A chilled Filly

Saturday 23 March 2013

Mud Fever again.

Filly has mud fever again. The fields at our yard are better described as swamps. They are just below the spring line on the Oxfordshire plain and so are not getting a chance to dry out even when the rain and snow stop falling.
There are very few scabs on her legs, but they have become swollen again. So she is back on antibiotics and twice daily scrubbing and creaming of the infected areas. It also means that she is stable bound again as going onto wet fields is not a good idea.
But true to my ethos that a stable bound horse can still be trained I am still carrying on with some little bit and pieces.
One item is actually the handling of her legs. Obviously I am having to handle them a lot at the moment for the scrubbing and creaming. I think the difference is that I approach even this operation with the idea of "quality" in the handling. So I am gauging all the time how well she is following the feel of my hand on her legs, how she is reading my "intention" as to whether I want the leg just kept still on the ground or lifted up in response to my touch, whether she tries to take over and move her leg away from me or just follows the suggestion as to where I want the leg to go.
In general I would give her 6 out of 10 at them moment. Generally she follows my feel, unless distracted by external stimuli like another horse walking past. When her mind is on the task of following my feel she mostly does so, but her mind keeps wandering off onto other subjects and I think she then genuinely forgets her job with her legs and moves them inappropriately.
When I feel her doing this I just gently move her leg around, even to the point of tipping her off balance to get her thinking back to her legs and my feel again.
I suspect that many folk would just say she was being disrespectful at this point, and maybe even punish her. I think this would be mis-reading the situation and she would have no idea what she was being punished for as her mind was not on her legs at all. Thus the punishment would have little effect but to damage our rapport.

Monday 18 March 2013

Massaging Filly

Recently Filly has been getting very tight in the hind quarters. Her stride became shorter and she felt a little lamer than usual. As a result we called Dustie out, our osteo. She agreed that she was very very tight in the hind quarters, possibly as a result of tipping a lot of her weight back to take the load off the front legs. Dustie suggested several stretches I could do with Filly to loosen up the muscles and also suggested massaging her.
I then spent several days on the internet looking up massagers. Eventually I settled on an Equissager . Fortunately the distributor was only 40 minutes drive away so I went and picked one up.
Back at the farm I introduced this new monster to Filly. She was not impressed even before it was turned on. As she is a curious horse I decided that the best course of action was to play the touch it game with her. I got Ritchie to hold the equissager which I just treated as an object for her to put her nose on. This was not the only object in the game. Cones were used as well. To get her to understand what game we were playing I sent her to a cone to touch, then a jump wing, then a cone, then the equissager. After several rounds of this, and much snorting, she put her nose on it.
We then turned it on and played the same game, not asking her to put her nose on it, but just near it.
This game overcame her basic fear of the object, but we still had to touch her with it. To get to this stage, with it off, was just approach and retreat until I could rub her hind quarters with it.
As for turning it on, this was again approach and retreat. Turn it on, if she went to pull away leave it on until she shifted her weight towards it. Immediately turn it off. Soon she learnt that she could control the noise by moving towards it so it was less scary.
Now the big test. Turn it on and put it on her hind quarters. A moment of tension in her body then it was like she collapsed in a big relaxed puddle on the floor !! She absolutely loved it. Almost immediately her head went down, she licked and chewed and then gave the most enormous yawns showing she was coming off adrenaline.
This was not the habituation over however, it took several more sessions before I could get it on her shoulders for example. But once there it evoked a similar response.
This just emphasiseis that you cannot make assumptions with horses. Just because one area is fine by them does not make another area ok.

Bonitao was even more skeptical of it, but again lots of patience and we got there. Just to make things even more interesting I tried massaging him at liberty the other night. This really made me concentrate on my timing and feel. It was successful however after only around 5 minutes or so.

Dustie is coming over tomorrow afternoon for another checkup. I'll report back on what she says.

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Spurs, Filly and finding Lightness

During my last session with Sean he suggested I might think about using spurs. James Roberts had said that I needed around 100 hours riding prior to using them, but Sean thought I was ready.
With this in mind I therefore went out an bought some. 10 point mild western spurs. They are not to get more impulsion, but to give me more lateral control. Filly knew full well she could push on my leg and the consequences were minor. In effect I could not get strong enough pressure with my boot heel to phase 4 her and she knew it.
I decided to try the spurs out in the indoor school, partially because it was really cold outside and partially because I knew we could have it to ourselves. To say I mounted with care is an understatement, I was very aware of this spikes sticking out of my heels. I'm more used to crampon spikes coming out of my toes, not out of the heel.
The ride was.... eventful is a good description. I had to barely touch her with the spur and she reacted. I was of course being even more careful to go up through my phases than usual and Filly was a bit surprised and disappointed that I now had a phase 4. This was not life as she knew it. I could now actually make her yield her hind quarters or go sideways. She could argue at the lower phases but not at phase 4. Phase 4 was NOT me sticking my spur into her hard. On one hind quarter yield I watched my spur most carefully and it barely touched her hair to get a strong reaction.
We still had a few arguments about it all, but they felt more like frank exchanges of view than real bust ups. Slowly these resolved themselves into conversations and she was coming off the lightest phase 1.
Since then I have ridden her just in boots again, but different boots to my old ones. These are again western boots, but they have a ledge at the heel to take the spurs. The edge of this is quite sharp and acts like a very very mild spur. I have found that this is now all I need for phase 4. Phase one is just turning my eyes and my intention to a new focus point. I have been riding her in the outdoor school using a clover leaf pattern. The variation I have been using is to stop at then fence each time I approach it from X (the centre of the school) and wait. Not a short wait but a long one. Minimum 2 minutes and up to 5. It helps to have some music playing for this to avoid boredom. Played it for 1 hour 30 minutes on the first day, 1 hour on the second.
The result is a connection to Filly I have never felt before when riding her. Ok, I have only been riding her for a few months, but this is a connection deeper than I have felt with any horse. We really are having a conversation, there is no other way to describe it. I suggest and if she understands she complies. If not she tries something else and I find that I can very gently make the suggestion stronger and feel her go "oh, that's what you mean". Because I truly believe that it is just her misinterpreting things it helps keep my emotions under control. I don't get angry or frustrated I just try my hardest to make my intention clearer. I  realise that the fault lies in either how I have taught her our mutual language or how I have presented the feel of what I want.
I guess we needed the stronger conversation with the spurs for her to really start listening, and when she did she found I had some interesting things to say that were worth listening to.
I hope every riders can feel this lightness just once because once you have felt it you just want to see if you can get even lighter. It feels like an addictive drug this lightness, and one I am very happy to be addicted to.

Friday 1 March 2013

Colleen Kelly

This blog has been a while coming, I hope it is worthwhile.

On the 19th February we went to a clinic by Colleen Kelly at Widmer riding school. We had seen Colleen at the Aintree Horse and Soul clinic and been impressed by her sessions, so when we learned that she was doing a clinic within 15 minutes of our house it was too good to miss.
I could write more about Colleens' background but here is a link to her website http://colleenkellyriderbiomechanics.com/ . Her comments about Parelli were interesting. She freely admits to being very very anti Parelli until she met them. She was very impressed when she did and now has collaborated with Linda in producing a DVD. For someone steeped in the more traditional world of top international dressage that is quite a turn around. She reckoned that Lindas' horse is now technically one of the best dressage horses in the USA, and that is from an international dressage judge ! She has also been on the long list for the Australian Olympic dressage team, so I guess she can ride a bit too.

Everyone on the clinic was a Parelli student, which helped with the language. Colleen could use Parelli speak, which gets complex ideas over in few words, and be pretty sure we all understood what she meant.
We started we a brief discussion in the tea room and then it was straight to the horses. We were only spectators on this course so had the luxury of just watching others ride. This can be a quicker way of learning as you can watch several riders work through their problems rather than just concentrating on yourself. You get five times the learning, albeit without the practical.

To start with all five horses were ridden together. Actually one went into the other school to work through some issues on the ground first with Lyla Cansfield helping them out. That's what I love about Natural Horsemanship. If you have a riding problem, get off and sort it out on the ground first. It is so much safer than the traditional method of just riding through the problem and more respectful of the horse. It helps them through problems rather than forcing them through them.

In the afternoon each horse and rider then got 1/2 hour with Colleen to work with individual training followed by 1/2 hour in the other school with Lyla. We only went for day 1, but learnt loads and saw huge improvements in the horses and riders. 

Here is a write up of the notes I took. It does not contain all that I learnt as I only took the notes that seemed most relevant to me.

Prepare to ride
If needing to calm the horse then use fewer circles. Use more sideways, hind quarter disengagements and backwards until relaxed. Keep your hands low.


Seating Position
1) Whilst sitting on horse : Bend down and touch toe keeping upper body central to horse. ie touch top of neck with chin. Keep legs underneath you. Stretches the hamstrings.

2a) Stand in stirupps and push pubic bone forwards then put an arm straight up. Halt walk and trot. Stretches front hip flexors
2b) As 2a but arm straight forwards. Not on horses centre line but straight out from your shoulder. Keep arm still. Checks if your body is twisting left or right.
2c) As 2a but arm held out to side. Arm at right angles to your body. Check arm is still both up and down and forwards and backwards.
2d) As 2a. Arc arm forwards, up and back to touch horses back. Palm should be in contact with horse then sit down.

Correct riding position can be helped with the following
Stand up
Spurs out
Sit down
The weight on your tail bone should be greater than the weight on your pubic bone
Make sure hands have thumbs on top, not out to the sides. She reckoned that just putting thumbs on top when holding reins could reduce weight on the front legs by up to 15kg !

Turning

As the horse turns keep the peak of the riding hat horizontal. Adjust it so you can see it and use a horizontal line in the arena to check the head is not leaning in the turns.
Keep elbows level. Outside elbow tends to come up and this is wrong
Pressing on the inside stirrup tightens the turn

Downwards Transitions

For downwards transitions use following sequence.
Toes in
Heels down
Eyes up
Chest up
and wait for desired gait. May take a while for first few transitions but get snappier with time. Note no use of the reins.

Tail Swish

Colleen looks for an equal tail swish to either side as a cue that the horse is travelling in a balanced relaxed way.

Getting horses attention

When riding if both ears go forwards so that they are not listening to you immediately turn the horse until you get an ear back on you. Soon they start to pay continuous attention to you.

Impulsion

Never fix impulsion in any sideways movement. Go back to straight to get impulsion then try again.
Flicking outside rein towards groove below and behind ear can help with impulsion without need to use feet. Only use occasionally as they soon become friendly to it and ignore it otherwise.

Stretching and relaxing

Never let horse stretch down when moving so that the nose is below the front knee level. Puts too much weight on the forehand and makes them liable to trip, which is not relaxing for either of you !

Disunited Canter

If disunited then go to shoulder in to bring inside hind under the horse. Quick cure. When cured formerly disunited horses are great at flying lead changes.