High 5 Ride
Firstly, we had a great ground game. Fancy backed to the end of the 22’ rope. Backing is Fancy’s least favorite game. Fancy used her front feet to turn a 360 degree circle. Fancy is not a fan of turning her front end. Fancy and I sidepassed down the wall 22’ apart. Oh it was a glorious time for the human partner to win. Fancy also cantered on the 22’ rope jumping an obstacle. She did slow down to a trot when jumping.
I set up my favorite pattern, the Question Box. Just think setting up a large figure eight pattern where the middle is marked by four cones or barrels. The “box” is where the decision is made to stop, gait transition, change directions etc.. I also had a short jump obstacle hidden inside the pattern.
Fancy likes to go fast and accelerate. She also likes to argue with request to go faster. In short, she likes to accelerate unless it is by my request. She is a filly. She is a left brain extrovert. Argue, move and invade the human space is what they do.
We have done the pattern enough times in the past that she knows the pattern. I decided to ask her to go faster than a walk and just let her go as fast as she wants while staying in the pattern. I’m trying to use my body position and leg cues to request she stay on the circle.
Our first circle to the right, she sped up into something resembling a a fox trot, a running walk and a trot. I was able to work with my body to go from knees braced/body tense to draped legs and semi relaxed upper body. Then she went into a canter. My knees went back into brace and gradually, I was able to convince them to return to relaxed legs drapped over Fancy’s back. What fun! We stopped in the box and relaxed. I gave her a treat.
When Fancy had her air back, we did the same to the left. She didn’t speed up into the canter, so in the Question Box I asked her to speed up into a canter. My knees braced and relaxed. Fancy wanted to transition down, but I kept asking her to maintain her canter. We stopped and rested in the Questions Box.
After a nice rest, we did some kind of fast gait down the center and aimed for the jump obstacle. Hooray! She went over it. She didn’t stop, nor slow down. She trotted over it. Yay. We had a great reward rest!
Our next action was feel on the reins with flat foot walk, fox trot and walk transitions.
The long time followers know my insane desire to do flying lead changes. I’ve never been comfortable enough with Fancy’s inconsistent canter to even try a drop to walk or trot lead change. Now is the time!
High Five! We did four drop to a walk lead changes in the Question Box. YEE HAW! We came to a stop in the Question Box. Fancy was so relaxed and had done wonderful. I leaped off and we had some major reward end of the training session treats!