2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#6 Good Ol' Cordell (And Rugar)

Well, I got to ride Cordell again for this lesson, and work on some things that I learned last time.  James got to ride Riggs instead.  Vivie was also there, and she was on Romeo.  Lastly, my Friend was there as well, so I basically had all the people I knew fairly well in the same lesson together.  Friend rode Mariah. 

I actually got to do groundwork with Rugar for an hour or so before the riding lesson.  See, for how many ever months now, my trainer has been giving a groundwork lesson to Vivie and James before they had their lesson.  Usually, during that time I'm doing whatever work my trainer  assigns to me.  But today, I got to do some groundwork with them.

I was mostly left to my own devices with Rugar.  Despite him having been at my trainer's for three or more years, I've only ground-worked him once before, and have never ridden him.  I don't know why, other than I guess it's just never worked out?  But I like him. 

With the ground work, he was really attentive to the rope.  How he responded was nice.  But, especially in the beginning, it was like he wasn't there with me, wasn't 'with me' mentally.  Oh sure, he was responding to my requests pretty well, but I could just see in his face that his attention, his mind, was elsewhere.  Normally, if a horse is like that, their responses are slow and sloppy.  But Rugar was still responding well to me, only I could clearly see his mind was elsewhere.

My trainer later told me that this was due to bad lunging in his previous life.  He was basically lunged around and around and around, without anything else being done.  Thus, he learned how to do things on 'auto-pilot' if you will, and be able to pay attention to other things while still doing what was required of him.

In particular, his attention was drawn to the northeast corner of the arena, where the pigeons were...  Doing scary pigeon stuff, I guess.  He didn't ever really spook at them, but every time he'd come through that corner his attention would switch to it.

I worked him with that awhile, and his attention got a little better.  But not as good as I wanted it.  So I took him over and away from the pigeon corner and really focused on having him do things in quick succession and random order.

This helped him focus more on me.  It was then that my trainer asked me what I thought of him.  I told her about his attention problem, and she told me about the bad lunging.  Then she gave me two things to work on for this last little bit of the session.

The first was getting him straight in his body by moving his hindquarters.  The second was getting more of his attention.  To do that, she wanted me to just take the rope in both my hands, grip it firmly, and turn to march away.  If Rugar wasn't paying enough attention, this would force him to yank it back to me.  But, on the other hand, if he was and adeptly adjusted to follow after me without hitting the end of the lead rope, then that was a good time to stop and take a break as a reward.

I could've worked more on the straightening part, but I honestly wasn't quite sure what my trainer meant by it.  On the other hand, I think I got his attention pretty well.  We went back to the pigeon corner and he focused on me more.

Near the end, I was moving his hindquarters, and my trainer told me I was moving my feet too much.  I was chasing after him too much.  When I stopped moving my feet so much and swung the lead rope more instead, I instantly saw how that put him more straight.

My trainer explained that if we just chased after their hindquarters on foot, all they'd end up doing was over-bending their head, not straightening up in their body.  It's alright if we have to move a little bit, but we shouldn't be chasing them so much. 

Anyhow, after that, she told me to tie Rugar on the hitching rail, then go and get my tack while she went to fetch Cordell for me.  

Tacking up Cordell was not as much of a hassle as it'd been last time.  For one thing, I chose to just use the inflatable pad without a saddle pad, and for another, it wasn't windy.