Fell off a horse today

I had a pretty productive day today. I took Dylan out and lunged him near the gate. He pretty much ignored the gate, which pleased me. We wound up continuing to work on staying out on the circle. He thinks that trotting is done on a big circle and that walking should be done on a smaller circle, so he likes to come into the center a little bit when he's walking. Fixing that but then bringing him to a walk was annoying, but it went pretty well I think. Robert wants to have us put a bit in his mouth and lunge him with it. 

The trailer was still hooked up from the show last weekend. (Luca got 5 firsts, some seconds and a fifth I think, anyway he's got enough points for his supreme in halter, but he's going to keep doing halter classes to try to get high point champion in halter again. He's a few points away from his registry of honor in driving, next stop supreme!) I decided to do some more trailer loading with star. I took the machete and cut a bunch of grass. She came right in the trailer and I decided it was time for her to learn to stand tied in the trailer. I let her eat more grass for a while. I ran the lunge line through the loop in the far end of the trailer. After a while I brought her head up so that it was at the same level as the hay bag still hung in the trailer from the show. She sniffed the hay, looked around suspiciously. I left the trailer slowly and I just stood there. I dont know how long I stood there. I got back into the trailer, planning to let her out. Robert came up behind us just at that moment, of course. She did her usual terrified of robert thing. Then Lil drove her car past us. That was apparently pretty scary too. Still, she didn't pull on the lead rope at all. When she had calmed down more I asked her to come out of the trailer. She didn't want to, which is odd, but I kept asking and she backed out of it well. 

Cari arrived and so I decided that was plenty of witnesses to get lady out. Lady was just barely off, so I decided I'd ride her. I also decided not to lunge her. I think my laziness:fear ratio is a little off. Lady was very very spooky in the arena. She tossed her head sometimes, jigged, and ran sideways a little. Mostly she spooked at the world. In her defense it was pretty windy. Also Robert drove his truck with the trailer on it by the arena. He was on his way to clean out the trailer in the field. Lady apparently disapproves of trailers in her line of sight. Also she doesn't like them driving past the arena. She also spooked at some stuff at the far end of the arena. She spooked at a tree, I think. I have a hard time telling sometimes what that mare is concerned about. She did one little tiny rear, when I asked her to go forward and she didn't want to because of the tree; or something. we walked around the arena for a while, spooking, jigging, head tossing continued. She didn't seem to be angry per se, just nervous. Eventually she was calm for a while and I got off her. She was sweating a lot harder than she should have been. Not sure what was up with that. Maybe a nervous thing?

 She really wanted to trot. Cari says that I should just trot her in 20 m circles until she's calm enough to walk. I have mixed feelings about this idea. She clearly would like to trot. I think it might even be true that trotting in circles would calm her down. On the other hand, she's not totally sound at the trot. Also, I'm not sure what I think about the attitude of trotting so that she'll walk better. I think she should walk well and be rewarded with some trotting. Plus an inability to walk calmly doesn't bode well for the trot, in my opinion. I think she needs to spend more time in that arena, so if she got lunged while I was away job hunting, that would be super. Even better if she got ridden but its not necessary.

I got Papillon out and Cari worked her over with her hands, showing me some pressure points and she confirmed that her right shoulder is hurting her some. She was talking about massage too, and she really reminded me of the importance of currying. I had just been doing it to get the dust out. I know its good for circulation to the skin and that was another motivator. I hadn't really thought about how it feels on the muscles. So I curried pretty hard and watched Papillon. She seemed to approve. 

Cari also told me about what she likes to do when a horse is being disobedient and trotting when they shouldn't.  She likes to have them sidepass or circle or shoulder in or some form of working harder. Every time they trot, have them sidepass then offer them the chance to walk straight, they either do, or they sidepass some more. I tried this with Papillon. In so far as she was willing to listen to my leg, it worked pretty well. Sometimes my leg didn't mean all that much to her. Next time I'm bringing a crop.

The last horse I worked was Keno. I've been meaning to hack him and work on his jigging too. I brought a crop and put the western saddle on him. I walked him around the outdoor arena a little. Trotted a little. After I asked him to trot coming down to the walk didn't go as well as I wanted. He pranced some but settled down when I really insisted. The walk started out nicely enough out on the trail. Then he started prancing and I shoved him to one side, then the other side, then he was willing to walk. Repeated this a couple times on our way down the long side. I decided to cut down the middle of the field so that I could go back to the mowed part to work him harder now that he was warmed up. About a quarter of the way down the field he started prancing, and I tried to shove him to the side. He refused, I cropped him, he reared up. I jerked his rein to the side and I leaned forward and to the side. The side leaning was sortof instinctive and I'm not totally displeased with the instinct actually. Anyway, he went past 45 degrees which is my personal threshold for serious rearing. In the middle of all this I sortof zoned out thinking about other rearing situations. I was thinking about that video on youtube and I was thinking about the Walter Farley books. I slipped off the side. I dont know if I would have regardless of whether or not I was paying attention. Anyway, it was perfect falling off a horse weather. It was raining yesterday but not today so the ground was soft but not muddy. I did a nice tuck and roll sortof landing, jumped up and grabbed keno's reins then cropped him on the chest as he was reaching for grass. I tightened up his cinch and I grabbed mane and the pommel part of the saddle right next to the horn and jumped back on. 

He was a little more docile after that, or at least for a while. He jigged again, I sidepassed him, he refused, I cropped him and he reared again. This time not as high, also, this time I was pretty sure thats what he would do so I was pretty far forward pretty fast. That made it more work to rear than he was interested in, I think. I took him over to the mowed spot furthest away from the arena/barn/home. We did some trotting, some transitions from trot to walk and I discovered that he really really likes to rush towards home. The transitions helped with that. We picked up a trot circle, about 20 m I think. Thats what I was shooting for anyway. After several minutes of trotting we picked up the canter. On the first half of the circle he was pretty good. As soon as he was pointed towards home he ran and he bucked. I spun him and I kicked him when he wasn't spinning hard enough for my satisfaction. I took a breath, he took a breath, then we went right back up into the canter. He was pretty good after that, a little fast towards the arena but slowed right back down on the other side of the circle. Then I pointed him down the long side of the field towards the back creek. I only ran about a third of the way down because I was loosing my stirrup and tired and didn't feel like falling off twice in one day if he decided to do anything stupid. I dont know why I couldn't pick it back up from a canter. Stupid western stirrups, thats my excuse. 

We walked after that. He was pretty happy to walk most of the way. We still did some sidepassing exercises but he was a little more docile for them, even when I cropped him for not moving. He needs to be worked more out there. He was so happy to be running, his cute little ears were perked forward, very nice. When I'm out again, I want to start working on doing one whole loop around the field at a canter. I think Keno would be a good horse for that project. Right now its a little muddy on the far side for that. Also, I want to do it in the dressage saddle, I feel really stiff in the western saddle. 

I fed and it came up that I didn't think Colonel was safe. He wasn't super thrilled to hear this. I think if he can get Colonel leading well I will re-consider, but it doesn't count if he's tired. He needs to lead well even when he's full of pep. He just doesn't display any regard for my personal space or even my location. I think he sometimes runs into me on purpose and nothing I've done has dissuaded him from doing it again. For me thats sufficient, he should know better. He doesn't act like it. I'm sticking to my guns here: he's a time bomb, and I'm not getting near him. 

 

Doing surprisingly little, yet keeping somewhat busy

Its been a sortof slow time around the barn. We've completely abandoned the project of rehabilitating Colonel, which I should talk about some other time. I rode Lady around to see if she was opposed to being ridden even though she had a slight limp at the trot. She seemed fine with it, but she wanted to kill seabreeze. I'm not going to ride her again I think, until I can trot her around to take the edge off her. She likes to flip her head a lot. Ian (previous rider) had been using a running martingale do deal with this. God (and everyone who's read some of my previous posts) knows that I don't have any problem with running martingales. However, the fact that Ian used it is probably by itself a deterrent to me. Plus, Ian used it and she's still doing it. She did it with him in it too, but then she stopped. Still, every day she flipped her head at him, sometimes she'd flip it more. Papillon flips her head when she wishes I would let her trot. I think that with consistent work Lady would stop, the same way Papillon does (I swear, Alyssa, with consistent work she stops doing that sort of thing, mostly.)

I rode Papillon for 3.2 miles yesterday at a walk. Not that this caused her to be any quieter when we came back. I cantered her around in the outdoor arena. This wasn't the smartest thing I ever did but I figured she would realize that she wasn't interested in working as hard as she thought she was. What actually happened was that she slipped in the mud, scared herself, and was quite content to walk after that. Walk fast, but a walk. That wasn't really the teaching moment I was hoping for. This possibility occurred to me, of course, and so I'm declaring this a net-gain-ergo-no-foul sort of situation. Papillon was basically sound today, although she got a bute yesterday so its not quite as surprising or encouraging. Still, its at least a little surprising and a little encouraging. 

I havent done anything with Star. I thought about lunging her over a cavaletti, mostly for entertainment. Turns out all of our cavaletti's are broken. Great. For actual under saddle jumping it doesn't matter, we have jumps we can set pretty low, but for lunging it sucks. You can do the thing where you use another pole to guide the rope up over the jump. That doesn't really work in this situation, for a variety of reasons. I'll have to nag Robert.

Also, I passed the torch on to Alyssa. Rather, I passed Dylan. Alyssa adopts these guys so fast, its really heartwarming. Dylan is cute, but I like my mares. She taught him to crosstie today. I can just see them riding around together. I suspect he'll be riding before he's driving. I think that its easier to train a driving horse once they've been ridden, and we can help more with that than we can with the cart stuff. Robert has basically finished the house now, so he'll have oodles of time, right? If I had a dollar for every time he used the phrase "as soon as I get this house finished..." let me just say we wouldn't be riding the bus to the barn. 

There are two new arrivals at the barn, an appaloosa (Spot) and a belgian/paint/arabian cross (Bella, looks like a shrunken down belgian) have arrived. We've got permission to ride them. Their owners are, um, less experience horse people. I think it would be fun to try out Bella. We've got the owners blessing, but we have to build a bridle for her. Shouldn't be too hard. Spot is too skinny to be ridden right now IMO, this doesn't stop them but Alyssa witnessed this and I didn't so she can say more.

I will be coming to the barn on Monday to do stuff, but starting Tuesday its all job search all the time. Plus a little housework and I'm taking over the kittens from Alyssa. Mostly job search. Once I've got a job I'll start coming back to the barn. With a different schedule, obviously. Eventually though, maybe I'll have a car, which means our schedule will look very different. 

I should be sleeping...

Friday was as I expected-- worked Reno and Luca (rode Reno, he was eh, decent, doesn't respect a snaffle as much as the curb), bathed them, cleaned the cart, cleaned harness.

Gillian declared Dylan to be lunging competent and gave him to me for a test run. He did pretty well-- he understands what I want him to do, it's just a matter of how much he wants to do it. And as Gillian said, when he whoas and stands, you can tell that every fiber of his being but one wants to come into the circle and be loved on. That other fiber says "remember what happened the last time you tried to do that? Bad things happened. Bad. Stay away from the scary lady with the whip."

That was Friday. Saturday I got up at 7 to get to the barn by 9:15 (leave house at 7:30, get on bus 7:50, get on next bus 8:30, arrive at 9:15) to clean stalls, since Robert had left to go to the show at an ungodly hour. 7 is pretty ungodly for a college student during the summer, but 4:30 is the time where you just stay awake all night for it. Got up, cleaned stalls with Gillian's help, managed to not run myself over with the tractor.

I took Dylan out twice today and was very pleased. The first we lunged, and he did very well. We've been lunging him in the very back of the arena because he wanted to stop and pull towards the gate at that point every circle, and it got stronger and stronger the closer you were to the gate. That's obviously something he needs to get over. So today, as we were walking and trotting around, I would move us a little towards the gate. We were solidly in the middle of the arena today, with no stopping due to gate (he did fall a little in love with Jade, the chestnut Arabian). His trot is still very forward but he's kept it to a trot thus far. He slipped once but that was because he was in a muddy spot, and he didn't get at all upset.

Because I'm dumb and feel like pushing my luck (also he's dirty and half white) I decided I wanted to brush him. The first step to that is learning if he crossties, because that's the only good way we have to secure them. So I attached one crosstie to his halter and ran the lunge line through the loop of the other clipped up crosstie. He tested it, pushed, felt pressure and gave to it. Yay! I stepped back about ten or fifteen feet. He was a little more restless, and kept looking around. He stood still for maybe half a minute, so I went up and scratched him. Oh!, he said. This is the game. I don't move and you pet me. I went back away from him. He stood still and looked directly at me the entire time. We played this game for a few minutes. He's very very focused on people, and aware but not spooky. Once he gets a concept, he gets it. It's a little weird to be so clearly the center of this horse's world.

I decided this was a good place to stop for now and put him back in his stall. He still needs work on haltering and unhaltering, but he's getting better. I pulled him out a couple hours later to actually brush him. I put him in the wash stall, which he was highly suspicious of, but walked in without a problem and turned around and stood without more than a few snorts. Again, crosstied one side and just ran his lead rope through a ring so I could release pressure if he started getting worried. Xsarena, a Trakehner mare, was being groomed next to him, which helped, but that horse did not move a single foot for about fifteen or twenty minutes while I curried and brushed. It was fabulous. I put the other crosstie on and he didn't even notice. He did get a little worried when she left, and started getting antsy, so as soon as he stood still for several seconds I called it good and put him back. I am really liking this horse.

I think I like getting them at 5 years old and barely halterbroke-- he's sensible, smart, and has an attention span. I'm pretty sure that Gillian and I could do most of the basic work on this boy by ourselves. I wouldn't, but I think we could get him broke to w/t/c under saddle fairly easily, and I think we could get him pulling things and tolerating carts on his back. I've seen most of Robert's process and with such a nice horse like this I think I could probably do it. Again, I won't, or at the very least I would do it with Robert's supervision. I have knowledge of the process, but I don't have the techniques I would need if anything even slightly out of the ordinary did arise. It'd be worth it to see the look on Robert's face though if he showed up one day and we were driving him around the field.

Rode Keno, he was alright but a bit of a pain. I used my close contact saddle and man, it uses different muscling than the dressage saddle does! I need to ride in it more.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time talking to Cari, a trainer at the barn. She's an ex-eventer and now does dressage and lessons. She's very nice and absolutely full of information.

Ooh, we got two new horses on Friday-- an Appaloosa and a Belgian/Arab. We called them Spotty and Drafty. Their real names are Spot (we were close!) and Bella. Bella is fat, and Spot is at least 100, probably 150-200 lbs underweight. Bella may go into driving training, and Spot is here for some badly needed weight gain. They're both broke to ride and we have permission to ride them. Bella doesn't have a bridle, though, and there's no way in hell we'd ride Spot right now. The girl was riding him(?) though. Without a helmet, and I'm pretty sure she's under 18 (insurance). She's pretty big, and Spot is not, especially in this condition. She asked him for a trot and almost fell off, she's got a little of the chair seat. I decided I could not find a tactful way to tell them they were hurting the horse, and as a representative of Stoneybrook I sort of had to be tactful if I was going to say anything at all.

Incidentally, I tend to pick a horse and label it MINE for a period of time. In this period, I gush about whatever he may have done right this day no matter how unimportant. This horse now appears to be Dylan.

The kittens have learned to climb legs. Lovely. Three small things on your jeans, not so bad. Gabe decided that he'd try this too. OW. One adult male cat (with extra toes no less) clinging to your legs with only breeches between? Not so cute.

Papillon's rules for horse and rider

So I rode all three of my mares today. Lady was a little sore, but not much, so I wanted to see if she would be upset about being ridden. She was OK, she wasn't really very happy about seabreeze but all she did was a little unauthorized trotting, a little head shaking, and some trotting sideways. Pretty standard for her actually. 

Star was ok at the walk, and we trotted, and she was an absolute nutjob. I thought she was going to fall over sometimes the way she leaned into the circle. (well, "circle")  Sometimes she also threw her shoulder out and trotted along sideways like an angry crab. I, like an idiot, spent way too much time staring at her instead of looking where I was goint. There's just something fascinating about watching her be nutty. I have got to break that habit. Also, I have got to put my thighs on the saddle better when we're trotting, even when we're trotting like a crazed motorcycle-crab hybrid. 

Dylan was more of the same, Robert says its time to switch back to insisting that he walk when he's told and then trot only when he's told. I've done this part with kitty rose and annabelle last summer. Its annoying, it makes your arms and your wrists hurt, but it doesn't take more than a day or two before they get the picture. Hopefully Dylan will be about the same.

I took Papillon out, even though she was limping at the trot a little. Sortof a theme for the day I guess. Robert says she's probably arthritic so we need to start giving her some bute and as long as she's willing to go, we should work her. He said lots of walking. Well, we walked 1.6 miles, a.k.a. two times around the field. Then we went back and worked in the arena. Rather than trying to recount the whole event, I found that Papillon has some rules that she follows fairly strictly

Horse Rules:

1. Dont stop when you can walk
2. Dont walk when you can trot
3. Dont trot if you can canter
4. When your rider says "walk" they mean "trot"
5. When your rider says "trot" they mean "canter"
6. If you want to get away with a little trotting, be super collected and maybe she wont notice
7. When asked to trot, always trot as fast, and as extended as you can, then she wont notice when you're cantering (yeah, right)
8. If the ground is squishy, walk, but make sure you do a little bit of prancing, to let your rider know you expect to be trotting ASAP
9. If there is an especially squishy spot, be sure to trot away from that spot as soon as your back legs have cleared it
10. Once you've started cantering DO NOT under any circumstances, stop
11. Sometimes when you start trotting your rider will sit really deep in her saddle and get really heavy and make it hard to trot, if you walk she will get light in her seat again. Take this opportunity to trot.
12. In the arena, its ok to walk when you're told, but your trot still needs to be huge
13. When traveling on the long side of the arena towards the gate, speed up
14. When traveling on the short side towards the gate, speed up and flip your head and try to sidepass towards the gate so you can escape and go back to the field
15. When traveling on the long side away from the gate, you may as well speed up, since its the long side and thats pretty fun
16. On the short side away from the gate, relax, you've earned it
17. Posting the trot is a tacit invitation to canter
18. Sitting the trot means that she wants you to canter now
19. If you're outside and she wants you to trot, if you're not cantering, make sure to throw your shoulder out hard, run sideways, if she tries to turn you or straighten you out, just stop moving. That'll show her. 
20. Even though she's annoying, and she is constantly telling you to break the above rules, dont throw your rider, she is your friend. Without her they put you back in your stall, which is dull. 

My plan is to take a crop next time and try to replace most of the above rules with: Do what the lady says!

Learning and re-learning

Lady was lame today, and definitely has thrush. I treated her feet and put her away. I didn't even check Papillon. Presumably she is sound but I didn't feel like fighting with her over the gait we were going to maintain so I dumped more iodine and formaldehyde mix on her hooves and put her back too. I dont know how fast Lady is likely to recover. I meant to ask Robert to keep her in but maybe he'll do that anyway, since I told him she had thrush. 

I took Dylan out, and he's really learning fast. He's leading fairly well but he wants to get his shoulder behind me. Thats pretty easy to fix, I just have to get around to leading him about with a driving whip in my right hand held out behind us. For the lunging he is slowly learning about voice commands. Mostly what he is learning, and this is the important part, is that he's learning how much control he has over the situation. He absolutely gets to decide how much I harass him. I dont think he had figured that out before. Its sortof hard thing to teach early on because he has to do something right before I can demonstrate that doing the right thing means I leave him alone. So he definitely gets that he should be moving around on a circle. He seems to have figured out that the combination of me pointing and saying "out" means he will either move out or I will come at him in an unpleasant and mildly scary manner. The thing he doesn't get is speed control. 

Today I took him out and within a minute he decided he wanted to trot. I like a horse to warm up before we do any trot work, so I asked him to stop. Midway through asking (he was ignoring me, presumably because he had no idea what I meant) I thought to myself, "If we get this out of the way once, we wont have to do it again, and he probably wont need to run very long before he gets the point." So I let him run, I pushed him out of my space when he got in. I was pretty anal about that. When you're running a horse out like this the last thing you want is any stepping on the lunge line or stepping over the lunge line. (I dont claim to know much but I do claim that this is true.) Anyway he ran for a while, he looked like he was going to transition down to walk so I told him "trot on" and he did. This happened about three times. I probably should have waited longer before asking him to walk, but I do worry about lunging a horse too long, especially since I cant safely let him out on a very large circle (I got to about 12 m diameter max.)

 So I asked him to walk and it took him about half a circle but he did walk. He wanted to stop but when I asked him to keep going (raising the whip, making the 'invisible wall') he walked on nicely enough. After a while I thought maybe I'd ask him to trot. Upward transitions, especially walk to trot, you have a very short time between command, enforcement and the correct action, I dont know if thats more helpful for learning or not but it seems like maybe it aught to be. I meant to get him out again because I wound up only working him in one direction. I like to end on a good note, and I find that its helpful to seize a good note ASAP before things go south again. 

I got star out and there were two other mares in the arena. Niki being long lined, and seabreeze being seabreeze. Seabreeze is an Appaloosa with a stubby tail. On the one hand she can be kindof naughty and spooky sometimes. On the other hand, her owner (bless her heart and hope she's not going to read this) pounds on her back like a sack of potatoes, and seabreeze doesn't seem to mind. Anyway, Star wanted to pick a fight. She also wasn't super thrilled to see Robert in the arena. She's a little afraid of Robert, sometimes has to be restrained so that she doesnt back into him. So it was wild times in the arena. She wasn't what I'd describe as calm, she did one reasonably impressive rear. I doubt her hooves came more than a foot off the ground, but she followed it up with a little bit of a buck, and she rounded nicely so I think it looked more impressive than it was. She wasn't all that bad though either. At least 80% of the time she behaved like a normal-ish horse. Anyway, I decided rather than try to trot with her, which was my original plan, I decided to take her out on the trail. I was just going to do my usual quarter of the field trail, up about midway, turn, follow the main trail back. I changed my mind and wound up doing the main, 0.8 mile trail. 

One thing I really like about star is that even though she's been off for at least 8 months, everything I taught her before does come back to her within a few days. One thing she remembered today is that I'm going to pick a spot on the horizon, and her job is to get there. Right now I'm not too fussy about the details, if she needs to shy around that blue barrel out there, fine, if she needs to stop and look around, no problem. It was a little annoying that she didn't want to step in the cart tracks, but she eventually made peace with their existence. Soon, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next time after that, I'm going to get a little more strict about how closely we follow my idea's about how we should proceed. For example, today I let her leave the path rather than walk between the two puddles on either side. I also let her leave the path when it got squishy and a little water logged. Very shortly thats not going to happen anymore. 

Eventually she needs to be able to toe the line when we're outside. The problem is that she gets adjusted to the scenery pretty quickly, so it will be difficult to tell whether she's actually learning to do what I say in general, or whether she's just learning that this one particular place doesnt merit any serious anxiety. She does seem to want to do what I'm asking her, which I appreciate. I think next time we'll be able to to the same trail with a lot less stopping. Also, I think we're doing it with a crop next time.

Compliance

So I processed four horses today. Normally I say I worked four but that's not really how it went. I tacked up Lady. Alyssa was there and observed that she only dances and weaves when I step away from her, as she put it, she's respectfully girthy. That seems to be exactly it, so I give her a minute to do that and then up another hole. I'd like to get it to the point where I feel comfortable going up two holes at a time more often. I did it a little today but I really dont want to push this girl, she used to be girthed up really hard/fast by her trainer's assistant. Robert say's she's flipped over backwards in the cross ties from being girthed up too fast. I took her out to lunge, she wasn't as sluggish as before but still lame, her right fore looked like the one she was having trouble with, but it was her right fore that she wouldn't pick up, and when she did she leaned on me. That seems to indicate that the left fore is the trouble. More hoof dressing, untack, put her back. Robert wants to start her on iodine and formaldehyde for those hooves, see if she has a case of what I like to call "invisible thrush." Sometimes Reno starts limping and we declare (By 'we' I mean Robert) that its either thrush or a stone bruise, we keep him in his stall and we squirt some iodine and formaldehyde on his hooves until he stops limping a few days later.

Papillon, shockingly enough, was sound. So I went to go clean out her hooves, which were packed with mud like cement. I'm not sure if I just assumed there was a frog there and wound up carving out a frog shaped thing in the mud, or if indeed the top half of her frog came off (this would not be without precedent for her.) I know she has pretty bad thrush (anaerobic bacterial infection), or at least, very fragrant thrush if you know what I mean. I swear that saturday she was fine, no thrush, but time makes fools of us all, I suppose. So we put formaldehyde and iodine on that too. I just wanted to see if she would start limping after we cleared the mud out of her hooves. No, she was fine. I will say though, we tested this on the outdoor arena after some light rain, so the ground was just about perfect for horsey comfort. Better than the sand indoor arena, which is where we normally look. Anyway, Robert said to put her back, and I concur; I dont ride lame horses, and I've been given no reason to believe I should be ok with riding a horse with thrush.


I took Dylan out (before the mares actually, but no matter.) He really seems to be getting it now. I took him out to the far end of the arena, and he walked out on his circle, slowly and too close to me but he walked all the way around the circle, generally. He wanted to sniff the ground as he walked. I don't normally mind this, I think they stretch their neck muscles out nicely, which is good. The problem is that if they dont have the right distance from me, they tend to step on the lunge line. A few horses realize this is basically their own fault, and they look indignant but dont get too upset. He's not one of those. Today, the two times I took him out, we worked on associating verbal commands, and gestures, with actions. I said "out" and I pointed my finger, when he didn't do anything I took a nice aggressive step towards him, or flick the whip in the general direction of his barrel, or poke him with the handle of the whip. It depends on the situation. He figured that out, I think. Sometimes he wasn't paying any attention though. When I know a horse isn't paying attention to me, sometimes I'm torn as to what to do. Frequently I just behave as though I know they heard me and take the next step to correct the behavior, and if they want to be in the loop next time, they can listen. Sometimes I repeat myself until I think they've heard me. I dont do the latter more than twice, because its hard to be sure they didn't hear you, and they've got to learn that I still expect them to do things whether they want to pay attention or not. Anyway, I'm mostly pretty pleased with his progress.

He is going to need to learn more about voice command though. I was asking him to walk and to stop and he really doesn't get it. That was another moment when I was a little torn. Normally when a horse doesn't slow down or stop when I ask I have two responses, depending on a variety of factors. One is to ask them again more firmly, shaking the line, if necessary pulling on the line. The other is to give up on asking them to slow down, let them keep going until they try to slow down themselves, and then ask them to keep going. The idea is to give them the option to do what they want or what I want, and this sets them up to regret doing the thing they wanted to do, and to be grateful to me when I let them slow down when I want them to. He doesn't have any clue what I mean, so I knew that the second option wouldn't be good, but I don't know if he'd learn much from the escalation. He's sortof an experiment, since he came here supposedly having been lunged, but Robert said he couldn't get him out on a circle, and I'm betting he was put in a round pen, incited to run around, had plenty of fun running around, didn't have a clue what he was supposed to be learning. Annabelle, a horse from last summer, had very minimal lunging but she was a very different animal.

I decided to escalate the rope shaking very very slowly and I kept repeating the cue "Dylan aaaaaand waaaaaalllk." I try to sound really sleepy when I do that, I can say "aaaand" and yawn at the same time pretty convincingly. I dont know that horses actually know that a human yawning means they're sleepy, but I think it cues other postures in me that signal that I'm calm and slowing down. He eventually walked and I stopped making noise and shaking the lead line. He'll either learn from that or I'll go back to my usual tactics.

Robert is very fond of his behavioral scale for horses. A 1 on this scale is an extremely compliant horse and a 9 is an extremly non-compliant horse. This, as he explains, is not a good or bad thing, just different. A 9 is just as hard to train as a 1. Compliant horses want to do what they're told, sortof, basically they're not thinking for themselves very hard so they're pretty susceptible to your influence. The problem is that they're not thinking for themselves so they're susceptible to other influences too, they get distracted, they have a hard time suppressing their fight or flight instincts. At the same time they have a hard time reasoning about how to keep themselves safe because they are reacting much more quickly than they are thinking. They are frequently very fearful at the lowest ends of the scale. Further up the scale, around 3 and 4, you get pretty nice kiddie horses. If you are calm they are calm, if you are agitated then they are agitated too. They're willing animals and what some people I know refer to as "good packers", they'll carry you around wherever you point them.

The 9 horses know exactly what they want to be doing and it aint what you want them to be doing. They dont like you, they dont respect you, they want to do their own thing and they'll fight you for the right to do it. These are horses that can actively try to hurt you, they can be conniving, and kinda scary. A little further down the scale around 7 and 6, you get good competition horses (or at least I think so). These guys learn to respect you, they want to win, they know what they're job is, they want to do it and they're not always really happy if you get in their way. If you're confident then they're confident in you and they do fine, if you're nervous they may want to run the show for you which can be problematic. I love the non-compliant horses. There's something sortof thrilling about staring down an angry mare, watching her size you up and then decide you're not worth messing with. You win their respect and they'll do anything for you. Lose it and you'd better get out of their way. Dylan seems like a more compliant type maybe a 3.5 or 4. He really wants to come into the circle and be my buddy. I think Alyssa is better with the compliant types.

Keno I think is a pretty compliant type. His problem is that he was taught to misbehave. The little girl, who was sure she knew everything there ever was to know about horses from what I hear, got pretty scared anytime he did anything bad, ie rear, buck, roll, jig, etc. She didn't tell anyone she just put him back in his stall whenever he did anything. Thats a really really fast way to train a problem horse. Compliant horses can be very reward seeking, so Keno learned to look for a way to take advantage of the situation. It wasn't malicious really, he was just looking for the fastest way to be rewarded. Now he's pretty sure the best thing to do is cooperate. And he's very happy to cooperate, he just looks like the happiest little guy cantering around with Alyssa.

Compliant types misbehaving makes me a little crazy. I can't really wrap my mind around it. I know what defiant horses are thinking and I know I'm going to win them over. I have no such faith when it comes to these lower end of the scale guys. Confused I'm ok with. Its not my favorite but I can work with confused. I'm definitely handing Dylan off to Alyssa as soon as I get him lunging and long lining (those are the big L's in Robert's training program, a horse needs to lead well, lunge well, and understand long lines well, before they are trained to drive or ride.)

In case anyone is curious, and Alyssa should post her scores for comparison, I would rank the stoneybrook horses as follows:

Lady: 7.5
Papillon: 6.5
Star: 6
Keno: 3.5
Reno: 4
Colonel: 3
Luca: ?

I also too Star out today. She was much better. She was given many fewer reasons to be upset, but I think she was also just plain better. I took her out on a hack. That went OK. The only reason we managed to get out into the field is because Alyssa went out to mark a hole in the ground so we followed her out there. Star was basically rushing around everywhere. She would stop, sortof, but not for very long. Then some dogs came into the field. She was pretty difficult to control after that but she was trying to be good, I think. She likes me a lot but sometimes she disagrees with my decisions. She really wanted to run home, but she really didn't want to throw her head up to protest being told to slow down, lest she bang into that running martingale again. It was an interesting ride that way. Anyway, we did that one little lap, with a brief interlude of running and ineffectually bucking because of the dogs. On a side note, Star seems to be convinced that when long grass is knocked over or pressed down a little bit, it becomes an impassable barrier. Papillon just bull's through it like its not even there. Then again, Papillon would have wanted to run over and kill those dogs. Very different mares, love 'em both, of course.

Gold Brothers

Dylan is 5. It's fantastic. His owner said he led and lunged, but... not so much. I watched him walking into her space and circling around, no attention to her, and quietly raised an eyebrow. Now I see.

Keno was good today. He's understanding the concept of being pushed together now. By the end, if he got a little strung out, I squeezed my legs and hands, basically a half halt, and he came back together very nicely. I suspect he's breaking at the poll to avoid the bit, so a little more leg is needed than hands. I'll have to ask someone to watch to see how badly he's doing it. We walked through the jump field to cool off. He looooved it because the grass is so high he could walk at the same pace and grab grass without lowering or turning his head. I still think we should take him to a dressage show. He's a crappy looking horse but he's a nice mover, responsive, and will stay sound.

I also rode Reno. We put a leverage bit on him and he basically ignored the whole thing, so today we added a curb chain. That got his attention! Now he neckreins, whoas nicely, and is much less likely to try to just barge through the bit. After a while in the ring to see how he reacted to the bit and to make sure Gillian and Star wouldn't kill each other in the next fifteen minutes, we went out to the back forty. This part is important because I haven't been on the back forty on a horse since the first day I got back on a horse in October (okay more than 100 feet into it). I haven't gone by myself since September before my accident. Reno was a little jiggy, I was a little panicky, but focusing on the ride (and grabbing the horn) worked okay. I've wanted to do this for a while but haven't had a horse I felt comfortable enough on. So that was good.

That was actually all I accomplished today. I had a crappy night* and needed some solid, no problem horse time. Keno needs to get worked pretty hard on about a biweekly/weekly basis for him to stay compliant, so I spent a long time on him, and then got caught in conversation by Cari, so he was thrilled to stand there eating grass while we talked. He also helps me with my position, and he's a horse who basically understands the concepts I'm asking him for. He won't do it, though, unless I ask right, so it's enjoyable to see him improve. He's also getting better about his girthiness, or at least we have an agreement. I put his girth on, stand back and let him dance and back up and express his displeasure at life as long as he does NOT take one step towards me. He stops after a few seconds, I tighten it a hole or two, step back, watch the Keno shuffle, etc. If he had withers I'd cut him some slack because the saddle wouldn't roll, but he's round and so it's necessary.

Geldings are major dorks. It's kind of adorable.

*One of the kittens started coughing up blood last night. A fabulous person drove to the emergency vet. Unfortunately, we lost the kitten to an uncurable, fatal virus. So best case scenario, the other three are magically uninfected. Worst case, we lose them all. As they're acting normal, they're either magic or more likely nonsymptomatic carriers. I don't want anyone to have to go through this, so kittens are under quarantine until they can get tested for FIP at 8 weeks old, if I can finagle a way to keep them that long. It sucks. Very sad, and I didn't get to bed until 4 so I was tired and drained at the barn, then proceeded to have an apple in the morning and nothing else until I was going to work, so I didn't actually feel capable of much work. If kittens are carriers, they can live with other carriers, but are otherwise confined to single catdom. If they get sick, it will probably go fast. If they're healthy, they shouldn't be too difficult to place.

Going to be so very sore tomorrow

I took dylan out again today. Mostly the same behavior as yesterday, but today I focused more of my attention on keeping him out of my space. I'm always cautious about this with green horses because I dont really need him to fear me. Or at least I want him to fear me in a constructive way. He seems to be reasonably fond of people; and in horsey world just because they nip or kick at you, doesnt mean they arent your buddy, they just want you to back off at that moment. So he ran around on a circle for a while. He seemed to be having fun running like a crazy thing, he had happy ears and as soft an eye as a galloping horse can have. The downside to petting him after he does a good circle is that he really wants to be near me so that I'll pet him. He's not listening to me when I say whoa, he just notices me moving towards him and stops to be pet. Next time I think I'm going to be even more insistent that he stay away from me when we're lunging, since he seemed to be perfectly willing to lead after our session today. I dont like the fact that he both enters my space (dangerous) and pulls on me (painful). I think he'll learn pretty soon that he needs to go out on his circle and he needs to listen to me. I wonder how old he is. Based on his behavior I'd say late 2's or maybe 3 but hasnt been handled much.

I fit a bridle to lady and got the fleece stuff on it. She seemed less upset about this bridle but was still a little unhappy about me touching her face with it on. Not quite sure what thats about. She does it to Robert also, which means its not a personality issue. She was lame on her right front today. Not terrible but I make it a policy not to ride lame horses so I put her back when I noticed she was limping at the trot. She was very good, but verry sluggish on the lunge line. I attribute this to her feet hurting her.

Papillon was also lame. This didn't stop her from being obnoxious and hotblooded. She started to canter on her in-hand trot. Idiot.

Star, now star was a fun ride today. Long and exhausting, and the root of most of my anticipated and current soreness. I put a running martingale on her today. To explain briefly: A running martingale is basically two rings each attached to a breastplate via a leather strip. The reins run through the rings (hence the name) up to the bit as usual. With a properly fitted martingale the horse wont notice anything different when their head is where it should be. When they pull their head up, however, instead of feeling pressure on the bit from the hands, they feel it straight down, from the rings. In a snaffle bit this is quite painful, since it causes the bit to flex and the point is now up on the roof of their mouth. The harder they pull, the harder it pushes against their pallate. When they put their head back down, everything is back to normal. This martingale is too big for her. Alyssa pointed out that her head was going to have to be really high before she'll even notice its there.

Let me tell you, she noticed it was there. Star sometimes resents having to slow down. If you use your reins to ask her to slow down, she frequently throws her head up in protest, importantly she also throws her nose up even higher. You should have seen her face. Oooh boy she was pissed. Normally anger causes her to throw her head up and her nose even higher. She threw her head up a second time but let me tell you, not the third time. The other angry thing she does is lift her nose up in the air and tilt her head to the side. I didn't do anything different with my hands, I just let the rings do their job (not that there's much I could do for her really). I'm not positive about this but I think that when she did that she didn't poke herself in the middle of her pallate, I think she got poked in the side, and harder too because its lower. In any case she did not do that twice.

She did everything she could think of. In the course of an hour she had bucked, reared, kicked, stopped, spun, gave a pathetic attempt at bolting, and she tossed her head some more in the beginning. I think she was trying to break it, she broke the really old german martingale, but that was a small D-ring attached with a thin, ageing piece of elastic. Still impressive, especailly since it was on its lowest setting so she really had to throw her head in the air and hard to get much force on it. This running martingale was nothing but brand new leather and stainless steel welded into a ring. No way in hell was she going to break this, which she figured out eventually.

When her buddy left the arena then she was mad about the martingale but also mad about not being out with her buddy horse, so that added a new dynamic. I had a little more bit contact than she usually got, and more than she wanted, which didn't help matters either, but I wanted her to learn that she was going to have some contact from now on. I want to be able to push her into my hands, I can push her no problem, now I need to add the hands. So after an hour of all this she walked past the gate reasonably calmly. Alyssa, the great mediator, pointed out that this was probably good enough for today, and we needed to go feed horses. Its just as well, I was not looking forward to having to keep riding her while all the other horses were being fed and she knew it. We're going to have a few more battles of will, but I always win, and she'll remember that before long. She was definitely more balanced today, which I find encouraging.

It was also encouraging to find that all these shenanigans didn't unseat me or unnerve me to speak of. Its probably good that she didn't bolt too much. Bolting gets me, while rearing, bucking, and whatnot, are not really too bad emotionally. I'm off to the twilight rose parade thing. I hear its a lot of fun.

Dylan, Lady, Reno and Papillon

On paper I guess I had a reasonably productive day. I took Dylan, the pinto looking morgan (a client's horse, not Robert's) out today. I rubbed him all over with the halter, gave him several 'hugs' to get him used to my arm over his neck, and I scratched his poll to get him used to my hands next to his ears. Then I slipped the halter on while he was sniffing it trying to figure out why it smelled so much like him. I clipped the lunge line on him and grabbed my crop. I led him around, he was pleased to be out. While we were leading I stuck my elbow out and every time he ran into it I smacked him on the shoulder with the crop. It took him a while but he eventually figured out the pattern; he still forgets a lot.

Lunging was interesting. The last horse I taught to lunge was Annabelle, who may have had some attempt at lunging before, I'm not sure. Dylan was indeed mystified. I asked him to move forward and generally he wanted to do one of two things, come in and see me or pull vigorously on the line. We had many many round of trying to get him to go in a complete circle, ended the same way every time, him pulling back hard in the direction of the gate. I had an Ian-esque moment when I realized, "Oh right, he's a gelding." Annabelle was a bitchy pony mare who understood quite well the concept of moving when she was asked to and raw intimidation was quite effective. Dylan doesnt get that sort of thing, he just wants to know why you dont love him anymore, so I tried a new tack. First I led him around in a circle over and over and over again. I question the effectiveness of this part of the plan but he needed to calm down anyway and it certainly didn't hurt. I sent him out on a circle and after about a half a circle or so I asked him to whoah, went up to him (I was taught never ever to bring the horse to you, always go to them) pet him, then asked him to walk again. When he paused at the side of the arena closest to the gate I just stood there, I even let him sniff the ground, eventually he started walking on the circle again, and after a moment I stopped him, pet him, repeat. We worked up to a full circle and a half without stopping or flipping out noticeably, and I called that good enough for one day. He definitely was leading better after the lunging session (which is quite typical in my experience.) I think it started to reinforce the concept of personal space. When I led him back to his stall he balked at going in a little but came anyway, then we walked out and walked back in again. The second time he didn't hesitate at all. I think he'll turn out to be a 3 or a 4 on the compliance scale which will be refreshing, especially if he turns out to be more of a 4.

I saddled lady and took her out to lunge. It was going to be a fairly relaxed thing but she kept forgetting and then re-discovering the tractor in the corner. When she was trotting by it going to the left she bolted. One of the stirrups came loose (I dont know how, I wrapped it really well I thought) but it hardly swung at all and didn't bounce noticeably either. I attribute this to her being the worlds smoothest bolter ever. So she ran around, tried to change direction once or twice but nothing too difficult to handle, she ran herself pretty hard but when she was calmer I stopped her and led her past the tractor several times, it was a combination of sacking out and hotwalking. We went around to go look at the tractor from outside the arena. Barely batted an eye at it this time. I let her eat some grass next to it. It took her a while to be willing to let down her guard enough to eat some grass but she did and I figured everything was fine now. I went and got her bridle, and a helmet and my spiffy class three body armour. She hates hates hates that figure eight noseband. I had to take the fleece stuff off the bridle because it changes the fit (well duh, some might say to me, and to them I say: shut up) of the bridle and I didn't feel like re-adjusting it when I probably wasn't going to use it again anyway. Robert came out with me and I got on in the arena. Robert held her until I had gotten both my stirrups and then we walked around a little. She was flipping her head and trotting intermittently for a few minutes. She was very responsive to my seat, which is good because the way she was pissed about that noseband I really didn't feel like doing much with the reins. She calmed down and we changed directions and repeated the process. She calmed down the other direction and I waited until she had her happy ears and then I stopped her and got off. Robert noted that she seems to like me, even thought the figure eight noseband pisses her off. I shared with him Ian's thinking that her dislike of the noseband is evidence that she needs it. We both had a nice time scoffing at this logic. I've got a different bridle ready to go for her. I havent fit it too her yet but its set to be roughly the same as Ian's bridle for her. Some of the hair on her nose rubbed off in that one session, which irks me. Tomorrow I will ride her in the new bridle and maybe for a little longer. We'll probably start trotting next week, and cantering the week after that. Maybe its an overly conservative schedule but she's a tense tense girl sometimes; I want her to get used to the idea that going out to ride needn't mean working your ass off and needn't result in being sore the next day.

I took Reno out and I didn't keep him out long. Something about him ignoring the reins makes me irrationally angry now. He still wanted to pop into the middle of the arena, and he was a little confused as to why he was cropped that one time but he guessed correctly that he should be moving off my leg better. I needed better timing. In addition to him ignoring the bit, and my irrationally adversarial attitude towards him, I realized I didn't know what the hell I was doing with this leverage bit. I asked Robert and he said that typically in western riding the bit is sortof an emergency stop, the horse should be stopping principally off your seat and steering principally off your leg, seat and to a lesser extent, the reins resting on his neck. He confirmed what I was beginning to realize myself, which was that these bits cant really be used to steer.

He promises that the chain on the bit will give us some whoah power. I was thinking about this though, I think that if he's going to be used in the western pleasure show he needs to do dressage first. My understanding is that you dont start out your western horses neck reining and expecting them to work off your seat and whatnot. He understands reins, and thats about all he's really experienced. He needs to connect what he knows already to these relatively new aids. I dont think Carly was riding him for that long and six years is a long time to be not ridden. Ideally I think we would ride him twice a day, school him in dressage in the morning in a snaffle, and then try to do some western pleasure stuff in the afternoon in the curb bit. Maybe keno's bridle will fit him without too much fuss?

We got a huge shipment of hay. I fed the horses. Then I took Papillon out. I put a saddle on her and we worked in the arena because I didn't want a sunburn and I didn't want her to melt. She was not interested in transitions today, and was frequently listening very poorly. When I insisted that she bend correctly and collect at the trot she assumed, as she always always does in this situation, that I was collecting her up so that we could do a nice canter transition. She obliged and off we went. She came back down but I guess I tend to go from canter back down into a walk a little too often because thats what she thought I wanted. When I said no she thought she was mistaken about the down transition (or at least thats how I'm anthropomorphising the behavior) and went back into canter.

I decided that a potential solution to this problem was just to actually ask her to canter for a while, I figured that would take some of the wind out of her sails. She has a really nice canter, which I rather enjoy. She didn't want to move off my inside leg very well but a 20 meter circle really does wonders for her sometimes. She was only mildly subdued by the cantering but I am gun shy now about cantering, I really worry about making her lame that way. She really really wanted to go outside the arena, she kept drifting towards the closed gate. I'm not sure what the plan was there.

If the gate had been open, and I had had some sunscreen, and I weren't so worried about breaking her I would have gone and galloped her down the long side of the field. I dont know why but I feel very comfortable with Papillon. I trust her probably more than she deserves but alas, she's a delicate soul so I guess I'll just have to get Star geared up to go out there and run with me. I've done the run down the field with Colonel and Keno. Its more fun with Colonel, even when it ends badly but its even more fun when it doesnt. I dont know why but both Keno and Reno set me on edge. Maybe I don't like geldings. I dont understand them, not the temperamental ones anyway. I think I'll just have to get over it. I'm starting to feel less unnerved by Keno. Alyssa has done great work with him over the course of the school year. He's a very cooperative boy now. Basically the same agenda tomorrow. Except I'm riding Luca, I guess. Robert's going to drive him first so its not a great test of what his problem is. Still, when he bucks at least then we'll know what his problem isn't. Gotta get myself not to stare at him though. All riding coaching will be gladly accepted, by the way.

so unmotivated

Played with kittens early in morning (they wake me up with mewing), then went to barn. Put bags of bedding in ALL the stalls in the big barn, which killed some time. Sam helped which was awesome. Um, I rode BJ (breeding stock paint gelding, Sam's pony) who was pissed that I was riding him and required hella leg. I may start a quest to convince Sam that he's an English not a Western pony. He's got a fast bouncy trot and a faster canter, no jog or lope.
Then I rode Reno, who was pretty okay. He was definitely relaxing into the trot, and I really like his trot. We played the "CRUSH YOUR SPINE" game where he learned that if he was slow, I was light on his back, and if he was fast I dug my seatbones into the saddle. We put him into a leverage bit, low long port and curved shanks. He barely paid attention, so we're gonna slap a curb chain on it.
Robert took Sam on a drive with Luca, and I rode around on Keno bareback. I was going to ride Luca, but Seabreeze and Pam showed up. Seabreeze was in heat and winking at Keno, so I decided that riding Luca with her there was a bad idea. Last week we got in there and he reared as soon as he saw her, and I didn't feel like redoing that.
Took Dylan the pinto Morgan out to see what he knew. He was completely befuddled over what lunging meant, and we're going to work on leading for a while. He is a pain to lead outside because he jumps into you whenever there's mud or a puddle in front of him. He didn't want to get haltered, and when I tried to put him back in his stall he freaked out because his ears touched the top of the doorway and he thought I was trying to kill him.
Fed a little early so I could go to work. Did Lady and Papillon hooves.