Lesson Recap 4: Part Two - On the Bit

Continued from Lesson Recap 4: Part One - On the Trails

Dressage Lesson: On the Bit

After four consecutive days of both mentally- and physically-intense workouts, our lesson on Sunday was relatively low-key, however nonetheless very important. While we ran through one of our tests for our upcoming combined show (now less than 3 weeks away...double eek!), we spent the majority of the hour working on getting Charlie on the bit. At this point, even though our lesson was outside, we were back to our double-jointed snaffle.

Previously, to encourage Charlie into the contact, I asked for it rather gently. It worked, well enough - taught him where I want him to be - but now it is a matter of asking him to stay there. This involves a little bit more active riding on my part. On one exercise, we worked on a circle, yielding in and out between 10 and 20 meters. For this exercise, I had to, above all, keep a conscious effort of maintaining my outside rein contact steady and firm, and using my outside leg in concert, to prevent him from drifting or becoming crooked. At same time, I have to encourage a bend to the inside with my inside rein, be to be giving within my contact and follow his mouth. My coach walked beside Charlie on the ground to help fine-tune my rein aids at the start of the lesson, to help more accurately communicate with Charlie what I wanted before I quite got the hang of it myself. It was tough for both of us; I would work on my inside rein and forget my outside, or I'd remember both my hands but forget my legs; and Charlie, though we were just at the walk, was working hard both physically and mentally to try and figure out just where I wanted each part of his body to be.

On the next exercise, we worked between the halt and walk. Charlie knows the position I would like his head at the halt, yet he does not keep it there, and when I ask him to walk on, he pulls his head up and out of the contact. To discourage this, I would ask a few times for him to be on the bit at the halt, and release in between. After repeating this 2 or 3 times to my satisfaction, I would ask him to walk on, but if he tried to pull the reins out of my hand, I would ask for more forward. This will be our homework for the week; he improved after repeating this many times in the course of our lesson, alternating it with the previously described exercise, but he still prefers to walk on with his nose above the vertical.

While I will be the first to attest to the versatility of this breed, these horses are not natural dressage horses. You simply cannot expect them to "get it" as quickly as dressage-bred horses do; it does not come natural to them, at all. What might take only a few weeks to communicate to a horse who is naturally more inclined to dressage, could take a standardbred double the time, if not longer. And, even within standardbreds, some are more inclined to dressage than others. The importance in this is that you must have time, patience, and dedication to make a dressage horse out of these guys. They certainly have the work ethic, determination, and dedication themselves to give it their best shot, but in fairness to them, you need to be realistic with your expectations in terms of both their innate ability, and a timeline of your goals.

Birthday Boy

Charlie also celebrated his 5th birthday last week, on April 14. Happy birthday handsome man!

Happy trails!

Lesson Recap 4: Part One - On the Trails

Lesson Recap 4 is, once again, a bit of a summary of all of our learnings from last week, not just in our lesson on Sunday. All of last week was one big lesson for Charlie and me. Our rides were mostly spent on the trails, for a number of reasons, rather than in the arena, and this provided a few different learning opportunities. On Sunday, we turned it down a notch in our lesson and worked on a less-exciting, however just as, if not more, important aspect of our riding.

This blog is long, so I have separated it into two parts: Part One - On the Trails, and Part Two - On the Bit.

On the Trails: Troubleshooting

I mentioned in my blog post Lesson Recap 3 that, following our lesson last Sunday, Charlie decided to ad-lib a little on our trail ride last week. Even though he misbehaved on the trail, I managed to work him nicely in the outdoor ring when we got back, ending our ride on a positive note. The next time I went to ride him outside, though, he tried his bolting maneuvers in the ring, as well, and - spring fever or no - this is simply not acceptable. So, seeing as our show was, at that point, in a little over 3 weeks (eek!), I realized we had some work to do before he became too comfortable with this pattern.

Following these incidents, I mentioned Charlie's behaviour to the coaches at my barn; although I have done all the physical work to train Charlie myself, I am not a horse trainer, and I know when to ask for extra help. The spin-and-bolt is Charlie's signature bad behaviour, so it is something I am familiar with, but it is clearly not an issue that I had successfully resolved in prior attempts to do so. Both coaches suggested that the next time I take him on a trail, I swap my simple double-jointed loose ring snaffle for a leverage bit. While I am not one to condone the use of tools, including stronger bits, as a crutch, I can appreciate that there is a time and place to use them as a training aid to get past a particularly difficult bump in the road. This is not unlike last summer, when we were still in Edmonton, and Charlie went through a phase of spinning-and-bolting while I was leading him to/from his paddock; to correct this behaviour, one of the coaches at my barn, an experienced trainer, suggested I use a chifney bit to correct this behaviour. She showed me how to use it properly and safely, and sure enough, after only a handful of uses - I think it was 3? - he has not repeated this behaviour on the ground, and my chifney is lost somewhere in the black hole that is the bottom of my tack locker.

Trail One (AKA The World's Scariest Trail Ride)

Keeping this instant in Charlie's training in mind, I changed Charlie to a ported-mouth Pelham before our next trail ride the following day. I admit, I was very uncomfortable with it at first; I don't want to be the person that can only take their horse out on a strong bit, but I knew that the resurrection of the spin-and-bolt had to be corrected in a time-sensitive manner. On the trail, we were accompanied by 4 others: one of the coaches on an excitable yet brave thoroughbred, an 8 year old girl on a steady-Eddy school horse, and two fellow boarders, one on his own brave gelding and the other on her reactive mare. As per the coach's instructions, I placed myself between/behind her horse and the other brave gelding up front, with the reactive mare behind me and the school horse taking up the end.

It was within a minute or two of being off the property that I appreciated having the bit that I did. On the neighbouring property, someone had a large fire going, and directly across the street, someone else was using a power drill, out of sight behind some thick bushes. Charlie immediately tried the spin-and-bolt, but realized just as quickly that that was no longer an option - he managed to spin, but thought twice before bolting. With the encouragement from two horses coming forward from behind, and the two ahead of him continuing on down the road, I was able to correct his behaviour and, after the better part of a minute of having a discussion with him, we continued forward. The manner in which I corrected his behaviour was simple: whenever he spun, instead of stopping him mid-spin, I just completed the spin 360 degrees, kept my legs on, and - and this is key - my hands low, calm, and gentle. Following this incident, Charlie became a little reactive to the first passing car, trying briefly to spin-and-bolt once again, but this time stopping himself before he committed to the spin.

Each "scary" we passed following that, Charlie's decision to look to me for guidance, rather than panicking, became a quicker and more natural reaction - and he had plenty of opportunities to hone this skill on that ride. All in all, on that ride we encountered 2 explosions from the nearby quarry, 1 fire, 1 power drill, 3 cars, 1 truck, 1 dirt bike, 1 grader resurfacing the road (which passed us twice), 2 school busses, and 1 nail gun from a house being reshingled. And, keep in mind that this was only Charlie's 3rd trail ride, period.

The end of the World's Scariest Trail Ride, as indicated by the freshly-graded road.

Trail Two

This time we went a little farther, down a big hill to an old mine site, accompanied by the coach and two others. There is not much of significance to be said about our trail ride the following day, other than this: Charlie was excellent. Previously-terrifying vehicles were barely worth an ear flick and we had 0 spin-and-bolt attempts.

Looking out over the Mines de Capelton.

Trail Three

On our third trail ride, accompanied by just the coach, we upped the anti a little: since Charlie had been so excellent the previous day, and even, really, the day before that, we decided to try him on his first gallop. We went down another big hill - near the mine, but a different location - and walked all the way down, then asked for a canter on the way up. And it was incredible. Charlie absolutely loved it - I don't think he has ever enjoyed something quite so much - and it was so liberating for me. I have wanted to "open Charlie up" since the day I got him, but, as I'm sure you have gathered, he was simply not ready. And, once again, on the trails, Charlie was great, his reaction to scaries being to look to me for guidance rather than to simply panic.

A happy me and even happier Charlie at the barn following our very first gallop.

Interval Training

The next day, Charlie and I stayed off the trails, and instead worked on trot and canter sets in the outdoor ring. Not wanting to spend too long in the bit he was in, I switched out the ported Pelham for a jointed Pelham and used a rein converter. He was excitable on the lunge that day, that's for sure - but under saddle, he gave me no indication of misbehaviour, whatsoever, and we schooled very nicely. We even went for a little hack down the bridle path - alone - along the back of the property following our ride, and he was looky, but attentive to me, first and foremost.

On our hack following our interval training.

Continued in Lesson Recap 4: Part Two - On the Bit

Lesson Recap 3 - Exercises, Oxers, and a Bonus

Long time no post! It's been a busy few weeks, with the long weekend, the clinic, I had a visitor from Edmonton (my dad), plus my school. Sorry for the lapse in posts. But, without further adieu - here is Lesson Recap 3 from today!

Exercise 1

This morning, we started with an exercise which mimics the principles of navigating a jumping course, without any jumps, and at first without any poles. Once warmed up a little at the walk, we started the exercise first as our trot warmup. In each corner, we completed a 10m circle; in between each circle - both on long and short sides - we accelerated our speed, but slowing down before the next corner. This exercise mimics a course in that we vary our speeds, in a controlled manner, to get from point A to point B, but our approach to each point, and our work at each point, must be controlled. Charlie and I struggle most in our approach to jumps in that we are off on our timing; Charlie is inclined to take off too early, and I am inclined to jumping ahead of him, rather than riding him to the base of the jump; this exercise was a way to work on this aspect of jumping on the flat. It is important to remember to maintain contact throughout the entire exercise; asking for more forward along the long side is not asking him to throw away the connection and engagement we develop on the 10m circle. We repeated this exercise on both reins.

Following this exercise at the trot, we completed it at the canter. This proved a little more difficult for us, because, as we know, Charlie is weaker in the canter. The most important aspect of this exercise at the canter is to ensure he stays balanced in the 10m circles. He likes to bend his neck too much to the inside, and he gets too crooked. On the same note, to improve this with Charlie, I have to work on the interaction of my inside and outside reins - inside opens, outside closes, yet keeping the contact equal overall. Further to this, I have to encourage him to keep his body straight - that is, his hips in line with his shoulders - on the 10m circle with my legs, using the outside leg to counter his tendency to bulge outward, while at the same time using both legs to encourage him forward if he starts to lose his canter. If this sounds complicated - well, you're right. It is. This is definitely on my "homework list" this week.

Exercise 2

Next, we switched the pattern to a figure 8, with poles along one diagonal, but using the same principles - forward down the sides, but riding deep, connected, and controlled into the corners. We did this pattern at the trot and canter as well, with the added element of lead changes - definitely with a lot of room for improvement there.

Oxer

Finally, we replaced the poles in the figure 8 pattern with an oxer. I was very proud of how Charlie handled himself over the jumps today. As far as true oxers go, we've only ever jumped a little 18 inch baby one a few weeks ago; this time, they were bigger, and therefore scarier - but Charlie barely so much as looked at them. Today, there was not one refusal or run-out - a big accomplishment for us. This means that I am improving in my ability to ride him confidently to the jump, and wait for him, and that Charlie's confidence is improving as well as his ability to, himself, wait for the jump. Again, with the jump in the figure 8 pattern, it was important that I rode him in a connected, forward canter into the corner to set myself up for a straight line to the jump, and then ride him to the base and wait for him to go first.

Overall, I saw lots of improvements in Charlie today during our lesson, even since the clinic last week. He is more confident, and more excited, about the jumps, but he is able to contain his excitement enough such that he can approach the jump in a controlled manner. This means that, now, we can start focusing on after the jump - something we were unable to really do before, because there was so much work to do on just getting to the jump.

Bonus Ride

This evening, I decided to take Charlie out on the trails because it was such a gorgeous day, and I figured he had worked so hard he would be pooped. Well - I figured wrong. He was naughty on the trail and reminded me twice that he was bred to be a racehorse (with horses - two steps forward, one step back, right?). I always, always end on a good note - a horse never gets out of work by being naughty if I have anything to say about it. So, when we got back, we schooled in the large outdoor sand ring - a ring he'd never been in, and something I probably should have done before going on the trail (not-so-rookie mistake on my part). He did end up going very nicely in the ring, though, and I managed to put together a little video of his canter transformation, comparing where we started nearly 2 years ago, to where we are today: 

The first clip is from May 2014, only the third time I cantered him at all, and the first time I was able to get him to canter on the righthand lead. It may not really look like much of a difference, but it has been two years of hard work and dedication for both of us (and our coaches). If anyone ever says that it would be a waste of time to try to improve the gaits, especially the canter, of a standardbred, please show them this video. I also want to post this video to show that Charlie did not start with the canter he has now; it isn't luck that makes this standardbred canter better than another one. We still have a long way to go, no doubt, and plenty of room for improvement, and no, we may never have that grand prix canter - but improvements, and significant ones at that, are more than possible, if you're willing to put in the time and effort. 

That concludes Lesson Recap 3! On a completely non-horse-related topic, I just want to comment that I've been feeling pretty down and lonely since moving; but this weekend was just fantastic, by far the best since I moved. Thank you to the wonderful people in my barn for showing me such kindness and being so welcoming to me. I may start to feel at home here yet. 

Happy trails everyone!