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.

Gotta Do Somethin Else

I have a horse who's name is Ana. She is 3 quarters saddlebred and a quarter arabian. She is extremely pretty, and learns very easily. She has the potential to do anything. The only thing that keeps her back is that on a scale of one to ten for temperament she is probably a 7. It's not that she's mean, or bucks or rears, she doesn't. In fact she is a really sweet horse. The reason I rate her temperament as a 7 is because she is extremely hyper. She's hard to handle because she always wants to gogogo. When she's calm and using the thinking side of her brain she is a really fun horse to ride. Lately I have come to the conclusion that if I keep training her the way I have been (mostly running her till she's tired) I will eventually ruin that horse. She will just keep getting more and more endurance up and stop listening to me more and more. I have been riding her in a hackmoore, because she hates the bit and everytime I use it she gets way too hyper and that usually ends up with me frustrated. When I'm frustrated it is just way too easy to yank on the reigns to get her too do what I want. I need to find a different way of training her, and I have to get her responsive to the bit. When I pull back on the reigns to get her to stop she has started just walking through the pressure. Not Good! I am realizing that I am running out of the knowledge to train her correctly and it frustrates me. What I need to do is get her to always use the thinking side of her brain. I need to be able to control her from the ground. If I could take her down to Texas to get training from Clinton Anderson I so would.
My advice to you is if your horse frustrates you, evaluate your riding and training and try to change yourself. If that still doesn't work go to a professional trainer.

 "When you run out of knowledge you get frustrated." - Clinton Anderson

changing bridles

Just today I was riding my ex-racehorse thoroughbred, and she was shaking her head around and being a pain about giving to the bit, so I thought, "maybe I'll try riding her in a snaffle bit with rings instead of shanks." Well, I was doing a bit of reading, and I came across this blog that gave some pretty good reasons for not changing bits. This trainer said that if you have hard hands, you make your horse have a hard mouth so that when you move to a harder bit, the horse becomes hard to that too. So now I am rethinking about changing bits even if I am getting one that has less force. It could be my problem, not the horse's, so I will try to fix my problem first. I have another horse that also just is not much fun to ride in a bit, so I ride her in a ballero, which is basically a halter. What she does is throw her head around and constantly chews on the bit. This got me to thinking that that's kinda what a green horse does when first introduced to a bit. So know I am thinking about just putting a bridle on her so she can get used to it being in her mouth.

Story Time! Tell me about it

A few days ago I was riding Misstack out in the alfalfa field and she was just really exited to be out. Every time I asked her to canter she would start bucking a little. It had been extremely muddy and they had been kept in the barn most of the time. But I thought that riding in the alfalfa field were there was grass would have a little more footing. Yes and no. I trotted almost the whole time I was riding because otherwise she would have slipped. Well my sister was riding Ana and they went inside so I tried to get Misstack to walk calmly back to the barn. We were just about to get out of the alfalfa field when she decided she wanted to go faster. I made her circle until she stopped going so fast and she slipped. I grabbed hold of the saddle horn and she fell onto her haunches. I fell off the saddle onto her haunches. So I was pretty much on sideways gripping the saddle horn in my right hand in the reigns in my left hand. While she quickly regained her footing I pulled myself back into the saddle and regained my position. There was an older dude cleaning out his dog's pen not 20 feet away and he didn't even look up. I was like "I pull a stunt like that and you don't even notice? Come on!"

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

Bridling Tip

I have a horse who will try to avoid taking the bit. so I was trying to put the bridle on her and she moved her head away from me. That gave me an idea. What if I had her move her head all the way over to the opposite side (flexing away from me) and then put the bridle on. It worked beautifully. She couldn't move her head as much so she resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't be able to escape the bit. This will not work on all horses. First of all some horses won't stand still if you flex their neck like that. Others are just way to frightened of the bridle to let you do that. I have another horse who had this on an extreme level. He would throw his head, back up, try to run away, and sometimes even rear. With him this would not have worked. He didn't like the bridle to go over his right eye. With time and patience, little by little, he learned that it wouldn't hurt him. Now I can put the bit up to his mouth and he will take it in himself. And slipping it over his head is extremely easy.  Part of the problem with Santana  was that inn earlier years he had been saddled and bridled quickly and probably not with a gentle hand. Try not to hurry through the getting ready process.