I got Jackson out to mess around at liberty.
I think I had him out for about 45 minutes.
We worked on various liberty and bridleless
stuff. The most fun was when working on his
rear. Over the last few months, I have been
working on teaching Jackson different rears
as well as how to rear. I am using clicker
training to continually shape the correct
behaviors.
Through teaching Jackson to sit down on hay
bales, pose, lean back, and terre a terre, I
have gradually shaped Jackson to use his
pelvic and back muscles to lean back and
drop his hind end before rearing. I know
that some people don’t like separating and
working with different parts of the horse’s
body, but some of that has really helped
Jackson. By breaking this down for him, he
has learned, at liberty, to use his body
more efficiently.
Today, when I asked him to rear (not big
rears), I saw him lean back and drop his
hind end markedly before “throwing” his
forehand up. I say “throwing” because, if
you have seen our other videos, you will
have noticed that he does throw himself up
to rear rather than lift himself up. This
has been something that I want to remedy,
but I always figured that it had to do with
muscle weakness, somewhat.
Anyway, today was a big improvement. So when
I asked him to rear, I looked for those
times when he would use his back muscles
(you could see it!) and lower his
hindquarters; when he did, I would click and
treat. And really praise him, of course. I
really like the idea of teaching him to
strengthen himself at liberty. I also am
encouraging him to rear more softly and not
as high when we are working on this. I try
to keep the excitement lower than with the
big rears. I hope we can get a video of him
doing this.
We also did some of the balancer work. I am
trying to fade out the “big” whip. Jackson
is a naturally lazy horse, and I find that
“bringing my energy up,” isn’t usually
enough. I was working specifically on
teaching him a more specific cue to jump
sideways. It is something new, so we are
constantly refining it and figuring out
exactly what we want.
I also rode him bridleless some more. That
was fun!
