Drat this rain, I haven't ridden since last weekend, and Tango is happy to maintain his out-of-shape fatness while I wait for the weather to clear up. Stinker. At least he has finally lost all the extra winter fluff and (minus his neglected mane and tail) is looking beautimous. I will see about getting some pictures over the weekend.
But we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. After several round pen rides, we got back into the ring on Saturday and for once I had time to work for a full hour. Because he was more hopped up than usual after having a few days off, I decided to forgo the canter section of our normal warm-up. But in retrospect, that might have helped to calm him down. I was getting a lot of the usual over-responsive silliness -- like jigging at simple suppling cues at the walk, or if I picked up the reins too quickly after a stretch break. Does anyone else's horse do this periodically, and if so, how do you deal?
I was also struggling to keep the tempo consistent at the rising trot, since he was in rushy-rushy forehand mode. My solution to this was to try rising trot along the long sides of the ring, and sitting trot along the short sides of the ring, to keep him more focused on MY tempo. This actually seemed to work pretty well. I also put him over some trot poles. Since we were sharing the ring with a lesson, the poles were a bit close for him, but this actually didn't bother me, since he needs to be more mindful of what he does with his feet anyway. After trying to jump the poles a couple times (lol), he actually did figure it out and went through calmly. Good horse.
My leg needs some work, so I am thinking about doing some no-stirrup and sitting trot work over the weekend. With the exception of Saturday, I haven't asked Tango for much sitting trot work lately, but since he's mildly out of shape it might be good for both of us to focus on it a bit more. Out of curiosity, what place does sitting trot have in your workouts?
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Boy - do I have a horse that likes to do that ANNOYING jig when you pick up the reins. That used to be Skate's favorite way of pissing me off. It was all I could do to keep my temper after he did it for the 4 trillionth time in one ride. Ha. My instructor said to think of it as Skate trying to be a good boy by doing what he thought I wanted him to do (trot), but I know he was just trying to make me mad. Just kidding, just kidding, I know he wasn't really!
Anyway, lots of things to remember - make sure you're not changing anything about your position when you pick up the reins. Keep your seat walking (much harder to do than I ever thought), don't tense legs, etc etc etc. You may be cueing him in some other way. When you pick up the reins, pick up outside contact, first.
Also,once you're absolutely certain its not something you're doing (and you'll probably never really be sure, ha), don't always trot after picking up contact. Pick it up and walk for 10 minutes. Pick it up and drop it. Pick it up and work on bending, circling, whatever. Confuse the crap out of him so he quits thinking he's smarter than you!
When all else fails, do a tiny circle every time he jigs. My instructor does not like this option as she says I've been working on getting him nice and straight and then I bend the hell out of him and screw up all my work. But, barring all else, once my last nerve has been frazzled, this does work. Horses hate tiny circles : ) Last resort, though.
Luckily jigging is NOT typically one of Pro's 9 million evasion techniques. He will sometimes start jigging if we're asking something demanding at the walk and he's not sure of what to do, but Gayle also said that it's just him trying to figure out what we want.
If you do the tiny circles, work on making him stay straight on the circle (bent correctly) rather than just whipping him around. That way it's even MORE work ;).
We don't really do any sitting trot on Pro right now, because we're working really hard to get him to use his back correctly and I imagine that's easier without us bouncing on it. When we were doing some I'd usually do two laps of posting trot for every one of sitting. But if you're trying to get him listening to YOUR tempo, maybe try doing like 5 strides posting, 3 strides sitting, 5 strides posting, etc? Similar to what a lot of people use to get better accuracy between gaits. Just keep it short so he doesn't have time to get really strung out?
I don't think I have much to add to Gabby's and Andrea's suggestions about the jigging, they are really good. You are right, also, that cantering may have helped.
I haven't been doing sitting trot with Jay either, because he needs to be using his back correctly and building strength and topline. I feel like we are so far from that, especially given this extended riding break. I feel like the horse needs to be strong to support the rider in sitting trot, so its something I generally don't do until the horse's strength is improving.
Great suggestions for the jigging, Ellen and Andrea :) Glad to know I'm not the only one with a horse who does this. It can be so hard to really get a grip on all the ways you could be inadvertently cueing the horse.
Andrea and Christie: you both raise a good point about back strength. Actually, I have the same misgiving about doing too much sitting trot, and it's exactly why I hadn't been doing much in the way of it with T, other than a few strides here and there as a tempo-control tool, or for transition work.
But having been out of lessons for a while (and really starting to feel it), I wasn't sure if this was something I needed to be focusing on or not. I think (especially given my distinct lack of a trainer) that I will probably not increase the amount of sitting trot in our rides any time soon -- thanks for the feedback!
Oh, wait - I forgot to comment on the sitting trot thing. I'm JUST getting to the point where I work on sitting trot w/ Skate. I started off with only posting, to get him moving and using his back, progressed to sitting 'trot', which was really a jog, and am just now getting to his working trot. It was really all about waiting for him to strengthen his back and learn to use his butt - if he's not using his butt, its nearly impossible to sit.
Yep, that's exactly where we are with Pro (well, a little bit behind Gabby and Skate). Once we started working on getting him to come up and through with his back we got told no sitting trot. I wouldn't feel bad about doing it for short periods if you'd like.
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