Gillian's conclusions and future directions

Before I begin, a note to Alyssa, this isn't directed specifically at you. I went into more detail on some of these points than would be neccesary if you were my only audience, but this is sortof a core dump of my thoughts so theres some extra stuff in there.

So, after reading the comments on this blog post:

http://verylargecolt.blogspot.com/2008/06/could-i-have-your-attention-please.html

and thinking it over, I now have some more definite thoughts about what we learned from Saturday. First off I'd like to list some differences between the last show and this most recent show. At the first show we:

• Rode in the arena at home before the show
• Had driven him some the week before
• Hadn't been working as much on leading and standing well
• Got there with barely enough time to do much
• Tied him to the trailer
• Didn't really ask him to stand still for tacking up (and he didn't)
  
• Had Alyssa mount him outside the parking lot
• Went straight to the arena (where he bucked some but mostly did the test pretty well)

At this most recent show, by contrast, we:

• Didn't ride in the arena before the show
• Hadn't driven him much or at all the week before
• Had worked on standing better, with much success
• Got there with a lot of time and had him stand in the trailer for 20 min w/o hay
• Held him for tacking up
• Asked him to stand still for tacking up
  
• Had Alyssa mount up right away, in the parking lot
• Rode around the parking lot for a while

Robert thinks that one problem was that we were over correcting him with the crop. After thinking it over I have to agree that this is true, but we didn't give ourselves much of a choice. We assumed that he would be able to behave himself, since he's been to a lot of shows before, seen lots of mares in heat, and wasn't lunged before going. There are, however, a lot of differences between these foxfire shows and the shows Robert goes to. Allow me to list some:

• Luca is typically trailered a long way to these shows, which is tiring
• Luca has hay for his journey and up until Robert takes him out of the trailer, which is calming
• Robert rents a stall and tacks him up there, not around other horses
• Luca is always either in hand or in cart the whole time, never under saddle
• Reno is frequently there (I dont know if thats calming or not, but its true)
• He's always driven pretty heavily in the days leading up to these shows

My main point here is this: he comes to those other shows mildly fatigued, having had plenty of energy spent in the days before, with plenty of things to keep him busy, with minimal distractions and kept in an environment where he tends to be much more focused. (That last one is to say that he really gets down to focus in the cart.)

I'd like to spend a little time on that last point, about the cart. Luca knows how to focus in the cart. He knows that failure to focus in the cart results in a lot of trotting around the fields. Furthermore, the number of things he can do while hitched to a cart is fewer, he can go fast, he can stop but he cant spin, he cant sidepass, only an extreme amount of rearing or bucking changes his situation perceptibly (ie the driver's position doesn't change, not much changes with the reins or other aids.) He just generally has more experience in the cart. Finally, to top it all off, that cart is heavy. Pulling it requires more work, most forms of disobedience are more tiring.

I think that what happened on Saturday could have been prevented but not by anything Alyssa could reasonably have done under saddle. (and anyone who disagrees with that last part is wrong. I'll be happy to explain that to them if they are unconvinced, but they're wrong and thats all there is to it.) In the week before and much of the day of the show we set him up for failure. At a minimum he needed to be worked much harder in the days before the show, that means some cart time at this point. I think the least we could have done for him if he had to sit in the trailer for 20 minutes was to give him some hay to distract him. He should not have been ridden in the parking lot with a lot of unfocused horses there as temptation. Working horses wont pay any attention to him and he's less tempted to pay attention to them. We put him in a situation where he was too hyper and distracted to control himself, and lo and behold he was out of control.

As I said before I do think that we were over correcting him at the show. We didn't have a choice at that moment because we hadn't taught him what he needed to know (or remember) and we hand't given him the opportunity to learn. We were using the same correction for almost every form of disobedience, regardless of the severity. Swinging his quarters towards someone definitely deserves a resounding smack, and he understands that. Nuzzling someone or otherwise touching them with his nose deserves a swat on the nose, and he definitely understands that. Swinging his quarters when there's no one there, calling, and looking around probably cant all be corrected with a swat to the shoulder as we had been doing. I dont think he understands that very well.

I think he needs to be tied when we tack him up, not held in hand. Any pulling when tied to a trailer is much more self correcting since the trailer is quite immobile. With the number of people we had there we could position someone on either side of him and then the quarters swinging would be less tempting, faster to correct and easier for him to understand. Most importantly though, he needs to understand that he has a choice, and he needs to have the capacity to make it.

When he's hyper I doubt he can focus long enough to stand still. This starts a vicious cycle. He does the wrong thing, he gets corrected but he cant really help himself so he does it again, or he redirects his excess energy elsewhere and gets corrected for that too, and in the same way every time. Soon I think he feels like the only way to keep from getting corrected is to try to avoid the correction. He's sortof right too, if he doesnt have the capacity to stand still then the only good way to avoid correction for it is to move away from the punishment, or worse, fast enough towards the person to make it difficult for them to get him.

That being said I think there are some things we need to do differently, not just before show days but on a regular basis. In the cart one of the principal corrections for bad behavior is getting worked really hard. In the cart that means trotting for miles and miles. I dont think that this is practical in the arena. And I dont think any one of us could canter or even gallop him until he was good and tired.

I agree with Robert that what he needs is lunging. First, he may need to be lunged before being ridden, at least at first. This would give him the opportunity to focus, and it would allow him to spend some of his excess energy. That means he's more inclined to be good in the first place. Second, when he does the wrong thing, Alyssa is quite capable of correcting the behavior. The thing is that sometimes if he gets enough energy up, its probably worth it to take what Alyssa can dish out.

You need the nuclear option. Thats the lunging until he wishes he could stop. In the cart, at home, thats seemingly always and option, it requires no special preparation, you just go. Under saddle we need to keep that option available more often. If there is a saddle around then there should also be a halter, lunge line, lunge whip and gloves, always. Robert doesn't always bother to run out a horse for every instance of misbehavior, but he could and everyone knows it. I wont expound upon why the nuclear option is such a good training tool but I could.

I know he doesn't lunge well at the moment, but that needs to be fixed!

I also think that we should take up some more diverse, appropriate and proportionate corrections for various standing misbehaviors. For one I think he needs to be on a more restrictive cross tie that way the pushing and the pulling will be self correcting. When we're correcting it I think a firm "HO" should be the first line of defence. A jerk on the lead line for going forwards, and a gentle pull on the lead line for when he goes backwards. This would gradually increase in force until he moves forward. We can just point his nose back to forward when he wants to go gazing around the place. The gazing in and of itself isn't a particularly severe problem in and of itself. It leads to problems. So I dont think its anything to get too excited about, just quietly fixed.

I think we learned some really important things from that show. We learned things that I dont think can easily be learned any other way but by seeing the consequences of different actions. We didn't have a good estimate of his capacity for self restraint before this, and now we do. We didn't have a very good measure of his respect for a rider when things get tense, now we do. I'm just grateful Alyssa didn't have to get hurt too badly for us to learn this lesson. Please add things to the comments if you have other thoughts. I'm still chewing this over, but this is what I currently believe.