Everything & The Kitchen Sink

I always like to try new things when I ride. Well, at least in my head I do. Usually I'll find some new exercise, day dream about it, go to the barn, set everything up, get out to the ring, and then either a) not do it or b) attempt it, not like how it's going, and quit. Believe it or not, Fuego and Baby are the only horses that I've ever stuck to my guns with.

There were already a couple of exercises that I had in mind to help Fuego and me. First was transitions to improve the quality of the gait with minimal picking. Then I also wanted to try raised poles to get his feet up. There was also an idea to try cantering through a line of poles and halting at the end to see if that had any impact on how he jumps. We didn't end up doing this last one, but we did go through a line of poles at all gaits which is kind of a big deal for me.

The morning of this ride, I was watching a new video from Jesse Drent where he was doing some complex polework with a horse that is notoriously not great with poles. It was entertaining to say the least. What caught my attention was his warm-up poles. It was a super simple set up of three poles that you can loop through and change directions over. It seemed simple but very fun! It's possible to do it at the trot or canter, but since Fuego doesn't have a lead change, I was worried about accidentally training it the wrong way. Maybe we'll try it in the future; for now, the trot is fine.

The ride played out very simple:

-10 min warm-up
-10 min basic pole work
-10 min transitions
-10 min winding pole work

And that was with a two minute walk break in between everything, plus we finished with Fuego's best impression of a stretchy trot.

The transitions were just . . . wowza. I was really worried that the repetition would make him anticipate the upward transition, but this horse continues to surprise me. He anticipated the downward transition. It actually kind of helped because it minimized the tension, but he was still very much in tune with me like, "Can we stop now? How about now? Now? I wanna walk, let's do it now. No? Okay . . . how about now?" He's like me every time someone asks me to do the job that I literally applied for and get paid to do. I really liked how he was feeling, moreso in the canter/trot/canter than the trot/walk/trot. I did the latter without stirrups and then the former with stirrups and focused on keeping my shoulders back and my core engaged. The trot to canter has always been a weak point. The left improved much faster than the right, and the quality of his transition made that even more clear. Still, it was hard overall and something to continue working on, especially since this exercise is a happy place for him.

How I set up the raised poles and regular poles. That way it was easy to integrate either line into the flatwork.

The winding pole work wasn't bad by any means, but the pony had opinions. It was probably a combination of several factors (me sitting the trot for the whole thing, it was very dark, I was eating into his turnout time, it was the end of the ride) that made him a tinge annoyed. He was still very rideable and doing what I asked. It was a handful of head flings that let me know he wanted to be done. I think we made it eight minutes before I got off his back, loosened the reins, and let him try a stretchy trot. Getting him to actually drop his poll is still a new concept, both in the saddle and on the ground. We're getting there slowly.

Overall, I was super happy with this ride, and I think it gave us some good XP. I'm hoping to refine some more especially with the transitions. While the big boy pole work definitely wasn't his favorite, I think we'll be good to still use it in more limited settings.

All in all, he's a very good boy.