Great day yesterday. Played with both horses and had a rewarding time with both.
Started with Filly by taking her down to the big herd field after all the horses were in. Bonitao and Ritchie came to keep us company.
We had a little trouble getting to the field, but then she has not been out of the yard area for ages, and the yard owners don't let her in a field at the moment as she tends to run around and tear it up. She was particularly difficult about heading towards Rick running one of the race horses. Lots of unconfident behaviour. Not right brain, but not sure either.
In the field she went completely wild for a time, initially very right brain, just running in circles around me. To help interupt the pattern I turned the circles into travelling circles by walking across the field. This forced the left side of her brain to kick in to stay centered around me and after a while she thought "why the hell am I running around over this grass when I could be eating it". However I made her maintain the trotting circle for a while, proclaiming dominance by making her move her feet more than I moved mine.
We then moved to a known spooky spot near a hedge. Again, as expected right brain behaviour emerged, and again I just did loads of travelling circles until she calmed down, by which time she was quite sweaty.
The walk back to the barns was very pleasant, with a well bonded, obedient, calm Filly.
As James always emphasises the innate horsenality of your horse is not that important, what is very important is what horsenality they exhibit as you leave them at the end of the day.
Now on to Billy.
Prepared to ride as usual, but had trouble placing the feet. I noticed only one had been picked out and so concluded that someone had attepmted to pick out his hooves, had trouble, dropped it and left. This off course had "taught" him that if he struggles with his feet he can win. Not with me of course, but it took a long time to pick out the remaining feet and get a good foot placement and so undo the damage.
Everything else went pretty well and in very little time he was ready for me to mount. Again he offered to place himself correctly at the mounting block, and upon mounting he only moved 2 steps, to enable him to lick the mounting block as it happens. Not ideal, but not too bad. Lateral flexions are still a problem. He flexes perfectly, but then quite aggressively chews my boots, legs etc. Solution is to place my leg alongside his neck where he can't get to me, hold the flexion until he submits, then reward by releasing quickly (drop the rope).
On one flexion release he suddenly offered to walk forwards with me on him, a first. I did not refuse and gently guided him with direct rein manouevres.
Now I knew he was confident to walk with me on his back, and no leader on the ground, I felt I could ask a little more forcefully. Lifting the rein, raising my body energy, pushing with my bum, squeezing with my legs, and finally reaching back with my free hand to tickle his rump (all deliberately and slowly in that order) and we had walk. As soon as he started I released all the aids as a reward. Over several attempts we had continuous, controlled walk, using lateral flexion to bend him to a halt.
Job done for the day I got off to further reward him for his efforts.
Great day and to cap it all Ritchie watched the whole process, giving valuable feedback about his expression which varied from confident relaxed to confident dominant.
Not bad for a horses first proper ride !!
Started with Filly by taking her down to the big herd field after all the horses were in. Bonitao and Ritchie came to keep us company.
We had a little trouble getting to the field, but then she has not been out of the yard area for ages, and the yard owners don't let her in a field at the moment as she tends to run around and tear it up. She was particularly difficult about heading towards Rick running one of the race horses. Lots of unconfident behaviour. Not right brain, but not sure either.
In the field she went completely wild for a time, initially very right brain, just running in circles around me. To help interupt the pattern I turned the circles into travelling circles by walking across the field. This forced the left side of her brain to kick in to stay centered around me and after a while she thought "why the hell am I running around over this grass when I could be eating it". However I made her maintain the trotting circle for a while, proclaiming dominance by making her move her feet more than I moved mine.
We then moved to a known spooky spot near a hedge. Again, as expected right brain behaviour emerged, and again I just did loads of travelling circles until she calmed down, by which time she was quite sweaty.
The walk back to the barns was very pleasant, with a well bonded, obedient, calm Filly.
As James always emphasises the innate horsenality of your horse is not that important, what is very important is what horsenality they exhibit as you leave them at the end of the day.
Now on to Billy.
Prepared to ride as usual, but had trouble placing the feet. I noticed only one had been picked out and so concluded that someone had attepmted to pick out his hooves, had trouble, dropped it and left. This off course had "taught" him that if he struggles with his feet he can win. Not with me of course, but it took a long time to pick out the remaining feet and get a good foot placement and so undo the damage.
Everything else went pretty well and in very little time he was ready for me to mount. Again he offered to place himself correctly at the mounting block, and upon mounting he only moved 2 steps, to enable him to lick the mounting block as it happens. Not ideal, but not too bad. Lateral flexions are still a problem. He flexes perfectly, but then quite aggressively chews my boots, legs etc. Solution is to place my leg alongside his neck where he can't get to me, hold the flexion until he submits, then reward by releasing quickly (drop the rope).
On one flexion release he suddenly offered to walk forwards with me on him, a first. I did not refuse and gently guided him with direct rein manouevres.
Now I knew he was confident to walk with me on his back, and no leader on the ground, I felt I could ask a little more forcefully. Lifting the rein, raising my body energy, pushing with my bum, squeezing with my legs, and finally reaching back with my free hand to tickle his rump (all deliberately and slowly in that order) and we had walk. As soon as he started I released all the aids as a reward. Over several attempts we had continuous, controlled walk, using lateral flexion to bend him to a halt.
Job done for the day I got off to further reward him for his efforts.
Great day and to cap it all Ritchie watched the whole process, giving valuable feedback about his expression which varied from confident relaxed to confident dominant.
Not bad for a horses first proper ride !!
No comments:
Post a Comment