I had my first bad ride on Corny. When I asked Corny to trot, he’d fling his head back and get light in front like he wanted to rear. If he did start trotting, he’d take a hoppy step to get from walk to trot. His trotting seemed labored, like me and my equipment were way heavier than anything else he’d had to trot a circle in.
So I decided to do was to go back to the long lines. I want educate him that he doesn’t have to raise his head whenever he feels lateral pressure on a rein…even if he is moving. I also want to help him build his top line more.
You may wonder why I don’t just put some side reins on him. I’m not a big fan of training in side reins because you can’t give a release like you can with long lining. Horses in my program really only use side reins of they are giving a longe lesson or participating in a side rein mandated pony club lesson.
I kept the jumping cavesson on Corny and arranged my lines to encourage him to stretch down. The inside line goes from my hand, through the bit ring, and clips to the middle ring of the surcingle. The outside rein goes from my hand, over his back, through the top surcingle ring, through the bit ring, and clips to the lowest surcingle ring. This set up is called the flying W.
Inside rein of the flying W set up
Outside rein of the flying W set up
Here’s a series of photos that show me asking for Corny to flex to the inside and correcting his response to fling his head up.
This is a picture of a hollow horse. Corny feels pressure on the bridle, pushes the bottom of his neck forward and drops his back behind the withers
Corny is still fighting the pressure though maybe his head isn’t so high now. His stress indicator is now showing (his tongue)
Corny is beginning to experiment by taking his head a bit laterally to yield to the rein pressure
Corny’s neck is still constricted, but he’s softened the muscles on the bottom side of his neck
Corny has figured out how to stretch down when the inside rein is applied now, but he’s still quite tight in his back muscles
Corny has elongated his neck and is moving forward now
Corny is stretching to a light contact with soft back muscles. This is a good success from when we started the session
Tomorrow’s post will talk about how we take what we achieved on there long lines into a more positive response under saddle.