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. 

 

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.

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.

Short day by myself

Despite being there for less time than usual (around 4.5 hrs or so) and it being cold and me feeling listless as a result, I did get some stuff done today. The trick is to not do any one thing for very long I guess. I took Reno out and rode him. He was OK, again. He had his feet trimmed today day so I took it pretty easy on him. He does neck rein when he wants to. This means he's ready for my favorite game, its like simon says except you always do what you're told. Anyway, he's going to start moving off my legs and seat (or Alyssa's leg and seat depending on who gets to him tomorrow) or he's going to get cropped. I played this game with Colonel and ever since he's been very good about moving off leg pressure and whatnot. Or at least last time he was good about anything he was good about that.

I took star out and I long lined her again. She is starting to balance better. I think I might start riding her again a little earlier than would be best because I dont have the attention span for this, and because I'm hoping she'll get better at balancing while we're out remembering how to do trail stuff. She needs to remember how to be a trail horse, and there are always times when I dont really have time to ride but I have time to do groundwork.

No one was going to be around, Robert was running errands and no Alyssa today so I didn't ride Lady today. Its probably just as well, I still dont think she's at 100%. I looked at her hooves today and her frogs are in shambles. They look like they've been through an egg slicer that just didn't quite cut all the way through. I've decided I'm not doing hoof stuff in stalls anymore, those girls (Lady and Papillon) are going to have to come to the hay barn where I can see what I'm doing and where they wont get dirty again after I set their hoof back down. I put a dressage saddle on her (Lil's I think, the one with the wider twist) and she was really quite good for the girth. I put a bit in her mouth, a french link I think it was? Anyway, she was fine with that too. I took her out and lunged her. She was willing to trot but not interested, which is strange. She looked stiff at the walk and awkward. I couldnt really tell if she was favoring any particular hoof but really, most of them were pretty bad. I dont know if it actually hurts her, she wasnt bobbing her head at the trot at all, she was just so unenthused... I dont know. We'll look tomorrow.

Anyway I was talking to whats-her-name the red-haired trainer that used to ride her. I was asking about her and she couldnt figure out why I was making such a thing out of this. I tried to explain and realized, its really not. She said she doesnt buck that much, she's really smooth, she said lunge her first and that trotting 20 meter circles calms her down. She made another observation I thought was interesting, Lady has been ridden on and off by a lot of people. She gets ridden for a while and then she can be off for up to a year, and now she's gotten suspicious of new people, 'like a foster kid' is how she summed it up. She told me to brush her down and make sure she liked me and everything would be fine. Check and check, I think, so I'm feeling good about this enterprise.

I took Papillon out. I wanted to get to the bus pretty soon so I just took her out with a bareback pad. Which rolled during my ungraceful mounting. She couldnt figure out why I kept stopping her, throwing myself deliberately off balance and then righting myself, but that turned out to be the easiest way to roll the pad back up and center. Papillon was really good, she was soft and flexible and focused, for the first few minutes. Then she decided it was trotting time and was pissed when I wanted to handle things differently. I started trotting her, she just got jazzed and rushed and it was hard to sit, which pissed her off. So we started trotting the long side and walking the short side, her first few strides of trot were always nice, then she was off again. So we did 20 strides walk, 20 strides trot. Transitions have always been a good way to get her to focus. For many of our trot segments she really did a good job stepping under herself and collecting. Sometimes she didn't. The difference is really amazing. For the same speed she can be incredibly choppy or really smooth to ride depending on where her mind (and her butt) is. I took her outside to cool down. She was willing to walk for a while and then, as before, she decided it was trotting time. The ground was squishy so she was a little more receptive this time. When we went through the tall grass she decided that a walk was a better gait from which to nibble some grass. Even though she's at least 16 hands, the grass was hitting my feet as we went through. She was mostly reasonably good about walking actually, except when she realized she was going home, then she decided if she had to go home she may as well trot home. I brought her back to the hay barn with her chest covered in water and grass seeds. I want to do some more trotting with her, and walking and stopping and circles and really get her working again. I think a saddle will be in order. Also I'll need to set aside more time for her.

Tomorrow at least Lady or Colonel will get done, I'd love to do both but sometimes thats not how it goes. Alyssa and I might have to take shifts lounging Colonel, he's been in his stall for a while now, plenty of energy built up I'm sure.

Kittens!

Top to bottom: 2, 1, 4. To the left is 3.
At least 2 and 3 are eating, everyone is drinking and making a complete mess of their carrier. They're not thrilled about being handled, but will walk up to me once I get them out of their cage. An attempt to let them hang out on my bed failed dramatically. 4 tried to go to my bedside table, but instead fell down to the ground (a fall of at least 4 feet), and was displeased when I removed him from his hiding spot. They all found the spot behind the headboard, which was fine, except 2 and 4 managed to squeeze down between the back of the headboard backing and the wall. Again, displeased yowly kittens. I put 1 and 3, the behaving kittens, back. 2 and 4 had at this point found my desk. Ian's big metal organizing thing was there. They had a ball squeezing their grotesquely giant heads and tiny bodies through there for a while, until I had 1 and 3 safely away. Then they got put back, too. All four spent a while mewing at me after that. I mewed back, so they climbed the wire door and looked at me pitifully.

I have high hopes they will be rehomed easily. If I didn't know I couldn't keep one, I'd be very tempted to keep 3. I have three numbers from the bus ride home of interested parties, though I'd love it if they went to people I knew.

I wonder what their dad thinks about this. He's a tame outdoors cat and loves people. I found him sitting on the pallet where we caught them and started meowing at me-- did he know they were there or did he just find a cat scent and was curious? We brought the kittens out, and they spilled to the front of the cage, mewing frantically and trying to touch him. He was very interested ("What are those things?") but quickly grew more interested in the horizontal position of my legs.

We'll have to livetrap the mother to spay her, and get Gabriel snipped as soon as possible. I'm pretty irritated that Robert's been planning to do this since October, and still hasn't gotten around to it. Livetrapping will probably ruin any chance we have of making her friendly, but at least she won't be making more feral cats.

I didn't really do much yesterday other than kittens. I helped get Reno ready to ride and walked him around for a minute before letting Gillian take over. I watched Lady be lame. I took Nicky for a walk with Gillian and Star. The interesting thing about Nicky seems to be her intense respect for someone attached to her halter. Her owner said she was a wild weanling and it took 3 hours to wrestle a halter onto her, but she's always respected it since. This goes to an impressive level. Yesterday she was acting up a little, but I asked her to trot. She freaked out, went to rear and bolt. I'd basically committed myself to having to let go of the lead rope, but a second after she put pressure on it, she stopped by throwing herself to the ground. Then she got up and stood very calmly. This is the second time she's done this sort of thing, but the first I thought she'd just lost her balance. It genuinely seems to go deep that she must not put pressure on her halter, and it's self-reinforcing when she does this. It's nice when horses teach themselves things so you don't have to. She also was totally fine with everything she hadn't seen for months-- the bridge and the round bales.

I'm happy we have Reno under saddle. I think I'll finally have a trail horse. I haven't been more than 100 feet past the culvert under saddle since the first day I got back on a horse in October. When Nicky gets going, I hope that that will work for trails too.

I don't know what to do with Luca. When he's good, he's absolutely fabulous. When he's bad... well, damn he's bad. I can stay on no problem, but I'd rather be moving forward with our training instead of focusing on why we shouldn't buck whenever we damn well feel like it. Maybe Gillian should get on and see if the same thing happens to her, or if it's a me issue. I'm sick of him trying to kill me, and I want something fun to do. I'd rather have higher aspirations for a show than hoping Luca doesn't hop the chain and kill the judge.

Cantering

We have got a lot on our plate these days. Yesterday, after the show, I got star out and worked her on the long lines a little. I also loaded her into the trailer and we stood there for a long time. I think that the work on the long lines helped a bit with her balance. I also think that it will help build her topline since she does start to put her head down when I have the reins set low on the surcingle. Although putting her head down isn't the same as collecting, it at least permits her to collect herself a little bit. When she throws her head up in the air she really cant help but hollow her back too. Theres no point in having long-ish pasterns if you're going to hollow your back. I think I'll try to long line her as much as possible, but I would like to get some riding hours on her too. In my copious spare time I think I'll also try to take her out riding, especially outside, get her used to the world again. I have got to work on that bridge crossing if we're going to take her to McIver park.

I rode Keno too, for my psychological benefit mostly. I have this thing about cantering. In and of itself I think it scares me a little. I really like doing it but its also the thing that happens before bad things happen to me or its the thing that causes the bad things to happen in the first place. I havent done it very much out at stoneybrook really. Papillon was rarely sound enough to canter and Keno often wasn't ridden at all because I was working other horses. Star is too unbalanced to do it well so she frequently stops dead and rears up if you ask her to canter. In the canter if you throw her balance off even slightly she stops dead (on her shoulder of course) and rears, frequently she refuses to move for a while after that. Colonel has the opposite reaction to his poor balance, he canters very very fast. It feels even faster if you've mostly been trotting before that.

My two worst spills (both resulting in concussions) were off of bolting horses. The first one I was jumping a horse I really should not have been jumping. It was a cavaletti and the horse had been an A-circuit jumper before this. Supposedly he had been lunged on a regular basis and every day he was getting better and better. Anyway, it was dumb, he rushed the jump, overjumped it, bucked then galloped off with me. I was standing in my stirrups so I couldnt use my seat to stop him, I tried to stop him, the last thing I remember was feeling my knees start to shake, I woke up on the ground and I have no idea how much memory I lost because no one was around. (Also a stupid thing to do, never jump by yourself.)

Getting concussed falling off Colonel didn't help. When I woke up from that I remembered most of what had happened but on the walk back to the barn (stupid thing to do, if you get concussed and wake up on the ground, stay on the ground) I started forgetting things and repeating myself. (And to the peanut gallery I would like to say, I forgot things more and faster than usual and repeated myself more than usual, not just the normal forgetting and repeating.) At least one of the times I was told that I had fallen off after trying to race Colonel against Shaina and Blue (rider and horse, respectively) I thought it was a stupid thing to have done. Having regained all my memory except for a few minutes in the barn talking to Ian I'm not sure that was a fair assessment. Colonel had been behaving well, we started the horses with a pretty good distance between them and I was feeling good. We said go and Blue broke from the "gate" like a proper racehorse. Colonel started bucking. After he had simmered down I figured I'd at least run after her, who knows Colonel is supposed to be pretty fast we could probably come close to catching her and I could try to pass that off as a tie or something. I had run Colonel to catch up to Shaina before, when we were chasing coyotes and that was fine. When I asked him to slow down this time, he pitched a fit. I pulled on the reins one direction, he pulled on the reins the other direction, I got pulled over onto his neck and off I went. Ian claims this isn't possible. I claim he's an idiot when it suits his purposes. I grabbed his mane long enough to get my legs underneath me but I still hit the ground hard enough to whack my head. Ever since then I've had little faith in my ability to determine whether or not a horse was going to stop when I asked him, and once again, any suggestion of excessive speed absolutely terrified me.

Working with a lesson horse at another barn helped a lot but now I need to practice at stoneybrook. The plan is to canter with Keno for a solid 5 minutes every day, gradually increase the time that I spend cantering without stopping to check and make sure that he'll stop, or to make sure that I'm not too tired to keep going without falling off. Yesterday I did 3 minutes each direction.

It was an experience I'm still processing but I did notice a few things. My sense of the passage of time is very poor, three minutes seemed to stretch on forever the first time around. The second time around it came up pretty fast. When I become concerned that we're going too fast, or the thought enters my head that I would like to stop now or that I'm falling off, or anything of the kind, I stiffen almost every relevant muscle in my body, which not only causes the obvious equitation problems, but it also makes me feel very tired. I think its like on your laptop with the estimated battery time. When the screen is bright the estimated time is much smaller than if you dim the screen to use less energy. When I tense up the likelihood of falling off increases; and the time I can spend before I cant keep that all up anymore decreases. So relaxing really helped but it is genuinely the case that it requires a great deal of conscious effort to keep in a balanced position. I can get into a rhythm trotting and then just completely zone out and be fine. I started to get to that point at the other barn, but the amount of time I could canter without too much conscious effort was pretty short. What doesnt help is that when I'm having fun I tend to lean forward. Not just on horseback, but its most noticeable on horseback because leaning forward creates a vicious cycle of leaning forward even more. So I've been using Keno to work on that. Eventually I think Lady and Colonel and maybe Reno will be good to practice with also, but right now Keno is the most reliable/sound horse we've got.

In daily miscellaneous items: I lunged Lady, walk only. She was quite good but still a little lame I think so I put some hoof dressing on her and put her back. For those keeping track we're now up to seven horses to either ride or get ready to ride: Reno, Keno, Colonel, Luca, Lady, Papillon, and Star. Plus the morgan/paint horse is in full training so it needs attention also. I assume its in training to be a driving horse but I havent heard yet. No work on Colonel today. Robert suggests using the western saddle for our come to jessus operation. The two main advantages are 1) we can rule out a saddle fit issue and 2) when it comes to actually riding him if he wants to pitch a fit its pretty easy to deal with. (I make it my policy to fall off a horse once its reared up to a certain height, and I've tested this personally: you can definitely fall backwards out of a western saddle on a rearing 7/8ths arabian mare.) The western saddle has the added bonus in my mind of being heavier than the other saddles, thus more weight to carry, thus less time getting dizzy if/when he decides to pitch a fit. No work on the trail yet either but I'm all set to go out there with some giant clippers and do some preliminary cutting. Also, a picture of Ian's baby horse:

Day before the schooling show

Tomorrow is the little show. Alyssa and Luca will be doing the dressage test described earlier. For reasons that are unclear to me Robert decided that today we needed to clean the hay barn. It looks very nice but we spent a long time on it so we didn't get as much done as we could have otherwise. The hay barn looks good though, at least for now.

I loaded Star into the trailer. She got no grass this time for just her front feet and she caught on pretty quickly to the idea that she needed all four feet in the trailer. The second time in she was pretty nervous about Robert and Chuck (Roberts brother) and was seriously considering attempting to bolt out. I decided to make her stay in, she needs to learn to stay in the trailer even when scary stuff is happening. I loaded her up twice, and as before, made her leave before she was done eating grass.

I took lady out and brushed her down thoroughly, leaving large clumps of white winter hair on the ground. Lady has been rubbing the hair off a spot on her chest but other than that she looked pretty good. Because she has some girthing issues from her past I decided to put a surcingle on her to practice for when I need to put a saddle on her. I tightened it ever so very slowly. Mostly it went well. Twice she started fussing a lot, tossing her head, walking forward into the crossties and so on. The first time it happened as I was tightening her girth the second time I remember I wasnt tightening her girth but I dont remember exactly what I was doing. So I'm not sure if both times she was fussing because of the girth or because she was angry that Keno was getting out and working and she wasnt, or just because. Who knows with these horses sometimes?

The actual lungeing went well enough. We had to re-visit the concept of moving out on the circle when asked. We also had a couple of attempts to switch directions on me and to take a different gait than the one I wanted but she cooled down and toed the line pretty quickly. Sometime I think I'll have to post the story of our first lungeing experience together. She short version is that she tried to kill me and after an hour and a half or so of battling it out I won and after that she was pretty happy to see me whenever I walked by her run. So we just had a little refresher.

Although when Alyssa says a horse looks lame I'm usually skeptical she did indeed catch a problem both Robert and I missed on our first look but eventually noticed. She was limping on her right foreleg because her frog had a crack in it. Robert prescribed this black goopey stuff to paint on to her hoof which should help keep her frogs from drying out and cracking and should help them heal. She never seemed like she was in any pain, she was really happy to be out and doing things, I think. I put some fuzzy stuff on her bridle so that it wont rub off her hair this year. Last summer those bridle shaped bald spots on her face made me crazy. I also switched her back to her old halter, which actually fits. I conditioned it and now the only problem with it is that it has a plate with her registered name on it (La Grande Dame) rather than a plate commemorating Ian's winning some show at the Columbia equestrian center or something. Ian will get over it and Lady will have a halter that fits and a bridle that doesnt cause cosmetic damage to her face.

Star is now using a cob bridle borrowed from Alyssa. Its not a good color for her but unlike her previous bridle, its all one color and not made from pieces of three different bridles. Plus it fits, unlike her old bridle which had extra holes punched in it just to get close. She had a gash in her lip that I cant explain and that didn't seem to bother her at all. So I put a saddle on her (thanks to Alyssa for that excellent suggestion btw) and rode her for a while. She was OK, she made her transitions much better today because I remembered that half-halts should precede transitions. (Thanks to Captain Should-have-been-obvious-by-now for that excellent suggestion.) She was woefully unbalanced though. She cant use her hind end and she can't balance and she's spooky and suspicious and stubborn, randomly head shy and assorted other oh so desirable qualities. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a lost cause. She and I rode around outside a little. That could have gone worse, but I've definitely had better ideas. At one point she spooked and I lost both my stirrups due to an attempt by my subconscious to curl me up into a fetal ball. Fortunately once I didn't have any stirrups I proceded to do the right thing: stretch my legs down as far as they go, sit up straight and tall, and then get her back under control.

I dont think I can do anything with her really until her balance is fixed. I could take her outside more but I think I'll wait for a sunny hot day. When its hot she gets tired faster, plus there are no puddles for us to fight over. (I think they're safe, she things they're bottomless pits disguised as puddles.) Robert reccomends a long line exercise for balance correction. Basically you send her in a circle and at random intervals change the circle direction, which forces them to balance themselves for the turn. For extra fun, instead of making the circling random, watch them and every time they get off balance, turn them. I did this with Keno a lot. He was displeased but I think Alyssa will testify that his balance is reasonably good these days, except for the shoulder dropping thing. We'll work on that at some point.

I picked Papillons hoves, did absolutely nothing with Colonel, and Alyssa rode Luca. We've got a new pinto-morgan thing in training. Should be fun. That means we'll have seven horses to work. If you don't count Imp, or Reno. Plans for the near future (besides job hunting in the non-horsey world) include:

• Long line Star to try to teach her to balance
• Lunge Lady and practice putting the surcigle on her again
• Ride Papillon!
• The previously described come-to-Jesus meeting with Colonel

If I have a good day on the lunge line with Lady I think I'll try putting a saddle and bridle on her and walking around a little. Loose rein, keeping it short and inside the indoor arena, walk only. The last thing I want is for her to get tense and/or hyped up.

I have no idea how long I'm going to be long lining Star. Teaching Colonel to pick up the right lead canter took almost a month on the long lines last summer. I think Lady will get going fairly quickly and I think the same thing about Colonel still. Poor Papillon keeps getting pushed to the back burner.

I'm supposed to be out the door by 6:00 am tomorrow in order to get to the barn by 7 so I guess I'll be off to bed now.

Star, plus the rest of the day

I rode Star after lunch. I'm glad I decided to put a saddle on her because she was not quite behaving herself the way she should. It really wasnt so bad though. I walked her around the arena a few times because there was that backhoe parked at the other end. She was displeased by this, also the barrels as always and Imp being out there pulling the cart was a touch offensive also. She stood for mounting pretty nicely but the started walking off before I managed to reach for my other stirrup. She did a little bit of head in the air pissed off sideways trot that she does sometimes. I stopped her and got my stirrup and off we went. I spent most of the time practicing some of the mental exercises from the centered riding book I just got. Staying aware of my peripherial vision (a.k.a. "soft eyes") and letting my attention continue moving over all the different things she talks about, relaxed hips, relaxed ankles, stretching up tall, breathing from the diaphram, etc. etc. That was helpful and star was mostly pretty good. When she did break into the pissy sideways head up trot or variations thereon, she came down pretty fast and I sat it pretty well. Her pissed off trot is very smooth. As is her calm trot. After walking around for a good long while doing some circles and serpentines we did a little trot.

The first trot transition I asked for was a mess, she stopped and reared up and cocked her head really far to the side. So I asked her to walk again and then I just focused on being super relaxed and stable and centered and just asked with my voice for the trot. Simmillar pissy reaction but then I squeezed with my legs a little and we were off. It was a bouncy, rushed trot that I stopped after like 15 strides to practice the transition a little bit more. Again, center, relax ask with the voice then the leg, it was a little better transition but still very fast. I think she's just not good at transitions and so when she does it on her own terms its when she happens to be ready for it but she doesn't know how to get herself ready to trot when I ask her to. Many lunge line transitions and long line transitions, plus some trot poles maybe? I'm not sure why I think trot poles will help, but I do. I need to teach her how to use that hind end of hers. I worked with her outside for a while trying to get her to walk around the outdoor arena. She balked and backed up so I wound up backing her all the way to the end of the arena and then walking around from there. After doing that two or three times she was willing to walk around it. I was going to do it the other direction but the girth I was using was comandeered.

Alyssa and Luca were nice to watch. Since Alyssa wanted some feedback and Robert didn't seem interested in critiquing I tried my hand at it. It was a strange process because most of the things I saw were subtle or only fairly small things but I said them anyway. It was kindof an experiment for me because I had some theories about what small things might be out of place, I wasnt sure but I went for it and then I tried to see if Luca behaved any better as a result. The only thing that I really clearly helped with was reminding Alyssa to sit back. Luca really can pull from what I could see and that pulled her forward, not much but enough. When you're a little bit forward then it encourages the horse to pull and its harder to resist the pull so a little bit of sitting up goes a long way. Everything else, stretching tall, relax this joint, relax that, stretch down, wrists firm, etc. at the very least I think served to improve focus a little bit even if the content of the comment itself wasnt actually of much use. I haven't tested this yet but I think it will be helpfull for my own riding to spend time looking at someone elses riding and being able to comment and see the resulting changes in horse and rider. One thing it's really impressed upon me is the importance of relaxation. And I've started to think about my own riding differently. I feel like I have an easier time seeing it in the third person and thinking about my position in a more formal way. Plus my sense of cause and effect, which can really take a beating riding green horses, has been strengthened. So its working out well for me anyway. ;)

In misc. news: Robert is looking for a bow saw for me but I have some pretty heavy duty clippers and the next time its convenient I'm going to go out and do some clipping! We have the green light to ride Lady. I think some lungeing first will be in order. Papillon was really annoying about standing still for having her hooves picked. I think I'll need to help with the feed and then after everyone is fed, tie her and pick her hooves. I found a big sharp rock in her shoe though so I at least feel like I did something helpful. Her right frog is re-growing nicely but her left one is still nearly non-existant. Show time is nearly upon us (Saturday) and its pretty exciting.

First day back

Ok, it was my first day back on the farm and I managed to make it a fairly productive one I think. Robert and I worked Luca, Imp and Reno in the cart. I practiced loading Star into the trailer. I lunged Colonel, and I scouted out the hill a little bit and generated some new thoughts about the hill path.
While we were getting out Luca and getting him ready to go I worked on convincing Robert of two things. 1) He needs to be giving better feedback about Alyssa's riding and 2) Luca really really needs to have better manners enforced more often. He definitely agreed with item two, but I think it will take a little more shaming into it. One thing that I think will help is that one of Luca's little 'excursions' wound up running him into the bridle-cleaning hook, this got snagged on his bridle. He wouldn't step forward when I asked him to and instead he backed up, pulled the bridle off his head and put a cut right down his nose. The cut is long but not wide. Robert's reaction was the usual "its far from his heart" but also more amusing to me, "I'll have to move that hook." Yep, that's clearly the solution just move everything out of the way so that when he goes wandering around in the cross ties he wont bump into anything and then refuse to follow instructions to help get him out of whatever mess he manages to find. The drive itself was quite nice and uneventful.

I did some trailer loading with star a couple of times. The first time I just let her sniff it, I had her with me while I was opening it up and locking the door open, which startled her frequently but she got over it as quickly as always. I grabbed some grass and led her up to the trailer. She was pretty happy to put her front feet up on the trailer in exchange for grass or even just release of pressure on the lead rope. Whenever something unexpected happened she got down off the trailer in a hurry. I let her get down but I didn't let her get very far away from the trailer; I always made her get back up again afterward. I put her back briefly because I decided that the thing to do was to stockpile grass instead of getting grass, bringing her to the trailer, getting her front hooves up on the trailer, feeding her the grass, backing her up off the trailer and then repeating this process again. After a little bit of coaxing and a lot of standing around cultivating an air of boredom and disinterest she decided to get in the trailer. I got her in twice, then Robert came and we took out Luca. Then, after Luca was done with and Imp (who bucked and reared when we were out with him) was done, I got the machete and cut a lot more grass and we loaded up again. By the fourth time in the trailer she was getting in pretty quickly. It still took some coaxing but it was a lot faster. I made her stay in the trailer a while, she at some grass but before she finished the grass I backed her out of the trailer. When I led her away she was looking wistfully at the grass in the back of the trailer. I hope that impression of wanting to get back in the trailer will stick in her mind and I'll see if Robert will pull the trailer up again for us sometime.

I took Colonel out to lunge. He was really quite good. We did a long warm up at the walk and he was his old calm, lazy self. He also did his usual western pleasure trot (a.k.a. twinkle toes trot) Most of our work was done over the pole, everything except for warming up and cooling down, actually. We did lots of walk trot transitions and then lots of trot canter transitions. The walk trot transitions were good. He was generally pretty good about picking up his feet over the pole at the walk and trot. He didn't do as good a job at the canter.

Going to the right he would pick up the left lead canter every time he crossed the pole, but he was quite obliging about switching, after a while he did it without being asked. I was pleased about this. To the right though he was actually better about his pace and his transitions but not about picking up his feet. At one point he managed to step on the pole with his front feet, sending it shooting backwards and then he stepped on it with his back feet. He was unhappy about this and the next time around he jumped the pole, but he landed on the right lead so that's good right? Achem.

Going to the left he was a little bit more rambunctious. Robert and I independently came to the conclusion that he's a little more off balance going to the left. I guess I neglected the left lead canter a little too much last summer. That should be a quick fix though. It wast too bad all and all. He bucked a little, threw his head in the air a little, and he was a little too fast. After doing some canter-trot transitions he calmed down at the canter. I think he stepped under himself better after doing some transitions and I think knowing it was coming led him to believe that a saner canter would be the easiest option for him if he wanted to get back to his twinkle toes trot. In both directions though I was unsatisfied with his competence at setting himself up for the pole and, more importantly, picking up his damn feet! I thought about getting on him, since he had been so good, but I was tired and hungry after scouting out the trail so I didn't, but I definitely will tomorrow. I definitely see a lot a lot a lot of trot poles in that boy's future.

Scouting out the trail was interesting. I was wrong in thinking that a machete to clear the brush would be sufficient. That trail will need to be cut with a chainsaw, not a machete. The problem is that there are all these little clumps of tree-like things. The way they grow they'll just have to be cut at the base I think, in order to clear enough head space for a horse and rider to go through. The grade is a little too steep to go straight up, but the soil is about right for the retaining wall idea. There's plenty of space though for a nice conditioning trail. I'll have to get over my fear of chainsaws and its going to be slow going. I'll need Robert to help me plan the trail. I want to go in with stakes and some bright ribbon to mark out the proposed trail that way I can just go in and cut. I think it will take most of the summer to build it but I still want to try.

Robert things that McIver park is more like 30 minutes away and with a horse trailer that might be right but he's still willing to take us sometime. I forgot to ask him about riding Lady, and I'll need to talk to him more about the trail and about chainsaws. Those things really scare me but I think I'll just have to buck up and be careful. In other barn improvement news, they're still cutting hay in the fields but they've got the section between the first creek and the gazebo done. Robert says we can set up some jumps there. I think we'll have Colonel jumping out there before you know it. Although I guess we'll start in the arena. ;) Robert claims that the main thing keeping them from moving into the new house is he needs to find out where the sheet rockers damaged the wiring to the dishwasher. Once he finds it and fixes it they're moving in or so he claims. Oh, and also we got a new horse in today. Its a breeding stock paint, which apparently is a paint horse that isn't color but that can produce color. 14'2 or shorter. I think she (he?) is pretty cute. The owner is a nice girl I only interacted with her briefly. The horse is one that likes to walk under the rope. Didn't even wait for me to walk off before starting to slip under that rope across his door, as though that was what he was supposed to do and there was no reason to hide it. So now we're up to four horses that need their doors closed at all times during feeding. Super. Last news-ish item: I've shed the title of working student and adopted the title of intern.

Goals for tomorrow:
Ride Colonel
Dressage Lesson for Luca
Load star again?
Ride Papillon and ask her to frame up at the walk a little.
Take Lady out and brush her.
Ride star, or lunge her over a pole like I did with Colonel.

McIver State Park

Ever since I've been out at the barn I keep hearing people talk about going riding out at Miguiver park. People have even said "oh, you should come with me next time I go down." Well it all just came together now. The title of the post ruins the punchline but its McIver state park. And its a 15 minute drive from the barn right down the highway. Its right along the river and it has horse trails. I think I'm going to add to my list of goals, for both Star and Colonel (and maybe Lady) we need to take them to the park and bring them back alive and sound, etc.

We'll need to practice loading Star. I'm going to take Robert's advice and just bring some food into the trailer, tie her to the trailer, sit down with a good book and wait for her to get hungry enough to walk in. I think I'll work with her first though. Get her stepping through the water, stepping over the bridge (preferably without lots of balking and head shaking) walking through those giant scary hay bales, etc. I wonder if Colonel loads well already. He probably hasnt been loaded into a trailer in years. Same goes for Papillon and Lady. I think the thing to do for the first trip is to take papillon out with one of them at a time. She's reasonably calm around strange stuff like this. She might get a little hyped up but by the time we're attempting all this hopefully she will have figured out that she gets to work after, and not before, warming up. Maybe we should take Papillon and Keno out first to scout the trails so we have a better idea what we're dealing with. Actually its only 7 miles of trail, we could do it on foot too. Anyway, its another project I'm exited about.

The path

Sometimes I get it into my head that this one thing is going to fix all my problems if I can just get it set up right. Right now that thing is working horses on a sloping path. It's supposed to be great for building up a hind end and for muscle and coordination in general. Papillon needs to build up muscle again, and her hind end is pretty deficient right now and walking on a slope would be great. Colonel needs to learn to balance and to not work on the forehand so much. Going up will force him to use his hind end and going down hills will motivate him to focus on what he is doing because there's nothing I can do to keep him from falling on his face. Star has a very strong shoulder, but she hasn't really developed or learned to engage her hind end and she has no topline. People think she's ewe necked because her underline is so much more developed than her topline.

The problem is: stoneybrook is flat. Very flat, I think a small glacier flattened it out a while ago. I should say though, most of stoney brook is flat. The valley ends and there is a pretty good hill at the end of the property. The problem is that right at the base of the hill the trails stop. So the whole thing is covered in brambles, blackberries, and generally thick underbrush plus trees. Currently absolutely impassable. I asked a friend of mine who also works there sometimes to clear a path. He was excited about it too; Lady is his big project and her hind end needs developing too if she is going to get back to jumping. He was always clearing brush anyway with that machete. I am a little scared of them. I can very easily envision chopping my own head off with one. Anyway, no path was built, so now its up to me.

People keep telling me that machetes are not really so bad and that it will be fine. So I've decided to do it. But I realized after scouting the place out that its not so obvious where to put the path, what grade it needs to be, how much the footing is going to need to be reenforced, where exactly the property line is, etc. etc. So I've been reading about trail design and the needs of horses in particular. I suspect I'm going to have to build some retaining walls, just simple ones, but I dont know yet. On my first mission, almost a year ago now, I didn't really get into the thick of it very far. I thought I had successfully delegated this task. Now that I finally have the opportunity to get back to the barn on a regular basis its gone and gotten intensely hot and I think this is a mission requireing long sleeved clothing, and I'm a little worried about ticks, so maybe a hood? Evidently I've signed myself up for a trip out there very early in the morning. But, its going to be a great project.

Goals II

I dont feel like working right this moment so I'm also going to do a goals post.
I second everything said about luca, keno, and Papillon, but I'd like to expand on Colonel.

Colonel: Its hard to know exactly what needs to be done without figuring out where he is right now. At the end of the summer he was cantering in a balanced fashion, mostly, and we were starting him over small jumps. At the trot he was reasonably good about calmly taking the fences. At a canter he was convinced that he needed to go very fast in order to get over. Watching him jump on the lunge line at the canter makes me think this might actually be true. When he came up to it calmly and tried to jump the small rail, he knocked it over. When he sped up to get over it, he didnt have too much trouble. I agree that more practice would proabably help, but I think this is an issue that could better be solved with more flatwork. He needs to learn to actually collect himself at the canter. Without leaning on anyones hands, I might add. I suspect that a lot of his more mentally based issues would get better with consistent work. So in summation my goals for him are:

• diagnostics to see what we're dealing with
• calmer behavior in general and particularly outdoors
• a collected canter
• jumping at the trot in a calm fashion
• jumping at the canter both calmly and correctly (ie, clearing the jump)

Star,
I'm was pretty happy with her walk and trot and the end of the summer. She was yielding to leg pressure, stopping, and generally pretty calm. She did have/develop a fear of logs which definitely needs fixing. She picked up the canter only when she was well set up with the corrrect bend, usually from a circle was easyest. She needs more practice with her canter transitions so that she'll be more balanced for the transition. She needs to be more balanced at the canter in general so that she doesnt feel the need to stop and rear or balk so much. At least I think thats the problem. Her headset is aweful. Really just terrible. It doesnt help her balance any. Plus she'll never be able to jump anything well if she doesnt develop a topline and learn to collect herself. She doesnt exactly scream jumping prospect but if she could jump an 18" crosrail she would be much more valuable, which is important if she's sold someday. Along with headest goes collection. She needs it. Also I'd like her to stop shying from the barrels in the arena, thats annoying. In summation my goals for star are:
Bring her back to a more calm state of mind by getting her in work

• Get her in a little better shape since she's been off work so much
• Get her to set her head properly
• Get her collected at the w/t/c
• Get her balanced at the canter
• Get her to be more calm around logs
• Get her to accept things moving around by her feet
• Maybe start working her over jumps again if she can get the above stuff down
• Get her to stop attacking other horses
  
• Get her to stop shying at the barrels at the end of the arena
  

As a side note, I'd like to make sure lady is ridden consistently. She deserves that. And try to get her a little calmer just walking around.

Also, for the barn, I'd like to clear a path up that hill. It would be nice to have a sloping path to walk up. Either get Ian to do it or just go out there and do it myself (or with help?). I just dont want to kill anyone, or myself, with that machete but it might be the fastest way to go. We'll see.