Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Another quiet ride

I rode Sam this afternoon and he was soft, a little lazy, but happy to move off my leg even on his bad side. He is always much better at home anyway. Today I practiced riding some of the moves in the dressage test. Figure of 8 at x. I practiced making them right then I moved onto the serpentine. I didn't focus too much on where Sam had is head more if we were doing the moves right. I really focused on not letting him fall out through the outside shoulder which he likes to do. I think we went well and I would be happy with the way he went this arvo for him to do that at the comp. I am expecting him to be tense but hopefully not as bad as he is at out lessons.

Reading the blog A year with Horses - Kate really makes me think which I like. The other she talked about high energy and low energy get a horse to day something -

Sam this afternoon did not want to stand and wait for his rug to be put on before his dinner. I shook his lead rope side to side until he stopped moving forward and then I left slack in the lead rope and continued to put the rug on. He took a step forward and I only had to put one swing in the lead rope before he stopped and took a step backward. I continued on, he stepped forward and I picked up some slack in the lead rope and he stopped and stood still for the whole time it took me to put his rug on. I am sure we will need more lessons with this but I got the desired outcome with not a lot of yelling, frustration, anger etc. Tomorrow I will make him stand just outside his paddock again to be rugged and I bet it will only take one swing then a pick up the slack a bit. This is the sort of training I like.

Tomorrow Sarah and I are going to practice our tests and call them out for each other. I'll let you know how we go!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention - I'm glad you enjoyed the post.

Liked your description of how you asked him to stand still for putting on the rug - sounds like that worked pretty well!