These pictures are a couple years old, but I just found them again and I love them so I thought I would share.
Midas looking relaxed and happy? Something I never get tired of.
We made a discover in my most recent riding lesson: Midas was a western horse once.
It started because IÂ 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?
Today was our second proper foray into bareback and bridle-less. The first time was quite spontaneous, and went pretty well. We walked in a circle, then I tried trotting him up the long side and laughed at how very quickly steering fell apart. Then I fetched the reins and had a slightly more proper ride (in the halter and bareback pad).
This time was only slightly less spontaneous, but we’ve spent weeks working on our leg aids and not tuning out when I let go of the reins at walk or trot. We walked, did figures, walked poles, walked into the grass and out of it again, stopped, did turns, even backed! And then I quit because he was starting to feel proud of himself, and that’s a good place to quit. Quit while that “hey, this is the easiest work ever for oodles of pats and scratches!” glow is high!
Then we took a walk in hand and I watched him eat grass for a half hour as a reward. This was a good day for everyone!
Spring means horse hair everywhere. Ev.ry.where. Also mud. Lots of mud. On the ground, on the horse, on the boots that will never look clean ever again.
But it also means the grass turning green, which is a very nice color.
This post was supposed to go up in November. I’m not sure what happened!
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I really need to make a new video documenting Midas’ and my continued skill development at liberty. I imagine it would show improvement “come” in particular. I haven’t been able to think of how to teach him to go to x spot and stay there, and I’ve been debating about trying things like rearing or laying down–not sure I want those tricks in his arsenal! But it could be cool.
You can watch a video of us here, I made it last November with the help of my mom. It’s been hard to get something like that in since I’ve been traveling a lot or bringing my friend’s little girls to ride him.
It’s good for him to be socialized with the tiny humans, he’s definitely fond of their visits. And, I gotta say, having a horse trained such that I can control him from across the ring makes me feel a lot better about putting a tiny 6 year old on a 16hh Midas. He’s been nothing but a gentleman to her, which is so fun to watch.
I digress.
We got started on this journey because, well, who wouldn’t want to walk a horse without a rope? Also, it was the only thing I could think of to do to teach the freight train horse to stop without pulling on him. I went to a Tommy Turvey clinic, showed my trainer how far Midas and I had gotten on our own, she told me to buy Clinton Anderson’s Down Under Horsemanship, and away we went.
I really found the  book Down Under Horsemanship easy to use and understand–though when I have looked up Anderson’s training videos I wasn’t wild about the way he uses his own methods.
