in a nice bend. I have to keep after him to keep him going in a circle, and he often tries to do his MadDog shoulder drop and cut hard to the inside.

Backing: he’s backing straight most of the time, but not with any real hustle. I’m not wearing spurs and wasn’t planning on it for awhile, not until I’m really “off” my legs while riding (Les says so). I’m not sure how to get him going any faster without. Maybe I shouldn’t be worried about faster right now though.

Yielding: he yields great with the slightest touch on my right, but from the left it requires some tapping with my left boot top to get him to respond.

Reins & Riding: I’m getting better with the reins and better about keeping weight off my legs. I see why it’s important to shorten the stirrups when riding that way. If you don’t use your legs much, your stirrups fall right off. I’ve also started to ride with my boots jammed into the stirrup all the way to the heel instead of riding on the balls of my feet like I was taught to way back when. It does make you feel more secure once you get used to it.

I had the best ride tonight. I just realized that Leo, the horse with anger management issues, no longer has anger management issues. It’s hard to believe that he’s the same horse. I’m not say he’s a trained reining horse. I know that we have a long way to go. In fact, we’re still pretty early in the Les Vogt program because I’ve been taking it really slow wanting to get each thing right before moving on. But the exercises that we’ve been doing (the circles, the flexion, more circles, testing the very beginnings of turn arounds, more circles) seem to have made something click in Leo’s head. He no longer refuses to go forward, or tosses his head up and down impatiently, or pins his ears back to warn me that he might just start bucking. He seems very very serious about his lessons now and completely engaged in what we’re doing (except for sometimes when we get to that one spot in the arena that leads home).

Honestly, I used to be very careful about asking him to too much for too long. His bad behavior would increase, and I knew he was very good at getting rid of riders. I just have no fear of him at all now. He’s pretty sure that I’m not going to hurt him and now I’m pretty sure he’s done thinkin’ he might have to hurt me. Tonight we worked for an hour and a half. He gave it his best effort and was so relaxed and (dare I say it?) sweet.

Areas we’ve improved: The circles in a canter. This time I focused on myself. I kept my eyes forward and focused on my balance and how I was sitting. Was I leaning on my legs at all? Was I catching myself leaning to the inside to double check that lead? I don’t know how that worked, but it seemed to work. He wasn’t dropping his shoulder and was going pretty steady. This was such a big difference. I even got a few compliments from some other riders who’ve noticed our improvement. Also, I think I’m finally getting the hang of those long reins.

This all has me feeling like I’m on the right track. I’m certain that if a professional trainer had Leo for the same amount of time, he’d be a lot further along. But the idea that he is improving because of my efforts has me feeling pretty hopeful and optimistic. We may not get there fast, but we’re going to get there.

I know Les says that you should let horses make mistakes because that’s how they learn, but what if they just keep making the same mistake? We’ve done so many circles, we might be permanently dizzy now. We’re great at a walk, good at a trot, but everything falls apart at a canter. Leo just wants to drop that inside shoulder and cut into that circle until we wind down to a stop.

I spend my time trying to correct Leo the only way I know how, which is to pull up on that inside rein, just so, so he has to straighten out. But it only lasts for a second. As soon as I release, he rushes right out from between those reins and heads for the center of the circle like we’re suddenly caught in an arena maelstrom. I think I need to really need to chant this Les Vogt quote a few times before I start every ride, “Remember that 90 percent of the time, a problem that a horse is giving you is just a reflection of your own riding, so work 90 percent on yourself and 10 percent on your horse.”

So really, this is all my doing. But what is it that I’m doing? Am I leaning to the inside? Am I tagging him with my outside leg and I don’t know it?

One of the tricks that Sandy Collier stressed in her DVD, “Bag of Magic Tricks,” is to work on convincing the horse that what HE wants to do is going to be a lot more effort than what YOU want him to do. I had heard before that if you have a horse that doesn’t want to slow down into an easy canter, but instead wants to race around, you let him race around until he wants to stop, and then make him race around some more. After a few lessons like that, theoretically, the horse will begin to think, “hey, I should just listen to what she wants me to do cause it’ll be way less effort on my part in the end.” Well, I’ve recently discovered that this technique can be applied to many ornery situations.

After about a half an hour’s work in the arena, Leo’s owner showed up to chat, so I asked Leo to whoa and hold still. But normally when “dad” gets home, it’s feeding time and Leo wanted to hit the road back to the barn. So, he began dancing to the left and dancing to the right, acting like he had ants in his pant (if he had pants). I asked him a few more times to whoa and then looked at Jim (the owner) and said, “well, lets just let him do what he wants to do.” We’ll try some Sandy magic. So I had him side pass to the left and then to the right and then to the left and then to the right and then once more to the left (I’ve never been on a horse that is that fast going sideways). Finally I asked him to whoa. And, like magic, he became the definition of “whoa,” the picture of “hold still.”

Nice trick. Les Vogt says that you don’t want things to become an argument. That’s what was so nice about it: there was no argument, just a short, logical, negotiation of sorts.