Another Lesson

So, long time blog followers may remember when I have stopped the Smartpaks in the past with catastrophic results (me scratching my head and wondering why he is short striding all of a sudden). This time, it was a deliberate decision, in part because he has stopped eating the supplement, sometimes leaving it for a couple of days, and in part because I need a new baseline. There is no sense in Smartpaks if there is another option that might work better, such as Adequan or Legend or SI injections.

The good news is he isn’t unsound, just a little stiff. He is still on the MSM, since that seems to be the one supplement that actually helps, but that is the only one. I have the chiro coming out the end of next week, with the regular vet on the. 28th. Depending on what we find with the chiro, that information will help shape my questions for the regular vet. I’m leaning toward injections, since the ones we did on his right hind have had a terrific impact.

I have to share something that happened as I was tacking him up. I am always very careful of the girth, which lays across the seat of the saddle while I put the saddle on his back, to not have the girth fall off and hit the ground. The last time that happened he completely freaked out, dumped the saddle and shredded the halter he was wearing at the time. I did work with him in the round pen for a couple of weeks, letting things fall off of his back, but even after that work, he just never really relaxed. He always reacted. Last night I was trying to ensure the half pad I use as a blanket was sitting under the saddle correctly and had the left side flap of my saddle raised. It was enough to cause the girth to slither off the far side and thump into the sand under his barrel. In the past that would have precipitated an explosion of terror, which would have dumped the saddle and caused trauma for both of us. This time, I quickly put my hand on his shoulder and said “whoa”. Talking to him softly, I could feel the tension in his shoulder and he had his head cocked a bit to the side with an ear on the girth, but he didn’t pull back or react other than to get tense. I picked up the girth and then scratched his shoulder, telling him what a great boy he was. He tipped his head toward me and we had a moment of communion. That was huge.

In the lesson, we started with shoulder in to haunches in along the rail. It’s such a fun exercise and makes Ashke think about what I am really asking. Moving his hips and shoulders both independent of each other can only help as we go forward. After doing that in both directions at the walk, we moved to the trot. Changing up the request half way down the long side is great for Ashke, because he gets predictive. He thinks he knows what I am going to ask next, so he offers it before the ask. By starting with Shoulders In and moving to haunches in half way down the rail, he has to listen to what I am asking. That’s really good for him.

He still wasn’t really reaching with his inside right hind leg, so we moved to the 10m circle and then leg yield from X to the rail (from the Intermediate A test). That got him a lot looser while helping us work on straightness. I have to be very clear in my request for the leg yield, since we’ve also been working on the half-pass and he is so enamored of the half-pass that he wants to offer it. After the trot, we worked on the canter. I am trying to develop a solid seat for the medium canter, then supporting with my legs while we transitioned to the collected canter. 

Then, because circles, Amanda put up five cones in a double slalom pattern. However, she had me start with the single slalom.

Like this.

Then we did

So by making our last circle at the end of the single slalom bigger, we could ride directly into this pattern.

We did that twice in both directions and then Amanda added the figure 8 to the end of that pattern around the two bottom cones. We could have circled and added the triple barrels, using the cones as the outside of our circles, but both Ashke and I were pretty tired at that point. We went back to the trot and worked on the half-pass. Ashke tends to stall out in that movement, so I borrowed a dressage whip to hold. I don’t have to touch him with it, but just holding it is a signal to move forward. It also helps to direct his shoulder forward just a bit so we are moving shoulders fore in the half-pass. It’s a tricky thing, but he loves doing it and it helps our side pass so much. 

Amanda changed the cones to a diamond pattern and had us try an exercise her trainer makes her do. The exercise is to lengthen the gait between the cones, then contract the gait at the cone, executing a quarter pirouette on the sides, and a half pirouette on the ends. That was hard, primarily because Ashke was expecting a transition down at the cones, rather than a transition within the gait, but he did it really well once we were on the same page and he understood what I was asking for. Especially given we were at the end of our hour lesson which had included. a lot of collected work. 

I just fall more and more in love with this horse every day.