Trying bitless

[haffyfan]

Thought i'd try Penny bitless today, incase her mouth is still sore. Just went for the scawbrig as it's the mildest and self releases basically. She went really well in it i have to say. Wasn't too impressed at schooling, as she hasn't schooled for a couple of weeks now, with the wet, but on the whole she was pretty good. Got a bit mardy towards the end, when she decided we'd finished i think, but we carried on and finished on a good note.

However i seem to have lost canter. I did leave it until the end as wanted to make sure she was responding to the bitless but she was having none of it. Tried once on each rein and she just dug her heels in both times...cue the mardiness.

Now was she being sensible, the ground is uneven, still quite tacky and a bit deep and she had stumbled a few times in trot or was she just a cowbag? After her fall last week out hacking on bad ground i gave her the benefit of the doubt and just got the trot back and forward as the reluctance to canter lost all forwardness altogether. Can't decide if i did the right thing or not, sadly i think it will be a winter of hacking and schooling on hacks only sooner than i'd hoped.

[racaille]

That's great that she 'got' bitless and went well in it. My own personal experience is that I can't really school Paco bitless as he can lean too much into the Dr Cooks but that might be both a function of Paco and the Dr Cooks.

However, I think in normal circumstances, if you ask a horse to canter it should canter. BUT Penny is new and young and there could be lots of reasons why she wasn't playing ball.

[zara]

I wouldn't worry about the canter Haffy, Tordi took ages to get it! He just couldn't quite understand where his legs should go in the school and found it really hard but with lots of basic schooling it eventually came as a natural progression. Just concentrate on her walk, trot and transitions and she will be great. Glad to hear she seemed to go well in the bitless x

[haffyfan]

Thanks. x

She hacked out beautifully in it over the weekend. This morning is the first time I've had chance to ride her since and she was a monkey initially but i think we ended with Hannah 1 Penny 0. She is proving to have more fire in her belly than i initially thought!

We never, intentionally, left a walk this morning and i couldn't believe when i looked at the time over half an hour had past. I've opened a new bit of field (okay Harry pulled the fence down so i was helped in decision) and it means the boys are out of sight when schooling her and she was not impressed. Add to this she had been in the diet paddock overnight then grazed whilst i poo picked and wasn't impressed she had to stop filling her face.

Took ages to settle and soften, she tried evading me every which way but it was actually quite productive in the end as she did settle, listened better than i would have expected given her initial tantrums and also had a valuable lesson/reminder in legs don't just mean forward! We wound up practicing walk, halt transitions and lots of circles/changes of direction which made her remember legs can be for lateral work and steadying too not just go! Did some 10m circles too which she managed quite well, also pleased that our final circles were pretty round whilst the early ones were distinctly banana shaped as she tried to edge towards the boys!

[fleabitten]

Good progress haffy!

[brigadier]

It sounds as though she is simply finding her feet and also finding where you draw the line. Personally I would insist on canter, but mke sure its on the straight if she is unbalanced, or worried about her footing. If she absolutely wont then will you always be happy with trot? Of course not so get on with it and build it up, even a few strides on the wrong leg is better than nothing as at lest she is obeying your leg.

[haffyfan]

We've cantered out and about since so hopefully we're back on track regarding that for now. I haven't had chance to try during schooling as my field is just too wet and deep now, she felt like she was moving through treacle when trotting last time i schooled so we went back to walk exercises in fear of doing her a nasty and i've given up riding in the field as a bad job until it's much drier. Also sadly had to stop my lessons for same reason for now.

On a massive plus i did my first solo hack this morning...my OH and his skinny silver steed have been coming with us but sss has an abscess (puncture) so was out of action so it was time to man up! I have been really wussy about going it alone with her but she was star, never put a hoof out of place, although her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw her first deer. I guess her Mummy didn't tell her her breed history - I was just glad it was alone or she might have had heart failure! I'm guessing she has never come across one before.

[brigadier]

Haffy thats great, really positive. Im massively behind with Harriet now on account of her injury- not yet started riding her as still some swelling in fetlock. You are really up and running.