Highboy in a Hackamore, New Jump Exercises

The outdoor arena has turned to concrete because we had some rain more than a week ago and then I went camping with Note.  While I was gone things dried out extremely fast, and without being able to work the arena footing it got really hard.  Upon my return I discovered my tractor had given up the ghost, and is now completely dead and in need of disposal.  So the outdoor continues to sit, hard as a rock, while I await a new-to-me tractor.

Thankfully we still have the indoor side of the arena with good footing.  This week I set up another exercise that makes the rider work on steering.  It is set up like this:

First you go over the jumps with all turns one direction (in this case L).

Then you go over each of the jumps turning the other direction (in this case, R).

 

Then I set up the jumps with a barrel in the middle, or a block of wood, or something else that raises the middle to the height I want. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otT6N2pqXp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iHLbpgeLkc

The last step, according to Highboy, is to play with the dogs.  I did have Highboy in a hackamore today to see what kind of difference, if any, that made.  Usually I ride him in a three piece snaffle and I either have excited Highboy flinging his head around like a camel, or he's in a well-behaved frame of mind and he's quiet and steady.  I haven't jumped him for about a week so I decided to try this and see what happened.  It felt like he was using his back better over the jumps, and while flatting he definitely was wondering where I was.  With a snaffle there's a baseline of contact between the horse's mouth and my hands, but with a leverage hackamore I ride with no contact unless I'm cuing something.  He definitely had to take more responsibility for his own balance especially through the turns, because he couldn't lean on my hands for support.  I'll try it a few more rides and see what happens before I make any conclusions.

 

Most of the horses worked on the exercise this week, including Ferriana, who did a slightly modified version in her warmup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GehUrfH1tn8

 

Before we began jumping the barrel I decided Ferriana should do a little canter work each direction.  She disagreed.  This athletic display of bucking was the result:

 

When I have bucking like this, my first thought is always, "what hurts?" so I go through a progression of checking saddle fit and tack and how the horse is moving.  I carefully assessed the saddle and its fit, bridle and bit, looked to see if Ferriana was sore anywhere in her body, and when all of these came up without answers, THEN I decided it was probably her being fresh.  She wanted to just work on the jump exercise, she didn't see the point in practicing cantering around.  After checking all of the likely suspects I asked her for the canter again, and this time I growled at her a little ("I SAID KNOCK IT OFF') when she started the bucking and kicking.  When she realized I was serious and the bucking was not allowed she gave it up and we got a nice canter.  After the nice canter she was allowed to go back to jumping.  

That's one of the tricky things about a really smart, really sensitive, and really athletic horse - determining the cause of misbehavior.  It wouldn't have been fair of me to growl at her in discipline if her saddle had been pinching her somewhere and she was bucking as her only way to tell me.  But since I had eliminated those types of causes I could get after her a bit and insist on good behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMkfies9zqo