Kati rides Mag

The first thing I noticed was she does not use her legs for forward activity. She does this weird forward thrust of her hands, and then a focus with her mind/body forward, and then waits for the horse to respond.

Mag is sensitive enough that he responds, but it he doesn't, when he doesn't, she taps her *own* leg with the crop, which she deftly uses.

He got it right away, and soon they were having fun.

She smiled at me, "He's so fine, so sensitive!"

I said, "That is typical for Arabians." (OK I should have said, I was a little part of that....)

Then she asked what I wanted to see her do, and I said, "leg yielding, turn on haunches, turn on forehand, precise work."

She got a little bit of each, but not better than I can get.

She admitted she's not a great rider. Hm! Just as I suspected when she did not lay into me when she first saw me ride, trying to override my past.

But she and Mag got along fine, and then the dinner bell rang.

Gabi actually shouted to her, "You should probably dismount Mag right now!" And she hesitated, and then saw the danger, and jumped down. I held Mag while the entire herd came running down the hill, first the mares, then the geldings, and both herds very very thrilled about dinner in their stalls.

Mag shouted a prolonged whinny to them, "MEEEEEE" and I just remained a solid pier of stability, telling him, "It's the same very day since you've been here. It's just new for ME." (Cuz I'm never there in the evening.)

Then Kati got back on and did some circling to get him back into focus.

I told her I noticed that she's not using her legs unless it's a lateral movement. She said both legs on a horse mimics the feel of a cougar trying to kill a horse. Ok.

She only uses both legs at once when she needs her horse to jump out of the way of a bus.

I recalled Philippe Karl's method: "Reins or legs, never both simultaneously." Hm.

















I'm curious to see where we go with this.

In the videos you can see her having fun with Mag, but using a lot more vocal cue than I'm comfortable with. My good horse Baasha would be insulted if I used so much vocal with him. He was taught fine responses to my body, and if I clucked to him, it was like touching a whip to his flank.

So Kati is using voice more than touch. That's fine and we'll see where this goes.

At the end of the lesson she said she might change her mind about Arabians, that she'd love to have a horse this responsive.

In the video she says, "I just thought about asking him to halt and before I finished my thought, he was stopped. He's got brakes!" You can see her body lurch forward as she could not anticipate Mag's love of the stopping pace. *sigh*

You can see Willy walk past near the end, but I asked her what she was doing, and she said asking him to bend his spine a little.

I love that she is constantly talking to him in praising tones, and that she is never restrictive.

Mag has now learned that other people might ride him and it's perfectly good in the end, even though their aids are odd compared to mine. She hold her hands forwards, clucks to him, and then taps her leg with a whip.

We'll see what happens.