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Posted by rosalita208 So we want him to do something in the arena, and don't want to start off with a fit and make him have a bad experience. He canters fine on trail. On the other end of the spectrum I watched a 20 year old Thoroughbred lesson horse teaching a newbie how to canter last weekend. This rider (nice young girl, just green) was bouncing all over the old horse trying to learn. He just did his job for a half hour without one tail swish of complaint. And he's not shut down and running on autopilot. He's the sweetest old guy in the world. He really likes this little student and wanted to do a good job for her. Breaks my heart.
on 7/3/2012, 9:31 am, in reply to "Re: Bucking Horse Update"
208.121.74.182 | Message modified by user rosalita208 7/3/2012, 9:51 am
Yes, his teeth have been checked by vet and he wears a simple snaffle bit. He will trot fine at the beginning. Haven't done trot/canters at the start. To be honest, it's to the point where people are concerned about starting out cantering on him in the arena because they don't want to set him off. Things escalate with this guy pretty quickly. He is not the kind of horse that you can just make him run around a bit and he figues that is more work than doing the thing you asked. Once it starts going down that road if you keep pressing him pretty quickly he switches off the thinking side of his mind. He will dig in and run himself to the ground rather than comply, which doesn't really get person or horse anywhere. He's a pretty sensitive little horse.
I'm not saying the horse isn't troubled by something. But it's not physical. This is a big rodeo size arena. He's not even being asked to do tight turns. It's some kind of mental trouble as in "don't want to do this any more. So I'm deciding to end it." Somewhere in his past I imagine this scare the rider by running sideway, kicking out, etc. strategy was an effective way to end things.
Have been doing a fair bit of stay focused ground work in the arena with this guy during his semi-layoff. He does perfect ground work. He does what is asked nicely. He keeps two eyes on you. He licks and chews when he does something well and you stop and tell him so. So far, this doesn't seem to transfer into the saddle very much, in terms of how he feels about riding in the arena.
Typically the routine we are using now is he goes from working in the arena as much as he can tolerate, when he starts acting up, we ask him to do a little more without pushing him over the edge, we take him out of the arena, nicely, to the trail work he likes, then he stands tied and saddled before he gets put away. I want to start timing the arena stuff and slowly make it longer and longer, and then maybe someone (not sure it will be me) will have to have the guts to try and canter him in the arena.
As part of this deal we are also working on not being too eager to get out of the arena gate. We have got to the point where he will stand and wait, but he still tosses his head while standing near the gate. So we don't let him walk out of the gate until he is standing reasonably calmly without tossing the head. For that we just sit him and if he tosses the head he has to back up, and not walk toward the gate. When he stands without tossing the head we let him take a couple steps, etc. Then we walk him out quietly. He's making progress with that.
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