Walli (with words!)

Walli is 11, a mare,  and as you noticed, she’s grey. *SIGH* I’ll be bringing out the white horse shampoo then!

She has some tricks built in, but that’s to be expected. She is terrible for mounting. Not dangerous, just, she does her best to make getting on her impossible. Which is hilarious in a way because she’s so short, you can just leap onto her if you want during her avoidance issues. Which I guess is what people have been doing – not insisting that she stand still, just following her around and jumping on when possible.

Avoidance tactic

Totally annoying, she will swing her hips away from you as you’re trying to mount. Trying to get her lined up with a mounting block was nearly impossible, even with two of us. She has her work avoidance tactic down and she’s holding on to it!

I was able to teach Baasha to swing his hip toward me for mounting, so I could use stumps or whatever, by tipping his nose away from me with the right rein, and, initially, tapping his right hip bone with a dressage whip so that he moved toward the stump. Eventually I didn’t have to tap him, I could just tip his nose to the outside and he’d swing his hip where I wanted it. Accommodating mounting is a very nice thing!

I believe we started that lesson with TTEAM work, teaching the horse to move a body part at a time away from the tap of a whip. I’ll try this method with Walli. I’ll get her moving her hips automatically with the touch of a whip from the ground, and then I’ll see if I can bring mounting into the story.

Avoidance tactic 2

 Walli tosses her head violently if you ask her to work. As soon as I asked for a trot, I got a tantrum of head tossing. My first instinct was she’s in pain, but then I realized I had no contact with the reins so there was nothing different there. Then I realized it’s her way of showing displeasure, and she hopes it will intimidate a rider into letting her just walk. The head tossing stopped as soon as she found out it wouldn’t work. OK whenever I slowed down and then asked for the trot again, she flung her head around in protest, but she eventually gave that up. I talked to her owner right away and she said she does that with every new rider, but hasn’t done it for a while because she hasn’t had a new rider for a while! OK then. That will eventually be extinguished. Also, I took the bit out and she seemed to like that so maybe I’ll ride her bitless.

Her trot is so minimal, it’s actually easier to sit the trot. I love it, I’ll get lots of practice.

A different mentalitiy

Again, I find myself sitting on a horse who does not want to stop in the arena. She has brakes, she just cannot imagine why you’d want to stop right after you got going: ) But she picked up on my very clear weight aids and I used “hohhhhhh” to help her with this new idea.

As you can guess, backing up was even more of an issue. It was honestly as if no one had ever asked her before. In that last photo I’m asking, baaaaaacccckk uuuup pleeeeaaaase although it looks like I’m asking for piaffe (lol).

I was getting through to her though, she started stopping when I asked, and even taking a half step back, and getting lots of praise and forward motion in response to her attempts.

Steering?
She ignores steering cues sometimes, and obeys at others. That sure is odd! And since she has no idea about lateral work, getting her body where I wanted it was a challenge. Teaching her lateral aids will be fun, something new for her I think.

Testing..

Her owner said she was testing me but realizing I knew what I was doing. Well, in comparison with the owner perhaps, who’s been riding less than a year! Imagine being in your 40s and just starting riding, never having had a lesson as a child. She said it was her lifelong dream and she’s finally doing it. Wow. I think she has the right horse, Walli is pretty easy so far.

I have to take her out on trails to see if I really click with her. Sunday morning I will go out with another rider. I don’t want to go out my first time alone in a strange area, well, it would be nice if someone showed me which trails are best to start.

Looking forward..