I wanted to talk for a bit about my take on training gaps in horses. I’ve come across this recently because as I ride Nikki, I’m finding that there are things she knows, but can’t connect together.
Here’s our issue:
She knows how to do Manuever A: Give to the bit. And she knows Manuever C: Move away from the leg. But what she does’t know is Information B that will allow her to connect those two ideas.
So what happens is that I will ask her to move her body; either around a turn, in a circle or trying to control her legs. Her response is to get frustrated and back up. And back up. And back up.
So the first thing I did was cure the backing up. She seemed to think that when I put on my leg that backing up was an option. I had to teach her that no matter what she did, backing up did not solve the issue of my leg. I put her in an open area where she could back up at her leisure. So I would put on my leg and the LIGHTEST of rein aid, and she would shoot backwards. I continued to put my leg on stronger as she backed up. We went about 20 yards and she finally moved forward. I took my leg off and petted her. We did that until she stopped backing up when I put my leg on.
Then I decided to start with the basics. I would pretend like she was a 3 year old with no training. I was going to do everything I would do with a baby. If she knew the training step we were working on, we’d refresh and build.
It began at the walk today. I began walking in a circle while asking for some bend both directions. If she responded and gave to the bit, I gave her the rein and a pat.
We broke up the monotony and frustration of this for her by doing some loose rein trotting and cantering at different intervals throughout the ride. It kept her mind from getting beaten and allowed her some time to move and relax.
Eventually she got really soft no matter what I asked so we moved to an easy sitting trot. She picked up the bending quickly and I let her walk, satisfied.
I knew it was pushing it, but I put her back on a smaller circle at a walk. I began asking her to move away from my leg while maintaining some bend. Because we had worked so extensively on the bending and she was rather sensitive to leg, she really clicked the ideas quickly and would move out of the circle.
Adding a bit of outside leg and a blocking outside rein, I maintained this beacutifully bent circle without Nikki popping out her shoulder or drifting out of the circle.
We finished on that note and her and I took a long walk down the driveway to relax her even further. She ended up happy, relaxed, and having learned something.
I had this same issue with Mistic back in Ohio. He didn’t know how to move his hindquarter independently of his body and could not be stopped from popping out his shoulder.
I stripped down this issue to the very basic. He knew how to give to the bit. He knew forward. But something was missing that he didn’t know how to control his body when asked.
I stopped Mistic and really thought about it. I thought about how a horse learns to move their shoulders and hindquarter independently. It occurred to me that Mistic had never learned a turn on the forehand or on the haunches. This was a very basic function he had never been taught. As I tried to ask him for it, he sidepassed, backed up, pushed through my hands, and generally did not understand what I was asking for. It was his gap, and was something simple that…once fixed, made a world of difference.
