First Lesson with Denise

I had decided a few weeks ago that if Denise were going to ride Buck again at an event then I should learn WHAT she is doing with him so that she can be more effective when she shows him. Woah. That was a really long sentence. Sorry about that.

Yesterday I finally got around to making that lesson happen :) Denise's schedule is jam packed with training rides and lessons and it takes two weeks out to get on that schedule. I opted to do a semi-private lesson with Loraine and Ainsley. So we decided that we would do a flat lesson, specifically for ME I needed to understand the program that she wants to use and learn the techniques.

We have both agreed that Buck is not a "normal" horse. He thinks he knows exactly what must be done and can't possibly fathom WHY he should do it another way. We're not talking about taking directions and jumping - we're talking about the shifting of weight from the forehand to the hindquarters. I found this when I first started riding him a year ago. He was perfectly happy to move forward, turn, go wherever I told him....but once I wanted him to yield his jaw to the bit it took me FOREVER to get him to just SOFTEN the jaw....And I STILL struggle with that at times. He also would continually lock his neck and not yield it. This horse was stiff as a board and didn't see anything wrong with it! haha

So the first exercise we did was at the halt. "Carrot stretches" which encourage lateral flexion, but then we also asked him to go lower with the stretch and get a little bit of longitudinal flexion. This wasn't an incredibly hard exercise to the left, but turning to the right he definitely was stuck. Anyways, we continued the exercise at the walk. This was an exercise that was frustrating to me but very necessary to get him to lengthen his sides and relax his jaw.

The second exercise was to get him RESPONSIVE to the "forward" button. Not a terribly hard exercise either - just needed a bit of a tune up. Basically I'd ask him to trot but with a big WALLOP in to it so he was more responsive to just a simple lift of my leg. I have worked this one immensely from the day I got him the first time! His natural tendency is to be lazy....and that is fine as long as he has this button installed!

Our final exercise we worked on was the one where I gained the MOST insight. Going back to the beginning, Buck has ALWAYS used his neck and front end to move forward. What I mean by this is that he can NOT stay soft in his neck and jaw in transitions because he thinks he needs to USE them to move forward. This is probably the MOST frustrating thing about this pony. It came to a huge head the other day when he wanted to GOOOOOO home while we were out on a hack. I'd ask him to stop and stay soft, and walk off softly, and he'd pitch a fit and toss his head, half rear, etc. It was pretty nasty. So we NEED to fix this problem, and Denise has a solution.

So we would start from a halt. Ask him to stay soft in the jaw, and relaxed in his neck. And THEN we take that softness to walk. His first inclination is to bring his head DOWN and plow. My job was to keep him from doing that by insisting he NOT drop his head, and to try to keep him soft in the jaw. Well, easier said than done, haha....After many tantrums, we finally got it. After getting THAT, we finally had softness.

We pretty much ended on that note. Loraine (my lesson buddy this time) and I went out for a hack around the cross country field. Fun!