In 2009, shortly after her 4th birthday, Chev bowed a tendon twirling like a maniac on turnout in the roundpen. When I brought her in, she was tender on the rocks. She was barefoot at the time, and she always had hard hooves. She was never stone tender. That got my attention right away.
When I lunged her to assess her better, something was definitely wrong. Chevy has a lot of head movement at liberty or on the line at the trot. I've had two vets assess her, and they both said, "It's just the way she moves." But this time I could definitely see a head bob. There was the tiniest bit of swelling in her left front just below the knee. No heat. Everyone told me it was a stone bruise.
I should probably mention at this point that I have this strange "feeling" sometimes around animals. When I look at an animal, I can usually tell if something is wrong, even if they look fine on the outside. It's really strange. I guess I probably just notice things other people wouldn't notice. With Chevy, I couldn't explain what it was, but I knew something was wrong.
I called the vet and made an appointment to come out the following morning for an ultrasound of both front legs. I felt a little silly doing it, since I didn't have much reasonable data to indicate a problem.
Sure enough, her left front superficial flexor tendon was bowed.
A "bowed" tendon technically just means it doesn't appear normal. This could mean anything from minor swelling to a tear, a hole, or even complete severance of the tendon connection. Major injuries give the tendon a bowed appearance. This is pretty common to see in Thoroughbreds. But it can happen to any horse.
In Chev's case, luckily, the tendon was just swollen without any perforation.
It still meant she was on stall rest for two months.
Imagine confining a three-year-old child to a crib for two months, and you pretty much have how much fun that was for both of us.
I spent many evenings down at the barn walking her in slow, big loops around the barn. Soon everyone knew us.
After a month of nothing but hand walking, we graduated to a few minutes of trot work.
Eventually she was back on the lunge line again. I was terrified she would re-injure herself and be unridable.
Anyway, the point of all this is to explain why, at 5 years old, my horse was just learning how to canter under saddle.
I started riding her again about two and a half months after her injury on the advice of the vet, in late August of 2009. We did a few minutes of trot a day, but most of it was walking, halting, and learning to steer.
I didn't really get her cantering under saddle until almost her 6th birthday, about a year ago.
I mentioned before that my horse is one-sided, like many horses.
I could get her going on one lead, but not the other. She was completely "one-leaded."
My gelding had one lead, and while I loved him absolutely, I didn't really have to heart to push him into working on both leads all the time. Before he was retired to a life of trail riding (which he loved), we could do flying changes when he was 23--but it wasn't much fun for either of us. I decided at that point in his life, he had earned pleasant rides under saddle that he enjoyed. His show days were over, and he deserved to just have fun. Plus, he was a real blast out on the trails, where it didn't matter what lead he chose.
Ben at 22 in his right lead canter, me with terrible equitation & a bareback pad
But I was determined my filly would have both her leads.
I worked day after day, trying everything I could think of to trick her into picking up the lead.
I saw our lives unfolding before me: Megan and her one-leaded horse. AGAIN.
It was very discouraging.
When you're in this situation, trying your hardest to canter your filly correctly in an arena and not kill anyone or yourself, you tend to solicit a lot of unwanted advice.
"Stop her and back her up hard when she takes the wrong lead," one teenage know-it-all said.
"Get her in a tight circle and then ask!" Another yelled.
"If she's on the wrong lead just put her in a circle and she'll have to switch!" the first one said again.
"You have to turn her nose to the outside or she'll never get it!!" the would-be trainer told me.
"TURN HER HARD AGAINST THE WALL AND THEN ASK HER HARD FOR THE LEAD ON THE WAY OUT!!!" someone else shouted.
It was ridiculous. And very frustrating. I didn't see the logic in any of these things, but I faithfully tried them in front of my audience, and every one failed. Repeatedly.
After a while my teenage audience wrote us off as a lost cause, and left us alone.
It wasn't that Chev was trying to be bad. Chev didn't know she had another lead under saddle.
She was just trying to chug along in the most comfortable and balanced way she knew how.
And I didn't want to punish that.
But I didn't have a clue about how to get through to her what I wanted.
I went home every time frustrated and defeated.
I was reading a lot of mugwump at this time, since her advice seemed really solid, simple and straight-forward to me.
I remember I was reading an entry on stops.
She saw the stop as a reward for the horse. A chance to get a break from work.
Slowly the gears started turning in my brain.
I had an idea.
The next time I was out at the barn, I tried my theory.
After a long warm up, I asked for the canter.
Chev struck off on the only lead she knew. It was wrong, but instead of stopping her, I let her chug along for a few laps around the indoor arena before I said "Hhhhho."
She rested a minute, we walked off, I asked again.
Wrong lead again.
I had her keep going around and around until I felt I'd made my point. I let her halt and air up a little bit. Then we struck off again.
Wrong lead again. Around and around and around we went. Probably ten laps.
We stopped. She was getting tired. I could feel her thinking about what she could do to get out of this crazy routine I had invented.
I asked again. She picked up the wrong lead again. Around and around and around. Fifteen laps this time.
Whew!
As she aired up a little, I considered what had happened so far. This was a lot more pleasant ride than the other ones, even if it was all spent on the wrong lead.
We walked off, I put her in a trot, stopped my posting and clearly asked again.
And guess what?
My little pony picked up the correct lead.
I was so happy I nearly cried.
I stopped her after four or five strides, let her rest a good long while and praised her lavishly. I resisted the urge (and potential pitfall) of making her stay on the right lead for more than a few strides.
We walked out, she cooled off, and we quit for the day.
The gears were turning.
My next ride started off about the same, but it only took her two times of loping around and around the arena on the wrong lead before she figured it out. I only had her go a few strides on the correct lead before letting her rest. That way she knew the difference, and knew she could expect a reward if she did the right thing.
There was no yelling, no thumping, and no stress to this approach. There was no cranking of the reins, tight turns, loss of balance, or stiffening of her neck.
Even though she's still much more comfortable on her left lead, I never had much trouble getting her leads after that.
This was my first really huge "ah-HA!!" moment with Chev.
So thanks, mugwump, for helping me figure out my first cardinal rule of training.
Rule #1: Make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing hard.
Chev on the right lead canter. You can see the right lead originates from the left hind.
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