This has been an interesting week for Ace and me. After two months, I think the honeymoon is finally over.

I still love him to death, and he’s still a great horse. But I am starting to see some recurring issues, which really just means that I am getting to know my horse better and he’s slowly teaching me how to work with him. GreyHorseMatters left this comment yesterday on working with the horse I have:

I can see Ace is teaching you too, how he wants to be trained. It’s good that you’re a good horsewoman and can recognize the signals he’s giving you. You are smart enough to know you have to take it slowly day by day and work with the horse that comes out on that particular day. Good for you, I see you and Ace are going to be an unbeatable team sooner than later. Keep up the great work, sounds like you really have it under control with your ability to be flexible in your training plans.

She left that just after I was starting to realize I needed to adjust my thinking and my communication with Ace. After last night, it’s even more clear that Ace is teaching me how to train him … but also how and why. I also greatly appreciate her encouragement because it gives me hope. With Ace’s training pretty much completely on my shoulders, I’m honestly a little bit scared! What if he has some issue that we will never work through? What if I screw something up and then can’t fix it? What if we never get over it? These are the thoughts that keep running through my head. Ace is mine now, and no matter what comes up we have to work through it because I made a commitment to be his person and take care of him. I can’t just trade him in if it doesn’t seem to be working out. At the same time, I remind myself that training takes time. And these aren’t such serious issues that we will never be able to work through them. Just because we can’t step into a show ring tomorrow doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to in 1, 3, 5 years. And I have to remind myself just how much Ace has learned in just 2 months, which ultimately isn’t all that long.

So, back to the getting to know each other part. Ace is very smart and very willing, and wants to please me. He’s always looking at me for direction. Always has his ears up. Never explodes. A lot of the time he does exactly what I ask with very little prompting. But some of the time, there’s a switch in his brain that turns to off and it’s like he completely forgets what my signals mean.

The other night, after moving forward lightly off my leg and seat at both the walk and trot, he suddenly stopped dead in the end of the arena. I couldn’t get him to go forward. He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t upset, he just wouldn’t go. At my slightest cue, no matter what it was, he’d back up. I could get him to disengaged his hindquarters both ways. He’d flex laterally. But he just wouldn’t go forward. I tried being more forceful. I tried letting him relax for a minute or two and gently asking again. Wouldn’t budge, unless it was backwards. I ended up getting off and driving him from the ground. When that was successful, I got back and we were fine.

Last night we started with some ground work to work on the Driving Game and the Circling Game. I didn’t ask for any backwards whatsoever; only forwards or moving his shoulders. Driving was no problem. He’d threaten to slow or stop, and I’d gently wave the carrotstick at him and he’d keep going.

Then I went to circle him around me. We’d start by facing each other, and I’d raise my arm parallel to the ground and point in the direction I wanted him to circle. He’d prick his ears, blink, lean, and head off in that direction. I can usually get this 2-3 times in either direction, without using the stick to remind him.

Then suddenly, he’ll decide to stop circling before I’ve asked him to stop. And he looks at me. And the second I begin to raise my arm, he puts his head up and goes backwards. And no matter how calm I stay, or how I ask, all I get is backwards. I pushed it for a little while, while he just got worse and worse. We even almost had a little explosion (almost, but not quite).

Then I took a step back and just started rubbing him all over the with the stick; doing some desensitizing with the rope. After a minute or two, I stepped back a few feet, lifted my arm and pointed the left, and off he went like nothing had happened.

While we didn’t necessarily have a breakthrough in Ace’s behavior, I feel like I had a breakthrough in understanding his personality. And here’s what I think I discovered last night:

1. There’s a switch in Ace’s brain. When it’s up, he remembers what my cues mean. When it’s down, he forgets. He’ll be fine the first few times I ask, and then suddenly it’s like that switch goes off and he’s completely confused. He gets anxious when he’s unsure and when he’s unsure he goes backwards.
2. I wonder if he thinks he’s doing something wrong when I ask him to do the same thing more than a time or two. It’s like because I keep asking, he thinks maybe he didn’t do it right the first time. This applies to me reminding him that I haven’t asked him to stop trotting yet. Or that raising my arm and pointing still means go that way.
3. And maybe most important: Ace doesn’t like to feel pressured. He’s not the kind of horse you can just “get after” when you are having a battle of wills. I think the more I ask, the more he shuts down. On the ground, I figured out this means rubbing and loving on him and doing some Friendly Game. He relaxes, and then does what I ask. In the saddle, I need to figure out what exactly take the pressure off and flips the switch back to the on position. I’m fairly certain this means that I can’t push him through issues, but that I need to take a step back, encourage him, and then ask again.

I’m not feeling the overall excitement this week about “Ace is so smart, so friendly, has such a great trot, etc” that I have for the past few months. While I may be feeling a little apprehensive, I’m also feeling like our relationship is deepening and that I’m really starting to dig deep and learn more about him. I’m starting to understand how his brain works, and now I just need to figure out how to work with that.

I’m feeling hopeful.