May 28, 2011 - A very little attitude

Today's ride was significantly less succesful in some ways. Good in others.  The longeing went all right.  He did get distracted a few times by the activity outside the arena.  One of the other boarders returned from a hack, another was hand grazing, and the BO's son had a couple of friends over.  Rory put his head down, shook it and bounced a couple of times, but I sent him forward and he settled quickly.  I had put a plank down for him to trot over and he had a little trouble with it because it wasn't up against the wall where I usually put poles.  I ended up pushing it over to the wall.

I did some mounting practice on his right side to start.  From a training point of view it's good to work all exercises from both sides of the horse so he is comfortable with activity on both sides, but also it's better for the horse if we regularly mount from both sides.  Years ago I read that always mounting from the left pulls the horse's spine and withers out of alignment.  Switching back and forth helps to keep the horse more comfortable, as does mounting from a block.  I started alternating sides when mounting and don't feel quite so uncoordinated on the right any more - at least not when I mount from a block.

When I first got him to trot Rory put his head down and shook it back and forth and humped his back.  I brought him back to walk and continued. Another time he went forward, and faster and faster so I again brought him back to walk. Then he didn't want to trot and only managed very short jogs.  One time he got his back up and head down and I did a very small serpentine to defuse him. It was too many different aids too close together and he got worried and even more uptight so I quickly abandoned the serpentine and asked for a halt instead. In fairness there were a lot of distractions today and he did do what I asked.  We had a number of halts for him to look and think which left less time for riding exercises. The little shots of attitude were probably also a good thing because he still had to do what I wanted.   I was disappointed that we didn't get to build on his good trot work from our last ride, but a ride like that does serve as a reminder that he is just a baby and has a lot to learn.

I always have a good think after a not-so-good ride to try and figure out what went wrong and what I could have done differently, and then I make a plan for the next ride from there. It's just part of my MO. With Rory it's important to do because he is just learning, and I'm riding for such a very short period of time. His little attitude moments made me laugh more than anything else.  I could think of half a dozen things that I could have done better, and a couple of things that I might have been doing unconciously that I shouldn't have been doing.  But now I really want to get back on him and fix my mistakes. And I've got to wait until Tuesday at the earliest!!!