Ridecamp: [RC] Cruppers

Lucy Chaplin Trumbull elsie@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Here follows the long-winded saga of crupper training Mouse.

Earlier this year, I found myself in a position of needing to 
crupper-train Mouse. She is short-backed and forward heart-girthed, 
and quite, er, rotund, and the saddle was tending to ride onto 
her shoulders on downhills, making her very pissy.

Initially, I tried the "attach the crupper and lunge" approach.
I put it on, pulled on it and she didn't react. I walked her 
along and she didn't react. I asked her to trot and all hell 
broke loose. I'm not sure who was more frightened, me or her. 
She went into a major rodeo-without-a-brain impersonation. 
Bad idea.

Knowledgeable internet folk were consulted but none reported
having any "real problems" with cruppers. Back to the drawing
board.

I borrowed a friend's round pen (much better *not* to be attached
to said-horse - you can dodge better). To start with I tacked 
her up sans crupper and had her run around while I experimented 
with wrapping a string attached to a 'carrot stick' around and 
under her tail and tugged on it intermittently.

It seems that Mouse was fine if she thought that I was doing 
the tugging and she only got scared when she perceived that I 
was "over there" and therefore couldn't be the culprit - so it 
*must* be a monster biting her bottom. So I tried to simulate 
the feel of the crupper while not being anywhere near her. 

Once she was OK with that, I put the crupper on again, only
much, much looser than before and had her trot around the pen. 
She was fine with that and getting bored by trotting around in
circles. I kept tightening it little by little, and she didn't 
react to that either. I took her home.

After several weeks of procrastination, I opted to actually put 
the damn thing on her and ride her. I attached it so loosely that 
it didn't do anything at all (*no way* it would ever come close 
to being tight). And I rode her like that for many rides. 

Once in a while, I'd lean back and scritchle her rump, and then
tug on the crupper, so she'd figure I was the one doing it.

This went on for several months - I'd always ride with it, but
never so tight that it actually *did* anything.

And then one day I was riding with a friend, going down a long
steep hill and realised she was acting pissy (from saddle on
her shoulders) and looked back and found the crupper totally
tight - the saddle had slipped that far forward. Awk.

But she didn't react. Over the weeks, she had gotten used to
it being there, and didn't worry about it.

So then I started tightening it - every ride another half inch.
This worked great, she didn't react and I was calm (this is 
good).

Today she's completely fine with it, with the exception of a 
couple of incidents. 

One was when I was riding alone and unwrapped a Clif bar while 
on her back. She didn't like the crackling paper and tucked her 
butt, the crupper took hold and she started bouncing about. I 
reached back and scritchled and she settled down again. I think 
it was one of those brain-out "ARG - something that crackles is 
biting my bottom" moments. Once she re-engaged brain and felt 
me scritchling, she was OK again.

The second was more recently. The crupper I'd been using was
an old grotty one that I found lying on the trail one day. I'd
promised Mouse that if I could crupper train her, I'd buy her
a spiffy moldable zilco crupper. Well, it seems that the spiffy
zilco crupper feels different to the old cruddy one, because
a few times when she's been startled, she's over-reacted a 
little to it and started scootling for no particular reason.
I'm assuming that with a few more rides in it, it'll feel 
"normal" again and she'll settle.

Hope this helps. Remember that Mouse has explosive tendencies
and that I am an outright chicken, so I took it ludicrously
slowly. No doubt it could have been done in far less time
with a braver person who knew what they were doing - I'd never
even put a crupper on, let alone trained a horse to accept one.

-- 
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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
Repotted english person in the Sierra Foothills, CA
elsie@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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