Pacha - november 9, 2011

The turn of the season is always a difficult time for Pacha. It looks like the transition into Fall has a strong influence on his temper. He gets restless again, his nervous lower lip flapping comes back. He can hardly be kept at walk when other horses are cantering around in the arena. The best thing to do is to have long walk and trot sessions with lots of transitions, and looking for good, regular cadence in an empty arena. I am content when I get him relaxed and low as shown on the picture and I leave the more advanced work aside for the moment, until he settles in the new weather conditions.
I increase also the amount of lunge work. Today, S. was with me, and showed me how to use the Gogue with more tension. As I said, I was not too keen, nor much experienced in using this reining . S. adjusts it tight, and gets the horse to stay on a rather small circle (6m.), always at trot, never at canter ( with rest period at walk of course). He does not use the driving whip, just the voice, and the loose part of the lunge, folded in his outer hand, that he gently moves with a tongue click to get the horse to go stronger. He wants the lunge to be taut, the horse to stay on horizontal placer and to 'take his bit'. Speed is not the objective. The cadence must be energetic, steady but not fast.
I must say he suceeded extremely well. Pacha accepted the exercise, and worked seriously.
At the end of the session, I walked him in hand with just the snaffles, asking him a few halts, rein-back, and jambette. He enjoys this and I think he took it as a recreation after the work, which is precisely what I wanted it to be.
As an aside, I am a little concerned by some bumps he has on his back, near the whithers. He has had this sort of subcutaneous spots since I know him when he was five, but it seems that they have extended, all in the saddle pad area. They are not painful and the vet does not seem worried, although he proposed no treatment. I wonder it may be one of the 'grey's skin diseases' such as sarcoids. I hope they will stabilize during many years if it is the case. Until now they have seemed less visible in cold whether, and I will watch this winter.