Whizzy

Finally I dealt with Wizzys head popping up looking around running stiff by galloping him a lot and wrestling his head down and keeping him off the bit at a lope, meaning he was soft in the face and the whithers- It took lots of riding, and I took a good long while but after wrestling him down, softening my hands and repeating whenever he lifted up or got out of position, and throwing in some rest stops here and there and loping circles to the right and left that he began loping much better- head down, back up and moving deep as opposed to hollowd out and flat. He had to be tired enough to relax some.

Horse trainers like to say they ride twenty minutes and put them up and that is the case sometimes but more often than not if I take my time and ride a little longer and harder. Of course they need some time standing and breathing but I also like to give them breaks from gallopiing by spending recoup time dinking with walking circles, slow turns, working on the finer points like neck reining a circle, kicking the hind end out of gear, stopping and backing at the walk when theyre tired and relaxed. That way they get to air up a little and get trained on when they are attentive and relaxed.

stiff in the roll back

Doing a few rollbacks on Whizzy yesterday and he was stiff to the right ie I'd neck rein him to the right after stopping or backing and he would bend left and eventually roll back but leading with his shoulder to the right which is incorrect. I softened his jaw by pulling the left rein to my sternum and bumping with the right foot at the belly when backing to lift him up in the belly and give with his jaw. I also made sure when I pulled his head to the right with the direct rein that he gave his nose first then head and neck and his feet came along immidiately which I accomplished by bumping him in the shoulder- he can deal with being bumped in the shoulder if his neck is bent the other way and his head tipped- in other words he is pretty bent towards the direction he is going.

circles continued

Besides just loping short peices of circles then stoppin and turning around a little to the outside or rolling back which has all helped a bunch I also starte doing a lot more of taking the hind end out of gear ie when the horse cant neck rein in a nice arced circle to the left kick the hip out to the right- head to the left- cue with the neck rein then pull with the left direct rein until the nose is soft and the left hind steps over the right hind and out of gear- also it works when loping to come down to a walk - kick the hind end out of gear a few times- then you can work on using the inside leg to keep the rip up in the circles- also it gives the horse something to think about besides schooling to keep the shoulder up loping circles- one more tool to keep them off balance mentaly so they wont lean in. Works good.