The Humbling of Film

Last night I had my group lesson.  I always expect my group lessons to be bad, and last night was no exception.  Walker was never buddy sour, but as I've mentioned before, he has taken up bolting whenever we're doing patterns and he figures out that all the other horses are at one end of the arena and he has to work.  The thing is that he always consistently bolts going on his bad side (counter clockwise).  We did this pole/barrel exercise where we weaved around 6 barrels in a figure eight pattern.  When Walker was going around a barrel clockwise, he would be fine not to bolt, but when he went around counter clockwise, I had to either anticipate his bolting or else we went for a little run.  In one particularly "exciting" moment, he anticipated me anticipating him and took off, apparently bucking (although I only remember hopping) and then charging into a group of five horses who had to scatter so as not to get hit.  When all was said and done, one of the ladies in my lesson excitedly exclaimed, "And we caught it all on video!"  She always videotapes her rides and I guess the camera was angled right in the spot where he and I got into it.  I can't wait for her to give me a copy!  At this point in my group lesson career, I rarely have a good ride so it's starting to become pretty funny (although dangerous, of course).  At least everyone is able to laugh about it and not be upset that I went barreling towards them.

On the topic of videos, the lady from my lesson also gave me a copy of a video from a couple days ago where I had the great ride with Walker.  It was fascinating (and humbling).  First of all, from what I can gather from the video, I'm not leaning forward half as much as I thought I was.  Sure, I'm leaning forward slightly, but not nearly to such an extreme.  Also, Walker is not quite the rocket ship he feels like. What I always feel is a speedy canter was actually only a slightly speedy lope.  And really, the only reason it's even slightly speedy is because I'm used to even slower Western Pleasure horses.  In fact, this is probably Walker's Western Pleasure lope and if I didn't spend the entire time trying to slow him down to a speed he probably can't go, he would probably do quite well at it in a competition.  I think that part was one of the most interesting realizations.  I also noticed my flailing around.  I have always had a tendency to do the lovely chicken arms thing when loping (I'm getting better but most of the times I just can't help it).  However, trying to do all the maneuvers that my trainer always gets me to do to make Walker turn at the lope results in this weird flailing around.  I can see where I stop flailing at corners where I know he'll round them nicely and then pick up the flailing again at corners where I know he fights (as though I'm anticipating his bad behaviour which, of course, I am).  However, because of my distrust of him, I can also see where I'm pulling on his mouth and he either flails his head a little or drops it to get behind the bit, and I'm wondering if I gave him the benefit of the doubt, if we could lope more happily together.

I learned a lot from the video and I am now going to videotape myself more often.  Here is what I learned:

- Walker is not as speedy at the lope as previously thought

- Therefore I should stop pulling on his face and trying to slow him down

- I'm causing him to drop his head and get behind the bit by flailing around and inconsistently pulling at whatever rein I think will cause him to turn

- I need to stop flailing and just let him lope, i.e. trust him to listen to my more subtle cues like he was trained

- I need to have more faith in him

After watching that video, I now more firmly believe that some (if not most) of his bad behaviour, including the bolting from the lessons, is a result of my own behaviour.  I can't blame him for bucking at the lope.  He's thinking to himself, "If I lope, she will pull on my face and hurt me."  

Clearly trust goes both ways.