Last Monday, Westie started his training again following a few days rest after his Shiatsu session.  I was interested to see if Christophe would notice any difference in Westie’s lateral movements.

Warming up in hand. Christophe begins to encourage Westie to connect his quarters with the rest of his frame.

 
Once he warmed up, Westie moved his hindquarters well, crossing his hind legs nicely underneath him.  However, he still seemed a little reluctant to move his shoulders but Christophe put this down to Westie’s not being quite sure what he was supposed to be doing. 

When he finally understood what was being asked of him, he did some nice lateral steps with his forelegs for the first time in his training.  Christophe worked him at walk and trot. 

Westie is starting to develop good muscle tone and balance. All horses at his age are croup high and should receive sensitive correct education with adequate time to grow and mature.
 
 

One thing Westie does beautifully is come to a stop – very neatly and nice and square. 

 

Learning to stop quietly and neatly.

Learning to move his shoulders.

Westie has a calm and pretty laid-back attitude for a 3 year old.  Christophe says he find no sign of the flight instinct in him.  He is just a little bit lazy but once Westie understands that it is actually easier to move when there is a bit of drive from his hindquarters, thing should slot into place. 

Christophe is reluctant to do too much with his hands or his legs because he doesn’t want to have to increase the pressure too much.  If he does, Westie will no longer take any notice of his rider’s legs.   So he uses a short length of thick rope which he just swishes from side to side to make Westie move with a little more action.  It seems to work very well! 


Listening to Westie, quietly.

 

So up to now, Westie has been worked using a direct and indirect rein to move the hindquarters and the shoulders.  Christophe says he usually likes to spend a couple of months doing this, and introduce the open rein in the third month.  This may seem very slow to some people, but he feels that once the horse has grasped these three things, that he will have a valuable base from which to progress.  Many people prefer a speedier method of breaking in and training, but having seen the results of Christophe’s training on many other horses, I knew that Westie would get the best start possible.