Well, here’s my first time riding Dodger without an instructor at a canter…that’s a little bit bigger deal. No surprise I got a wrong lead even though I was cueing him on the outside. He did it right later but the camera was off. If I can just keep my heels down and my arms and legs still, we might not look so funny.
Yesterday I decided to ask a trainer associated with my barn if she’d be interested in helping me transition Dodger to a bitless bridle as well as get him doing better at maintaining a trot and a canter. She owns the horse in the paddock next to him and is taking care of the barn in the owner’s absence this week so I figured it would be pretty convenient for her to help me out. It was, and she was able to make today his first day. True to form, he pulled out all his favorite tricks on the ground for her, all based on his guiding principle that the human should always work harder than the horse.
One tried and true method to dominate any exercise is for him to turn and face his “opponent” every chance he gets, rather than move off when asked…as he forces the human to put more and more energy into moving him, he simply pivots on his forehand. Meanwhile, completely desensitized to anything his opponent may choose to wave in his space to get him to move, he inches incrementally closer. The first one to move in this game, loses in horseville. Once she realized how very little air whipping and flag waving scares this boy, she decided to try an approach from the saddle. Gutsy move on most horses, but on Dodger, not so much.
However, watching him play that game with her on the ground was helpful for me, because it helped me realize that he and I are past it. Every once in awhile, he’ll pull it, but I’ve gotten very good at convincing him it will cost him precious energy. And if there’s one thing my boy is, it’s frugal with his energy.
Since we’re transitioning him from a bitted to a bitless bridle, she put both on in case she needed to default to the bitted version. But it turned out she didn’t. He started out bracey, but soon she was able to tip his head nicely into the turn at a trot, and he was looking really good. He was trotting quite well all around the arena…even past the scary gates with the bright light below them that none of the horses like. At the point he realized he was working way harder than she was, though, he eked out a half-hearted spook at the gate to see if that would slow things down a touch for him. But no. She kept him going and right up against the wall. He didn’t try it twice. I watched as his spare gas tank kicked in and triggered his inner Yoda: Frugal now, we must be.
And that’s when the trainer turned to me and asked, “So which is his best lead?”
Now under normal circumstances, that’s a very simple question. And if my friend Tina (who knows Dodger well) hadn’t been there, I could’ve made it through it with a straight face, but Tina’s guffaw blew all chances of that. I could only stutter off something about his being left footed, and to go with that. Without missing a beat, she understood the situation, turned his left side into the center and cantered off on a perfect left lead. All the way around the arena! Clearly she didn’t know Dodger doesn’t DO that!
Then she got him going the other way on his right lead without cross firing! Not only was he expending peak energy, he did it through at least four turns! Tina and I were slack jawed. In this mesmorized stupor, I picked up my camera without checking settings and started clicking. So, bad ISO noise aside, the point in this photo is that he’s cantering through a turn on his right lead. Cue the Hallelujah chorus…
After that, I got on him, trotted much farther and through many more turns than usual on a willing horse, and we called it a great day. He’d stayed engaged, willing and seemed proud of himself as we walked back to the crossties.