Cake & Pie

Today was marvelous. No, it was beyond marvelous. It was brilliant. Bloody brilliant.

Piece of cake? You bet.

Easy as pie? Indeed.

It's amazing how a touch of sickness can bring down my energy level enough to calm a hot headed, sensitive mare. Now if only I could maintain that level of energy (which was nearly zilch this weekend...I spent most of Saturday in bed) I'd like to think it had nothing to do with my health, and more to do with the fact that having a bit of fun and setting simple and attainable goals for each session is actually a good strategy for bonding with this horse.

And Stella even got to do her favorite thing: annoy and otherwise invade other people's space, as my friends discovered.

I began with a simple idea: "Hey, we haven't been up to the arena in nearly 3 months...let's go!" The plan was to put Stella on the lunge and do as many transitions as possible. Transitions provide the horse with an opportunity to do a few things: 1) think, which takes their mind off of otherwise unwanted things, 2) move, which is a natural release of stress, and 3) practice shifting weight, something they need to learn how to do properly to promote longevity and soundness. The more transitions you can add in a given ride, the better it will be for your horse.

So we transitioned. And transitioned, and did more transitions, and a few more. Stella was wonderful. No head shaking, no wandering eyes (I caught her a few times nervously showing the white of her eyes, but a gentle tug on the line got her attention back on me), and no explosive take-offs. Her up transitions were crisp and prompt and the down transitions (which I got just by breathing out) were smooth and relaxed. There was even canter, and as soon as she got quicker than I wanted, we went back to the trot for another try.

Then I decided to introduce a not-so-new new concept: untracking the hindquarters.

Some call this disengaging the hindquarters. However, there is one very big and very distinct difference: disengaging only requires the horse to move the hindquarters away from pressure by crossing one leg over and under the navel. Untracking the hindquarters introduces bend: by applying slight bend, you teach the horse to associate inside bend with bringing the inside hind further underneath the body. This is how every horse should respond to a light bend from the inside rein. They should essentially be asking "how far do you want me to bring this hind leg?"

So, I took hold of Stella's halter and asked her lightly to bend towards me. Her response at first was to brace her neck, so I held until she softened and then released to reward her. Then I asked again, this time tapping her haunch lightly with the whip. At first she wanted to go backwards, but I kept tapping until she crossed the inside hind under and over, then released. After a few tries she didn't need the whip: the slight bend was enough to get her to bring that leg under. Smart girl!

Then we quit and for her treat she got let loose to roll, mosy, sniff things, do whatever she wanted...instead, she followed me back to where my friends were, and stood there accepting pats and attention.

So what did we learn today...

I think way too much. What else is new. When one stops thinking and starts doing, thing just happen.