August 18 2010
Well. This morning was definitely an interesting one. I played with Ruffian to start off the morning and it definitely had lots of "OH BOY" moments. I am not exactly sure what happened but basically I saw that there can be good patterns and then there can be bad patterns.
Ruffian learned a bad pattern this morning and then I spent the rest of our play time trying to break it. It is amazing how horses can learn patterns we don't want them to learn and it takes a long time to break them but they can take a long time learning good patterns and they fall apart quickly... Hmmm... shall have to think about that one ;)
We Ruffian and I started off with Figure eights. He didn't seem to have a whole lot of energy so I thought it would be a good pattern to start off with. Well I guess I had a 50/50 chance and this was one of those times that I got the other 50!!! Ruffian would almost gallop through the middle almost pull me off my feet (Good thing that power position is now a second nature to me!) Then he would stop at the barrel and not want to come forward. So after a while of trying to play with that things weren't looking up. So I decided to switch to circles and then come back to figure eights once Ruffian could focus a little bit more on me.
It turns our Ruffian had A LOT of energy. He cantered and galloped I don't know how many circles. Over 10 at least. All I required Ruffian to do was not break gait. Which he had no problem doing to the left but to the right he would keep breaking gait. So I would just change direction every time he broke gait. Pretty soon Ruffian decided he had enough of that and as he was circling to the right he turned outwards on the circle and ran off. Of course the rope was then on the other side of him and so I tried hanging on but I couldn't so I let go. The gate was open so out Ruffian went and down the hill into the corral.
To make a long story short this happened about 5 times. Did close the gate but right beside the gate is a section of fence that a board got broken a while back and we haven't fixed it yet. So he went out that. I tried to catch it before he turned to far but I kept missing it. So Ruffian had learned a bad pattern.
After the fifth time, I brought Ruffian back up to the riding ring, fixed his halter and then we did lots of porcupine on the nose. Since he wasn't yielding to that pressure when he ran off I figured that it would be best to fix that. So after that we did circles, with only 12ft of rope. That way I could have a bit more control. That worked well and the first time I caught Ruffian when he thought of turning away, the second and third time I just missed the though but I was able to get him back facing me before I couldn't hang on.
Then we did Figure eights at the walk/trot. Ruffian did well and so we then did some Falling leaf and sideways. Ruffian did well with those and so I sent him on the circle again, ready though to interrupt the thought if necessary. Ruffian didn't try though and we got 2 nice circles at the trot each way and then I brought him in.
After that we took a long rest and then I let Ruffy go. This time though he exited out the proper part of the corral, the gate. I definitely have to do a lot of thinking and figure out what happened but for now all I know if what happened and I think I know what I will need to do next play time :)
Naturally,
~Keri
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