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Hi all,

Just to share, hope it's helpful.

During the rainy season, when my horses were boarded where I had access to a 
covered arena.  (I no longer have access,)  I decided that my arab and I 
would work on the canter depart from the halt.  Since I wanted several 
chances to practice the depart, I didn't want to canter long.  But I didn't 
want to frustrate my horse by asking to stop soon after starting to canter.  
So, we used a pattern which was clear to my horse.

We worked from corner to corner.  I stood him in a corner, facing the next 
corner.  I asked for the depart from the halt and at first he trotted a few 
steps and then cantered.  As we got to the next corner, I asked for a halt.  
Once stopped, his reward was resting and being stroked.  Then we did a 
quarter turn, stopped, and I asked for the depart, stopping at the next 
corner.

Soon he started to anticipate my request and complied by striking off in the 
canter when asked.  We worked on this in both directions.  Then stopped for 
the day.  We practiced a bit more on other days, but he seemed to get what I 
wanted pretty well.

So then a few months later, I happened to be at a Donna Snyder Smith clinic 
with other endurance riders.  She gave us a fun task which was that we all 
lined up mounted on our arabs on one side of the arena.  At her signal we 
were to cross the arena, dismount and untack, lead our horses around the 
arena, retack up and mount.  The first one done, won.

At Donna's "go" signal, my horse was the only horse who cantered on the 
first stride .  All the other endurance horses struck out in a trot.

We won both heats.  :-)

Now when it rains, I miss having access to a covered arena to play.

Nina Vasiliev



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