Glass Half Full

I'm doing what I can to make the best out of TC's new work schedule. I am throwing myself into this work for this month and in early November, we see the clinician I've been talking about and will get more information on what he needs specifically. I figure if I can bring him there in as good of shape/posture as I can get him this month, we will be set up well for what comes next. 

Right now TC gets trail ridden once a week and then does dressage four days a week with two days a week off. The dressage rides are mostly stretching and working on the connection at the walk and trot. Right now, I've decided to leave the canter alone. He lives in pasture so he canters around on his own. But he definitely had some faulty patterns with the psoas/brachiocephalicus, and the canter makes that worse. I'm focusing primarily on keeping his back swinging and his underneck loose. 

In addition, I'm doing some manual work on his shoulders a few times a week. And every day he does his PT exercises as always, even though I'm bummed that PT lady is too busy for us. 

His neck has never been this shape tracking right!

It's easy to get bored and frustrated doing so little work. I ride him for about 45-60 minutes, but most of that is walking down the road and back. We do about 25-30 minutes in the arena right now. 

However, there are some other goals I've given us for this time that keep me excited about the future! One is that I am finally starting to work on riding him tackless. I'd really love to be able to ride him with just a rope around his neck. Even just to quietly walk, trot, and canter around the arena in the summer. I did that with Rico and it was so fun! 

Rico was way easier to ride bridleless, I basically just took off his bridle and the training was done. TC is more distractable and his aid system has been faulty for years now. So most of the work I'm doing for bridleless riding is to rework his aid system right now. 

My next step is going to be putting the neck rope on and teaching him the whoa aids using it while I still have the bridle on him. Teaching a former bolter to ride bridleless is mildly terrifying, even though he honestly hasn't bolted in years at this point. He scooted once this year and it caught me so much by surprise because I no longer have that "oh god he might bolt" living in my body. Which is pretty cool! 

Luckily the ranch arena is so small (the size of a slightly wide short dressage court) that I feel pretty confident popping his bridle off the moment I feel like I have a decent whoa aid. Worse comes to worse and I could probably bail with relative ease. But I don't think it'll come to that! 

There is still so much to fix, the faulty psoas
to brachiocephalicus connection this way is very
aggressive and you can see how that affects his RH

In addition to my bridleless goal, I have another goal. See, TC has always been ridden with a whip and spurs. When he was started, he was very lazy, so they immediately put spurs and carried a whip with him. I've continued that (sometimes no spurs, sometimes no whip, but always one and usually both) and am realizing how much we both depend on having an artificial aid to back things up. 

Kate and I have been talking a lot about non-escalating negative reinforcement. Basically, putting a cap on the escalation (be it duration and/or intensity) of aversive stimuli. I've already done this with TC to an extent. Unless he is exhibiting a dangerous behavior, there is a threshold I do not cross. But even that threshold is probably further away than it needs to be, and I think I know why. 

TC is very sensitive to aid duration, I think he gets flooded easily by aids. I saw it when he was a baby, the more aids you put on and held on him, the slower he'd go until he'd stop. Over the course of several years, my very forward horse became very lazy. And I was just encouraged by trainers to get after him, to get loud and aggressive with my aids, to get disorganized with my communication... I get it, forward is important. But I want forward to come from him wanting to go forward with me, not wanting to go forward away from me. 

Left is fine, I think I need to start adding in half
halts this way to help him find a better balance

I'm trying hard to eliminate that "get after him" feeling in my body when he gets behind me. But I ask myself, is that dangerous? Nope. Not with him at least. He doesn't balk aggressively and rear or anything. He probably balks because he gets a zing in his neck or because his back feels bad. I've kind of just forced him through it with artificial aids. 

The other day, I rode him without a whip or spurs and it was enlightening. He started out only really offering trot and then slamming to a stop when he realized there was nothing but my leg on him. But then with some clicker training, he was more forward, free, and relaxed (mentally) than he's really been. It was frustrating though, because of that "get after him" pattern running so deep, so since then I've picked and chosen days where I am prepared to work through it. 

I don't think my goal is to ride him up the levels in dressage without any artificial aids. I like having my spur to add variety and refinement to my leg aids. And my whip is very useful for engagement of the hind legs. But I think I'd like to work up toward being able to do a nice hack-like ride without any artificial aids. Just walk, trot, canter in a stretchy place. I think it'll force me to address some holes I'd like to address. And it's nice to have some goals right now! 

He's much happier these days

So we'll see how things look after the winter! I'm kind of excited to have a quiet winter with him (which will hopefully be when I get a new job so I can focus on the job and just ride him lightly). I'm still not sure about whether I should move him or not, but I'm leaning against it right now. I am just so enjoying having him at the ranch and being alone there to just do my own weird thing. And wow not having to worry about him when I'm unable to come down has been pretty nice!