A chilled Filly

Friday 9 November 2012

Back to Manor Farm

Once back at Manor Farm I had to go straight back to work for a few days, then became sick with a very bad cold. Thus Filly had a welcome holiday after boot camp at James'.
I did go and visit everyday but didn't have the strength to do much. However on Wednesday I decided I had the energy to take her for a walk on line up through the village to the main road. The purpose of this was to accustom her to traffic whilst safely on the ground. I knew she was happy with slow light traffic, but the main road with lorries, coaches bicycles and of course fast cars would be a different prospect.
The corner between the main road and the village road has a largish grass verge so I had space to allow her to move her feet if she needed to and then some grass to eat once she settled.
She was not happy about the road at all, very very nervous and spooky. My answer was to make her move her feet a lot. A combination of indirect/direct rein direction changes to make her think to her feet and the squeeze game to modify her flight distance from the traffic. We slowly started to have moments of left brain behaviour where she could stop and think about her situation instead of just reacting. In the process we did a good job of tearing up the grass verge ! After around 20 minutes or so she started to eat the grass and chew at the hedge. This meant that she was becoming more confident about the traffic. I hate the word "desensitised", "confident" is a much better description and lasts longer. Desensitised means that she does not even know the cars are there, confident means she is aware of the cars but understands that they will not harm her.
Yesterday I rode her which is worth a seperate post soon.
Today we took both Filly and Bonitao up to the road. I hoped that the presence of Bonitao's confidence would help finish the work started earlier. And indeed it seemed to help. She very rapidly settled today and ate the grass with a slower action which shows relaxation. After a while she was pushing her nose towards the edge of the road, just feet from the traffic to get that special green blade of grass. We let her graze for around 20 minutes before walking gently back to the yard, practising our transitions on the way.
When you use imagination it is amazing how many ridden skills you can practise just walking your horse around on line. To and from the field, for example, need not just be a chore but an opportunity to promote a forward walk with good halt to walk and walk to halt transitions. I don't have enough time with Filly to ignore this potential training time. Even just standing on the yard talking to a mate gives the opportunity to practise standstill.

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