Because Max is recovering from some sort of a raw spot on his back. The skin has now healed and it appears that there's a little hair coming in. I've severely limited my riding time and so far, it doesn't appear that the saddle and/or saddle pad have been rubbing the area (which leads me to believe that something else was the cause, especially since I hadn't ridden in a week when I first discovered the area). At any rate, it's been close to three weeks but I'm still keeping things light.
Saturday morning found me at drill practice with the Warhorse Foundation and throughout the practice, Max acted perfectly and gave no indication of being in pain or uncortable. We did the usual variety of drills at both the walk and the trot and even tried some new manuevers. What's unnerving is that Max knows a lot of the manuevers and he'll usually do a lot of them without much urging on my part. The only things I have to really control are the speed and position- my theory is taht what seems "right" to Max is not necessarily what I want. What's amazing is that Max even knows when to turn on some manuevers and he gets a little annoyed when the other horses don't execute things at the right time- most of this was while Max was on the outside of the line.
We concluded the drill session by cantering the horses in line, in two groups of three riders each. Max was on the inside (not by design) and he was pretty good on the canter departs- often he gets excited and then loses all thoughts of cantering or listening to my aids- he just dances around. However, I've begun to counter this by applying the aids a lot more quickly and keeping my seat more behind the vertical- I don't fall out of position as easily plus I can drive Max forward a lot easier. Today, though, I didn't have to worry and he was pretty good.
While we only spent about two hours, it was a good work out for Max and he definately earned his bucket today. :-)
Saturday morning found me at drill practice with the Warhorse Foundation and throughout the practice, Max acted perfectly and gave no indication of being in pain or uncortable. We did the usual variety of drills at both the walk and the trot and even tried some new manuevers. What's unnerving is that Max knows a lot of the manuevers and he'll usually do a lot of them without much urging on my part. The only things I have to really control are the speed and position- my theory is taht what seems "right" to Max is not necessarily what I want. What's amazing is that Max even knows when to turn on some manuevers and he gets a little annoyed when the other horses don't execute things at the right time- most of this was while Max was on the outside of the line.
We concluded the drill session by cantering the horses in line, in two groups of three riders each. Max was on the inside (not by design) and he was pretty good on the canter departs- often he gets excited and then loses all thoughts of cantering or listening to my aids- he just dances around. However, I've begun to counter this by applying the aids a lot more quickly and keeping my seat more behind the vertical- I don't fall out of position as easily plus I can drive Max forward a lot easier. Today, though, I didn't have to worry and he was pretty good.
While we only spent about two hours, it was a good work out for Max and he definately earned his bucket today. :-)
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