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.
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