I approached Friday’s ride with eagerness because I had not been able to ride Mia the previous two weeks.  Normally I LOVE riding Mia, but ever since Quizzy entered the picture a month ago Mia has not been the same horse.  Debbie had Quizzy checked over by the vet, including palpating the ovaries, and the vet found nothing wrong with Quizzy and she told Debbie just to feed Quizzy more Regumate to try and cycle her out of her hormone driven manias.  Apparently the previous stable where Quizzy had lived had the same problems with her.  I used to wonder why people did not like mares since all of my mares had been reasonably sensible ladies, but now I am learning that mare haters sometimes have a point.  I am also learning that riding or controlling a hormonally hopped up mare can be as challenging as riding a stallion, not a good prescription for peaceful trail rides.  This is frustrating, with the RS-tor I had just gotten able to go safely on the trail and now I can’t just take Mia out for a nice trail ride.

When I got to the stable, thinking that Debbie would ride Quizzy while I rode Mia in the same ring, I learned that Debbie had several lessons lined up.  She asked one of her students, Olivia, to help me by haltering and holding Quizzy as my son and I groomed, trimmed hooves, and tacked Mia up.  So I went to my previous plan of taking all the grooming tools and tack out to near the ring instead of bringing both mares in.  Mia and Quizzy were fine with this, they got to stand maybe ten feet apart while Joe and I worked on Mia.  Since Debbie was teaching a jumping lesson in the main ring I decided it would be better for me to ride in the auxiliary ring where I would not have horses barreling around me.  I just did not want any more complications.  Of course this meant a lot of extra walking for me.

All groomed and tacked up, we managed to get Mia into the ring without Quizzy charging in too.  I do not know if we could have done it without Olivia holding Quizzy.  I mounted and started riding Mia around.  Debbie told Olivia to take off Quizzy’s blanket and to turn her loose (but keep the halter on!)  Quizzy started running up and down the fence line all upset that her friend and love was on the other side of the fence.  Mia was not very happy either, always trying to turn toward Quizzy and getting irritated with me when I would not let her do so.  When I got to the other side of the ring from Quizzy she (Quizzy) got even more agitated running back and forth even harder with some anxious neighs.  Mia was also showing her deep displeasure, so Mia and I compromised by walking down the center of the ring.  While Mia reluctantly accepted this Quizzy got more and more upset and kept on running up and down by the fence line until she finally got tired.

When I tried to pick up contact Mia reverted to all of her old evasions and resistances, the evasions and resistances I thought I had “cured”.  Every time I “drove” Mia into contact she would meet the bit and then immediately curl up like a Rollkur trained horse and when that did not discourage me from asking for contact she started slinging her head around.  Normally this is a sign of an uncomfortable bit or that the rider has hard, unforgiving hands, but I had successfully ridden Mia ALL SUMMER when my hands were worse in the very same Mullen mouth snaffle without any protests (and Mia WILL tell me when she does not like a bit or how my hands are working.)  So thanking my lucky stars that I had previously spent a lot of time riding Mia on loose reins, I controlled her with occasional LIGHT hand aids, legs and seat.  This did not make Mia happy, she wanted to be with Quizzy and nothing else mattered, but at least she more or less obeyed me.

I started experimenting with the contact.  I quickly discovered that when my hands were closer together, with a direct backward tension on the reins, Mia got ever more upset.  Spreading my hands apart only delayed the evasions/resistances by a split second.  Reaching the end of the RS-tor I dropped it, and when I finally got the idea to spread my hands as far apart as the reins would allow, Mia finally accepted contact without any evasions.  And it was really nice contact, a little bit stronger than usual (4 ounces instead of 2 ounces), nice and steady with Mia reaching willingly for the bit and obeying each rein aid promptly.  Walking around with my hands spread as far apart as I could I remember seeing old pictures of dressage horses being trained between the pillars, when they reached the end of the reins that were attached to the pillars there was an identical angle between the horse’s mouth and the rein, around 45° .  Of course my hands, relaxed and with supple fingers, were a lot more forgiving than the pillars, for one I could move them back and forth to follow Mia’s head at the walk, plus, since I was on her back, nothing was blocking forward movement.

As I rode Mia with my hands spread way apart I tried to figure out why, after all the vehement protests, evasions, and resistances, Mia was finally accepting contact.  I consider all evasions and resistances to the bit as signs of previous bad riding, and I realized that no one had ever ridden Mia with their hands that far apart, therefore Mia had not developed resistances to a pull on the bit at a 45° angle as she had to contact that was at  a 90° or 60° angle to the bit (as far apart as I could get my hands holding the RS-tor.)  So I experimented with bringing my hands closer together, and as soon as my hands got closer together (like most people ride normally) the evasions came back, often vehemently.  My hands were THREE FEET OR MORE APART when Mia stopped evading the bit.  Gradually I got Mia to accept contact when my hands were only two feet apart, but if I brought my hands any closer together the protests and evasions reappeared.  All I had to do was keep my hands at that magic angle where her mouth had never been abused and I got willing contact. 

Before Mia ended up at Debbie’s stable she had never been ridden by a good rider, and her previous riders had abused her mouth with their unforgiving hands.  Mia freaked out the only time I rode her in a Kimberwick and Debbie decided that her mouth had been abused with a curb bit (an easy guess because she had been ridden Western) and that Mia was protesting the existence of a curb chain on her head.  It took me a lot of work over the years to get Mia to accept contact with a mild snaffle bit with my hands in a normal position, but Mia finally learned that it was safe, safe, safe to let me keep normal contact with her mouth.  But Mia had never had an outside reason to disobey me before she “fell in love” with Quizzy.  Now that Mia wanted ever so deeply to disobey all of my rein aids all her old resistances to the bit came back, after all they had worked decades ago to outwit her riders.  Horses never forget a successful evasion!  Luckily none of her previous riders had ridden her with their hands three feet apart so she had no “library” of successful evasions to the bit when I spread my hands far apart, and since my contact was not hurting her mouth she was willing to relax.  I still had problems guiding her away from Quizzy, but at least she was not curling up or throwing her head around as I kept contact.

At the end of my half-hour ride I was very tired from all the extra walking I had to do, so after one last successful walk past Quizzy I asked my son to come into the ring and hold Mia as I got off.  We took off her saddle, Olivia put a lead rope on Quizzy’s halter, my son took Mia through the gate and took off her bridle as Olivia unsnapped Quizzy‘s lead rope.  Mia and Quizzy ran together like torrid lovers who had been parted for weeks, deliriously happy to be back together again.  My son asked if he should brush Mia off and get her a snack but Mia was putting out vibes that now I had gotten off her back her time of reasonableness and obedience was OVER.  I checked with Debbie, and she told me it was alright not to do anything more with Mia.

Maybe I should ride Bobby with my hands three feet apart.  He takes contact but he is continually searching for any chance to evade the bit.  Maybe this will work with him too.

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran