Day 13

So once again all I did was move around on the fillies' backs. It was raining for a little while and the paddock is all slush. Not very conducive to riding horses.
Aleythia wasn't with me today so I kept the fillies tied up to the wall. It wasn't too bad. Terry gave me a leg up. They were all kinda nervous.
You should have seen them in the pasture! They were bittin each other and rearing, running each other over... it was quite entertaining.
The other thing I did today was talk to Terry about fair week.
Whether or not we should take all four, and thus have to spend around 100 dollars on coggins tests, Bring only one, or bring two.
I'm leaning towards two. The two we want to sell. Which would be Frosty and Coffie.
So Frosty is small, but she has a whole lot of curiosity and courage.
Coffie is the tallest of the four, and is the most dependable.
The other two don't have so much of either of those. Terry wants to keep them because he likes the look of them, and eventually they will turn into dependable horses.
And it just so happens that Frosty and Coffie are the two horses we will be cantering tomorrow. I can't wait for that. I don't really know how it's going to turn out, but I think it will be fine.
We went and visited Flicka and her new pasture buddy, Toot. She's a grey mare that used to be a 4-H horse. I can't remember her breed.
But we saw MD there too. She lives there. We let her know about getting the fillies to canter, so that should prove entertaining. She show up around 4 and that's when we'll start.
We need to do it now because Saturday a friend of mine is getting married, and Sunday Aleythia is leaving for camp and will be gone two weeks. I don't want to wait that long.
Oh, oh, oh! I am really excited about fair time. Frosty is going to be Terry's youngest grandson's 4-H horse in cloverbuds. It's just a halter class, and Frosty will be wonderful for him. I'll even bet that they'll get a blue ribbon. Though the entire class will either get a blue, or a red. But still.
I'm looking forward to how she'll react to the crowd. First time in the show ring handled by a six year old. Perfect.
That means that people will get to see what an awesome two year old she is, and how well she does will help to get her sold.
I know you all are probably thinking she's too young to be sold, too inexperienced. Look at it this way. Flicka was also very young, she never bucked us off because she was scared. She was a decent trail horse. We'll have a whole summer to get them a little more muscled, a little bigger, and a little more dependable. Another thing is that more than likely they will be bought by a beginner rider who is either young, or just starting riding. That being the case the young rider will probably not ride very long or do anything really stressful, and the just starting rider will probably not do anything stressful either... And it'll be right before winter, which means they won't get ridden very long because of the cold. I'm slightly worried that they won't get ridden at all, but we'll just have to worry about that when we come to it.

Day 12/Vet Visit

At 1:00 the rain was coming down in sheets. At 1:30 going to Terry's seemed unlikely. At 2:15 I got a call. I was definitely going to Terry's. I walked over as quickly as I could (I really want a car) and Terry had the trailer hooked up and his grandson was also present. We were going to the vet.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're wrong. It was just a coggins testing. Which the vet says is completely useless, cause there has only been two cases in the last twenty years. It's required for all horses who will be with another huge group of horses or going out of state. We loaded up Frosty, Santana, Misstack, and Strudder. Ya know I'm pretty sure I'm spelling Misstack and Strudder's names wrong, but it's how I've spelled them from the time I first met them so what's the point in changing it now.
So Frosty was a complete angel, Santana was like "this is old hat," Strudder was good, and Misstack was awful.
She was better than she was at the fair though. She didn't completely ignore my presence. I made it clear right from the beginning that she would not come into my space and that if she did she would get smacked. Hard. She wouldn't go into the vet's barn, and would back up really quickly. I did eventually get her into the barn by zigzagging across the entrance and going in at an angle. When the vet tried to get some of her blood she kept tossing her head and making it extremely hard for the vet to do anything. She then backed up the whole 40 meters out of the barn, and I just kept pressure against the halter so that she knew that she wasn't supposed to do that and went with her. We brought Santana over so that she would calm down and the vet was able to get some of her blood. After that I took her away from Santana and out of sight of the other horses, and worked her. I wanted her to stop when I stopped, not invade my space, and calm down. We went into the barn again and eventually she walked straight in. There was a platform covered in red carpet outside and I eventually got her to step on it. When she finally walked on it I led her back to the other horses. I stopped quite a bit to make sure she was watching what I was doing though. I remembered something else too. I remembered that I had once made it a requirement that Misstack stay behind me. I didn't care what she did behind me, just that she stayed there. So I reinforced that rule a little bit.
When we got home they all unloaded really nicely. Terry told us that we should have seen Frosty unload. He said that she just slowly lowered her foot until it hit the ground. He said that you could have put your foot where she would have landed, and it wouldn't have hurt because she did it so softly.
We also got on all the fillies bareback and just moved around; sideways, backwards, front, pushed ourselves off their back, moved backwards and forwards, that kind of stuff.  Dash didn't buck Aleythia off, Toffy seemed more comfortable, Coffie was moving around quite a bit, and Frosty didn't care.
So was asked Britney to help us ride the fillies as I said before, and Terry also said that his other granddaughter wanted to ride the fillies too. I'm really looking forward too this summer. Talking about this summer: TWO DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT!!!!!!

Day 11

So why did we never get bucked off of Flicka when we asked for more speed? She was just as young as the fillies are.
Aleythia was wondering about this and there are a couple of things that are different from when we trained Flicka to training the fillies now.
I think Flicka was imprinted at birth. I don't know that for certain though. The fillies weren't.
Aleythia and I were younger and had a lot less knowledge on the subject.... well less than the little we have now.
It could be that it's just the horse. Maybe it just that the breed has something to do with it.
The biggest difference though and the most probable is this; Before we ever asked her to move forward we were climbing all over her back. Heck we even stood up on her back. She was totally comfortable with us on her back. It was on a complete whim too. It's not like I thought "Hey if we move all over her back she won't ever buck us off."
No it was because I wanted to be all cool and be able to stand on her back.
I need to remember that we didn't totally botch Flicka's training.
So that's what we'll be doing before every ride. Moving all over their backs and getting them completely used to someone on them. Completely comfortable.
We did that with Frosty today. Terry's grandson even got on and moved around on her back.
Mostly did desensitizing.
Oh I ponied Toffy off of Santana. She wasn't all that willing to go Santana's speed though. I just gripped that lead rope tightly and waited for her to figure out that moving at Santana's speed would be way easier. She did. We walked around, did a little bit of stopping, and called it good. Tomorrow we'll trot.

Trail Ride with H/Day 10

I am so far behind in reading blogs, that I don't even want to start. It's pathetic.
So the trail ride with H.
We took Ana and Santana out on the first trail ride of the year. I was kinda worried about how they would act. I hadn't ridden Santana in a couple weeks, and I have only ridden Ana a couple of times sense last summer.
We worked them in the paddock for a little while and Ana was doing pretty good. As was Santana. We got going, and headed for the other side of town where we kept the fillies for the summer. It was probably a little over a mile, and it took an hour to get there. Seriously that's lame. But, I had to remind Ana that she couldn't trot on her own whim, so I did one rein stops. So we got to Terry's brother's place, and the train came by. I was trying to get Ana to listen to me, but she wasn't taking any notice of the rope I slapped against her rump. She was running me over, not listening, and generally being disrespectful. I acquired a whip. I got her to move nicely backwards. She turned when I asked, and didn't run me over. The Rosen Farm (Terry's brother's place) is on a dirt road that leads down to a dam. So we went down there. I was getting tired of Ana's energy so there was this nice hill (dirt that was pushed in a pile and hadn't been moved in a while so grass was growing on it) that was moderately steep. I went up and down that thing for a little while and that seemed to help, but she still wasn't done. We went down a path that was next to and above the dam and it turned into a small grassy area. I let Ana go any speed she wanted. We also met a small group of little kids that wanted to pet the horsies. Of course we couldn't refuse. They just petted Santana though. Ana wouldn't stand still long enough.
We headed back towards the "hill" and ended up cantering. When we got back to the dirt road the Rosen Farm was on I just let Ana gallop. H was behind me with Santana and she let him gallop too. It wasn't even a competition. It was a total cream. Santana just shot by Ana like she was standing still. H had fun though. She said her horses don't go that fast.
I figured something out about Ana that trip. She likes contact with the bit. It's so weird. I have always thought that she didn't. I don't even know how I came to that conclusion.
The whole way there she wasn't consistent in speed, she would have failed a drug test, and wasn't listening. On the way home, when I kept contact with the bit she tucked her head, went slow (read trotted really slow), went straight, and was listening. She sped up or slowed down with very little encouragement. She never really walked, but she did do as I asked. I wanted to see if she would sidepass too. I put my leg against her side, and she took four neat little steps sideways. She did it the other way too. I had to show H too. She walked calmly past the scary water and didn't even care about the man holes. She amazes me sometimes.
We met more people who wanted to pet the horses too. Santana got petted. Ana wouldn't stand still. But the little kids were so cute. A woman was holding a little boy, and he slowly reached his hand out and touched Ana, snatched his hand away and giggled excitedly. It was so cute!

Today with the fillies I caught them all and brought them in from the alfalfa field. It took two trips. I was hoping that Dash and Toffy would follow, but once they realized I didn't have a hold of their lead ropes, they were like "skrew this" So it took two trips instead of one.
It was really funny when I fist went out there to say hello. All the fillies came up and said hello, and the big horses followed. So a herd of horses, clumped together were converging on my position. It made me laugh.
Terry and I set out a blanket in the back pen and proceeded to try to get the fillies to walk over it. Toffy would have nothing to do with it. Terry eventually went and got Frosty. Terry led Frosty over to the blanket, and she walked right on over it, without so much as batting an eye. I was like what the heck! Totally not fair!
We ended up putting the blanket next to the barn so Toffy couldn't get around it and I led both horses across... eventually.
Dash was pretty okay with it too. Coffie freaked out though. But after she went and smelled it I was able to lead her across without too much trouble.
And that was about all we did.
Pretty exciting stuff.

Day 8/Day 9

So, we're like a week behind in getting the fillies to canter through poles by June 1st. Homework comes before horses. And unfortunately there has been a lot of homework.
So I just want to let you guys know that a very important event is coming up in my near future.
SCHOOL GET OUT AND SUMMER VACATION ARRIVES!!!!!!
Can you tell I'm excited!?
Ok, back on topic.
Day eight.
Really it shouldn't even count. We just caught Toffy from the alfalfa field and put a little weight on her back.... Which was entertaining. She was very wary of the bags going over her back. We did get it on without a big major freak out though. So actually we just walked around in the back pen with two people on either side of her halter. You could just tell that if you did the slightest thing to alarm her, she would be bucking to China and back.
But let's back track a little bit.
I was doing research for homework that was on horses. And I was looking at something on youtube about it. And I got distracted by back pain in a horse. But I learned what the reactions to it would be, and I also learned how to get your horse to relax his back.
So I gave Toffy a little bit of a massage on her back before all this started. She was definitely tense in her back, but after a little while of doing that she was starting to relax. Also I don't think she has back pain. Honestly we are not really sure what is going on. But, we have another hypothesis.
Maybe she's just scared.
Think about it.
We haven't been doing a lot of regular desensitizing with the fillies.
Toffy was flinching whenever the saddle blanket and saddle was put on.
The first time she bucked me off we put on a new saddle, and also a back cinch.
So, maybe what happened is that the back cinch made it the final straw for Toffy. She was just getting scared.
She had all these things happen to her that she was minutely afraid of and they kept building until she finally exploded.
So we are going to do ground work for a while, pony her on trails, ect. Just do as much desensitizing and getting her broke before we get on again. So, we'll see.
Day 9
So it took me like half an hour to work with the fillies. I put the saddle on Dash and Terry went outside and lunged her with the back cinch on. I think she did fine.
The other three I did desensitizing to a plastic bag. I got the most reaction out of Coffie.
Terry also took Frosty and worked on leading. Terry's grandson is in 4-H and needs a horse for a showmanship class. Usually he would do Blacky, but she can barely get out of the barn, because her arthritis is so bad. So he asked Aleythia and I which one of the fillies would be the best, and we told him anyone would be good. Then we remedied it and told him to use Frosty because she was the smallest and Terry's grandson would be the most comfortable around her.
That day I also went trail riding with H at 5 and we took Santana and Ana. But I'll tell you about that tomorrow. It's like 9:30 and I am tired. I have not been getting enough sleep. Seriously! Who goes to bed at 9:30?

Day 7

Aleythia and I didn't feel like bringing the horses in. They were in the pasture, and they wouldn't have felt like coming in anyway.

I take way too many pictures. Like seriously I took all the pictures of my horses off of my computer and put it on an external hard drive. There were about 1,400 pictures.

The pile of dirt you see in these pictures is because the tile wasn't doing a very good job of draining off the water. The ground is so saturated out there the horses sink up past their ankles.

We took all that we needed out to the pasture and I went and got Toffy.

So, here's what's happening with Toffy. Today when I rode her, I rode her bareback. Just to see if that would help anything. Aleythia led her. She started walking, and I could feel her back muscles tense up. She felt like if she was pushed any faster she would explode. We stopped, and her back muscles took a little while to relax. Now I don't know if that's normal or not so I rode Coffie bareback too. Coffie tightened her back muscles too. So I figure that was pretty normal. But Coffie relaxed her back muscles right when we stopped too.

What Aleythia and I are thinking is tomorrow, we'll see if we can't get something that is at least 100 lbs, and tie it to Toffy's saddle. Then we'll ask her to do ground work. If she bucks we will know that it's not because of a rider.

What we're planning on doing after that is...

we are going to stay off her for a little while. See if her problem will heal by itself. We won't leave her alone, we can still do a lot with her without riding. We'll pony her off of Santana, get her back muscles stronger by trotting a lot, go on trail rides, desensitize, ect. We'll saddle her up every time so she doesn't become out of practice with the saddle and bridle.

After a few weeks we'll tie 100 lbs to her saddle again and see if she bucks. Thus the reason for tying that much weight to her saddle in the first place. To have something to go off of. If she bucks she isn't okay.

Tomorrow should prove entertaining.

I rode Coffie bareback and we trotted. In the pasture. It was a little scary at first, but it was all right. I should do it more often.

Aleythia got on Dash bareback.... and promptly got bucked off when I started leading her. So we spent the next little while desensitizing. Eventually Aleythia got back on. It may have been slow, but she did eventually sit on Dash. We've probably only got on her bareback a few other times. The last time she wouldn't have anything to do with it either. It needs to get worked on.

Toffy

Toffy

Coffie

Aleythia and I were laughing at Toffy. When she had to go anywhere in the pasture she followed the outside where it was less muddy. Almost like she was saying "it's too much work to go on the diagonal!" Silly horsey.

Day 6

I don't try to make getting bucked off a regular occurrence. I really can not wait for the day when those fillies are well enough trained that they don't do that.
Toffy bucked me off. Again. I really don't understand. It could be a couple things. Either she has back problems, or she was freaking out because there was something wrong with her cinch.
I don't think it's the cinch.
Toffy flinches when we put the saddle on. None of the other fillies do.
Toffy bucked when I first put my foot in the stirrup. And didn't stop until a little later.
Which makes me think it could be the cinch. There was gravel in her cinch when I checked and some more might have gotten up there.
I really don't know. It's extremely frustrating.
When Toffy started bucking she was trotting. She actually wasn't bucking that hard. Either because it didn't hurt her back and was the cinch, or she thought the ground was too slippery and couldn't go all out. I really hope it's the first one. I stayed on for the first half.
She started bucking, and I was like, okay, she's bucking, say calm, and don't jerk the reins. I got her to calm down a little bit so that she was just turning tightly and not bucking... then the gravel flew up from her back feet and hit the side of the barn, and she was off again. I lost it, and fell into the dirt. I got mud on my jeans, my arms, and my shirt. I felt pretty good about staying on that long though.
Dash also went haywire.
Aleythia saddled her up, cinched up the front and back, started leading her out the barn and she exploded. She bucked like the zombie apocalypse was starting where she stood.
We figured it was the back cinch. She's only ever worn it once before.
We got her outside and I got my camera ready.

Here's pictures of Toffy

trotting right before....

after

 Aleythia rode Frosty and she was really good! She trotted beautifully, turned beautifully, stopped okay. It was pretty sweet! She walked nicely too.

 

I rode Coffie and she did just as well as Frosty

So it was quite an interesting day.
I had a FFA officer interview today too. I thought it went pretty well. My first choice officer was Vice President. It'll be fun. Can't wait to see what's decided.