Boot Camp and the "S" Word.

I had surgery yesterday so I won't be back in the saddle for at least 5 days. Armani has been going very well though and I feel like I'm becoming more effective with each ride. Mostly it's because I am applying what my coach V is telling me with more consistency and confidence, so I don't lose her schooling as quickly throughout the week.

I told V on Saturday that she makes my horse so fun to ride. Although I tried to avoid buying a baby, one clear advantage is you have a pretty clean slate to work with. Of course the other benefit is I could afford a fancier 3 year old than a more finished 6-10 year old horse. Yes, the money still gets put into the horse in the form of training but at least then it's training of my choice. But I digress.

So Mr. Manners is in bootcamp with my coach this week, so to speak. I'm not able to ride but I didn't want him to have the whole week off, plus it was a great opportunity to get some focused training rides on him.

Oh, and V mentioned the S word. Not just in the general sense as in "at our first show...blah, blah" but in the "I think you should enter the show on April 27th. End of APRIL?? We still have 4 feet of snow on the ground! I don't see how there is any way the grounds will be in good enough condition but I guess we'll see.

My immediate reaction was to think there is no way we will be ready. V promptly dismissed this thought by reminding me this is about giving Armani good experiences, getting me to my first show in 20+ years, and just giving him a good ride. While I completely agree with all of this, I also couldn't help but think surely that could happen closer to the end of May instead! She also mentioned I should show in equitation, which made me literally laugh out loud. But I was flattered because V has excellent equitation (think Mclain Ward) and was fairly accomplished in jumper eq and she wouldn't suggest it if she thought I didn't have good equitation. We'll see how that goes!

Also, my new juicer is coming in handy since I haven't been able to eat very much. This is going to be awesome with all the fresh produce soon (?) to come out of the garden.

A Little Bit Cowboy.

That was my equine theme this past week.  

Armani’s groundwork is coming along pretty well, although progress is definitely not linear. At this point, I believe a lot of his behaviour is learned. I don’t think even he knows why he’s doing it sometimes. I’m serious! 
 

I also picked up a rope halter. I realized that he was just too comfortable setting back in the webbing halter.  I was willing to wait him out but the advantage of getting a faster response to my ask is that I can reward the correct response to my ask that much earlier, thereby drawing the connection faster for the horse. So far so good.

I’m now back to a hybrid technique that is partly what I had taught him to respond well to initially (dressage whip in my left hand to wave behind to get forward) and partly move forward to get release from pressure. The reason I brought the whip back in was because to solely rely on pressure/release with the halter ended up with me ahead of him further than I’d like. When I go to approach him in those situations, he backs away, which just perpetuates the problem.
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Last lesson.

I had my coach get on Armani for the first part of our lesson. I like to have her get on for 10 minutes or so each week so she can feel what's going on, correct anything that I haven't developed the strength/skill for, and otherwise make sure his training is progressing well. Then she can use what she feels to better instruct me. It's worked pretty well. 

A few times we've skipped weeks so only I ride and it resulted in a longer session with her next time, so I decided not to skip weeks. But then last week she was running pretty late and I was tacked up and in the arena, so I decided to get on and warm up. He felt fantastic, I told Alex he was "all melty in all the right ways" (That might not have been a wise move on my part, lol. What men must think of us horse-girls sometimes) so once my coach got there I stayed on and rode the whole lesson. 

 So this weekend I had her get on right from the start. I typically find things start to unravel the further from her schooling we get. I wish that weren't the case but I'm an amateur with a capital A and feel no shame in saying so. I thought that since he had only 2 rides the week before due to my french final exam (yee-haw!) and other factors that I wouldn't have messed up whatever magic she conjures as much as usual.

In fact, she rode for at least 40 minutes before handing him back to me. Time well spent, he was all buttery again. At one point while I was riding, she was describing something related to riding Mani and says, "he's a very technical ride, I have to use all my technique to get the best out of him. But he's also a little bit cowboy." 

Don't take offense, even though I can clearly see how it could be offensive, it's actually complimentary. What she means is that he's technical, but also needs a good ol' boot sometimes. In her perception, sometimes cowboys get things done without over-thinking/feeling, etc. Just get er done. 

Lesson Picture Spam!

I was lucky this weekend and Alex decided he wanted to come to the barn to watch my lesson and check on his horse ;-) which means I get some pictures!

Warming up at the walk.
 This was my first time trying a standing martingale on him, 

and as you can see I need to get a stopper to keep it from slipping.

 Warm up. Working hard to keep him straight. I change the track I take all the time so that straightness isn't about the wall but about the line my legs and body are telling him to travel.

I still find an opening inside rein useful to help gently encourage the bend. I have learned that while doing this it is just as important to give an appropriate amount of room for him to round into on the outside rein. He looks pretty good here, though I think my hands should be a touch higher.

 Blooper! This is why we thought it might be a good idea to try a standing on him. Armani likes to try and do things his way from time to time and like any young thing, likes to fuss when he doesn't get his way. Since his neck carriage is naturally fairly high as it is, I only want to correct the extreme evasions, such as this.

Looking early and working hard to shape out the corner.

He might be more challenging than a bow-flex workout

but I sure have fun too! Love this horse.

I can't tell you how hard I'm actually working here to keep it all together. We are just cantering a circle, but it's towards the scary corner and he wants to bulge in, bend out, and would completely spin around if I stopped riding for a second. He isn't really that worried about the corners but he will look for any lack of leadership in you to work ugly through them. Armani is listening well here and he knows I'm on it.

Good boy!

Wee! It is so fun to start teaching him about going over obstacles. He sees any element and wants to go to it, even though he's had no prior training over poles, caveletti, etc. until I started working these things with him last month.

I obviously haven't been jumping recently (say, most of the last year!) as I'm ahead of him here and not as flexible in my hip as I should be. Even though I'm ugly, I have to say I think Armani is going to have very nice form over fences!

  Conformation shot. He's actually not quite as fat as I tend to think he is!

Basic Problem? Back to Basics Solution.

I have mentioned a few times that Armani does not always lead well when I bring him in to the barn. I'm told he was like that before I bought him (my coach had her 4 horses at the same barn I bought him from). Over the almost 4 months I've had him, it has gotten better and worse a few times. Oddly enough, the period when I was there everyday bringing him in for hot compresses but not working much was the best so far. It's tempting to think dislikes work even more than those compresses but I honestly don't believe he dislikes work at all.

A few weeks ago I was trying to be firmer with him. Truth be told, a number of other people got into my head about what to do (why must people feel so compelled to constantly tell you everything you're doing "wrong"?) and I started to believe that maybe I was being to nice about it.I basically tried to make him work and keep his feet moving when he stops but I did so with more force than I had before. By "force" I don't mean anything harsh, the most I did was smack his butt with a dressage whip. But, for lack of a better word, my energy was a lot more forceful. I think my frustration and yes, anger, made my manner aggressive, even without the physicality.

Well, it backfired, no surprise. Realizing this right away, I felt so stupid for forgetting lessons I feel I've already learned. I also felt that something so simple shouldn't be an issue and I was quite honestly embarassed that I hadn't solved it yet. I knew I had probably damaged some of the gains I'd made with Mani, so I started at square one.

For me, that meant taking absolutely as much time as he needed. My only requirement was he had to remain facing in the direction I wanted. I felt like I needed to press "reset" and the best way I could think to do that was to be as neutral as possible. So I didn't praise or coddle (or so I thought...) nor did I push or punish. That didn't mean he could bulge into me or otherwise misbehave, I treated those as behaviours on their own and dealt with them as I always would, then went back to neutral.

It helped a lot right away but I felt I still was not really fixing the issue. It was what it was - a reset - but it wasn't the way forward. Then last week, as I was trying to bring him in for my lesson, the barn owner came out to help me. She had him in within minutes with little fuss. Argh! Lol.

After my lesson, I sent her a text, asking her to work with us the next day. I wanted a second set of eyes on the situation. So far this week, what we figured out seems to be helping. It boils down to the very basics of horse training, plus some mule-like behaviour ;-)

The main issues:
- Armani doesn't seem to have really learned pressure and release. This is obvious in much of his behaviour but I hadn't realized it.
- In relation to pressure-release, I got into the habit of keeping too much pressure on and not giving enough release at the right times. I knew in my mind that it wasn't right...but since he stops every couple steps, in no time I found myself keeping the pressure on to get that extra step or two. Um, yeah. So I'm focussing any leading on the pressure-release concept and refining my timing.
- Yes, I was doling out praise and coddling at the wrong moments. "Oh, you ate the couch, good boy!" is kinda what I was dong. I'm not very smart sometimes.
- I have gotten into the habit of holding his leadrope right at his halter. Because of his "sticky-ness" I thought I needed to be closer to direct him better. Not so; giving him a little more space seems to be a huge part of the equation.
- Also, Armani is a bit of a mule. My goal is to make his feet move no matter what but my gosh you wouldn't believe how hard this can be!

Even still, I'm very happy with my boy. He is generally a kind horse who is fairly sensitive but is also young and therefore lives to see what he can get away with ;-)  I suspect he's teaching me more than I'm teaching him at this point, but that's why I have a trainer!