I only got to ride once this week.  At least it was interesting!

Because of Mia's stone bruise I could not ride her this week.  So Debbie put me on Amira, another Arab mare who needs work.  Just what I needed, getting up on a new horse during a hot muggy day.  I am not at my best on hot muggy days, I do not notice as much, my intelligence goes down, and I am worse physically.  I had ridden Amira once before around a month ago, for about 15 minutes after Debbie had ridden her for a while.   

Amira is a small Arab mare, really dark brown (looks black), fat, sleek, with an interesting head, she has a "tea-cup" muzzle, and her forehead is wide above her eyes.  Since Debbie had her backed up in a wash stall I could not get too much of a good sense about the rest of the details of her conformation though I got an impression on nice broad knees and hocks.  Amira definitely needs to loose a few pounds (50 or so), and when she does and when her muscles tone up she should be a knock out.  She was a little ansty in the wash stall, but she let me thoroughly brush her ears, both inside and out.  We tacked her up in my saddle, pad, girth (anatomic) and Spirit bridle.  She did not mind the ear nets but did not seem to think much of the fly fringe browband so I just introduced it and took it away.  I did not use the running martingle this time, just a feeling I got.

So when we got out to the ring and I mounted the interesting part started.  Amira did not want to move.  So Debbie started walking around picking up little stones and throwing them out of the rind and Amira followed.  Each and every time Debbie stopped to pick up a stone Amira stopped abruptly, with a little jerk.  After around 70 feet I got Amira to go off on her own.  Amira fussed and gave me little warnings that she WAS NOT HAPPY about something, those interesting little movements horses can give when they are telling you that they are thinking of blowing up.  Whenever I used my legs to start walking Amira balked and I was reduced to using my seat to drive her forward.  There are two seperate groups of muscles a rider can use to drive with the seat.  The one I was originally taught is to use the butt musles, the other is to tip the pelvis using the stomach muscles, I was using my stomach muscles.  Amira told me my saddle did not fit her right so I was using the lightest seat aid I could.  She did consent to move forward.  Then she started stopping and scratching herself right behind the elbow with ther teeth, then I would get her walking again by using my seat.  Debbie checked, nothing seemed to be wrong, and after the third time I got off and we moved the saddle and girth back an inch or two.  I got back on, Amira continued to try to scratch, but I was getting irritated and told her no more scratching, driving her forward at a walk with my seat.

Then when I used alternating legs at the girth to extend her walk some Amira started swishing her tail each time I used my legs.  No spurs, no riding crop, just my legs.  Since she was showing other signs of irritation when I used my legs I went back to using my seat as my driving aid.  When I stopped or whenever Amira felt any doubt her head dove down to the ground, and she would not raise it to my hand so I just drove a little bit more with my seat and her head would eventually come up for a while.  Then I started doing broad turns, and Amira ALSO was resistant to turning with me using an opening rein, and she would slow down and stop if I used a direct rein.  Finally I got a decent circle (compared to what she gave me before) by rhythmically using my outside butt muscles, no rein and no leg.  Whenever I talked to Amira, praise, soothing tones, or whenever I talked to Debbie, Amira would tense up.  I told Debbie that I was getting the impression that Amira had been trained in stony silence and that the only time she heard her rider's voice was before drastic punishment.  With Debbie's permission I started talking all the time to Amira, giving her little lessons on basic riding theory and telling her exactly what I was going to do, what I wanted from her, and encouraging and vocally rewarding her as I scratched her neck when she did what I wanted.  Near the end of my ride I went and stood by Debbie for a minute or do and gave her my impressions, and then I did a final figure, a very lopsided figure 8 going around two jumps that were set at sharp angles to each other, using a lightly pulsating opening rein with some (alternating) help from my outside butt muscles.

I ran into two sets of problems on Amira.  First, my saddle obviously did not fit her right, next Wednesday I will take out my Stubben Siegfried and my German dressage saddle, both which are much wider than my Crosby, and see which fits her best, and to get the shims in my Corrector pad right so the saddle is balanced for me.  If neither of these are wide enough I will have to struggle to put the wide pommel in my Wintec.  Also, in the tack department, Amira DID NOT LIKE the anatomic girth, so I am going back to my regular adjustable girth.  Getting Amira more comfortable in her tack will be relatively simple (I hope.)  If she does not like the fleece cover on my adjustable girth I will just have to use one of Debbie's girths, the adjustable girths HAVE to be used with a cover or they take hair off the horse.  Later on I will try introducing the running martingle, like after she stops balking.

My other problem?  I do not think Amira understood me.  Debbie said she was testing me, and this was probably part of it, but I think that Amira was confused, like she had never run into these leg and rein aids before.  Face it, the opening rein is a basic training rein, how could Amira not know it?  After 15 minutes into my ride I came to the conclusion that Amira had probably been trained in some variation of the modern Western system.  When in doubt stop and freeze.  When in doubt put the head WAY down.  When a human leads, follow the leader slavishly, mimicking their every move.  Don't move forward under saddle unless the seat is used.  I'm not saying Amira got good modern Western training, just that she shows evidence of the just the first steps, just green-broke, and that then she must have been sent on her way by the trainer.  At least I am not faced with the problem of a super rubbery neck!  If Amira continues this way after we get her comfortable with her tack I will basically have to start training her from the beginning.  She does not seem to really understand hand and leg aids, to her they are irritations not signals.  Luckily she seems to understand my hand aid for a halt, but then most horses do, but the turning aids were a problem.  She showed no evidence of understanding my leg aids for accelerating or turning, and she did not want to accept the passive pressure of my leg, so I ended up riding with my lower leg off her side.  I won't know for sure how little she knows until we get her comfortable with her tack.  Debbie had few problems riding her, but then Debbie uses her seat a lot more than I do, and Debbie is a lot better rider than I am!

After seeing that awful FEI warm-up reining video I realize that my old reliable aids for raising a horse's head won't work.  What I used to use was to bring my hands way forward, and,, keeping contact with my hands doing a sharp UPWARD half-halt with both the reins (rotating my wrists quickly while keeping my hands stable, then immediately releasing, repeat if needed.)  This works well if the horse has his head way down when the horse's nose is forward.  Amira was diving her head down and tucking her nose in, curling her neck.  If I used my old aids Amira would probably curl up even more, exactly the opposite of what I want her to do.  As I said before my thinking processes are not too good in the heat and when the only solution I could think of was side check reins I e-mailed Allan Buck, the inventor of the Spirit Bridle, asking how he used his bridle to correct this problem.  He called me and told me how to modify my old stand-by aids by alternating pulsating/shaking/vibrating the rein aids keeping light contact with the non-active rein instead of using both reins at once.  I will try this next week if she dives her head IF I have enough front-to-back balance to keep my seat.  If I keep my head up, shoulders back, and my heels down I should be able to do it, but then I will have to depend totally on feel.  Oh well, looking down at the horse's neck is a bad habit for a rider to get into.  Debbie had told me that Amira did not like jumping, and I think part of the reason is that Amira has to learn to carry her head high enough while the rider keeps contact so she can figure out the jump before she reaches it.  When a horse is trained to take its head all the way to the ground while moving the horse is physically set up to learn how to do the perfect defense against jumping, the sudden refusal.  Of course when the horse's head is way down to the ground the horse cannot see enough of the fence to correctly judge the heighth of the fence unless the fence is only 6 inches high.

When I started riding seriously 40 years ago people got after me because my horse carried his head too low, but however low Hat Tricks carried his head his poll was usually still at the level of his withers.  Back then traditionally trained  English horses were traught to carry their heads up, often by putting a bitting rig with side-checks and side reins and forcing the horse to keep his head up.  I did not do this but my horse NEVER traveled with his nose down almost to the ground, unless the ground was difficult or dangerous to walk/trot/canter over, and once past the rough spot he would raise his head to where it was most comfortable for him.  The only time he put his nose all the way down at a standstill was when he grazed!  I am not used to a horse diving its head down for no discernable reason, and since I keep my balance mostly through my eyesight it is mildly distressing to me to lose one of my focal points.  I like seeing the neck stretched out in front of me.  That way I can lean on it and push myself back if I topple forward.  I loose a lot of my feeling of security if the horse's neck resembles a ski slope all the time while moving.

My next ride will be better.  I will get Amira more comfortable with her tack.  Then I can find out how much she knows, and right now I do not think she knows much.  Amira is around 12 years old, she is definitely old enough to learn how to move properly once she is comfortable and gets her muscles toned enough.  The first thing we will work on is responding to both legs by going forward, not balking.  I will do this by using my legs (the new cue) first, then backing them up by using my driving seat (the old cue), and when she responds correctly, counting to 10 and then praising her highly for figuring the whole thing out, and repeating this so we do it three times during my lesson.  I will still be working on smooth easy curves using the opening rein.  This time I might even remember to try a neck rein.  I don't think I will be able to use a direct rein to turn her until she learns what my legs mean!  Walk, trot, halt, start, and gradual turns.  It will be interesting to see how long it will take me to get her to understand me.  I get the feeling that no one in Amira's life ever tried to get her brain actively engaged while riding, so during all this work I will be also trying to teach Amira HOW TO LEARN.  She seems to have a brain in her head, I want her to use it for working WITH me instead of against me.  If I continue riding her I'll keep you all posted on my progress--or lack thereof.

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran