Cardinal Rule #1--My first Ah Ha! Moment

I'll admit, I'm not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to schooling leads.

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.

Everyone's an expert

A lady on another blog is having problems with her bucking horse.

One thing that really annoys me about the internet is everyone is an expert.

I have pretty limited experience with consistently bucking horses.  And even if I had a lot of experience, I think I'd be hesitant to tell someone what to do if I couldn't see them and their horse in person.

I have ridden a lot of horses that will toss a buck in here or there--from excitement, landing after a jump, stumbling, nervousness, or confusion.  Those kind of bucks.  Not the kind of rodeo bucks she's describing with her horse, combined with a bad attitude.

I did ride a horse very long ago who was a pretty consistent bucker.  His name was Flame, and he was a middle aged sorrel Morgan.  Very cute little guy.  His past was dubious and had I known it I might have been able to see his problems more clearly.  For a while, I was the only one riding him.  I remember he bucked going into the trot, he bucked going into the canter.  He bucked at random occasionally.  He wasn't a bronco, but he bucked a lot.

He seemed to improve somewhat with consistency.  I remember we did a lot of riding forward, forward, forward.  And being very soft about cues.  I think my instructor at the time paired me up with him because I tend to be the over-sensitive type.

In retrospect I think he was just not cut out for the inconsistency of having multiple riders.  Eventually he was bought by a girl about my age who went all the way back to the beginning, doing Parelli exercises with him (which, way back then before they got all crazy, was just about solid groundwork).  As far as I remember they had moderate success in the saddle.  I don't know if his bucking problem ever went away.

The way I see it, there can't be just one way to "solve" a bucking problem.  Hereafter, I'm talking about a bucking problem that isn't pain related.

There must be at least as many solutions as there are reasons for bucking.

But at its root, bucking is a very loud signal from your horse that he doesn't want you to ignore.  But it's sort of like yelling "HEY!"

That could mean a lot of things, based on the tone it's said in and the surrounding environment.

In Flame's case, I'm pretty sure he was bucking as a long-ago learned response to confusing stimuli.

Our reaction as riders to bucking seems to also vary greatly based on what discipline we're grounded in.

If I'm allowed to grossly generalize from my personal experience and what I've seen...

Western folks are likely to boot a horse through a bucking session with minimal contact on the reins--if you can't prevent it, then you're going to ride it out, but you aren't going to take hold of the horse's face with both hands while you're doing it.  Occasionally one rein is used.

English folks are likely to whip the horse up into contact that already exists.  Applying the whip behind the girth is a fairly clear signal to go "forward", and since most english horses are schooled in contact, feeling the bit isn't unusual for them and they can go forward into it.  Tight contact is usually held.

But there are as many ways to train a horse as there are to untrain one.

In the immortal words of my long-ago Dressage instructor:  "Sure, you could reach up and twist the ear for a canter depart, but at some level of training that just doesn't make sense."

What she means is, you can train your horse to respond to anything.  But that doesn't make it right.

I think in any situation like this, if you'll accept my previous caveat, and the warning that exists with all the "advice" I give:

You need to make the situation as clear as possible for the horse.

I admit, I had some brief scary moments with Chev during our indoor arena session the other day.

If you watch horses out in the pasture, they are masters of the macho bluff.

They'll squeal, rear, and strike at each other, from distances that are so far they couldn't possibly hurt one another--hoping to psych the other one out.  One backs down, and the other rises in rank.  They are horses.  This works for them.

Most horses are just as happy to be down on the chain of command as they are being captain.

They just want to know where their place is.  They take security in that.

When Chev started acting like she was heading into a rear/buck/spin combo, I swallowed my fear, brought out my loudest growl, and booted her forward as hard as I could.

And guess what?  She backed down immediately.  She didn't try that again.  All of a sudden, I was more important to listen to than the wind.  I was more important to listen to than anything, because I was demanding all the attention.  As soon as she shot forward, I went back as close to neutral as I could.  That showed her she had done the right thing.  I didn't keep booting, or yelling.  I just went back to everything being fine.  And so did she.

So the bucking horse only needs know two things  (again, this doesn't apply to the horse who is bucking because he is in pain):

1. The present behavior is unacceptable.

2.  What to do instead.

If you're only doing step 1, your horse is probably not getting better.

If you're only doing step 2, your horse is probably not getting better.

Clear, clear, clear.  In my non-pro opinion, contact should be dropped if it gets in the way of the very linear command GO FORWARD.

Even if a horse is trained to contact, it is still a blocking aid.  It doesn't matter how horsey goes forward, just that he doesn't sull up and try to buck.  It's hard to buck when the feet are moving.  Although some talented horses are capable of that.


Anyway, as I said, everyone on the internet's an expert.


I think it's dangerous to give advice on a horse and rider I haven't seen.

That being said, horse people are going to offer you all kinds of advice.  We're kind of nosy by nature.  Try to follow your instincts and take everything with a grain of salt.