Take away the brace!!!!

I had breakthroughs with two horses yesterday!  And both in relatively short sessions.

The first was Ruby.  Since she hasn't been getting ridden much, and is spending a whole lot of time hanging around getting fed carrots, I've noticed that Ruby makes herself 'unavailable', when she sees the saddle come out.  Hmmm.  I don't want that.  So today I restarted my program of making wearing the saddle a pleasant experience.  I saddled her at liberty while she was eating her breakfast, then let her carry the saddle around the paddock for several hours while she grazed and I did other jobs.

After a while she was back at the house following me around while I picked up poo etc, not hiding in case I was going to ride her.  So then it was time to ride, when she invited me too.

I had a plan for what I wanted to achieve in my session.  Ruby's confidence with riding has improved tremendously with me 'holding her hand'.  But she still has a lot of brace when I ask her up a gait.  (See the photo of Angela riding her below).  Going from a walk to trot, as soon as I think about trotting, she gets stiff in her body and the ears go back.  It can take her several strides (like half a lap of the round yard!) to finally make it up to the trot, then once she is moving forward, she relaxes and the ears come forward again.  She is getting stuck in the transition.  She will also push out sideways, through my leg, instead of moving forward.  I know asking her 'harder' by going up my phases just confuses her more, anything that she sees as more pressure fries her.  I had tried to help her by asking her up, and not worrying about direction, just let her go where she wants and reward the try.  It hasn't worked. Precision has helped her so far with her confidence, so I have been thinking that maybe that will help her trot transition...

Being me, I haven't ridden her, I have stewed over this until I came up with a plan!  I decided it was time to tackle this brace.  My first thoughts were that I need to keep working on our precision.  Straight lines are going really well.  I can maintain a strong focus on a distant object, hold a soft feel on the reins, and feel Ruby move a hair off my focus and put her back.  She gains confidence in my leadership and relaxes.  Circles are another matter... she pushes out, then rushes in, and it is a mess.  So I needed a circle I could 'see', so I could be more precise for her, I think my circles out in the open are round - she thinks I'm on drugs!  So out came a bag of flour and a 22 foot line, and I 'drew' a perfect 44 foot circle on the ground!  At first Ruby followed me around eating the flour as I sprinkled it out, thinking this might be interesting after all...

It was perfect!  I could feel her pushing me around, and help her stay perfectly on that circle.  If she drifted an inch, I would pick her up, put her back, then go again.  Without criticising, just saying 'Hey, I noticed that!'.  She was starting to relax, so I decided it was finally time to tackle that bracey transition, and played a game with it.  I had a very clear picture in my mind.  It was that she could gently go up in to a trot, and maintain her direction on the circle.  

If I asked her up to a trot, she would push in to, or out of the circle through my leg. When she pushed out either way, I would stop her, put her back on the circle, and ask again.  Previously she would push on my leg, I would try and push her back over, she would feel it as more pressure and brace harder.  This time she had nothing to brace against!  I didn't push her back over.  Instead of getting in to an argument with her, I would stop, back her up, put her back on the circle and gently start again.

I rewarded every effort she made to stay on the circle, and trot softly.  She even offered a trot I could sit to!  Unheard of!  It wouldn't have taken 10 minutes before she was able to do this!!!  Another thing that has been holding us back for years addressed!!!  What a good feeling!!!  And it is all about me trusting that I have the skills to fix the problems, being confident that she could do it, and changing the plan to suit the situation.   Hmm, how interesting...

I asked Angela to ride Ruby so I could get a good look at what was going on.  Here Angela asks Ruby in to a trot, and gets her typical reaction - notice the tight lips, eye, tense neck and body.