Back to basics
I was working with Cash this evening, helping him to figure out back-up under saddle. He's doing so great now- we're approaching the point where the main thing he will need is just miles on the clock.
But it got me thinking about teaching back-up and it's kind of a microcosm of where I'm at with my horsemanship in general. There are several components to a good back-up - it needs to be relaxed, the horse's head needs to be low with the shoulders lifted, the movement needs to come from the hind feet so the horse is pulling themselves back rather than pushing with their front legs and the movement needs to be free and smooth.
With a baby like Cash I am constantly finding the balance point between the different things he needs, trying to do enough to keep everything clear and enough nuance in the signal I'm offering him that he can recognise every backward step as being the right response to this cue, but I still have headroom to ask him to do it in a more correct way, without pushing on the bit and dropping his shoulders. If there is too much pressure on the rein he's either going to feel constricted and get scared or he's going to learn to pull on me so I have to make sure that I am doing enough to provide signal, but not so much that he feels pulled on and then be ready to change things if he tries to run through the cues. If I'm going to do that it needs to happen in a way that doesn't conflict with what I'm trying to help him to figure out, ideally by giving him the impression that he has run into his own pressure rather than it being something I am actively doing.
Meanwhile I also have to be noticing the changes of mind, when possible, or body and rewarding them with a break and thinking time so he is able to process what is going on. And there is no benefit in drilling on this and letting him jam up- once we have got something a little bit right we go back to some more forward work so he doesn't get his feet and mind all stuck.
I make allowances for where we are at, but I am still very aware of what I am asking for and exacting in my expectations of him. There is no point teaching him something now that I will need him to unlearn later, so sometimes I will hang in there when it might look as though things are alright because I know that we can be more correct very easily and that settling for less will help neither of us in the long run.
Today we got half a step of calm, relaxed back-up with his head low and his poll relaxed. I stopped the session on that.
But it got me thinking about teaching back-up and it's kind of a microcosm of where I'm at with my horsemanship in general. There are several components to a good back-up - it needs to be relaxed, the horse's head needs to be low with the shoulders lifted, the movement needs to come from the hind feet so the horse is pulling themselves back rather than pushing with their front legs and the movement needs to be free and smooth.
With a baby like Cash I am constantly finding the balance point between the different things he needs, trying to do enough to keep everything clear and enough nuance in the signal I'm offering him that he can recognise every backward step as being the right response to this cue, but I still have headroom to ask him to do it in a more correct way, without pushing on the bit and dropping his shoulders. If there is too much pressure on the rein he's either going to feel constricted and get scared or he's going to learn to pull on me so I have to make sure that I am doing enough to provide signal, but not so much that he feels pulled on and then be ready to change things if he tries to run through the cues. If I'm going to do that it needs to happen in a way that doesn't conflict with what I'm trying to help him to figure out, ideally by giving him the impression that he has run into his own pressure rather than it being something I am actively doing.
Meanwhile I also have to be noticing the changes of mind, when possible, or body and rewarding them with a break and thinking time so he is able to process what is going on. And there is no benefit in drilling on this and letting him jam up- once we have got something a little bit right we go back to some more forward work so he doesn't get his feet and mind all stuck.
I make allowances for where we are at, but I am still very aware of what I am asking for and exacting in my expectations of him. There is no point teaching him something now that I will need him to unlearn later, so sometimes I will hang in there when it might look as though things are alright because I know that we can be more correct very easily and that settling for less will help neither of us in the long run.
Today we got half a step of calm, relaxed back-up with his head low and his poll relaxed. I stopped the session on that.