I have spent many an hour the past month tossing around my problems with Czech. To be brief, here's the situation in the order it happened:
Czech arrived in decent weight but not fit.
He started stretching way down in the bridle often, a sign I was sure his back needed stretching, often snatching the reins to do this.
He tripped a lot.
We had his hips adjusted by chiropractor.
Czech began to get more fit.
The tripping went away.
He was verbally responsive on longe line.
He stopped stretching out without being asked after I met his tension with my own and added a verbal cue to stretch
He began tucking chin to chest to avoid the bit.
Changed the bit.
I bumped his head up carefully when he tucked and he stopped tucking.
On a 5 days a week riding schedule, Czech is now in great condition.
He began going really wide into turns regardless of leg pressure/rein
He began running away at jumps regardless of poles or using my seat.
Czech began running away on the flat.
Czech began running away on longe line.
Before I go any further, I want to say that Czech is awesome on the ground. You couldn't ask for a nicer guy. He has a sense of humor like most Thoroughbreds and there isn't a mean bone in his body. When you put his bridle in front of his face, he attempts to put in on all by himself. He respects space and verbal cues even though he is top horse in the pasture (unless it's raining, then he's a total weenie).
Yesterday, I was standing up in my stirrups, using my entire body to pull him up and onto a circle and he continued straight and fast as if I was nothing.
I got that lump in my throat of hopelessness. This was not fun and it was getting worse, I was at a loss as to why he was making the choices he made.
I have been battling a bad chest cold for weeks now making me wear out faster physically. Add in the fact that I found myself in love with the horse and wanting this to work really badly and the lump rose steadily.
This morning I realized that I'd left off an aid that was recommended to me early on, a flash noseband.
I'll be honest here, I put the suggestion on the back burner waiting to borrow from a friend because I generally don't like nosebands that close a horse's mouth. I've bought into the "train, don't add tack" school of thought that if there is a problem, it should be fixed with the rider's seat and hands, not adding tack. I wasn't completely against the idea, it just wasn't something I thought was that necessary, especially since they aren't allowed in the Hunter ring. I put one on Whisper once and she so strongly opposed it (fitted properly) that she had a huge swelling under her jaw for a week.
Well folks, I have seen the light.
Czech was really fit and was testing me. While I fretted over pain issues, conditioning issues, etc etc. Czech was pushing me around steadily harder. It began simply with the rein snatching. That solved, it became chin tucking. That solved it became running until I circled him. Then he realized that opening his mouth relieved the bit pressure and he could just go regardless of what I was doing.
I dug out an ancient dressage bridle I thought I'd long ago given away, and found the flash attachment. Using the same bit, I strapped it on.
Czech had a few tiny temper tantrums, the first right at the mounting block when he refused to stand still. BUT what I quickly found was that the soft rein pressure and releases I do with Bandon were working on Czech when they had not before!
It wasn't perfect, there were a lot of mistakes, but we were having a two party conversation finally and he had to hear me. At one point he began to yank the reins to stretch and sneeze. I bought it one time until 3 times of trotting and sudden sneezes where he sped-up and I realized he was probably playing possum with a new trick.
When he was good and warmed up and feeling great ready to GO, I halted him and asked to stand for a long time. Czech did not willingly make himself still for awhile, but eventually he stood, and I hopped off.
I don't know how this will work at the canter, I think we'll continue walk/trot transitions and some trail rides before I ask for that again in the arena, still there is hope and it included lots and lots and lots of early fall fuzzy neck rubs.
Hope is such a great thing when you love something.
Thank you to my virtual coach, who has yet to delete me even though she suggested the noseband last month... I eventually learn.
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