July 14, 2011 - Whoo hoo!

I cantered Rory three times today!  Twice I actually asked for canter!  I had two friends out to watch, so one ran the camera and the other held Totyo in his paddock to prevent him running around and getting Rory excited - or repeating last week's episode.

This week we started in the sand ring and longed for a few minutes each way.  Rory was very good and managed a couple of short canters on the right rein.  In looking at the pictures of him on the longe the thing that struck me was the sheer height above the ground he is in the suspension phase of the trot when he's going forward well.  Rory is definitely not dragging his toes!

After the longeing I ran through the mounting exercises very quickly, mounting a couple of times from each side.  Rory was keeping his eyes on Joey for the most part, but pointed an ear back at me to let me know he was also paying attention to what I was doing.  He stood still and waited for me to ask him to walk on.  For the first couple of minutes Rory had a small hump in his back, but he let it go after a halt.  Then he got a bit sticky and kept slowing down and trying to halt.  I persisted and got a reasonable walk, but when I wanted him to trot things got worse.  I did get him to trot a couple of times, but he wouldn't sustain it and kept falling back into walk and trying to halt again.  I asked my friend with the camera to go back to the barn and grab my dressage whip for me.  I'd intended to bring it out, but forgotten.  While she was gone I did convince Rory to trot all the way around the ring, but it wasn't a very forward trot. 

Once I had the whip I showed it to Rory and rubbed his right side, touching neck shoulder, belly, flank, hindquarter and hind leg before switching it to the left side and repeating the process.  He was okay with it on the right, but stepped away once when it touched his flank on the left side, then settled and accepted it's presence.  With the introduction out of the way I asked him to walk on and backed up my leg with a very light tap of the whip on his hip.  Rory responded well and I was able to touch him and get him going forward again whenever he started to slow down.  I praised him and gave him little rubs when he went forward.

Whoa Rory!

After some good trot around, and changes of rein I started thinking about trying a canter.  Rory must have been reading my mind because he jumped into canter before I was anywhere near asking and just about bolted down the ring.  We were on the right rein, he picked up the left lead canter and with the pile of sand in the corner to our right I decided to pull him up rather than try a turn and risk him stumbling up the sand pile.  He stopped just short of the fence, then calmly turned and proceeded to walk and trot on request.  Since he'd chosen the left lead for his first canter I changed the rein, trotted around the ring and asked him to go forward in canter as we were headed back towards the barn.   Rory was a little uncertain of what I wanted, but he picked up the left lead canter!  It didn't last very long, but I praised him and gave him lots of rubs and a bit of carrot before heading off to try again.





Good boy!!


This time he picked up the canter about two thirds of the way down the long side and kept it (with a little encouragement) around the short side of the ring.  When he broke to trot I asked for a walk, then halt and jumped off to give him a handful of carrot chunks.  We'd reached our fifteen minutes at the end of the previous canter, but I did want to try again and when he was successful it was a great place to end the ride.  I am so pleased with him and just thrilled to have had our first canter under saddle go so well.  Rory quite well balanced at the canter.  I think his slowing down was largely due to being uncertain that he really was doing what I wanted.

Thanks to my friends for the pics and video, and for keeping Totyo occupied!