Here’s something I’ve always wondered. My very mild-mannered (lazy) Appaloosa gelding is all about energy conservation. He’s a very flat mover, and naturally rather earth-bound. Dude barely gets his feet to clear the ground. He’s just not going to waste the energy without a lot of cajoling from me, whether he’s being lunged or ridden. He has western pleasure breeding, and doggone it, he flaunts it (slowly, with as little effort as possible). I know how to get more out of him, I can do it, and he’s a “cute” mover once he warms up and actually half-way tries to push from behind.
But let something catch his attention, spook him a little, excite him somewhat, and boy! He just springs across the ground in this lofty, beautiful trot. There is suspension, impulsion. It’s glorious! And I don’t just mean that “I’m losing my marbles” foolishness they can do when they get wound up in the pasture or whatever. I mean like today when a truck pulling a rattling flatbed trailer came down the driveway near where I was lunging him, he went from Eeyore’s Spirit Animal to Valegro’s less-talented but arguably respectable spotted distant cousin in the space of two strides. He wasn’t freaking out, he just MOVED FORWARD with a bit of athletic motivation.
If he can do it when something excites him…he’s obviously physically capable of that nicer way of going. But how do I recreate that in our work when he’s just “ho-humming” along?
I can’t be the only one that’s noticed this or has this issue, right?
