As a follow-up to the thread on Rosie 'lunging experts' ... Rosie is my very badly put together half-arab five year old. She has a long back, weak hindquarters, and super-dominant personality to boot. She goes from real sweet, cuddly adorable pony, to kick your head off B from H in less than a blink.
Rosie has this dreadful shuffling trot, where her back legs stomp up and down not moving anywhere. She has made some progress recently as we have started to be able to lunge without her kicking my head off. Then Jessey showed me a picture of her Bo - a 'before' picture ... and it was one of those 'Aha!' moments. It was exaclty a picture of Rosie. Well, if you can imagine a dark bay Rosie with extra 'bits'... the head-high, confident shuffle - it was all there, even the expression. Stifle problems ! Aha ! because my vet had visited the week before for annual vaccs and said he thought she looked like her stifle was locking, and to do some more hill work (err, yeah, ok, more hill work in a vague way .. yawn...)
Then it all fell in to place when connieD told me, about her bucking mare.... that she'd taken a tip to 'think outside the box' and lunged the mare very gently in a pessoa, in order to show her a better way of working. That;s all the young mare had needed - just a hint. The mare loved the new way of rounding out, and next time she carried a rider, felt able to round more ... and no longer needed to buck to express disapproval.
hmmmmmmmm .... now, that hit a spot. Because Rosie is such a little sweetheart, but she explodes on me ... she says NO in a big huge shout, and yet she's so incredibly flexible at a walk, she'll do anything for me - any move, any lateral work ... she shows off for me in front of an audience without fail ... but she 'just can't' walk downhill, or extend at a trot, or step over a pole .. she 'just can't'.
I'm not even sure why I couldn't see it. I'd just kept on struggling with this difficult mare who just couldn't... and I just couldn't see the way forward. I was (almost) convinced I'd bought a bad, lame, useless horse ... ConnieD made a really important connection for me. The stifle problem is linked to her weak back end. Her weak back end is linked to her long back. Her long back is weak... so she can't use her back end, so she can't even begin to improve. We were on a viscious cycle !
Now, all of a sudden 'hill work' has popped into view. All of a sudden, I notice that I live on a hill ... yes, that exact hill, the one where the rearing first started that made me see there was a problem in the first place ! There's my hill for hill work. We did 10 minutes of very careful, very slow hill work this morning, and she was very cooperative, very thoughful and ended up mentally and physically exhausted. I did the same with joePony this afternoon, and he was bemused wondering why we weren't doing any work at all today.
Aha ! I thought (belatedly).
Rosie has this dreadful shuffling trot, where her back legs stomp up and down not moving anywhere. She has made some progress recently as we have started to be able to lunge without her kicking my head off. Then Jessey showed me a picture of her Bo - a 'before' picture ... and it was one of those 'Aha!' moments. It was exaclty a picture of Rosie. Well, if you can imagine a dark bay Rosie with extra 'bits'... the head-high, confident shuffle - it was all there, even the expression. Stifle problems ! Aha ! because my vet had visited the week before for annual vaccs and said he thought she looked like her stifle was locking, and to do some more hill work (err, yeah, ok, more hill work in a vague way .. yawn...)
Then it all fell in to place when connieD told me, about her bucking mare.... that she'd taken a tip to 'think outside the box' and lunged the mare very gently in a pessoa, in order to show her a better way of working. That;s all the young mare had needed - just a hint. The mare loved the new way of rounding out, and next time she carried a rider, felt able to round more ... and no longer needed to buck to express disapproval.
hmmmmmmmm .... now, that hit a spot. Because Rosie is such a little sweetheart, but she explodes on me ... she says NO in a big huge shout, and yet she's so incredibly flexible at a walk, she'll do anything for me - any move, any lateral work ... she shows off for me in front of an audience without fail ... but she 'just can't' walk downhill, or extend at a trot, or step over a pole .. she 'just can't'.
I'm not even sure why I couldn't see it. I'd just kept on struggling with this difficult mare who just couldn't... and I just couldn't see the way forward. I was (almost) convinced I'd bought a bad, lame, useless horse ... ConnieD made a really important connection for me. The stifle problem is linked to her weak back end. Her weak back end is linked to her long back. Her long back is weak... so she can't use her back end, so she can't even begin to improve. We were on a viscious cycle !
Now, all of a sudden 'hill work' has popped into view. All of a sudden, I notice that I live on a hill ... yes, that exact hill, the one where the rearing first started that made me see there was a problem in the first place ! There's my hill for hill work. We did 10 minutes of very careful, very slow hill work this morning, and she was very cooperative, very thoughful and ended up mentally and physically exhausted. I did the same with joePony this afternoon, and he was bemused wondering why we weren't doing any work at all today.
Aha ! I thought (belatedly).
How sweet it is
