Yesterday evening, I rode Obe for the first time in a week (life got CRAZY last week with the beginning-of-the-school-year faculty meetings and going out of town to see long lost friends in Virginia). I gave her all the benefit of the doubt I possibly could and longed her forever. In fact, as I longed her, I let her walk for nearly 10 minutes each direction, making sure that her back was nice and stretched and warmed up. She was all cool and calm, not even looking around in the scary corners of the arena. I was pretty impressed, to say the least. After all, it had been an entire week since she'd been ridden AND she had been stuck in her stall the night before because of too much rain keeping the horses from being turned out.
After our long and leisurely longe (like that alliteration, folks?), I got on, and she struck out at fantastic walk. It was big, stretchy, forward, swingy...all the things we love in a walk. Now, I've learned over the past few months that if I let her warm up on the longe, I can get to work pretty quickly under saddle - nothing too collected or tough, just get her moving. This has made life MUCH easier, and it's really changed the way she's working under saddle...for the good! So, I went to a canter pretty quickly (easier to get a good canter first, then go back and work on trot...again, nothing too collected...just loose and moving around). Both directions were nice, and the transitions were prompt off my leg. So, I decided to work a little in walk.
Now, Obe doesn't like truly working in walk. Walk on the buckle? Absolutely. Medium walk and perhaps a turn on haunches or two? Not so much. Work on lateral work in the walk to truly confirm it? Yeah, right.
I had her in a fantastic working walk to the left. As I made a turn through a corner, I put my left leg on to ask....well, let me just share the conversation I had with her.
Me: Obe, could you move off my left calf and engage your left hind a bit?
Obe: *humming*
Me: Hello? Obe? Could you move off my left heel?
Obe: What? No...I can't. I'll stop moving my feet so you quit asking me.
Me: No, we still need forward...both heels will now ask you to move. I may even use my spur.
Obe: Oh yeah? Well, what do you think of backwards? And for good measure, I'm gonna toss my head up so you see my forehead just inches from your eyes!
Me: Seriously?
Obe: Yep.
Now, let me interject that we've had this EXACT SAME CONVERSATION about a million times over the past year and a half. It is nearly always in the same spot in the arena, and after I address it, it goes away. She is not in pain; she just happens to BE a pain sometimes. This issue has pretty much disappeared since I've started letting her warm up her back on the longe, but it occasionally shows up when she decides that she doesn't want to do what I ask. Back to the story....
So, I put both reins in my left hand, turned my dressage whip overhanded in my right hand, and cracked her across her butt. Immediately, she took off bucking. I kept her head up, and after a few bucks, she settled into a trot, and I released and praised the daylights out of her. After that, we didn't have ANY issues moving off leg, whether they were asking for sideways or forward. In fact, we got some darn nice shoulder-in left on a 20m circle, proving that the engagement of the left hind was not only possible, but quite lovely!
Seriously, mare...I just wanted forward. Is it really that hard?
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