cute new friend

Bali is a green bean baby OTTB that joined the lesson program at my barn earlier this year. He's mostly a pretty good guy and there are a few lesson students who ride him well. However he was quite thin when he arrived and now that we've finally managed to put weight on him, he's a little more... er.. expressive with his opinions on things.

how cute is that face?

A few undesired behaviors started creeping in - like napping and bucking and kicking out under saddle (and also on the ground - he's cute but he kicks). There was some concern that it might be pain related so he's had some time off. But the horse is sound and appears in good shape so the next step is to put more miles on him and leg him back up.

blurry bc he's hoping sugar cubes will happen

My general hypothesis is that he's at heart a very lazy horse, and he figured out how to use speed and other behavioral tactics to get students to back off from making him work. But he's got a sweet disposition (aside from the kicking, obvi) and has the potential to be a great mount for the advanced lesson students.

waiting around like a seasoned veteran at his first xc schooling last spring with barn mate R

The lesson program director R has been too busy to actually get back into the saddle with him lately (she took him to his first event this summer, where I believe they finished 5th on their dressage score in BN) and I offered to pick up the slack.

See, I used to ride a huge variety of horses all the time. At the h/j barn where I took lessons until last summer, I rode a different horse every week. And I LOVED it. Building a relationship with one horse and moving towards a joint goal has been gratifying and my riding has certainly progressed, but nothing keeps you honest as a rider quite like riding different horses all the time.

R says he's super fun to jump

So I'm really eager to add Bali to my weekly riding mix - hopefully with 2-3 rides per week to start, maybe decreasing to 1-2x as he gets back into lessons. Not sure how long it'll last but I plan to enjoy it in the meantime!

Our first ride went mostly ok. I tend to be a little conservative with new horses, and spent a while feeling out how far he could be pushed. He seems to start out SUPER tight in his back (esp relative to Isabel) and his head goes in every direction all at once. I just focused on riding his shoulders and hind end - asking for longer and looser walk steps and not worrying about where he put his nose.

It was kinda funny tho - I sought to keep him more or less even between the reins which required fairly wide-set hands, and it made me that much more appreciative of Isabel. Keeping her even between my reins has been a priority lately too, but I don't have to do anything crazy with my hands - it's just a matter of using my legs to push her where she has to go.

he and isabel are actually about the same size around - i use the same girth and everything - tho he's much taller

I also figured out that the big sticking point with Bali is 'forward.' Once I got him walking a little better (after 5-10 minutes) and asked for trot, he napped back and tried to say 'No!' But after working at it for a little while and successfully getting a reasonable trot, I went back to working on walk-trot transitions and things smoothed out considerably.

Ride number two showed improvement - only took a couple minutes to get more swing in his step and he was more accepting of my leg. It, uh, helped that I opted to carry a dressage whip lol. He also steers quite well from the leg, which is useful bc I don't want to get handsy and restrictive with the reins regardless of whatever shenanigans he pulls. Forward must always be an open door for this guy.

We did simple w-t-c, with lots and LOTS of trot-walk-trot transitions. I was kinda surprised how quickly he tuned in, and while we did have a few episodes of kicking out, he was mostly pretty obedient. The left lead is stickier so that will need work, and he gets kinda dive-y in the canter, esp cutting in off the rail toward the center. I tend to circle a lot through the arena rather than sticking to the rail, but might need to watch that since most lesson kids will want him to stay on the rail and into his corners.

seriously too cute

By the end of the ride (which was itself quite short - he's not exactly in shape right now) he had a MUCH nicer walk - really covering ground and stretching down through his neck. He seemed much more comfortable. Honestly I think he's just kinda a tight horse who will need help loosening up.

So I have a couple ideas of what I'd like to work on with him. Nothing crazy - I want to limber him up a little bit, while also keeping the pressure low. The biggest goal is that he understands his job and feels good about getting it done safely and reliably. Should be fun!