Last night we had our lesson. Unfortunately, I was feeling very nauseous all day, and while I probably shouldn't even went to the lesson, I did ride for about 40 minutes before calling it quits. I walked during the lesson for most of the time and only jogged a little. It was unfortunate because the pattern that the class was doing was pretty interesting and it would have been helpful with some of our issues.
Today I was feeling much better though so I decided to go to the barn and give the pattern a shot. This is what the arena looked like, the black outline being the arena and the red lines showing where our instructor put the poles. For reference, I put in where frantic corner and the gate is because I always find that it is helpful to visualize:
Essentially, our instructor had the participants in the lesson trot over the bottom set of poles, lope between the two sets of poles, and then trot over the second set. After that, they had to pick up a canter to whichever direction, weave around the arena and go over the first diagonal pole, do a simple lead change in the middle, canter around in the other direction and go over the other diagonal pole.
I managed to accomplish none of that today although I tried my very best. My issue was simple: I could not get Walker to turn over the diagonal poles. First of all, it was obvious that he did not want to lope over the pole at all(surprise, surprise), and when I even managed to get him to turn down the diagonal of the arena, he did a generous side step at the canter or else he dropped to a trot so that he wouldn't have to pick up his feet. I did get him to canter over one pole one time though, so at least I felt a little good about myself. Doing the trot sets weren't difficult, so must of my concerns and problems were at the lope - as always.
So after I failed at that exercise, I tried to simply practice circles. I had less problems going on his good side, which is clockwise. I got him to lope large and then when we came down to the bottom of the arena near the gate, instead of loping back up to the top, I had him cut across the middle and lope a smaller circle. Although I had to work at it a little bit, it wasn't too significant of a problem.
I attempted the same thing on his bad side (counter clockwise). In fact, I attempted turning at all in any which way. Mostly, I would lope him from the top of the arena down to frantic corner and spend the entire ride down trying to get him to turn - either across the centre or even just lope the blasted frantic corner - all to no avail. Interestingly enough, I was even having some problems today loping a U shape (an upside down U shape, starting at the bottom right and loping around until frantic corner again). Sometimes I had no problems, but a couple times, when I came up the arena and turned at the top to come back down towards frantic corner, he came to the fence, and despite all my directions, veered right instead, promptly losing the canter and stopping (because he boxed himself in the upper left corner where there is also a giant puddle).
I was particularly frustrated today because when I was talking to my instructor about some of these problems yesterday, she said that she would come up with some exercises next week to see what it is that he does when he goes to turn at the canter - since I haven't been doing too much cantering in my lessons lately. I quit cantering because we were doing too many patterns, and he was bolting towards the other horses that were waiting. Now my instructor doesn't get them to wait anymore, so I don't expect as much bolting, but I still don't want to look like an idiot - which is definitely how I felt today not even being able to get my horse to turn in the natural direction. So I was doing a little brainstorming about why he may be doing this on his stiff side:
Option 1: He is picking up the wrong lead. I tried to watch his leads today and I am 90% sure that he is on the correct lead when loping on his bad side, but I'm wondering if maybe he's doing an effortless flying lead change that I don't realize. If this were the case, it would make sense why he can never turn at frantic corner (it would be very difficult for him) and why he veers to the other direction awkwardly at the top of the arena even though it would be natural to go down.
Option 2: He is outright ignoring me. I favour this option a lot. This is because when we are loping down the arena from the top, I have tried asking him to cut across the centre almost immediately. He has a long distance to travel, and he ignores my directions right from the beginning. I noticed today that when I open my rein and push with my outside leg, he drops his head (almost as if to get behind the bit so that he doesn't have to turn when I ask him). I'm not saying that he's not stiff and that he doesn't have a good reason for not wanting to turn, but I think it's quite likely that he is avoiding it because it's hard, not because its impossible. After all, he can usually lope the upper part of the U-shape, he just refuses to finish the circle around frantic corner.
Option 3: We are getting our wires crossed. Walker is a strange horse. Strange in the sense that I have used a billion different ways to turn him since buying him, many at the suggestion of my instructor and trainer, and none of which I'm completely convinced are the best way for him. Normally, when you want a horse to turn, you lift the inside rein and apply outside leg. I use this the most regularly, and when he is listening, this works. However, Walker also knows how to neck rein which, as some of you may know, is when you hold the reins in one hand. You still apply outside pressure, but instead of "pulling" him to the inside with the inside rein, you are actually lightly "pushing" him away from the outside with the outside rein that you are placing on his neck. Finally, when I first got Walker and my trainer was riding him, she used to find that he would drift on some ends of the arena (probably frantic corner). Instead of pulling up with the inside rein, she would pull up with the outside rein so that he would move away from it and towards the inside. When trying to get Walker to listen to me, I have tried all these methods - in fact, I tried all these methods today - but none of them work. I'm wondering if the problem is simply that he doesn't know what I want from him.
It is also possible that it is a combination of these factors. I don't call it "frantic corner" for nothing - it is called frantic corner because I very frantically try to make him turn. This means that I am willing to try anything and I look like an absolute lunatic, flailing my arms, different reins being pulled in the air, legs a swingin'. It's possible that he actually does find it difficult to turn, and so he doesn't want to listen to me when I ask him, and when I do ask him, I confuse him anyway. Whatever it is, it is going to be the death of me. It is driving me crazy. If you can't turn your horse to lope over a tiny pole, you're never going to be able to jump. Even putting jumping aside, I would really like to be able to canter my horse in more than just a giant circle or U-shape.
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