Category: horse training

There has been quite a lot going on in life, and there haven’t been any big excursions with the horse–but I AM still riding and working with him. In fact, we’re working on canter, and we appear to have gotten over another behavioral hurdle.

It’s unclear how much of the problem was him, and how much was me, but regardless, we conquered it.

There was an occasion, several years ago now, on which he bolted while I was riding bareback in the big field. Without stirrups, I was afraid to do a one rein stop, and I wasn’t 100% sure I could sit out his abrupt stop at the gate. So I decided to jump off.

After that, Midas decided he was terrified of one of the solar generators and water troughs on the way out to that field, and we had several big fights about passing it.  Big fights that ended with us standing its general proximity without bolting, typically. I decided to leave it alone for a while. He walked past it freely when turned out in the big field, or the very pasture the trough watered. Obviously, the trough wasn’t the issue, and we might as well sort out our issues in a setting that involved less spinning.

Also, fighting about it wasn’t getting me anywhere.

So, we worked on other stuff.

Midas is a pretty fantastic ride in the ring, and we’re working cantering in the ring vs cantering in the wild. His bad behavior is location based, so it is now definitely time to start after locations.

Finally, I had an idea. We started with halt in the ring. We would start with halt in the field, too.

So I walked him into the field, and halted him before he could do anything. Head high, he shifted around. Waited. Tried to leave. Waited. Tried to leave. Then caught on. It took MUCH less time than the first time, all those years ago.

I let him eat grass, then asked him to walk forward again. He was immediately wound up. We halted before he could go far, and he couldn’t eat until he was standing quietly. We repeated this until we were well past the trouble spot. He was so distracted by his desire to eat grass, that he didn’t fuss at the trouble spot. In fact, he wasn’t at all interested in walking back to the barn, he wanted to keep doing the exercise so he could eat more grass.

A few weeks later, alternating bareback with saddle work, I tried the field again. This time, we just walked out.

No fight. Not even a hint.

We walked out, did a big circle around the middle of the field, stopped for grass, walked back.

We’ve been out a few times now, I usually take him there to cool out after ring work. And I’m so excited that I can take him into our old trouble field to cool out after ring work. He walks relaxed, happy, alert.

I’ve done a good job not getting spooked that he’s alert and we’re out and about. I think, maybe, we’re building another layer of trust between us.

I feel like we could actually leave and go on a trail ride without having a melt down. Of course, we’d both want to get a good run in.

This picture is from last week, it was a cool morning, I didn’t have time to ride but I was stopping by to pat noses. And the noses energetically brought themselves to me. I used to have to do a poor man’s join up every single time in the fall. What a change.

We made a discover in my most recent riding lesson: Midas was a western horse once.

It started because I was picking up the reins to show my trainer what Midas can do with the bitless bridle. He was in a very agreeable mood, so I was quite surprised when he immediately backed in a tight circle the moment I picked up contact. He does this now and then, I find it mysterious, and sometimes frustrating because I wasn’t asking him to back–at least in the English fashion.

My trainer, being a trainer and also on the ground, began to suspect. That was a western move, she said. So we tried it a number of ways, halt, drop the reins, pick up the reins, see what he does. Then, try again, holding the reins lower. We tried a number of different things, and uncovered that when I pick up the reins, hands high, he backs. Depending on factors I haven’t quite isolated, it triggers a backing pattern–where he backs quickly and swings his bum left and backs some more. Sometimes in an entire circle if I don’t drop the reins. Now, experimenting, we tried out and out neck reining in loop de loops at trot and he handled great. Like, we even did a little bit of that spinning maneuver.

Good heavens, I have a reiner. Before he fox hunted, he did reining or maybe cutting.

Now, I haven’t ridden western seriously since I was 9 and just learning to ride. I have trail ridden western, so the reining world is just something I’ve watched with fascination. But now I have a lot of reading to do.

Another interesting discovery in this lesson is that he exhibits tendencies of a horse who washed out of being a driving horse. I was describing his keen distaste of having things in his blind spot, and also his aversion to the lunge whip. These are features which, if he hasn’t already washed out of driving, he would. Considering that when we were out at a show last someone wanted him for their carriage, I would say there is a good chance he may have already washed out.

How many lives have you lived, horse? And no one scratched behind your ears or under you mane to say hello?