Second day of bridleless riding

This is a copy of a forum post I made. It describes last nights ride nicely 

Short video of ride 

Second bridleless ride last night. This time with my wife, Ritchie, watching. I did not set out to ride bridleless, in fact I had been practising riding with spurs again. But after a while I felt she was ready so took my spurs off, I'm not brave enough to ride with spurs bridleless yet, and after a couple of reasonable follow the rails I again felt the urge to take the halter off.
Basically a repeat of the last ride. Some follow the rail, some clover leaf and a few circles with a single carrot stick to help.
Transitions were much better this time, just relaxation in my seat having the desired effect. We did have a few druthers towards the gate but rather than really fight them I just maintained zero brace, allowed her to turn towards the gate but then kept the circle going back to where I wanted to be... on the rail.
What was really interesting was the observations form Ritchie. She noticed how much more relaxed Filly was with the halter off. She really let her head drop down and blew out. She never drops her head when ridden with a halter, even if the reins have not been touched.
This ties in with past observations as to how worried she is by anything on her head. During her colt start at James he took the Parelli hackemore off for her second ride and replced it with a simple halter and clip on rope reins. He said then that anything on her head inhibits her forwards thinking even the knot that ties the meccate reins to the halter. When we got her back from James we had all that trouble with head tossing at trot which was extreme. This was overcome by avoiding touching the reins and give her lots of reassurance.
The cause of all this is not hard to work out. Before I owned her, but whilst I was allowed to play with her the woman who ran the yard insisted that she was turned out in a chiffney. Snag was that the yard staff were not well trained in its' use and more than once I heard of one of them yanking on it. Even when not using a chiffney she was kept on a tight lead rope and her head yanked around if she did not walk properly for them. Of course this just lead to more extreme behaviour on her part and more swearing and yanking. I can hardly blame her for being worried about anything on her head.
She was then backed, in the race horse meaning of the term, with a bit in her mouth. Shame they did not remove the two wolf teeth and five baby teeth that needed to come out first but that would have cost money and why spend money until you know if she can run ? It must have hurt to be ridden in a bit like this.
We have come a long way since then of course but obviously have some way to go to get relaxation whilst being ridden with anything on her head. It's been a year of proper riding so far to get as far as we have and I wonder how to get her feeling relaxed with something on her head. Just time and patience maybe ? But in the meantime I feel bad that she is uncomfortable when I ride her. Bridleless riding is not the whole answer as she has to be ridden with a bridle of some sort most of the time.
Does anyone have experience with this sort of problem and have any good suggestions as to how to make her happy ? Or maybe just encouragement that time will heal the problem if I ride carefully and considerately in the halter.
I find that I am less and less motivated to achieve any goal other than a true partnership with Filly, in the bridle horse tradition, based on respect and above all mutual fun. This issue is currently the one really holding me back

Filly and Spurs

After the very nice ride bridleless the other day I was hoping for more of the same.

However when I rode two days ago it was obvious that we weren't going to be taking the halter off. She was really testing my leadership and wanting to go to the gate. She was also not responding to my leg when it came to hind quarter yields and I had to reach down and use my finger nails to back up the steady pressure from my heel. It may have been that she was tired or just in the mood to test my leadership but if she is ever to become my bridle horse for colt starting and horse development we need to have a better understanding of our jobs.
Having mulled over the problem I decided that maybe riding her with spurs again would help. Last time I don't think she was mentally ready for that step and it got a little "interesting" :) .
So yesterday I went to the yard with the intention of just doing whatever was needed to prepare her to be ridden with spurs.
Ground work consisted of lots of friendly game with the spurs. I used them to scratch all those itchy spots. Rolled them over her belly and flanks until she relaxed and then used them with porcupine pressure to ask for little hind quarter yields. All went very well.
So I mounted very carefully with the spurs on. Her attitude was immediately different. She was willing, relaxed and only a little defensive if I actually touched her with the spurs. Her sensitivity to my leg aids was amazing. Just tensing my calf muscles was enough to get a response. She obviously knew I had and effective phase 4 now and didn't want to provoke me into using it. As they say "to get a light phase one you need an effective phase four". I guess I touched her less than half a dozen times with the spurs, their mere presence was enough.
We only did walk and I only rode for 15 minutes or so. In that time I achieved what I wanted to and saw no need to prolong the ride to where it might get sour.
So why was she so much better?
I have often noticed with Filly that if I play firmly with a real leadership and playful attitude in my body language she quickly becomes not only more compliant but also calmer. I guess she is a horse that craves strong leadership and feels safer and more relaxed when that is what I offer. Being firm with her and very clear about what I want actually increases the bond rather than driving her away.
Try that with Ritchies horse Bonitao and watch the rapport vanish rapidly. Thank heavens I am in a program that emphasises the difference in the horsenality of different horse and teaches you how to cope with each type.

Bridleless on Filly

Yesterday it finally happened. I knew it was coming, but wanted to be absolutely sure of success.
After my normal prepare to ride, where I am currently working on more 3 track on the circle at trot and also getting her to accept more pressure without reacting badly to it, I got on.
The main topic was real refinement of follow the rail. I am really after at least two laps of the school with no rein intervention from me. Afterall to get on Pats Mastery course you need to demonstrate 14 laps with your arms folded !
To achieve this I did use one carrot stick to reinforce my leg before using the rein. This went really well, and whilst I was using the carrot stick occasionally I found that after ten minutes I had not used the reins once. This was 30 minutes into the session so I had used the reins earlier.
James always emphasised acting on any green lights the horse gave you. In my mind this was a strong consistent green for taking the halter off. So off it came. She gave a nice lateral flexion to help me and immediately it was off shook her head as if to say "AT LAST". We then went back to follow the rail with some nice walk trot transitions. Trot to walk did require the gentlest use of the carrot stick the first few times to bend her to the fence just a little. After that all transitions came off my energy. We had ten minutes of really good fun. I got the confidence in her to leave the fence and do the clover leaf pattern, Very nice except to expected to stop everytime we back to the fence. Too much point to point pattern I guess, but at least it gave me confidence that even left alone she would stop.

What is odd is that I felt more comfortable and at one with her without the halter than I did with the halter. Similalarly I feel more at one with her at liberty rather than online. She really comes into her own when there is nothing on her head at all.
Down to the pub afterwards for a beer or two where I met the girl who had done Fillys' early riding before she was mine. She was really amazed and excited. She said she thought no one would ever be able to do that with her as she had been so difficult in the old days. But then they weren't using NH methods ;) . She now wants to try this on Filly herself. Spreading the ideas one person at a time seems to be working at our place.

I am so excited about this. It was one of my dreams to do it and it only took about 8 months of proper riding on her. A long time by some standards I know, but I needed to feel confident in my own abilities to carry it through. Although this is the first baby step with Filly into bridleless I think it is probably a defining moment in our friendship.

Filly Stretch

We had another visit form Dustie, our horse osteopath. She was very concerned about Filly's right shoulder. She has some scar tissue there from an old injury which makes stretching the leg back difficult for her. So we need to work on that to loosen it up.
But how do you get a horse to do yoga ?
The answer seems to be by using positive reinforcement training, sometimes called clicker training.
The idea is to associate a particular cue with a particular behaviour. For this behaviour, stretching the leg, I decided on the cue "stretch".
So the sequence is
cue : "Filly Stretch"
then I place the right front hoof on the ground as far back as it will go
As she puts more and more effort into the attempt I use a bridging cue "good, Good,GOOD"
When I get the maximum effort required for that attempt then I click with my tongue which tells her that a treat is coming as soon as I can get it to her mouth.
The reason this works is described by the work of B.F.Skinner as described very well here Reinforcement and in any website devoted to clicker training.
The result is that she is now willingly letting me place her leg on the ground quite a way back. We are now working on getting her to stay in the stretch for longer to get more benefit. I have even be doing it in her field at liberty and yesterday for the first time she took a mouthful of grass with her left leg forward and right leg back whilst she waited for the click. Ultimately I would like her to graze with her legs this way round so that she maintains the mobility in that shoulder on her own. I feel this could be someway off however.

A great ride

Today I followed the plan and had one of the best rides I've ever had on Filly.
As before I laid out a circle with a cone in the middle and 8 markers around the edge. I can't visualise an accurate circle to save my life so the markers really help my focus and consistency.
We started with all the normal prepare to ride stuff, but I concentrated on the circling game with me standing next to the cone.I also made sure she stayed on a proper circle and not an egg shape. We also did some 3 track and 4 track work at walk and trot just to get her used to a little sideways.
After mounting we had a couple of minute intense conversation on the subject of indirect reins. I just stayed focussed, ignored her protests until she did a couple of nice relaxed steps. Then we soaked on that for a long time with lots of licking and chewing from both of us.
Once done we went onto the "follow the rail" to get relaxation at walk and trot before going onto the circle I had marked out. Today the circles were amazing. Having got rhythm and relaxation and forwards on the circle holding the reins I just dropped them onto the saddle horn and rode very light gentle circles without them. We did indirect reins (without reins, but you know what I mean) around markers to go back the other way. That was all at walk.
Back to rhythm and relaxation on the circle at trot, drop the reins again and she was an absolute star on very circular circles.
A couple of side passes over the central cone, one of her favourite games, and the school work was done.
We celebrated with a nice gentle walk out along the local lanes with Ritchie walking Bonitao in hand for support. The most relaxed hack out I've ever had on her.
They say life is as good as your last ride. Tonight life is good :) :)

Play time with Filly again

After Filly's box rest the vet came back out to check that no sequestrum had formed. I'm pleased to say that there was no sign of any problem with her leg.Box rest was at last over.
What I did not want her to do was go straight to the field and go crazy. After 14 days box rest that would be just asking for a pulled muscle. To overcome this I waited until the outdoor school was empty and we went in there to blow off some steam.
As I wanted a gradual build up to let her muscles warm up we started with just walk and trot on a 22 foot rope, which gave me some control over speed.
But I knew she was going to want to run at some point and did not want her cantering on such a tight circle. Fortunately one of our tools is a 45 foot rope so we transferred onto that. Now Filly could run, but I could control her a bit to stop her doing anything stupid in her excitement like trying to jump out of the school. I don't usually use gloves when I play with horses as I like to keep maximum feel on the rope but for this exercise I used them. Rope burn is painful and needed to be avoided.
And, boy, did she have a good time. She ran for joy with lots of leaping and twisting. I was very glad we didn't just put her in the rock hard field. For about 5 minutes she just had fun and I enjoyed every moment with her though being a little worried she would hurt herself.
Once done she just came and stood next to me as though to say, "Ok that's enough, field now please". The turn out was then totally un-eventful.
Since then I have been gradually bringing her back to being ridden. We spent several days playing online, then a long walk down the local lanes for variety and a few days of liberty. The liberty was really good fun. She now mimics my legs. So if I strike of in the imitation of a horses front legs at canter she canters alongside me. Great fun.
I've ridden her twice recently and it went pretty well. I've even started riding without holding the reins, just using two sticks and my body and legs to direct her. The aim is to get enough confidence in her to take the halter off altogether. Hopefully that will be soon. We just need to get better transitions from forwards to halt sorted out and then it will be time.

Filly back on box rest

Poor Filly. She really has been having a tough time recently.

A few weeks ago we found that she had a sore back and so took the descision not to ride her for a while in order to allow it to recover and to get our osteopath over to look at her.  (Top tip. If you find a good osteopath don't tell anyone else. She is now so booked up it takes ages to get an appointment !)
The osteo said it was not the riding or the saddle that had caused the soreness but probably just the exuberance she puts into play sometimes. Believe me it is exuberant. When she get like this I just let her work it out of her system for a little while, then gently start redirecting her and getting her to connect to me. Within five minutes she is as attentive a horse as you could want, but shutting her down when she really wants to play would have the precise opposite effect.
So no riding had happened for a while. Then the weather in the UK, believe it or not became hot bringing with it a load of flies. I think she then got bitten on her eyelid which swelled up so much she couldn't open that eye. We bathed it and kept her in out of the heat as much as possible. I also put her fly mask on, which I had avoided as she dislikes it so much.
Monday night I spent at Aikido where etiquette quite rightly says no mobile phones. To be honest our DoJo is pretty relaxed about this if we need to be contactable for work, but prefers them off if possible. After the session at around 10:30pm I switched mine back on to get a message that Filly had been kicked in the field and was now in her stable. I dashed to the yard to see her and found a small raw area on the front of her right rear cannon bone. She was fully weighting it whilst resting the left hind. Didn't look too bad so I went home to bed.

The next morning I went back to the yard to check on her. The eye had swollen up again and I also heard the saga of the night before. A gelding had gotten into the mares field and in the ensuing rucus Filly had been kicked. When the staff finally managed to sort things out (they had thankfully come back to the yard when they heard there was a problem) they brought Filly in. I was told she was hopping lame and would barely weight the leg at all.

What with the eye and the leg enough was enough. I called the vet. I then actually had a pleasant sunny wait for the vet, just spending time hanging out with Filly in her box and the yard staff for coffee. The vet arrived, by which time of course the eye swelling had gone down and she looked even better on the leg. However, given the site of the kick straight onto bone he decided we should get it x-rayed to rule out the possibility of a hairline fracture and disappeared off to get the x-ray machine.

He came back some hours later with an assistant. After Filly's initial suspicion of the apparatus we managed to get some good x-rays of her leg which showed a) there was no hairline fracture and b) she had broken the leg in the past and it had healed naturally and well !

So the initial panic was over. However the vet still wanted Filly to stay in the box for the next ten days in case a sequestrum formed. Rather than describe it here is a nice link to a website which gives a good explanation Sequestrum .
So we are keeping Filly in in case a part of her bones is damaged and will x-ray it again in around 10 to 14 days to see if there is a problem. If not she can go straight back out and also be ridden. If there is then it's 6 to 8 weeks of box rest while the bone heals itself.

Now the main problem is keeping her entertained whilst she is confined to quarters. It also gives me a chance to work on all sorts of little projects I have been putting off. Haltering her whilst kneeling down for example. Actually we cracked that one today :)

Filly hangs out with a freind

Apparently she stood for nearly an hour like this. She does not know it is a reflection of herself of course as horses are not self aware. She just thinks it's a really good and patient friend

Riding with Vicky at JRFS

I had a great time at JRFS last week. Went down on Tuesday afternoon and very reluctantly came home on Friday evening.

I wound up riding a lovely quarter horse called Dalton with Vicky, James Roberts fiancée, teaching me. Her riding is immaculate so she was exactly the person I needed to help sort me out. She was basically very supportive saying that I just needed a few tweaks to get things right. At the time I just thought she was being kind.
We worked on my basic position a bit, getting my heels down and toes out a little, loosening my shoulders etc. At the end of day one I felt I had made some progress.

Day 2 and I got to ride two horses. Brennan and Dalton. The snag with Brennan was that the English saddle was too small for me and the stirrup leathers way to short. This was not a part of the lesson, just an opportunity to ride a different horse for a short time. I really struggled to get into canter. Eventually I shifted my weight right back so that I was sitting on the point of the cantle. The next attempt and straight into canter. Whilst this was not an ideal scenario it really brought home to me the importance of the relative position of my weight to the T14 vertebrae. Something James had always spoken off, but to feel the effect first hand was very instructive.
The snag with riding in this saddle was I developed a huge sore on my left calf. No pain no gain I guess.

Day 3 and I had decided to raise the stirrups a little. This really helped and I felt much more in balance and connected to Dalton.

During all this we were also working on riding with collection at walk, trot and canter. To ride a well schooled horse really helped to get the feel.

Obviously I wasn't doing to badly as I then got to ride Dalton out on a quiet hack whilst Josh and Shelagh rode two young colts on their first ride out. All went very uneventfully.

When I got home I was keen to try out my new skills on Filly. I started by raising the stirrups two holes. The difference was amazing. We had a really really nice ride. Very nice balanced canters. Upwards transitions that were coming from my thighs alone. Downward transitions... that's a different story and we need to work on them. Not that she was running off, just maintaining gait and direction. Not a huge problem and one it will be fun to work through with her.

All in all this was a great experience. Vicky was right, there was not much I needed to change to get a huge improvement. It was impressive that she spotted this. Rather than trying to change everything she just spotted the key faults that would release the rest of my body into a better position.

One great ride and one "exciting" ride

Last Monday, prior to going to work I went for a quick ride on Filly. The plan was to take her to the outdoor school and basically just follow the rail. In the end it became much more than that.
After a normal prepare to ride with and emphasis on circling game and maintaining gait (a good preparation for follow the rail) I mounted as usual. It became immediately apparent that this was going to be a special ride.
Lateral flexions were very very light. Asking her to move of was just a squeeze of my buttocks, no leg at all. And so we went to follow the rail.
Filly had other ideas and I listened. She knew about other more interesting patterns such as clover leaf and point to point. She made it very clear, in a gentle way, that they would be more fun. Rather than tell her no I rolled with her ideas and directed patterns randomly. So we might be on the clover leaf pattern which on approaching a fence became point to point as she got to stop and take a breather. I tried to keep things consistent enough she didn't get worried, but varied enough to keep her brain occupied.
Once this was going well we started adding in changes of gait to up the interest even more. So a clover leaf at walk, then point to point at canter, then follow the rail at trot. She seemed to really enjoy herself, maybe because I was having so much fun and my body language showed it. At halt she regularly swung her head around to say hi and have her forehead rubbed. All in all one of the best rides I've had on her.

Now for the exciting ride. Ritchie and I arrived at the yard intending to work in the school again with our horses. But it was booked for a lesson. Plan B. We tacked up and took them to the big field to do prepare to ride. The field now has very long grass which Filly liked as she could take a mouthful without breaking gait. The grass is now too long to do any proper riding in so it was decided to take Filly and Bonitao for a hack down the local country lanes.
That is when it got exciting. Filly was hyper aware about everything. My only defence was to maintain a strong focus and do things to make her think about her feet. Thus we did lots of leg yields from one side of the lane to the other, straight for a bit and then back the other way. If she got more tense then leg yields became full sideways using the hedge to stop forward motion. Anything to make her concentrate on the job in hand. I discovered that she can trot sideways. For many folks on the outside I guess it would have looked like a horse barely in control, but all the manoeuvres were instigated by me, though maybe not always the gait they happened at. If she got really difficult then we just did hind quarter yield circles until she relaxed and we could walk straight for a little while.
I wouldn't call it a fun ride, but it was a satisfying ride all the same.