A better connection

It was raining, blessed rain!, so I took Mara across the street to Herr S's ring because I wanted to see if I could fine-tune our lunging.


As you know I do not believe in lunging for exercise, only for communication and learning. However I did pull out two cavaletti and carefully measured 10 feet between them.

Usually I put them 5 feet apart, but I wanted Mara to do an "in-and-out" thing, which she did right away, she's so good at that. She touches but never slams a pole, so I never have to go back and fix anything. I never send her over more than 12 times cuz I don't want her sore. That includes the walking over them too.

I wanted to see how good a jog I can get, cuz we've already got the extended/flying/BlackStallionUpSideDown trot. So directly from a walk, I sang "Jo-og" to her, and she did it. But she wouldn't do any of that nice stretching down that she sometimes does. Why?

Oh! The fast, upside down trot makes her stiff, and she stretches down to release that tension! So I let her go fast a few times, running the full arena with her (so fun!) and then asked for jog again.

To unwind, sure enough, she stretched her nose to the ground. I said, "Gooooooooooooood" everytime, and shut up for the most part, otherwise.

I was delighted to see her stretch twice per revolution at a jog trot. I smiled and tried to show her how happy I was about it. (When I'm really happy, I say "Yeah!" quietly.)

I have to admit, I'm tempted to try my elastic side reins, only using one inside rein, to encourage her to un-invert. (Not the donut "bounce-the-mouth" type.) But since she doesn't know anything about contact, and reaching for contact, I'm afraid that using a solid wall on her mouth will teach her the opposite of seeking - rather, ducking behind. So, anyone have any ideas about teaching a horse to reach down on the lunge, without tools?

I was also aware of her rhythm and tried very hard to keep her jog or trot rhythmic. I watched where her tendency to speed up was, and gave a little pressure and backed a step.

She kept one ear and one eye on me the entire time, and the other on the geldings frolicking down in the "hole" - a huge valley that horses disappear into if you aren't standing in the right spot in the arena.

My mistake was asking for the canter. I never do this, cuz she has a tendency to slip into a crossfiring canter at random. After letting her canter twice around, sure enough, she had more trouble keeping the trot.

I paid close attention to the energy I was sending down the line, and my whip arm position. I felt really connected to her.

We worked on "reverse!" a couple times and she's getting much better at it, as long as I remember to keep my sequence of actions exactly the same. (1. Step over the whip, 2. Switch hands 3. Back up a few steps 4. Say "reverse").

That 3rd time she was so smooth at it, I stopped her, dropped the whip, walked up to her and gave her a treat and we were done for the day.

Oh, except I had to put away the poles. I decided to see if I could ground tie Mara in the arena for the first time.

At first she followed me, but I took the lead and said BACK until she was in the same spot, then dropped the rope and repeated, STAND.

She did it! I was so pleased I took both her cheeks in my hands and stroked them, telling her how grown up she is: )

Sometimes I'm afraid to try things cuz I assume we'll have problems. I need to be more optimistic. She can do some things, and she wants to, she needs to have some successes. Then again, I should be aware of the days that I probably shouldn't even ask.

On the way home she snagged a couple of apples off the ground (they're everywhere now, and plums too), and was in no hurry to get home.

She didn't spook, and she didn't even snort at anything that day.