Get Over It.

Mwahhaha! You'll never guess what I did today! And I'm not gunna tell you until I go through the other stuff first. Mwahahaha!

So, Aleythia rode Ana bareback

Do you see that white stuff? It's called snow, and we finally got it!

And I guess she was pretty good.
While Aleythia rode Ana I was driving Coffie. Nothing exiting going on there... she only bucked twice... ok, ok. I had asked her to trot and we we trotted a little ways and then she bucked. Lucky for me I was far enough away that she didn't get me. Hmm I have quite a few close calls with horses... But anyway... Aleythia said that her buck looked pretty. I didn't really do anything because I was kinda surprised. I mean seriously why would she buck?


The next time I asked her to trot she bucked again. This time I had more space between me and her. So she trotted... few steps later.... BUCK! So in the split second it took for me to look at her I processed that I had reins in my hands... that were across her back... so, I used them. Took my end of the reins and slapped the rein against her butt. I think she was kinda surprised, but she didn't buck after that.

Does this look like an evil horsy?

Never.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the "scab" that coffie has on her back. It was were she had ringworm. It's flaky. We don't think that it's ringworm.

 

I rode Santana bareback. I do believe that I am sorta getting how to ride his trot. A little tip. Don't hold onto the horse's mane. I couldn't use his mane because I was riding him in a  snaffle with two reins, so I rode two handed. For some reason it pulls you more off balance than it helps. What you need to do when riding a horse's trot is sit back on your jean pockets. If you lean forward at all you'll loose your balance.

 And as long as were on the topic of tips... if you're gunna get cowboy boots and you live in an area that gets ice don't get a smoothe soled boot. You'll regret it, like me. This will become the story of your life... you step on anything that has a slant and there you are on your butt. Another thing. Corral boots are not the best thing to do work in. Standing for more than 10 minutes? Absolutley not. The next time I get boots I will get a square toe, traction on the soles, and a lower heel.

 He looks pudgy :/

 

 

And now the grand finale!!!!

I rode Misstack BAREBACK!

The idea of riding Misstack bareback scared me. I mean I don't know what she'll do and I have no desire to get bucked off. She doesn't like someone riding double. Like seriously she doesn't. She bucked my brother off.

So because of experiences with Santana and getting on bareback... (I'll tell story's a little later), I took my hand and did a drum roll on her back. Terry gave me a leg up and I just layed over her back on my stomach. Then I swung my leg over. I did flexing and it was fun! I kinda felt secure on her back. Another goal checked off.

 

So, about the story with Santana.

Well, I bridled him up and asked Terry for a leg up. He swung me up there and I landed on Santana's back... BUCK, BUCK! Fun right? I actually can't even remember if I stayed on. And another time I had him tied up to our trailer and I just went to rotating on his back. I was on him side saddle and I was gunna swing my foot over his back. Well, when he felt my foot on his back he arched his back like he was gunna buck. And being the semi stupid kid I did it again. So I was on him backwards and then... he bucked... sufficed to say I do remember how that ended. Not with me on. And the only thing I got was a big bruise on my elbow. One of my close calls.

On one of those boring days I will have to make a post reminiscing on all the close calls I've had.

15 Minutes of Awesomeness

So I got the second video up. Click this to see it. I especially liked the video because it showed that Ana is still hyper. You can see she wants to go, but she still stands. We have basically taught her a different way to stop and she has learned it quite well.
If there is anything on the video that doesn't make sense please ask me about it. Sometimes I'll explain something to Aleythia and she gets what I mean even if it doesn't make sense to the rest of the world.
I rode Santana and it was an extremely short ride. I'd say less than 10 minutes. I just worked on getting him to do one reign stops while walking. He was doing really good and I was getting a little cold so, I called it good.
I ground drove Toffy and Frosty out in the paddock.
Toffy was pretty good she is shaking her head less and her back ups are awesome! I'll pick up on the reins and say back. She'll tuck her nose and back and I can't really feel the pressure on the reins.
Frosty though wasn't very good. She started out fine and then after a few times of stopping she refused to back up. It was getting dark and I spent the next half hour working with her anyway. I did flexing with her and she took forever to stop leaning on the bit. When she finally did get it it wasn't too bad after that. The other side wasn't bad either. So I did some more driving with her. And she really didn't want to go beyond a certain point in the paddock when I pointed her towards the pasture fence. She did to better after that. Her stopping was better than when we began and so was her backing up. I led her back into the barn and she kept looking behind her towards the pasture and running in front of me. I couldn't see anything, but it might have been why she didn't want to go towards the pasture.
Aleythia worked with Dash and Coffie and she just did ground work with them. She thinks that once a week we need to go back and review the ground work. I think that would probably be a good idea. It will help them to get better at the ground work.

Love it!!

Do you know how happy one thing of doing nothing makes me? Yep, it's pretty awesome. Ana stood still...
I caught Ana in her stall and led her to the trailer. I brushed her with a metal curry comb and then a hard brush. Every time she moved I moved her back. I put Misstack's bridle on her and her black saddle with a blue saddle pad, and swung up. She layed her ears back at me when I moved around so, I moved around more. Eventually she stopped pinning her ears at me so I undid the halter around her neck. And we just sat there. After a little while I asked her to walk. When we were in the more open section of the barn I asked her to flex her head to the side. A few times of that and I knew that she was just gunna stand there. So I let her. Whenever I thought she was even remotely close to moving I pulled her nose to my foot. So I probably rode her for 15 min and we moved twice. And each time I had asked her to.  Once to get her away from any wall and another to figure out whether or not she was faking me out. Perfect little girl.
I think I will cross out getting Ana to stand still in my goals.

The other horses didn't do to bad either.
I'll  start getting Santana to flex to a stop from walking and trotting and Misstack's a little better with her flexing, but I'm going to perfect it a little while more before I start riding.
I desensitized Frosty to a cat food bag while driving and I just used a halter for that.
Dash had some bridling issues and I fixed those, Coffie didn't want to stand still, so I worked on it. She needs quite a bit more work.
Toffy is still flinging her head when she feels the pull of the bit, but stops pretty good and does a really nice back up.
So, I am proud to say that I worked with all seven horses today.

Stupid Titles...

So, my first thought is.... What do you do with a horse that has been abused, and doesn't take real well to round penning? So, my real question is to round pen, or to not?
I think that if you take the time to get that horse used to people like doing quite a bit of desensitizing to objects, round penning shouldn't be a problem.
This isn't for me, just something I read in uncatchable number 257
I think there's a bird stuck in my window... yep, I suppose I should fix that...
It was stuck between two glass panes. It did get out again, and we pushed up the window pane so that there wasn't a gap.

Well a little filly update. I drove Dash in a bit, or rather Terry did. She wasn't too bad for the first time. I had her flex in the bridle first so that she knew to give to the pressure and she was getting it.
Toffy is doing really well in the bit. She still does a little bit of the head flinging when she feels the pressure of the bit, but it's not too bad. Her stops are beautiful. I have a feeling that she will have a great sliding stop. Backing up is getting better. She'll fling her head maybe twice, tuck her head, and back up a few steps. It doesn't take much.

Then Ana... Well yesterday Aleythia spent more than half an hour just putting the bridle on. She didn't like it when Aleythia put her hand under her chin or over her nose, so she worked on that. After that when she got the bridle on she did one reign stops. Aleythia stopped when Ana stood still for almost 20 seconds. Woot woot!!!

Misstack is getting better with flexing, but she still has problems paying attention to me. It is getting better. She flexes a lot better on her right side than her left. Her right side is almost like what Santana does. Once she gets flexing down consistently I will ride. She's got everything accomplished other than that. Which reminds me I should look on that DVD on barrel racing as to what I am supposed to do after they can do everything on a loose rein.

Just so you know I did make it to the horses' yesterday.
I also made it to the horses' today.
Oh, did I tell you that Terry's brother got another horse. It's a white quarter horse, and is about 16 years old. I don't know the gender. Unfortunately I haven't seen the horse yet.
I worked with Misstack today and she is getting better with her flexing. I decided that another reason she isn't real good at it is because she is focused on everything else but me. So I made it a little more uncomfortable to not listen to me. When I wanted her to flex and I saw that her eye wasn't looking at me I took the end of my lead rope and made her move her hindquarters over really fast. After a few times of that she was listening to me a little better and was also flexing a little better.
I didn't work with Santana and Ana ;(
And Toffy didn't do too bad with the bit. She didn't like the pressure, so once again I went back and did flexing with the bridle and that helped. She still has a problem with stopping. When she feels the pressure of the bit pulling back she flips her head up until it stops. And I just have to live with it. It's not like I can really do anything to fix it. It will get better with practice anyway.
Coffie still needs practice in a halter. I think I got my point across with stopping though. I did one rein stops whenever she started to go after I had asked her to stop. That is not an easy task when you have to hold six feet of driving lines, and your lines have to go through rings on the harness. Oh, and you're standing behind your horse.
We're going to move Dash up to a bit too. And with all four I think I want to start making noises behind them.
It should prove entertaining.

Improvement is Welcomed

I wish I woulda worked with Misstack. I did everyone else, all six, except her. And she's the one who probably needed it the most. But I will go work with them tomorrow. I never go on Wednesdays. I have church, my student leadership meeting, and my quintet practice. And on top of all that I have school to go to. And tomorrow I have to be at church at 3:30 to help decorate a few signs for our Christmas play. So, I worked ahead in school. I have to skip the student leadership meeting and my quintet practice. And I will go to Terry's around 11:30. By the way I am home schooled, but I have one class at my high school, which is FFA, and I do plan to go back to the high school. So, if you want to know what's involved with homeschooling just ask.
I am actually really happy that I was able to work with Ana today. When I first got her out when I wanted her to back up, she was s-l-o-w. So, I grabbed the whip and whacked her a couple times. She backed up pretty nice. I made her move those feet as quickly as she could. After that I saddled her up, got on, and did one rein stops the entire half hour that I rode her. And she wasn't really good at it.
While I was riding I explained to Terry why we did one rein stops. And that was kinda fun. He likes to know why we do what we do.
Near the end of my training session I would flex her head to one side, let loose when she did it, then dare her to move. I just sat there and then right before I felt she would move I would flex to the other side and repeat. She was really good at flexing by the end. She leaves her head vertical to the ground when I flex her head from side to side. And she does it right away. Beautiful girl.
Frosty is getting extremely good at driving in the bridle. She stops really well. One problem I have come across in driving these fillies, is that when we start walking outside they don't listen to me very well. So, I either get them really good at driving in the barn and then go out or drive outside anyway and get them used to driving in unfamiliar places. Hmm. I think I like the latter better. Oh and I'm thinking that Toffy could probably be put in a bit and that Frosty could pull something. The other two need a lot more work.
With Santana I think that I will start riding him and only do one rein stops for a while. And I'll keep working with Misstack on the ground until she gets better at flexing. (sigh)

Learning

We've got freezing weather, you can see your breath, the top of the lakes have a thin layer of ice, and the wind is biting. But there's something missing.... oh ya... the snow! Come on if the weather is going to be this nasty could we get a little bit of the pretty white stuff to go with it?
It was probably the coldest so far and I still walked a mile to Terry's place. But then again, I've walked that mile in a blizzard too... Young and stupid? Granted I'm still young, but maybe I'm not quite that stupid anymore.
Lucky for me Terry has a heater in the trailer that I can turn on when I get there.
The fillies are doing well, but my toes are not. I'll explain a little later.
I ground drove all four of them... I'll tell you in story format just cause I think it'd be more entertaining.

~  ~  ~

I reached for the green halter and black lead rope hanging on the nail and thought about which one of the fillies I was going to work with first. It's quite a dilemma ya know. I decided that I would work with Frosty and I told Terry that because she was doing so well in a halter I would just go ahead and try ground driving in a bit. I've taken to tying them up at the trailer and brushing them. Usually I just do whatever I plan to work on for that particular day without brushing. But I suppose it gives me the opportunity to fiddle with their feet. I had to shorten the bridle two holes to fit small little Frosty.

At first Terry led her while I drove so that if she didn't do what I asked I wouldn't have to get into a fight with her while she had a bridle on. But she was pretty good. She was chewing a lot on the bit which makes me think that maybe we should have each of them wear it for a day or so. She was bracing against the pressure of the bit too. So after a little while of her not quite figuring it out I did flexing.  And now I know that the next horse I want to put the bridle on will learn to flex in the bridle. It is much easier if they realize that getting away from the pressure is the desired response. When I asked her to stop I pulled back on the reins and held them there until she came to a stop. And then I had her back up.

I let Frosty go and caught Toffy. I figured I should work with her on driving because we didn't last time. She was confident about going forward but as with Dash and Coffie her stops were terrible. She is the kind of horse that you can not man handle into doing anything. I figured that out today. With Dash and her stopping, when she didn't stop I could use all my weight to get her to stop. Not so with Toffy. She just got messed up. So with her it's all about letting her figure it out and giving her the opportunity to respond. After I had her not so confused once more her stops improved. Every time we stop I ask for a back up but with Coffie, Toffy, and Dash they kept backing up even after I say woah. So I was asking Toffy to back up and she did it quite well. After I said woah she stopped, but slowly stepped back. She stepped right onto my toes! I promptly pushed her forward. After that every time they kept backing up after I said woah I tapped them with the end of my rope a little bit.

Coffie and Dash's stops are improving. I asked them to trot and it was fun! They did it right away and Terry was watching me trot Dash and he said it looked really nice. They trot so nice and easy. I just love it!

~  ~  ~

So, there's my day. And I can't wait till December seventh. There's a masquerade ball that two of my sisters, me, and a few friends are going to. We made masks out of tin foil and you may think that sounds awful but it's actually really nice. You can shape it to fit your face, cut it anyhow you want, and decorate it anyhow you want. And it's not ugly either. Aleythia made a simple mask, painted it white, found a white flower stuck it in the side, painted the surface with clear shiny nail polish and put silver beads along the edge of the mask. It looks really nice. There's more than just tin foil involved to make it, but it does work. I couldn't decide what dress to wear, but I think I'm going to wear my black one with my four inch heals. Fun hey? The four inch heals aren't as uncomfortable as they sound.

Aleythia's mask. It's not quite finished.

I never did say how well Frosty did...
Let's put it this way, it's like pulling on a string and she does it...
She is confident about walking around she stops really well and if you pull an inch on the reins she backs up... perfect little girl...
Carter actually did most of the driving today. I made a few minor adjustments to his technique so that Frosty had the opportunity to respond lightly, but other than that he had fun and so did she. I think that I will put the harness on her next time and get her used to it.
...And the others were awful in comparison to Frosty. Not in comparison to her they actually didn't do too bad. They went where I told them and when I told them, without a leader. I even took Dash outside. But they were awful at stopping. I had to use all my weight to get them to stop. By the end they were doing quite a bit better. They can also back up pretty good now. The stopping and backing up needs work, but in the next few days they will get extremely better.
The only horse I didn't ground drive was Toffy. With Toffy, Aleythia had Carter get up on her and she led her around. And she was totally fine with it. She packed him around easily. As did Frosty.
And then her back foot hit a bucket and she bucked...
Aleythia took Toffy on the narrow side of the trailer. And she went through it just fine. Then about halfway through her back foot hit a bucket and she totally freaked. She bucked, hit the bucket again and bucked again. Amazingly Carter stayed on. She paused and hit the bucket again. She bucked again and that was when Carter came off. He landed on his back. Unfortunately the ground is not very forgiving. He started to complain about his back hurting after that. He'll be alright though. No broken bones. Maybe a little bit shaken, but I think that he'll be alright with that too. I told him that if he didn't get back on he would probably always be afraid to ride her again. So, after a little bit he did get back on. He sat on her and we all rubbed her and then Aleythia led them around.
One thing that Aleythia and I both noticed though was that she didn't try to run Aleythia over. She didn't invade her space even while she was panicking.

I also rode Santana. And by the way I am so glad that we have a barn that we can work in. It's not an indoor arena, but it has enough room to ride around in and do ground work in. I rode Santana bareback in the barn. It was awful weather today. I worked on his woah. After the incident with him on the trail ride when he didn't respond to that bridle at all I decided that it might be a good idea to work on it. What I did was walk a little ways stop and back up. I didn't do much trotting, because I have awful balance on him. It's like I can't find the right spot to sit on him or relax enough to do it correctly. Either he moves funny or I have major problems. But we repeated that exercise until his stop was pretty decent and his back ups were decent too. He can flex really well in the bridle too.

And I hope you all had an awesome thanksgiving. We went out to my grandparent's farm and after lunch we went out and played a really long game of capture the flag. I'm serious, it took like two hours. It was fun though. Nobody even won.

The day before thanksgiving I was over at my youth pastor's house helping add an room to his house. I was there from 10:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night. Aleythia and I learned what goes into doing something like that and we learned what hurricane straps are, what they help with, and also put them in. I learned where to stand when you have 50 mile/hr whinds and someone's cutting wood... Stupid shavings... We cut wood and framed a window and learned about the support structure. I also found out that I love the nail gun. And that guys are worse than girls when it comes to something they appreciate. They love to express it. We definetley had a good time.

Lessons

The horses were saddled and we were ready to go on our ride. H and I walked up and out of the driveway, took a left into town, and then another left at the first road. We were maybe halfway down the road when a black man pulls up and asks when he can ride

~ ~~

Ya know what. Even if I don't become a trainer and just own horses (if I don't, be surprised) I will open my barn to anyone who is willing to learn how to ride and I will have the horses to do it. My siblings can't ride because we don't have a suitable horse and neither can anyone else. We have an awesome black horse who is great with kids, unfortunately she's a pony and has really bad arthritis. We don't use Strudder because he also has arthritis and is almost always lame, and he's an English horse. Stretch is too old and can't get running out of his head anyway. Ana doesn't have breaks, and Terry doesn't trust Misstack with beginners and she can be such a nut job. Santana is the most likely to buck someone off and can be a handful. The fillies aren't an option.

My personal opinion is that Misstack and Santana would be our best choices. Misstack is a really nice horse when she knows where she is. Santana won't (probably anyway) buck or become hyper if he walks and trots and check him at the canter before he gets too fast. And besides a couple rounds of letting him run gets him calmed down pretty well. And he's probably the best trail horse we have.

Terry also is wary of letting people ride his horses because if they get hurt and sue him he could lose everything. What he should do is actually put that sign up in his barn warning people that horses are unpredictable and that they could get hurt. It might be a good idea and he couldn't get sued if he had that up.

 

But I had a really nice trail ride with H today. It was beautiful weather. I'm talking 60 to 70 degrees here. And despite Santana getting hyper when we ran across a field it wasn't too bad. We ended nicely. Before we left we went into the paddock to get any kinks out and it was kinda cool, because Ana followed Misstack and me around for quite a while. She pivoted when I turned Misstack into her neck, stopped when we stopped, followed when we turned away. It was funny.

I showed H what Coffie does when you breathe into her nose. It gave us a good laugh. And because I can't remember if I told you what she does I will tell you  know. Whenever you breathe into her nose she immediately puts her nose up in the air, rolls back her lips, and puts a disgusted look on her face. Silly horsey. It's probably a trick now because we pet her every time she does it.

And I worked with one filly after our ride and H got to see the problems that are presented the first time a horse learns to drive. Does anyone else think that sentence is funny? Go back and read it... You'll understand.

Frosty did extremely well. Well, not in the beginning. A little bit of advice if you are teaching a horse anything for the first time don't have pressure that's constantly there. It makes them frustrated. I'll give you an example. The halter was snug against her nose, she bent her head, but didn't find release. She lowered her head and braced against pressure. No release. Well, maybe a little one, because that was her solution to unending pressure. So now she braces against the halter and when I ask her to turn she puts her head down low and leans against the halter. I wait. She puts her head in the right direction. She is rewarded with a little bit of a release, but she still has that pressure. I wait. She steps, I release. Some of you might understand this example better. Try taking an uneducated horse and holding his head like you would a more advanced horse just as long as you would a more advanced horse too. Please take a video. I would love to see the results.



Beginning Driving/ Ana Problems

Is it just these horses or do most horses learn quickly?
I caught Toffy and attatched two long lead lines to the side of her halter. It's been wet, windy, and cold, so I chased the other three fillies out of their little section of the barn and commensed to teach Toffy how to ground drive.
We took twine string and attatched it to one rope, then the other so that the twine rested around her back and kept the ropes up.
I tried getting Toffy to go, but it wasn't working. She kept turning to look at me. So, to give Toffy an idea of what she was supposed to be doing Terry took over the ropes and I walked in front of Toffy. This definetly helped. She followed me and didn't get too worried about the person behind her. The trick was when she did try to turn and look at the driver was to pull her over to stop her from doing that. But once you pulled her over she just turned the other way, so you had to counter that too.
After a little while of this she was able to do it on her own. Initially she tried to turn and look at the driver, but she got it.
The hardest thing to do is keep her straight. When we put the carriage on her, she won't be able to turn really sharp. She'll have to learn to do a little bit of a side pass to turn. Terry said that he never taught them how to sidepass in the carriage. It's just something they pick up on.
I was going to use the bit right away, but Terry said that if they went to fight you, that would be hard on their mouths. And with all the turning and figuring it out  that they did that would have been very hard on their mouths. The bit will wait until they can ground drive pretty well.
We did this with all of them except Coffie. Aleythia picked up Coffie's feet instead. But it probably took us a half hour with Toffy, and the other two probably took 15 minutes.
They can walk, speed up the walk, turn minutely well, stop, and back up. But the only horse we did it without a leader was Toffy.

Before we ground drove Toffy Aleythia got on Ana bareback. She did a little bit of ground work, because Ana was moving around allot while being tied. With the ground work she calmed down.
She got on and Ana was hyper. We had told HM that Ana was more calm with as little tack as possible than with it. She suggested that it could be that the saddle doesn't fit her right. But after today we don't think that's really the problem. We will try and make the saddle fit her more correctly though. Parelli has pads that he puts underneath the saddle, but Aleythia thinks that a towel could work too. The only other tack she had on was a bridle, and I suppose that could make her anxious, but I just don't know.
Aleythia wants to ride Ana bareback for the rest of the winter and see if that has any effect on how calm Ana gets.

And one other thing...
Do you ever get the feeling that if your horse spooked you wouldn't be able to stay on? It's not a feeling you always have, just something that shows up once in a while.
Your horse may be calm or at least seem calm, and you may look like you have a solid, easy seat, but you really don't feel like you do. I have this experience most often when I am on the trail riding Misstack. I think the most times it happens when she picks up a more, not necessarily bouncy walk, but it pushes you up further. I think she is probably doing an extended walk.
My most recent experience with that feeling is when I was riding one of HM's horses, Buddy.
We went out on a trail ride and he also had the extended walk thingy going and I just didn't feel secure. I was fine inside the arena. HM asked me how Buddy felt, and I said that he felt fine it was me who didn't feel fine. She said I didn't look like I was insecure. After a little while it went away.
It could be that I am not riding it right or that I am slightly tense. Or maybe I'm too loose. If I ever get that feeling again, I will have to experiment with how I ride it.

Gotta do some Homework

We put driving tack on Toffy today, and she really didn't care.
We did a little bit of driving too. I'm not really sure how to teach it though. I honestly think that teaching a horse how to respond the the bridle would be way easier if I were on them.
The problem I had was she wanted to turn and look at me. She would move her hindquarters instead of her shoulders, and I couldn't keep that pressure on because I couldn't keep up with her swinging around.
I'll have to go exploring and see what I can find out about driving.
Other than that we worked on picking up feet.