Beginning the Ridden Work

We have had a productive summer, and I can't believe it's nearly September already. So much has happened over the past six weeks: traveling to our first longer-distance show, competing in our first Morgan sport horse in hand class, trying to keep up with driving conditioning despite the annual greenhead fly infestation and heat waves, and, as you might guess from the title of this post and banner image, starting some new and important training for Levi! Believe me, I have been counting down the days to starting Levi under saddle! If he could be ridden, it would make our conditioning work for driving much simpler for me, and would be a great fitness benefit to him. He could begin to translate all of the in hand training to ridden work, and we could also begin to address some of the growth-related biomechanical and balance issues we have faced a little more easily under saddle than driving. In addition, riding is a great social activity for people and horses that can be approached much more easily and spontaneously, unlike driving, which feels orders of magnitude more difficult sometimes. This opens up a whole new world of experience to Levi, as we have access to local trails, parks, and roads that are not easily accessed with a carriage. Quite frankly, while I'm happy to have increased my cardiovascular and physical fitness by leaps and bounds running around with him on the ground, I am relieved to finally have a break and move on to building fitness in the saddle instead! Running is great and all, but have you ever posted without stirrups?

I had actually planned to start Levi under saddle next year, when he was skeletally mature at age six, but at nearly five and a half years old, he has been showing me that he's ready in many ways. This is the first Levi has done something ahead of my projected timeline for him! We have been assisted by the four to five week window of time in late July-late August that corresponds to greenhead season out here in the salt marshes of Northern MA. Anything I try to do with him outdoors is futile, and with the heat in the indoor arena, working hard is off the table, so I used the time to begin preparing him for riding instead. I have actually been preparing him for this since last year, and early introduction to work in hand and on the ground, as well as all of his driving training, has really assisted him. I can't recommend enough devoting plenty of time to the work in hand before riding, as it has made backing seamless for him.

To date, we've had seven rides, with each one building on information from the last, and each also asking just a little bit more from him while being mindful of energy levels and thresholds. My main goal in these early stages is to foster forward, fluid, correct movement and a great attitude to accompany it; it is really important to me that Levi feels confident, safe, comfortable, and trusting of me in doing this work. Part of this is letting him offer suggestions, make mistakes, and figure things out without abandoning him to that, just as he needs to be guided to find the correct answers. My plan is to guide and teach without getting in his way, to the best of my ability. Just as with driving, every riding training session is designed to set him up for success. It's an intuitive process and I am going to try to explain it in concrete terms without sounding mechanical or emotionless, or pedantic. I am not a professional trainer, and my lack of knowledge could fill an ocean in comparison, so please keep that in mind as I want to share what we have accomplished in enough detail to be informative, without sounding like a know-it-all!

In that vein, I considered writing about some of the training philosophy for riding that I have learned and tried to incorporate, but after writing a bit and reading it, I thought better of it. This is Levi's blog, and it's about his experiences, not mine; if I feel like my ideas are good enough, I'll write a book (that no one would read). The goals and motivations for this are also somewhat evident through our videos and photos anyway. For reference, prior work has allowed Levi to expect standing quietly at the mounting block, and he has experienced and is comfortable with me putting my body weight over his back (albeit not the full weight) for several months, before our initial "ride".

For those who are interested in details, here's a summary of what each ride has intended to accomplish, using questions posed to the horse as the focus and describing how he responded to them. He has been ridden about twice per week with several days in between, since the end of July. All of the riding has been either bareback or with a bareback pad, since we don't have a properly fitting saddle for Levi yet, and until we have a good saddle he won't be asked to do anything more strenuous than brief sessions of trotting. None of this has been exciting whatsoever, so if it's too boring to read, feel free to skip ahead and find yourself equally bored by our videos.

• Ride 0: How do you feel about seeing me above your back, and putting my full weight on your back while you're standing still? I gently put all my weight on at the mounting block, observed his responses, praised him, turned him around to the other side, and did the same thing. After five minutes of this, I hopped off and celebrated his focus and great attitude.
• Ride 1: How do you feel about taking a little walk with me on your back, with Dad leading you for support? I accomplished this with Joe's help, whom Levi followed around the indoor arena while I was mounted, with just a halter and lead rope. We walked around for several minutes, and I jumped on and off several times. He was allowed to stop and stand and explore this new situation to his full satisfaction. Once it was clear he was not at all bothered by this, we stopped and celebrated.
• Ride 2: How do you feel about taking me for YOUR little walk around, without being led? Here, I just added his open bridle and let him kind of follow Joe around at first, then wander wherever he wanted to go as long as he kept moving forward. The clip above is from this session. Again, I mounted and dismounted several times from both sides, and gave him breaks as needed. Toward the end of the session, ever so slowly, I took up some contact in the reins until we had a light connection as he walked. This session was about 10-15 minutes.
• Ride 3: How do you feel about walking around while I direct your movement and position from your back? This was very similar to the second ride, but with the addition of light contact and slowly incorporating some leg cues. He knows many of these already as I taught him from the ground, but what truly amazed me was how quickly he really seemed to get it and I found that all I really had to do to steer him is simply turn my shoulders and head and look in the direction I want to go! He is that sensitive. Amazing. Amazing horse. I kept my hands still and just worked on moving the energy from the hind leg to the bit, keeping a steady walk forward. This ride was about 15 minutes, and it was challenging for him but I thought he seemed to be looking forward to them.
• Ride 4: OK, smartie- how do you feel about learning the difference between staying in a straight line, and turning, with a rider? Lots of driven work has prepared Levi to work on circles, bends, and turns of various shapes and sizes. He is well versed in inside-outside rein cues, and understands how to move his hindquarters and shoulders to facilitate bending and turns. He can do a shoulder in and haunches in, in harness and long lines. I did find that when asked to walk in a straight line with me on his back, he would kind of waver a bit, which is understandable as he is adjusting his balance to accommodate dynamic weight. Here, I added subtle leg pressure, riding from back to front, just keeping him in a steady walking tempo. He was getting it, but still having a few questions about it, so we stopped for the day and I bookmarked it for the next session as something to work on.
• Ride 5: How do you feel about riding outside? All prior work was done in our indoor arena, but on a nice cool day with no flies, I thought a little walkabout was in order. Change of scenery and context can present their own little challenges, and taking advantage of this early on can help put the horse at ease in new situations. We practiced integrating the prior knowledge in this session, but with a little twist to help him understand how to stay straight and when to turn, using my leg and seat for help. I set up a little L-shaped set of poles on the ground, such that when walking between the poles on the long side of the L, there were about four stride lengths to walk straight ahead, followed by a wider angle marking the beginning of the shorter side, with enough room to move his hindquarters without stepping on a pole but not so much that he could avoid the turn. At first, he was a little nervous, but I had walked him through the pattern in hand first, and he got it perfectly right on the second try. We walked through the L until he was confidently moving straight and off the leg into the turn, then repeated the pattern without the poles to success, and declared victory for the day.
• Ride 6: How do you feel about being ridden in this nice saddle pad? I bought a Werner Christ "fur saddle" for Levi, which I've been raving about to everyone because it is so comfortable and fits us both so well. It's a combination of a bareback saddle and saddle pad, with some innovative features. It's going to be pretty nice and warm during the cooler weather! After introducing the pad to him, which he loves because it is mostly lambs wool and is extremely light weight as well, I tacked him up and lunged him at a walk and trot. No issue there, so I mounted and off we went. I think we rode in the outdoor this time, but it was just a nice little walk around. We both loved it. Levi was starting to really look forward to his rides at this point. Toward the end, I asked for a little trot, and he gave me a few strides, which was really nice. He needs to get used to the feeling of a rider in the sitting and rising trot. Since I can't ride with stirrups with him at this point (riding with stirrups in a bareback pad with no tree, on a green horse, is a risk I just don't want to take!), I am posting with the rising trot using my thighs with the motion of the horse. It provides a unique kind of muscle soreness afterward!
• Ride 7: How do you feel about doing a little trot? For this most recent ride, I utilized the help of Joe. Joe has expressed a lot of interest in helping me teach Levi to ride, and wants to learn to work with the horse on lines. Working with horses on the ground, on a lunge line at trot and canter, can be really intimidating for a beginner, and handling the whip and lunge line is awkward at first, so I asked him to just follow along with us during this session and see how comfortable he feels working with him on a lunge line at a walk. In the video clips below, Joe is doing a great job of figuring out where he needs to stand, and how to handle with the whip and the lines. At the end of the session, I walked Levi on the buckle to warm down, and asked Joe to clip on the lunge line and just try to keep Levi at a pre-determined distance from him, before moving him into a circle. With no input from me (I was just a passenger at this point, but could direct him with the reins if needed), this helped build confidence for Joe. It is kind of sneaky way for me to build in some riding fitness sessions for myself as he can soon work with us on a lunge line. I asked Levi for no more than three or four strides of trot before dropping back to a walk, and we utilized the long straight sections of the indoor arena for this. As he gets stronger, I can ask for longer and more active trotting, but as he's never done this before with a rider, I was quite proud of him. He has been so willing and seamlessly taken to this work, like he has done it all his life. In a way.. he has.

I wanted to share all about our experiences at our last show, but since it's not relevant to riding and this is already long, I will save it for an upcoming post. We have a lot of ground to cover with that, and I intend to combine it with the report for our next show on September 8. The following show after that will probably be the Vermont Morgan Heritage Days at the end of September. I am making our plans for these shows now.

I couldn't be more impressed and pleased with this horse. While he's not officially a 'ride and drive' just yet, he is definitely getting there! His willingness to try, and low-key acceptance of virtually everything I have asked of him, is outstanding. While we have accomplished so much recently, it hasn't been entirely without issues, although these are fortunately unrelated to our recent ridden work which has gone smoothly. I can share how we've addressed some of these challenges in the next post.

Thanks for sharing the journey with us so far.