Lesson Recap

So it has been almost a week since my lesson - no ideal for recording thoughts - but it is what it is.

My South Dakota pony was loving the snow.

Due to the bi polar NC weather we had a less than ideal week before hand. As in I did not ride, at all.

Uno says no riding is fine as long as SNOW!

It has also been like 89 billion years since my last lesson.  I was trying to save $$ in advance of our pending move, and thought that at this point I can't screw up W-T-C and 20 meter circles too badly.  Shocker, that was dumb thought.  It is not that the lesson contained any huge light bulb moments, but rather that with quality eyes on the ground I feel safer trying new things to see what actually impacts the pony.

Our current issue is that Uno is not reliable in the bridle and like to toss his head and scoot away.  DR always starts by watching us warm up with little input for 10 to 15 minutes to get a feel for where we are.  Today that meant lots of spooky at melting snow, and trotting around tossing our head.

It is not super dramatic, but when he tosses his head he looses his balance.  Then he either speeds up to try and catch himself or grinds to a walk.  He has not learned to trust my hands and to let his rider help him balance.  When he hits the edge of his comfort zone he bails.  DR suggests trying a 10 rind martingale to see if this would give him a more stable place to reach to.  The idea being we want him to feel safe enough to lean a bit on his rider and let me help keep him balanced.  It also makes him pull against himself so that he doesn't impact my balance, which makes his balance worse.  

I am not a fan of gadgets to fix problems, and the goal isn't for this to be constant.  We will use it for our arena rides for a few weeks until he gets more consistent then wean us off of it.  What I do like is that it basically works like a running martingale and doesn't hold the horse in or down like draw reins.  In the video below you can see him get used to it, right after we put it on.  He still flings his head a bit, and it is more dramatic, but he recovers better and doesn't loose his nice trot.

The other thing is that wee need to keep his trot small.  He likes to 'run' ahead of me but does not have the strength to hold himself.  Uno wants to be in medium tort all the time and we need to first have the balance to keep a slow trot without constant half halts.  As we build his balance and irritability we can start to add more transitions within gates.  Right now it is too much for his body and brain to manage without stressing himself out. 

I gave him 3 - 4 days off to start him on omeprozole and let our ground recover from the wet, but the last rides were great!  He was still bucking out behind a bit, but he was so soft and steady in my hands.  We are just W-T until out next lesson, so we will practice being slow and steady until our brains fall out, and TAKE MORE LESSONS!