Riding School Cob - Moving Away from Kick, Kick, Kick?

[ScotterMum]

Hello

My daughter's loaning a very sweet cob from her riding school; she can ride him five days a week and so far (she's had him for five weeks) she's made huge progress with her riding. The problem is that he's a little bit dead to correct aids, as he's had years of kids just doing kick, kick, kick. DD now wants to start learning to use "proper" aids to ask for the correct canter lead, etc, but although she understands in theory what to do, more subtle aids have no effect on Blue. It could well be that she's not effective enough in the proper aids, having had no opportunity to learn them on a responsive horse, or it could be that Blue's just not schooled well enough or has learnt to ignore everything except kick-to-speed-up-pull-to-slow-down :-/

Question is: what can we do to get Blue to respond, bearing in mind that at the weekends he's used for lessons and will be back to kick-kick-kick again in any case, even if we make progress during a week? Does anyone have a step by step foolproof "retrain a RS cob to listen to aids" programme we could follow?? I'm wondering about asking the RS if DD can have some lessons on a different horse for a few weeks so that we can really tell whether the problem is DD, or Blue, or (probably) both.

 

[JustJas]

How old is Blue and how long has he been a riding school pony?

I agree with the have lessons on other horses. Blue could well have perfected the ignore the aids that many RS ponies learn which will take a long time to unlearn. Blue will be priceless for learning about horse care but other horses will help riding skills. So just enjoy him!

 

[Feffie]

Best thing to do is ask for the aid, if he doesn't respond give him a tap with the whip and he should go.
It may seem harsh but he needs to know that your daughter means business and she won't let him do what he wants.

The problem is probably Blue but it's not with him not knowing what to do it would be more like him not wanting to and knowing he can get away with it. As soon as he doesn't listen the aids need to backed up with a tap with the whip and a voice command of canter. This has worked for me perfectly on the slowest riding school horses.

Another thing to do is lots and lots and lots of transitions, get her to walk him around and stop at every marker, stop for a second and then get her to make him walk on, if he doesn't respond with a nice forward walk, give him a tap.
Then move from going from walk at one marker, trot at the next, walk at the next trot at the next etc etc.

Once they have that down, start doing direct transitions, try trot to halt and halt to trot, once again if he doesn't respond straight away give a tap with the whip. After a few times doing this he should be alot more responsive to the legs and a squeeze should get him to trot.

Next is to try it with the canter, get her to get him going in a nice active trot and to ask him to canter in a corner, once she gives the aids and voice commands, if he doesn't respond make sure she backs it up with a tap from the whip.

If the trop just gets faster, get her to half halt him back to a nice rhythmic trot and tell her to ask in the next corner, remembering to back up the aids if he doesn't respond. Once he does get the canter keep it short and sweet, lots of small bursts of canter are better than one long one.

Once she can get a canter transition get her to do lots of trot-canter-trot transitions down the long side. Always remember that as soon as he does something right to tell him he's a good boy. Horses learn by repetition so the more times you back the aids up the sooner he'll learn to go off the first aid.

 

[Mary Poppins]

The cob at my RS is used for novice riders and can revert to being a kick along type when given the opportunity. I tend to use my warm up time to do lots and lots of transitions to get him listening to me and this really perks him up. Halt to trot for 3 strides, halt again and quickly up into trot. Walk to canter is also excellent with only about 5 strides of canter before walking again.

I find that if I become a kick a ong rider, he becomes a kick along horse. If I decide to ride well, he decides to go nicely. If I give him one aid which he ignores I use my schooling whip to give him a tap and that gives him the message that he needs to work with me. I try to keep his mind active and really get him listening to me.

 

[ScotterMum]

Thank you all. Blue is about 15; I'm not sure of his whole history, but he's been with this school for at least 7-8 years. Lots of transitions is a good idea; she tried that today, mixing up trot-halt, trot-walk, walk-halt, walk-trot, halt-walk and halt-trot around the different markers and it did seem to get him listening. We'll have a go with short, sharp up and down canter transitions too. At the moment, her teacher has been focused on her staying in canter long enough to do 20m circles in canter, but perhaps the shorter bursts will help him listen.

DD can get a reasonable canter from Blue, but only with big kicks rather than with anything more subtle, and once he's started cantering, he then wants to canter constantly - he's obviously learnt that his lessons go in the walk, trot, canter order and that when it's time to canter it means the lesson's nearly over! Yesterday DD tried some canter work relatively early once he was warmed up and then went back to trot work and it was hard work for her to get him back into a nice balanced trot because he assumed she wanted to canter all the time.

I'll talk to her about backing up single commands with the whip straight away. We watched something the other day (maybe Clinton Anderson, I don't remember) where he was talking about an ask-tell-demand system, which seems to be the same idea. Thank you for all the suggestions

 

[Skib]

I ditto Mary P. I too ride riding school slow coach, who in her other guise is a speedy runner.
But to add to the transition requests - Richard Maxwell said just as important to get easy compliance are turns (bend) and backing up. All of these also asked for very softly.
Horses have no difficulty in adapting to the riding style of the person riding them.
What may be harder for your daughter is that with a RS pony you have to work out each ride as it comes, and understand it may revert to habit. Some days after a weekend back giving lessons or with beginners such a pony will need reminding who is riding him?
It is absolutely essential not to get cross - it should take less and less time. But my experience is that it isnt possible to take a horse who endures multiple riders and permanently fix it in the mode you personally expect.

 

[Kate F.]

Looking at it from Blue's point of view, he's not "dead to the leg" he's doing what he's been trained to do. Beginners have been mechanically kick, kick, kicking his sides, and if he ignores them, eventually they stop. This is what horses do - and it's useful in other contexts, when it's called desensitizing.

I think what you need to do it to train him to different aids. If he's going to be back in the kick, kick, kick environment at weekends, it's going to be pretty tough to teach him that a kick Monday to Friday means something different from a kick on Saturday and Sunday.

You say your daughter wants to train him to "proper" aids - so I guess you mean thought and weight? ie you picture what you want the horse to do, then "feel" it - or rather ride what you want to happen, and the horse joins in? eg if you want to canter, you picture the canter, then allow your body to arrange itself for canter, and the horse canters. (The movement of the horse in canter pushes your inside hip a little further forwards, so the outside hip/leg moves back - it has to, they are joined together - so the net result is outside leg goes back - but it's done with the feel of the stride and not as a mechanical kick.

So - what you'll need is the thing that happens if he doesn't respond to those light aids - and that can be anything other than a kick. He may be desensitized to the stick as well, in which case you may need a wip wop or similar to get things going.

I'd start with just simple transitions. Think it, feel it, wop!!! Leave at least a second but no more than 3 seconds between each stage. (It's the same principle as mentioned by others able - ask, tell, demand in Anderson-speak, 3 phases in Parelli-speak - it's all the same thing.) Stop asking IMMEDIATELY the horse tries to do what you want. It may be only a little try at first - but that's fine - stop asking and pet him. Then set it up again - very quickly he'll be responding to the feel, if not the thought.

The difficult bits: 1) your daughter has to be absolutely consistent in the sequence. No exceptions whatsoever. 2) kicking is a complete no-no. Kick has to come out of the equation completely. There can be a subtle squeeze between feel and stick/wipwop - but no more than that. 3) (and this is the really tough one) She has to know absolutely and with no shadow of doubt in her mind that Blue is going to do the right thing each time, and she will keep asking until he does it, and only then will she stop. When he does it, the rewards are generous - but he has to try. If she doesn't have the experience/confidence for this, you may need someone else to help get things going.

He might be a school cob, but he's still a horse, and can still be trained like a horse. You just need to get as far away from the sequences he's experienced in the school as possible. :wink:

 

[Harry Hobbes]

ScotterMum,

Kate F. has hit the nail squarely on the head, with her observation that your daughter must use a completely different set of aids.

Should you define "proper" aids has exactly what the other riders are using, then the horse will not be able to differentiate between riders, and more importantly, what they are asking: the horse will continue to ignore everyone's leg.

Give this horse a completely different set of aids to respond to, and you may achieve success.

Kate F. concluded her advice with the comment about getting far away from sequences he has experienced. I'll be a little bit more blunt and suggest that your daughter needs to get far away from the influences that have resulted in a horse that is dead to the leg. There is an old axiom that states: you get the same results from doing the same things. So if you want different results, you need to do things differently; different from what those other influences do.

Best regards,
Harry

 

[Wally]

Makes me seethe that a riding school horse has been allowed to become "kick-kick-kick" pony. There is absolutley NO excuse whatsoever.

The reschooling ought to come in every lesson that poor horse ever gives with an instructor who will not allow any "kick-kick-kick"

 

[Skib]

Although in theory "completely different set of aids" may be a wonderful idea.

It just happens that we who ride RS horses have no accurate idea of who else rides the horse and how.

I expect to teach the horse to respond to how I like to ride. If I overlap some things he knows from RS riders or do some things badly, that is not his concern. I am not consistent either. If I have a lesson in which I improve something, or get a new idea from a demo that I want to try out, I may well experiment or innovate.

I hire a horse for an hour. It is the horse's job to work for me in the way I choose.

My observation is that my choices will in essence create in the horse I ride, the horse I like to ride. After a year the share horse responded for me very like my long term favourite RS horse. The characters of the two horses was different, their physical movement was different, but the feel of of riding them, cues and compliance was the same.