Lisa's Blog post # 13

Ok, y’all were right – today went much better.  Thanks again for your encouragement!   Especially you, Lesley!

Here’s what went wrong the day before – my friend Cheryl, who is a really good dressage rider, rode Cotton this past weekend for me.  I noticed that she had moved the reins to the snaffle ring on his bubble bit.  Out of curiosity, I texted her about it.  She texted back, saying she had been able to get him on the bit without having it on the stronger ring – "he gets too far behind the vertical otherwise."  So, since Lesley’s comment on my video was that he was too far behind the vertical, I left it as it was and Cotton and I set out for the XC field.

Bad move. Read prior post.

As I look back on it, what made me feel so miserable about my ride yesterday is that I thought I had been riding Cotton really well lately! Obviously not, I reasoned, since Miss Cheryl, who hadn’t ridden Cotton for weeks, just hopped on and wa-la! she’s got him on the mild bit and he’s not behind the vertical.  She is a really good rider but dang! if I can’t ride my own horse then he shouldn’t be my horse!  I even called her on the way home from my ride to ask what her secret was!

Lesley helped me to see that what had made Cheryl successful with it on the snaffle ring, besides the fact that she is a really good rider, was that #1, she was riding him in the ring and not in the XC field.  #2, she had started out on the stronger ring and moved to the snaffle ring.  Cotton had been reminded to respect her seat and hand with the stronger bit before she changed it.  Lesley also said that when a stronger bit is used to help a horse learn to not run through the hand, it's fairly common that they may start to go behind the vertical.  That’s when you know it’s time to go back to the regular snaffle bit. But at first, it might be a good idea to start your ride out on the stronger ring and then switch the reins after he’s warmed up. He will probably need the stronger setting in the field for quite some time but he’ll have to go without it for a dressage test anyway.

So, I guess I'm not a complete failure after all… operation “Conquer Cotton” is still on!

And Cheryl agreed to ride him in the XC field next time to help me with his training out there – thanks Cheryl!