Coquin - june 19, 2009

Currently, I only ride Coquin on few and far between occasions, but I enjoy each of them to meet again with him, for checking and improving our dialog. B. no longer rides him, which is a pity for Coquin who is left most of the time with less qualified riders, generally ladies who do not ask much of him (some pretending that he is too physical...). Under such circumstances, my dappled grey friend indulges into his laziness, and spares his energy quite effectively through sluggish trot without being bothered by any particular request for dressage movements.
I decided to carry on the approach I had reported in my April post about him, based upon:
- special attention towards a fixed hand with light tension on reins, but with firm grip of the finger/thumb plier.
- stimulation of impulsion with frequent, short sequences of moderate extended trot
- frequent request for flexion of jaws, with head high first, and later in all other placer
- extensive use of small circles at sitting trot and slow canter to relax the back, lower the neck and achieve flexibility of the poll.
We worked in the large indoor arena, with several riders exercising, and even one lungeing a somewhat explosive horse.
With the above background basics in mind, and despite the animated environment, we went through the whole usual programme at the three gaits, which included speed variations, transitions, halts and two-tracks work.
Coquin was not disturbed by the busy atmosphere. As I had expected, he tried to express his discontent to depart from the quiet (though probably boring to himself) type of riding he has at the moment, mainly with shaking his head. But the small circle work proved its magic as a medicine against this once again. Progressively, his head went down, his back up, and his body 'straight on the circle'. This process has been once again imprinted in my mind from the reading of Nuno Oliveira's books: 'Practice shows that a horse cannot give his back before having bent his sides around the inner leg...on very small voltes...'
It took some time to maintain the good effects obtained on the circles when riding back on the main track, but after one half hour of these exercises, I had retrieved a different Coquin, concentrated, with beautiful, steady placer and good cadence.
It is interesting to observe how quickly a good 'cold' horse can retrieve stamina and obedience provided one requests them from him via a carefully thought out pattern, which as far as I am concerned stems straight out of NO's learnings. No wonder my books about the Mestre are so worn out!