The Colt Journal, ride 15: Wilson Arena

Last Wednesday found me once more at Wilson Arena. Time to really get down to business. The goal was to work on checking and bending the colt, with a rope halter and one rein Parelli style. Since I have not graduated level one from Parelli yet, I am only supposed to be riding one rein. I figured I had better get on it if I am to take a level 1 assessment this fall, because you have to trot around the arena with one rein. It's a pain, but it drills in the basics of equitation. It's sink or swim. The rein is basically your 12 foot lead rope tied to the halter. If you want indirect or direct reining in the other direction from which side of the horse's head the rein is on, you have to flip the rope over his head. The basic idea is that an inexperienced rider will overuse the second rein. If you can learn to ride with one rein, you are communicating with the horse more effectively.

It was hard work because from the beginning Smooch tried to take control. He knew that he was on one rein and he knew that I really didn't know what I was doing. Not to mention that he is only green broke to begin with. If one or the other of us knew what they were doing, things might be easier. So in that situation what came natural for him was to try to escape the rein, which is easy for him to do with an inexperienced rider because all he has to do is turn and walk in the direction on which side the rein is on. And as most horses, his off side, or his right side, is worse than his left side. Horse's brains are wired differently than say for example a person's brain. Each side of the horse has to be trained independently. So if you teach a horse to bend laterally left, you must also teach it to bend laterally right. If you show a horse an object (such as a flag) to desensitize it on his left side, you must also do so on his right side. So Smooch is much worse clockwise around the arena than counter clockwise. As you ride the horse clockwise around the arena, you want his nose tipped inside (to the right) so you can see half his eye ball. This lifts his inside shoulder and with inside leg pressure causes him to step his body towards the rail while bending his rib cage around your right foot and circling to the right. Doing all this and teaching the colt to tip his nose in, or bend, with one rein doesn't come easy.

To start things off with, I kind of did a serpentine pattern so that I could practice flipping the rope from side to side, while at the same time worked on bending his head and tipping his nose from side to side.

Then I moved to the rail. After many rounds of circling the arena in both directions, I think I finally had the idea of how to effectively use the rein. Then I trotted him and it was like starting over. Once I thought I had him fairly solid at the trot, I gave him a break and then started with the side pass. All of this bending and tipping the nose, checking, and lifting the shoulders eventually translates to side passing and spinning the horse on his haunches, which starts to become the basis for many things down the road such as reining or just simple tasks such as opening a ranch gate. So side passing is nothing more than tipping the horses head to one direction, lifting the shoulder and passing the horse in the other direction, just like circling, except at this point you are asking the horse to cross over both his back and front feet while moving sideways. Remember we started this exercise by asking him to lift his shoulder and moving his front end to the outside. Now he is going the same thing except we are taking the circle away. It takes a few minutes for the horse to understand what is going on. He will try all kinds of things to get out of the pressure, so it's important that when he does get it right, his reward is a break. He will try going forwards. He will try going backwards. He will try going the opposite direction from which you want. He may even try bucking or rearing. But eventually he will take that first step, crossing one foot in front of the other in the direction you want him to go and that's when he gets his break. Then you ask for two steps. And then a break. And then three steps. By the time it was dark I had him side passing the entire length of the arena both ways. That is with the rail in front of us as a guide. All of this, once again, with one rein.

I'll have to admit that I was almost thrown at one point. Whether it was my fault and I deserved it, or this is typical of a confident and dominant horse I'm not too sure. Smooch has reared on me before when he was confused, and I'm sure he'll do so again. At least I know what circumstances it happens under and hopefully I'm learning how to avoid such situations, but I think it may be a little of both.

Next up, Smooch's first solo trail ride. And some nice wildlife pictures.