Poles

Yesterday was a (fairly) productive ride for Max. We rode out to the front arena and I hopped down and put out some trot poles. Max had done maybe 5 rounds through trot poles ever before yesterday. He never really grasped the concept and continually skipped, hopped, or creatively figured out some other way to not step on them. I decided we were going to go back to working on some basics.

Our warm up started out kind of frustrating, honestly. Max has been displaying some real discomfort going to the right in smaller areas (circles, tighter turns, etc). I opted to start the warm up going left so that we maybe warmed up a bit before going to the weaker, troublesome side (as we typically start with the trouble side). It would seem that going from 4-5 rides a week, to a week off and having only 2 rides so far this week, that my horse has a bit of speed in him. He's still a saint, but much more horse than he was in the first weeks of his restarting. We worked a couple laps around the ring to warm up, did a few circles, and switched over to the right. Cranky pants. Cranky cranky pants. We had a few kick outs and general signs of discomfort. I didn't push the envelop with him too far, but I did require him to finish his right side warm up. It is my thought that between his hind gut not feeling the best (ongoing issue that seems to wax and wane) and dealing with HUGE angle changes to his feet, which in turn caused some discomfort in the back end, that Maxwell is just sore, and frustrated. We finished the trot warm up and took a breather.

The focus of our ride was to work transitions and strengthening the hind end & back muscles. I asked for the trot (going to the right--the bad side) and he was a lot less objecting to it this go-round. This leads me to think he's just stiff and resistant. We worked on trotting over a single pole on the ground. I don't like to drill my horse on stuff too terribly, so every couple of times we do something, I either divert his attention to something he really enjoys doing, or give him a break to just putz around. Sometimes I play improv, especially with an intuitive horse, as my previous and this one both seem to be. If my horse wants to offer his own idea on something, and it's safe, I generally go with it. I've learned this to be a nice release for them. It's not something that's done often, ONLY when they're on their 'reward' time. We trotted over the single pole and he offered me a really nice right lead canter on the back side. I just sat and went with it. I look back and remember how much trouble the right lead was for us during our first few weeks of riding. It was really nice for him to have an idea, and to offer me that lead. We had a nice rolling soft canter. I love Maxwell's canter. If there was a horse to teach me to sit the canter (guilty of the hunter hover/half seat) it's this one. We took a break, switched directions, and did the same going the other direction. You win Maxwell.

After the dreamy canter time was done, we went back to work. Trotting trotting trotting. Max seemed to have quite the quick trot today. Not the floaty soft trot that I know he is capable of. I knew we were going to have a couple wonky rounds over the trot poles based off how the trotting was going, and how he'd done with poles in the past. Clink, clank, clunk. We hit every single one. Bet he doesn't make that mistake twice, I say to myself as we came back around again. Hop, hop, JUMP! Somewhere between a canter stride and a hop for the first two and a half, followed by a half jump and full jump between the last two. CREATIVE Max! Onward we went. This time I sat the trot. If there's one thing I've really learned, it's that your seat is your magic wand. While still forward, I could feel his strides coming up to the trot poles. I could give much more subtle cues on the outside, which translated to much BIGGER cues to him about slowing down and thinking through the trot poles instead of rushing to get past them. He clipped the first one, but had a nice pretty flow over the next three. We had a much nicer tempo coming off of them, and I decided to keep him going for one more round before he got a break. The trot was suddenly soft, his head was down, he wasn't balancing with his neck. He was under himself and using his back to get us through the mess. We had a gorgeous flow through the poles and he got lots of pats and a nice walk break.

I forgot how much fun trot poles can be with green horses. It seems so monotonous, especially with a seasoned horse, but for the greenies, it's so very rewarding. You feel just how awful it can really be to go over them when you're disjoined, and feel just how amazing it is when they put it all together. I used to have a BLAST taking Bella through raised cavaletti. She could lengthen her stride with the best of them when really asked. That took a LOT of work, and if you don't keep up on it, you've got to start all over again. One day me and Max will try raised cavaletti. I feel like we have a lot more trot pole work to be done before that point, though!

We ended the ride with some transitions between walk trot and canter. It's quite amusing when the horse picks up on a pattern. We walked until we were straight with the trot poles. Trotted the poles. Halt. Walk. Canter through the turn. Halt. Trot. Canter over single pole. Halt. It was funny though, because I could tell which parts of the exercise Maxwell liked, and which he didn't care for. He offered the right answer to cantering over the pole, and the halts. He hates trotting (who doesn't?). I'll have to remember to spice it up and make it more random next time.

Anyhow, we had a fun ride. My poor guy was quite the sweaty mess when we were done. I'm sure he's feeling the burn in his back end after all that. He hasn't had a centralized ride where we target one area. I think we're going to get on more of a riding program now, and plan for 2 days of targeted riding, 1 day of a light exercise hack, and 1 wildcard day, where we either get a lesson, have a jump day, or hack out on the trails or in the field next door.

I wish I had some pictures to share, however we were on our own for this ride!