Transitions

I once had an instructor who insisted that every time I halt my horse, I back him up.  He wanted the horses to get into the habit of rocking back on their haunches instead of falling into a sloppy halt.  That was back when I was a kid so that was all “whatever” for me, but on Sunday during my ride, I decided that this might be a good lesson for Walker.

 

On Sunday, I worked on being forward again with a lot of upward transitions, but this time I worked on some downward transitions to accompany them.  There was a lot of halt, back up, walk/trot/canter off, halt, back up, etc.

 

I used to do things like this a lot, but I was actually really impressed with Mr. “I live on my forehand”.  Most of the time, the upward transition from the halt was kind of whatever, but of course I was looking more for an immediate reaction than anything else.

 

Then two beautiful times when I asked for a canter, he launched into a nice, actually collected (or at the very least, connected) canter - not heavy on the forehand at all.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  Each time lasted for literally one stride, at which point he promptly said, “Yeah.  This is a lot of work”, but I was excited all the same. 

 

First of all, I wasn’t intending to work on this since my goal was just to get him to shoot off my leg like a rocket ship.  This just proves the power of transitions.

 

Secondly, I have only ever achieved that kind of beauty when Walker was feeling like a nutjob (and was thus extremely forward, almost uncontrollably so).  As far as I can remember, this is the only time where he was feeling normal that I have gotten him to really use his big butt in that way.

 

Finally, he is out of shape so I’m content with the single stride a couple of times.  I read blogs and articles about horses losing weight during the Winter and all that, but not my porker.  He’s as round as a bus and contentedly so.  He puffs like an old man when we canter and loses steam pretty fast.  But oh well, that’s what getting back to work is all about.

 

The moral of the story: the upward and downward transitions go hand in hand. The key to one is the other. In my humble opinion, at least.