I arrived at the yard a few days ago to find the outdoor school empty. Seizing the chance I grabbed the 45 foot line and Filly and hurried to "claim" the school. It is a while since I used the 45 foot line as the indoor school is to small and the fields are too muddy for anything other than very gentle play.
The advantages of the 45 foot line are to give the horse more freedom to express themselves, it allows for a larger circle which many horses find it easier to canter on and it extends the range at which the horse can be influenced. Pat says in a video that he considers the 45 foot line to be a medium length line and he has longer ones.
The downside is rope management. 45 feet is a lot of rope to handle whilst a horse is cantering around you, especially if they are not at the full length of it leaving coils in you space. The 45 foot is also much thinner than the 22 foot line to make it lighter. As a result the selected rope is much stiffer and also exhibits much greater coil tension (i.e it is easy to get into some really interesting knots !)
I started with the 22 foot line and we just wandered around the school to get her used to the environment again. This did not take too long so we moved to the 45 foot line.
I have been very consistent on the backup part of the YoYo game to send her out to at least 20n feet. That way she has a known target distance to aim for and knows that the pressure will not relent until she gets there. The surprise on her face as she passed 22 feet and had to keep going was there for all to see. As we past 30 feet astonishment that I could physically influence her at such a range was evident, giving way to disbelief at 40 feet ! As a reward for getting so far I clicked and then walked to her to give her a treat.
We worked on YoYo for a while so she got the idea of my new influence bubble before moving onto circling game.
This started at walk but this soon got boring for both of us. It takes a long time to walk around a 45 foot radius circle. We moved into trot and this opened up new possibilities of play for her as her energy came up. Pretty soon she offered canter, then enjoying this new sense of freedom, gallop. I still had to influence her as to where the end of the rope was, but after a few laps she got the idea and stayed at the appropriate distance on her own. She was very exuberant during all this with the odd big bug and squeal. It looked like she was having real fun. All of this was left brain with an eye to my directions. The slightest nod of my head and she turned sharply in on the circle and stood breathing hard and excited by me side.
As a first session on the 45 foot line I think it was a great success.
We both had great fun and it was a good antedote to the dissapointment of not being allowed to use Parelli methods to load her in a trailer to take her to James.
The advantages of the 45 foot line are to give the horse more freedom to express themselves, it allows for a larger circle which many horses find it easier to canter on and it extends the range at which the horse can be influenced. Pat says in a video that he considers the 45 foot line to be a medium length line and he has longer ones.
The downside is rope management. 45 feet is a lot of rope to handle whilst a horse is cantering around you, especially if they are not at the full length of it leaving coils in you space. The 45 foot is also much thinner than the 22 foot line to make it lighter. As a result the selected rope is much stiffer and also exhibits much greater coil tension (i.e it is easy to get into some really interesting knots !)
I started with the 22 foot line and we just wandered around the school to get her used to the environment again. This did not take too long so we moved to the 45 foot line.
I have been very consistent on the backup part of the YoYo game to send her out to at least 20n feet. That way she has a known target distance to aim for and knows that the pressure will not relent until she gets there. The surprise on her face as she passed 22 feet and had to keep going was there for all to see. As we past 30 feet astonishment that I could physically influence her at such a range was evident, giving way to disbelief at 40 feet ! As a reward for getting so far I clicked and then walked to her to give her a treat.
We worked on YoYo for a while so she got the idea of my new influence bubble before moving onto circling game.
This started at walk but this soon got boring for both of us. It takes a long time to walk around a 45 foot radius circle. We moved into trot and this opened up new possibilities of play for her as her energy came up. Pretty soon she offered canter, then enjoying this new sense of freedom, gallop. I still had to influence her as to where the end of the rope was, but after a few laps she got the idea and stayed at the appropriate distance on her own. She was very exuberant during all this with the odd big bug and squeal. It looked like she was having real fun. All of this was left brain with an eye to my directions. The slightest nod of my head and she turned sharply in on the circle and stood breathing hard and excited by me side.
As a first session on the 45 foot line I think it was a great success.
We both had great fun and it was a good antedote to the dissapointment of not being allowed to use Parelli methods to load her in a trailer to take her to James.
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