My Horse's Different Hind Legs

I went out to ride today with a lot on my mind about what I wanted to do with my horse today. I got Rico all tacked up and when I was about to get on him, I realized he had a spur rub on the left side of his barrel. But something wasn't right, it was too high up on his side! My legs are fairly long and the spurs I was using the last few days are fairly short and low on my boots. There is NO way that my spur could have gotten up there, even if I was in jumping tack. 

Long legs = no spur rubs right below saddle pads!

Rico's coat hasn't been too great these days, and he has rubs all over him from who knows where (including one on his neck?) so I'm fairly certain that it wasn't my spur that caused this rub. However, I took my spurs off of him today just in case I was somehow able to poke him way up there.

Anyway, I was not expecting a great ride since I didn't have spurs. I don't really NEED the spurs on him, he's very responsive to my leg, but I tend to use spurs on everything I ride so it's habitual to just put them on. But due to my use of them daily, I was fairly certain that he was going to be dependent on them, even if it doesn't feel like I use them a lot.

I was pleased to find out that I was right when I say that he doesn't need the spurs. I didn't feel any difference in the ride! Good to know.

The most responsive! Here I am holding him back from a medium...

During my ride, I wanted to address a few things in the walk and then work mainly on the canter pirouettes. However, I was surprised to find that when I picked up the sitting trot, he was SUPER amped. He immediately gave me the really nice trot I had been getting for the last few days, and when I asked for more, he complied. I called my mom and begged her to come out to tape us. We did a bit more trot for the video before the pirouettes.

My mom was kind enough to videotape the pirouettes too, but this is where technology failed me. I couldn't find the video after she taped! She swore she taped it and I believe her, as I saw the video save to my phone. So the pirouettes felt great, but there is no way of knowing whether they were great or not. How irritating! I was bummed since I rarely get video taped and usually when I do, my horse feels terrible so it's not an accurate representation of where we are.

So let's focus on the trot!! After my ride I, of course, came inside and analyzed the crap out of my two and a half minute long video. I came up with two conclusions, both of which I already knew.

1. I ride with my hands WAY too high, which makes my horse tight and short in the neck. Katy pointed this out to me this last fall and it is the one position thing (other than my graceful looking down) that I absolutely cannot kick. I really like my position (for the most part) other than those two things though! My leg stays down and pretty and for the most part, my lower back is strong and stable. So that's progress.

Keep your hands DOWN

Seriously!

2. My horse has two different hind legs!! I knew this since 2005 when I bought him. I tend to forget about it as I cannot feel it undersaddle except when it manifests as a straightness problem. Recently his straightness hasn't been as good, so in the video today I wasn't surprised to see his left hind refusing to engage and his right hind refusing to carry. Examples...

Weaker side, left hind engaging, right hind needs to push.
Instead, right hind straightens which pushes him onto his forehand.

Stronger side, he moves better uphill on this side.

He isn't lame, his head doesn't bob, and it's not noticeable unless I watch the video frame by frame. Clearly there is a difference, even if I can't see it in real time. However, for the first time since I started getting videos, we got some REALLY nice pushing with the right hind every now and then.

My uphill pony!

This primarily occurred when I was asking him for his fancy trot. So I think that this is REALLY good work for him, not only for me to score better, but to get him to use his body evenly on both sides.

Such a good boy

Take off! After this he gave me a passage step!
... sorry Heidi! I'm not supposed to let him do that.

As seen in the pictures, he does tend to get a little enthusiastic when asked to push with that hind leg. So right now my goal for this straightness problem is to get him pushing as evenly and consistently as possible with both hind legs. I'm planning on giving him an adequan shot soon, just to give him an extra boost while I'm asking him to push more with that right hind.

Overall I was really happy with what I saw on the trot video. I like where he is at right now and I'm okay with what I look like as well.

He obviously looks better than I do though, I'm used to it

I'm still working on not holding myself to the standard I did when riding horses was my full time career. The difference in fitness that riding eight horses a day in comparison to one horse a day is HUGE and I can't get irritated if a position problem of mine doesn't go away the moment I want it to. So my homework is to keep the hand lower, let his neck out a bit, and work on those hind legs!