Last night I got started on Andy later than I had wanted to. YAY for sunlight! I have a new horse in for consignment and I had to work him first. If anyone wants a registered QH that is SLOW let me know. HAHA
When I went out to catch Andy he came running up to me. When he first got here he would walk away and tolerate being caught but wasn't willing to go with me. I think he changed his mind after I brought him in during all the snow and ice. He has started watching me brush him and being more nosy. I'm glad to see his personality come out some. Once his bridle is on though.....he is all business.
I have decided to start a warm up procedure that will help keep him steady in the beginning. I'm not one of those that believes all horses need 20 minutes of warm up but I do want the blood flowing and their mind engaged so we can get to work.
I ride in split reins and I start with them crossed over his neck...one hanging on each side. This is how we warmed up the day before too. We do lots of teardrops, moving shoulders, ground poles, stops, etc just to get him ready. Today I kept "warming him up" after I knew he was ready to go. He doesn't get bad but he does start looking for cues instead of really waiting on them.
The day before when I was ready to get to work I slid the reins to one side only and got my hand more situated. Today when I did it I could feel him get ready. We started out with a nice jog. I would really like to get him to pick up a full trot but every time I post he half-halts on all the ups AND downs so it just slows him down more. HAHA We will work on this more.
Since he was looking for cues earlier I decided that we would ride patterns today. I started with figure 8s. I would jog one loop and then bring it down to a walk in the middle. Walk that loop and then jog/canter in the middle. The middle was my transition area and I did something every time. I would put some smaller collected circles and the top/bottom of the 8 periodically but other than that we rode the 8s. He was a little sticky on his left lead at first. He would prefer his right lead but once I corrected it the first time he was solid the rest of the ride. I kept waiting for him to get up or guess what the next gait was going to be at X but he never did. He would ride past it or switch early if I asked him to.
After this we worked on simple changes in serpentines. I could only get 3 good loops in the arena, we would bring it down to a jog and then grab the other lead. He was VERY balanced through this.
We were both sweaty and tired so after we cooled down and helped another rider we headed down to the barn. As soon as the bridle came off he started scratching his ears, I reached up to help and he jerked and froze like he had been caught doing something bad. I hosed him off and when I turned him back out I took his halter off and stood there for a few minutes and scratched his face and ears. He did the lip thing but didn't try to rub on me at all.
It was a great ride!
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4 comments:
Isn't daylight savings time great? :) The extra daylight is worth the loss of an hour of sleep. Andy sounds like a really intelligent horse who knows his job if he's anticipating cues - at least he wants to please! What a good boy he is - you definitely lucked out with finding this one.
Andy seems like he is working out well. yay for more time to ride in the evening!
Sounds like you two are making rapid progress together! He sounds like he's going to make a great clinic horse for you. It's really impressive that he didn't try to anticipate the transitions in the figure-8.
It sounds like Andy has a great work ethic, which will be awesome for a clinic horse. That sounds like a neat exercise, too. What a good boy!
I'm loving the time change, too.
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