I think I've mentioned before Quattro's penchant for wanting to see what's going on outside the round pen. I managed to snag some pics today so that you can see where this actually leads to: NOWHERE GOOD.
Can you say "inverted"??
See the bulging muscle on the underside of his neck? That's inversion.
He does it at the canter, too:
So how do you fix this?
NO, not side reins; if you think that's the right answer then you are on the wrong blog.
The right answer? The Great Inversion Conversion Caper. Slow, patient, steady, relaxed work on the long lines.
Of course, with Quattro, getting the "relaxed" part is the hardest. He's a hot, speedy little guy by nature, and moreover, he tries SO hard to please that he can all too easily tie himself in mental, emotional and physical knots fretting over what's the right thing to do.
Our schooling sessions generally have three phases. During the first one, I send him out at liberty to let him get the looky-lous out, and trot and canter as seen above. I completely ignore him during this phase, except maybe to ask for a change of direction. While he goofs off, I'm almost invariably to be found in the center, faffing around getting my long-lines organized. Ask anyone who knows me: I can tangle up a longe or long-lines worse than anybody who ever drew breath!
Phase One ends when Quattro starts licking and chewing and asks to come back in. Except on one amusing occasion last week when I had the long-lines SO tangled that he was like "Hey LADY! I'm licking! I'm chewing! I'm ready to come in now!" and I didn't even notice, until he came up and grabbed the long-lines in his teeth as if to say "O.K., I did Phase One, now you're supposed to put those things on me and we're supposed to work!" Quattro is a giggle, he really is.
Assuming we manage to get to the end of Phase One at the same time, Phase Two is where the long-lines get attached. Phase Two is not necessarily very attractive to watch; it's where Quattro and I start our negotiating process, wherein he's figuring out what I want and I'm figuring out how he wants to be asked. Sometimes he's still a little bit over-revved, so there might be a long, messy canter either or both ways; I'm fine with messy during Phase Two so long as it's neither inverted nor disunited - and he's getting a lot better about each with every passing day.
Phase Three, then, is where we work on refining the Inversion Conversion. By "refining" I need to emphasize I do NOT mean "collecting" him up. It's absolutely crucial that he not get overbent and acquire that "fake frame" you see so much of. So NO pulling and hauling, if he wants to go-go-go, he can go-go-go, so long as his nose isn't in the air. I don't care much whether he's going fast or slow, so long as he is genuinely trying to reach for the bit and use his back.
As we all know, I stink at video, and my Achenbach-style long-lining skills leave much to be desired as well, but here is a short snippet I managed to catch when he was at the end of Phase Two moving into Phase Three:
As you can see, there's a lot of work to be done yet - but he's starting to look like he's going to be a horse when he grows up! Rushing this nice young horse would be fatal; I really think his brain would fry. I would far rather take more time and have him nice and relaxed and cadenced. So I'm sticking to my original plan - he will stay in the long lines throughout the summer and I'll send him off to be backed in the fall.
The adventure continues!
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