maine Things Sally has taught me

Sally- 3 year old reining futurity mare- Nice disposition and can stop and turn around a little and change leads but she has a little trouble with lead departures and really wants to drop her shoulder to the left in her left circles- she has been that way since I started her as a two year old.

But her biggest problem by far is that when you speed her up in her circles to the left she flops out of lead.

The best way to deal with this has been to counter canter small right cirles in the left lead- specially if she wants to flop out of lead and go to a certain place in the arena I take her to that place and counter canter or at least trot some counter arc circles. This has helped a bunch- mainly because it doesnt involve staying in the circle and correcting on her- that scares her because I've made to big of issue out of it and exacerbated the problem.

In her turn arounds to the left she also kind of wants to drop her shoulder a tad and leak out forward. It helped a bunch when I made it crystal clear that she needed to keep her nose to the inside- bumped her nose to the inside when I neck reined her and didnt quit untill she kept it to the inside when I neck reined her.

Also what really helped a bunch in her turn around and her circles was when I got her guiding better by making sure she would follow her nose when trotting or loping into a small circle and driving her into a turn around. When she followed her nose with a direct rein and booting her with the outside leg back behind the cinch- when she followed her nose and started spinning with some hustle I would let her come out- Thats the best litmus test for making sure the horse is driving all the way through itself- I learned it from Tony Garcial- he used to have me lope a circle and make the horse drive through itself into a smaller circle intill it was turning around and then lope out after a turn or two- its a great test to see if you horse is guiding and turning.

Also he taught me to trot or lope little circles, stop and roll back back into the little circle- little circle as in as small as it can possibly lope. You really end up working hard and hauling on the reins and yarding them around quite a bit untill they get off the rein and between your legs- but then when you stop and let them settle a bit- they are really ready to turn around.

Linda did these two drills on Sparky and it made a huge difference in his turn around- When I did it on Sally it made a huge difference in her turn and also her guiding.

What really helped her in her turn was when I stuffed my dull spur into her side and dug it in as far as I could and made her turn entirely off of my spur- the deeper I dug the better she turned. This totally changed her turn. Instead of leaking out she sucked back and stepped that inside foot right under the stirrup where it belongs- If she tried to slow I just stuffed it in further untill she got off of it. I took it of intermittantly when I could but surprisingly the more I stuck it it the better she turned- there was no need at all to try to bridle her up and keep her from leaking forward.- Also she kept her head down and even looked into the inside properly- which is the exact opposite of what you might think she would do. Now I need to refine it so I dont need to cue her so hard when I do it because I want to save the really strong spur cue for turning her off of my leg in the show pen.

Also in her circles I went back to bending her around my inside leg so and neck reining her down to a small little slow circle that ends with me kicking the hind end out of gear when I neck rein er and use my inside leg to kick her out of gear.

Also demanding that she keep her head down when she lope off and also really keeping my legs stuffed into her sides and driving her forward and into the bridle and demanding she lope correctly. She was great to the right this way- better to the left but I have to work on it a lto harder and pick up that stubborn inside shoulder- I worked on counter cantering with the shoulder up as opposed to driving the hip in also I bridled her up and picked up the inside- I think I'll put her in the draw reins

She does best when I let her air up in between loping sessions and keep her from getting scared. Even though she is really lazy she seems to do best when she has a lot of time to warm up- and rest between loping sessions and lope, lope lope. She is a lot of work and though she is lazy and gentle it seems to require lots of riding mixed with resting to get her brain engaged. When she is allowed to catch her air for five minutes she really does some nice stuff. Good to know before taking her to the horse show.


In her turn arounds