Getting a highly anxious Andalusian to stretch down over his topline

SHOWER THOUGHTS

Every once in while I've have what I call a shower thought.

I'm in the shower and something profound will come to me, and I'll have to jump out of the shower to write in in my phone. One a had a few years ago was titled Faith In Horses.

"FAITH IN HORSES

Giving up control tells your horse that you have faith in them. I think that's where they start to have faith in you.

But in order to stay safe while giving up control, first ya' gotta have your preparation right. You have got to have faith in your preparation.

So, inevitably, it comes down to YOU, having faith in YOU."

I did a clinic in Slovenia (the country- it's in central Europe with Italy on its West, Austria to the North, and Croatia and Hungary to the East) last weekend, and like many times at clinics, a rider had a major breakthrough by giving up control.

Ana came to the clinic with her recently gelded Andalusian. The first day during groundwork I realised that he really only operated off reaction, not response, so everything he did was running away. After trying some different things on the ground to try to help him, i finally found something that I could use to help him move and relax at the same time.

The second day, when Ana rode him, we had to start with getting him to stand still on a loose rein.

This was the start of Ana giving up control, not trying to control her horse, but controlling herself.
Then we started walking on a loose rein, and using the groundwork exercise from the previous day, but this time under saddle, to promote relaxation and movement. After a while he started to relax and stretch down over his topline and look nothing like the uptight horse he initially presented as.
The next step was to be able to do this at the trot as well, and once that started to work, he started stretching down at a trot, and Ana remarked "he almost feels lazy", and I told her "that's what he feels like when he is relaxed".

It was a huge change for the horse, and a huge breakthrough for Ana, as she learned the lesson that all the magic lies on the other side of letting go of control. She posted a video yesterday taken from the saddle of him pawing and playing in a huge puddle of water in her arena at home. She said he's always been scared of the puddle and that she always rode him on the other side of the arena, it's amazing how playful they get when they come out of a pattern of being tense and fearful.
This video shows a little bit of the transformation with Ana's horse, and the end shows a bit of a transformation with Ana.

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