Hunter Pony

Jetta and I played around with being hunters today :)




My fat, shiny pony



She was pretty good today, it felt really productive. I think part of the reason she's started leaning on me and rushing is simply because she's bored. I was thinking last night about what I've been doing with her and it hit me. Duh! She's bored out of her mind right now because all we've been doing is walk/trot/cantering around a ring. I've been telling myself that I want to work on more, but that she's "not ready for it" until she can behave like a grown up. Jetta's always been the kind of horse that feels the need to let her opinion be known and always has to argue with me on something, so I think her behavior right now reflects that.

So today I decided we'd work on transitions because that's the area that needs the most work right now. I started with walk-halt transitions. Every time I ask her to halt, she very subtly tenses and comes above the bit, hollowing her back. It's barely noticeable, but it just shows that she's resisting my aids. I worked on asking her hind end to come up under her when we halted and asked for a soft mouth. If she didn't halt nicely I made her back up until she softened and then we'd try it again. Whenever she halted correctly I made a big deal out of it and patted and praised her lavishly. Then we moved up to the trot and did the same thing. I really felt a huge difference. She was engaging her core more and listening to me much better. She stills needs a lot of work through the corners because she doesn't want to work, so instead of balancing and pushing deeply through the corners, her shoulders fall in and she tries to lean on me through the turn.

I also had some trot poles out to mix it up a bit. She tried to grab the bit and rush through them, so I made her walk right in front of the poles a couple times and used a little bit of side to side pressure with the reins so she couldn't brace. We did some really nice work today. And then came the canter. A couple times she tried to offer me a canter when I didn't want it, but it was a very nice canter - balanced and light on the forehand. But I don't want to make it a habit of her offering to speed up when I don't want it, so I made her come back to a walk. Then, when I did ask for the canter she just took the bit and ran with it. Sigh. And we are back to square one. I think that part of the answer to improving our canter will be to really collect her in the trot, get on a circle and make sure she's nice and balanced, then just ask for a transition into the canter. But for now our canter is just plain ugly.

Overall, I'm happy with how today went, I just need to remember to mix it up! We might go on a trail ride this evening when it gets cool out, I just have to figure out how to get on the trails since the neighbor's driveway is still a "no-go" zone. Also, I think we'll throw in some little cross rails for one ride and ride in the hackamore another time. Just to make it different :)

After our ride today