Another successful ride...
Tuesday night's ride was bad to say the least. Trigger was resistant he didn't want to work and he definitely didn't want to canter. I worked with him on his right lead canter departure which currently involves a nasty looking head toss as he takes the lead. He had been doing this to left as well, but I worked with him and got him to tip his nose in as he departed instead of fighting with me. After getting a somewhat decent right lead canter departure, I decided to go ahead and try to run through a test. Bad idea... very very bad idea... I trotted in at A with Triggs leaning ALL of his weight on my hands. When I continued and turned left at C, he continued to drag on my hands, then he started tossing the head... at this point, I had been riding him for maybe 30-45 minutes and he'd been fine. The only change that I had made was I was now asking him to trot out and I was posting, he would barrel through the reins, I would half halt and he would toss his head at the prospect of having to listen. So, I did as Christina has told me to do, I disengaged his hindquarters with his head towards the fence. Now this isn't your momma's disengagement! Lol. I don't quietly, or slowly disengage his hindquarters, the time for that has passed, it is made absolutely clear to him in short order that he has done something unacceptable, and we immediately trot off after the disengagement. It's been working actually, quite well. We went up and down the rail with this exercise until he would respond appropriately to the half halts and then I halted him on the rail, square, and supple, and dismounted. I didn't get to run the test, but that's ok, we had an apparently much needed discussion.
Back to last night's ride now....
I started off with lunging in side reins, like always. This was not very promising, Trigger was acting like he'd never been lunged in his life, he kept stopping and turning towards me (weird) and then he'd take off with a buck and a run and just general gooberness. I finally just gave up cause I think he was more interested on playing on the lunge line than working, but his behavior did kind of concern me as far as riding, haha. I put his running martingale on very loosely not to make him do anything, but just to remind him if he popped up his head, which he did do eventually, but just once when he got that friendly reminder. Our ride started off smoothly, he very easily gave to the bit and bent left and right, we did shoulder-in and shoulder-out down the wall, rotating between the two frequently changing the bend and he handled this exercise beautifully at a walk as he has been doing. Then I stepped it up a bit and did the same exercise at a trot, which again, he did nicely without throwing his head around everytime the bend was changed (he used to brace on one side and would throw his head when I did eventually get him to loosen that side up). After trotting some 10m circles a bit working on bending and lateral work, I went on to do the dreaded canter departures. I started with cantering left since he's been doing a lot better with that lately and as expected, his first departure was a little sloppy, but they were clean and smooth after that, so I walked him a bit and turned to the right. This was the test, we'd worked on this so much Tuesday night with little improvement. I asked him for an exaggerated right bend (literally head turned towards my knee) and asked for the canter, he tossed his head and bit and took the canter. I cantered a couple circles, slowed him up and tried again. About the third time that I tried this exercise he kept his head down and bent and did a very smooth lovely departure, so I stopped cantering him. Lyndy was there last night and we decided to run him through a pattern, with the success of the canter departures, I decided I didn't want to canter him anymore, but I did want to run a pattern because of our problems the previous night as soon as I tried to start a test. So we decided on Intro walk-trot test B cause it's the one that turns left towards the fence outside (the other half of the outdoor dressage ring is just the low poles to mark the boarder. He started out pretty strong on my hands, and he decided to try tossing his head after we turned at the end of the arena, we again disengaged the hindquarters and immediately continued on, after that little reminder, he was fine. He didn't head toss at all and when we crossed the diagonal (he tries to canter this he gets in such a hurry), I was able to half halt him without him tossing his head. So all in all, it was a good ride.
I also rode Sara's Percheron-Friesian cross, Shades, to work on the tests since her back hurt and she has a show this weekend. He was pretty good and it was nice to ride someone other than Triggs for a change. Lol.
Edit: So I totally didn't include anything about Lyndy riding. She did totally awesome on the Triggs. He was round and moving out just beautifully. He thought maybe he'd get to jump since she was riding him around them, haha.
Also on the note of Shades, he's a huge drafty and was definitely fun to ride. His trot is quite floaty, which is helpfully for posting I found (with Triggs I have to work to post cause he's so smooth), and his canter had improved a lot since the last time I rode him. We just ran through the walk-trot test and training test 1.
Back to last night's ride now....
I started off with lunging in side reins, like always. This was not very promising, Trigger was acting like he'd never been lunged in his life, he kept stopping and turning towards me (weird) and then he'd take off with a buck and a run and just general gooberness. I finally just gave up cause I think he was more interested on playing on the lunge line than working, but his behavior did kind of concern me as far as riding, haha. I put his running martingale on very loosely not to make him do anything, but just to remind him if he popped up his head, which he did do eventually, but just once when he got that friendly reminder. Our ride started off smoothly, he very easily gave to the bit and bent left and right, we did shoulder-in and shoulder-out down the wall, rotating between the two frequently changing the bend and he handled this exercise beautifully at a walk as he has been doing. Then I stepped it up a bit and did the same exercise at a trot, which again, he did nicely without throwing his head around everytime the bend was changed (he used to brace on one side and would throw his head when I did eventually get him to loosen that side up). After trotting some 10m circles a bit working on bending and lateral work, I went on to do the dreaded canter departures. I started with cantering left since he's been doing a lot better with that lately and as expected, his first departure was a little sloppy, but they were clean and smooth after that, so I walked him a bit and turned to the right. This was the test, we'd worked on this so much Tuesday night with little improvement. I asked him for an exaggerated right bend (literally head turned towards my knee) and asked for the canter, he tossed his head and bit and took the canter. I cantered a couple circles, slowed him up and tried again. About the third time that I tried this exercise he kept his head down and bent and did a very smooth lovely departure, so I stopped cantering him. Lyndy was there last night and we decided to run him through a pattern, with the success of the canter departures, I decided I didn't want to canter him anymore, but I did want to run a pattern because of our problems the previous night as soon as I tried to start a test. So we decided on Intro walk-trot test B cause it's the one that turns left towards the fence outside (the other half of the outdoor dressage ring is just the low poles to mark the boarder. He started out pretty strong on my hands, and he decided to try tossing his head after we turned at the end of the arena, we again disengaged the hindquarters and immediately continued on, after that little reminder, he was fine. He didn't head toss at all and when we crossed the diagonal (he tries to canter this he gets in such a hurry), I was able to half halt him without him tossing his head. So all in all, it was a good ride.
I also rode Sara's Percheron-Friesian cross, Shades, to work on the tests since her back hurt and she has a show this weekend. He was pretty good and it was nice to ride someone other than Triggs for a change. Lol.
Edit: So I totally didn't include anything about Lyndy riding. She did totally awesome on the Triggs. He was round and moving out just beautifully. He thought maybe he'd get to jump since she was riding him around them, haha.
Also on the note of Shades, he's a huge drafty and was definitely fun to ride. His trot is quite floaty, which is helpfully for posting I found (with Triggs I have to work to post cause he's so smooth), and his canter had improved a lot since the last time I rode him. We just ran through the walk-trot test and training test 1.