Introducing Straightness

I've added almost ten pages to my thesis since I last complained about it, which means that I'm closing in on 30 pages. Most of it is still notes, and sure, one of the pages was a table of contents with hyperlinks because this mother fucker is getting hard to navigate, and yeah another one of the pages is a second page of references (which will be expanded even more soon), but STILL. probably fifty pages left or so, too bad I'm not only going for page count.

Before even touching it today, I headed out to the barn (and am writing this blog post... and I might go make food... and don't I need a new saddle pad? From a tack store about two hours away? Wasn't I supposed to be half way to Canada by today? Thesis may need to wait).

Enjoy more pictures from our last ride- I can't remember/am too
lazy to go see what I posted last post so sorry about repeats

The baby horse had made me pretty happy by giving me about 80% of his home awesomeness at the neighbor's arena last time I rode so I had high hopes for today.

Once again, I was disgustingly looking forward to riding there because of how energetic he is when we're there. Just two weeks ago I felt such dread thinking about riding there.

We started at home again. He was still so sticky and fussy in the bridle so I ended up dropping the reins and just getting him to go forward without any restrictions. After he experienced life without connection, he realized that I was actually there trying to help him and started stretching into contact. We had a couple of nice loops around at trot and canter, then headed out.

He's starting to look more steel gray than black, yay

I opted for more walk work than usual when we got to the neighbor's because I wanted to get him stretching down again. He's been so reluctant to let go of the tension in the base of his neck. We got a REALLY nice stretchy walk all the way around the arena both directions before heading into trot. I was so glad that he was quiet enough to actually do walk work for once- normally we get over there and he starts screaming (screaming still present today though, he is so shrill) and ends up getting himself all in a tither before I let him trot it out.

Into trot, he was perfect. Not 80% of what we get at home, this was 95%! Still ever so slightly tense, but I could attribute that to his loss of confidence over the last week rather than us riding at the neighbor's place.

So we did a lot of figures, serpentines, figure-8s, some spiraling in and out. He was great through all of that so we did some trot leg yields (they're bad but they're good enough to be referred to as leg yields) and actually managed a shoulder-in in trot to the left!

Such a good baby

I also started playing with working on the straightness and throughness in the walk-trot transitions. He tends to wiggle and kind of throw himself into trot, and I thought this would be a good way of both a) cleaning up the transition and b) getting him to engage his hind end where it's HIS idea rather than me slowing him down so much.

At first he was confused, but he's so energetic over there that he wanted to trot so he figured it out quickly. None of them were perfect, but there were a few that let me see where they were heading.

Once again, we cantered, and this time we cantered for a long while. I'm starting to put more pressure on him to be round, even if it's not necessarily perfectly correct, at the canter. It's been about four or five months since he started cantering undersaddle, so I think it's time to start cracking down on this concept. He readily accepts contact to the right, but the left is harder for him. I'm primarily just asking him to bend more, and sliding the bit a tiny bit on the inside rein- enough to get a response but not so much to throw him off balance since I do like the balance he brings in the canter.

One day he will relax the base of his neck!

One of the main issues I'm now realizing that we have is straightness. I'm getting paranoid because it feels quite pronounced (although when I watch videos, it isn't as obvious) and I know that crookedness can be caused by a weak hind leg which can be caused by hock spurs or arthritis or whatever other problems may arise that would cause him to fail the vet check and me to lose him.

He essentially falls over his left shoulder all the time. It makes him easy to turn to the left but easy to bend to the right. He struggles to pick up the left shoulder, hence why the left lead canter is better than the right lead- it forces him to pick up that shoulder.

It's bad enough where I notice it while picking his feet- he won't let me pick his left foot for very long before he starts leaning backwards so I drop it or trying to paw it out of my hand. I think normally I wouldn't have noticed that it was specific to one foot (because let's face it, picking feet is an uphill battle with a horse that doesn't stand still while tied and paws like it's his meaning in life) but I struggled a LOT to get him to pick up his left shoulder while riding today so was sensitized to it.

He's so fun

I don't know whether his crookedness is:
a.) totally normal in young horses and will go away soon if I make it a priority in his work

b.) a product of my own crookedness (which makes no sense because Rico was crooked in the OTHER way so you'd think I would encourage horses to be that kind of crooked)

c.) not normal in young horses and indicative of a problem or future problem in his right hind (will definitely tell the vet at his vet check and flex/x-ray his right hock)

d.) mostly all in my head because I'm in tune to riding 3rd level + horses right now who are very straight so the slightest bit of crookedness is very obvious to me while someone else who is not as sensitized to it wouldn't notice or care

So I'm obviously thinking that it's because he's lame and simultaneously because I'm crooked too. Because why would I think that it's just normal for even a young horse to be one sided or that I'm now a good enough rider to feel exactly what is going on under me?


After careful analysis, I helped him out a bit by working on bend and a little haunches in to the left and getting him better connected on the left rein to the right. He definitely improved, and I think it will get better with time. Unless, you know, his right hind leg simply falls OFF of his body.

We walked back to the barn the long way down the trail by the busy road and the whole time, he was on a loose rein! What a grown up baby :)

Also very grown up cantering at a place that isn't his home arena

This weekend is a relaxed one and next weekend is a potential second show for us. But I'm not sure if it's something I want to do or if I just want to go to school. I have until midweek to decide!