One Canter, Please, Either Lead

So I rode Mo a few times on my own, just walking and trotting, although that was mostly because cantering turned into an ugly running trot til the cows came home. So far, Mo's idea of being ridden is this: I will think about going when you ask me to go, will always stop when you ask me to stop, and will sometimes stop whenever I please. Basically, her default gear is not yet "forward," it's "wtf-ever i want thx."

She's still pleasant to be around, so that more than makes up for it. I love her mind. When left on crossties, at first she would walk forward, still thinking she was supposed to follow me. When she hit the end of the ties, though, there was no freakout. She just stopped, looked at me, was mildly puzzled, and took a step back and relaxed. By her third day, she realized maybe she should just stand where she's put, and then she won't have to deal with the crossties tugging on her face. Genius!

Another shining example would be the first endeavor of pulling her mane. She was not terribly pleased at first. Teasing the hair up would go fine, but as soon as I wrapped it around the comb and went to pull, she would walk forward or backward. This is basically par for the course with inexperienced horses, and the most important things were that the mane pulling not stop simply because she moved away, and that she got repositioned where I wanted her after that chunk of hair was pulled out. After five or six pulls, she got the idea, and decided to stand and take it like a mare.

Thursday was our first official lesson, and it was only about twenty minutes of real work. Jess had us trotting serpentines, figure eights, and circles, always changing it up and teaching her to move off the inside leg when changing direction. Keeping her forward through all the turns is the most challenging part, especially by the gate, but she's getting better. After some trot work, we took a break and talked about how wonderful she is.

Cantering has really been a challenge for me to get consistently. I can usually get a lap or two on one lead, but the other lead (right or left, doesn't matter) then becomes nearly impossible. What I would do is get a good forward trot up a long side, sit in the counter and ask for her to step off into the canter. This would result in one of three things: either she would canter (yay!), kick to the outside and continue to run-trot, or slow down in response to the increasing pressure from my outside leg.

After Jess watched this not-fun game once or twice, she suggested magic advice. Instead of letting her continue to run, unbalanced, onto her forehand after a failed canter departure, what I should do is pick up Mo's front end, bring her back to the walk, and ask again. This encourages her to make a balanced departure, and teaches her that the running trot is not at all what I was asking for. (A few loving taps of the Magic Blue Stick were added as well.) For that lesson, I was happy with cantering on each lead. WOW does she have a big stride! She got a few days off after that breakthrough.

So the next things we'll need to work on are:

1. No kickouts at the canter departure,
2. flexing and softening at the trot,
3. learning that the hind and front end can, in fact, move independently of one another, and should do so when asked,
4. canter departures with increasing responsiveness and decreasing MBS (Magic Blue Stick) use,
5. and, probably most importantly, defaulting to "forward" instead of "o im done lets stop now."