Knowledge Comes In Different Forms

The fillies are going through another growth spurt. Coffie's withers come up a little above my chin, and I'm 5'4". She is looking a whole lot heftier than her skinny younger self. Her mane looks awful. She's been reaching through the fence to eat the grass on the other side, and tears off her mane in the process. I might cut it all off after winter so that it grows straight.
I haven't ridden for 2 weeks and it really is a pain. I am having a hard time making the time. Cross Country ends soon though (Wednesday next week). That should free up quite a bit of my time.
I rode Misstack on a short trail ride... after two weeks off. I like riding her on trail rides. She looks to me more, and more often, and does what I ask. I love that she doesn't mind being away from the other horses. And plus it gives us something to do sense I am not training her in the barrel pattern. After fair I quit with barrels, and poles, and all those other events, just to give them a break and do something different. So we'll go on trail rides, I'll work on getting them more supple, and teaching them new things like sidepassing. I don't have them do a whole lot of work, we're kinda lazy.
I think I got somewhere with Toffy today. I gave her a reminder course in ground work and getting her to do what I ask. I've started doing rollbacks with her and am telling her "Hip!" before every turn so that she can relate it when I get in the saddle and do it. Then I had a little bit of fun and threw a small ball at her. I don't know what it was made of, but it was really squishy. Squishy is the wrong word, but describes it accurately enough. Believe me I was not abusing my horse. Just getting her used to different things. I also emphasized things hitting her legs. I took a hard whip and tapped her legs, I bumped her legs with a tire, and I threw the ball at her legs. I am trying to fix how touchy she is about things hitting her legs. Then we did the tarp. I started out shaking it. It didn't take too long for me to be able to shake it while it was on her back. I'll keep doing random object training. We'll do that with all the fillies. Dash is brilliant at it though.
That is my story... wait I'm not done yet.
Yesterday I went up to some place to a Horse Evaluation contest for FFA. I discovered something. Horse people are weird. They make me laugh. I couldn't even really tell you why. I was just listening to a random conversation of a couple girls that  sounded like they knew what they were talking about. I think that's why I think it's funny. Horse people act like they know what they are talking about. When in reality we just know slightly more than the next person. My limited experience has taught me a lot, but there is so much more I could learn, and there is always someone who knows more than you or I do.

Gotta Do More Baby Steppin

~Friday~
Aleythia and I decided that Frosty was doing well enough that we could try cantering. I would longe her while Aleythia rode. First we did some groundwork, and I have a couple pictures of Frosty cantering.

happy trot

 

Isn't that a beautiful canter? Look at how far under she reaches with her back feet. Love it! Oh she can switch leads too. Which is pretty awesome.

 

Frosty was just all go. She just wanted to faster.

Aleythia got on and rode around for a little bit and she tried to canter by herself, but Frosty wasn't doing it, and the saddle was slipping forward.

We fixed the saddle and I got in the middle and we tried it again. It went something like this.

I asked her to canter and she did go into a faster trot, but not a canter.... then she started bucking. Aleythia stayed on and we tried it again. Aleythia was complaining that the saddle kept slipping forward. Once again a fast trot, and maybe an effort to canter, but then she started bucking again. The back end of the saddle was off her back and the front end was pushed up against her neck. Aleythia fell off over her shoulder and Frosty kept bucking.

Now go look at that picture of Frosty cantering. This time look at the saddle. That's what happens when she goes faster.

We switched out that saddle for a smaller one. It doesn't fit Aleythia and me very well, but maybe it would help with the slipping.

Aleythia got on again and just trotted around. The saddle didn't slip as much as the other one. I also want to see if a back cinch will help anything. We only have one and it goes onto Misstack's saddle, but maybe it will work. Otherwise we'll have to see about getting a few.

I was riding Toffy and I decided that we would use the small saddle on her too. So we'll see.

But as of yet we've been bucked off of all the fillies but one. Coffie. My goal. Never get bucked off of Coffie. She is usually the last horse we work with so maybe by then we get it right. One benefit of having four horses to train. You can make it better for the next horse.

Aleythia worked with Coffie and Dash. She just did ground work. And had them canter with a saddle.

ooh another thing we decided was that we're gunna get the fillies really used to and comfortable with trotting before we move onto cantering.

Tip of the Day- When training horses the slower you go the faster you progress.

In other words if you can break each training step into as small as pieces as possible training will go faster, because they are getting prepared for that next step.

So cantering will be put off for a little while longer.

I rode Misstack and Santana too. They were pretty good. All I worked on was neck reining and stopping. Both of them have the worst stop ever. Like it takes quite a bit to get them to stop when I pull back on the bit. So what I've started doing is relaxing into my saddle and thinking stop. If that doesn't work I take a light hold of the reins. If that doesn't work we do a one rein stop. I'll let you know how well that works in a couple of weeks.

I think that it will be really easy to teach the fillies neck reining. But I'll talk about that another time.

Aleythia rode Ana too.

So we got seven horses done. Woot Woot!

Yesterday it was hot! I wore a T-shirt and rolled up the sleeves. Standing in the sun was hot. It was nice in the barn. Not so much outside. It wasn't even that bad. It's more like I'm used to twenty degree weather and then all the sudden we're getting sixty degree weather.

But expect another post in the near future on today. I haven't gone yet so I'll have a couple stories when I get back. Whether I finish it today or another is up for debate. 

I'm sad cause I'll be gone Monday and Tuesday so I won't get to work with horses. I'm happy cause I'm going to a FFA state thingy. It'll be fun. 

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)

Practice Makes Perfect

Ok, I wish it weren't true, but it is. Practice does make perfect. But that means I could spend a whole week on just one thing. Like Misstack is awful at flexing. She just totally leans against the halter. She is a prime example of why nylon halters can be a problem when training. She is actually the only one too. All the other horses are great at it. But she seems to think that the halter is a pillow. My goal - To get Misstack to understand that leaning on the halter is not very comfortable. How? By every time she leans against it I'm going to bump her with halter. She knows felxing so she doesn't have that excuse to hide behind. She is just being a pain. When we do flexing she looks at everything. Her mind wanders. She doesn't focus on me. I can see it in how she resists the pressure of the halter and when she does flex, she does it, but halfheartedly. 
I got after quite a bit today. She kicked at me once and she got a whack on the but with the whip for it and was all around being a general pain.
And because we felt lazy we didn't really work with the fillies. We tied them up to the trees in the alfalfa field and Aleythia just watched them. Ana was with them too. Aleythia had put Ana out back by herself Tuesday. And there is now a spot with no grass where Ana was tied. She wasn't too bad today though.
We figured out Tuesday that we need to work on having the fillies just standing there. We also need to do some desensitizing. It is really hard to find a balance.
All four fillies have now had the harness on. And Aleythia said that Frosty was doing really well in a bit.
Santana was amazing today. When I was asking him to do flexing, I would pick up the rope and he was already turning his head to the side. I loved it! I did the sending exercise with him too. Aleythia was watching and she said that she didn't like how he was disengaging his hindquarters. She said it was just too slow. When you ask your horse to do something he should do it NOW! A few more days of ground work and I'll start riding him.

And by the way... Don't try leading four horses at one time...

Three-Second-Stop-Ana and Others

I love to see how my horses improve. Don't we all.
Aleythia and I were discussing ways we could teach Ana that standing still was a good thing and here's what we came up with.

• Have her run until she's begging to stop. Stop, and do it all over again until she stands still.
• Emphasize stopping on the ground
• One rein stops
• Turn her when she's going faster than wanted.
• Tie her up to the trailer, put on all her tack, get on and wait. When she stops moving and heaves a big sigh, put her away.

Now I'll tell you the stuff involved with each one.
The first one will involve hour after hour of riding, as she can run for half an hour, stop for 4 minutes and run another half hour. Another problem is that she will also just get more and more fit every time we do it. And the only pro I can think of is that it would probably work.
With the second one we figured that if we really emphasize what whoa means on the ground she may just get it in the saddle. We're actually testing this one out. Whenever we ask Ana to stop we will say woah when she stops, so that she will start connecting the word with the action, or lack of action.
As far as one rein stops go, Ana gets frustrated with them, so she rears. It's actually not that big of a deal. You just get right back to work after she rears. And Ana can do circles all the way down the alfalfa field. She'll figure it out eventually, and it will probably get to be less and less time every time we do it.
The fourth one is not really about stopping, just speed. But it's something we will probably do in the future.
The last one is the one we chose to try. But we did do the ground work one first. We got the idea based off of something we did with Flicka. We always had a problem with her walking off before we got on so we always got on her while she was tied to the trailer. Then when we were in the saddle we undid the halter from around her neck and went riding. We did this for months. Not because it took her that long to learn to stand still, but it was just the way we did it with her. So unintentually we taught her to stand still while we got on. When for some unknown reason we got on her in the paddock she stood still while we got on. So, taking this idea we made our reasons just a little bit different. We wanted her to learn that standing still was a good thing. Her first reaction to you getting on while she's tied to the tralier is to start pacing. Aleythia made a little modification to this idea by also teaching Ana to disengage her hindquarters when she turned (she was doing it anyway, why not give her a cue to go with it?) and saying woah after a little while of Ana's pacing. Ana would stop but then get going again. It was funny, cause Aleythia was telling me about the first time she tried this, she said that eventually when she asked Ana to stop, she stopped, heaved a BIG sigh, and just stood there.

Doing the same ground work stuff with the fillies, Santana, and Misstack. We try to keep the sessions with the fillies short. Running in circles for long amounts of time can ruin a young horse's legs. We did ground driving with Coffie. and after the first little bit of me walking in front of her and Aleythia behind, she did it without me in front. She did have a little trouble about Aleythia being behind her, but she was much easier to correct and she got over it pretty quick. She was better prepared. The flexing is probably what did it. She learned that getting off the pressure of the halter would give her a release so that's what she sought after when ground driving.
I have advanced with Santana to changing directions by pivoting on his back feet when I step in front of his shoulder. I'm doing the same thing with Misstack.

It Had to Come Sometime

"Aw the water's frozen in the bucket!"
This is what greeted me when I stepped outside today, along with the wind.
And no joke I'm pretty sure our five gallon bucket of water that sits underneath the gutter now has a two inch layer of ice on it.
Two hours later, I'm working with one of the fillies and my toes feel like they'll never regain their feeling. I even put on a double layer of socks!
Lucky for us if we just rearrange a couple things, and pull the flat trailer out of the barn we have just enough room to do longing. We even had enough room to get the fillies to canter!
I did it with Frosty and Toffy, and ya know what? Frosty was awesome and Toffy was... well, not.... Frosty went into the canter pretty easily. And that was all that I wanted. Just to get her cantering.
What was really fun was watching Frosty trot. For most of the time she had very little pressure on the halter. When she did reach the end of the rope she tried to fix it. She would bend her head to the inside. And I can honestly say that that is the result of flexing. It doesn't hinder your horse's ability to turn, it just makes them more willing to get off that pressure. So because she was so light I got her to canter.
And because I was a sissy and not quite ready for the cold I went inside to warm up and didn't work with Misstack or Santana.

Sunday we went over to HM's again. Yay! I rode her two other horses Ollie and Tea. And it's funny because all three of her horses have a different way of going. And I am so glad she has an indoor arena. It makes riding possible even in the worst of weather. It was not particularly nice weather on Sunday.
And we had in-gathering at my church. It's like a potluck with pies. Everybody brings a pie and everyone eats pie. We have a service before that, it was mostly music and people stood up and talked about what God has been doing in their lives in the past year. Aleythia, me, and one of my other sisters, played for it. two violins and a cello. And it didn't sound too bad. After we had gotten a piece of pie we went back and started to play, and the pastor's youngest daughter came up to my sister and asked if she could play the cello. So this six year old little girl sat on my sister's knee and drew the bow across the strings while my sister made the different notes. It was soo cute!

Did you know it was like 60 degrees today? And then it started raining around 10:00. Probably the hardest rain we've had all year. (Haha to all you people with freezing temperatures!)
Sadly it's only a one day thing. We're supposed to get snow tomorrow.
But now that I have made fun of some of you I will commense to write about my horse day and maybe indulge and write about this evening.
We pretty much did the same thing we did yesterday only adding one thing which was picking up feet. The fillies are actually not  that bad at it. With more practice they will continue to get better. I also took the longe whip and smacked that against the ground and (one of the reasons these fillies are awesome) they didn't do anything. Did it with Misstack and she about had a heart attack. Okay, maybe  not quite that drastic, because she had her heart attack the first time I did it a while ago.
Misstack is getting better at using her hindquarters to turn and still needs practice. One thing I find interesting is that when she comes out of that turn she pretty much does a leap out. It's almost like she's jumping, but with more forward propulsion. I think that might be why it's harder to stay on her when she's running the pattern. She does a leaping thingy. Maybe now that I know about it I'll be able to stay on.
I did the same thing I did with Santana yesterday too. He was a little bit better, but not by much. He still doesn't totally understand that when there's pressure on his neck he needs to move his shoulder away. He's getting it though. He's down to the third level of pressure which is tapping him on the neck with medium pressure. It used to take the fourth level. He'll get better. I also did flexing with him. And that boy is funny. When you first pick up on the halter, his first reaction is to turn, but once he stops turning he can touch his side. And he did this like the second time I did flexing, but he still was turning in a circle. I just kept doing it until he figured out that it was easier to stand still. As far as the fillies' flexing goes, they are getting better. It doesn't take too much to get them to give to that halter all the way to their belly.
As far as Ana goes, Aleythia says that she thinks that Ana's really getting the concept of all these things.

Now my indulgence time.

One of my sisters (not Aleythia) and I went on a haunted hay ride that was put on by my brother in-law. And if you knew my brother in law the "haunted" part of "hay ride" should scare you.
He totally failed though. None of us screamed or anything I mean we were talking about cheese cake factories! And how a pasta cheese cake would not taste very good. It was still fun though. I can always give my brother in-law the excuse that he had limited help and that we missed the grand finale because our driver took the wrong path. But a few highlights from the night were as follows...
We tripped a wire and nothing happened.
The white trailers looked suspicious.
The fireworks went off too soon.
Large trees were a source of worry.
We stacked a couple hay bales as a barrier to possible chainsaws, running people, and paintball guns.
We were attacked by two guys in masks running at us with clubs.
The guy on our left screamed and at first I jumped. A split second later I wondered when that college kid had gotten home.
That college kid got shot by my brother in-law. What we saw... guy holds gun up to kids head, kid falls down.... What actually happened. Guy holds gun up to kid's head, pulls the trigger, kid falls down. By the way it was an airsoft gun.
Drive home and we joke about how our driver's drunk because he's swerving all over the road.(Scariest part of he trip)
And then we laugh with the guys about the evening.

Ground Work

With my regular chipperness I will try and write this...
We recently got a DVD on barrel racing from HM and so we are teaching Santana, Misstack, Ana, and the fillies the ground work shown in the video.
Aleythia worked on Ana while I did Frosty and Coffie. I have no idea how Ana did, so I'll just write about what I did.
They both did really well. Iworked on loneging at the trot, voice commands, flexing, backing up, and reviewed desensitizing with the rope. And Frosty backs up pretty nice. It's not perfect, It's not even very good, but she can do a few steps of backing up with really light pressure. They are both pretty good at flexing.
After I was done with those two I did almost the same thing with Misstack and Santana. With Misstack I added one thing which was getting her to pivot on her back feet when I stepped in front of her while loneging. She wasn't too bad. Definetly needs improvement, but not bad. With Santana all I did was loneging and getting him to yield his hindquarters. It's pretty bad. He's not real good at moving his shoulder away with pressure on his neck. He doesn't move quite as quickly as I would like when he yields his hindquarters, but it's not too bad. He was actually the worst one. Which I shouldn't be suprised at, but kinda am. I haven't done allot of ground work with him.
But I am happy that we worked with seven horses today.
 Strudder is having problems with his arthritis, so we haven't been riding him lately.

Interesting Past-Times

It's sad really. I have been riding these horses for over three years (some longer), and I am still finding out stuff about them. Like Santana is an awesome trail horse! Another is that he doesn't respond really well to the bridle at top speeds. Misstack is a nut job. (I already knew that, I just get it confirmed almost every time I ride.) I can't get her to listen at higher speeds either. Turning... sure. Stopping... Over my dead body!
I will now explain.
Yesterday we went trail riding with a friend (H). She rode Santana, because I figured he would be the best behaved. And also because with one previous trail ride I knew he would be okay.
We trailered out to a park that is about five miles away. Well, I had H ride Santana in the paddock before we left just so she could check him out, but anyway. We got to the park we took them out and bridled them. We had already put saddles on at home. We took the dividers out so that they would fit comfortably in the trailer. And we started our trail ride.
We soon figured out that Misstack hated to be in front. We also had to cross a bridge and none of the horses would do it. I got of Misstack and tried to lead her across, but obviously her trust in me is a little lacking. So, I handed Misstack's lead to H and led Santana across (what a perfect little boy). After that Santana was our leader for most of the trail ride. He only had to be led across on our third bridge, then he was fine. I love horses that are sensible. Ana stayed in the back for a lot of the trail just because she wouldn't try to run in the back. Once when Ana was in the front she was getting all prancy so Aleythia put her in the back and Ana gave a  big sigh and started walking, resigned to her fate.
We also figured out that deer trails do not make good horse trails. In fact even the trails that were man made were not the best to ride in because the branches were too low for a rider to pass under comfortably. Mostly it was close your eyes and let your horse follow the one in front. We did see deer by the way. Three of them. One when we started, and two fawns near the end of our ride.
There was one time that Misstack was in the front for quite a while, and that was when we were coming back on the path we just traveled. It was right next to the field and Misstack wanted to go faster, so I let her. She ran down that path like the race horse she is. Actually she could have gone faster, but I didn't want her to go too fast because it was H's first ride with Santana and I didn't know how they would fare.  Well, I was trying to pull her up, and she wouldn't slow down. It was probably ten seconds of me pulling back on the reins before I was like, shoot it, she's not slowing down, so when we got to a more open area I was able to turn her. H was grinning about the run. She exclaimed that Santana could go fast! She was used to the slow easy canter of camp horses. She hadn't ridden a horse that did what you asked right away. Usually it takes some kicking. I was happy that she could experience a little part of what a barrel horse was like. We cantered once more, with Ana in the front, and that was all the cantering we did.
There are like no hills. None. I want to go somewhere were the terrain is a little more challenging.

Today I looked around the barn for whatever odd stuff I could find for Misstack to get used to. We had three tires, a tarp, a horse blanket, a couple exercise balls, a plank, some wire fence, a tin garbage can, and a horse eating monster.
It was extremely windy so we put boards on the edge of the tarp to hold it down.
I went and got Misstack from the alfalfa field and let her loose in the pen. She jumped the tires, jumped the plank, hesitated at the wire fence layed on the ground and jumped it, and I forgot the rug, she jumped that too. There was also a board layed on the ground and she stepped over that. We had the tarp more towards the center of the pen, so she just kinda ignored it. After a little while of having her running around she was stepping on the board, the wire fence, and the rug. I caught her again and led her over everything. She did very well. The tarp actually wasn't a really big issue for her. She took one step on it, I let her stand, backed her up, stepped on again and walked across. She stepped over the plank, stepped on the wire fence, and stepped across the rug.
Then came the horse eating monster... She hated it. She would freak out over it touching the air around her, and if it was anywhere near her head and she couldn't go anywhere be watchful of flying hooves. After a good forty-five minutes of waving the horse eating monster around on the end of the whip she was still freaking out if it went anywhere near her head. I was finally like, I can't get anything accomplished with this crazy wind. I took her inside the barn. I desensitized the air space around her head with the plastic ba-horse eating monster. Before this I took it off the whip because it was more of a pain than it was worth. I could rub her cheek with the bag and was eventually able to work my way over her eye, to her forehead, to her poll, around her ears, and eventually around her nose. Next time I'll do the obstacles while I ride. I'll probably review the plastic bag too.

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.

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.

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.

New Training Plan with Ana: 2nd time

Today I worked on her turning away from me when I lead her and staying a certain distance away. I reviewed what we did yesterday, and added a few new things. I wanted her to go from a run, yield her hindquarters away from me so that she gives me two eyes and stop. She did quite well. I also incorporated yielding her hindquarters into doing a figure eight next to a fence. My goal for this is to get her to do that pattern by just following the pull of the lead rope. The pull should almost look nonexistent but your hand should move. when I was finished, well, I wasn't finished. You're not done training until you leave your horse's environment. When I opened the gate I stood there fore a little while. The purpose of this is to teach you horse that you always go first. Doesn't matter what you're doing. You go first through a gate, you always take the first step, you always tell them when to go. If she had moved I would have backed her up how many steps she took forward. If she would have ran through that gate I would have backed her up very energetically, making her back up until I think she's backed far enough. Do not let your horse stop backing up when they want to stop backing up. That will just get them to respect you even less. When I lead Ana through the gate, I took her halter off and had her stand there, while I told her that she did a good job. I don't want my horse thinking that the lesson is done when I take the halter off. That is unsafe, because usually a horse will run or buck, or both, away from you. I don't want her to go away until I go away. Teach your horse this after you're done working with him and you're going to put him in his stall. Your horse will feel less of a need to run away from you when he's only going to stand in his stall.

Starting Ana with a New Plan: First Time

Okay, I am starting to try doing a lot of ground work with Ana, so the first thing I wanted her to do was to always turn to the inside when I lunged her. This is not something I came up with on my own. It is training from Clinton Anderson.

Respect and Control

In this little section, I will talk about getting some respect and control from your horse. What you want to do is take a whip and point at the body part of your horse with the whip. In this I do it with the feet. If you want your horse to move say his shoulder tap him on the shoulder (extremely lightly) and use the halter and lead rope to move his head and shoulders in the right direction. You could also push against the horse's shoulder too but with some horses that leads to a little war. Do what works best for your horse. My goal with this is that I will be able to point at any part of my horse's body and they will move it. In the video Misstack takes the weight of her hind foot but doesn't lift it. If your horse does this stop and praise him but then go back and ask him to lift his foot off the ground. Shifting his weight is a step in the right direction. If you can get your horse to do this he is showing you a sign of respect by doing what you ask. I read in a magazine that the reason a horse respects you is because you can get him to move.

 

This could also lead to getting your horse to lay down and rear. If I figure out how I'll let you know