End of term, or at least end of the week, and it was time for the class show and tell. I always like to see what a client can do and is doing with their horse before coming up with a plan. In C's case, trotting in hand was always proceeded by her speeding up in her walk and then setting off at a run but this had somehow become a cue for Rosa to wring her neck and trot off at a rate of knots. How could we improve this? Looking at the picture in front of me I could see there were two issues. First of all Rosa was just dragging behind a little in walk and also objected to C turning right in front of her.Working in walk I began to ask her to be more exact about where she was walking in relation to me and also to let me walk 'right through her' when I turned right, in other words to yield to me. This worked well and certainly improved her trot where the only other change I need to make was to stop and back her up if she over took me.
We ended the session by changing the subject altogether and making a start on ridden work. Rosa is being brought back into work after a break following being started. Unfortunately a large but much needed thunderstorm loomed and so we thought it was prudent to stop - however the bit we had done was a 100% success. Get on, move forward, stop, dismount!
All in all one tired little horse.
