Working Through the Sillies
Charlie was not the calm, relaxed horse he was last week, and so, our warmup had an entirely different tone. Today, Charlie was fresh and full of sillies. This is not particularly uncommon for Charlie - as is to be expected, seeing that he is a young horse - so it wasn't any big surprise. There was no "bolt" in his sillies today, but he had a few little rears and gave some rabbit hops. So, instead of gently and calmly asking for forward and suppleness on a loose rein, I asked for forward more sternly by encouraging him to come up from behind into my contact. To do this, I closed my hands tightly on the reins, raised my hands (instead of lowering them, like the last exercise, to give him room to come "up" in his withers), and closed my legs. If I found that, despite his energy, he was ignoring my "forward" cues, I slowed the pace right down for a few strides before asking again for forward. One end of the arena was scarier than the other, so we started working at the less scary end on a 20m circle. I did this at a walk, and then a trot. When he seemed to be more "with" me, mentally, I then moved up to the canter and repeated the exercise.Once at the canter, we incorporated our theme of "straightness" from last week into some transitions to keep his mind sharp and focused on me, rather than on his desire for sillies. On a 20m circle, we came down the centre line and did a canter-trot transition, ensuring to stay straight before we changed direction (in a "serpentine" manner in the circle) and picking up the canter on the other lead. We repeated this several times. Once I was satisfied with his warmup at one end of the arena, we went back to the walk and repeated the whole exercise at the "scarier" end of the arena - which, funnily enough, wasn't so scary anymore. This concluded our warm up.
Charlie's First Oxer!
Once our warmup was concluded, we started jumping. We started with a small X on the quarter line, jumping it alone at a trot, then at a canter, focusing on straightness. This week, Charlie's disparity in competencies between his left and right lead canters was more apparent than normal. Charlie is inherently stronger to the left at the canter than to the right; he missed a few right leads today and it was much easier to keep him straight to the left. We then upgraded to a 2-jump pattern, a small vertical down one quarter line and a larger one up the other. Finally, we added a third jump to the pattern - an oxer. Charlie's very first! We practiced it alone first, and I was very proud of him; he hardly so much as looked at it! We finally added it to the jump pattern; vertical down one quarter line, vertical up the next, change diagonals, and the oxer up the other diagonal.Honesty
I will say this about Charlie: if nothing else, he is an honest horse. His sillies are not unexpected; he's pretty upfront about his temperament from day to day, and I could tell after 2 minutes in the crossties that he would be "more horse" than on his average day. His honesty also extends to his work ethic. His first few attempts at the oxer were not flawless; the first, he was unsure and hesitated, but went forward because I was confident in my request for him to do so; the second, he took off too early, but still (gracelessly) clambered over it; the third, he tried to correct his previous mistake by jumping just as early, but bigger; I could go on and on. When I ask him for straightness, he puts up with me while I try to organize and coordinate my leg and rein aids, and attempts to do what he thinks I'm asking. His honesty makes him a pleasure to work with.That concludes Lesson Recap 2! Next week is Easter, so there will be no recap next week - but stay tuned for other updates in the meantime. The following week, it looks like there will be a Combined Test clinic at the barn, so that should be an exciting day!
Happy trails :)
Charlie inspecting his very first oxer.
Your updates as you school this lovely horse are both informative and entertaining. You are doing the Standardbreds of the world a huge favour as you show how they can be trained, managed, and enjoyed. BIt by bit, I think the preconceived prejudices (which I shared) about the trainability of Standardbred race horses for general, pleasure use are going to disappear. Well done. And best wishes on this journey with this lovely boy. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the words of encouragement! I, too, shared the prejudices about this breed, simply because there is so little out there explaining the truth. But, you're right, in even the 2 years since I got Charlie, there is already more information out there about standardbreds off the track. Little by little we are getting there. :)
Delete