I went to the arena yesterday with my friend Kim.
I had her record a video clip of Trax and I. I'm not real happy with this clip because by time we were able to do this it was past Trax's dinner time and he thought we were done an hour ago because I stopped riding him to help her with her two young horses.
But this is the basics of the routine we have been working on to help teach him to side pass.
Here is the link
http://youtu.be/ZFjWZuxkG7A
I like watching video's of Trax. I seriously love to watch him move. He is so......well he is mine so to say he is perfect is biased! LOL
I will say that while I was riding him, she was riding her young mare. She used a training stick to help guide her mare in a side pass. I thought I would give that a try. It was the WRONG thing to do.
It is clear to me now that he has been wailed on with a crop before. I'm guessing from the "roper's" mom who ran barrels with him first.
The minute I had the crop in my hand he was off like a shot. I did a one rein stop which took about 30 circles before he finally stopped. I used the crop as a brush instead of for any kind of training tool. When I could get him to walk with me brushing him with the crop,, I let it go at that and then threw the thing aside. I cannot imagine why anyone would need a crop to make this horse go. a simple smooch is all it takes.
Trax did very well this time. We spent a good amount of time doing large figure 8's to work on his lead changes. He is getting there.
Today Jay came and trimmed everybody. He says to give Sassy more time. His horse had a similar issue and it took a year and a half before it healed completely. He did bring her toes back some and she seems to be walking better.
Well now I am off to get paperwork done.
I will have more pictures from the arena, but probably not till tomorrow.
Hope everyone is having wonderful weekend.
Ah ha! As I watch this again and again, I can see, where I pulled on his mouth again, a few times actually.
ReplyDeleteI swear that is our hardest habit to break. He pulls on me and I pull on him.
My trainer always tells me to 'close' my fingers on the reins so that when pony tries to pull on my hands she will just find the bit. You guys look so cute though! He's clearly trying to figure out what it is you are asking of him, and you stay patient and continue cueing until he figures it out! Well done!
ReplyDeleteLooks like it is working. I was always told to watch a video and then never watch it again cause all you will see is what is going wrong and nothing that went right. I find the more I watch videos of myself the more I see I am doing wrong too, guess it is good to video so you can see what to fix though.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good boy! And so lucky to have found you to love him and work him through his past bad experiences. He'll forgive you your mistakes, just like you forgive his.
ReplyDeleteI love his spots! I know I've said that before, but I keep noticing new ones.