Gayle had said in my lesson on Friday that I should start riding with a whip again, just to get him used to it, but I started yesterday's ride without one. I figured I don't know...maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. It was clear after a few circles by "the bench" that we were going to have our typical post-lesson kind of ride where he really tests me since "that lady" isn't standing in the middle of the arena. ;) After a few circles of him ignoring my leg, I walked up to the barn, quietly picked up the whip, walked back, and remounted. I turned him toward the bench and Pro (clueless to the fact that I was now holding a whip) started to suck back and balk. Whomp! Not a HARD whack, just a firm "Excuse me, sir, you will go forward!" Hahaha, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He scooted forward, I re-gathered him into my outside rein, and we tried again. He still wanted to pick up his head, but there was no loss of forwardness this time.
After some improvement by the bench, I moved our 20m circle down the arena a little bit and worked on turning from the outside rein. Any whacks from the whip were lighter since he was now quite pissy about the whole ordeal. I didn't end up bridging my reins this ride (especially with the whip) but tried to remember what it felt like to bridge them. Actually because it was so hot, I just stayed at the walk for 30min, and that was our ride. But we worked on the walk pirouettes in making a square rather than a circle, and in chewing. And we had some foam! :) So I was pleased. Not as much as we had in the lesson, but he was still actively moving his jaw and making foam. Overall, not too bad!
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7 comments:
Awesome! Pro's actually pretty quiet about you just carrying the whip now (though I swapped to spurs since I brought mine back, so I haven't ridden with the whip in a couple weeks). I didn't ride today because of the heat, sleep deprivation, and having spent 4 1/2 hours in the car driving back from Columbia. Looking forward to the nice weather on Tuesday. (I know, I just jinxed us all).
Sounds like he learned a few things with the whip. I'm glad you both are getting more comfortable with it.
FEI here comes the "older" ;) Arab!!!!
congrats on making progress! your post has reminded me that I should start carrying a whip with huey again to get over his whip issues :)
sounds like a pretty good ride. Some horses do SO much better when the rider is carrying a whip, even if they never use it.
Don't you hate it when the ride after a lesson is just... challenging? It sounds like it ended up being pretty good, though.
Great Alex - just let me know in advance and we can arrange a meeting...hahaha :)
And by that I mean...early October sounds good. :)
Andrea - don't worry...I was lazy/tired and didn't ride Monday (esp with the heat) and I can tell the rain washed out your plans today...but tomorrow I will!!
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