Friday, August 14, 2015

Halt back walk transitions and more. Retraining an anxious schoolmaster ...





"Has anyone told you that you will never be able to re train your horse or that you can't teach an old horse new tricks?  Watch what happens as we retrain this schoolmaster (a hot nervous horse)  to stay relaxed and connected in his walk work"


This video shows when Darrien began to finally start relaxing and waiting for Susan's aids.  This was not easy for him as he has the tendency to be nervous/anxious when ever Susan asks him to do... just about anything.  His reaction in the past has been to disconnect by dancing around and pulling Susan out of the saddle with the reins.  Now you can see that he is slowly starting to understand that the training process is not so bad. Here we are simply doing the walk exercises.  Susan's goal seems so easy (she makes it look that way) as all she has to do is keep Darrien connected (on the aids/on the bit/round/in front of her legs/packaged) and relaxed.  During this session we discovered that Darrien really does not understand how to stay on the outside rein and leg at the walk (which meant he was not really staying their at any gait) and it was a great opportunity to focus on that feeling.

Those of you who have been watching the progress of Susan and Darrien have seen a lot of changes and know what a break through this is.  It really has been like starting a green horse over in so many ways.  Have you ever retrained a horse?

No comments:

Post a Comment