Today was a very interesting horsemanship day. My first meeting with Mini. Aptly named as he is a small but feisty pony. He belongs to Larisa Tasker who was kind enough when she heard that I had lost my playtime with Filly to allow me to start playing with one of her horses. The pain of Fillys' loss has dulled a little now, although I still miss her terribly. It is now more of a background ache than a sharp pain. I felt ready to take on a new challenge.
We arranged to meet at Larisa's yard at 11am this morning and after a chat went to look at the horses she has there. There were several beautiful horses large enough for me to ride, but I was drawn to the little pony, small enough to ride me !
I gathered from Larisa's hints that he was a challenging little lad and that is what I like. She is savvy enough to know not to fill my mind with preconceptions as to the character of Mini beyond saying he was full of character. An overload of such well intentioned information can make us less effective in dealing with the horse. Always play with the horse that turns up. I suspect she knew what would get me interested and gave just enough information to pique my curiosity.
I find endless fascination in trying to understand challenging horses, what makes them tick, what motivates them, how to communicate in an effective and polite manner.
Larisa mentioned that she would like to be able give him a purpose in life and that would be driving and also pulling hay around the farm in winter. This adding purpose to training is something that James Roberts emphasises all the time, and with this little lad there was a clear purpose already laid out for me to follow. Of course horses don't understand that we are playing the seven games with them in order to eventually harness them up and give them a job, but we do. That makes our interaction with the horse more purposeful in our own body language and more progressive in the play. We are less likely to get stuck wondering what to do next now that we have the perfect sideways game. We play the games with intention in our actions and the horses can sense that and will respond more positively to our energy. We also have a plan and therefore will act as a more effective leader worthy of being followed. They may not know what that plan is but will sense one exists.
So how did this first encounter go ? Very good fun. Like many small ponies this one does havea oodles of character and a sense of mischief and fun.
I started with just a general check out as laid down in the plan. Touch all over, first done with the carrot stick. He may be small and regularly handled but I was not going to make the mistake of getting any delicate body parts too near too soon. He may be fine with Larisa, but does that also hold true for a 6 foot man he has never met ? As expected no problems at all.
I then zoomed in on the feet as in "Place feet down". Of course I did not go straight to grabbing a foot and trying to place it. I started with playing the porcupine game with the carrot stick and string and a little lead by the leg. Some resistance to start with, but slowly he got the idea and after some nice yields we could move onto using the hands. As I found with the lead by the leg the front right foot was a little sticky and it took a while to get a nice placement. To get him to think to the feet as I was placing the front right I just nudged with my shoulder to throw him a little of balance as I held the hoof up. This did the trick and a nice placement ensued.
We then played with a little bit of circling game, just to get him used to the idea that not all motion had to be at trot, walk would be fine thank-you. I also used changes of direction to quietly check out his follow a feel on zone one, not bad but his character popped up a few times and challenged my authority, not badly but just testing the water with his hoof.
The reason I wanted walk is that we then moved onto follow the rail around the field with zone 5 driving game and I did not want to have to run. For this I switched to a carrot stick and bag so that I could create some commotion above zone 4 to get forward movement and still reach zone 1 to ask for a halt. In fact even a small pony is too long for this so I soon switched to my 3m long pole and flag. After about 15 minutes of driving we were getting nice directional control, following my focus, and reasonable transitions.
My first impressions. A fun little pony which I only really saw left brain in. Probably cusp introvert, extrovert (it did not take long to explain I only wanted walk, but walk to halt was harder than halt to walk). Quite a bit of character, but keen to play and seemed to take pleasure in it. All in all a really enjoyable little fellow to be around. I did not push too many buttons on a first encounter and so subsequent sessions may change my assessment of him, time will tell and I'll report back what I find. With a 2 star Parelli professional looking over my shoulder you can be assured of a very honest appraisal of progress, otherwise I am sure she will correct me in the comments section of the blog !!
We arranged to meet at Larisa's yard at 11am this morning and after a chat went to look at the horses she has there. There were several beautiful horses large enough for me to ride, but I was drawn to the little pony, small enough to ride me !
I gathered from Larisa's hints that he was a challenging little lad and that is what I like. She is savvy enough to know not to fill my mind with preconceptions as to the character of Mini beyond saying he was full of character. An overload of such well intentioned information can make us less effective in dealing with the horse. Always play with the horse that turns up. I suspect she knew what would get me interested and gave just enough information to pique my curiosity.
I find endless fascination in trying to understand challenging horses, what makes them tick, what motivates them, how to communicate in an effective and polite manner.
Larisa mentioned that she would like to be able give him a purpose in life and that would be driving and also pulling hay around the farm in winter. This adding purpose to training is something that James Roberts emphasises all the time, and with this little lad there was a clear purpose already laid out for me to follow. Of course horses don't understand that we are playing the seven games with them in order to eventually harness them up and give them a job, but we do. That makes our interaction with the horse more purposeful in our own body language and more progressive in the play. We are less likely to get stuck wondering what to do next now that we have the perfect sideways game. We play the games with intention in our actions and the horses can sense that and will respond more positively to our energy. We also have a plan and therefore will act as a more effective leader worthy of being followed. They may not know what that plan is but will sense one exists.
So how did this first encounter go ? Very good fun. Like many small ponies this one does havea oodles of character and a sense of mischief and fun.
I started with just a general check out as laid down in the plan. Touch all over, first done with the carrot stick. He may be small and regularly handled but I was not going to make the mistake of getting any delicate body parts too near too soon. He may be fine with Larisa, but does that also hold true for a 6 foot man he has never met ? As expected no problems at all.
I then zoomed in on the feet as in "Place feet down". Of course I did not go straight to grabbing a foot and trying to place it. I started with playing the porcupine game with the carrot stick and string and a little lead by the leg. Some resistance to start with, but slowly he got the idea and after some nice yields we could move onto using the hands. As I found with the lead by the leg the front right foot was a little sticky and it took a while to get a nice placement. To get him to think to the feet as I was placing the front right I just nudged with my shoulder to throw him a little of balance as I held the hoof up. This did the trick and a nice placement ensued.
We then played with a little bit of circling game, just to get him used to the idea that not all motion had to be at trot, walk would be fine thank-you. I also used changes of direction to quietly check out his follow a feel on zone one, not bad but his character popped up a few times and challenged my authority, not badly but just testing the water with his hoof.
The reason I wanted walk is that we then moved onto follow the rail around the field with zone 5 driving game and I did not want to have to run. For this I switched to a carrot stick and bag so that I could create some commotion above zone 4 to get forward movement and still reach zone 1 to ask for a halt. In fact even a small pony is too long for this so I soon switched to my 3m long pole and flag. After about 15 minutes of driving we were getting nice directional control, following my focus, and reasonable transitions.
My first impressions. A fun little pony which I only really saw left brain in. Probably cusp introvert, extrovert (it did not take long to explain I only wanted walk, but walk to halt was harder than halt to walk). Quite a bit of character, but keen to play and seemed to take pleasure in it. All in all a really enjoyable little fellow to be around. I did not push too many buttons on a first encounter and so subsequent sessions may change my assessment of him, time will tell and I'll report back what I find. With a 2 star Parelli professional looking over my shoulder you can be assured of a very honest appraisal of progress, otherwise I am sure she will correct me in the comments section of the blog !!
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