Schooling in walk whilst hacking solo

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oldie48

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I have eventually plucked up the courage to hack Rose out on her own, she's fine in company but on her own she's tight, tense and just a little nappy. So every morning this week we have gone round the block in walk. It takes about 20 minutes and is great as a warm up for schooling. Did our third day today and she's getting more relaxed each time. I've been focusing on maintaining a consistent rhythm to the walk as she either wants to rush off with her head in the air or, if I take a check, she can slam the brakes on. I wanted to share this as I'm finding it a good way to relax her, her footfall on the road helps me to maintain the rhythm and I'm finding a much better balance between leg, seat and hand. It's such a simple exercise but has the added bonus of keeping me focused rather than sitting there like a wally passenger and it keeps her focused on me too. We only had one stop today, she didn't scream, she came home in a lovely relaxed walk and I didn't feel as if I was sitting on a plank! I am going to continue building on work in walk on our little hacks as in the school, she can get behind the leg and go a bit crabby Obviously once I'm happy with maintaining the rhythm we'll move on to trans within the walk and some lateral stuff. Is there anything else I can work on?
 
I hack a lot on my own as I keep mine at home I do loads of schooling in walk, leg yield, counter flexions you can even do a bit of shoulder in, I also play around with the walk with collection and walk on a loose rein is good to practice if you trust them enough to have there head lol.
 
Pinkvboots said:
I hack a lot on my own as I keep mine at home I do loads of schooling in walk, leg yield, counter flexions you can even do a bit of shoulder in, I also play around with the walk with collection and walk on a loose rein is good to practice if you trust them enough to have there head lol.
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Not yet ready for walk on a long rein, I think we'd be home in half the time! She has a great walk when she's relaxed though.
 
If you can't trust her to maintain the rhythm on a long rein, I would focus on that first. Work on rhythm as you are, then incrementally on being able to alter her head position and length of rein without that rhythm changing - if you've established side ways out hacking, you can use the step across to bring them back under you and stop them rushing on the long(er) rein.
 
We have a nice fairly quiet straight road by us which just goes to a couple of yards so we do lateral work along it - often think the horse must be saying can't I just walk in a nice straight line.
 
My favourite walk/hack exercise with Alf is shoulder-in to travers transitions, on both reins. He loves it, gets more pingy and "expressive" the longer we do them for - and he feels fab afterwards. Just be careful to get a few strides in a straight line in between changes of bend, or we get wildly swinging hindquarters!
 
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