Lots of things to chew on and think about, especially the way that I type on here about what I've accomplished and what I have left out in my posts. I tend to not post every little thing that is done between Memphis and I and only post out a few specific highlighted items that stand out in my mind. I am going to slow this down a little and work a little harder to put back in the specifics of each ride, each interaction, and each time I do anything that relates to a horse.
On the outside looking in at what is posted it becomes clear that there is a need for more details about what I think is the correct action in response to a reaction from Memphis. Otherwise, I am leaving the reader with a question and open myself up for heavy criticism. I realize that that is something I need to work on and if I am criticized that is perfectly fine but it makes it harder to convince somebody that I've done the right things if I've left out the most important details in the beginning,
So I give you Weds ride with Mr. Memphis, in more detail, and a little better flow of events than before. Lets see if this makes it a little easier to understand my own background and Memphis'.
Wendsday:
We both started today as we always do. His furry little head poking through his stall as if to say "hello you". I halter him, lead him to the wall, and we start a grooming session. I always work these sessions slowly, rubbing heavily in his favorite places: his shoulder and his neck. I get a huge sigh of relief personally from stress from grooming him and I know he seems to enjoys it just as much.
Next up is lunging, while he seems nowhere near as hyper as Sunday, I still wanted to see how he was doing and just work through some gaits with him. He starts out walking quite nicely and quietly, picked up speed nicely when I asked him to, and then with a little bit of pushing got into a canter. We worked both directions, lots of stops, and lots of gait changes. He did very well and acted like a gentleman. Nothing out of the ordinary.
We then go back to the wall and start in on the saddling issue. He let me put on the pad with no issues. Just because he gave me such an issue with it on Sunday I decided to try a few more times. He sulled up a little on the third, so we stopped and slowed it all down some. He was allowed to see the pad again, smell the pad, lip the pad, and let me rub it all over him. So we started again with putting the pad on his back. He got upset again, so once again we slowed it all down.
Then I started turning the wheels in my head. When he is allowed to play with the pad he is fine, he lets it touch him and is fine, and 90% of the time he is just fine with the pad going on. Here I started trying different scenarios with it. Playing around a few times with it I figured out he freaks out the most when the pad is lifted up higher than my shoulder. Get it close to his eye level and its over in his mind. The saddle pad will eat him and the world is going to come to an end.
Ok, so we slow it down some more and we work with the pad up above his head, around his head, above my shoulder, and so on. He calmed down quite quickly when he realized that the pad isn't eating me, him, or going to fall down on him from the ceiling. Once again, after the pad issue he saddles just like he should and everything is right in the world with Memphis.
Lunge him with the saddle on just to look at him move with it on and make sure he is ok with the world again before I get ready to ride. Once the bridle goes on he is annoyed. I can see his ears go back into an annoyance stance, not pissed, just annoyed. No tail swishing, no stomping, no ear pinning, or anything of the sort that would indicate to me I've got a firecracker on my hands. Just a "not this crap again" look. Memphis is not a fan of the barn, but its what I have to do until the arena dries out from all the rain. I don't have an option of just not riding him like I've had in the past. Sigh.
Get mounted up on him and he stands just like he should. Then we start off at a nice walk. A trail walk, dog walk, or walk whatever you want to call it it was slow. I was not looking for speed, so when he started to speed up he got slowly checked back down to the walk.
My goal was to work on steering only with him. So, I was not looking for speed here just looking for the correct direction. My requests were made with leg, neck rein, then direct rein. I was consistent in what I was doing and never strayed from what I was asking him. He got heavy leg first, then neck rein pretty much immediately with the leg, and lastly with the direct rein. He knows that when I ask with the leg its a push over to the other side, he got that really quickly when we worked on it before I got pregnant. So when I'm pushing I am already asking him to move over, then I combine that with the neck rein to tell him to turn. Eventually I would like to stop with so much leg and just use neck reining, but right now he is 75-80% at best with consistency on neck reining.
We worked on figure 8's and some mid direction changes for about 30 minutes. I then changed it up a bit and asked for some speed for a lap or two around the barn just to give him something else to do.
I did notice a few things in this ride since I was doing more thinking in this ride than my previous ones. He for one has an issue with right hand turns. For whatever reason in his mind right hand turns mean speed up. Left hand turns do not. Now this could be anything from him just being silly, a pain issue, or a refusal attempt. We did quite a bit of right hand turns to try to figure something out. I started with myself first, such as am I accidentally moving a leg, am I sitting differently, is my foot bumping him, is something on the saddle rubbing him, and anything else I could think of. I've noticed as well that he tends to do this in the beginning of the ride and will cease it once he gets warmed up and gets a few checks from me.
The only other thing we did was backing under saddle. This one he still does not quite understand, but it is also something he has only attempted 2-3 times under saddle. He'll get better at it I'm sure with time.
Otherwise this ride, in my mind, went quite well. Near the end of steering work it was clicking in his mind that the rein placed on his neck is a left or right turn. It wasn't a pretty turn, but I'm not expecting perfection just yet, just a acknowledgment that he is starting to understand. He took a step back under saddle when asked.
None of it was completely pretty, but I'm working VERY hard to work out the kinks with him. I am seeing progress from him being ridden by me 2-3 times a week. More progress than I thought. On Sunday I fully expect him to move off of just the neck reining instead of leg and neck. I will also expect a little easier transition into backing than Weds night.
He's a good boy.
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