ridecamp@endurance.net: [endurance] Jigging

[endurance] Jigging

Kathy Myers (kmyers@collagen.com)
2 May 1996 14:55:22 U

Lynette brings up a good training tool with circling when your horse is
not paying attention. I'd like to add my experiences to the pool. I
tried circling with Magnum horse with mixed results. Once, it worked
great. More often I thought he was just going to explode into little
bay fragments and take me with him. He got VERY upset and quit listening
to me. Almost like a panic attack. Then he continues to try to go
in the forward direction no matter which way we are facing... he'll
flip around forward, or scoot backwards really fast and hop up and
down. It was like eventually he'd learn how to rear.

What worked for us is staying in sight of the horses in front, but
I make it really hard on him when he is jigging and sit quietly
when he walks. (OK... Val, I TRY to sit quietly anyways). When
his picks up the jigging, I turn him left and then right and then
left. Our progress is in the same direction, but we are traveling
sideways. I tell him to walk and when he does we walk forward in
a straight line. He knows. I know he knows. And he knows I know
he knows.

The best cure for this was when the vet told us we could ONLY ride
at the walk. We did about, what?, a month or a week or something
just at the walk. The horses we rode with stayed at the walk too.
He really learned to walk during that period of time.

Val also swears by NATRC rides to teach horses how to walk. I'd
have loved to do it that way... but that's another story. ;-)

:) - kat
and Magnum the TB ex-racer in No. Cal