Anticipation

One of my favorite things about TC is how much he loves work and how hard he works at it. It means he learns pretty fast, which is good, because I like being able to work on different things every day and not feel like I'm overwhelming his brain. The more he learns, the better he handles pressure, and that's really good news. I do love a horse who can handle a bit of pressure.

Another picture Olivia got at the show, so much media!

 The downside of this is that he anticipates a LOT if I want to drill something. Now, you might tell me to not drill him on stuff and well, fuck that, because we're doing dressage here, and he needs to learn NOW to be okay with doing the same thing over and over again and having to wait for me to ask him to do it, even if he knows it's coming. This is going to be extremely important in tempi changes, piaffe and passage (remember my post about Rico, the unstoppable passaging asshole?), and many many other things. I don't want to wait to teach him how to wait.

One of the ways I introduce this is making him wait for transitions. He's the king of discovering what I want him to do and just doing it half assed as soon as he can so that I'll ask him something new.

So we do a lot of transitions all in a row, all over the arena, and he hates it.

Me: and canter please
TC: oh, I get it, we're doing transitions
Me: tr-
TC: dumps himself into trot with his head in the air, possibly rolling his eyes at me
Me: get back on the bit and get yourself engaged
TC: ugh why, we're just going to canter again.
TC: picks up the canter before I even put my leg anywhere
Me: halts him
TC: sticks his head on his chest and wrings his neck
Me: asks for walk
TC: trots
Me: halt again
-10 transitions later-
TC: trotting quietly
Me: asks for c-
TC: I KNEW IT I KNEW WE WERE STILL DOING THESE
TC: flings himself into canter but keeps his head down so I can't get mad at him
TC: canters on the spot in anticipation of trotting again
Me: kicks him
TC: leaps into the air over an invisible jump, canters off

And so on.

So we're doing a lot of this. I love that he gets so sensitive to the aids and all that, as evidenced by him bucking into canter once when I poked him with my spur. Sorry pony.

But when we're both not being assholes to each other about this stuff, things are SO much better. Drilling the transitions is making them so much better and it really checks in on the throughness. TC gives me a good feeling if he's on the bit no matter what, but when we do a transition, he doesn't always stay that way. It's teaching me to recognize when he's truly through vs when he's just feeling that way.

Evenness is coming up! But then I
ruined it by trotting left (ended with 7.8)

Hopefully I can set up enough of these situations early on in his training (read: this year) where he learns to wait for me no matter what. But I have no doubt that he'll be the sort of horse who won't stop doing flying changes, piaffe, passage, pirouette canter, and all that other stuff later on. He's just got a busy mind and likes to do ALL the things at once, without a care in the world about what I have to say about it.