Much German Training

A few days ago Yankee got the crackdown on his dressage fuckery.

Lately, he's been an asshole on the flat. Not in  a "I'm-being-a-bad-horse-because-I'm bad-and-I-hate-you" but more the "I'm-being-a-douche-because-I'm-lazy" and its been driving me bananas.

I realize he's been off for the greater part of 5 weeks, but that is no excuse to not brain and pretend you have the dumb. The newest evasive measure has been sideways dancing and head-tossing while running away. Classic OTTB.

It seems every movement, transition, or bend I ask of him is just too momentous for him.

 But instead of doing the simple task of say, a canter transition, he wastes more energy evading my aids and not doing what I ask. Horse logic.

I needed to enroll him in remedial dressage and fast. He no longer gets the benefit of me saying "oh he's just a babay and he used to race so its okay that his mind is a little wandering". He. Is. 12.

I just so happen to have the bestest riding buddies around, and my friend Jessie came to the rescue.

She is currently horseless and extremely badass at dressage (she's been in a few posts before, mostly helping me dressage), so I tend to beg her to come ride my bipolar beasty often. Especially when he's intent on convincing me he doesn't know anything.

She got on him & he immediately began with his shenanigans. I figured he would. I got it all on video. But am too ashamed to show you the crooked, head tossing, sidestepping, ewe-necked hot mess that is my stoopid horse.

While she worked his ass off (literally), I sat there mesmerized, watching the cogs in his brain turn over. Its SO COOL to SEE a horse think through the problem. He wanted to do what she asked, but he also DIDN'T want to. So conflicting. Being a horse is hard.

Exibit A, 20m circle. Simple enough right? WRONG.

Luckily Jessie has more patience than I do and worked him a solid 30 minutes just on being straight through a circle and PICKING UP those legs. She even whipped out the ole "stick as a crop" trick...

With a lot of patience and even more lateral work....

She got him to relaaaaax and step under himself like I've NEVER seen my thoroughbred step. Like...what are this. Is he a Warmblood disguised as a mediocre OTTB dressage horse?

I was like "Jessie, you can ride my horse better than me and I hate you. But. He looks amazing. That frame!! How do you do that/ LEARN ME". And her response was only "Much German training".

It made me laugh because its so true! The germans are very particular about their training but DAMN do they get results.