I have a wonderful new task. Last week I was talking to someone in another forum about asking the horse to "sit down on his hindquarters" while walking down a steep hill, which she does to prevent her horses from rushing. When the children and I walk down hills with the horses, we do lots of checking the brakes. That is, every few steps we ask the horses to slow down or stop and make sure that we have a close communication. However, I used to see this more like stopping the front part of the horse instead of sitting down on the hindquarters. So I agreed with her that I would try this with Titum and Summy and then report back.
Well, and yesterday I did it and found out that I cannot do it at all. Actually I had thought it would be rather easy, just taking my own weight back, straightening my upper body and bending in my knees. This made Titum stop indeed, but he did not do this by putting the hindquarters under his body at all but simply stopped walking with the frontlegs. I tried ots of variations, but none of them worked. For example, when I turned my upper body towards him to focus on the hindquarters or even point at them, he simply turned them away from me and started walking sideways. When I asked him to back up right after stopping, he did that but again his weight seemed to be mainly on the frontquarters.
I went home and tried it with Summy in the pasture. With him it worked much better to ask him to shift his weight back when I focused backwards and shifted my own weight back right before and after the stop. When I did a lot of it, he started backing up or reared backwards, and when I did only a little of it, he only took his weight back. But again, he only did it after the stop and most of the time I was not able to ask him for more hindquarter engagement during the stopping movement itself (actually it worked once, and in this case he even slid through the mud with his hindleg when stopping because the ground was so slippery).
I also tried it with the ponies. Pia was similar to Titum. That is, she did not step under at all but I got all kinds of sideways movements with the hindquarters. This was especially pronounced when I did any kind of turning my upper body, so I really have to keep looking forwards. Bacardy was similar to Summy, and perhaps even a tad better in terms of already shifting the weight back during the actual stopping movement. It worked best when I already shifted my weight back while walking and then backed up for two or three steps right after stopping. What also made it easier for him is when he got the idea of kicking me after the stop. This is something we want to unlearn in general, but in this context it really came in handy, because it put his focus on his own hindlegs at the right moment.
Anyway, I am totally fascinated by this task, because last night's training showed me that at this point in time I cannot ask for it at all, so this is something where I have lots of room for improving my communication skills and learning something new. My next plan is to find tasks that give them the idea of backwards or make it necessary to use the hindlegs. Perhaps it might work to combine it with school halts or rears (more something for Summy and Pia), backing up (mainly Bacardy) or direction changes that are done via rearing (Titum). And I also have to improve my own body language, because yesterday it felt a bit awkward. When I am stopping from a fast movement, it comes so naturally to do this in a "sitting down" way, almost like jumping under my future position and then keeping my body back. But for stopping from a slow walk it felt like I was much more likely to do it in a successive way as well, first stopping and only then shifting my weight back.
I have posted this as an exercise diary because I want to do some comparative tests and learning with all four horses, and perhaps some of you want to join in as well or have ideas for us.