After James started Harley in April 2008, he gave me a series of Foundation patterns to perform.
For the first 20 rides:
- Prepare to saddle (ground games, mainly backup, sideways and some circle)
- Saddle (like it's the 1st time and like it's the 1,000th time)
- Prepare to ride (ground games again & bring the energy up to make sure it'll come down again)
- Mount (as it says in the homestudy packs - to the letter)
- Trail ride for up to 40 mins.
Then turn him away for 2 months.
For the next 40 rides do likewise but mix in Follow the Rail (FTR) with the trail riding and play some more interesting games (teach him new stuff).
Well, we completed the first 20 just great and we were both loving the trail riding in the summer, so I was looking forward to bringing him back in to play for the next 40 rides.
BTW - the picture at the top is me & Harley spending some undemanding together during his first 2 months off.
The first few rides were ok but not brilliant and we were having real problems keeping a saddle on him. It would end up sliding around him or halfway up his neck, regardless of what saddle or pads we used (including the Parelli ones). We came to the conclusions that his total lack of withers was the problem. This was pretty much confirmed after a conversation with Letitia Glen, who took the photos to Linda (including the one at the top :-) ). We decided to do a course of Hill Therapy with Harley to help him improve him musculature and hopefully build his withers.
Wobbley video fade indicating passage of time back to the present day
At Christmas his withers seemed to have developed a little and I started riding him bareback to do the FTR pattern. I'm having great fun riding him bareback and he's sussed the FTR pattern sooo quick, even though he does experiment a bit :-)
We went to watch a Honza Blaha clinic at the weekend and I'm now reconsidering how I play with him on the ground.
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