Kate Clinic: Disco

"He's not dull, but the quickest way to make a horse dull and resentful is by shouting all the time,"

There's a common refrain in basically every lesson you hear Kate Little of Better Every Ride (come at me, Google, she deserves it!) teach: horses think slowly but react quickly. Connor reacts quickly and explosively first and then he'll think, slowly and after the fact. New concepts took longer to get confirmed on him because of it - it often took more than one session before he would retain something new from ride-to-ride. 

Connor's part-leaser glowing after her first riding lesson in over 20 years

Disco could not be more different. He has this testosterone-fueled "Nothing can hurt me so I'm not afraid of anything" coolness to him that, at least in him, affords him the ability to think about a situation before reacting. He learns so fast and retains new concepts immediately, but reacts so slowly.

Photo by Liz

I often interpret this in the moment as Disco being dull - even large aids, like a whack with the whip, are met with a shrug. It has made working with him frustrating for me at times, because I'll apply escalating aids until I run out of aids and I'm left feeling like I don't have anything left in my toolkit.

Across four sessions, Kate gave me some incredible tactical advice - new aids and concepts that I'm using immediately with good effect. New ways of thinking about contact and balance even in the green horse. New moments of feeling, like feeling him truly step sideways in a leg yield for the first time and truly shifting his weight back in the halt. 

Working on his sticky "go" button by being "annoying like a chihuahua"

Those were all wonderful, but the biggest thing I got out of the clinic? He's only going to end up dull if I make him that way. As much as I think I've slowed down and softened my asks since I've become Kate's student, I need to go in even slower, even softer. He can back in the groundwork with the pressure of a feather on the knot of the halter, and he can learn to be that light in the rest of the work too, if I allow him the chance.

It all crystallized for me when I saw Kate ride him on Sunday. She got on and did the same exercises I had been trying awkwardly to do for the previous 20 minutes, but she did them differently. Loops in the reins when mine were taut. Escalating aids that moved to 'annoying' instead of 'louder'. Opening outside reins that invited him over warmly rather than tentatively. 

Disco completely relaxed with Kate on his back

She got off and had this huge grin on her face "He's REALLY cool. He's going to be something special." and I knew then that I needed to stick to my original plan of sending him out for training at this point in his career. 

 

He needs to learn the next set of building blocks from someone who makes learning easy for him and from someone so competent in the young horse starting process, they're able to effortlessly identify what's a phase and what's a career-limiting personality trait. That's not something you develop being an adult amateur that starts maybe two or three horses over a lifetime.

"You don't have to send him out," she said later. "You are capable of learning how to teach him this stuff." And the funny thing about that is that I describe Kate's lesson style as "whatever you feel like you can't do, she makes you feel like you can do it." Every time I thought I couldn't keep a stallion, or couldn't start baby Eva, or anything else, her lessons left me feeling like I could do it. 

There is something about having Kate in your corner that makes so much seem possible, which is why I didn't ignore the feeling of peace and certainty I felt as I watched him melt into the right answers under her on Sunday. That's all I've ever wanted for this horse - to make the right answers easy and to see how far he can go.