Hi Jessica!
Thankyou for being here for all of us! I only have e mail at work and look forward to Mondays just so I can read your horse-sense posts! I find something useful in just about every question you answer.
I have a problem that I think I'm slowly working through but I'd like youropinion on what may have caused it and whether or not I'm doing the correctthing.
I have a 7 year old arabian mare who is wonderful in every way except she doesn't want to canter unless she's on the lunge (or thinks she's on the lunge!). I've done all her training slowly and gently (I bought her as a yearling) and she's wonderful to ride. She's calm and relaxed out on the trail, walks over anything I ask her to and is very sensible about everything. She walks, trots, and canters well on the lunge and walks and trots happily under saddle. My problem started when I first asked her to canter off the lunge with me on her back. She took a couple of strides then bucked as hard as she could. I managed to stay on and asked her again. She went for a few more strides and I brought her back to trot before she decided to buck. After several unsuccessful attempts to canter her, I came
up with an idea. Since she cantered well on the lungeline, I'd put a
friend on her back (knowledgeable rider) and lunge her at the canter that way. She went happily around. Then we changed places and I got on and she went well. Then my friend took her off the lunge (but I think my mare thought she was still attached) and I asked for a canter, staying on the same circle. She went happily. I gradually increased the size of the circle until we were going about halfway around the arena. A couple of times she started to get a bit worried and acted like she was going to buck, so I spiralled back in to our smaller circle until she relaxed again and then worked our way out again. Eventually we were going almost all the way around the arena. She was happy and relaxed with her little ears pricked and her canter was smooth and wonderful to ride. That was in December. We were only able to do this once before the snow fell.
Yesterday we tried it again for the first time since last year, on the lunge with me on her back. She bucked twice. I told her "quit!" and we urged her on. She became relaxed and happy and went along fine after that, although we didn't take her off the lunge at all. We stopped on a good note.
I'm wondering what I've done wrong in her training? Could I have gone too slowly, not introducing a rider at the canter as soon as I should have, and caused her to become set in her ways a bit? She seems to need the security of someone on the ground as if they were lunging her. Not very practical!
How can I gradually get her happy about cantering off the lunge? I'm really worried about this and hope you will help me. Her teeth are fine, her saddle fits well, etc.
Very sincerely,
Debbie
Hi Debbie! Good for you, checking saddle and teeth -- you must have known that those would be the first things I would suggest. ;-)
It sounds to me as though your mare's anxiety comes from a combination of doubts about what you WANT her to do, and doubts about what she CAN do.
Horses in pasture, running downhill, will buck to retrieve their balance when they find themselves unbalanced and moving too quickly. Some horses also buck when they're anxious -- this wouldn't be the first Arabian mare I've known to have that particular reaction. ;-)
It's very revealing that she's happier with someone longeing her -- and even more revealing that she's most comfortable on the smaller circle than going all the way around the arena, even when there's no longe-line attached. That tells me that she is most at ease -- and probably most balanced -- when she's on that smaller, more familiar circle. Going "large" -- using half or three-quarters or ALL of the arena -- may cause her to worry. Horses CAN indeed get into habits, and your mare may have gotten into the habit of feeling that small circles are "right" and larger, longer, straight-line canters are "wrong."
I think that there are several things you can do about this.
First, you're absolutely on the right track with your spiraling exercise.
Use it both ways -- spiral in and out, with the goal of making your "default" circle bigger and bigger. Your goal here is to help her understand that she CAN keep herself balanced on larger circles.
But circles aren't all there is to the story. A circle is easy for a horse to understand, because every part of it is just like every other part of it.
If a horse can canter comfortably around one part of a circle, it can get around the rest of it. Riding around the entire arena is different! Instead of a circle with every step the same, you're asking your mare to canter a long straight line, a turn, a short straight line, and another turn. And those turns -- especially in arena corners -- are sharper and much more unbalancing to the horse. I'm sure that your mare CAN get through them, but she may not know that yet. ;-) Instead of riding around the arena in the "correct" way (straight lines and turns), try riding around it in the way that drives dressage instructors crazy. In dressage arena terms, instead of going deep into your corners and riding a turn, a straight line past C, and another turn at the short end, leave the long side early (before K) and ride half of a twenty-meter circle, catching up with the next long side after F.
This should take care of her (and your) anxiety about balance, turns, and bucking.
Do a LOT of transitions. Trot, canter, trot, canter.... whenever she picks up the canter, even if she's on the wrong lead, even if she's counterbent, praise her, sit UP, and loosen the reins a little. Horses WILL buck in canter if the rider forgets to give them a longer rein -- or if the rider forgets to allow her hands and arms to follow the horse's movement. Praise her for ANY canter, let her canter on, and then after eight or ten or twelve strides OR whenever you feel her hesitate as though she's thinking about bucking, ask for a trot -- and praise her when she trots, but make her WORK at the trot.
When you ask for trot from canter, be sure that you aren't pulling her back -- think about sending her FORWARD into the trot, so that you're going from a relaxed, rocking-horse canter into a big-moving, okay-NOW-we're-going-to-go-to-work trot. In other word, you're going to make a little bit of canter her reward for working at the trot! This will accomplish several things. One: it will give both of you a different outlook on trot and canter. Two: it will help her (and you) relax, as you will be very clear with your asking aids, with your allowing aids, and with your praise, so she won't need to wonder if she's done what you wanted. Three: it will help her balance, because good, frequent transitions are brilliant balancing exercises.
If she canters, feels herself, you, or herself AND you getting a little unbalance, and then bucks to retrieve her balance, and then you immediately to to a trot or a walk, she's going to learn that you LIKE for her to buck (You must like it, since you reward it -- that's how she knows you like something!). If you can help her understand that she CAN balance, that you LIKE her to canter, and that you expect her to canter when she's asked and then trot when she's asked, you should be able to make some real progress.
One more thing. Watch yourself carefully when you ask her to canter. On the longe, we tend to be more careful about position: we sit up straight and stretch our legs down and look up, because the fact that we're on a circle makes us think more about our OWN balance. Sometimes when we're off the longe and asking for a canter down the side of an arena, we tend to rock our bodies forward or "pump" with our seats. This is enough to unbalance a horse and make it uncomfortable, with predictable results.
And finally: I know that you've checked her saddle fit, and the fact that she canters nicely on the longe, even with a rider, tells me that the saddle isn't too far forward, but here's something you may want to consider: Some saddles fit adequately but not wonderfully, and the horse can be quite comfortable as long as the rider is sitting up straight -- but when the rider leans forward (as many riders do when anxious about "getting that canter"), the movement and weight shift puts painful pressure on the horse's back under the saddle, about a hand's width in back of the pommel. If this is the case with your mare, you'll notice that the bucking occurs only when your weight is shifted forward! I worked with such a case very recently, and we "cured" a nice young Morgan gelding of bucking by making his rider pay attention to HER position.
Good luck, have fun, and let me know what happens!
Jessica
Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org
Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.