November 14, 2011 - Looking for better

Not every ride is exciting or holds some great leap forward.  Some days I just work on better.  Perfection doesn't exist in riding - even in dressage the top mark of ten means "excellent" rather than perfect.  When training a horse (or any animal) you can't expect to get the desired result performed correctly the first time round.  We have to shape the response we want and start with rewarding any try in the correct direction.  The pitfall is to accept that partial response as correct for too long, which leads to confusing the animal when we start to ask for better responses.  Better can mean a quicker response, or one with greater energy, or a more specific response - whatever it is we are looking for.  Rory's leg yield work is a good example.  In the beginning all I wanted was for him to cross his inside hind foot in front of the outside hind foot, but this is only part of the leg yield.  He also has to cross the front foot, maintain a straight line of travel, steady rhythm, consistent stride, and relaxed contact with the bit.  All of which is far too much to explain at once.

Today was a looking for better day.  I looked for better transitions, steadier rhythm, a little more reach to the bit, a little softer yield to the turning rein, a few more steps of leg yield, and so on.  These sorts of rides make up the bulk of training a horse and have their own little rewards for the ride when the horse gives that little bit better response.

Rory tended to fall to the inside between E and K as we came down the long side in trot.  To correct this I brought him back to the walk and leg yielded back out towards the wall before picking up the trot again.  Each time we came down that long side I used the leg yield aids at the trot to keep him out, and if he didn't respond I repeated the transition to walk, leg yield out, and back to trot.  After a couple of repetitions he began to stay out for longer before falling to the inside, as he started responding to the leg yield aids at the trot.  I wasn't leg yielding at the trot, but the same aids can be used to stop a horse from falling in.

We didn't just go around the arena to work on the falling in issue, it was just something I paid attention to each time we went through that corner.  I also used circles, serpentines and changes of rein to practice getting Rory going exactly where I wanted him to go.  At the end we had a little canter.  Rory was a little slow in the transition, but gave me a nice canter once we got there.  Afterwards I rode him around on the grass outside to cool out.  He likes to get out of the arena so the walk is a little bit of a reward on it's own.