Rain!

I had only an hour to go but noticed just then two ladies arrived and "snuck" by me to use the arena. Not intentionally, but they didn't bring their horses to the barn to groom, etc, they just took them straight from the paddock to the arena and let them loose to play in there. Mag and I had been waiting, watching the rain pouring down from inside the barn.

I stuck my head over the door and asked if I could come after they were done, and if someone would stick around. Yes! I saddled Mag quickly and quickly warmed him up too. As I moved a cavaletti, dragging it through the dirt, he took advantage and started to roll! I got him up and hopefully he is starting to learn that there are rules about that.

I felt like time was ticking, and it was, and I hate feeling hurried during a warm up. I had only 45 minutes and it takes me forever to put all my tack and Mag away.

Then Claudia was there, offering to help give me a "private lesson." I love how she does not tell me what to do, and never nitpicks me (she's never mentioned anything about my position or riding). She just sets up poles and cones and gives me ideas what to do with them.

I told her my main concern at the moment is creating in Mag a marching working walk, and not overusing my leg, which I'm still falling back to. She said, "Whack the heck out of him with a whip!" I said, "Yes, I hate to do that, not sure what he'll do..."

But then I did and he was fine. In fact, it disappointed me to see how little reaction a whack on the belly got from him. As I worked on it I contemplated other methods to get a consistently forward walk. Could transitions help?

Then Claudia said, "You might try trot transitions - every time he slows to a crawl on his own, make him trot." I said, "I was just thinking that!" That's the second time Claudia and I have had the same idea at the same time.

It seemed to work better than the whip method, and he was concentrating completely on what I was doing, Claudia noticed too. He kept expecting a trot transition so his walk improved and just a nudge of my foot got him thinking, "Trot? or..?"

We went on and on doing this, adding large circles and over poles, and as time went on I realized with every trot transition, the worry about what Mag might do, according to the seller, was fading in strength. Yup, another trot where nothing bad happens. And another.

He was doing that old trick of backing up when not asked at random, which is strange. I would bump him forward to where he started each time. It's like he's so lazy he thinks reverse is a slower gait than holding still. *lol*

So what other methods have you tried to help an arena-lazy horse develop a forward walk?

I'm not too worried cuz my goal is not arena riding in the end, it's trail riding, but I'd like to get this taken care of now.

As I cleaned my stall I looked up and saw WILLY standing there watching me. I almost cried, I hugged him and said, "Never again!" He said, "What, what?" I said, "My horse was so hungry when you left, now I know how much you fed him!" Willy was  happy to be back, everyone was delighted, and Gabi didn't even come out of her house. The barn aisle was swept for the first time in weeks.

It's so nice to watch the rain from in an arena, to stay dry as the snow slowly gets washed away. Claudia stepped into the rain and said, "Yik." I said, "Awwww." My automatic reaction to rain, finally rain.