Ruffian: Gaining mental connection

November 25 2010

Ruffian and I had a great session today. We played with really getting him mentally connected to me as he was anything but connection. I could tell that his mind was a million miles away so we started with some stick to me from zone 2 along the rail. We started out with halt-walk-stop-back up transitions and then once those were going well we added in some trotting. Ruffian stayed with me really well for the most part.

One thing that I noticed was that even though I thought that I was "walking with purpose" I wasn't really. Yes I wasn't walking really slowly but when I actually started walking somewhere Ruffian put more effort into following. It was amazing how when I picked a spot to which I wanted to go and then went there, Ruffian started to go even more mentally connected and we had a lot more success. We did it on both sides and when it was going really well we stopped.

Ruffian was more introverted today and it took him a long time to lick and chew about it but I just waited. I wanted him to process it before we went on to the next thing. After he finally licked and chewed and started looking a little more alive we went on to leading by the chin... something that Ruffian doesn't like to do.

For a while I knew that he didn't like it and that he would just toss his head in the air and he wouldn't go. But since I wasn't really playing with him I didn't bother with it but now that I am trying to do simple things with excellence... well I can not ignore it. Over the last couple months he has gotten a lot better but there is still a lot of resistance even though he doesn't toss his head up any more.

The thing that I found the most helpful was again making sure that I was walking somewhere and not just aimlessly walking around. It was my job to go somewhere and it was Ruffian job to follow. This made a huge difference instead of asking for Ruffian so come but not really having a plan as to where we were going. Ruffian would sense that and decided that it wasn't worth following. All in all it went really well and Ruffian was really light and hardly put any resistance into following.

Then we took a long rest and again I waited for him to lick and chew. This time he took even longer but that was okay. I just waited... and froze! But it was worth it because in the end Ruffian let go of a lot of tension and was able to relax. Which was great.

I am always amazed by how much tension Ruffian actually has when we play! He is so tense and introverted. He literally is a totally different horse from what he was a couple years ago... and I don't think that is a good thing. But this is the horse that shows up and it is my responsibility to act like a partner not a predator, to be willing to take how ever long it takes and in the end it will pay off!

Naturally,

~Keri