JR’s Journal – A lot of Excitement in Learning How To Stop

I was going to ride JR at home and was doing the pre flight check up.  He did his version of the bucking bronco.  He has no suspension when he bucks.  It just looks like a rocking chair canter with the head down!  This went on for a while.  Then the wind came up and the rain clouds approached.  I decided this was not the time for valor!  We loaded up and went over to Pine Dell.

Well, the arena was being used for turn out for a weanling and older friend.  So, we rode outside after all.  He was nice and pyched up, but we managed to have a beautiful ride up and back in the 40 acre hay field.  He did a smooth fox trot the entire time!  He had been switching back and forth between the running walk and the fox trot. 

Then, one of my friends told me that she was having a lesson with Jenny at 4:00 and would I like to join it.!  whooppee.  Jenny was late, but husband Tony was there to start us out.  I complained about JR’s stop at the canter.  It takes him too long to stop after I ask.  Tony asked me if I wanted to get a REALLY REALLY good …almost reining horse stop.  I said, Yes!.

Passenger riding is the answer.  Since I don’t have a great stop at the trot either, we elected to do this at a trot.

Passenger riding.  In an arena.  You do not hang on to the reins.  You don’t tell the horse where to go with leg aides.  His job is to travel nicely in one direction next to the wall…that’s when I get to ask with my body for him to stop.

Traveling nicely along the wall is not the horse’s idea.  They like to go in small circles…get next to other horses in the arena…visit places they like to stop at ..like the middle.  My job is to keep JR trotting…even in the tight little circles.

In the arena is the weanling (loose), Tony is training a spooky horse and two other women riding.  Did I mention that JR was fascinated with the weanling.  He kept trying to visit the weanling.

All set.  I let the reins loose and get set…GO! WELL…all JR wanted to do was chase the weanling!  We zipped along towards the weanling and the weanling took off…and so did JR!  Forget the passenger riding, our game turned into a Cutting Horse Game.  I let out my famous quiet scream and soon the cutting horse game came to a stop.  Tony decided that my passenger game needed to continue without the weanling.  The weanling was delivered back to his stall.

I have a COW HORSE!  JR hooked onto that weanling like he wanted to eat him for dinner.  I’ve been wondering how JR would do at a cow clinic and now I KNOW!

Well, the passenger game continued.  We tried really hard to run into Tony and the spooky horse.  I have to urge JR to go faster when we turn into the middle, which really spooked the spooky horse.  Tony did appreciate this.  It helped the spooky horse to learn that nothing was going to eat him.  Then we decided to go help the cantering horse.  We were fox trotting ..heads even… with the horse that was cantering.  The cantering horse was on the wall and JR and I were on the inside.  We looked like synchronized swimming there for a while.  The end of the arena came…we both made the turn and JR cut her off on the far long wall.  But, no matter!  I apologized to everyone before we started.

We did some more nice little circles and fast turns here and there and finally JR discovered that being on the wall was the nicest place to be.  I asked him to stop several times and he didn’t listen, so he got pushed to go faster….but we did stay in the fox trot almost the entire time this went on!  Finally, his body told him to listen to my body and he stopped.  We stayed stopped for about 5 minutes.  That’s the release that teaches!

We got to do this once more and it didn’t take near as long …nor near as many quick little turns for him until he was floating along the wall and then came to a stop when my body told him.  This time the stop was almost reining horse stop!

The lesson with Jenny was pretty nice.  We fox trotted nicely.He cantered nicely.  We pretended to do flying lead changes.  Jenny complimented us at the end of the lesson!

I had a bunch of fun with JR today.  He is SO Much Fun to ride now that he has the gait back!!!