Feeding time!

I have found that the best time to teach your horse a little respect is during feeding time. They want their food and you aren't getting out of their way fast enough. They get pushy and get in your bubble space. I feed my horses in their stalls. This is nice because then I don't have to worry about more than one horse. When I give them their food their immediate reaction is to go for the food right away. What I do is right when I step in the pen I get my horse to stand away from me and the food. I put the food in their bucket, and they try to eat. I shoo them back away and just stand there for a little while. Not for long, just so that they know that you can keep them away from their food. You can also use your hand to bump their nose if they keep trying top put it in the feed bucket when you're still standing there. Eventually your horse will stand in their stall patiently waiting until you leave their stall so that they can go eat. I suggest that you bring a crop with you until you are absolutely sure that your horse will be good.

Woot, Woot, Go Ana!

For the last couple weeks, riding about four times, my sister has been working with Ana getting her to stop, back up, and stand still. My sister would first start out cantering Ana, which takes about half an hour, until her head dropped. Then she would do that routine of stopping, backing up, and standing still. I rode Ana today, and I am really happy, because she was calm and never tried to go faster than a walk. I didn't canter her for 30 minutes either. She actually hadn't been ridden since Friday. But she was awesome. When I walked her out to the paddock it took me two times of moving her hindquarters to get her to stand still when I put my foot in the stirrup. I was actually pleasantly surprised because it was amazing how quickly she responded to the reigns when I asked her to stop. I didn't have to use a lot of pressure on the reigns. When I asked her to back up she would go six steps and stop. I just asked her to go further than that. I also did flexing. Flexing is when you bring the horses's nose to their stomach. What she normally does when you flex her is the moment you let her head go back to its normal position she starts walking again. The first time I flexed her she moved a step. I backed her up and flexed her again. This time she didn't move. I did the same with the other side, and she didn't move. I did it again later, flexing her side to side at least six times. She did not move the entire time.

"Working With His Breaks On" and Light Bit Pressure

Today my sister rode Ana and worked on "working with his breaks on" with her again. The only thing that changed was that when my sister started to canter Ana she started out slower. Oh, and when my sis went to get on Ana she only had to make Ana's hindquarters move twice before Ana stood still so that she could mount.

I rode Misstack. That was fun. I was walking her and I was using a snaffle bit with her and she was just really responsive to a light pull on the reigns. I moved up to a trot and she was good with the bit there too. I started cantering her and she was awesome. While she was cantering I would pick random places in the paddock to turn her. Sometimes it was along the fence other times it was just anywhere in the pen. She was switching leads and turning and and points even doing small rollbacks. To get her this way I would canter, trot, or walk and any way she wanted to go I would go another direction. When you canter, trot or walk just ask your horse to turn at random spots in the pen. Eventually your horse will become lighter on the bit and start listening to you more. I did this with barrels. I would start her out doing the barrel racing pattern and then when she started going around that barrel i would turn her away from it.

A good place to find really good horse training is http://www.downunderhorsemanship.tv/
Some of the stuff on here is from this website.

Results for "Working With His Brakes On"

I tried this method with Ana, and I was really pleased with the results. After cantering Ana for a good 30 minutes just to get her to drop her head and keep it there, we worked on walk/stop/back/hold/sit. When she started out she was almost jumping out of a stand still to walk when we clucked to her, and her walk was very fast and energetic. She also didn't want to stand still for very long. At the end of the session she didn't jump at the sound of a cluck, her walk was slower and less urgent, and she stayed still just a little bit longer. Granted all this took about 2 and a half hours, so when you do this be willing to put time into it, and be patient. With Ana the more you jerk and pull the more frustrated and unresponsive she gets. If you're gentle and patient with her she will do everything you ask to the best of her abilities. We are not done yet though. We still have to get Ana to do this consistently. I have no idea how long that will take, but we will do it. After she is awesome at doing it at the walk we will work on the trot, then the canter. I do have some videos of this so when I have time I'll put them on here.

Foal!

I am really excited for this summer. The owner of the horses I ride, asked his farrier if he could find a quarter horse yearling for my sister and I to train. It will be a gelding, and if we do get a foal we will have him for the summer, and then he will return to his owners when school starts. This is because when school starts we will not have time to give the foal the attention he needs.

"Working With His Brakes On"

On the trainer's blog I follow, the trainer posted something that just might help me with my hyper horse Ana, to get her to calm down, and gain collection. Here's the site.  http://robertsontraining.blogspot.com/2012/05/teaching-cruise-control.html

I'll try it with both my horses and let you know the results

Running the Horses

A few days ago my sister and I trail rode Misstack and Ana out to a field that we had permission to use. When we got there we started running the horses. When the horses stepped in that black dirt the dirt came up to their ankles. That was actually pretty handy because Misstack couldn't buck because the dirt was so loose that she always had to keep her feet under her. My sister was saying how when Ana trotted it felt like she was gliding, and how her canter was really easy to ride (it normally isn't). The initial reason for doing this was to try to fix Misstack's problem of bucking when she cantered in a new place. I think it worked. Last Saturday my sister and I went trail riding again and we cantered beside the road outside of town. Misstack didn't even think about bucking. Not too long ago Misstack wouldn't even go up the driveway, now, with only three trail rides, she's a better trail horse than Ana, who is really hyper and has been doing it since last summer, but doesn't shy at a lot of stuff.

Bucked Off and Glad of it

I was riding Misstack on a trail ride with my sister on Ana, and it was my first trail ride with Misstack. She has gone on  a trail ride one other time and she came back with a big cut in her front leg and a circle shaped cut on her rump. Her rider got a broken wrist. Once we figured out that I should ride Misstack and not Ana the trail ride got underway. Misstack still wasn't all that keen on going anywhere. When we got to a fairly open spot my sister did ground work with Ana and I did circles with Misstack. If she wanted to go one way, I told her to go the other way. Eventually I got it so that the bushes she wouldn't go through not half an hour before became just bushes and not scary evil green creatures trying to kill her. And then on the way back she was trying to keep up with Ana who was cantering a weaving pattern between the trees and I didn't want her too. So she got really excited and started bucking while cantering. And ya know how it's almost impossible for them to buck if they're going fast enough, well she doesn't have a problem with that. She basically jumps into the air while cantering and then bucks while all four feet are in the air. You're on the ground before you know what's happening. I succeeded in staying on her first one, but her second I didn't have that good a seat so I was ended up on my back on the ground. But in some aspects I am glad she bucked. I figured out what circumstances make her buck. Because I know that, I can figure out a way to fix it. So this week we are going to take Misstack and Ana out to a couple fields and run em, to see if I can fix the problem.