Lyric 3/21

Lyric got a couple days off to rest his hindquarters and mentally "unfurl". He was worked with on Saturday doing more pedestal work to show Amy what he was working on and he was able to get all 4 feet up on the pedestal and balance! Also stopped "falling off" to the left quite as much. He was much more balanced overall--great thing to see!

I worked with Lyric tonight lunging with sidereins (this time at "proper" length so he really started to work his lumbar and keep his hindquarters engaged during lunging). He was lunged in the dressage ring with a large pole he had to negotiate in all 3 gaits. We worked mostly with trot-canter-trot transitions and he was a squealy-bucky thing during warmup. It was funny to watch this 18 hand (? haven't measured him, just guessing) Shire cross wringing his head like and Arab and squealy-bucking with attitude. Overall, he remained soft on the lunge line and rarely pulled--usually the only reason he put any pressure on the line was from rebalancing himself after having to adjust his stride to go over the ground pole. He was out of breath after his lunging, though it was only about 15 minutes.

I worked in hand with him in depth, teaching him shoulder-in, renvers, half-pass and leg yield in both directions. Also worked on 45 degree head to the wall. As expected, he really struggles during these exercises, but he earnestly tries and I see small improvements every time. Interestingly enough, even though his left hind is the one that comes under his body too centered and tends to cause a left hip dip, he's surprisingly supple and able to step OUT with it better with the in-hand work. Half-pass to the left in hand is very difficult for him, as expected.

I found his true weakness when I got in the saddle--he's concave on the left side. I found it fascinating that even though he has the most trouble stepping forward and straight with his left hind, he was resistant under saddle half-passing to the right. It should be child's play to step under with his left hind and GO. In hand, he performs better and that's his easier half pass, but under saddle it was a problem. Once I felt it, it all made sense. One the lunge, you can see his RIGHT LEAD canter, even though the right hind is to the inside, is the less balanced one. Now, this would normally make sense that he would have trouble catching the right lead as the strikeoff comes from his weak left hind, and trouble sustaining it as the LH has to work to keep it going, but it makes even more sense that he has trouble with it because it requires more of a stretch across the left side. His left lead canter is more balanced, but because his left hind steps under the center of his body instead of supporting it in a straight track, his hindquarters slip out from underneath him. So, it explains why both of his canter leads have "issues".

But his TRUE problem is that he is concave to the left. The more I asked the left hindquarter to move away from my left leg, the more problems he had with his balance and the more he tried to LEAN on my left leg instead and fall on his right shoulder. Travers on the right rein was extremely difficult for him. Half pass to the right was extremely difficult, and he responded by swinging his left hind against my left leg and falling on the right rein. He tried to compensate by offering me right flexion, but it was just flexion at the jaw and poll with the base of the neck and shoulder still falling hard to the inside of the bend. To the left, he happily stretched across his right side and offered small steps to the left. He needs this, as he needs to strengthen the targeted muscle set that control s the range of motion that allows the LH to step out and away from his body.

One of the most basic skills he was missing was the understanding of indirect rein--can't control the shoulders if you apply rein and the horse says "huh?". So, my main work was connecting the reins cues to the shoulders and the leg cues to the hindquarters. I also worked on teaching him that the tap of the whip on his left hip meant move AWAY, not into! He really was frustrated at first as I manipulated his body in strange ways, changing from shoulder-in to renvers to travers to leg yeild to half pass (all in the walk). We did quarter line work where the wiggly horse had to stay STRAIGHT between my aids as well (still the same idea of connecting the reins and legs to the shoulders and hindquarters when he wiggled back and forth). We did shoulder in work as well, and he tends to stretch WAY across the right side and collapse his inside on the left rein (as expected). He easily tracks under his body with the left hind (boo, hiss) but has a hard time straightening the left side and keeping his hindquarter in place during the movement. He basically "cheats" and just disengages the hind and walks straght forward with it instead. Shoulder-in on the right rein is very difficult for him, as again he has to stretch across the left side. We'll be doing a lot of shoulder in and travers on the right rein and renvers on the left rein :-)

Any time he moved a body part accordingly, he was greatly praised, scratched, and released from all seat and rein pressure for a split second and he really started to catch on. He's a quick learner, but just gets frustrated as I'm asking him to do VERY difficult things for his body right now. The more he supples up and strengthens, though, the better and better he will be. He started out a bit heavy on my hands, but ended very light. My goal is to get him to evenly use his body, and the canter will come.