You mentioned "novice" rides. Are you doing
NATRC??? Sometimes the Novice rides have so many riders, that you can't
really get into your own space to ride alone. Also, It is very common for
the first couple rides to be uneventful, and then often around the 3rd ride,
something flips in the horses brain, and they act different. This can be
competing at rides, or when teaching a horse to ride or drive. We always tell
folks that are breaking their driving horses, it is not uncommon for that 3rd
drive to have a horse do very different actions.
Yes, riding with some groups at home, finding
trails that part and rejoin are wonderful, where the friend can take one trail,
you take another, and the horse has to be good, and will find eventually they
get back with the other horses. Have a friend ride ahead, or trot off, and your
horse walks. If it is naughty, and jigs, it does NOT get the reward of trotting
to catch up. I find having the rider who rode ahead just stop around a corner,
while you work on your horse being good works well. The horse got to catch up,
without getting to move out. It is much easier to teach a horse to move out
later, than to teach one that was allowed to do what it wanted early on. I
always said if I was hurt, and needed to ride back to camp or my trailer etc, I
would not want a jigging, rushing, charging, tugging horse. I'd want one to go
the speed I asked, even if it was fit enough to do 100 miles, and we had only
gone 3.
