A week of good horsemanship - day 3
We spent most of today riding, which I think means that this is the most actual time I have spent on horseback since Zorro went lame in September 2011. Turns out riding is some kind of actual exercise! Who knew?
Today my goal was to work on relaxation, aiming to get Riley working more softly and with less tension in him. Helping a horse to lose their concerns by getting to a place where they can allow the human to direct their thought is a major aspect of the type of horsemanship Ross practices so this seemed a really good opportunity as far as I was concerned.
I am starting to get a better grasp on the idea of directing a horse's thought and what it means in practice- it is not always technically very different from a more typical "Natural Horsemanship" approach of driving a horse, but the underlying philosophy diverges in that you are never trying to send the horse away from something, you are trying to direct them to something. So when we work on the circle we don't send the horse forward, we direct them towards a point in front of them. If we put more energy in by tapping the rope on our leg or waving a hand or whatever, it's not to drive them it is simply to ask them to follow the direction we have already offered and to interrupt whatever ideas they have about what they would prefer to be doing.
We started out working on the basics- stop and go, steering and forequarter and hindquarter yields. On the ground I noticed that Riley was tending to lack smoothness in his upwards transitions, bouncing into trot and hollowing as he did so. Ross explained that he was holding back in the walk, so that he wasn't ready to move into the trot. He was a little concerned because he couldn't give in to the idea of going forward so he was making decisions about how much to hold back. If I could get him to a place where he was happy for me to make that decision, he would be able to make the transition more easily.
Riding I did some work on asking Riley to focus on what I was asking, taking my direction and being ready for a change. We did a bit of backing up where Ross suggested I give plenty of rein, then pick up a little to ask for back up. If the back-up didn't happen or was sticky I was to take up the rein more strongly for a moment then release it and ask again with the weight of the reins. The stronger take up didn't need to happen for long, just enough to get the horse thinking about the situation so the next time I presented that softer feel it would be easier to accept.
We also worked on his trot, which tends to be hollow, bouncy and uncomfortable. In this we began by getting him happy to walk with me at different speeds, so that there was no bump upwards into trot, but we could find a walk from which trot was an easier option. As we picked up the energy a little, Riley would tend to lose focus and so Ross had me using the inside rein to change his bend and direction until Riley was able to accept faster movement and we could get some cleaner transitions.
Riley's trot would tend to get faster and less comfortable as he got more concerned, so as I felt him hollowing it was my job to take up a little inside bend ( or a lot, as necessary ) and wait for him to offer to lower his head. When he wanted to drop through the inside shoulder I could lay the rein on his neck to help him to come back into balance. When he offered a little drop of his head I would just follow the rein down as he began to lower and stretch out his back. It was interesting work and although I didn't achieve the consistency one might be looking for, I did get some good changes.
Today my goal was to work on relaxation, aiming to get Riley working more softly and with less tension in him. Helping a horse to lose their concerns by getting to a place where they can allow the human to direct their thought is a major aspect of the type of horsemanship Ross practices so this seemed a really good opportunity as far as I was concerned.
I am starting to get a better grasp on the idea of directing a horse's thought and what it means in practice- it is not always technically very different from a more typical "Natural Horsemanship" approach of driving a horse, but the underlying philosophy diverges in that you are never trying to send the horse away from something, you are trying to direct them to something. So when we work on the circle we don't send the horse forward, we direct them towards a point in front of them. If we put more energy in by tapping the rope on our leg or waving a hand or whatever, it's not to drive them it is simply to ask them to follow the direction we have already offered and to interrupt whatever ideas they have about what they would prefer to be doing.
We started out working on the basics- stop and go, steering and forequarter and hindquarter yields. On the ground I noticed that Riley was tending to lack smoothness in his upwards transitions, bouncing into trot and hollowing as he did so. Ross explained that he was holding back in the walk, so that he wasn't ready to move into the trot. He was a little concerned because he couldn't give in to the idea of going forward so he was making decisions about how much to hold back. If I could get him to a place where he was happy for me to make that decision, he would be able to make the transition more easily.
Riding I did some work on asking Riley to focus on what I was asking, taking my direction and being ready for a change. We did a bit of backing up where Ross suggested I give plenty of rein, then pick up a little to ask for back up. If the back-up didn't happen or was sticky I was to take up the rein more strongly for a moment then release it and ask again with the weight of the reins. The stronger take up didn't need to happen for long, just enough to get the horse thinking about the situation so the next time I presented that softer feel it would be easier to accept.
We also worked on his trot, which tends to be hollow, bouncy and uncomfortable. In this we began by getting him happy to walk with me at different speeds, so that there was no bump upwards into trot, but we could find a walk from which trot was an easier option. As we picked up the energy a little, Riley would tend to lose focus and so Ross had me using the inside rein to change his bend and direction until Riley was able to accept faster movement and we could get some cleaner transitions.
Riley's trot would tend to get faster and less comfortable as he got more concerned, so as I felt him hollowing it was my job to take up a little inside bend ( or a lot, as necessary ) and wait for him to offer to lower his head. When he wanted to drop through the inside shoulder I could lay the rein on his neck to help him to come back into balance. When he offered a little drop of his head I would just follow the rein down as he began to lower and stretch out his back. It was interesting work and although I didn't achieve the consistency one might be looking for, I did get some good changes.