Learning to Walk

The Stinker Pony struggles with the concept of walking under saddle.  He prefers to do pretty much anything else.  Trot, canter, piaffe, passage, tempi, you name it he does it.  Unfortunately, none of these are necessary or being executed properly.  Although he wants to start at the top of the pyramid, we need to start at the bottom.  We are back at square one teaching him rhythm and relaxation.

I was at a bit of a loss as to how to teach him this.  In the past when I was riding a young horse with this issue I could park her behind a herd of cows and use that to teach her to walk and relax.  Sadly I am fresh out of cattle herds, plus I don't know if Stinker has ever seen a cow.  That might be a whole new can of worms.

Luckily he is excellent on a lunge line.  It is like his security blanket.  When he is on the lunge line he is very relaxed, drops his head, lifts his back, and looks absolutely gorgeous.  This is great in lessons.  S can put us on the line and walk us around until he turns on his brain then we can be let off and go our merry way.  Sadly I haven't figured out how to lunge myself and ride him at the same time.  I guess I really need to work on cloning myself.  So for now I have to get creative.

I was lunging him before I rode him, but that never seemed to matter.  He would be wonderful on the line and an idiot when I got on.  Now I am walking him, riding him and if he turns on his baby brain I get off and walk him again.  Right now I am not pushing him.  We are taking our sweet time and once we get this walk thing figured out we will add in more trot.  I am guessing we will have the same issues in the trot.  Rhythm and relaxation two things I am horrible about...I guess we are our horses.

Sleepy looks good on him