How to Manufacture a Hind Leg

When we left off, I was hyper-analyzing a situation, which, let's be real, is my near constant state, so it's nothing to write home about.

All my best friends

Kate came out to ride TC this Tuesday. She first watched me ride and asked me a lot of questions/told me what she saw:

- I started out showing her what I thought in front of my leg was. She said he looked like his back was tense and dropped. I said yes I could see that in the mirror and that it felt like I had to kind of hold him on the bit vs carry my hand, but that he felt in front of me soooo ?

- I brought him to a place where Tracey wants him but he feels behind my leg at the trot. Kate asked me to describe that and I actually couldn't describe it easily. He feels like he would stop if I took my leg off, but then when I did, he didn't stop. He feels like he would refuse to do a canter transition, but when I asked he did it. He feels like we couldn't do any lateral work from the trot, but he can.

- We went into canter and I put him in a canter where I felt like he was in front of my leg. He was mildly hollow and difficult to steer for me on the left side.

- Then I put him lower, softer, and slower at the canter and he lifted his back, but I felt like he was going to drop out from under me. He broke to trot a couple of times but nothing dramatic.

Hi, wanna see me make my neck REAL SHORT

After that, Kate got on. She rode him for a bit and I kept harassing her about what she was feeling. And then she said this:

"This is going to sound weird"
"Just tell me in whatever words make sense to you"
"I can't feel the ground, I can only feel it down to his hip but not down to his feet, there's a black hole back there"

Oh.

And she's right. When riding TC, you cannot feel his hind leg. We determined that there is some muscle not firing in his lower back that is responsible for that feeling. That muscle gets switched on in a negative way when he bolts or when I run him off his feet, so I can feel the hind legs and even if they feel like crap, I can at least feel them.

Love this place

I had brought my piaffe whip and had Kate trot around me. I tapped TC's haunches and when she could feel his hind legs, she'd pet him and I'd stop. He looked incredible. He was recruiting different muscles in his back and abdomen in those moments and you could see his hind end interact with the ground in a very different way than he normally does. More with his heel than his toe.

Kate and I switched and I got on him, handing Kate the whip. I trotted around her and aided for a shortened step while she tapped. I felt it a bit in trot, but especially coming back to walk. I felt him in front of me in the way that I had wanted. He felt like he was carrying me forward.

And it's not "in front of the leg" as much as I could feel where his haunches ended and where they were going. And THAT'S what I'm getting on my client's horse that I can't feel on TC. It has nothing to do with his level of responsiveness or being in front of the leg. It has everything to do with the way TC interacts with the ground in his hind legs.

Not for sale, if I can't afford a good hind leg, I'll make one

We brainstormed some things to implement into TC's program:

1) I am going to bring Kate out to help me on the ground once a week.
2) I am going to do piaffe work in hand once a week
3) I am going to clicker train holding his hind legs up for 30-60 seconds at a time
4) I am going to do long and low over raised trot rails
5) I am going to teach TC how to jump small cavalletis to work up to getting him comfortable with a series of small bounces

TC is also going to start adequan and I'm putting him on a muscle builder again. He's also going on some aloe pellets just in case this work stresses him out.

Tracey was concerned about putting a piaffe on him because of his mental state, but he loves me and he loves Kate, so he just thought that was a fun game. We're going to have the clicker and some cookies next time so it's even more fun for him.

I'm so grateful for friends like Kate who I can throw on my horse, tell her what I'm feeling, and ask her what she thinks of him. And now we'll see how much the piaffe training helps with all of this! Either way, it's fun to be working on something like that.