Wednesday night a friend of mine and I took the horses to the indoor. I took Black & Max and left Lu at home. I’m not sure how Mona would react to Lu’s bald spots (from the skin scraping) so I figured I wouldn’t go down that road right now.
Terry was going to ride Max and I was going to see how Black would do on the Nike footing. When we arrived we put the horses in stalls so they were out of the alley since the trainer was in the indoor riding. Terry asked me what I wanted her to do with Max and I told her to just treat him like she would any other horse. I wanted to see what he was going to do with her.
I brushed and saddled up Black and worked on her cinch problems (I think her heart point is out like Lu’s was because I could touch it with my hand and she’d pin her ears and swish her tail). Once the horses were saddled we headed into the arena for a little ground work. By now the trainer was out and it was all ours.
I didn’t really get to see Terry work with Max as I was focusing on Black. She really didn’t do too bad. She needs some work on yielding the HQ but she lounged fairly well. When I looked over next Terry was bridling Max and his head was way up in the air. I walked over and bridled Black.
Terry got on, flexed Max a bit (I did tell her to flex him but she didn’t release when his nose hit her toe) and started riding. She likes to ride with a bit tighter rein then what I ride with and Max wasn’t too happy about it. I hopped up on Black and we did some flexing (left side she could get to stirrup, right side she sat on my hand).
I tried not to say anything and just wanted to see how the two of them did together. I wanted to see how Max would react with a different rider. I’m not sure if she was tense but he wanted to go into a lope. When she got over by the manure tub he did a “mini spook” & that is when I said enough. I told him that he was testing her. She kept trying to take him directly up to the manure tub which seemed to make things worse.
I explained to her how to take him in a circle and then turn him into the tub and keep going. She tried but was doing it at a walk vs. a trot so it meant nothing to him. When she would turn him into the tub she would give him the opportunity to look at it vs. making him move his feet and keep going so it really wasn’t doing anything. He finally got tired of it and put his nose on the tub saying “there, now leave me alone”.
After that I had her put her hand on the buckle and put her hand and the rein on the horn and told her to keep her other hand off of the reins. I explained to her that if she felt he was going too fast she needed to do a ORS. She was also leaning forward a lot so I asked her to lean back. Once she got him moving he moved into a trot without being asked so she did a ORS. She wanted to pull back on both reins out of habit but didn’t. After about 5 minutes of walking around on a loose rein Max had relaxed and I think Terry had relaxed a bit too.
Then I had her move into a trot on a loose rein. He looked relaxed but she kept tipping forward and every time she would he would stop so we had to work on that. Then I showed her how to stop him off of her voice/seat. She thought that was pretty cool and I think once she knew she could do it she felt more comfortable.
She wanted to neck rein him which is fine but she kept dragging the reins over his neck and he was confused. I showed her how to move them over just slightly and when she did he would turn. After that I had her pick up the reins as soft as she could until she felt contact. He was very soft and very giving and it didn’t take her long to figure that out.
She said she felt dumb riding him. She’s ridden for a long time and said she felt like she had a hard time riding him. We both agreed that maybe this is why DH gets so upset with Max. He knows Max can do it but doesn’t understand how to ask him to do it.
I have a gal who is looking for a well broke horse who is trained JL style (similar but not exact to CA). She wants a horse her husband can trail ride on and that she can ride. The more I think about it the more I wonder. Can a truly broke CA or JL trained horse ever be husband/kid proof? A novice rider when they get on tends to squeeze or hold on with their legs. To a CA horse that means go. If the horse sped up the rider would more then likely squeeze more which to the horse would mean go faster!
I was really surprised to see Terry have as many problems with Max as she did so it really does make one wonder.
As for Black, she was a bit lazier. She spooked herself when she saw her reflection in the mirror but after that I kind of forgot I was even riding her around since I was instructing Terry. She did seem a bit sore but I think part of that is from her back feet (they are nasty) but she did trot out freely when she was following Max.
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