Skydiving Horses

Okay, about the sky diving horses, Aleythia and I were talking with my oldest brother, and we got onto the topic of hilarious horse photos. First it was a horse jumping over a dude playing the piano, with a cool sunset. Or put it on top of a hill during dusk, and make it a silhouette. Then we got onto horses jumping out of planes. Just picture this in your mind. Then we had to put a person with the horse because the horse couldn't pull his parachute cord. Then there was the problem of landing, and my brother said to just land in water. Then we got to talking about how to train your horse to actually jump out of a plane, and well there's diving horses and then my brother suggested hitching the horse to a crane. Yes it would all be very entertaining.

Our conversation didn't stop there. We thought up the idea of teaching your horse to sit down (like a dog) in a sled and pushing it down a hill. That would make a great picture!

Then just for kicks and laughs we would make a lightweight boat around a horse and get some paddles and ride down main street rowing the boat. Oooh the looks you would get!


I just thought I would say that I am not responsible for any injuries that may incur if you try any of these things.

No Skydiving Horses, Just Normal Horses

Yesterday was awesome. I rode Ana in our paddock and I just worked on getting her to settle down. I found that if I kept the pulling back to a minimum and just tried to relax myself, to really think about relaxing, she just got calmer and calmer, lowering her head and just plodding along. This probably took me maybe 15 minutes. This is very good compared to two hours of a prancing idiot.

After that I took her into the pasture, and just let her have the feeling of freedom while she cantered. Feeling of freedom isn't quite right. I wanted her to be able to have a nice canter wherever she was, and that was a good environment to do it in. There was a fence so she couldn't run away if something bad went wrong, and she was familiar with the footing, so she didn't freak out at something that was unfamiliar to her. The point of this wasn't to get her energy level down, but to work on getting a consistent speed. It was fun, because it's not often that I let my horses gallop, witch brings to mind that maybe I should do it more so that I can learn to get a better seat. When I was cantering Ana, it felt like I did not have a very good seat. Aleythia was watching from the fence, and she said it was fun to watch and that it looked like I was going with the horse, but it so did not feel like it.

When I slowed her down to a walk, she immediately dropped her head and walked nicely. Since she did that I moved up from walk, stop, back up, hold, to trotting. The one condition with trotting was that she had to be walking nicely in order to trot. If she kept trying to trot I would either turn circles or pull back on the reins. It worked better to turn her in a circle, but I still ended up letting her trot, and making her do it longer than she wanted to. It was a good day.

Then I rode Misstack. Nothing there, except that my stirrups were way to long.

While I was riding Misstack Terry's grandson was riding Santana, and Santana was getting really hyper. He loves to run poles and if you do it a lot he just gets really wild. What ended up happening is when Terry's grandson got off Santana I rode him. I made him canter, and take lots of turns. Every time he would try to take off I would turn him again. One place he really wanted to run was turning the third barrel in the barrel racing pattern. After turning that barrel he would take off and I would end up turning him. I did this until I got it so that instead of bolting after taking that turn he trotted. It was a really fast trot, but at least he didn't bolt. I rewarded him by letting him trot back to the finish line. I kept at it for a little while more, but I could now control how fast his canter was, and he was breathing really hard. I stopped and let him just stand there then I got off.

I told Terry's grandson, that when Santana is really hyper like that he needs to make him do lots of circles. It doesn't matter if he trots, but the moment he goes too fast you gotta turn him. This will end up being a little challenging for him, because first Terry's grandson is in like 4th grade, and turning Santana when he wants to go fast is hard, but it is possible. I also got Terry's grandson to not let Santana take another step after he stops when leading. If Santana did take another step it would result in him backing up. Santana didn't back up as energetically as I would have liked, again because Terry's grandson is small and not using enough force, but Santana did stop taking more steps.

I was going to talk about skydiving horses and sledding, but this post is really long, so I'll try to get it in tomorrow night.

Way To Hot

The last few days have been really hot. I have not been working with horses because of the heat, I'm busy, and also because Ana is limping. She doesn't have any swelling in her leg, so I have no idea what the problem is. She doesn't act like she's in pain, but she's still limping. We thought that maybe she pulled a muscle, because the previous day we cantered for at least half an hour. (That horse would do awesome in endurance races. She's the kind of horse who can canter that long, and still be a pain. Nobody bothered to teach her that standing still was okay.) I decided that if she did pull a muscle stretching her legs might do her some good, so I commenced to stretch her front legs. It became a lesson on bowing. I used no ropes, and no treats. First, I picked her leg up and pulled it back with one hand on her ankle, and the other on her leg right below the shoulder, until she rocked back on her haunches, then let her foot drop. Picked up her foot again, and rocked her back on her haunches again. I found that it's just a matter of getting that first little rocking motion without her moving her feet moving, and she gets it. I also found that the further she was able to rock back the lower she put her head.

At the end of that session she did a very nice bow... and I was sweating like a pig.

The Races

After spending time sitting in the pasture with the horses and seeing if they would stay in our area of the pasture (they did) and taking random pictures, we went inside and watched the Belmont Stakes. I think that was what it was. Honestly I don't really see the point of the races. I do not like betting, aka gambling. For the Belmont Stakes 2 million dollars was bet on just one horse. To me that is such a waste. But who am I to say what people do with their money. I don't even know were it goes after all is said and done.

 For me the only thing that makes horse racing better than car racing is that watching a magnificant, God created animal run is more in my line of interst than cars.

Poles and Barrels

Yesterday, I rode Santana (1/4 hackney, 1/4 arabian, 1/2 quarter horse gelding) and I worked on getting him to listen to me to change directions. I did this with the poles first. I would start going around the poles in no particular order, and anytime he turned to take a pole I would turn him the opposite direction. I eventually got it so that I would trot past a pole and he wouldn't try to turn. I did the same thing with barrels. Every time he would turn the barrel without me telling him to I would turn him to the outside. You may think that this will ruin how your horse does barrels. It doesn't. First, I think every horse should be able to do barrels whether they've had professional training or not. This is because every horse should listen to your cues.

Things to Work On

Today my sister, Aleythia, and I went to the horse barn and for the first half hour we just hung out with the horses in the barn. Have you ever noticed that when you show dominance over one horse that horse has to go show its dominance to another, and it continues down the line.

 It was kinda hot today, but we did have a wind. We went inside, had an ice cream cone, and tried drawing a porch. The owner, Terry, wanted us to try and draw this porch his daughter was going to put up so he could send it to someone so that they knew what she wanted. It wasn't too bad. After deciding that we were gaining nothing by staying inside we went out to the barn.

I rode Misstack, and Aleythia rode Ana. I worked on getting Misstack to listen to me for the change of direction, and you would be amazed how little it takes her to turn...,  except when she's doing the barrel pattern. For some reason when I ask her to turn that first barrel it is really hard to do. She tries to take the widest turn possible, and then when she exits the barrel she starts leaping into the air. Not technically bucking, but it is not at all comfortable to ride. Terry thinks that if she didn't take so wide a turn she wouldn't be able to leap into the air. Leaping into the air like that slows her down way to much. I need to find a way to fix it. Aleythia suggested that I get her to swing her hindquarters around the barrel. So what I would be doing is pressing my inside leg against her to get her hindquarters to almost walk around her front during the turn. I now have to work on getting Misstack to move her hindquarters while I'm in the saddle. She does do it a little, but it takes a little bit of kicking to do it. At least I have a place to start.

Aleythia was working on getting Ana to walk nicely. Aleythia said she's awesome at it, but she just doesn't think Ana is ready to progress to the trot. She says that Ana still doesn't have that hesitant step when she's walking. Aleythia also tried to get Ana to plant her back feet and move her front. It didn't work too well. We decided that instead of telling Ana to move her shoulder away from us in one full circle over and over, we would work on one step at a time. She has her hindquarters still for the first step, then looses it. We just have to do it really slowly, with a pause between each step.

Overall, today was a good day.

Quiting too Soon

Yesterday, my sister rode Ana, and Ana was getting frustrated with the trot, stop, and back up. She reared. It was a very pretty rear though. After having Ana stop one more time, my sister was done riding. I didn't want her to quit even though she had been riding for two hours already. I told my sister that it would teach Ana that when she was bad she wouldn't have to work. Today my sister rode Ana again, and sure enough in the first fifteen minutes of riding Ana reared. My point was made. Ana learned that if she reared she didn't have to work. Horses are too smart for their own good. It only took Ana one time of getting away with something to try it again.

Obstacles With the Horses

Yesterday my sister and I set up a little obstacle course for Misstack and Ana. We set up four barrels in a row, flat on their sides, for them to jump over, and we put some logs on the ground for them to step over. The first thing we did was take the horses into the round pen and had them yield their hindquarters to turn and face us, then change directions. I'll put a video of this up later.

The next thing we did was take them over the logs we put down. If you don't have logs, just use anything that your horse can step over without having to jump. One of our "logs" was actually a rolled up carpet. You will have to have a long lead rope and a manageable whip. When you send them across the logs at a trot you have to watch how much rope you give out so they don't go on the far side or the side you are on. You will also have to walk with your horse so they go across all the logs. So while your horse is going across he logs you are still behind your horses driveline but walking alongside the logs as your horse goes across. To get them to change directions we used the yeilding hindquarters to face us then change directions. To do this you "step towards their tail", bring the whip down towards their hindquarters, and pull their head towards you.

The last thing we did was the barrels. We had them lunge around it a few times and then we trotted them up to it to jump. With Misstack it didn't go so well. She did not want to jump it. Part of it was my fault because I wasn't far enough away from the barrels to keep her from going around them while still letting enough line out so that she could face the jump to jump. what ended up happening was that she nocked the furthest barrel ot of place and she jumped the gap it created. After that it only took a few more tries and getting enough momentum up for her to jump it. And then Ana tried it and she did it right away. But she has a little bit of an advantage over Misstack. When she was one and two years old a foreign exchange student worked with her, and she put little jumps up for Ana to go over. Ana still didn't do it all the time though, but that was mostly operator error.

Round pen with Misstack

A few days ago I took Misstack out to our little back pen and worked on changing direction to the inside. If she wanted to change directions without me telling her too I would send her back the original way. It was a little muddy that day and she actually fell, but she got right back up and I told her to start running again. You really don't accomplish anything by fretting over your horse when he falls down. If your horse does fall just get him going right away and watch for signs of injury. If your horse is hurt he'll let you know. I also worked on getting her to yield her hindquarters, back up, and yield her shoulders.