Power Steering and Anti-Lock Breaks
[As I paused to consider a title for this blog, I have to laugh - it’s so easy to jump between horse metaphors to car metaphors and back again. The feeling you’re describing from one can so often be translated to the other for ease of recognition, and there’s something just delightful about that.]
Moving on, though, this post is definitely not about a car!
My lovely now-4 year old (technically, but his actual birthday is next Saturday on the 21st) and I have been working on some key goals since the new year:
Power Steering - yielding the hind leg to a rein aid
This roughly translates into turning and moving in circles confidently, without ducking in his shoulder and instead bending through his body and carrying himself. Factor and I have been learning this both from the ground and the saddle, using simple exercises to give him opportunities to learn about yielding to the aid, lifting his ribs, and stepping under himself.
Given the New England weather lately… 😪 it’s been in everyone’s best interest that the majority of our work is at low speed, and intentional. We don’t have an indoor, so we train at the mercy of the elements. The farm is equipped with a half mile loop racetrack (another interesting training tool, considering what Factor’s last job was), and that has offered us some space to do 10 and 15 meter circles and other shapes on a sand surface.
An interesting aside, about working on a training track with an ex-racehorse:
Our first ride out on the track only came after many in-hand walks, and some saddle time in the grass arena. It was as much at a walk as Factor could mentally manage, and when he really needed to break, we kept active communication through the rein aid and the seat. We broke into only two strides of canter, and he came right back when I dropped the contact - best I could ask. The key, though, was turning nothing into a big deal.
Factor knows left and right, even if he doesn’t understand them by name. If we start out training tracking left, it’s clearly “race day”. If we start our training tracking right, we are just “working out”.
Factor knows, when tracking right, the key workout markers. Rounding the far side corner, there is a point coming off the turn that he anticipates as "time to go” - the place the workout for speed starts.
It is a unique experience to reuse the track as a training arena, moving across it rather than down it. It is an excellent mental check for Factor’s work learning to yield to the rein aids - this place that used to just be point-and-shoot is now a place he must think.
Anti-Lock Breaks - yielding to the seat and bit rather than bracing to gallop
Although Factor has definitely been trained with a slow down sound (“Boop” immediately prompts an ear and an easing of stride), I can’t always guarantee I can use my voice. We’ve begun combining the word/sound with the seat aid and several repeat, small half-halts to encourage Factor to chew on the bit, and loosen his jaw as his momentum slows.
So far, this has shown to be incredibly interesting in how different Factor is between the ring and the track. In the ring, Factor offers a soft mouth, eagerly chewing the bit when we have contact. He has begun offering a lift through the ribcage at the trot, especially when I open some encouraging space from the seat. On the track surface, the conversation needs to stay much more simple. Circling is much more shoulder-led, versus the hind leg swinging under. The more subtle rein aid that exists in the conversation of the ring does not yet exist on the track - it’s lost with his expectation of bracing and running.
In this, we will improve - and using the two training surfaces as a barometer might offer more insight into our progress that I’m even aware of right now.