anyone learn anything? maybe?

Saturday I got Colonel out and lunged him. Alyssa was working with Luca and trot poles that later became canter poles. I lunged colonel over those. He got a little hyped up at times, especially the canter poles, but he stayed manageable and I put him back. The thought was that this would bring his mind back into the work zone without me having to get on him while he's all fresh and whatnot.
I got Star out for a brief go. We started out in the arena but Jade was going to be pulling the tire in there and I decided I'd pass on that little experience. We worked in the outdoor arena at Alyssa's suggestion. Star was not going as straight as I wanted so I did some little circles in the same and in the opposite direction we were going. Not sure how much that helped.
Alyssa was curious about "something" and wanted to hop on her. I was interested to hear what Alyssa had to say, but also quite pleased that she was going to finally get on her. Alyssa has been avoiding this. I've only been prodding gently but Alyssa insists that she doesn't like riding Star, and these days she can afford to be picky. :/
It was also gratifying to note that the tiny tiny posting that Alyssa usually does was absent on Star. Confirming what I occasionally try to tell myself, namely, Star moves differently than Keno and Luca and the posting wont necessarily be the same height. Not that it wasn't subtle, just more detectable to the human eye. I was also happy to see that Alyssa revised her opinion of Star at least slightly.

The advice I got was this: long thighs + insufficiently large saddle = seat pushed towards the cantle + leaning forward to compensate for seat= unhappy, high headed horse.

So I'm looking into buying a bigger saddle, but, that all being said, I've been riding Star in this saddle for a long time. I know she can do better with it than she was doing on Saturday. So there's still a discipline component I can work on in the mean time.

Today I technically worked 4.2 horses. The decimal is the small amount of time I spent long lining Spirit. I only got roped into that because I found Niki cast in her stall. She was lying with her hooves facing the wall. There were lots of scratch marks on the wall, which she added to when she saw me peering in and tried to get up. She made an even more vigorous attempt when I opened the door. She settled down in between attempts but she was still panting and you could see the whites of her eyes a little.

Robert was in a lesson with Spirit so I got stuck with Spirit while Robert and Chris went off to free Niki. Spirit was good, especially considering it was his first time long lining. Niki finally managed to push herself away from the wall when she saw that Robert was planning on intervening. I guess I'm just not scary enough to get the job done.

I worked with Star on staying straight in her corners. I worked with me on just experimenting with my position in the saddle. I spent some time neck reining Star and gripping the pommel with my other hand to hold myself in the middle of the saddle. Seeing what it takes to hold the same position without the pommel. I was much more able to get my back straight/ shoulders back when I was right in the middle. This lends even more evidence to support Alyssa's theory that I'm leaning forward to compensate for my seat being too far back. I also fidgeted with my feet a little but I didn't have a whole lot of luck there. Plus Star eventually reached a point where she wasn't interested in putting up with my antics.

On the Star front I think we made some progress. When she cut her corners and counterbent through her corners I spun her pretty hard in the direction opposite the one we were going. When she started anticipating the spin to the outside I just applied my inside bending aids and she was relieved not to have to do the spin and she went nice and straight. We'll have to practice this more at the trot. She'll be a little ball of unholy fury if/when I try to do this at a canter.

We did a little canter around the arena at the end, just for my entertainment. I'm paying for my tendency to let Star walk or stop after we canter. Now she doesn't like the idea of going down to a trot, more importantly, an energetic trot. She feels entitled to a very lazy walk. I think that should be easy to fix though. Maybe not fast, but easy. I'll just make her do it until she gets used to it.

I got Colonel out and we did lots and lots of transitions. Basically I decided we'd do under saddle what I had started on the long lines. His walk to trot transitions got a lot better. When I did my little half halts he picked his head up, rocked a perceptible amount of weight back to his hind end and then went off my leg pretty nicely. His trot to walk and his walk to halt are still basically shit.

He wants to lean on my hands. For the halt my solution to this was to ask for my halt right before a wall. That got some semi-reasonable stops out of him. When they weren't reasonable I made him do a turn on the forehand to get us pointed the right way. When they were good enough he got to just walk forward and turn like a normal horsey. Don't know if that message got to his little walnut-sized brain or not.

For the trot to walk, my idea was that a good transition got some rest at the walk, a crappy one got sent back into a trot. He started getting kindof balky about the trot-walk transition because he wasn't doing it well enough often enough to avoid having to do another up transition after two strides or so. Still pondering options for that one.

I got a good halt out of him without using the rail so I hopped off him and I hope maybe some twinkle of that lesson reached his walnut brain. Hard to tell.

I got Lady out and walked her around some, trotted her around some, mostly walked her around some. Robert has been expressing some interest in riding her again, and he shouldn't have to waste time re-conditioning her so I think I'll try to pitch in with Alyssa to get her going. Plus, Papillon was looking pretty lame. Lady was definitely trotting asymmetrically, but she is by her nature a profoundly asymmetrical horse. She was happy enough so my plan is to see if riding her like this leads to a worse trot because of damage or a better trot because of muscle development capable of correcting the trot.

I watched her all summer of '07 and Ian was jumping her. I rarely saw her trot get especially worse. Usually when it got worse it was from taking her on excessively hard ground, or working her beyond what she's capable of. So we shall see.

I also rode Keno bareback for like, ten minutes and then decided it was too much effort to either hold my calves against his sides without a saddle to boost me up, or to go get a saddle so I put him back. He has a fun little tiny trot. I didn't think he could effectively pick up a canter with it, but he picked it up a lot better with his tiny slow trot than with his faster but less focused trot. I need to strengthen my hold-calves-against-sides-of-too-short-horsey muscles.