Master Class On Head Tossing

 

Yesterday was Katie Day, so I got an obstacle course set up for her to play with Tweed. In fact, before she arrived Tweed helped me do the work, pushing the barrels with his nose as I pushed with my hands.

We had the barrels, bridges, cones, and flowers and a little further off, a half labyrinth, tires, and poles.

Tweed had some stuff to get out on the line, he did have five days off, after all. But Katie handled it well and soon had him saddled.  

They rode the obstacles, backed through the labyrinth both directions, and worked with vertical flexion at walk, trot, and canter. 

She had asked me what my goal for her was a few weeks ago, and I said it was to ride him out on our property. He gets bigger when he is out on the grass because it is usually his place to cut loose and relax, not work. 

Off they went. First, to the pasture alongside the house, which he did well. 

And second, to the back pasture, which resulted in aggressive head tossing, his trick that has unnerved me in the past. 

But for Katie, it was all in a day’s work. She asked for vertical flexion, and he said “hell no, I prefer to run away.”

She said, “well then, you will circle around.”

She would let him relax and think about it after the bending, then move him out again. If he raised his head for tossing, she’d circle him again, let him think again, then move out. 

It was a Master Class on how to stay calm and relaxed and bring your horse back to work. 

When they returned to the arena, she decided to back him through the gate. She said it is a skill they should know since you often have to go with the gate to close it. He has done it with many times before, but it was his HARD NO yesterday. 

Sadly, I don’t have any photos, but I’ll paint a picture. She asked for a backup with the gate wide open and he backed into the panels instead. He did it over and over again. I call that Brain Lock. Some people call it stubborn. 

She rode him forward through the gate and then backed him up from inside to outside, no problem, but when she went back outside and tried again, he backed into the panels again. 

She was in it by that point, which means you can’t quit until you get it done, however long that takes.  She stayed extremely calm and patient and did, indeed, get it done. Twice. What was going to be an hour session stretched to almost two. 1 1/2 to be exact, with the last half hour being the gate. 

I appreciated that last half hour more than the first because he did it to himself. He saw the arena as home base and DONE. But home base, the place he usually wants to get back to (barn sour), became not so great, and maybe not as desirable in the future. 

Katie loves this kind of work. She loves obstacles and riding out and putting finishing touches on ranch horses. That is her thing, and she is good at it. 

I told her later that the head tossing is usually where the wheels come off the bus for me, and many others. It is a scary evasion to ride. Tweed did it to me on the trails last year, on a steep hill where I could not turn him around in a circle. I was glad he did it yesterday, in a safer place, and she was able to address it. 

The equestrian area near me opens up on March 1st, this Sunday, and most of our future training will be down there, getting him ready for the trails. Our goal is to fix the holes. Katie will ride him once or twice a week as we start him back up. She knows him pretty well now, and how to support him and give him structure. 

I will be working on myself to continue that structure.