Circles

Although it was a windy day today, and Gambler has a bad history withwindy days, I decided to put the western saddle on. I really want him to get used to it, to the point that the saddle is second nature and he understands how it moves and feels without worrying about it. It will take a long time, but we have to start somewhere. I am encouraged because he is making considerable progress everyday. He was more worried about it today than usual, because it was windy, but he listened to me and was visibly calmer than he has been in the past. 

I started out by warming him up walk, trot, and canter. I didn't do much of a warm up because Gambler was cantering around the field before I brought him in. Obviously, he was warmed up already. Today I asked him for downward transitions. I haven't done much with downward transitions since he only recently learned the canter cue. However, when I asked him to canter yesterday he didn't want to stop. I didn't want a repeat of that today. After he was responsive and (somewhat) calm, I tacked him up. 

I did the same thing with the saddle that I did in my warm up. I really, really want him to understand that he needs to calmly walk after a canter. The last thing I need is to start riding a horse that doesn't have brakes. So I made a game of it. I asked him to walk one full circle, then asked him to trot two full circles. At that point I asked for the canter and after he cantered for a circle or two I asked for the trot. After a circle of trot I asked for a walk, then halted him, and brought him in to me. Change directions and repeat. He picked it up very quickly, so I changed up the number of circles. I don't want him to anticipate me, I just want him to understand that cantering once doesn't mean cantering non-stop.

Once he seemed to understand what I was asking I took the western saddle off and tried another new exercise. Gambler now has a decent understanding of all my longeing cues, walk on, trot, canter, out, and whoa. I need to focus on the circles themselves. Gambler's circles tend to be a little lopsided. He also tends to stick his nose and outside shoulder out. This means he has no bend (or a counter-bend) and he isn't carrying himself very well. In the video that my mom took I took a few steps to counter the problem. First, I clucked in time with the inside hind leg to encourage him to step under himself and carry himself more from the hind end. Second, I put energy toward his hindquarters to encourage him to move forward, but yield his hind end out at the same time. Third, I tugged just a little on the rope whenever he tried to stick his nose outside of the circle. I very purposely moved my feet more than I normally would when I am longeing him, to encourage his nose to turn to me just a little bit. The first few times he thought I wanted him to stop, but when my mom took the video his girlfriend was in the barn, so he kept upping the speed. For now I don't care if he wants to trot or canter (although it must be hard to canter in such a small circle), as long as he starts to get the bend. I did this a couple times on both sides and then called it a day.