Another Day in the Saddle, Another Lesson Learned

Betty and I worked again with Sugar and Morgunn this morning. Besides doing the flexing ground work, we also continued our work on the go, stop and back up cues.

We both learned a lesson this morning. We each wanted our horses to go forward, but our cues weren't correct and they both backed up. So we stopped and gave them a lot of praise for backing up so nicely. Even though that's not what we wanted, it's what they thought we asked for. If we had corrected them or gotten frustrated that would have effectively been punishment for them doing what they thought was correct.

We corrected our body positions, gave clearer cues and got the nice back ups we wanted. Lesson learned - always praise the horse for a good try even if it's not what we want. We gave the wrong cues.

The new exercise we added was the in-saddle flexing exercise I learned at the clinic. It's basically the same thing we are doing on the ground, but now in the saddle. Both are meant to be warm up exercises to help the horse get focused on our cues, to flex at the poll and to bend in their ribs. If done correctly this will help the horse to relax all the vertebra in his spine.

The cues as you are going forward are to put the reins into the outside hand and hold contact with the outside supporting rein. Slide your inside hand down the rein to ask for a slight inside bend at the atlas joint. Put pressure through the inside leg to the rib cage. Put the outside leg slightly back to block the hips from swinging out, but don't put any pressure with it. Since the outside shoulder and hips are blocked and an inside bend asked for as you're going forward, the release will be in the ribs to give a whole body bend.

Here's a short video from my training clinic in Tennessee where I'm practicing this exercise. I'm certainly not perfect, but it gives you the idea.