Play Hard, Work... Less??

When I came out to the barn yesterday, I saw that Barokko's rug was torn in two places, and very dirty. Underneath the rug, one of the tears in the rug cerresponeded to obvious bite marks that had actually just broken the skin (through a winter turn-out rug, ouch)!! Then I looked down, and noticed that both front fetlocks were slightly swollen.

I induced that he must have spent the day playing hard, running up and down the fairly steep incline in the pasture. Right enough, turns out the school ponies had jumped over the fence from their pasture into the gelding pasture, and had wrecked havoc.

I decided to work him lightly on the longe instead of riding. He's obedient on the longe, but not used to being worked with side-reins. If I can get him to trust them and lean into them more, I'd like to include longing as a regular part of his training on non-riding days, but so far it's just get-used-to-it training.

After walking him I worked him 5 minutes on each rein without the sidereins, to warm him up and get his attention thru lots of transitions. Then I added the sidereins, let him work with them in walk a few minutes, and then just a few rounds each way in trot and canter. He's gotten pretty good at leaning into the reins in walk, and stretches well over the topline there. But in trot and canter he tries to avoid them, shortening and lifting his neck = hollowed back.