It's only been, like, nine months since I started backing Wynnie, but it's too momentous an occasion not to write a post about. Brace yourselves for a novel.
I remember feeling like I waited a thousand years for Thunder to be old enough to back. I must be getting older, because it feels like I was cuddling tiny foal Wynnie only yesterday and now she's a whole horse. Last November, when the days grew longer and I had time in my schedule, I decided to bring her in and start playing with the groundwork.
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| feels like yesterday |
Now we all know that backing age is one of the most contentious debates out there, with people ranging from jumping on 18-month-old racehorses to waiting until their warmbloods are seventeen-hand seven-year-olds before doing anything with them. To each their own. I like a useful middle ground somewhere between three and four and a half, depending on the horse. I will also confess that, when my current big horses were baby horses, my then-coach backed the poor suckers as two-year-olds. I shudder to think of it now, but Arwen was one of them and is still competing sound as a bell in the upper levels at nearly nineteen, so, you know, it's not all bad.
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| look at weeny baby Wynnie sleeping in my lap |
Wynnie is an early bloomer. Though I don't anticipate doing anything with Raya other than trying to find an angle to get a picture where she doesn't look like a llama until she's four or five, Wynnie was sturdy-looking by the beginning of last summer, and her agile mind was also perpetually getting her into trouble. She was climbing through fences, hassling the other horses, and escaping her stable at every opportunity, as well as terrorising the poor grooms with her antics.
By then, obviously, all her citizenship was in place. Wynnie showed as a foal at foot, so loading, travelling, behaving in a new place (for a given value of "behaving" as we saw at HOY 2025), doing all the in-hand things, bathing, plaiting, having her legs clipped, tying up---all that stuff was old hat to her. We'd also messed around with join-up and I'd taught her to pony off Lancey in the arena the previous winter.
There wasn't a whole lot left to do other than start the groundwork for backing, and with Wynnie telling me that she felt ready, we got to it.
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| asking to come in and do something interesting |
Even though she is mature for her age, nobody's growth plates close faster than anyone else's, so right off the bat we weren't doing anything particularly strenuous. We didn't (and still don't) lunge for more than ten minutes and only on large circles with only little bits of cantering (three circles on each side). She cottoned on to lungeing very easily and was forward and incredibly obedient from the start. Her canter was also just easy and balanced from the beginning. She sometimes struggled to pick up her right lead at first.
Before long, it was time to introduce the bridle, which I knew was going to be a bit of a pain. Busy brains have busy mouths and I haven't had a youngster with such a busy brain for a long time. She'd had her wolf teeth out ages ago, but getting used to the bit was a real mission for her. I fed a lot of treats both for accepting the bit and for not chewing it, but ultimately, she just needed to wear the bridle a lot of times before she quit chomping on the bit. I started her in a French link snaffle because that was what I had that fit her and she ultimately got used to it.
On a bittersweet note, the spare bridle I had lying around for her was Magic's. I think it looks good on her 💜
We moved on to the roller, which sparked a bit of humping and crow-hopping, something she can still do when she's a little fresh. I wasn't expecting her to be a particularly easy horse to back and this was another indicator to me that she might be a little on the spicy side. No worries. I didn't breed her to be an easy little angel, I'm here for another dragon, and I wasn't in any hurry.
We took our time with the roller, and once she was consistently chill with lungeing in it, we added the saddle. This was a non-event, and, as I'd expected, she fits perfectly in the old Kent & Masters jumping saddle I bought several eras ago for Arwen when we were teenagers who thought we were going to be eventing superstars. She's the same little round mutton-withered thing that Arwen was as a youngster and the K&M sticks to her back like glue, even though it's taken a thorough beating over the past 11 years or so. I'll eventually want to move her into a dressage saddle but figured that having shorter stirrups might not be a bad thing for the dragon theatrics that will inevitably follow.
The only little spook she had with her saddle was once when I put the stirrups down without warning her and started her groundwork like that. The sun sparkled off a stirrup and she scooted forward a step with big eyes, then immediately stopped, pricked her ears, and demanded a treat for Coping So Well. Since clicker training has been our jam since the beginning, I couldn't exactly deny her just reward.
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| who is this grown up woman? (feat. cows) |
Interspersed with introducing the tack, we started with the baby groundwork J taught me that just fixes and improves so much in the early life of a dressage horse. My particular favourites include rein-back on the ground in a good posture, slowly increasing the number of steps until we were doing ten steps uphill three times a session with practically no pressure on the reins. Another special favourite is turn on the forehand, developing the "Over" cue that will ultimately become all of her lateral work, and then slowly turning that into shoulder-in on the ground along the rail. It's amazing how much a few minutes of this develops their balance, symmetry, strength, and understanding in a super low-impact, youngster-friendly manner without a rider on yet.
I wasn't surprised that she learned the groundwork and all the lungeing commands effortlessly. Her brain is so much like her mom's in that way - she learns "tricks" quickly and enjoys executing them. By the time I was lungeing her with the saddle, I barely needed any body cues for transitions. She also surprised and impressed me with how balanced, supple, and easy her canter is on both reins. Her trot is nothing to write home about (yet) but her canter is what I'm really after, and it's simply effortless.
We ran into another speed bump when we introduced contact to the bit. I started with the neck stretcher quite loose; it's forgiving and soft, and it teaches the youngster not to be scared of the contact but to go boldly into it. A little counter-intuitive, but for dressage, I like them to be bold and fearless of the contact. The bit is primarily to help with suppleness and connection. Brakes are in my seat and voice, although I do teach a sort of emergency stop off the bit for the hairy moments.
She wasn't bad or dramatic about wearing the neck stretcher but she did start chomping quite a lot again. I keep the grackle loose and let her chomp all she likes. Once she worked out how to soften over her back and stretch her neck down to release the contact, she quit chomping, although she'll probably have a busy mouth for the rest of her life just because it's attached to a busy brain.
After a few weeks we had acceptance in the neck stretcher and she was starting to work with a little bit more of a stretchy shape, so I switched to the long lines to teach her a little bit of steering and the emergency brakes. She took to these just fine. Being supple and having a short body makes the steering pretty easy, and we also installed the "oh crap whoa dangit" from canter to halt, just in case of drama. We long-lined in the lunge ring and also a bit in the arena, learning about figures and not falling around without a fence to hold us upright. I also installed a rein-back on the long lines, using the same voice command and encouraging her to keep her back up.
With that, we only had a little spot of groundwork left, which was to teach her to walk and trot forward with a voice and whip aid. This really helps them translate to the leg aids, which are always the hardest thing to teach a baby. She figured these out quickly, of course. The Dragons are nothing if not good at figuring out responses to aids.
All that left was the actual getting on. This brings us to somewhere in December, near her third birthday, and this is where our progress eased off a little. I've backed dozens of youngsters in my day, but it's been a minute, and I'm not as brave as I used to be. We spent a lot of time standing at the mounting block, hanging over the saddle, bouncing in one stirrup, all that jazz. Wynnie complicated this somewhat with the fact that standing still for more than a minute still eludes her, but she was never actually naughty.
Finally, I abandoned the saddle and slipped on for the first time bareback, and everything was perfectly fine. I fed her a few treats from both sides to let her look around and touch me. She didn't care.
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| second sit, first pics |
The next time, I popped on with the saddle, having broken through that mental barrier, and we were off. Well, sort of. Like most babies, Wynnie was totally happy to accept me on her back but very confused about what I actually wanted up there. We started with a few steps of rein-back and then had to wiggle side to side to get the front feet to move forward. If I'd been a bit bolder about it we would have got it done in a couple of sessions, but I took my time, and we would wiggle forward a few steps at a time (click treating for progress), until at last one day I had K jump on and I led her around a bit. After that, Wynnie set off boldly when I asked.
K and I worked together with Wynnie for the next couple of months. I'd lunge her once a week and take her out, ponying off Lancey, at least once a week. She LOVED ponying and was absolutely angelic for this from the first second---I never had any trouble with her. In fact, sometimes I'd sent her ahead of Lancey if he was spooking at something. She loved climbing hills and bushwhacking through long grass.
I'd also ride her myself once or twice a week and K would do one session until she'd introduced her first canter. Wynnie was surprisingly well-behaved for learning to canter, which is a time when a lot of babies like to throw a playful buck or two. She never had any trouble picking up both canter leads and she was easy and balanced around the dressage arena from the start.
It was a triumphant moment for me when I had my first canter on Wynnie shortly after K installed it. I had way too many youngster-shenanigans to sit through in my misspent youth backing babies for people, but something about Wynnie always gave me confidence. Part of it is just that she feels so much like her mom; her movement is so familiar and comfortable. But I've also spent the past three years playing with my baby pony and getting to know her well enough that I understand she's a spicy little maiden with not a mean hair on her head. We simply cruised into our first canter together like it was no big deal.
Since then, we've been continuing with little rides, just 15 or 20 minutes at a time. It's all light and playful, focusing on having her travel forward and bend in both directions and move off my legs left and right and canter on the correct leg. She has thrown a little buck when fresh that doesn't worry me at all, and has had one or two minor spooks, but on the whole, she is one very good and hardworking and clever baby horse.
She leaves me so excited for the future. God is good.
