A thousand promises that never seemed to help me before

I've decided in an effort to spice up my posts, I'm going to title them with random excerpts from songs. Deal with it. ;)

Overall, I was really pleased with the way tonight's lesson went. He was a little lazy (which I'd much, MUCH rather him be as opposed to say, wound) and was very calm by his standards during our patterns. His stops at the end of each one were GORGEOUS - it was like he melted into the ground and when he stopped, he stood there calmly and quietly - something I've pretty much NEVER known him to do. He was a little more tense walking up to start the pattern, but I had him stand before and he settled nicely. He even kept his cool when Darryl went off his rocker when a man in a wheelchair went past (he hates anything with wheels). But this brings me to a new predicament: how can I sharpen up his responses without sacrificing the solid, calm horse that he's become?

I think that my plan for this will be to adopt Mugwump's strategy: if he starts to die on me/takes too much time in a transition, I'm going to offer him a chance before upping the ante. Say he starts to die in the jog; I'll offer a squeeze, then roll my heel into him, and if I still get nothing, I'll give a kick.

If he takes too long in a transition, I'm going to try going about it a little differently. I'll cue him, then roll my heels into him, and if I don't get an immediate response, I'll bring him back down and make him do it again (usually for the lope).

The plan for tomorrow, I think, is to work him one day - paying special attention to laziness/transitions, reverse, and then walk for a bit before going to the trail ring to work on some obstacles. I think I'm going to really take my time having him stand and relax at each possible one, and if Connie is there I may even set up the gate if things are going well - probably not though.

Something else I want to do is neaten up our simple changes. He'll do them fine at shows, same as going into a lope, but at home it's a little sloppy and I want to neaten it up. I'll apply my strategy for slowing down/breaking to the simple change; I'll offer the cue for the lead, roll my heel and then kick.

I was also playing around with the idea of using a cluck for the lope - jog transitions. I think I'm going to stick with that and have him learn it, because it's more professional and less noticeable in the show ring. I haven't been very consistent about it, so I'll try to keep at that until it becomes an ingrained habit in the both of us.

I'll post tomorrow after our ride =) Later!
Sarah

ETA: I talked to the boss lady, and the verdict is in: I'm going to try reining this weekend! Should be interesting if nothing else ;)

The Beginning

My horse Garth is a 12 year old registered Quarter Horse gelding. He is trained in western pleasure, and we also do showmanship, english pleasure, horsemanship, trail and command classes. He is a very sweet horse that aims to please, but is prone to getting tense and nervous. I started this blog so that I could keep track of our progress and lay out my goals, plans and expectations in a more concrete way. This summer, I hope to make a lot of progress with him. By the end of the summer, I want to be able to take him through his rail classes - western and english pleasure - totally calmly, without him being nervous about being in the show ring. I want to be able to take him through horsemanship and trail with minimal nerves - he can be tense, but I hope to have him at least quiet and listening to me the whole way through. I think that with hard work, we can reach those goals.


Tonight we have a lesson - patterns (aka horsemanship). My goals for tonight are to continue working at his pleasure lope during our warm up, and to keep him relatively calm and listening to me the whole time. I also want to work on taking a left lead during a pattern - something he's been having trouble with lately. He's normally very good about his leads, and I think that his problem is mostly being too wound to focus on me and what I'm asking. Tonight I'll make sure to give very clear cues so that there's no confusion as to what I'm asking. If we still have trouble I'll consult with my instructor.

I also want to ask about doing some reining in the horse shows - not competitively, just a way to take him into the ring and settle him. Loping circles has always been an effective way to calm him down, and it will be a way to expose him to the showring without worrying about placing. I never really thought of it until it was brought up in a lesson last night while I was working, and it seems like a very, very good idea to me. I also think it will be good for me, too, because I wouldn't be serious about it - it would just be something for me to do in a show for fun, without the plague of stress and competitiveness.

Some other things that I want to work on over the summer are:

• sidepassing straight and fluidly - not go-stop-go-stop
• extending his jog for a western pleasure and horsemanship class
• circling, at the lope especially
• at some point, I want to get my instructor to help us tackle the gate - he has big problems with it, and I don't feel comfortable trying to get him over that by myself.
• Planting properly in a turn on the forehand
• Standing still, particularly after doing lots of lateral and backwards maneuvers or a lot of go-stop-go-stop on the rail. Also, standing at obstacles in the trail ring.
  
• Work one way, reverse, and then just walk him out and quit (to stop him from anticipating too much in the show ring).
• Backing straight.
• Take more breaks - go on trail rides, practice riding bridleless, ride bareback - for his mental health.

My real goal with Garth is to eventually create a solid, quiet, calm pleasure horse that trusts me to take him through any situation in a calm, relaxed manner. I want to be able to take him into a class at a show and focus on technical aspects rather than just trying to keep him calm. He was a very successful pleasure horse, but due to some unknown reason, he got very, very nervous, tense and easily upset the year before I bought him. I leased him for a summer, and made a lot of progress with him. I bought him on September 20th, 2009. It was the best day of my life. We made it through a long, spooky, nervous winter (he is very governed by temperature; if it's cold, he's silly, and if it's warm, he's calm) and started into the summer with an optimistic outlook. But sometime in late March - early April, he injured his left front leg. It was swollen and sore for a little over a month, and he recovered just in time for the show season to begin. So far our year has been a little mediocre compared to what he could be doing, but we're getting back on the same page and things are starting to look up. We have a show this weekend, my game plan for which is to longe him good and hard before our first class, and then to keep him working to keep him calm for his classes. I hope to eventually be able to give him more breaks during a show, but for now the main objective is to keep him calm.

I'll report back tonight after my lesson to fill you in on how it went. =)
Sarah