Scarlett
Well-Known Member
So, it's Feb 2013. I had hoped that, by this point, I'd be posting up SJ reports, or clinics, or maybe even just a wee bit of dressage. But sadly no, we are still slogging away at home chasing those magical 'Eureka!' moments that make bring on green horses seem like a good idea.
For those who don't know him Indy is my 7yo ex-racer, I found him through a HHO member who worked in the racing yard he was trained at. He'd had some issues, physical and behavioural, which had ultimately manifested themselves with him inverting, cocking his head to the right and not stopping. He also had some rather random swellings on his legs. He hurt and he was angry with it all, which is totally against his rather lazy and willing nature. It took a while to get him to take a deep breath, he had his shoes off, time off, time turned away and then a very, very specific new training plan for him to embark on when he came back into work, everything designed around making him stonger and sounder.
Initially we had this... You can see the head twist and tension. You could barely touch his face or take any contact at all.
The aim then became totally centred around getting him straight, stretching to the contact and moving off the leg... His head carriage didn't matter, but it did matter that he was obedient. We must have walked and trotted for hours at a time, moving him round the school and teaching him that the leg means forward.
The tension in his poll was always evident, even with physio treatment to help it. However as he became more forward he got straighter and stronger. Then he started to stretch in the trot...
His whole body shape was changing, we finally started seeing the bad muscle under his neck go and the good muscle at the top get bigger
Late summer and the head tilt was still there.... but we had discovered the new and improved canter
We have worked our backsides off over winter, most of before Christmas was spent jumping, and a confidence crisis of his meant some time spent with my Instructor riding was needed. The fact was that the issues jumping could be found in his flatwork so more emphasis was put on his acceptance of the contact and leg. He now, once warmed up, take the leg going on as a reason to go forward and seek a contact. A simple, simple thing that so many take for granted, yet something that has taken months for us to truely achieve.
Thankfully now he is stronger, straighter and sounder - which is what flatwork is for, right? We recently had acupuncture to his neck which gave an immediate positive response and allowed us to gain more softness and flexibility in his neck, his second session is tomorrow and hopefully this will allow us more improvement. We are at the point now where we probably can't progress too much further without dealing with the physical component once and for all. We also can't progress much further until I make some changes to my riding but thats a whole other story
This weekend we had this...
... and him dozing in the sun.
Ok, so he's still no Valegro but he wants to be a better horse - thank the Lord for a horse who wants an easy life - and really does try, even when he thinks it's a bad idea. I was always interested in the idea of being able to ride a horse 'sound' and that flatwork should be gymnastics/yoga for horses, but now I feel the benefits of it every time I sit on him. It's taken a while and I'm sure a better rider would be out and about by now but the learning curve has been huge and it's been a pretty damn awesome journey til now so we'll get there in our own sweet time.
My aim now is to continue as we are, do more jumping, consolidate the little lateral work we can do, introduce more lateral moves, then build him up until he is even more consistant in the contact and that we can change the frame he is ridden in.
One last pic... My Trainer says never to let him trick me into accepting he cant give me an uphill canter
For those who don't know him Indy is my 7yo ex-racer, I found him through a HHO member who worked in the racing yard he was trained at. He'd had some issues, physical and behavioural, which had ultimately manifested themselves with him inverting, cocking his head to the right and not stopping. He also had some rather random swellings on his legs. He hurt and he was angry with it all, which is totally against his rather lazy and willing nature. It took a while to get him to take a deep breath, he had his shoes off, time off, time turned away and then a very, very specific new training plan for him to embark on when he came back into work, everything designed around making him stonger and sounder.
Initially we had this... You can see the head twist and tension. You could barely touch his face or take any contact at all.
The aim then became totally centred around getting him straight, stretching to the contact and moving off the leg... His head carriage didn't matter, but it did matter that he was obedient. We must have walked and trotted for hours at a time, moving him round the school and teaching him that the leg means forward.
The tension in his poll was always evident, even with physio treatment to help it. However as he became more forward he got straighter and stronger. Then he started to stretch in the trot...
His whole body shape was changing, we finally started seeing the bad muscle under his neck go and the good muscle at the top get bigger
Late summer and the head tilt was still there.... but we had discovered the new and improved canter
We have worked our backsides off over winter, most of before Christmas was spent jumping, and a confidence crisis of his meant some time spent with my Instructor riding was needed. The fact was that the issues jumping could be found in his flatwork so more emphasis was put on his acceptance of the contact and leg. He now, once warmed up, take the leg going on as a reason to go forward and seek a contact. A simple, simple thing that so many take for granted, yet something that has taken months for us to truely achieve.
Thankfully now he is stronger, straighter and sounder - which is what flatwork is for, right? We recently had acupuncture to his neck which gave an immediate positive response and allowed us to gain more softness and flexibility in his neck, his second session is tomorrow and hopefully this will allow us more improvement. We are at the point now where we probably can't progress too much further without dealing with the physical component once and for all. We also can't progress much further until I make some changes to my riding but thats a whole other story
This weekend we had this...
... and him dozing in the sun.
Ok, so he's still no Valegro but he wants to be a better horse - thank the Lord for a horse who wants an easy life - and really does try, even when he thinks it's a bad idea. I was always interested in the idea of being able to ride a horse 'sound' and that flatwork should be gymnastics/yoga for horses, but now I feel the benefits of it every time I sit on him. It's taken a while and I'm sure a better rider would be out and about by now but the learning curve has been huge and it's been a pretty damn awesome journey til now so we'll get there in our own sweet time.
My aim now is to continue as we are, do more jumping, consolidate the little lateral work we can do, introduce more lateral moves, then build him up until he is even more consistant in the contact and that we can change the frame he is ridden in.
One last pic... My Trainer says never to let him trick me into accepting he cant give me an uphill canter
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