A weekend with Royale

All photos by J. Kaiser

Royale hasn't been on this blog too much because he has been developing with Liz the past year and a half or so. But he is still around and he is doing great!

Since Hampton was out sick from school, I threw Royale on the trailer for my lesson with JK last week.

I have not ridden him in more than a year, so I figured this might be an adventure.

Jen and Conner joined us and we hit the road!
Note: Jen wrote her own recap on her blog but I will add that every time I see them, this pair improves. I know it might seem like you are stuck sometimes, but if you make a little but of progress each day, after 30 days you have accomplished something! 

So the first part of the lesson was ... entertainment for everyone watching.

Basically the first 30 minutes of my lesson went like this:

"Oh good Karen. Yes, good job staying in the middle."
"Wow he is spectacular"
"Do you want a running martingale"
"Oh he is being a turd"
"That is a lot of monkey business"
"This is clearly not Karen's first horse. She has ridden a few"
"I don't trust a lot of riders with horses like this, but I trust Karen" - this was in reference to horses who run through the shoulder and nearly plow into the audience
"Yep. This is behavioral"
"You have a great ability to stay in the middle no matter what the horse does"

Royale is a fun ride, but only if you are used to that type of horse. I rode horses like him all through my teen years and even before so his antics don't bother me or scare me, but he is certainly a challenge to get his brain. There was spooking, skittering, throwing his head upside down, bouncing off the contact, ignoring my leg, ignoring me all together, charging through the outside shoulder and dropping his back. This is absolutely not a reflection of the training Liz has done, this is all Royale and his brain.

BUT. After 30 minutes, it's like his brain come back. And THEN I was able to do some nice work with him! You just have to stick it out for a bit. ha!

We worked a lot on canter transitions, and how he really seems to appreciate it when you organize the trot, then canter. He likes to throw his hind legs out into space, pretty much anywhere but under him, so the organization really helped.

Liz has done a great job of developing him especially his ability to go out to the contact, and keep a steady tempo. He is going to be a really nice horse, but he is a mental ride. The interesting thing about Royale is that while he can spook at his environment, he is not ONE BIT worried about his rider. I was riding the fur off him, manhandling, kicking, ANYTHING to get his attention and not once did he offer to rear, buck, or do anything to get rid of me.

He is SO much better about accepting the leg these days. Now he needs to learn to be sharper on the aids, which was hard to do when you couldn't touch him or he would fly off into the sunset.

A fun lesson and good for Royale to have a different rider and off the property ride coming into show season. I rattled his cage pretty good, hopefully I did not ruin him for Liz!

Here's a few short clips. Didn't get any of his drama except very mild spooking but you can see how nice he is developing. Some good moments! You can see anytime I ask him to get off my leg his head comes up and his back drops. Not the right answer but he will get there!

He also did some of this while I was visiting

Loading on the trailer was a different story. I was about to donate him to science, but just like under saddle he eventually gives up and walks right on and stands.

Sadly, a lunge line was our only fatality from the day. A victim of my trailer loading discussions with Royale. womp womp

In case you wondered what the guts of a lunge line look like

Annnnd then we got stuck in a massive traffic jam on I-65 on the way home. Jen and I did not go crazy, although the boys had a party in the trailer as it was a catastrophe in there when we got home haha.

Advice: Always get gas, soda, junk food, candy before you hit the road! That saved us ha.

A fun weekend but I was happy to get back to Porkchop! It's almost time to enter the first show of the season. How is it show season already?!?!