50+ in February

We’ve had wildly swinging weather, even for the mid-west.  From single digit lows to 50+ in a very short time frame with more cold to come and then more 50’s next week.  No complaints though.  I’ll take any warm sunny day in February and treasure it.

My footing is a bit hit and miss being a little deep with the snow melting and some rain.  Also to contend with are some pretty high wind, cold days.  So we’ve been riding in some, out some, and doing lots of groundwork in the form of the pillars outside.

The pillars in hand and under saddle are coming along really nicely for both boys.  Jet does mostly in hand because he has a lot more strength and muscle to build.  Cruise does more under saddle and has noticeably larger pectorals, like a LOT, and his girth has gone down 3 holes on one side and 4 on the other without a change in feed.  Crazy.

I am still playing with the pillars under saddle and how to have all curved lines correctly weighted to the outside for outside shoulder abduction.  I think I mostly have it but need to Pivo soon for confirmation.

I’ve also been playing with an energy exercise with Cruise.  I dug out the Dressage Naturally free video about energy and folks,  I have a forward horse in progress.  Basically, in hand and under saddle we do some relaxed work at his (sloooow) pace.  Then I change my energy(think sitting in a chair waiting for the buzzer to go off to grab a prize) and if he doesn’t match my energy I whip tap very lightly until he matches.  Then I pat him, let him return to relaxation, rinse and repeat.  When he gets matching energy with no taps I make a fuss over him or sometimes let him target something  to help reinforcement.  Yesterday I got many matching energy steps without whip taps, then good releases into trot, that were smooth and lovely.  Today, outside, we had relaxed walk to energetic walk back to relaxed walk and some also great trot transitions.  A work in progress but the best, freest transitions I have ever gotten on him. And an energetic walk with no nagging!

And finally, I have been playing with box breathing.  If you’re not familiar, Google it.  You will thank me.  Someone brought it up on the BTMM Masterclass on Facebook to help with connection and relaxation for the in hand pillars.  Cruise has pretty good pillars but tends to sometimes get distracted working outside in general.  I decided to play with box breathing at the halt in hand when he is not focusing on me.  We only move on to something else when he focuses on me.  It’s been kind of amazing how much my box breathing helps him focus on me much so much quickly in a distracting environment.  I can’t decide if it’s woo woo or just common sense that the calmer the trainer the more the horse wants to turn to them in connection.  The layers of the onion are many…