KNOW WHEN TO STOP

I’d like to share with you a series of 6 pictures taken during the very same extended trot attempt.

You can see how we start – it’s the very last picture.
(I organized them starting from the last one taken to the first one taken)

Picture 1:
The horse is very collected, yet light. Almost floating in the air. She knows what we will be doing next, because I told her few steps before, and she had time to prepare, and to make this collected trot extra lofty for the upcoming extension.

Pictures 2, 3 and 4:
these pictures show how she extends the trot, and how soon I finish the exercise (5. picture). I finish it as soon as I feel that the engagement and extension are very good. I never look for perfection, I look for something in the frames of “very good” – sometimes it’s less, sometimes it’s more, I don’t mind. I finish as soon as I feel that she really wants to do it well. That’s enough for me for this moment.

Picture 5:
I release the air from my chest and pat her.

Picture 6:
We walk on the loose rein, until she totally relaxes. This is very important as I want to have her relaxed and with me at all times.

Usually, I don’t repeat exercises – if it’s OK I reward with sugar, if it’s not I just finish without giving any feedback to the horse. We take a break, and then we move to another exercise. My experience shows that horses understand extremally well that something went “not quite right” if I don’t reward the exercise. They really think “why?”, and when I try again the next day they put EXTRA effort to perform this very exercise nicely.

We really underestimate our horses.