A New Wrinkle
The weather today is amazing - sunny and warm, with a refreshing breeze to keep flies down. Doug and I are taking Megan and some of her clients to the Apple Blossom Paint, Appaloosa and Open horse show later, so I squeezed in a ride. (As an aside, we're researching our horse business idea with Megan).
Rogo is going well. I really need to focus on and learn how to warm him up and read his warm up needs on a ride by ride basis. It makes all the difference in the world. As he gets warmed up you can feel him come more underneath himself, bend more nicely and evenly, become more forward, etc. I know, seems self evident, but he hasn't always been this way. This is a great stage of training for us because he's learning to carry himself.
Here's the wrinkle - a couple of times recently he's taken off at a gallop when picking up the left lead canter. Both times I brought him back without incident and continued on, thinking it was a fluke. He's never done this before when working at home in the ring. (He did it routinely at Cheryl's last spring, outside, when he was learning to canter - always coming around the corner to the left and onto a grassy slope. She told me to let him.)
Today when I rode he galloped off every time I transitioned from trot to left canter. It's a little disconcerting to say the least to be on a young, galloping 17+ hand horse, when you'd planned on a canter. I tried to calmly bring him back, and each time I did, but this isn't a good thing. If he's doing this at home what will he do at a show? In an effort to stick with the test I was riding I put him onto the 20m circle where required. Maybe not the smartest move - we went around that circle like barrel racers, leaned way over, sand flying. I'd manage each time to get him down to a reasonable facsimile of a forward working canter (well, maybe a slower hand gallop).
I think I'll take a different approach next time and bring him right back to a trot and insist on a correct canter before we go ahead. Wish I had a teacher right now...
I may be asking too strongly for his stage of training. Maybe he needs a lighter aid now or more warm up. Any thoughts are welcome.
Rogo is going well. I really need to focus on and learn how to warm him up and read his warm up needs on a ride by ride basis. It makes all the difference in the world. As he gets warmed up you can feel him come more underneath himself, bend more nicely and evenly, become more forward, etc. I know, seems self evident, but he hasn't always been this way. This is a great stage of training for us because he's learning to carry himself.
Here's the wrinkle - a couple of times recently he's taken off at a gallop when picking up the left lead canter. Both times I brought him back without incident and continued on, thinking it was a fluke. He's never done this before when working at home in the ring. (He did it routinely at Cheryl's last spring, outside, when he was learning to canter - always coming around the corner to the left and onto a grassy slope. She told me to let him.)
Today when I rode he galloped off every time I transitioned from trot to left canter. It's a little disconcerting to say the least to be on a young, galloping 17+ hand horse, when you'd planned on a canter. I tried to calmly bring him back, and each time I did, but this isn't a good thing. If he's doing this at home what will he do at a show? In an effort to stick with the test I was riding I put him onto the 20m circle where required. Maybe not the smartest move - we went around that circle like barrel racers, leaned way over, sand flying. I'd manage each time to get him down to a reasonable facsimile of a forward working canter (well, maybe a slower hand gallop).
I think I'll take a different approach next time and bring him right back to a trot and insist on a correct canter before we go ahead. Wish I had a teacher right now...
I may be asking too strongly for his stage of training. Maybe he needs a lighter aid now or more warm up. Any thoughts are welcome.
Comments
Good luck!
I'm going to make sure I'm not anticipating, make sure he is balanced (there was a very muddy spot as soon as he cantered, so maybe he wanted to get through that and lost his balance), and I'm going to try the canter trot canter transitions. I'll try walk canter too. He's just started this, but if he has extra energy it's a good way to stay calm and focus.
Thanks again!
I personally would have done exactly what you did, ride it out and do circles to control the speed. I may have done figure 8's with lead changes..
Hope you get it figured out.
I will say that either of the above two ways I do only with a horse that's been under saddle for a while. I would not do it with a horse just started because it would be too much strain on the legs but seems to me you've been riding Rogo for a while and this shouldn't be a problem.
There's another thing I use with my young horses when I am teaching them their leads. I work in a figure eight made up of two probably twenty meter circles. The point in the middle of the figure eight is my starting point. I lope a circle to the right. Then stop in the middle and maybe lope a circle left then stop in the middle. I mix up which direction I am going so the horse doesn't anticipate, which means sometimes I repeat the same circle over before stopping to go the other way. And sometimes I ride through the stop and make another full circle. This exercise usually gets the horse really listening to the cues and I think part of Rogo galloping off is he is not listening so this could be helpful.
If the horse isn't responsive to that, I do a one rein stop then I lope the horse out of that stop. Same thing here, if the horse speeds up I go straight back to the one rein stop.
Then there is always the method of making them gallop. Just riding it past where it if fun for the horse and it really wants to stop. Taking the "fun" out of galloping can fix a runaway horse.
xoxo
mina