Today for something different I decided to take Max to a practice session of the Warhorse Foundation, an organization that does all manner of equestrian activities, some military and some not (they tend to do Napoleonic which I don't particularly care for so I don't do a lot with them). Max has done a couple of other practice sessions but I figure that if I'm going to be taking Max out more to events (trailering permitting, I hope), I want to get him used to functioning as part of a larger group of horses (he really needs more work in this area).
This is the second time in recent months I've done this and he was a complete gentlemen, not getting upset by other horses bumping into him as we do formation changes and the like and learning to work in close proximity with other horses. The only questionable part has been with charges at the trot and canter- Max gets so much into the moment that sometimes he doesn't pay attention to his cues or he wants to get in a flat-out run because the other horses are getting in front of him (they're mostly Arabs and Throughbreds).
However, Max did much better at the charges this time- maybe is was the little Arab mare that was riding alongside- he would keep pace with her but not try to pull out in front- he was actualy very controlled. Doing some more of this may take the edge off of Max more.
Basically practice is much like doing Quadrilles on acid- lots of them in different formations which makes sense since much of this has its origins in cavalry. Basically a fancier version of standard military drill manuals- certain movements may have different commands attached to them, depending on the army and time period, but they're basically the same movements and accomplish the same thing.
Overall, this was very successful for Max and I and we'll need to pursue this further.
This is the second time in recent months I've done this and he was a complete gentlemen, not getting upset by other horses bumping into him as we do formation changes and the like and learning to work in close proximity with other horses. The only questionable part has been with charges at the trot and canter- Max gets so much into the moment that sometimes he doesn't pay attention to his cues or he wants to get in a flat-out run because the other horses are getting in front of him (they're mostly Arabs and Throughbreds).
However, Max did much better at the charges this time- maybe is was the little Arab mare that was riding alongside- he would keep pace with her but not try to pull out in front- he was actualy very controlled. Doing some more of this may take the edge off of Max more.
Basically practice is much like doing Quadrilles on acid- lots of them in different formations which makes sense since much of this has its origins in cavalry. Basically a fancier version of standard military drill manuals- certain movements may have different commands attached to them, depending on the army and time period, but they're basically the same movements and accomplish the same thing.
Overall, this was very successful for Max and I and we'll need to pursue this further.
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