Third Ride Outside the Pen on Curly Zeke

I really, really like a horse that I can smoothly open and close gates on. In fact, it's manditory, although when I ride a green horse out of the round end for the first few times, I'll usually ride the horse out through and back into an already open gate. I'll open the gate and push it open then ride through. If you are some people who have had their knees or legs banged up against the gate posts going through or coming out, you know what I am talking about. Going through an open gate a few times gives me a pretty good idea if I can keep him in the middle.

I have had some video camera malfunctions on the first couple rides. Okay, not really malfunctions, but I either didn't orient the camera properly or have a charged battery in place. So the video below is Zeke's third ride outside the round pen. He still is bracing on left and right lateral flexion, more so on the left, so we're working through that. At the walk, I concentrate on giving him a fairly loose reins when he is straight, even for a moment, all rein and leg pressure are non-existent and eventually he will understand that and seek that feeling. When I ask Zeke for a transition into the trot, I don't force him to keep the trot. If he needs to go back to the walk that's fine. Soon he'll keep the trot. You can get into trouble asking the horse for something he's not mentally prepared for and if you let him take his time to be comfortable, it'll be no time at all until he is.

The same is true, I believe, about a horse speeding up. We have a tendency to rate them down, but it's confusing to a green horse, and unless he's a run away horse, the horse will soon rate himself back down. We can direct them, but pulling on both reins is confinement and invites a troubled horse. I only have a little over five acres to ride on without getting on the county road to get to the open desert but I have all sorts of new things for a green horse to explore, so that's what we are concentrating on in the short term.

The first video below is an initial ride out of the round pen and spending a short amount of time doing some 180 degrees turns at a walk. This builds confidence in each other outside the round pen where he horse not may be as comfortable. I'll try to go back forth the round pen gate a couple times. I didn't expect to have issues with Zeke, and nothing came up. So the next time, or even the time after, I can work on opening and closing the gate on horseback. To have a good chance of doing so without any troubles, I'll rely on the work we have did on bringing his front end over, controlling the front end independently of his hind end, and his hind end over, indepndant of his front feet, so I can position the horse up on the gate without having to lean too much to access the gate latch. Side passing over to the gate will come later.

In the second video (below), I'm asking him for a trot so the asks for lateral felxion and a change in direction come a bit quicker. I have to be cognizant of his compromised hing end (missing lateral patella ligaments) and am trying to ask for wider turns so it's easier to keep his momentum up. That'll soon lead to asking him to step undernath himself with the inside back foot, building him up to turing like a cow horse.

Curly Zeke, Part II Questions on Lateral Flexion

Just a couple days after I published the article on working on lateral flexion on starting Curly Zeke, my coming 4 year old QH gelding, I received a call from Laura who asked me some great questions concerning Zeke and my improvement/non-improvement and issues with him understanding a soft ask for lateral flexion. These question made me think on how I was approaching the whole thing as I had to explain it. While I really don't care what other people think of me,......wait,.....the FBI. I do care what the FBI thinks of me. Or the IRS for that matter. Anyway, I do care what my horses think of me and if I can do something better for them, I need to find that way. Here are her questions, my thoughts and answers to her, and some self reflection on what I could have done different.

How much do you accept? Meaning when I am asking a horse, in this case Zeke, for a soft give to an ask for lateral flexion, how much bend in his head and neck, giving to the ask, do I need from him before I stop that lesson to resume another day, and how much lateral flexion do I need before I can ride him?

I should only ask what he can give at the moment. Going into working with him, I should not have precoceived ideas on how much I watn that day from him. But I'm guilty on not following that. I went back to just asking for a few degrees or inches of flexion, then buildig on that, slowly. Its actually a faster way, but more importantly its more accepting to the horse. WHat also is so important, is the pause givbene between asks. Again guilty of getting in a hurry, so I have to cognizantly recognize that trait in myself.

Laura said she understood the idea of letting the horse find the release when giving to the rider asking for lateral flexion, meaning waiting on the horse to give and find the release, but is there a point when you demand a give such as with bumping?

Demand is a big word. Not really a good word or thought to use with horses. Maybe insisting on a try, but even the thought to try is sufficient. I think poor or fristrated horsemen have an instinct to pull hard. Evne worsea a jerk. While bumping has it's place it's best used sparlingly and differenty on horse to horse. When Zeke braces for an ask for lateral flexion to the left, he like other horses has a tendancy to fade to the right. Sometimes I'll switch to an ask for right flexion and use my right leg to get him back on his line. Sometimes, I'll bump just a bit on that left rein and sometimes I change the angle of the rein slighlty higher as to lift his shoulder and ask for the left leg to step out and forward and use my right leg to reinforce the ask for flexion. You'll just have to experiment with your horse, and even on another horse, do something different. Helping the horse untrack in his hind end as shown in the video below is good for both getting a horse to follow a feel for lateral flexion and to help him untrack his hand end.