Am I messing up my green bean?

[Tha_Ridge]

All this! I have a wonderful young import (just came about a month ago) who will be for sale down the line. I told my trainer how nervous I was about giving him a bad ride at his first show. My trainer said, “First of all, you’re not going to. But secondly, even if you do, so what? We’re not trying to develop a horse that only a pro can ride. He needs to learn to handle mistakes and if he can’t do that, he’s not the right horse for us.” That took all the pressure off—kick on, sit up, let him figure it out—and the 5-year-old fresh off the plane pinned in classes of 25+, go figure.

But yes, we’ve all ridden that micro-managed horse that needs to be ridden to a precise distance. Not fun and slightly scary.

[DawgLady]

Well, that certainly won’t be MY horse! He’s learning to be quite the joke taker (LOL). Lucky for me, he does not get frazzled. Like I said upthread, he has no concept of good distance/bad distance. It’s all just random stick leaping to him at this point.

[danhelm441]

My horse has a random canter and it’s a battle to keep him rhythmic and straight. Ground poles and x-rails are even worse than 2ft because at least the verticals give him something to look at (and a little more motor…which is almost like being straight).

What’s helped me lately is counting the rhythm, 1-2, 1-2. It’s not for me, exactly, because I can tell when it’s changed. Adding leg unfortunately just gooses him into a different, equally undesirable canter. But I’ve noticed he can hear it and he tries to stay rhythmic. It is more precise than just adding leg. Maybe try it out!

And personally, I don’t think a rider can miss at cross rails, necessarily, it’s really on the horse to put it together and the rider not to interfere. Ofc I say that as someone who chips at ground poles but I don’t think it’s ruining my horse. If anything I hope he learns it’s what happens when you change your canter stride 3 times on a straight line to a pole!