Steering Through the X

Over the past couple weeks we've been working on an exercise that improves steering and introduces corner jumps to the horses.  The object is to go exactly through the middle of the green X made of ground poles, and then raise the center of the X.  Once that is going well you can add in other cross rails in front and after the X.  Eventually I raise the outsides of the green X poles so that the horse is jumping a corner.  But you have to start slowly, with something small and manageable like ground poles.

It's a deceptively difficult exercise.  The more experienced horses like Sam, Beauty, and Silver were able to figure out the game quite quickly.  Ferriana has taken a disliking to small jumps (spending too much time with Highboy, perhaps?) and was leaping over the X in an entirely uncivilized manner.  She also told me she needed her teeth looked at again, too.  This first photo shows her agitation at trying to bend left, which she physically couldn't do with her teeth as they were.  She had a dental done in April, but occasionally equine teeth will hyper-erupt, meaning that a large amount of tooth will grow into the mouth.  When this happens the wear on the teeth isn't even, which caused her great difficulty sliding her jaw.  That prevented her from bending left through her whole body and caused some dramatic moments while jumping.

This one looks like her best Tennessee walking horse impression (she's actually half hanoverian and half dutch warmblood).

And this one was just plain awkward!  It cracks me up that I'm sitting still in a plumb line while that kind of twisting is going on beneath me.  It's also worth noting that this should have been more of a cavalletti exercise that she could trot through, and I'm using the dressage saddle.

Ferriana did have some nice moments, too.  

 Rizzo likes to help with these exercises too.

Note has been getting some rides in as well, during which he looks lovely in some shots.

And in other shots you can see his temper loud and clear.

But all's well that ends well and he finished his last workout at liberty with a bow.