A little over a week ago we couldn’t trot more than 2-3 laps of the (small) arena without having a stalling and balking episode. Last night, I cantered on Ace for the very first time.

I didn’t really mean to do it. I didn’t intend to try for weeks yet. But my horse was in a great mood. He was more responsive than ever. We did a ton of trot work without stopping even once (he threatened a few times, but moved forward happily as soon as I reminded him he needed to keep going). So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask and see if he’d be at all willing to give it to me.

So, I asked in the turn to help him get his lead and bend, and he picked it up fairly easily and gave me a good four strides. I didn’t push it or ask him to keep going; just getting a little bit was good enough. We managed to pick up a few strides of canter three times in a row. After our little cantering episode, his trot was even more energetic, which felt great.

On top of that, I traded horses with Dave who I knew had been wanting to take Ace for a spin. And Dave got him to do some sideways!

Oh, and I learned a week ago that I needed to step back and not ask for too much all at once: forward, straightness, bend, etc. I’ve spent our last four rides asking for not much other than forward. And I realized last night that suddenly, we were going straight down the long sides and not overbending on the turns like he used to. We fixed some problem areas without even trying! How cool is that?

My horse is improving in leaps and bounds. I’m improving in leaps and bounds, which probably has something to do with it. He’s teaching me how to teach him. And we’re working really well together. And he loves me. I couldn’t be happier.

Stay tuned for a picture post of Ace’s new digs. Dave rewired the fence line so that Ace could have access to his stall from his turnout. Now that the weather is getting bad, we wanted him to have the option of going inside if he wanted.

Of course, Ace still stands out in the rain unless we lock him in. No big shocker there, though.

Finally, for your viewing pleasure (and for mine, except for blinking eyes, the heels that aren’t down, and the poor hand position) … Ace under saddle!

Ben (my hubby!) and Dave took lots of pictures for me, but unfortunately they didn’t come out all that well. It’s soooo hard to get a horse moving at just the right moment. Plus, I think the flash was reflecting off the dust in the arena, and so most of the pictures have these weird, hazy bubbles all over them. Strangest thing. I digress.

I’m very proud of my boy after last night; he did exceptionally well when it counted … with my mom here to check him out! It was the first time she’d seen me ride him. And she got up and tried him out too. It was the first time he’d had someone other than me on him. It was fun to see him go under saddle.

I started out with a little groundwork to try to get him focused, but there were 7 people in the arena, barrels and cones set up, and two other horses out getting ridden. It was a little crazy and he was really distracted. I got a few good tries, gave up, put his bridle on, and went for a ride. Surpisingly, he was much more focused under saddle. He had great forward, he didn’t stall out on me (did it to mom only once), and went forward every time I asked. And it was the best ride we’d had yet! Amazing difference from just a week ago.

Mom did lots of trot work with Ace, which is good because he really needs the exercise. He had his trademark shell-shocked look afterwards. He got a good workout and had two people ride him. Quite a night!

Later we were standing around talking a bit and it was getting cold, so I decided to pull off his saddle and hop on bareback. Didn’t bother Ace one bit. I walked around for a little while and even asked for a little trot (which was very brave on my part, seeing as he’s a slightly boney, pretty bouncy thoroughbred). Very fun! I liked being that close and connected to him. May have to do a little more of that when it gets really cold. It’s good for both of us!

I’m a firm believer that the greatest riding instructor you’ll ever have is your horse. Things Ace has taught me over the last week:

• he doesn’t like to feel pressured
• he doesn’t like it when my upper body gets too forward. He stops if I get in front of the vertical.
• I can’t ask him too many different things at once yet. One step, one aid at a time.
• he is very forward without any convincing when it’s cold out
• an active seat drives him forward more effectively than nagging legs
• he likes to walk on the rail and hug the corners
• encouragement rather than pushing him forward is more effective

I had a lot to think about for our weekend rides after the lessons I was learning about Ace’s personality last week. And it paid off! We had two very good, albeit not perfect, rides. Ace was more responsive to my legs and moved forward more energetically. While I still have an issue with him deciding to break gait, he would move forward again  when asked instead of planting himself or going backwards. And that is definitely a step in the right direction. He continues to move his hindquarters very easily for me.

I still need to work on getting him to move his shoulders, but at this point keeping our forward movement is more important.

I spent some time letting Ace go whereever he wanted as long as he kept walking. And wouldn’t yah know it, but the silly horse just stayed right on the rail. He walked the same direction, right by the wall, hugging the corner, for at least 10 minutes. Guess I don’t need to worry about him getting bored just going in circles.

I was also excited to discover him acting very thoroughbred-y on Sunday. He was very attuned to his environment and was much more energetic and tightly strung than normal. And it was kind of fun. That kind of behavior doesn’t bother me in the least; we did some groundwork to calm him down and get him focused and otherwise we had a nice, energetic ride.

Tomorrow my mom and sister are coming to visit for a specifically horse night. Mom and I will probably both get on Ace while Shawna plods around bareback on Marahute. I’m looking forward to making mom play photographer so I can finally get some pictures of me actually riding Ace!

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.

I keep flopping back and forth between feeling like I’ve got a solid plan for training Ace and feeling like I’m totally whinging it. But when I stop to think, it’s both.

I planned to spend as long as necessary focusing on groundwork until I saw signs that Ace and I were developing a good relationship, he understood what I was asking, and knew to move away from pressure. I was going to move as slow as I needed to to get him start under saddle. I spent probably five weeks mostly working on the ground and getting on him for five minutes here and there every once in a while.

These days, I’ve been doing a lot more under saddle work. And that’s where my plans seemingly go out the proverbial window.

For instance, last Tuesday I went out armed with my new bit on his bridle intending to focus on seeing if he was comfortable with it and working on steering, stopping, and contact. I wasn’t going to worry about much else. The problem was, he did all of those things much better than I ever would have imagined. He chewed the bit a lot at first, and did just a little head twisting and jaw working before settling in. I was completely amazed at how well he accepted it. He carried himself in a frame with his nose practically on the vertical without me even asking him to. He reached for the bit, but was incredibly light without trying to avoid it either.

So, since we didn’t need to work much on proper bit response, we went back to building up his trot work (that boy needs some muscle!) and moving off leg pressure.

Thursday was the same deal. We were going to work moving his hind end and front end, and start working some figures at a trot. But we were having a problem with the gas. Ace would go really well, and then decide suddenly he wanted to stop. He’d stiff-leg in the front, stop, and refuse to move forward. He wasn’t upset or scared. Mostly, he just wanted to be social every time somebody came out of one of the stalls. He’d trot beautifully until somebody came into the arena and he thought it was time to visit. I was, as I realized later, trying to be too busy by fixing his bending issues (with a horse who doesn’t particularly understand leg pressure yet), keeping him moving forward, and trotting figure eights and circles. I was getting super frustrated every time he stopped and balked.

And then I realized I was doing too much. I wanted to work on his bend, but before we could fix that we needed to fix the forward.

So I went back to basics and worked with the horse I had. We did transitions. Walk, stop, walk, stop, walk, stop, back, walk, stop, walk. I’d mix it up and do it as we weaved through cones or walked serpentines or up the quarterlines. And after a little while, Ace got very light. The slightest squeeze with my legs would send him forward. Then we did some walk, trot, walk, trot, walk, trot, walk, stop, walk, trot, stop, walk, trot, stop, back. And eventually the slightest squeeze with my legs would send him forward into a trot. It was a major accomplishment for us.

I know we aren’t completely past the balking issue; it takes a whole lot more than just one ride to expect results like that. But it was certainly a step - or a squeeze - in the right direction.

It was also a good lesson in training for me. It’s easy to want to try to fix evertything all once. But I have to be careful to ensure that we’ve got all of the building blocks firmly in place first. And I’ve got to remember to work with the horse I have each day, even if it throws my plans out the window.

Ace looked a little shell-shocked last night after our session. I suppose he thought it was going to be all fun and (ground) games. So our first free-lunging workout came as a little bit of a shock to his system.

I’ve been planning to start free-lunging for a while now, and finally got underway last night. I love free-lunging because it gets your horse moving out, balanced, and carrying himself without having to worry about a rider on his back. This is especially important for Ace, who has been out to pasture for nearly two years and had who knows what kind of work before that. He needs to build his muscles, improve his cardiovascular stamina, and get used to moving in the turns of the arena. It’s also another way for us to work together; for me to be the leader and him to look to me for direction.

We started with a few ground games on the line to make sure Ace and I were communicating with each other and that he was easily moving away from rhythmic pressure aimed towards his front and back ends. He was relaxed and paying attention, so I removed the line and sent him out.

Ace automatically picked up a trot and started moving around me with very little prompting. Apparently lunging, free or on a line, is something he knows how to do. He started to challenge me after we’d been working for a while by trying to stop in the corners and reverse. Dave came down just in time so he stayed in one end and I stayed in the other to push him through the turns without stopping. Every once in a while we’d have to go back to a walk to re-establish a rhythm while moving through the turns.

After a little warm-up I encouraged him to up his energy so I could get a good idea of how he moves. With a little encouragement, Ace picked up a nice working trot and even tracked up pretty well. When I let him relax and slow down a bit, he misses by half to a full hoof. He tends to move with his hind end to the left.

I didn’t want to push him too hard on our first time out, so after some good walk and trot work we called it a night. I parked myself in the middle of the arena and let Ace do what he wanted until he finally came in to see me. And he did! He definitely looked a little out of sorts and wasn’t as relaxed in his eye as usual. All in all, it was a good first session.

I went back out this afternoon to free-lunge Ace again, and it went very well. He’s very much a left-handed (hoofted?) horse, and is less comfortable and more challenging when we’re on a right rein. That’s the direction he’s constantly trying to stop and reverse. I was able to keep him going by myself, though, and we established some really nice trot work and even got a little bit of canter.

Ace definitely let me know when he was getting tired, so I just kept him going long enough for stopping to be my idea. He was definitely worn out, but didn’t have the same shell-shocked look in his eyes as yesterday. I’ll give it a few more days, and then he should start getting used to doing some real work again as well as the ground games.

Are we done YET?

Now THIS is gonna feel good….

Ahh, much better!

I had a great session last night with Ace before I headed to Columbus for five days. We spent just a little time rehashing the groundwork we’re good at, worked on a few new things, and saddled up. I went ahead and ordered my own Parelli equipment (rope halter, 12 ft. rope, and carrot stick), and it came in just in time. Instead of putting a bridle on — since he didn’t particularly remember the correct responses — I rode him in the halter and lead. It worked well.

At first he didn’t have any gas … zero response to my legs. Just wouldn’t really walk without tons of coaxing. But he wasn’t nervous or upset. So we played around with getting him to yeild his hind quarters. While I tipped his nose and squeezed with my leg, Dave put some pressure on his hind end from the ground in the way he was used to. He learned to respond to that, and then just from my leg. After that, all it took was the slightest squeeze and we were off.

I was mostly going to leave it with that, but he was moving off my leg so well I just had to ask for a teeny weeny bit of trot because I just had to know what it felt like …

… and it was the absolute best-feeling trot I have ever ridden.

And I have ridden a whole lot of horses, so I’ve got a lot to compare it too.

It had that thoroughbred spring that I love, but it was smooth and floaty and long and perfect.

Add the perfect trot to the rapidly lengthening list of great qualities in my perfect horse.