Knowing When to Stop

Rajmani is well again and I have been working with him since Tuesday. As expected, the injury was minor and despite a little mark, nothing is left.

Today I decided to teach him the command for canter on the lunging rein as I have up till now only done walk and trot with him on the lunge and outside. So far, he has refused to canter as a hand horse, offering only a fast trot, so my idea is to teach him the voice command, then hope he will canter on command as a hand horse too.

Usually, my horses canter easily outside and I do that before I canter them on the lunge, but each horse is different and sometimes one has to do things in a different way or take another approach to get the desired results.

In order to give him a little more incentive to canter, I tied a small plastic bag on my carrot stick. Not to frighten him, but it gives a little edge to my driving, as I do not use a lunging whip. 

But before I set out to work with him, I finally discovered his nemesis: Water puddles!

While leading him down towards an open field which has a nice soft ground and plenty of space, I had to cross a bit of water, not much, just a place where water trickles down, so the ground is a little wet and darker. He stopped dead before this and refused to go over it. I have to admit, I am so used to my horses not being frightened of water at all (after all, they have their private lake they can splash around in), it took me a minute to understand his problem. I almost laughed out loud when I realised it was this really small trickle of water on the ground. I talked to him, let him have a good look and then asked him to go over it. He hesitated, tried to go backwards (I did not let him) and finally took a big leap over it. We will have a lot of fun come monsoon! But maybe he will eventually follow the other horses into the lake and realize that water is not too bad. Some problems solve themselves given a little time! And if not, we will have plenty of opportunities to practice come the next monsoon in a few months.

I took time to get him used to the plastic bag and let him sniff it. I touched his neck, body and legs with it until he was no longer afraid of it. Then we did some leading and finally when he was warmed up, I sent him out on the circle. First, we did transitions between walk and trot which he did very well without fuss, coming in when I asked him to.

Then finally I told him the command and raised my stick. He immediately fell into a canter, I let him go half round and brought him back to me, praising him and giving him a little rest.

Then the left hand, his off hand. He needed me to increase my energy a bit but again he did a beautiful canter on the left hand as well. Half a round, then rest.

I was exhilarated, it had been so much easier than expected! I should have left it right there, but I decided against my better knowledge to do a bit more to reinforce the command. Again, right hand, one round, left hand one round, all well.  Then I did some standing still and doing friendly game with the stick and the plastic bag. Once again, I turned him on the right hand and now, he refused. He did not want to go and reared up. I calmed him down and tried again, but now he was not in a mood to listen. I could have kicked myself, knowing fully well, had I stopped before, this would not have happened. But I wanted to finish on a positive note. He finally did a round trotting on the right hand, I changed direction and did a canter on the left. Back on the right hand he cantered o the wrong lead and I had to bring him back to trot and then do it once again. Finally, he cantered on the right lead nicely without resistance. I let him do it for half round, then brought him in and finished it there and then.

Lesson learned, rather work more frequently with a young horse but never too long and always finish when he has done it well! 

In any case, I was happy with my morning work as I had feared that he lacked the balance to canter on a circle. I will work a bit more on the canter in the coming days and then try out if I manage to canter him when I take him out on a ride on the lead. 

It just never gets boring with a young horse!