My hip repair is coming on well and with the help of my Osteo and Physio I can finally stand and walk around without a crutch. This of course opened up the possibility of more provocative play with Filly. For the last two days we have had real fun, but she has lost a lot of her fitness too so I am having to take it easy. This is a case of listening to her needs as well as mine. She makes it clear when she has done enough, usually by becoming less enthusiastic to back away from me and giving me lots of cuddles so that she can stand still near me.
Her time in the field with other horses has worked wonders on her mental attitude just as I expected it would. She is now much calmer, responsive and less argumentative than before. Which leads me to wonder why on earth folks would want to keep their horses in. From what I have seen the improvement in mental fitness more than outweighs the risk of physical injury from another horse in the field. One just has to be brave enough to take the leap of faith that socialising with other horses has more benefits than risks.
We have been working on all the old stuff, concentrating on forwardness and straightness on the circle. Just to recap, forwardness is measured by observing her footfalls. At walk, for example, I want the hind leg to strike the ground 1 to 2 hoof prints in front of where the front foot just left. Straightness is the concept of her body bending so that it is on the same arc as the circle itself. In other words her body isn't "straight" in the normal sense of the word, but curved concentrically with the circle. To gauge this I am looking for all parts of her body to be at the same distance from me, head to tail.
All of this is getting pretty good at walk, but we have counter arc at trot and canter where her body is on the opposite arc to the circle most evidenced by her head pointing out of the circle. At the moment she is not fit enough to trot and canter long enough to fix this quickly so we need to get her (and my) fitness levels up first.
In addition I have been working on her sideways game in order to get her nicely flexible and balanced to help her with her flying lead changes in the future. We have gone back to level 1 for this and I am using the fence to help guide her, but asking for faster sideways further from me than level 1 requires. To get the momentum up we start with a circle at trot, when this is relaxed and confident I wait until she is aiming at the fence then walk towards her and the fence thus driving her away from me along the fence. We have managed a few sideways steps at trot with this method and she keeps going sideways at walk to the end of the 22 foot line.
To improve her draw to me I have also started working on sideways towards me. I set this up by putting her nose to the fence then drawing lightly on the rope whilst hovering my stick over her back (phase 1). Should she bring her front end to me but not her hind end I then go up the phases of tapping her far flank with the stick (it helps being tall and having a short horse !) until she steps under with her hind leg, whereupon I step back and relax. To start she tended to kick out at the stick with her hind leg but after only a short time she was stepping the hind legs across with the lightest of taps around 50% of the time. Not a bad start.
I have kept the sessions short at the moment to allow time for her mental and physical fitness to improve, but as we get fitter together we can get even more progressive. It would be nice to have a level 3 online and liberty horse in around 2 to 3 months (well we all have to have targets and dreams)
Her time in the field with other horses has worked wonders on her mental attitude just as I expected it would. She is now much calmer, responsive and less argumentative than before. Which leads me to wonder why on earth folks would want to keep their horses in. From what I have seen the improvement in mental fitness more than outweighs the risk of physical injury from another horse in the field. One just has to be brave enough to take the leap of faith that socialising with other horses has more benefits than risks.
We have been working on all the old stuff, concentrating on forwardness and straightness on the circle. Just to recap, forwardness is measured by observing her footfalls. At walk, for example, I want the hind leg to strike the ground 1 to 2 hoof prints in front of where the front foot just left. Straightness is the concept of her body bending so that it is on the same arc as the circle itself. In other words her body isn't "straight" in the normal sense of the word, but curved concentrically with the circle. To gauge this I am looking for all parts of her body to be at the same distance from me, head to tail.
All of this is getting pretty good at walk, but we have counter arc at trot and canter where her body is on the opposite arc to the circle most evidenced by her head pointing out of the circle. At the moment she is not fit enough to trot and canter long enough to fix this quickly so we need to get her (and my) fitness levels up first.
In addition I have been working on her sideways game in order to get her nicely flexible and balanced to help her with her flying lead changes in the future. We have gone back to level 1 for this and I am using the fence to help guide her, but asking for faster sideways further from me than level 1 requires. To get the momentum up we start with a circle at trot, when this is relaxed and confident I wait until she is aiming at the fence then walk towards her and the fence thus driving her away from me along the fence. We have managed a few sideways steps at trot with this method and she keeps going sideways at walk to the end of the 22 foot line.
To improve her draw to me I have also started working on sideways towards me. I set this up by putting her nose to the fence then drawing lightly on the rope whilst hovering my stick over her back (phase 1). Should she bring her front end to me but not her hind end I then go up the phases of tapping her far flank with the stick (it helps being tall and having a short horse !) until she steps under with her hind leg, whereupon I step back and relax. To start she tended to kick out at the stick with her hind leg but after only a short time she was stepping the hind legs across with the lightest of taps around 50% of the time. Not a bad start.
I have kept the sessions short at the moment to allow time for her mental and physical fitness to improve, but as we get fitter together we can get even more progressive. It would be nice to have a level 3 online and liberty horse in around 2 to 3 months (well we all have to have targets and dreams)
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