July 28, 2011 - Ground rails

Totyo and the old guy were up in the shelter when I brought Rory out to the sand ring today.  He was looking for them a little, but still listening to me as we did the quick longe exercises.  The other two horses appeared as Rory was trotting round on the second rein and he got a little forward.  I had to bring the circle smaller to remind Rory to keep his attention on me and after that he was very good.









I mounted from his right today, doing a quick on and off to check the stand still training.  We headed off around the ring and walked three circles that were quite recognizably circles.  I had set up two ground rails nine feet apart and offset so that we could go over either pole, or both depending on the line of travel and I walked him over them before moving to trot.  Having the ground poles out showed me that Rory is still a little wobbly on his line of travel.  The first time we headed for a pole Rory was busy watching Totyo at the water trough.  He didn't hit the pole, but he realized it was there at the last moment and wobbled even more.  The next time went better.  We trotted over the other pole before trying to go over both.



Trot over two rails even if not quite straight

  Rory managed to drift off to the left just far enough to barely miss the first pole the first time, but made it over both the second.  The rhythm of his trot got a bit uneven as he tried to work out where his feet needed to be.  I've had him trot poles on the longe so it wasn't too hard once he started paying attention.  After a little canter I changed rein and asked one of my friends to push one of the poles over so they were lined up evenly.  That made our approach a bit easier as I didn't have to worry about missing poles through last moment wobbles. Rory was very relaxed as he trotted over the poles even the first times when he was trying to figure things out.


At the end of the ride I asked my friend to push one pole right over by the fence so we could try cantering over it.  Rory was great!  The pole didn't bother him at all as he tried to figure out how to handle it.  The first time he almost got over the pole in the suspension phase of the canter, but caught a hind toe on the pole and had to put it down a little earlier than he'd planned, but didn't get concerned about it.  The next time he arrived at the right place and just stretched his stride a bit to get over the pole.  When I watched the video clip I was astonished at just how far he steps under himself.

Red arrow shows just how far Rory steps up under himself