Days off and a well earned break.

When we got back home from Grafton, the next day was the ANZAC Day holiday, I had all intents to continue the week as I had been, but I wasn't feeling too crash hot so I decided to have a day off.

The day off ended up being a week! I had, before we left, let the juniors into the bigger paddock, and they have ended up next door (lusher, greener grass), and since it has rained the way they get back into the paddock has water across it - so makes it that little bit less appealing to come home.

I was going to begin riding Dicko this week, but by Tuesday Phil was crook as a dog, and I had to leave home earlier, to get to the school and open up etc.

I did get the chance to move Jesse (thoroughbred yearling) to our river flat paddock, and he was a little worried about heading down the road by himself. While I was leading him, he continually wanted to turn around and head back to the paddock he just came from. I have just finished reading Mark Rashids Book - Horses Never Lie, in which he deals with a horse like this (while riding - the horse continually wants to come off the rail of the arena), his theory, in the book, is to let the horse do want it wants (turn around) and then just turn it back around and keep going. The theory is, that the horse will figure out he is using more energy, doing all these circles, and just carry on. So I did it with jesse, he wanted to turn around, so i let him, then I just turned him back around and continued. It worked. I only had to do it once, and he just walked the rest of the way - coincidence, or a sound theory? I don't suppose I will know until I try it a few more times - food for thought though, as this is alot less hassle than having an argument and trying to make the horse go forward.

To top off the week - I just found out that my book - Maximum Returns, Minimum Concerns - A Guide to Successful Property Investment is getting published, so I am very excited about that, it does mean that I will be busy after the release date (August 1), so my horses may have to take a backseat for that time. At least I know now - so I can plan for this.

Happy Horsing,

TJK

Making the right choice

We headed up to Grafton for the show. Saturday we headed up a little later in the day, spent the morning getting the home front organised. Arrived at Grafton around lunchtime, got the horses off, gave them a wash, and settled them in for the night.

Spent the night out at a friends place, nearby and got back to the club in time to get ready for the led classes. I pulled Coopers rugs off, and he was looking a little ordinary. Yesterday was pretty hot and when I took him out of the paddock to load him on the float he was very sweaty. That, coupled with the travelling and the overnight stay in the stable and he wasn't looking too flash. So, I decided not to do the led parts of the classes, which is primarily what I was there for. I'm all for 'having a go' which is what I was heading up to do, but I don't want to insult the horse (or the judge) by presenting him to a led class that he clearly is not ready for.

So I helped Phil out a bit, and put cooper back away for the day. Headed over and watched Phil do the led, in which George received the 2nd, and Reserve Champion - after much deliberation by the judge.

I went to ride Cooper, to take advantage of being on the grounds, with their flat grassy workout areas and open spaces - he doesn't get to work out in that environment very often! So I headed over to the flat, after doing a small amount of ground work, just to supple him up, and have a bit of a chat before I hop on. I got to the grassy areas, and didn't we have some fun to start with! He doesn't often get to workout in areas like that (if you haven't seen Hawthorne Park at Grafton, they have a HUGE grassy area which some houses back onto. The area would fit around 10 dressage arenas in I'd say, its that big. So he started out just looking around, wanting to look at all the distractions in the backyards - the people, dogs, cats, washing on line, kids toys - you name it, and it was there to see. So the first 10 minutes or so was spent just letting him walk around and have a look, and then proceeding up to the trot. He still was in a bit of an argumentative mood in the trot, not wanting to round up, but I just let him do what he wanted (with his head) and continued to ask him to put it where I wanted. When he relaxed and put his head down, I relaxed, when he put his head up, I just asked him to put it down again. We got to a good place in the trot, so I asked him to canter, and I did some awesome long lines in the canter, with circles at the ends.

I was really happy with his work today. It would have been easy to get frustrated with him, and It would have turned into an argument. I just have to be more patient than he is, and keep asking him to do what I want, and reward that. I have to put my emotions in check, and not take what he does personally - he is a 3 year old colt, with allll this stuff to look at, of course he wants to look, and thats ok. Its not what I want, but its ok, I just let him look for 5 minutes or so, then let him know it was time to get down to business. At the end of the day, we had a good workout - it was probably longer than I anticipated, but who cares?

So I headed back, and walked around to the arena in time to watch Phil do his trail class - nailed it! George was just cool as a cucumber, and they did the class without a fuss for a 1st place. I headed back to the float, and hosed Cooper down and popped him into a yard with grass so he could have a pick.

Then I went back to the arena to watch Phil for the afternoon. He had a cracker of a day, winning each class he entered from trail, to pleasure, to western horsemanship, to equitation and even the rookie reining. After last weekend ranch roping for 3 days on george, and literally roping him to 500kg beasts for him to hold, to then turning up at a western event and cleaning up, certainly shows the versatility of him, and he is what you would call the 'poster child' for our stud philosophy - versatile horses that you can do anything with.

At the end of the day, we were packing up and I saw someone over looking at Cooper, I headed over and found it to be the judge of the day. We got to chatting, and she asked me why I hadn't shown Cooper today - obviously he didn't look as bad as I thought!

Never mind, we learn something new everyday!

We arrived home in the dark, and the rain, rugged up the horses and let them into their paddocks. Found out that the team penning was cancelled for Monday, and so decided on a day off. I headed out this morning (Monday) to check on the Juniors who i had let into the big paddock. Sure enough they were where I expected them to be - next door eating their lush grass! So, I decided it would be a real day off for me, and besides feeding all the horses, I wouldn't work with any of them today.

Back on deck tomorrow though,

Hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend, and remembered the people who sacrificed, so we could enjoy the lifestyle that we do today. Lest we forget.

TJK

Out on the trail

Friday 23rd April

Headed out at a reasonable hour this morning to run a few errands around town. When we arrived home Phil gave buddy his penicillin shot for the morning and I headed down to get squizzy for our trail ride. Today the plan was to head right out on what we call our “short ride”, its about 6 ks around. So I headed down to the yards and fed the 2 juniors, I couldnt see Squiz anywhere so i started calling her. It took me about 5 or so minutes to get organised and once the 2 littlies were eating I set out to find her. After a bit of calling and searching I spotted her in the neighbours paddock. She was a fair distance away and was head down bum up eating. I grabbed the rope hackamore and was heading out to walk to her and ride her back, when I got within her earshot - as soon as she heard me calling, she threw up her head and started bolting towards me.

Its a great feeling to know that she responds to my call like that, she cantered to a bridge, walked over it, got focussed on me and ran straight towards me. She found the gap in the fence and galloped up the hill and stopped right at me. I was laughing my head off, she is just so sweet :). I put the hackamore on, led her up to the saddle & saddled her & walked out of the gate. By this time Phil was almost down the road, so we walked back up the hill together (i was still leading squizzy as it is on the road, and I dont think it is wise to ride a horse out for the 2nd time on a road). We got into the paddock - and it was just as interesting as yesterday for her. She was having a look at the other horses, but once I started the ground skills she focused on me and I was happy to hop on.

We headed out and she kept up with Al, who has a really nice forward walk. This time we just went straight down to the dam (the gate to the trail is next to the dam), went through the gate and hit the trail. The first thing she had to do after going through the gate, was to go through about 6 inches of water - and she just sniffed it, and followed Al through. This is why I wanted a confident horse on the trail with her, to show her there was nothing to worry about. We headed up the path, over the gate and she was great. Phil and I swapped a few times on the trail - Id go in front, then he would, to teach her that she couldnt just follow the entire ride. I clicked her up a bit and we trotted some parts, and I worked the start of her collection. She has a high head carriage, so It is a little difficult to get her to lower her head. When I halt and back up, she tends to lift her head, so I worked on some exercises to help her to lower her head. We went up hills. down hills. over gravel. over leaves, through water, through the bush, into open spaces, we led the trail, we followed the leader, we walked, we trotted. Oh, what a great 2nd ride out for this horse. I am planning on building the canter on the trail, as it is fairly natural for them to canter up a hill, but as this was her first time out, and she was a little worried about stump monsters, I just walked and trotted. I am super happy with the performance of this little filly, she has a temperament to die for! There is alot to be said for training a young horse out on a trail, it gives them a direction to go, and you can do heap of stuff with them, and expose them to things. It can seem a little boring - "a trail ride" but when you think of all the things that you can do - which is pretty much anything , and the things that they learn - for example, when Squizzy jumped over that stream yesterday, she did her first jump, and did her first canter strike off with me on her back. Pretty Cool huh?

After a bite to eat, I headed down to Rocky, and much the same as yesterday, I haltered him, saddled him & set to work on the ground skills. He looked pretty good, a little cranky in the face on the trot circles, but I disengaged him when he relaxed and we got through it. I mounted him and asked him to walk around. His progress under saddle has been alot quicker than his ground work, so I walked him around in the yards, turned him, disengaged his hindquarter. I asked him to walk out of the yard, and into the larger paddock, and he did that quite well. When I asked him to trot today, his head came up a little but he handled it, and trotted a fair line for me. So I stayed out there and trotted him in lines, came back to a halt, walk, back up to the trot. I did this for about 5 - 10 minutes and was happy with that. I left him there.

What a great day of training!!!

AWESOME Day! Love it when things just work!

Thursday 22nd April

After Phil made us a lovely breakfast, I headed down to get Squizzy for her first ride out. I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. It had all come down to this. All the training, the hours I had spent with her, they were all going to be tested today. Sure, I had made progress and we had reached milestones, She had become accustomed to the saddle, to being ridden, to being in an open area and being told which direction and which gait to go in, and this is not the easiest thing to do, while making it a good deal for the horse. But, today we had to go into unfamiliar territory - into a paddock that she had never been in, and that was about 12 acres, so she had a fair amount of space.

So I headed down, caught her, saddled her, and walked her up the road to the paddock we had to go through to get to the trail. Phil headed down on his old horse Al, as we were going to ride together, I wanted to have an old solid horse with her, to help with her attitude. We got in the paddock, and I started doing some groundwork with her to see where her head was at. She was looking around, but she seemed pretty keen to be there, and fairly excited about it. There were 4 other horses in he paddock to distract her aswell. Now Phil and I had planned to head out on a trail, but Phil asked me the time and it turned out to be 15 minutes before he had to leave home. So we decided to just hack around the paddock for a while - it is a huge 12 to 15 acres, with a dam, hills, gullys, trees, muddy patches and streams, so there was a fair amount of stuff to expose her to.

First we headed out down to the dam - she moves so nicely, just goes forward lovely. It is hard not to pull her back, because she feels like she is running away sometimes, and she is young, so it takes a bit not to panic and pull her up, but her forward walk is something alot of horse people take years to build to, so I don't want to ruin it. We got to a muddy / boggy patch and she sniffed it and went through, we got to the dam and turned to go through some more muddy areas, and got to a stream. First she wanted to just look at it, then she tried to go around it, and I just kept pointing her towards it and asking for her to go through, and she just popped over it, not a silly cat leap like alot of horses, but a nice little first jump. Then we headed back up towards the gate, down a hill and through a gully with another stream at the base, again she questioned my intent when I asked her to go over, but when I said, yep this is what I want, she popped over again. I then set out up a hill asked her to trot up it, and she was happy to do so, she stopped a couple of times, but I just asked her to keep going and she did. By this time we had been hacking around for about 20 mins, and it was time to go. What a first ride!!! I was beaming from ear to ear, she was nice and calm the whole time, she is an awesome little horse!

Headed back up to the house for a bite to eat, and then went onto Rocky. After my ride and after Rockys good performance yesterday, I was pretty excited to see what today would bring. I headed down there, and Rocky was the first one to come and say hello. I had already fed them this morning, so I just grabbed the gear, put the rope hackamore on him, saddled him, and started the ground skills. He was very responsive again today, so I just turned him a few times, did some circles, backed him up, yielded the hind and forequarters, and tested his tail. All was good so I decided to hop on. I was out in the bigger section of the dairy yards, and I just started doing some long lines of walk, turning at each end, and maintaining gait and direction. He was getting this pretty good, so I headed down to the yards, which is down a slight slope, then up over a log and up a slight slope, just hacking around. I started to try and build a trot, and he did quicken his pace a little but we didn't quite get the trot. This boy is a different kettle of fish to Squizzy - he really is a bit lazy and has to be asked to go forward often, and continually reminded to continue. So I decided to take him back out of the yards and into the bigger paddock, I asked him to trot out there, and he tried but didn't quite make it. I took him to the end of the paddock, and asked him to trot towards the back of the dairy, he picked up a trot and kept going. Yes! I rode the trot (rising) all the way to the yards, gave him a rub, and hopped off. He really tried for me, so I am happy to leave it there.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

More Breakthroughs - Rocky gets a ride

First up this morning was heading down to the Juniors, feeding them, Phil got Buddys injection done, and we headed back up to the house to head out for a trail ride.

Phil rode his stallion George, and I decided to give Cooper another run out. I saddled him, and took him up the front to do a few circles and see where he was at. He wasn't happy today. He didn't play up on the lunge like yesterday, he was just flat. He may have been a little sore from yesterday, but i decided to head out anyway. He has a show this weekend and he needs to have a bit of work beforehand.

Its funny, Phil and I were discussing Cooper, and how he has been sore in the feet, and Phil pointed out that he is the same age as Squizzy, and yet he has so many more expectations on him. Of course I know he is the same age, but it is interesting how we treat different horses, well, different. He was a large yearling, and, as such was started right at 2 years old, whereas Squizzy is fairly small, and as such I left her until she was 3 to even start her.

The plans now for Cooper. Our philosophy is to have horses that will last us for 20 years or more. This means, growing them out naturally, starting them when they are ready, and giving them rest periods. Not putting undue stress on them, and definitely not feeding them before their bones, tendons and muscles can handle it. Now Cooper has been grown out naturally, yes he has been hard fed - due to the size of his paddock, and because I ride him, but if you look at his photos he has always been of fair size, and at times could have been called ‘ribby’.

My plans for him at the moment are to show him this weekend, more than likely in just the led classes, but I may do a hunter class, and for the immediate show season I will only show him in led classes. As for weekly exercise I will only lunge him a couple of times a week to keep him fit. When breeding season arrives in July / August, he will be serving mares, but I am going to limit this to 10 outside mares, and a couple of my own (if I own any by then!).

So, we headed out on the trail, and Cooper was pretty tired. I asked him to trot out, and he did for about 5 minutes, and then slowed. I did ask him to keep on going - he needs to learn work ethic, and to push through that barrier (he is a bit like me, he wants to give up when he gets a bit tired!). We picked a trail today that had heaps of really steep down hill sections to it. This meant the horses had to really get their butts underneath them and work from the hind. Cooper kept wanting to creep sideways (this lets him not use his hind as much), but i asked him to straighten up and go straight down the hill. We were doing ok (not as good as Phil - he has done a heap of this sort of stuff, and his horse just goes where he is pointed!), and then we hit a really steep spot, Cooper just turned sideways and I was just looking down going, oh god, we are going to roll! But we didn't of course, however Cooper just wouldn't listen, he backed into the scrub, and parked himself conveniently over a skinny tree stump that had broken off and was quite sharp - so now im freaking out that if he does stumble, he could stake himself. I was in my dressage saddle aswell, and i wasn't feeling too secure! I decided to hop off and lead him down the rest of it. We did this no probs and I re-mounted at the bottom of the section.

The rest of the ride wasn't bad - Cooper kept giving me “pixie ears” which I was a little worried about - Ken Faulkner says “The last thing you saw before you got bucked off was probably pixie ears” and he is dead right. Cooper gave me super pixie ears before he smoked me when I was starting him. Thankfully he didn't buck today - i kept working his hind, and also asking him to flex properly in the front. I got him home and washed him, rugged him, and put him in his new paddock. He and George have swapped paddocks, so Buddy can be up near the house for his treatment.

After Phil headed to work and I had some lunch, I headed down to the juniors paddock. I had about and hour and a half and I wanted to ride both Squizzy and Rocky, but I was umming and ahhing about Squizzy. She is ahead of him in her education, and she is heading out for a trail ride tomorrow morning. She has also been a little naughty and has been left out in the paddock with Rosie, to get a bit of bossing around. So I get down to the yards, and I can see Squiz way over yonder, in next doors paddock. No wonder - It has lovely grass that gets slashed all the time, so I'm happy - a day off in a nice paddock will probably do her the world of good. I wanted to get Rocky ridden, as he had only had those couple of pony rides, and the one time I rode him and wasn't happy, and my goal is to have him done, and back grazing in the “bush” paddock by the end of April.

This is part of our philosophy, start them at 2 or 3 - whenever they are ready, put 10 or so rides on them, then put them ‘away’ for 3, 6 or 12 months. Give them time to mull it over, and grow, both mentally and physically.

I head out with my saddle, rope hackamore, stick, and get cracking. Rocky and Boogie headed straight for me, wanting to check out everything I’ve got. They are so funny, they just want to touch stuff, and smell it (and walk on it - thanks boogie!), and they jostle for my attention, like little children or puppies that unconditionally want your attention.

I haltered him, saddled him, and he was just so nice and calm. I thought, there has been another change, or maybe this is the continued change from the work yesterday, but he just seemed to be talking to me alot better - or maybe me to him - who knows, but we were on the same page today! I started doing a few groundskills with him, and it was really positive. We were just really working together today. I wasn't going to ride him at all but the stars were aligned so i led him into the yards. I did some more work with him, and even did driving which we only did the other day, and squeeze. He got a little “off” in the driving and I had to be a little direct with him and tell him to stop stuffing around, and he came good. I yielded him the front, the hind, put the rope around him and asked him to go away from me, and it was all so smooth and lovely. Even his backup today was light. So, I hopped on. It took a couple of goes to get him to walk out, I think my weight on him (he is quite small), he was like, your joking aren't you?! But once he got moving he was great, I did a few circles on him, halted him, backed him up and it was, slow, and he was hesitating a little, but the feel was good. He was really trying. So I asked him to walk out of the yards, and along the paddock, and up a little hill, which he all did absolutely lovely, so i got off him.

What an awesome day :)

change your plans when you need to

Woke up this morning pretty refreshed but still tired from the weekend. Went to get groceries and mucked about a bit, then headed down to the horses. I fed Cooper first and then headed down to the junior paddock. Buddy, the injured horse is locked into one of the sections of the yard, so the babies cant follow me all the way to the feed shed. They are all waiting at the gate for me. Squizzy has been fairly bossy with Rocky, I think I mentioned in an earlier post, but Phil had a bit of an issue yesterday. It has been raining a little so the ground is fairly slippery. Their paddock is the side of a hill that goes flat at the top, so it is fairly on an angle. Last night when Phil was setting up Buddy in the yard, and then went onto feeding the juniors Squizzy chased Rocky down an embankment, he slipped and while he was down she turned and double barreled him.

This morning wasn't much different. Squiz was hunting Rocky around the yard, and then she turned on Boogie. I went to the shed and grabbed my gear. I put the hackamore on squizzy. I have been referring to the rope hackamore that I am using to break her in, incorrectly as a macate - I thought that the term macate was for a hackamore / bosal type set up with the extra rein, this is incorrect - the term macate just describes the rein. So apologies for that. Anyway, I put the rope halter on her, saddled her, and headed down to the flat area to have a little fun. I asked Phil to come down on his old horse, because I enjoy his company but also to expose her to another horse, and if there was a cow in the paddock, Phil could help me teach Squizzy with it. So i was working her on the ground, and Phil came down. She was a little bit fresh on the lunge, but nothing serious. Her tail lifted nicely, she was yielding, so I hopped on.

I did what I have been doing, rode her up and down, trotted her, and she was going pretty well. She was fairly interested in the presence of Al & Phil but was behaving herself. As it happens there was a cow in the paddock so, I asked Phil to help me work it - just for a minute - with squizzy. We headed down there, and Phil walked behind the cow, so he moved. I asked Squizzy to keep her eye on it, Phil told me to make sure I stopped before I turned her, and I tried hard to do this, but I have been doing fairly large circles with her, so the turning on a dime wasn’t working that well! She kept her eye fairly on the cow though and we managed to track it back and forth a few times, with Phils help - he was moving it from behind. Then it continued on its way and we followed it. I pulled her off. I was really happy with this little exercise. It helps me judge where I am with her - a little bit of pressure to ‘turn now’ doesn't hurt because it tells me how well (or how poorly) I have educated her. Working something external, like a cow also helps her get her mind off me riding her, and onto something else. I was happy, so we then just rode up to the dam, and I hopped off to give her a drink. I am using this ritual as a reward for her - she loves going up to the dam, so I take her up there, hop off, give her a drink, and lead her down the hill (my weight throws her off a bit on the steep hill so I will wait until I have done a few less steep hills before I go down this one), then I get back on her and ride to where my stuff is. Today I went to my stuff, she stopped and posted a bit on the way, but when she does this I just ignore her and ask her to keep going, and picked it up while I was on her, and rode up a different hill in the paddock. I decided today to leave her in the big paddock (as posted before i have been using it to my advantage that she likes being in the big area - but it is possible that she would injure one of the babies, so she can stay in with Rosie to get pulled into line.

Phil had to leave at this point, so I went onto Rocky. I walked him up to the flat area of the paddock and did some backup. He did this quite well, so I wanted to try and get the groundskills done that I hadn't done the other day. I started with driving. I pointed my hand in the direction I wanted him to go, put my other hand on his back and asked him to go. He was happy enough to walk beside me, but ask for the trot - and all hell breaks loose! He goes in every conceivable direction, other than the one I want him to go! So after trying with just my hand for a while, I decide to grab my stick. At least with the stick I am able to reach his back without following him in the wrong direction. After a few goes, he gets it. He trots along beside me without a fuss. Go to the other side - All hell breaks loose! The same thing all over again, hes going sideways down the hill, backwards, forwards past me - the whole box and dice. I started over, as I did with the other side, just asking him to trot forward with me next to him. I must admit - it wasn't pretty all the time. He ran down the hill and I had to keep asking him to go forward with the stick, he did come through it and was trotting beside me, I don't think he was all that happy about it, but he did eventually relax. I decided to leave him there. Its hard to write all the minute details of what happened, but he went through another big change today. When I took the halter off him, he followed behind me.

So up to the house, and I had a bit of time up my sleeve before I had to work with Cooper, so i decided to watch Ken Faulkners - Primary Groundskills. I have seen the DVD a few times before, but I find, the same with any educational DVD, the more you watch, the more you learn.

After watching the first part of the DVD, it was time to work with Cooper. I needed to get some “Tuff Stuff” on his feet - recommended by the farrier, to help with his feet - they have gotten quite soft with the change in the weather. I also wanted to brush him, pick out his feet and work him, I wanted to start teaching him the Hunter in Hand pattern. So I set out into his paddock with everything I needed - brushes, tuff stuff etc. I got to the flat area up the top of his paddock - and he headed straight for me. I had fed him yesterday when I got home, then phil fed him in the afternoon, but I hadn’t actually spent time with him.

I haltered him, ground tied him, and took his rug off. I brushed him, picked out his feet and started working with him on the lunge. He was feeling a little fresh today, and normally when he is, I can use it to my advantage - he stays within my range on the lunge, but whenever i call him in, he does this huge stallion snort. Then when i send him again, he gets all fussed and kicks out. Today he decided to kick out towards me. He was only playing - if he wanted to kick me for real, he could with no problems, but it is still dangerous. I tried to do the hunter pattern - but it was not much use - he was playing and carrying on. Right, time to ride him on a nice trail ride!

I led him back to the house, saddled him up, walked back up to the flat and worked him a little, and walked him through the gates to the paddock that leads to the trail. I lunged him a bit and hopped on.

This was a bit of a moment for me, because when I started him, i put the first 2 rides on him with no trouble. On the 3rd ride he smoked me pretty bad, and If I learnt one thing - it was that this horse could buck! So to see him doing it on the lunge, and then to get on him and take him out, I was pretty happy with myself.

We headed out on the ride, and he was fairly full of himself. He wanted to go, so i let him canter up the first few hills, and after that - he was tired, but still wanting to go. So I just hacked him out and we both enjoyed the ride. I asked him to give me flexion a few times, but for most of the ride I just asked him to go forward, and come back in the gaits. It was raining by the end of the ride, which I thought was great - this will teach him to keep going even when the conditions are a bit crappy. When I got him home, he was really tired, but not over tired. If a horse is fresh, I like to hack them out and most of the time they enjoy it. If they are fresh all the time, and I make sure I’m not feeding them too much, then they may need a few long rides to give them a bit of respect. I brushed him out, cleaned up his feet and managed to clean and dry his hooves for the application of the hoof treatment.

I was happy with today, from Squizzy having a cow to work with, to Cooper hacking out with me.

Awesome!

Enjoy your horses.

TJK

Rest days, injuries and breakthroughs Monday 19th April 2010

So yesterday, Sunday 18th April, I was meant to come home from the roping clinic at Grafton, and work some horses. I was having a good time just chilling out, and learning a bit from watching, so I stayed a little longer. By the time Phil was finished - he was of the opinion he couldn't be bothered driving home (1.5 hours!), and wanted to stay. I was umming and aaahing about whether to head home without him, and decided to stay.

It was pretty cool sitting round a camp fire, with some long time horsey people, who have been involved in horses for over 30 years, and one of who makes saddles, the other makes bits, the teenage son of one, and Phil who has ridden since he was a child. They have all ended up in the same place - interested in the vaquero style of horsemanship, and ranch roping. Which is super interesting. I'm not that interested in roping, but the vaquero style of horsemanship is very intriguing, and makes alot of sense to me. Maybe one day Ill raise a horse that way.

So the conversation was pretty interesting, and I learn alot about, well, alot just listening. But as the night went on, I was antsy, and started kicking myself for not heading home. The horses were right - they all had grass and water, and I knew I'd be home pretty early on the Monday, but I was still annoyed at myself. By this time though, the beer had been flowing, and i was dog tired - so no driving home for me!

Once we woke on the Monday, I had a quick coffee with everyone, then we packed up and hit the road. Phil commented on how much brighter I was, and I must admit - despite sleeping in a swag in the float, I felt a hell of a lot better, and rested. I was so tired over the weekend, and today I felt good. So we hit the road. When I got home, i went straight down to the juniors paddock and fed them out some hay, fed Rosie and the baby, went up to the house, helped phil feed the old horses, and threw my stallion a bit of hay. The only horses I didn't check were the 3 in the bottom river flat paddock - I don't know why, I do it everyday, but not today.

We had a long breakfast, chilled out around home for a while, I read the paint horse journal that I just got in the mail, then got off my butt and went to work with the juniors. The idea was to get everyone worked today, to start the week off. I've got a show this weekend - rookie day on the Saturday, then the full show on the Sunday, which I will take Cooper too - he has hardly been worked because he was lame for that 12 days, but gosh darn it I'm goin to the show! I went to the juniors first, and they all came running up, so I started with Squizzy first. I wanted to work with her for led classes, so I started doing that, she leads well, but just gets this shocking look on her face when she trots. So I was trotting her, and whenever she relaxed, I stopped. This wasn't working - due to my level of fitness! I couldn't run for as long as it took her to relax, so I just started working the ground skills. I worked on refining her backup - she has been doing it reasonably well (and doing all of the skills well) for the past couple of weeks, but now I am starting to ask a bit more of her, like 1 cue, 1 step. She did this great, so i went onto circles. Perfect! I was happy with her circles today - no playing up, no bucking, only 1 sour face, then the rest all good. I asked her to do a couple of turnarounds on the lunge - no problem:) So I led her into the yards, and worked her yielding - both to a feel and a suggestion. Again I simply wanted to refine - make sure it was 1 cue, 1 step, make sure she wasn't drifting forward in the movement - all good, not perfect, but we are talking a short amount of training.

I went onto squeeze - the initial goal is to have the horse confident and happy enough to go between you and a solid object like a fence - and respectful enough that they won't creep into your personal space and bump you in the process. I had only done squeeze a couple of times with her, and was happy when I asked her to put her nose on the fence, then her hind, then opened the space and allowed her to go through - and she did it without complaint. I did this a few times - disengaging her hind after she had gone through, and sending her the other way. I was confident enough in her to ask for her to stop in the middle of the squeeze, and she was confident enough to do it.

I was going to leave it at that, and then i got inspired by an old fence post lying on the ground - i thought, ill just get her to go sideways over that, then Ill leave her for the day. Well, she did it lovely in one direction, and then I heard galloping behind me, and turned to see Rosie bolting up the hill with Beatrix close behind her. Phil was on his way down the road on his stallion. Now we had a distraction to work with, which is great, you can have all the awesome work in the world - but if it all goes out the window when the distractions come into play, then what do you have?

I continued to ask her to move sideways, and just ignored her focus on the stallion. Phil arrived at the yards, and I just asked her to shift over. She wasn't great at it - she drifted forward a couple of times, but I am happy to let this slide for today - she is young, and she did do what I asked - again, it wasn't perfect, but she is immature in her education.

Her finished I tied her up and went to grab Rocky. On the way I noticed that Boogie was limping a little (we have had rain the last couple of days and they are coming out of a really dry time, and now their feet are on wet ground), I Haltered Rocky, tied him up, and haltered Boogie. I tied her up and cleaned the mud of her rear foot. She had a crack where an abscess had busted out - I think i mentioned this in a previous blog. Now this with the wet weather had softened and allowed a bit of moisture in, making it a bit uncomfortable for her. I left her tied and went to work with Rock.

Well, first up I just wanted to rub him a little. He took the opportunity to walk right up to me, and stand right in my space. I asked him to back up, and he came further forward. I asked him again, without moving my own position, and this time after asking with just a wiggle of my finger and not getting a response, i put a loop down the rope which caught him on the nose. He backed up. I then asked again with my finger, and he backed up to the end of the rope. I let him rest out there, and he licked his lips like there was no tomorrow! Oooo are we having a breakthrough with Rocky? Maybe yes. I let him rest for a while out there, and then I asked him another couple of times. I actually got some backwards, that Ken would refer to as "happy feet" Yes! We are talking to each other today!

From here I went onto desensitisation - just rubbing him with the stick and string, flicking it over him, doing the helicopter over his head, and hitting the ground. He fussed a bit when I was hitting the ground, but I maintained my relaxed posture, and continued to hit the ground until he stayed still while i did it, and left it there.

I then went onto yielding, both to a feel and a suggestion. He moved away from my prompts quite nicely. I had to correct him a couple of times - which I am happy with, because there was no argument from him, just misunderstanding. I got some nice steps from him, both at the hindquarter and at the forequarter. Wow. By this time I am wrapped about the change in this horse today. He is really trying for me, and just putting it on the line.

Next we try circling, and the improvements just continue. He still is pulling his face today, but he doesn't stop and turn and argue as he has in the last few sessions. Even his face pulling is left to the couple of departures where I have to use my stick and string, and when I had to use the stick to keep him going. Today I was actually able to stand in one position, lean the stick on me, and ask him to go around me to maintain gait and direction. AND he does it! Today he actually takes responsibility, and does what he knows he is meant to do. And I am bursting :) I am so rapped in this little fellow today, I leave it right there.

I am just tying him up, when Phil gallops up "we have any wire cutters up here?" I say no, and he says Buddy (one of his horses) is stuck in the fence. Bugger. I've got 3 young horses tied up here, and I'm downhill from the house. I quickly untie them all, and sprint. I make it to the house in time to help Phil - he's getting the fence pliers, I get the car keys, and he goes. He has tied the stallion up to a tree, and he's in his ute, heading down to cut Buddy out of the fence. I'm not far behind him with bandages, a halter, bucket, white ointment, and whatever else I can lay my hands on in my 30 second hunt. When I get down there, he is out of the fence but it doesn't look good. His leg is pretty swollen, and we have been away, so we really don't know how many hours he has been caught up. He is eating, and able to put some weight on it. He was tangled right near the dam, and he doesn't go straight for water - hopefully this means he is not desperate for a drink and thus has not been caught for long - by the looks of it, it would appear probably overnight. Thankfully it was a cooler day, and he was caught under a tree.

I call the vet and organise for them to come straight away. I feel soo guilty. I planned to come home on Sunday, and this shows that I should have. These horses are in a 15 acre paddock full of grass and with a big dam, so I thought they would be right, and for the last 2 years when I have stayed somewhere overnight, they have been. Funny thing is though, that I may not have even noticed if I had come home on Sunday. When Phil found him, he was just standing still under the trees - Phil actually rode straight past him and said hello - then rode the stallion in the paddock for about 1/2 an hour, and only then thought something was up, as Buddy hadn't moved. So If I had driven past to check them, I may have just seen him standing under the tree - and not noticed until the next day, that he hadn't moved. These horses on the river flat are rarely fed so we don't call them up - we just drive past to check that they are happily grazing. They are all wormed and treated with Brute, when we need to, but they are our grass eaters, and are all fat as mud. There are so many variables here - even if I had someone checking him, maybe they would have checked him Sunday morning, and he got caught Sunday lunchtime - the same result would have happened.

The vet has tended to Buddy, and he seems to think he will be ok, he is bandaged up, and needs penicillin shots for the next few weeks, so we will see.

So, on the training front, a great day. Lessons learnt - take the time to rest, it makes you a better horse person. Organise for someone to check your horses if you are away longer than a day. Persist quietly and kindly when you are not getting on with a horse, you may just get a breakthrough.

Happy trails

TJK

When the rain comes

Saturday 17th April.

Well Phil headed up to the roping clinic at Grafton yesterday, so I was heading up to join him. I wanted to get all the horses fed of course, but I also wanted to work Cooper and Dicko before I left. And its raining. Yay!

So, I want to get something done, but the ground is pretty wet, and i don't want to take their rugs off and get them wet, and then put wet rugs back on etc (if anyone wants to sponsor me an indoor arena - i wont knock you back!). So I left their rugs on and decided to do 5 of the ground skills. Finding myself working basics again, by the end of it I realised how important and beneficial these skills are.

So I start with Cooper - he was already up at the top end of the paddock in the flat area, so I headed up there with stick and halter and lead in hand, he turned and saw me, and headed on over :) I love it when he is interested in what we are going to do for the day. I haltered him with his rug on, and started with desensitisation. He is pretty good in this area, but he doesn't like the string going over his head - like a helicopter. Obviously if i ever need to swing a rope or stock whip he needs to get over this, so I work on him a little each time. He is getting better and today he stood still while i was doing it - progress :)

He is happy for the stick and string to touch him all over, even if i am swinging it. I did find out that he is not real keen about me hitting it on the ground near him - he takes it as a direction to do something. So I worked on that for a while and when I got him to the point where he would stand still with me hitting the ground (still about half a meter from him), I left it and moved onto the next thing. Backup. He is pretty good at this so i can ask a bit more of him. I want it straight, and at the speed I ask, and when I ask for it. I also want him picking up and placing his feet down, not dragging them. We only did this a couple of times - he is pretty good. Next on was Yielding - to a feel (actually touching him), and to a suggestion (pointing to the area i want him to move). He is not bad at these skills, but he does tend to drift forward - both when I am moving the hind, and the front. So i worked on these a bit, and just asked him not to drift. At first he drifted, but after a few times he did It quite well so I left it alone - I asked him to yield his hind from both sides, and both to a feel and to a suggestion, and his front aswell - of course i break up which area i am asking him and how, so it doesn't all run together. I do each move (eg. move hind to a suggestion) finish it with a rub, and then either change sides, or change the area (hind to front for example).

Next up was driving. I alter the driving skill slightly, as I am also teaching him to do halter classes. So i stand next to him, and ask him to walk or trot beside me, then when I stop, I use the voice command “square up”. Initially when i was teaching him this, i would move his feet (by actually picking them up and placing them where i wanted them) while still saying square up, then once he was standing square i would rub him to show him that is what i wanted. He is progressing with this, and 3 or 4 times he has actually squared up himself. Sometimes i still have to help him, but he is getting there. Once he is square i let him stand for a while, and i move from side to side, as if I am in a halter class, so he gets used to this, and doesn't think that me moving is a reason for him to move.

So this done, the 5th skill i am doing is sideways. I decided to leave out circling and squeeze today - squeeze because i don't want to use a barb wire fence, and circling because it is too wet, and also because he still has his rug on.

Sideways went quite well today, he is great going away from me when I'm on the near side, he crosses his feet and stays quite balanced, but with me on the off side he isn’t as good. Now i do work both sides pretty evenly, but this may be a balance issue on his part, or it may be my body placement or even the way i ask him to go sideways from the off side. He does go sideways, and I have to be happy with that, but he is getting to the stage where I must continue to ask better of him (mostly on the ground) for him to be a great horse, and a great stallion. I don't like seeing stallions that cannot be handled, and I despise the people that make them that way.

I waited until i was pretty happy with sideways, and that was him for the day. I let him go and headed over the road to Dickos paddock - had to fix the gate on the way, pain in the butt, but i was glad that i actually did it. Its funny, when there is a man around all the time, i found my first reaction was “oh I need Phil” but Phil was in Grafton, so i pulled out my muscles and got it done myself :), note to self - don't be so damn lazy!

I decided to do the same 5 skills with Dicko. Got desensitisation done real quick - i can swing the stick and string at him, over his head, and hit the ground, and he just stands there - solid as a rock. Backup is pretty much the same, he goes backwards, and comes towards me. At this point, for some reason I chose driving, didn't do the yields - I was going to come back to that - not today! Dicko is ok to walk beside me, I wouldn’t say happy, but he does it - ask for a trot though - and it all goes out the window. He starts running sideways, pulling back - everything but trotting along next to me. So I just continued to ask him, and no deal. I went back to the walk, and made a really big fuss over him when he did it right. I went back to the walk as the trot wasn't working, and he was just getting more and more flustered, so i gave him something he was fairly comfortable with and made it really nice. When he was settled again, I asked him to trot, and this time the reaction was not so bad - i just kept running along next to him, and telling him that it was ok - and he settled into it. When he did a complete line with me, i left him there - took the halter off and walked away and leaned on the gate. He sort of stood for a minute, then ate some grass, and I though - great he is not even licking his lips, he doesn't even realise that I have rewarded him! But he turned around, and walked up and stood behind me.

Cool.

Time to feed them all, feed the chooks, feed the dogs, pack, shower and head to Grafton.

The rest of Friday

So after getting back from the vet, i sat around feeling sorry for myself for a bit again, and then decided to get off my butt and work boogie and rocky.

I headed down to the paddock, grabbed my halter and stick, and went to it. Boogie was hanging around near me, so i just started moving her hindquarters, at liberty, to see if she would do it. I haven't done any liberty with her before so i was curious to see how she would go, and the mood just took me. She shifted her quarters away, but then decided to head on out. So I chased her. Not aggressively, but just sort of said, you want to run? You can run but on my terms. She didn't go far - just into another squarish sort of pen, in the yard area - so I worked her a bit in there. All my aim was at this point was for her to face me, and hopefully walk up to me. So I kept the pressure on (clicking, tapping my stick / string on the ground etc) while she was faced away from me, then when she faced me i stopped everything, and took what i would call a submissive stance, to encourage her to come back. She faced up well enough, but didn't like it much! She is such a head strong little thing, puts a smile on my face, every time she turned to face me, she would nod her head and do what i had been doing with the stick, sort of like - you move back now! I didn't move back, but just asked her to shift her hind a bit, to encourage some movement, so hopefully she would come towards me. We did this a number of times, she would face up pretty quick, and come towards me a few steps, but then she would start nodding at me to try and get me to move. It is so funny to see, because she is so little but she gets this look on her face like “why wouldn't you move back?, I’m the boss around here am I not?"

So a few times later, and whenever she would take those few steps I would indicate to her that she had done the right thing, finally walked up to me (only about 10 mins - not that the time counts, it can take all day, but I just want you to know that she is coming up to me because she understands what I want - not because I’ve worked her into the ground and shes just too tired to argue anymore). I gave her a rub and left it at that. With the young horses, and even horses that I have just started working with I’m happy to give them alot of reward for a little bit of work. I like to build that work ethic and let them know that I’m here to give them a fair go, really early in the relationship.

So Boogie done, I head out for Rocky. He see’s all the gear, and just slowly walks away. I do exactly the same thing with him, just put the pressure on, and he pretty much turns straight away and waits for me to get to him. I put the halter on, and today, I want to try something else again. Rockys a bit of a challenge for me, he is just taking a while to bond with me, and accept that I’m the leader. It seems that he is like that in the paddock as well, because Squizzy is the boss horse and she seems to flog him every opportunity she gets, whereas she leaves Boogie completely alone. So, to try and see what works I am doing different things with him each day, with a bit of the old stuff mixed in. He is not great at backup, so I work that everyday, but he is great about coming towards me, and will trot up if I ask him to. So today I did driving with him, and there was a different story again. I stood beside him and asked him to walk up, and sure enough he was fine, but ask him to trot and he dragged along like a sack of potatoes. So I spent today building the trot. I did a few circles with him aswell, but these proved difficult as I didn’t tie the other young horses up and they insisted on helping!

So, I did some circles, backup and forwards, and I did some sideways for the first time, he actually wasn't too bad at it. Then spent the rest of the time driving him. It took a bit, but when he was happy to trot along beside me and stop, i gave him a nice big rub and left him alone.

Time to head to the school so no time to work Cooper and Dicko, but I will give the juniors the weekend off, and work with Cooper and Dicko on Sat and Sunday.

Using stuff to your advantage :)

An early and a little depressing start to the day today. Hopped up around 6am to get Phil packed and off to his roping clinic at Grafton this weekend. 3 days of ranch roping with experts in the field from the states - I’m jealous, but I would rope myself before i roped a cow so not for me!

A little depressing because I am taking my old dog to the vet today. 14 years old, and the time has come to find out when the right time is to let him go :(.

So, once Phil was on the road, i really didn't feel like doing anything, so I went and fed the juniors, Cooper and the old horses and jumped on the lounge to feel sorry for myself and watch crap TV. An hour and a bit later I was inspired to get off my butt and headed down to the junior paddock.

As usual the juniors always put a smile on my face, but i must admit today it is fading in and out. 1 minute I’m up and happy with them, the next I think about TJ and the tears arrive.

So, the goal today was to have another positive ride on squizzy. I put the macate (rope halter bridle) on her, saddled her and headed down to the flat part of the big paddock. I knew that my communication with her would be a little off because my head wasn't in the game.

So there were some of the neighbours cattle in our paddock, and I've noticed that squizzy really keeps her eye on cattle. I've seen her chase cattle in the paddock before, just off her own bat for no reason at all, and I've never even pointed her at a cow. When I looked up her breeding I found out that her grandfather is the great Bogan King (By Hills King Pistol) who was the winner of the NEQHA cutting maturity and through the AQHA was awarded ROMs for Halter, Pleasure, Cutting and Performance. He was also awarded a certificate of Ability through the NCHA.* This information from the book Australian Legends - our history of outstanding Quarter Horses - which is an awesome book by the way.

So, She definitely has cow in her blood and she really likes to keep an eye on them. The cows went back through the opening in the fence, and I started just moving her around a bit. Backup, draw towards me, and circles. Not alot of play in the circles today, she was pretty happy to just go around me at the gait that i chose. When i asked for canter, there was a bit of mucking about, but not like yesterday. I called her in, and did the test to see if she was ready to ride - she was smooth in all 4 feet moving independently, but the tail was a little bit stuck. I did some more hindquarter yields, and I felt she was ready to have me on her back.

I mounted, and stood for a minute, got my feet in the stirrups (yep kept the stirrups today - first time ever!), asked her to bend laterally so i could rub her eye on both sides, and asked her to move forward. Like yesterday, today she was really happy to go forward, but today she went straight off at the trot. My first instinct was to get her to slow down, but i suppressed that and let her go at the trot. I was just controlling her direction and aiming to get some long lines at the trot, with a half circle at each end. So like a really skinny oval shape. She got a little naughty and wanted to go her own way (she wanted to go through the gap and into the neighbours paddock) so i kept asking her to maintain the line. She argued with me a few times - she would stop, or pull her head down, and start to back up, she would go from the trot and just prop, but I just kept my cool and asked her to keep going at the gait and in the direction that I was asking.

As we were trotting in the line, we heard some cattle running behind us (in the neighbours paddock) so i turned her around so she could watch. The steers proceeded to stop and look at us, as we were looking at them. Squizzy really wanted to get to those cows! She kept going to walk towards them, and for the moment she forgot that she wanted to argue with me :) so I used it to my advantage. If the cattle took a step towards us, then I asked her to go towards them (which she was more than happy to do - she really wanted to go right for them, I don’t know much about working cattle, but now I do know what people mean when they say a horse has cow in them). So this was great, I was teaching her to stand still and wait for my instructions, even though she wanted to go for them, and from a safe distance I was giving her, her first taste of working cattle.

Finally the cows moved on, and squiz was a little more receptive to my aids. I just asked her to trot and walk a couple of lines, then I trotted her up the hill to the dam, another favourite place of hers. I hopped off her, and let her get in the dam for a drink, led her back down the hill and re-mounted. I walked to where my stuff was, and hopped off her.

Wow, another awesome day with the girl! She is such a star :) I had the other juniors tied up ready to be worked, but I now needed to get the old dog to the vet, so I fed them all and headed up to the house.

TJ is with us for a little longer - the vet has given us some high strength anti inflammatory for his arthritis - if there is a marked improvement then he has a few weeks, if not, we will have given him some relief in his final days.

Have fun with your horses :)

Nailed it!

You know those times when you just feel like you can do anything with your horse/s? Well

today is one of those days for me:)

Got up nice and early, fed them all, and went to a 9am meeting that Phil and I had organised. After the meeting we headed to Urunga to pick up some coffee, headed home, and then pottered (haha you know your getting old when you potter around) around until Phil headed to Coffs at around 11. I headed down to the juniors first, my intention was to ride squizzy out in the big paddock. I havent posted her history yet, but basically around 4 months ago I semi started her - I rode her bare back, both in the yards and in the big paddock (when i say big its probably a couple of acres but it has hills and flats and a dam and trees to work around). I had trotted her a couple of times as well, but all bareback and one rein in a halter.

So, today I arrived at the yards (for the 2nd time), said hello again, caught them all and tied them up. I like to keep the ones I'm not working tied up, firstly it builds their patience and their ability to be tied up for a while, and as a bonus it keeps them out of the way of the horse I'm working.

I saddled squiz, put the macate on grabbed my stick and headed down the hill into the trees. I was only going to do some circling and disengaging of the hind with her, and hop straight on, but she had other ideas! She seemed pretty excited to be in the big paddock, as they have been confined into a smaller area for ease of feeding and working them, and she turned it on! She was bucking, pigrooting, jumping up in the air, cantering around me, she was having a blast of a time. I thought to myself I may need to spend more time on the ground before I hop on this little one!

I kept her circling and mucking around, and each time she settled into the gait and relaxed, I asked her in, and gave her a rub. It took probably around 10 minutes of this, as she was pretty amped up, to the point where she was quivering with excitement. So I just kept asking her to circle, change gait, change direction, and when she settled into it, i called her in and let her rest. Once she had settled in the circling, I spent some time asking her to shift her hindquarters both to feel and to suggestion, and I kept testing to see if her tail was loose. When I started Rosie up at Ken Faulkner's he taught us to test the tail, if you cannot easily lift the horses tail - like they have it jammed down, dont hop on - they are worried or uncomfortable about something. I tested her tail a few times, and it was fairly jammed - I wasnt about to get on her when she was jammed up to start with. So I just hung about with her for a minute, standing beside her with my arm over her rump. I felt her take a fairly big breath, i gave her a rub, disengaged her hind one way - tested her tail, fine. Moved to the other side, yielded her hind, tested her tail, fine.

Time to hop on. I had only ridden her twice before with the saddle and never with the stirrups. Today i had them on, and hopped on up. I had the stirrups too short for some reason so I decided now i was on, to take them off. I am only using my little synthetic all purpose saddle so they just slipped off easy.

I headed her out on a walk and she went at a lovely brisk pace, and it dawned on me (again), she was absolutely loving being out in this paddock, and if i could use it to my advantage and keep her communicating with me, but happy going along - she was going to love this ride! So now my focus is to let her go at a nice forward pace, but without dropping her head and bucking like she was on the circles. I kept doing changes of direction, small circles, stopping and backing up, circles around trees, and nice long forward lines, to let her know that i was controlling the direction, but she could enjoy herself too. She popped up into a trot - I didnt ask for it, but i beleive that forward movement in these first few important rides is vital - so i dont mind if its her idea and shes happy to trot up for me. I just controlled her direction, we trotted up the hill to our dam, and she just was happy to be up there, I cant explain it but she felt like she was like a child - hey lets go here, hey look at this, so I just ran with it and really enjoyed the ride.

We went to head down the hill, and she found this a little difficult - my weight probably had a lot to do with it, but she also just wanted to run down the hill which i wouldnt allow. So i just asked her to go in one direction, then the other, and slowly meandered down the hill, instead of in a steep straight line. I continued in around the trees, I asked her to trot and we did a forward moving straight line. Cool. I was really happy with her. I know that she liked the dam, so I pointed her in that direction, and we trotted up to the dam. I stopped at the top, hopped off, gave her a big rub, and let her step into the dam and have a drink. I then led her back down the hill, collected my stuff and led her up to the yards so i could work with the next one.

I tied squizzy up, re-caught and re- tied Boogie as my crappy knot had come undone and she was walking around with a halter and lead dragging, and took the saddle off squizzy and put it on rocky. I let him stand for 5 mins with the saddle on, and i heard a commotion behind me. Squizzy had put her head down, and when she brought it back up again the lead rope had gone over her neck, so was pushing down on her, she was panicking a bit - so i called out 'woo squiz' to her as i was getting to her, she heard my voice and stopped trying to pull, and stood there while i undid the lead, which was tied in a quick release but as this was an old thick rope, was stuck, so she stood there while i undid the halter, and asked her to put her head down to release the pressure. Cool. Again she demonstrated how level headed she can be.

So, I head over to rocky, and start by asking him to back away from me. This little horse is smart, but for some reason at the moment he just wants to (or cant help) being stuck in his feet, and I always have to increase my ask a fair bit before he will do what im asking. This was pretty much the program for today - whenever I asked him to circle, he wouldnt do it just off my question, he had to wait until i made contact in some way. Not hard contact, but enough for me to be establishing over and over that I can and will get stronger in my question if I have to. He doesnt like it much either, he puts his ears back and lets me know he is none to happy with me 'making' him do what I ask, so i wait until he relaxes in the gait, and call him in. This goes on for some time, and watching him I can see how "upside down" his neck is, and how high he carries his head, this makes his back hollow out, and he is going, but he is just not going nicely. I try asking him to circle over a log - which does work a little as he has to lower his head to look at the log - but not as much as i want.

I concentrate on disengaging his hind a fair bit, so he can start to use it more, and then I decide that pre requisite to a circle is going to be good for him. This is where I have the lead rope only about a foot long, and i ask him to circle around me at the trot, because of the circle being so tight, this encourages his inside hind hoof to fall where his outside front hoof has just left, getting lateral movement and basically a 3 track trot - like shoulder in in dressage terms.

So he was none to happy about this, especially to the right, as it makes him use his hind, and he cant be lazy, but i just encouraged him by disengaging him and asking him to stop whenever he did it correctly. He soon picked this up and was pretty happy to get it right sooner, so he could stop.

Once I had done this i was pretty happy with him, because he started out not liking me very much, and ended up trying pretty hard to do the tasks at hand. I took him back to the fence and tied him up, him licking his lips for about 5 minutes after that!

So, 2 out of 3 isnt bad so I try my hand with boogie. I dont want to ask too much of her, as she is still quite immature and also I like them to be real soft, so when they are this young, basically if they get something right I leave them alone. So i asked her to back up, which she knows, shift the hind, yep good there, and I set about asking for sideways.

I move my stick in a circular motion beside her, and she moves 1 foot. I let her rest, so she knows that she has done good. She is sooo smart this little girl, and its like she realises even at this young age, that if she tries to do what i ask, and figures it out, I will leave her alone. So within about 2 minutes and me only having to actually make contact with her with the stick twice she is moving sideways for me. Its not perfect, but for her first time, Im happy. I head to the other side and boom! She completely knows what to do and heads sideaways! She amazes me sometimes when she puts stuff together so quickly. So I ask her to go both ways one more time to check its not a fluke - and fine, she does it, so thats her for the day.

Happy as a pig in proverbial, I get their feeds prepared, brush them down, and head up home.

Sometimes things just fall into place!

:) happy riding.