October 2, 2010 - Introducing longeing

Rory learns to walk in a circle around me without coming
closer to me as he goes around

Today I brought Rory in, put him on the crossties and treated him like I would the brat.  I went to get his grooming kit, then later to get his bridle, the saddle blanket and surcingle, and then again  to get his boots.  I groomed him, picked out his feet and pulled the crossties out of his mouth.  He was a little suspicious of the saddle blanket (it’s been a while since I put it on him) so I did the rub all over with folded up blanket, repeating with less folded blanket until he was okay with it.  After that the surcingle was no big deal.  He didn’t mind me doing up the surcingle’s girth around his belly either.  I put his boots on, then his bridle and nylon halter over top.  The halter seemed tight and I had to let the crown out a hole.

I had in mind to teach him about turning with “rein” pressure (on the halter, not bit) today, but when we went out to the arena it had stuff for tonight’s barn party in a couple of corners.  The big back door and one side door were open too which was a little distracting.  I started just with “touch” going up to the piles of picnic tables, then to the flatbed trailer that does duty as a band stand.  He was quick to touch the tables, and a little slower to touch the trailer, but he did it and got his carrot chunk.

We did some review of walking and halting, backing, turning and such before I went and got a short longe whip out of the corner.  I’d wanted a dressage whip, but there wasn’t one there, and I thought the longe whip would suffice if I wrapped the lash around the stick.  Then we started to introduce the idea of longeing.  He only got about 3-4’ of lead rope away from me, and I walked a smaller circle inside his.  He got the idea of going forward without being led, and going out on the circle rather than cutting in towards me.  Carrot chunks helped him figure out when he was doing the right thing.  We did a little bit both ways, then I put the whip back and picked up his piles after the BO came in with the tractor.   A friend popped in and I got her to take some photos while Rory showed off his longe lesson and some trotting in hand. 



Trotting in hand



We did a bit of walking around, visiting people, and finished with a walk round the track before going back to the barn.  Rory was pretty good going around the track except for one attempt at breaking away back for the barn.  He kicked out in my direction again when he spun away, but fortunately was far enough away that it wasn’t even close to hitting me.  I was focused on stopping him and not in any position to reprimand it specifically.  He did stop, and got a little back up, turn, move your bum away work before we continued on.  We stopped for a minute to see three horses that came up to the fence, and after that he stopped trying to trot and was more willing to just walk actively.