May 12, 2011 - Go, turn, and stop

I invited a couple of friends who know Rory to come and see how he was doing today - which gave me a chance to get on him again.  One of my firends operated the camera for me so we have real pictures and decent video from today's session.

We stared with the usual longeing.  Rory was very good and showed off his walk, trot, trot up, out and whoa mastery.

There's something about this picture that I just like.

After the longeing came the usual run through of standing still while I pulled on his saddle and jumped on and off the mounting block.  Then lying over the saddle and patting his other side, and finally mounting up and hopping off.  Rory stood patiently and happily collected his pieces of carrot.

I tied the leadrope to each side of his halter today instead of just the ring under his chin, so when I was ready to ask him to walk away I'd have some steering ability.  Before asking him to walk I sat for a minute, shifted in the saddle, and then eventually picked up the rope reins.  Rory walked off easily, turned when I asked and was a little slow to whoa.  He didn't have the hump in his back that he'd had last week when we walked for the first time.  I hopped off and gave him his carrot, then took him back to the mounting block and climbed up again.

I rode around for a couple of minutes, halting a couple of times, and turning in each direction.  Rory was quite happy to keep walking and didn't need very much leg aid to go forward.  He got distracted by something he could see out the back door and had a tiny little spook which meant he turned a little quicker in the direction I was asking him to go, but he stayed at the walk.  My friend shot video of this part of the session.

Rory was a little resistent to turning with the rope reins and I decided to try the real reins.  I have already taught him to turn with bit pressure, so it wasn't really anything new for Rory.  My friend went back to pictures for this part.  I held the rope with the regular rein in one hand and turned with the other rein, switching the rope to my other hand when I wanted to turn the other way.  Rory responded very well to the reins and I rode a couple of figure eights, and went on a bigger circle around part of the arena.  His whoas were still a little slow - that's something we need to practice on the ground so I can be quick to reward him - but I think were easier than when I used the rope reins.  By the end of that ride I let the rope lie on his neck and just held the regular reins.  I was super happy with Rory's calm acceptance of the whole procedure.  I didn't want to dismount, but I don't want to overdo it either.

Turn the head and keep the feet following just like I
practiced when I was on the ground beside him

"What's next?"

A little loving for a good boy!