Mentally, Ringo was a bit snarky. He has an annoying habit of grabbing the bit and yanking your hands, and his little monkey brain was always thinking of how to spin out on me (it's his favorite maneuver, but I no longer put up with it). But PHYSICALLY, as Brendan pointed out, he was like a different horse. When B pointed out Ringo's attitude, I actually disagreed with him because I was so focused and pleased on the quality of the lesson that I didn't notice the rude behavior. Plus Ringo's "attitude" just pales in comparison to some other horses I've ridden..*cough cough*
Anyway, the thoroughbred was neither stiff nor running on the forehand.
Let me explain something: horses are said to be built in thirds. The forehand is made up of head/neck/shoulders, the second third is the barrel and back (from behind front legs to before back legs) and the last third is the haunches or hindquarters and back legs. It is also logical then, that the forehand is most heavily loaded, carrying about 70% of a horse's weight as the neck etc makes up quite a lot of their weight.
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| when on the forehand it appears that the horse is traveling downhill. |
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| it's easy to see that this horse's weight is shifted back, and he is "sitting" on the haunches which gives the appearance of moving uphill |
So, since Ringo is a thoroughbred who used to race, he is accustomed (and built) to load his front end and careen around. This is no fault of his own, but no fun for either of us. Today Ringo really sharpened up on our down transitions (trot to walk was the worst last week). We use transitions to redistribute the horse's weight backward and rebalance them. They are starting to work. His canter departs were actually starting to be uphill, instead of running into them, and the canter-trots were less falling on his face and more waiting for me. Brendan and I were very pleased!
Brendan's tidbit of brilliance today was that generally horses give us 3-4 really awesome rides when we are first paired with them, followed by a period of 5-8 or so rides that are truly awful, which are lastly followed by a truer representation of progress and strengths/weaknesses. I'd say this was very accurate as I can remember the exact same thing happening with Clever. A short, sweet "honeymoon," followed by, "what the heck am I doing?!" followed by, "oh right, this is why I love this sport." So I guess we could say we're right on track! Ringo was also much less crooked, much more inclined to give through his back and flex slightly. I had the first several canter sets today where I was able to just sit there and look pretty while giving with my hand and pushing him forward slightly. There's LITERALLY no better feeling than having that kind of easy, relaxed forward canter where your butt is just glued in the saddle and you're just enjoying the breeze!
The other awesome part about today was that coach mentioned a possible horse for me to compete with short term as a lease for backup until I'm able to find my next true equine partner. He described the mare as a solid 70% 4th level horse, close to Prix St. Georges, who the previous rider just can't handle. He said it's a very fancy horse, but needs a more competent rider, and I'M the one he thought of. He said the horse can be a bully unless the rider is confident enough to insist that she do what is asked. I am so psyched that I've reached that level with Brendan. I told him I thought she sounded like a great option, and I was glad that he didn't find me to be a "timid rider," to which he replied, "no way. Not AT ALL."
A rider must be two things if they ever wish to achieve greatness: Brave, and fair.
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