I love it when a moment happens that proves to you that your training has paid off. On Estrid’s first solo hack my goal was to stay calm, keep asking until it happens and to jump off and walk with her if we weren’t getting anywhere in a positive way.
I hadn’t been getting on using the stirrup, Dan has built two very tall mounting blocks at the yard so I just kind of step over to mount. So as well as tackling our first solo ride out I also wanted to start putting my foot in the stirrup as I got on.
I have done a fair bit of mounting practice with Estrid, my method was to stand her next to the mounting block, dance around, jump up and down, sing, tap her from all angles, mess around with the saddle and generally make lots of noise. If she stayed still then that was the end of our session (sometimes that meant it was literally 1 minute long), if she moved we had to walk in a circle and then try again. My thought process for this is simple, stand still = you don’t have to do any work, move and you’ll have to walk around. I stole the method from a Warwick Schiller video. I also like to line her up then let go, move around her, give her a scratch, move away and then if she stays still throughout I’ll get on. I stole this from Cameron Beer when I watched him teach a lesson and the horse kept moving away from the mounting block.
So in theory I should be able to transfer this training to any environment. Estrid was impeccable for her first hack, even strolling past Tissy and Roo in the field over the hedge without any fuss. But we did encounter the same problem we initially had in the school, we got stuck in the mud. When Estrid is unsure she just plants herself, I don’t want to pony club kick her or make her dead to my leg so I try for a couple of minutes, and then I just jumped off and led her past whatever she was unsure of.
But because I’ve never mounted from the ground or even used the stirrup I wasn’t 100% sure if we would be able to get back on. I was pretty confident in my mounting training so I found a gate, set her up, climbed up on the gate and got back on. We did this twice over the course of a mile. I was so proud of her for transferring these skills into a different situation and environment. Now to work on moving forward….which I think will come with a bit more experience, confidence and time.
Beth Endurance 