E-hab

I am happy to report that Ernie is doing better, and his 2 week mental breakdown seems to finally be on the road to recovery. We had a fantastic lesson on Tuesday, and I rode him today without any major issues or blow-ups. We even cantered...and it was controlled! Not like the flat out sprint of ye ol' racing days.

I had a bit of a mental breakdown myself...earlier this week I was considering retiring him from ring work. I've been through serious training issues with this horse before, but I've never had him blatantly refuse to do ANYTHING that requires any sort of physical balance or athleticism. But whatever this was, it had me in a serious funk, enough to consider finally ending his riding career and allowing him to just enjoy life as a pasture ornament. However, I know he WOULDN'T enjoy life as a pasture ornament; he needs to be needed and wanted and loved, even if he's cranky when he receives said love.

In my lesson on Tuesday, Lori (trainer) and I had an interesting conversation about his behavior. She was the one who was very firm about the fact that he was upping the ante on me, and challenging me to see if I was going to let him continue to swim through life like he had enjoyed doing for the past several years. We came up with a new/similar theory: Lori said that the time she had witness him being dumb, it never once looked like he was actually trying to dump me. He'd throw in a buck or a kick, but he never reared, he only dragged me against walls and acted generally obnoxious and nasty. The new thesis was now not that he couldn't do the work being asked, but he was going to see if he could intimidate me enough that I would stop asking the question. In the past, it's worked, but only because I was never a strong enough rider to deal with a hot horse like him. We worked well when he was calm(ish), but when he got into his head, I didn't know what to do. Now, this stuff doesn't phase me physically, but he did have me scared, if only because I very nearly ended up being stuffed into a tractor during one episode, and the thought of (yet ANOTHER) major concussion scared the living **** out of me.

But, we've been working through it. I call it E-hab, short for Ernie's rehab. Here's what we do:

1. Ask the question, "can you go forward?" This is a simple yes or no. It's the tool I've been using to try and get him to think about what he's doing and like it more, instead of thinking "backwards" every time he gets uncomfortable or wants to say "no". Since his escape is to back up or go sideways, the first question is always "can you go forward?"

2. If that works (and for a few rides, we've stopped at that. Some nice, big trot and transitions between "big trot" and working trot and we're done) then the next question becomes "can you go forward, and stay on the bit?". At first, I didn't care what his headset was. I didn't care if he was using his back, if he was through, or if he was tracking up. I just wanted big and forward. When we accomplished that, I wanted a little more. So the new game became "how long can we go big and still stay round?"

3. If that's a success, the last question is "can you go multiple directions and still go forward?". We're still having some difficulty with this one; it's essentially asking him to do BIG spiral in's and spiral out's on a 20 m circle, trot half-passes from the quarter line to the wall, shoulder's in, etc. He doesn't so much like this question yes, but we're working on it.

There was no need to Doctor's Drew or Phil on this one. Just some time, a LOT of patience, and a few Prozac. :)