While my horse is being stupid, Kahlua is really coming along!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXNSEQBACX8
She's trotting willingly, as you can see in the video. Not shown in the video is her donig a medium trot, a working trot, AND and extended trot all very well. She's bending, doing circles and serpentines in the trot. The change in her is unbelievable.
I feel kinda guilty though because I feel like I ride better on her than I do on my own horse. I also feel guilty because I feel like I should spend more time riding my own horse than this one (its pretty equal right now), but this one doesn't scare me as much, which is kinda strange considering THIS is the one that had a serious bucking problem not to mention her sour attitude.
Who knew that riding horses as a hobby could create such an emotional mess!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Time will tell
So, I've been MIA for awhile. We've hit some major hurdles. I had never ridden my horse with enough consistency to be aware of all the holes in her training, which have now become painfully obvious. In three weeks, I've been dumped three times.
The first time was a trail ride with some friends who are total beginners (three lessons under their belt). They were on dead-broke horses as was their instructor and yet somehow I ended up as the lead rider. My horse is wanting to run and so we're fighting about it. At about that same moment, the dog rushes out of the bushes to our right. Secret went sideways and I didn't. Now, there was nothing strange about that as she's always had problems with dogs and a year ago would have been back at the barn by the time I got up. So, I let that one slide.
The second time we were out on the trail really close to the barn alone. I don't like riding alone because you never know what can happen. But, I also think its important for her to be willing to go out alone. We were cantering along when all of sudden she just got really bouncy and really fast. It wasn't a nice canter, it wasn't a gallop, maybe she was cross-firing, I don't know. But off I went and she ran back to the barn without me. First time ever. B!^*H!!!! So I walked back to the barn, got on her, and went back out. We just walked and trotted the second time and all was well so I thought we were ok.
The third time was at the end of a trail ride, my friend and I were cooling down in the arena and she started cantering her horse. Well, maybe Secret thought it was a race because she took off like a rocket in that same super-bouncy whatever-it-is that she's been doing and I couldn't get her stopped. I tried pulling back and saying "whoa", which had no effect and I was too off-balance to one-rein stop her. So I just grabbed mane and held on as best I could. When she slid to a stop at the gate I kinda rolled off and hit the gate on the way down.
Well at this point I'm super frustrated. So, I ask my friend, who's been riding longer and alot better than me, to get on her and canter her. She was able to go exactly two laps before she was huffing and puffing and begging to get off. Apparently my horse wants to go into QH racing because she absolutely will NOT do the nice steady canter that was part of the reason I bought her in the first place!
My biggest concerns are (1) I can't define exactly what the problem is and (2) I don't believe that my seat at the canter is secure enough to fix it. The obvious answer seems to be to pay a better rider to fix it, but I've been the only one to ride this horse and fix her issues since I got her and I really don't want any one else to ride her. So, I'm caught between my fear and my pride I guess.
I thought that maybe it was a respect issue. Maybe integrating into this new herd, she's having a moment of trying to re-evaluate who's alpha in our relationship. So, yesterday I went back to the ground work. She moved off when I asked, lunged on-line, changed direction, free-lunged... although the free-lunging is where we ran into problems. Our arena doesn't have an actual gate, just a rope where the gate should be. So, on her first pass of free-lunging at the canter/gallop/crazy run-away, she jumped the rope and ran back to her pasture. I went and got her and put the rope up higher. On the second pass, she realized she couldn't jump it so she just ran through it and ripped it down. I realized this rope thing wasn't going to work. So, a friend helped me move three jump standards and two barrels into the gate opening. On the third pass, she sized that up and decided it wasn't worth it so I finally got her to go a whole lap. Then I changed her direction a few times. By now she's breathing hard, so I squat down and say "whoa" and she finally comes over and "joins up" following me around without the lead.
I hope that we are making some progress, but I guess I won't really know until next time. I also think that I just need to be more consistent with discipline. She's such a good natured horse, never ugly or mean, that I've always let her get away with alot and don't correct her until its pretty aggregious. I think she's realized that and is now taking advantage so yesterday I was really adamant about making the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard EVERY TIME. There was alot of lip smacking going on so I think time will tell.
The first time was a trail ride with some friends who are total beginners (three lessons under their belt). They were on dead-broke horses as was their instructor and yet somehow I ended up as the lead rider. My horse is wanting to run and so we're fighting about it. At about that same moment, the dog rushes out of the bushes to our right. Secret went sideways and I didn't. Now, there was nothing strange about that as she's always had problems with dogs and a year ago would have been back at the barn by the time I got up. So, I let that one slide.
The second time we were out on the trail really close to the barn alone. I don't like riding alone because you never know what can happen. But, I also think its important for her to be willing to go out alone. We were cantering along when all of sudden she just got really bouncy and really fast. It wasn't a nice canter, it wasn't a gallop, maybe she was cross-firing, I don't know. But off I went and she ran back to the barn without me. First time ever. B!^*H!!!! So I walked back to the barn, got on her, and went back out. We just walked and trotted the second time and all was well so I thought we were ok.
The third time was at the end of a trail ride, my friend and I were cooling down in the arena and she started cantering her horse. Well, maybe Secret thought it was a race because she took off like a rocket in that same super-bouncy whatever-it-is that she's been doing and I couldn't get her stopped. I tried pulling back and saying "whoa", which had no effect and I was too off-balance to one-rein stop her. So I just grabbed mane and held on as best I could. When she slid to a stop at the gate I kinda rolled off and hit the gate on the way down.
Well at this point I'm super frustrated. So, I ask my friend, who's been riding longer and alot better than me, to get on her and canter her. She was able to go exactly two laps before she was huffing and puffing and begging to get off. Apparently my horse wants to go into QH racing because she absolutely will NOT do the nice steady canter that was part of the reason I bought her in the first place!
My biggest concerns are (1) I can't define exactly what the problem is and (2) I don't believe that my seat at the canter is secure enough to fix it. The obvious answer seems to be to pay a better rider to fix it, but I've been the only one to ride this horse and fix her issues since I got her and I really don't want any one else to ride her. So, I'm caught between my fear and my pride I guess.
I thought that maybe it was a respect issue. Maybe integrating into this new herd, she's having a moment of trying to re-evaluate who's alpha in our relationship. So, yesterday I went back to the ground work. She moved off when I asked, lunged on-line, changed direction, free-lunged... although the free-lunging is where we ran into problems. Our arena doesn't have an actual gate, just a rope where the gate should be. So, on her first pass of free-lunging at the canter/gallop/crazy run-away, she jumped the rope and ran back to her pasture. I went and got her and put the rope up higher. On the second pass, she realized she couldn't jump it so she just ran through it and ripped it down. I realized this rope thing wasn't going to work. So, a friend helped me move three jump standards and two barrels into the gate opening. On the third pass, she sized that up and decided it wasn't worth it so I finally got her to go a whole lap. Then I changed her direction a few times. By now she's breathing hard, so I squat down and say "whoa" and she finally comes over and "joins up" following me around without the lead.
I hope that we are making some progress, but I guess I won't really know until next time. I also think that I just need to be more consistent with discipline. She's such a good natured horse, never ugly or mean, that I've always let her get away with alot and don't correct her until its pretty aggregious. I think she's realized that and is now taking advantage so yesterday I was really adamant about making the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard EVERY TIME. There was alot of lip smacking going on so I think time will tell.
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