Out on the trail

[glenatron]

On Friday I went out on the kind of ride that is the reason we own horses.

Comments

[glenatron]

It's not an area I favour- its fine for trick training ( I'd say picking up feet is pretty much a trick and there are a few other atomic tasks that it works great for ) but I find clicker work to be a little bit of a dead end for most ridden work. In this case I'm quite happy that Iris will get the idea soon enough, she has just got confused between a hack being "go along a certain well-established route" and it being "go along the route you are directed on." That sounds a bit right-wing, but it's an important distinction- if we have to turn back one day because the trail is blocked we can't be having bucking fits and tantrums.

She's discovering that taking over the steering always ends up being a lot more work and never seems to actually get her home any sooner ( or even if she does get home, she just has to do laps of the school for a while and then go back out again ) and she's a very smart mare so I don't expect this to be a long-lasting problem. It was far worse with Zorro who got quite determined about taking he home for a while. A more intensive version of the "if you take me home it won't be as good as you expect" approach changed his mind really quickly.