Ride #9: Aggravation

I met Flambe at the barn to ride on Sunday morning. She was on limited time, so I didn’t set up the Pixem. I went through the manual last time I tried to use the Pixem and didn’t find anything in the manual that told me what I was doing wrong. I will have to get to the barn early one day so I can play with the camera and beacons until I figure it out. It may also work better outside in the outdoor arena. I will try it out there the next time I am convinced the footing is good.

Kat was really up when Flambe mounted, which was a little scary to me. Kat is a Friesian with a touch of Arabian, and although she was standing well at the mounting block, she was very tense and up when they moved away. It took a little bit of riding for her to settle. During that time, Ashke was soft and listening, moving near and away from Kat without any tension. He felt good through his body and ready to work.

Then a couple of new to us horses came into the arena and Ashke got very tense. His body radiated tension, he wouldn’t relax or stretch down like he had been just a couple of moments before. He also wouldn’t trot forward, becoming more and more “up” in his movement, chomping on his bit and tossing his head behind vertical. He was pissed that there were other horses there. I tried all of my fall back exercises: trot serpentines with transitions off my seat (he fought me and tried to give me a canter each time I asked for an upward transition), leg yields and half passes, both of which were more sideways than forward and neither of which included any time of relaxation. I finally put him into a canter, which involved at least three attempts to bolt, but did seem to help with some of the tension.

I’m going to have to rethink my approach with Ashke. When this type of behavior has manifested in the past, I have yelled at him to knock it off. Sometimes I will also slap the side of his neck with my open hand. This has served to startle him out of his comfort zone and usually he gets better afterwards. He doesn’t like being in trouble. Yesterday, however, my process of kind of bullying him into behaving didn’t work and just made him more tense. So yelling at him to knock it off is now off the table since it made him more reactionary. Instead, I worked on descalation and trying to find relaxation. At one point we had stopped and were concentrating on standing still and Amanda’s mom commented that he was acting like a stallion who is feeling challenged by the other horses in the arena. She said that Laz can react the same way. It makes sense and felt very similar to how he reacts in the warm up ring at shows, so it’s at least some practice for me to figure out some coping mechanisms. We are going to have to have a talk about his manners if he is going to think of himself that way. I’m going to have to change from the “telling a gelding” and adapt into “ask a stallion”. 

He got focused and relaxed once the arena was empty and we got some nice canter transitions. Prior to that is was mostly trotting with changes of direction and bend all over the arena trying to find some relaxation. Sometimes it just doesn’t work the way you want it to. We worked on a lot of lateral work and some serpentines with transitions, but mostly he was sucked back and going up and down instead of forward. We did play with some half steps of really collected trot before working on our changes.

I am working on mixing up the changes with asking for a walk transition. I am using my voice for the cue. His upward transition is usually very obedient and the downward is less and less on the forehand, because he is stepping into it rather than falling into it. In the video below, we do changes down the arena, then do walk transitions back up the arena, so that he figures out he has to listen to me in order to get it right. I am beginning to slow the process down in my head and figure out the little things that I need to do to help him set up for the flying change a little better. Two months into this process and I am feeling pretty happy with our progress, even when we have days that are less than optimal.