If my dad doesn't want Scout I'll suck it up and train him before I'll think about selling him. I do not want his training neglected or for him to end up being someone's throw-away horse.
And now, since we're discussing Scout and the weather is atrocious (although I could have put my time to better use by doing housework, but that's what kids are for, right?) here is the video of Scout's second ride. Finally. It's interesting to watch and critique myself. Also, it made me realize that the ride went a lot better than I thought. It was a lot harder to get him moving than it looks like on video.
One thing I know for sure, I should have stopped a lot sooner.
Ho. Lee. Cow. How hard can it be to make a video file smaller?!?!
This is the best I could do without making it worthless to watch.
My thoughts: You're very brave to put your first ride on the blog for all of us to see and critique! ;) I'll do the same with mine and you can give me paybacks, okay?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I want to say it looks great. He's trying to figure things out--not too sure about this person on his back or what she's telling him to do--where to put his feet--how to handle the mouth pressure. (He's got fifty things going on in his brain--like me playing a really hard new song on the piano--I sound like a kindergartner at first.) You're trying to figure out ways to communicate with him--you're trying not to scare him or give him too much information. It's not like we are professional trainers who ride colts every day--these are horses we've raised and are doing the first rides on--so it's a unique process between you and Scout. Did you do right by stopping him when you mounted. I think ABSOLUTELY. You do not want to make him think he can run away when you're in one stirrup or unbalanced--lots of colts do that--not good. Sniffing around at turds--no way. You're right on the money--keep his head in the game. You two look awesome!!
And about selling him. I think we have HEART horses and for those horses we're willing to go to hell and back--get bucked off, teeth kicked out, broken bones--whatever--because we LOVE them. If Tonka's your heart horse and Scout isn't, you can't change that. Maybe Scout will be someone else's heart horse and you're giving him a damn good foundation. Just my opinion...which I seem to be overly opinionated today...must be cabin fever.
I agree with Linda...no turd sniffing while you are asking him to do something else (that's ignoring you), and definitely don't let him walk after you mount, even if it seems like getting forward motion is difficult. Catlow was always a little hard to get forward motion out of, and usually she stood well for mounting, but the one time I got lenient and let her walk off as I was getting settled in the saddle is the one time that she then panicked and bucked me off. I has just straightened my saddle after she started walking and she'd already shown me she wasn't paying attention to me by walking off, so it started her and I ended up on the ground (unhurt!). I think you just need to stick making the basic cues completely black and white, including what you expect of him when mounting. He'll become more forward as you both get better at the communication going on between the two of you! He looks great! I've always thought Scout was quite the cutey. It's so cool to see what a big guy he's grown up to be!
ReplyDeleteLinda and Kara, Thanks! I have to admit I was really nervous about posting that video - I worried I might get picked apart. So thank you so much for your words of encouragement. It really does mean a lot to me. :) And I'm glad to know both of you would make the same judgment calls on the sniffing and walking off while mounting. (That saddle sure did slip. I tightened the cinch more on his next ride.)
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