Aintree Horse and Soul Tour

Ritchie and I managed to get some last minute tickets to go to the Parelli Horse and Soul tour event in Aintree Equestrian Center at Aintree race course.
It also gave me a chance to see what Filly is missing out on as we parked next to the race course itself. The jumps did not look that big and impressive when I think of the controversy of the Grand National. That's before I learnt that the Grand National fences are not left up all year round as they are regularly burnt down by protesters.

The venue was small compared to previous events at the NEC in Birmingham, but I liked the more intimate feel. There were around 2500 people there and the seating was no more than 4 or 5 deep. Being a smaller crowd they were likely to consist of more hardened NH supporters so the show could afford to show more advanced topics without making anyone feel left out.

The event started with Neil Pye, the announcer, dedicating the event to the memory of James Roberts. For this he got a standing ovation showing the strength of support James had in the UK. Brought a tear to the eye of many people, including me.

Then the demos started. I cannot possibly describe all the demos that were performed, so will concentrate of the highlights for me.

One of the first day demos was on horsenalities and how to use the techniques in a real life situation. This was lead by Linda and involved for folks and there horses, each representing a specific horsenality type. Once we had all had a chance to see the reactions of each horse to the crowd environment the horses were broadly classified as one of the four key types. For once this worked like a charm, all four really did display archetypal behaviour, this had not been the case at the last show in Birmingham !
Then each horse was played with in turn to get them calm and mentally collected and connected whilst in front of a large audience. Being a knowledgeable audience there was no clapping at inopportune times which was nice to see. What I did like is that if a horse crossed, temporarily, into a different horsenality this was pointed out and the correct strategy used for the horse that was there this second. Personally I get really fed up with folks who label there horses once and for all then don't play with the horse in front of them. It was great to see Linda trying to correct this trait.

There was a very cute spotlight (just a demo with little teaching element to it) where a Parelli professional and her six year old son played with their horse and pony. Very good for his first spotlight.

On both days there was a training session with Collen Kelly http://colleenkellyriderbiomechanics.com/ working with 4 top Parelli professionals highlighting horse and rider biomechanics. Collen is an Australian dressage specialist who is both a top judge and has been long listed for the Australian Olympic team. She has also trained with the head trainer of the Spanish Riding School. She is probably one of the most highly qualified horseman I have ever met. We were so impressed by her that we immediately booked onto a clinic she was giving near us yesterday. More about this in a later post.

Of Pats' demos the one that made the biggest impression was helping a rider with canter lead changes. Pat rode a beautiful young grey horse who belonged to one of the UK Parelli instructors. This was a horse under development and so we could not only watch Pat helping the rider, but also developing the grey.
He quickly assessed the problem areas for the lead changes and set to work on improving them. It basically involved the ridden sideways game. He wanted the rider to get her horse much much more responsive much more impulsion sideways. He helped by positioning the grey and using a stick to drive the horse sideways. The result was nice figure of 8 canter patterns with a flying lead change on each change of direction.
On occasion there were hints of Pats legendary toughness as an instructor showing through, but he has enough instructor savvy not to put too much pressure on the rider in front of a large audience.

But for me the absolute highlight was after hours on day 1 when most of the audience were leaving. Pat was on the grey again, just playing with it as he would back home with any young horse. Oblivious of the folks around him, just connected to the grey. He had a big green Parelli ball that he was getting the grey to put its' nose on and push around. But this was a dynamic play. Very little rest, just go go go. The ball gave Pat and the horse a focus for all the little sideways, backup and forwards aids Pat was using. And he played for a long time at this one game. I later heard that he had ridden the grey on the Friday before the event and played just the corner game for 4 hours ! That is a level of consistency in training that I have never reached.
I would give a lot to spend a week with Pat in the same way I used to with James. Just sitting and watching him work with no pre-planned lesson plan, just Pat doing his job (and hopefully the odd explanation !)

The Saturday evening we had dinner with many of our Parelli friends. In a way this social side is a big reason to go to an event like this. It gives a chance to chat to like minded people. Most yards are a bit of a dessert when it comes to being able to talk about NH. We're a little luckier with 3 of us being actively involved and several others interested.

My only criticism of the weekend is that there could have been fewer demos aimed at complete beginners. This was clearly a very knowledgeable audience and more higher level demos could have been incorporated. However if you watch close enough you can always get something out of every demo.

For example the last demo was a trailer loading demo, of which we have all seen many episodes before, both live and on DVD. This one had a twist however. Pat was coaching a young 13 yr old girl through the process, with what started as a horse she loved, but could barely control. For those of us who love to pass this knowledge on it was interesting to see how he taught this young girl. No isolation of the seven games, just getting the horse to move around naturally. Of course she used all seven games in the process without realising it, and maybe this is the best way to teach beginners the rudiments of NH.

Lesson with Sean

A long day for Filly today which will have really tested her mentally. She came through it well.

Sean came to give us a lesson. We started with the usual prepare to ride, but as I had noted yesterday that she was not so willing to go in a circle on the right rein we put emphasis on getting her more flexed on the right circle prior to riding. This was done by putting her on a right circle online and then just asking with a stick and flag for her to sidepass just a step or two out on the circle, then back to the circle again. This sidepass just gets her to flex her body so that she is straight on the circle. Over time this should help her with all her right rein work, be it walk, trot, canter and even lead changes. As Pat says "the better they go backwards and sideways the better they will do everything else".

Then to get her forwards better we worked on snappy halt to walk, trot or canter transitions online. This involved asking her gently to get going, but if after a few seconds she had not headed out with energy I ran towards her hind end and slapped the ground hard three times with the string. All three times on the same spot, not chasing her. After just a few attempts she was flying into her transitions without the high energy running from me.

Once riding we worked a bit on forwards at walk, which after the preparation was pretty good. We then spent a fair amount of time on indirect rein. This is where we ask the hind leg to cross under the body, but the front legs to stay still.
The usual progression of eyes, belly button, legs, rein were followed. If she still was not crossing under after all this, then gentle rhythmic tapping with a stick just behind my boot until we got a nice step. This involved several tight circles to begin with until we got that soft step we were after. Sean even helped to start with by applying pressure with a stick behind my boot heel.

From there we moved onto direct rein (yielding the fore quarters). For this we want the front legs to cross over, but the hind legs to stay still. This was initially approached in a similar way but we moved onto a different pattern after a while.

The new pattern was to get her to back up really well next to the rail, then ask for a 180 degree turn along the rail turning towards the center of the school and stop. The backup was to keep her weight over the hind legs so that the front legs were light and could step over. The stop was to isolate the front legs so that the direct rein would be more strongly associated with them.

Sean helped this by using my 5m pole with a flag on the end. With this he could add a little driving pressure in front of her to really engage the backup. Once this was softened then the eyes, belly button, leg, rein sequence was followed to ask for the direct rein. Sean "helped" with the pole and flag to drive the front end around.

Filly really didn't like the flag ! It improved my seat and balance no end. She was not frightened of it, in fact she tried to attack it once. But it did do the trick. After around 10 or 15 minutes of this we got some really nice backups and direct reins. Could it have been done without the flag ? Probably, but it would have taken way longer and would actually been more stressful for her as I would have needed to be more vigorous with the legs and reins for a longer time.

As soon as we stopped she relaxed totally with lots of yawning as she came off adrenalin and much licking and chewing as you digested what had just happened. Being in a western saddle I felt pretty secure throughout, and english saddle might have been a different story.

I like to allow better horsemen than me to ride Filly when possible. Not so that they can teach her better than I can, but so that they can get a feel for her, how she has improved and what I need to concentrate on in the near future. Therefore I got Sean to ride her for ten minutes or so. The feedback was pretty positive. He said that she felt like a different horse compared to last time. The main points to work on were those that lesson had concentrated on anyway. Getting her softer to the direct and indirect rein. Also to work more on her sideways.

Another very good lesson, which was fun for me, provocative and, from her expression, fun for Filly.

Principles, PURPOSE, and time are the tools of teaching

No riding yesterday. I had got up at 0330 to fly to Madrid and back, didn't feel sharp enough to ride her.
However that is no excuse not to do something, so I thought I would revisit the previous days exercise crossing from the road onto the grass verge and back.

We started where there was a nice gentle ramp from the grass onto the road to get her confident to move from the grass/mud to the tarmac. Again the obvious "tool" to use was the squeeze game. This involved asking her to gently walk from the grass onto the road and then turn and face the grass again to contemplate the "scary" verge she had just crossed. Technically this is just to modify her natural flight distance until it is nothing. She found that standing on the road placed the grass at a more convenient height to eat, so this became a popular game.
She still tended to rush a bit so I combined the squeeze game with a little rope wriggling learned in the YoYo game to slow her down a bit as she crossed this verge. This worked, but I felt it was not the best solution to the problem and continued to figure the solution out.
As she got better we moved onto a more challenging bank. Only about six inches to a foot high, but with a very soft insecure feeling edge. Again I used the rope wriggling to modify her pace as she made the transition from road to verge, but could feel James gently shaking his head in a mildly disapproving way.
That image of James suddenly provided the answer. He always said "make them think to their feet". He blamed himself for having a colt slip on the road and fall on James leg breaking it in many places. "I should have been putting in little sideways steps and hind quarter yields to make him think to his feet on the slippery road. Then he would not have slipped" he said to me once.
I had to get Filly thinking to her feet before she crossed the verge. The obvious answer was not rope wriggling and YoYo, that made her think to her face, but sideways game. So on the next crossing I brought her up to the verge, then stopped her and asked for a few steps of sideways. Once this was soft and easy then I asked her to go forwards over the verge. She managed it with careful feet placement and no rushing. Her mind was already aware of her feet and it helped her find the answer to a graceful crossing of the verge.
James was very strong on ensuring that any game or pattern we performed with our horses was done with a purpose, not just because the program said "do it now for your next levels audition". Each pattern and game has to be learned in isolation, particularly for the human, but once mastered it should then be used for a purpose. What is more there should be pattern and game integration, as in this case, where patterns are mixed up in a constructive way to achieve a desired result.
In fact he ensured everything was done with a known purpose. He was very scathing of folks who played at Liberty with their horses just to look cool in front of friends for example. The purpose may be to learn Liberty to be able to use it in a spotlights demo in the future, that has a purpose. But just doing it randomly with no end goal, he reckoned, just looked ugly.
The same goes for the games. Once learned they should have a reason to be revisited, not just to "do Parelli".
I use a lot of porcupine game at the moment to get Filly more responsive off my leg when riding her, so that bridle-less riding can happen in the future. I want to do bridle-less so that I can use her as my saddle horse one day, playing with other online horses from off her back, opening gates, maybe even some roping for fun. Thus I have a strong reason for playing porcupine game with her and that sense of purpose translates into a different body language when I play the game. It gives it more intention on my part which Filly can read and is less likely to be resentful at being moved around.
Remember "Principles, PURPOSE, and time are the tools of teaching". The 8 principles are making more and more sense to me as time goes on. Hope you are listening up their James. I'm finally "getting it".

Lots of riding

Over the last few days I have managed to ride a fair bit. The weather has been windy, but otherwise ok

On Tuesday we had a lesson with Beca Holloway. She lives and work at James Roberts yard and was one of the staff who helped to back Filly. It was good to get a check up on our progress. The main subject was "forwards" at walk. The first few sections to our training skeleton are "Rhythm", "Relaxation", "Forwards".
The first two Filly is pretty good at both in walk and trot, but I was struggling to get real forwards at walk. We define forwards as the hind hoof over tracking the front hoof by at least one hoof print. In other words the hind hoof should strike the ground at least the size of a hoof print in front of where the front hoof just left the ground. Additionally the mind of the horse should be forwards. They should not even be thinking backwards. This can be determined from where they are tending to scan with their eyes and ears.
We started with the normal prepare to ride, but Becca made me concentrate a little more on her expression, particularly when I ask her to draw towards me. Just for a few seconds she would give me an ears back "snotty" look. Becca had me drive her away from me the instant she did this, timing was crucial. In other words I was no longer to accept even a seconds bad expression.
Once riding we worked on several patterns to get more forwards. One was particularly effective. We trotted along the long side of the school until just before we got to the end, then did a rapid hind quarter yield towards the fence (ie swung her hind quarters away from the fence) then set off in the other direction. Once she got this pattern she became much more willing to give forwards.
We also tried using a string to tap her on the rump if she still did not offer forwards. This was not very effective.
Yesterday I repeated the exercises, but instead of slapping her with the string, slapped myself on the back. Amazingly this made all the difference. Suddenly she was forwards and really listening to my aids. It's the little differences that make the difference, not going to more and more extreme persuasion.
Today the idea was to go for a short walk down the road. She was good in the school, but as soon as we got onto the road she seemed to be very very lame on her front right leg. She kept "flicking" it up and forwards. It felt awful. So I hopped off and checked her over. Nothing obvious but decided not to ride anymore. Even with me off her back Ritchie and I could see and hear this odd flick. So as not to waste the expedition entirely I worked on getting her to cross a runnel of water that ran down the verge. Getting her to up and down from the grass verge, across the water on and off the road. To start this was very worrying for her, but as Parelli students we have the "squeeze" game to deal with just this sort of problem. Soon she was settled and happy.
We then noticed that the "lameness" had totally disappeared. She was not really physically lame at all, it was just her way of going when under mental stress

Not riding is an opportunity not a negative

The snow is still here, but there is hopes of a thaw tomorrow.
I've continued to play with Filly however and this period of enforced ground work has actually not been a bad thing.
To start with, I find it is easier to build rapport from the ground, and that has improved to a high standard again. For example today I played with Filly at liberty in a small indoor school whilst Ritchie played with Bonitao online. Ritchie was getting Bonitao to do some pretty snappy transitions from walk to canter, but even then Filly stayed with me and we continued our work. Even when that work was canter circles at liberty.
The aim remains to improve the hind quarter porcupine yields (hqpy )and maintain the responsibilities on the circle.
The hqpy have improved a great deal. Filly will now step away from the pressure nice and softly, and with a good facial expression, but still with a tail swish. It is the tail swish I would like her to get over so that I can say they are becoming good. Until then I will continue to work on them everyday. During this training I found the best position to be in was with my back towards her sides and then just gently use the back of my hand to apply the pressure. This overcame a lot of her opposition to the pressure.
I think that turning my back on her immediately lessened the emotional pressure, and using the back of my hand (i.e fist) it feels less like a claw and gives a softer feel. I am now gradually introducing turning my body to face her, but it is a case of approach and retreat to get her confidence.
As for the responsibilities, they are getting pretty good. Given that we had the distraction of Bonitao also cantering around online Filly still managed a very nice steady 3 laps of canter at liberty on both reins. That shows a marked improvement in her concentration over the last week or so. I am hoping it will translate into more responsiveness and forwards when we get to ride again.

It puzzles me how few riders takes the opportunity to use this non-riding time to work on the ground skills with their horses. Some do take there horses in the school to lunge them to stretch their legs from the weather enforced box rest. But they do not use the time they are spending with their horses anyway to improve their ground work and ultimately their riding. Besides it's fun !

Snow stops play

Little to say at the moment. The recent snow in the UK has made playing with horses outdoors impossible for us. The outdoor school is frozen and covered and the fields are also in a bad state.
The snag is that with 40 horses at the yard the indoor school, which is small, is heavily used and so difficult to get training time in.
I have still managed to get some stuff done with Filly. Quite a lot of liberty when the school is empty, and online work when not. This enforced non-riding period has allowed me to polish up all those ground work skills that I have been neglecting. For example we have been practising lots of sideways towards me in preparation for using a fence or mounting block to mount from.
I have also been working on making lowering the head much lighter. I can now ask her to lower her head at liberty and then keep it down as I lightly rest my arm on her neck. This is just a basic follow the feel exercise which translates into lighter rein cues when riding and lighter lead rope when leading.
I have also been working on the circling game to just improve her maintenance of her responsibilities. Again this should lead to lighter riding. If she maintains gait, maintains direction and looks where she is going I have the ultimate in lightness as I don't need to use any cues at all unless I want to change something.
 

Muddy Filly

Filly hates to get muddy. I have never ever seen her roll in a field. In the nice clean sand indoor school she loves to roll, it is the highlight of her day. But in mud, never.
I was a little perturbed therfore on arriving at the yard yesterday to find her legs and belly covered in sticky, wet mud. She hadn't rolled apparently, but she had careered around the field so much that she had splashed her lower half with a thick coating. It was so sticky and wet that there was no question of cleaning her enough to be able to put a saddle on, and given the weather she would not have dried if I had washed her.
If she thought this was a clever way to get out of work, she had forgotten about ground work. So off to the outdoor school we went.
We started at liberty. As soon as I took off her halter she spotted a jump wing that was set up and wandered over to investigate. Never knock the curiosity out of a young horse, so I waited to see what she would do. After a good sniff she decided that practising sideways over it would be a great idea. With no prompting from me she carefully positioned herself and then stepped sideways until it was under her belly. The thing was so tall there was only one part of her belly it would fit under, as you can see from the photo. I was very surprised but happy to see her play and curiosity was this strong.
The rest of the session was just pretty normal stuff so I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say by the end of the session she was dry enough for me to get very dusty scraping all the dried mud off :(

Cantering Filly

A lovely ride on Filly today. A perfect day for it as well, clear and still.
I started with the prepare to ride being done at liberty. Why ? It just felt right, and it was a change of routine which for a horse like Filly keeps her mind engaged.
Even though it was a liberty we still worked on the same things. It's just like preparing online, no difference, there just happens to be no rope attached. James Roberts always made the point that liberty done for the purpose of impressing friends looks horrible, done with a purpose and it is a thing of beauty.
The purpose today was to play the circling game with no interference on her head so that she could really think forwards and not be inhibited by the halter and lead rope flapping around. I was after 3 laps of maintain gait, maintain direction and look where you are going at walk, trot and canter.
To be honest it was very easy. Even though we were in the large outdoor school she never left me. The circles were, if anything, a little too small and I had to use the stick and string to gently drive her onto a larger circle. Once she had completed the required 3 laps, with quality, a slight dip of my head and she turned sharply towards me and happily trotted over. Of course each session took more than 3 laps as the count starts again if I have to correct her at all, but mostly it was fewer than 6 laps in total.
I then saddled her up and got her moving around a little more online to let her blow out so I could cinch the girth up to riding tightness. On that subject it amazes me the number of folks who get on a horse and ride it around before they have the girth at the correct tightness. As the horse moves initially they deflate a lot, the net result is that many people are spending at least a proportion of the ride with a loose girth. Do this a few hundred times and it is inevitable that one day they will spook with a loose girth, the saddle will roll and they will come off, leaving a frightened horse with a saddle dangling under its' belly.
Once riding she was fairly good, but seemed to lack forwards so I decided that canter was probably the solution. I have done very little cantering on her to date as we waited for her to get a little stronger, but she has toughened up nicely so I felt I could risk it. The first canter took a little bit to get her going but only maybe ten strides or so. I don't think she could believe that I was actually asking for canter ! Once going it took a while to get in tune with her gait. Due to the conformation issues all her gaits are a little odd. There seems to be an extra little bounce in canter. Once I finally "got it", much to Fillys' relieve, it was actually very comfortable. Given that she is supposed to be a race horse I have to say that her canter is really gentle and sweet. No rushing, just a really relaxed gait.
The stop is, however, amazing. The cue to stop is to let out a deep breath and relax in the body. The first attempt and I felt I was going to fall off forwards. Two strides from canter to a dead stop. Fantastic. They were not all that good but that first one showed what she could do.
Once we had cantered for around 5 minutes total I walked her off for a while by riding alongside another horse and chatting to the owner. All good for her confidence around other horses. Then I dismounted.
I needed to clear some cones I had set up to do the weave pattern at the start of the ride. Filly didn't look as though she was going anywhere so I just let her go. She followed me around the school as I tidied up, and all the time the other rider was riding around looking in amazement. "Just like a pet dog" she said and she was right. I have to say she is becoming a really confident calm horse now, one that I am proud to own.

Another hack out

A lovely if slightly cold day today. Ritchie and I decided we had to get Bonitao and Filly off the yard for a short hack along the local lanes.

All the usual prepare to ride was done, which showed Filly to be in a very mellow today. We prepared as we had played the last few days with more work on maintaining responsibilities on the circle and sideways over a pole and cones using porcupine pressure. Both showed considerable improvement.

Of course once on board the prepare to ride was put to good use. We played corner game at walk which she really understands now and I hardly had to direct her at all.

At trot I am still being very uncritical other than she must maintain gait. The order of the responsibilities of the horse is important so getting her to maintain gait first is the correct thing to do. As for direction I play "tit for tat" letting her choose where to go for a while, and then taking her idea and modifying it with my idea as to where to go next. Doing this, and with lots of stroking and reassurance, we trotted for a fair time with no head tossing at all. A great leap forward. No I have to gently increase my ideas as to direction compared to hers. Slowly, with her hardly noticing, I will be directing her more and more. No fight, just persuasion.

After about 15 minutes in the school we left and went for a walk. She happily helped me open the gate to the school, thus giving the earlier practised sideways a purpose.
The hack was fun, but she was again pretty tense. With lots for reassurance and stroking she held it together very well. The few spooks she had were all of one step, or less.
She was very forward in the walk leaving poor Bonitao far behind. He regularly had to trot to keep up, and he is a horse who prefers to be in front. We figured he thinks it is too much effort to stay in front of Filly so plods along behind.

Sideways Porcupine

Only groundwork with Filly recently as I haven't felt well enough to ride. Hopefully today will be different though.

In lieu of riding I have been going back to basics a bit with the groundwork. For example Filly had forgotten her responsibilities on the circle of maintain gait, maintain direction and looking where she is going. She was also still very defensive about steady (porcupine) pressure on her sides to get her to move away.
First the circling game. Of course we only use circles when doing groundwork as we can't move fast enough to keep up if we do not. In addition the leader of a herd of horses tends to be the one who moves their feet least and by circling we can stand still and make the horse move a lot. However the lessons learned on the circle will translate into more linear patterns when ridden, especially the responsibilities.
My aim was to get two laps at forward walk, forward trot and forward canter with no interference from me once the direction and gait had been set. This is an advancement of the basic circling game where only the gait matters. Here I wanted quality of gait as well. Should I have to remind her of the need to maintain the desired gait the circle count reset and she still had to do two circles to get the reward of a rest. Thus each session consisted of many more circles than just two, but as soon as two good quality circles where achieved she got to rest.
The game for her was to figure out what she had to do to make sure I did not give her a cue and for how long she had to do it. This is different from normal lunging a horse where they are constantly reminded what to do. This develops them physically but not mentally.
It did not take too long to get the desired circles and so I can build now from 2 to a goal of 6 circles with no interference.

As for porcupine sideways we had, over several sessions, got to the point where she was beginning to accept the pressure and move lightly off it. But it was still with some attitude. Now she was at least partly thinking about things during the porcupine game I could add obstacles to negotiate as I directed her with finger tip pressure. The obstacle yesterday was a pole on the ground with a cone at each end, and the task was to go along the pole sideways with the pole under her belly. This put a purpose to being manoeuvred about with porcupine pressure. After four or five goes she suddenly "got it" and the resistance largely melted away and we got some really nice sideways. Lots of licking, chewing and even yawning from her showed she was finally relaxing to the idea.