Do you feel the need to speed up the process?

At the moment I’m getting private messages and also some comments on my Facebook page whenever I post about the riding-in process with my youngster Minor. Please please don’t understand this the wrong way, I absolutely LOVE that you think of us and that you offer your ideas. I really do! And please understand that I’m not writing this to complain or anything like that. I always value people sharing their thoughts, when it comes from a good place, and I can sense that all these messages do that!

However, I would like to explain a bit why I will most likely stick with what I’m doing right now. 

The main reason is: I feel no need to speed up the process, or to change Minor’s way of working through this. I totally surrender to his way of processing.

To give you some background information of why I think this is a good idea:

Minor has been educated from the ground since 3 years:

• First year: leading, handling feet, yielding, following, giving to pressure, some liberty work.
• Second year: Basic groundwork exercises (shoulder-in, quarter-in, half-pass, walk-pirouette, renvers). Starting basic longe work.
• Third year: Collection in groundwork (school halt, school walk), shoulder-in and quarter-in on the longe, collection on the longe (school walk, refining the school halt, half-steps and first piaffe steps, start of levade, terre a terre).

Minor has learned how to step forward and support the center of mass with the hind legs, to lift the chest, and to bend his haunches. He has a great topline (well, with a bit of fat also, to be fair 😉 ), a very strong back, and as far as I can tell, seems alive and healthy. He loves the work and always gives his best. He knows how to carry himself, which is a great preparation for carrying a rider, too.

Do we really take the time it takes?

The reason why I started him under saddle so late is that I didn’t feel he was mature enough mentally. He might be small, and might be called Minor, but I can promise you, his personality is huge! He is brave, can get very angry, has a lot of fight in him, will fight you when you put too much pressure on him. I didn’t want to diminish his character and knew that his grit will work for me one day. I was right! We passed our bending of the haunches test this summer, after three years of education.

Minor has taught me that it doesn’t pay off to try and speed up the process. We all know the big equestrian saying: It takes the time it takes. But do we really? Do we really know what it means?

It doesn’t mean that if you wait a little longer than you usually would, everything will just work out. Waiting a little longer is no big deal, for many people. Some already can’t manage that. But “it takes the time it takes” means: it might take a lot longer than you are comfortable with! And then even some!

It is absolutely true that when we put the relationship first, and give the horse a say in his education, things are usually easier and the overall progress is faster. And is this why we are doing it? Because we are still interested in the results? That’s a bit like giving a present to a person because you get one back. You don’t really want to give, you are more interested in getting something.

If I have learned one thing from Minor, that would be that this is not how it works. Am I comfortable observing my horse’s thresholds if it serves my purpose, but when it takes too long or the outcome isn’t what I wanted, I will resort to more pressure again, or come up with ideas to speed things up? Am I really prepared to wait for my horse as long as it takes, or just as long as I think it SHOULD take?

My riding-in process

I have prepared Minor well for being ridden. As I mentioned before, his groundwork and longe work is good. He is ok with the saddle and the girthing (the latter took a few more sessions because he was not comfortable with it in the beginning).

He knows how to come up to the mounting aid and wait there. He stands still for mounting. It took him a while to be ok with weight on the back, which I have introduced slowly and I have observed his thresholds. He found it very strange to have weight on his back.

For the first three rides, I had a student help me from the ground. She just sat on his back, and I did groundwork with him. There were no problems, although he went over threshold sometimes (dangling, nipping). I kept the sessions short (a few minutes). He didn’t make the impression that the weight on his back is a problem or that there is any physical discomfort. Until this point, it all went very well in fact.

When I started to ride on him by myself, however, he seemed very blocked and didn’t know what to do. He was standing well for mounting but then didn’t want to move. I figured that he might feel insecure without a person on the ground, because he spent the last years responding to my body language on the ground. And now I wasn’t there!

I practiced more work in hand in order to get him more comfortable with the rein signals, also leading from the outside, so he can’t really see me. I asked a friend for help in order to get him to move, and it helped a little bit. But still, he seemed to walk a few steps and then block, and I had the feeling it was more mentally than physically.

I decided that I have to go through this with him on our own time, and in his way. When I try to push him forward, he can back up, or disengage the haunches, or make a school halt. The he will also try to nip the rein or bite his shoulders, which are signs for him being over threshold. 

So now I’m sitting and I’m waiting. 

Trust goes both ways

I have trust in him and that he tries his best. I feel safe on his back. Now I need to give him time that he feels safe with me on top as well. I don’t want to use a target stick to move him forward, or disengage his hind quarters. The only thing I do is wait and help him direct his thoughts toward me with my inside rein, and then giving the rein when I get an ear flick. When he doesn’t follow that feel on the rein, which is something he knows very well by now, it means that he’s not ready and his thoughts are not with me.

I don’t want to obscure this process by feeding him treats or having him walk from one cone to the next. I know this might speed up the process considerably, but it also might conceal his doubts and he might go over threshold. When I’m sitting on him, I can’t see his face so well, so I might miss signs that he’s over threshold. 

And I should mention that we are talking about 6 or 7 rides by myself here! We already went from not making a step forward in the first ride to walking half a circle yesterday. He never bucked, or reared, or tried to get rid of me in other ways. He just isn’t sure of things, and I want to give him the time he needs to feel sure and safe. And I feel there shouldn’t be any pressure, of any kind, to make him do something he isn’t ready for.

Hopefully, Minor has many years of being a riding horse ahead of him. I want him to feel good about every step. Because – it takes the time it takes!