Scooby 4/27

Scooby was a hard horse to ride today! Every horse is allowed a bad day, for sure, and his movement and ability to bend was much better overall. Unfortunately, he just had it in his head to ignore me, the bit, my weight, and pretty much anything I asked for. He was willing to trot in frame once I wrestled him there *sigh* that horse has a hard mouth and a great propensity to ignore...... He has a great ability to lock his poll, jaw, neck, and just stick his head out and ignore all attempts to "get through" to him.

I did warm him up by lunging him in sidereins and he was soft and responsive on the lunge. He did try to occasionaly "hanging" behavior with the sidereins as well, which I would tap him with the lunge line and he would bring his head up.

I decided to start from scratch and insist on looseness at the poll, a refusal to let him "hang" on me or pull on me (he loves to throw his head down and pull his rider right out of the saddle) and just get transitions. I worked on walk/halt transitions, insisting he remain soft in the poll and would "bug" him until he released his jaw. While much of the work was dependant on an ability to "out-stubborn" and "out-wait" him for a response, it was still frustrating at best, as I KNOW this horse can do better. I did get after him for any pulling, and he was quite willing to move foreward.

He did get his teeth done this week, and they were quite sharp according to the dentist. His resistance to the rein was more "even" at least......still a little more resistant to the right rein (a recent change since he's been on the Bute protocol).

I worked to get good transitions with a loose poll from halt to walk and from walk to trot. He's able to walk in frame on a nice loose rein. Transitions from walk to trot were truly fought for, step by step. I could reliably get a decent (meaning not "rocketing") transition to trot when essentially "throwing away" the reins and allowing him to skygaze a bit, then slowly working him back down, but he would hit a resistance point when about halfway to where he needed to be and begin to fight and skygaze again. Trotting is truly his issue, and cantering is slightly better than trotting. Once he unlocks the poll, his gait relaxes and he moves correctly. But the transitions this day were awful. Just a bad day for Scooby.

Ironically, while according to my standards Scooby was doing poorly, two people commented on how much better he looked as I was working with him. So that's a bright spot, eh? I expect this week he'll do better (anything would be better!! LOL!) Again, I think Scooby was just having a particularly bad day. Horses are allowed to have them, just like people :-)