It was warm and sunny with no wind--almost t-shirt weather!
I feel like Chev is regressing somewhat with her indoor arena rides, and I was really happy to see how lovely the weather was. It meant we could ride outside.
So I don't know if it was my good mood or hers, but we had a pretty good time.
I did notice one strange thing when I was grooming her. She was really touchy about her right ear. She usually loves her ears rubbed. I couldn't see anything, but likely one of her neighbors caught it with their teeth, or it got banged on something because it was obvious she preferred I left it alone.
Can you tell which way is her bad canter lead?
The violent head shaking that happens around 1:30 is definitely because of her ear. Poor girl. After the ride it seemed to bother her much less.
After a brief ride in the snaffle, which I felt was kind of mediocre, my riding especially, she did alright--we moved on to ride #3 in the traditional hackamore. This video is complete with her first lope in the bosal!
I was really happy with how responsive she was to it today. It becomes pretty apparent how much more stiff she is going to the right, which is also her difficult canter direction--that's the only way I needed to correct her, I think you can see me do that pretty clearly in the video. Still, even though it's just her 3rd time in the bosal, she's already starting to understand the mechanics. She seems to just sort of naturally "get it".
I apologize for the amount of time I spend trying to get the lead end of the mecate reins secured. I first tried my jeans loop, but it kept working loose, so I finally settle on the horn...I'm not asking Chev to flex her neck around, she's doing that on her own trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing up there. She does stand nicely for it all though.
We cut the ride a little short because a friend of mine appeared with her sweet gelding, Speedy.
As I said in a previous post, I am a believer in bits. But Chev seemed very happy to not have anything in her mouth. She even looks a little confused on the first pass by the camera at the lope, like she doesn't know quite what to do with her head without a bit in her mouth. It's long occurred to me that she might be the sort of horse that was made for the hackamore.
She is definitely the kind of horse that you can't muscle down. That's why I had to install the kind of stop on her that I did. You can't yank her down, she just pulls harder. She resents strong bit correction, and with good reason, I think.
The traditional hackamore intrigues me. It is not a tool of force or leverage--a horse can "pull through the hackamore in a flat second" (to quote mugwump). It easily exposes deficiency. It doesn't allow nitpicking. And it doesn't let you to hold up your horse.
There shouldn't be any contact on the bosal like you would take with a snaffle bit. Stops are all about you, because you can't pull a horse down in the bosal like you can a bit.
I hope we'll have more sunny, warm, and most importantly, wind-free days here in Wyoming--I'd like to have more rides in the hackamore!
After what was by no accounts a stressful arena ride (pretty much the whole ride is encompassed in these two videos), I swallowed my fear, put her back in the snaffle bit, and hit the trail.
"The trail" is really just about 70 acres of wide open space, with cliffs, bluffs, rocks, prairie dog holes, scrub, cacti, etc--what you'd expect from open plains land.
Chev is not a trail horse. She hates the trail. She is absolutely, 100% an arena baby, and she likes it that way. But for the last couple months (or years, or whatever), I've had this growing fear that one day she would get so bored of arena life that she would have a total meltdown.
So far, so good. But...
I feel like getting her out there will strengthen our relationship and give her some confidence in herself. Or something. That sounded a little too "my horsey is my best friend"/anthropomorphic--but really, if she could trust me to put her places that are safe--well, I feel like that could help things a little.
She is a bloody mess out on the trail. Stiff, upright, spooky--she almost came unglued when we saw four white-tailed deer, white flags in the air as they sprung away, but we did manage to hold it together. I got her moving, she jigged, I sidepassed, she jigged some more. She blasted up hills. I pretty much fought her most of the way.
Still, half-way through the ride, which was a pretty big loop--I kept wanting to turn around, but then she would do something silly and I didn't want to reward her for it by heading back--I realized all the spooks, etc I've been riding in the indoor arena have really helped my seat for out on the trail.
She also started to become light in my hands.
Looking towards Casper Mountain
And it's not like you want it out there, but I could feel how powerful she was behind. I suddenly had a light as air powerhouse on my hands. I'm sure a canter out there would have been spectacular. But, I also had this feeling in the back of my mind that if she got going I wouldn't be able to get her to stop.
How do I get around that fear? Probably by just blasting her around one day when I decide to stop being such a wimp, and treat the trail like I treat the arena--nerves just earn you more work. I'm sure after about a half mile of cantering she would quiet down, and we could both enjoy the ride.
I think it comes down to me not trusting her to be a horse and be able to travel over the ground without stumbling.
At some point I need to give her my trust to carry us safely along on the trail as I do in the arena.
I was able to ride her on a loose rein when she was in sight of the barn property, and she didn't try to rush back when it came back into sight, so that's something, right?
The open prairie
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