argh she's at it again!

[notpoodle]

or should i say WE are at it again (because i am sure its my fault somehow!)

angel has taken to ducking and diving in canter again :rolleyes: the routine goes like this: we're in the school (canter on hacks is fine btw), i ask for canter, she goes into canter, we go down a long side, head for a corner and bam! she ducks into the middle of the school with a semi-u-turn, sometimes knocking me off balance, sometimes knocking herself off balance (had a near-fall stumble in the school today because she overestimated her turning at high speed abilities ...) :rolleyes:

it annoys me because we had that sorted pretty much!!!

what i normally try to do is keep her head straight, ensuring she does not look to the outside and keep my inside leg on firmly. she still manages to do the diving thing quite often though :rolleyes: and im worried that i am going to knock her off balance even more by getting her head straight ..

what to do??

julia
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[Colorado Sunset]

When riding a horse that does this its really easy to just hold onto your outside rein and shift your weight to the outside. Make sure you, even if she dives, keep an inside bend and your outside shoulder forwards. This will stop her being able to fall through her inside shoulder. If she persists, circle her and come back onto the track, whatever you do she must not be able to stop in the middle. Make her go bak onto the track and continue cantering in a steady pace. Possibly try cantering down the long side, then come back to walk before the courner, walk the corners, canter down the long side, so that you can work on her bend and your position around the corners. Then try canter around the corner, walk down the long sides, so she doesnt learn to rush when faced with some space.

Good luck

Jo

[notpoodle]

thanks for that :) i hope i will remember it all when it happens (and i really hope angel isnt lame tomorrow from today's skid .. she wasnt when i left the yard and i had someone else - who knows what theyre doing - check her out as well)!!

btw she does not stop when she dives into the middle, its more of a cutting corners thing that is taken to the extreme, ie if you let her get on with it she'll end up cantering smaller and smaller spirals in the school :rolleyes:

i hold onto the outside rein, but she has an uncanny knack of going sideways with her head facing outside if neccesary :rolleyes:

i do get her back on to the track 99% of the time, sometimes in trot (when the canter is a little too furious, ahem). were also practising staying on the track and going exactly where i want her to go in walk and trot (a lot easier because she doesnt have that much momentum ...).

julia
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[MelanieD]

I used to ride a horse that did this really badly, turn was so sharp that all I could do was hang on and then drag her back to the track eventually. She was falling in through her shoulder and blatantly just taking the pee (riding school horse used to stopping in the middle while others took their turn at working hard so kept trying to get to the middle :rolleyes: ). What worked for her was giving her a hard smack with my whip on her shoulder, it hit the bit she was falling in through and could manage to do it even if she was turning so sharply I was almost going off the side. Not the nicest way to do it but after two wallops she went back to angelic horsey again.

[notpoodle]

tried tapping on shoulder as well, *sometimes* it works (and im reluctant to hit her any harder!).

julia
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[Casey76]

Julia, this is something I have to deal with on a weekly basis too. My school horse, Leon, dives into the middle of the school, or darts up the other end of the school both as an evasion, and so he can go see his mates too :rolleyes:.

Do you use a long schooling whip, or a short whip? I ride with a long whip, and I was told that even if Leon is behaving, I should tap his inside shoulder occasionally to remind him the whip is there, and then to carry the whip forward a bit too, not over the thigh like I would normally do, so he can see it. When we're cantering down the long side and I feel that he's about to dive in he gets a smart tap (again on the shoulder) and a growl, but if he really does dive in I will give him a sharp tap.

The other thing which I was told, was that I shouldn't follow the circle round the way the horse wants to go, but go the other way. e.g. say I'm trotting round the track on the left rein and Leon decides he'd rather be at the other end of the school with his mates and dives in, instead of circling on the left rein (which is usually easier), I have to get him back to the track by turning around, and using alot of right rein and left leg.

Maybe a couple of ideas you could try :) At least you're getting a canter transition :p it's something I'm still strugging a lot with :rolleyes:

[notpoodle]

were getting better at the transitions as in we now go into canter when *i* instigate this and not when angel feels like lurching :D

i have been carrying the whip practically on the shoulder, occasionally tapping her on the shoulder with it - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt.

but thanks everyone for all the tips, i shall hopefully try in practice later - if we can get into the big school (small school is a bit boggy at the moment ...)

julia
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[notpoodle]

tried out various pieces of advice yesterday and today. yesterday went well, today went okay canterwise. i also discovered that if i make her go forward and keep her busy she is less likely to divebomb!!

julia
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[notpoodle]

today i observed the following: she seems to have specific 'diving points' round the school. one of the is before the corner, the other one is exactly where theres a treetrunk lying by the fence outside the school. she only does it in canter though. but at least now i know exactly where she'll try and dive, so can do something about it BEFORE it happens.


was a bit of a battle today, but she eventually got the idea (a lap of canter round the school and we shall remain ON THE TRACK at all times) because whenever she dived, i camly started her all over again until she realised that i was not going to give in ... and hey presto! we went round in a civilised fashion, partly on the bit, on a slightly miffed but quite co-operative pony.

jula
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