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Boy is it frustrating when you are trying to ride across a wide open space and you have to constantly readjust your horses direction. Sometimes it can be like trying to ride a wiggly snake!
This week I’m going to spend a lot of time riding from post to post in my arena and riding a cloverleaf pattern. This is a pattern that includes a lot of turns and they are in different directions so it’s a good exercise to get your horse paying attention to which way you want to go and not letting the horse chose.
At the same time it will be easy to keep working on transitions I started last week. In fact, the idea is to incorporate everything I’ve worked on. I’ve been diligently working on getting my horse to stand still while saddling and unsaddling. It is so annoying to try to do either while the horse is dancing around!
A lot of people get along pretty well with their horses until they go to training those horses.
True Unity: Willing Communication Between Horse and Human
Tom Dorrance
Paying alot of attention to body position should be a plus on this exercise. It takes alot of riding at different gaits to truly figure out how to position your body to stay out of your horses way. I’ve also noticed that when you change saddles you have to change the way you balance too. One thing I struggle with is putting more weight in my left leg than I do in my right. That one thing affects Nickel’s attitude and how he turns.
I read in an article horse trainer Stacey Westfall wrote you should practice one skill in an enclosed area until you are doing it so well that you and your horse get really bored. Only then should you move onto another area, maybe a bigger outside arena, and then the trail. I think that’s good advice and am going to remember to do that.
I’m so glad I started doing this as it seems I wasn’t really paying attention before.
