Filly Update

Nothing on my ponies today because its pouring buckets and COLD, but I got some fun news this morning when I got to work.

Remember that hard to catch filly? 45 minutes the first day, nine minutes the second day... well yesterday, when I wasnt there, they all had to come in for farrier work... guess who was the EASIEST one to catch!!!!! YEYYYYYYY!!! I am so happy!! PRIME example of taking the time it takes, so it takes less time.

Two days of a pattern and then POOF, anyone could and did catch her. LOVE IT. Perfect perfect perfect example of putting the relationship first!! YEYYYY FILLY!!

Its kind of fun working in a barn FULL of little [well not really little] Allures.... SO many of the horses are LBE to the max. Everything is a toy, everything deserves ALL their energy, EVERYTHING goes in their mouth!! Its like standard warning before taking a horse out "Oh, watch out, that one bites" and I will grant, two or three ARE biting, the rest are just playing. They are young, full of energy, and just want to have fun. I love it, it cracks me up. "I dont want my halter on my head, I want to chew on it" "Ok, that is perfectly acceptable, lets play with that" about half a minute of my version of 'play with that' and they are ready to just put their nose in the halter.  I, at least, feel like they appreciate not being smacked around to just 'behave' and be a perfect robot.

I found an itchy spot on one of the uber mouthy ones today, I really like him, he is a real character. Interestingly, I didnt get the warning about biting on him until AFTER having wrapped his legs and done a couple of things with him. It never occured to me that he would be a biter, he was just playful and super investigative with zone one, so I acted accordingly and we got along famously. I am really coming to realize JUST how much I have learned from my florida adventures. Its slowly leaking out my fingers and being ever so useful.

Now all I have to do is find a way to get back there and all will be well!!

:-)
S

OH BOY!!!!

I love my ponies. Just pont blank, I really really do. I love that I can lead them from point A to point B without a chain over their nose, withthem respecting my personal bubble AND my pace. I just adore them. Every time I see them, that thought just repeats over and over in my head. I LOVE my horses. I think thats what passion is all about. The thing that perks you up in the morning, what gets you going even after a long day at work, THAT is something worth having in your life. I cant even begin to contemplate what life without horses would look like for me. Even just the thought brings me near to tears. They are my life, passion and my everything.

Hmm... unintended gush aside, here is what awesomeness befell me this afternoon!

I went out to visit with Crystal after work today, to see how she was feeling. She got a stone bruise and has been tender the last few days. Someone was supposed to come look at her to buy tomorrow, but obviously we have postponed because the darling diva is still limping! I figure its about half real ouch half drama queen putting on a show. Crystal is a little like that. Adoreable with a tendancy towards the dramatic. Usually its a positive, in that she makes dramatic changes in her learning, but this is the other side of it I guess :-)

In case there was question, once I was in the pasture checking her out, I was reeled in like a fish on a line to MY ponies. Who I havent seen in, oh about a day and a half. GASP! I walked in their ish direction, and was surprised to see them grazing within twenty feet of one another WITHOUT trying to battle to the death, that was a nice touch. I whistled and called them and got graced with a Mo going 'OH HAI!" and going back to grazing and an Indy going " Oh boy! You are HERE!" and walking over to me! Whoo! One out of two aint bad!!

When Indy got over I just hugged her a lot, and scratched her and thanked her for being the awesome individual she is. If you know me at all, you know what comes next. My disease, otherwise known as Mustsitonhorse Syndrome kicked in and since I had no halter with me I tried to think of ways I could sit on Indy and still be confident I wouldnt die. Her and I have that little line sometimes, that she toes a little with us being a confident unit. Only sometimes though. And its getting less and less as we both get more comfortable and confident with each other.

My first thought was a Cherokee bridle. That failed epically. To be honest, Dakota is the only one who ever tolerated that. I never did anything with it and just tried it with him one day and he was just so ho-hum, he accepted it right off the bat.

AND THIS IS WHERE BLOGGER ATE THE REST OF MY POST!!!!

I am so sad, and I cant re-write the whole rest of the post, so I will just say that the whole thing went fabulously with Indy and that I adore her. Bareback and bridless with a neck string in a 25 acre pasture, walk and trot seamlessly.

Also, the filly it took 45 minutes to catch at work, took only 9 minutes to catch the second day and she followed me around like a puppy dog after.

Sorry guys.. it was a long post, and it is just to much to re-write espeically since it was very much a happy spew post.

S

UGH

I had this great huge long post about the awesomeness that happened today and then BLOGGER ATE IT.

I am so sad. Dont know if I can be bothered to re-write all that... it was rather emotion based! Gack. I hate it when the interwebs betray me like that!!!

:-(
S

Starts...

So I started my new job today. That was fun. I was pretty RBE all night last night [aka, zero sleep] and very much so again this morning. Not such good times. Starting things like jobs are a little nerve wracking for me, but when I pulled up I found out how much good my turn as an extern did me. I feel like I was really able to integrate well into the day, and perform things in an adequate manner, hustling without hot-rodding.

I am now a part time employee of a TB breeding/training facility, to fill in the time when I am not teaching, and to feed my ponies through winter when us Canadians go into hibernation!

I probably wont write to much about it, but I just wanted to highlight an extremely interesting scenario that happened to me today.

It started out as the afternoon feed run. Thats was cool, the facility is huge. Where we had golf carts in Fl, we had a whole TRUCK here. Cool stuff. When we got to the paddock where the yearling fillies were kept we had a mission - they all were getting needles for their boosters or some such, so all needed to be caught, one by one since there were only two of us, and injected and let go once more. It was like the ultimate direct line scenario. Yikes. Way to test my principles on DAY ONE!

Most were easy to catch and give the needle to - I was on needle duty, the other girl held the horse. Then were were down to three. One was a RBE chestnut, who was afraid, one was a LBI playful bay who was just having fun with me and the other I think was RBI, but I am not sure - which in and of itself makes me think RBI. The other girl was able to catch the RBE, I wasnt watching, I was playing the catching game with the LBI. So I diverted and went to give the needle and went back to my catching game. I was really having fun with seeing how I could get her attention, and when the pressure was to much or not enough - it was a really careful balance because even though I think the filly was innately left brain, she was skeptical about people, so that brought a little bit of right brain to play to. HMM!!!

On a random note, the RBI filly was semi playing along while I was playing with the LB one, and she just all of a sudden turned and faced me and started towards me. I was floored! Unfortunatley the other girl walked around a horse at the exact wrong second and she stopped her with the engergy, but the filly kept both eyes and ears on me and let me approach her and hold her halter for the other girl to clip a lead to. Cool stuff!!

Meanwhile, the LB filly was still playing with me. I could get close, have her be calm and then reach out to pet whatever zone she offered and at that exact point she would get RB claustrophobic shoot off two feet, turn LB playful and bounce around and strike out a little bit playing. Hmm. Cool horse, I thought. She was SMART! A little friendly game and she would be an amazing partner. Again though the other girl kept showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time pushing her away everytime she thought about me, so I opted to find another sense of motivation for this filly, since playing with me wasnt really going where I had to get it to go ... To bad I was having a blast and could have played it right until I could touch her. The calls of work I guess....

I grabbed a smaller bucket of grain and shook it until I had the attention of at least three of them. The filly I wanted was in that first group of three, how interesting! Food is a plus for her then, goody! Those three walked right up to me and asked for some grain, so I hand fed it to them all to have a reason to be close to the shy filly. One of the other two was dominant and kept trying to kick the others out of the way so I changed my tactic and protected my sudden herd of two. See why you always have a savvy string on you? Even working in the normal world!

That seemed to change the dynamics a little bit, she would walk off a little and then go "oh yea, you were interesting" and come back again for more handfulls. It took a while before she would let me pass her zone one though! She was perfectly content to have me stand in front of her and feed her, but as soon as I approached zone two, she would leave. So I worked it up until I could feed her from zone two, and then pet her neck from zone two. That was the really key thing. Every time I went to pet her neck, she would leave because thats where you put the halter on from - assumption built, not enough friendly! So more and more and MORe approach and retreat later I was finally able to get my savvy string around her neck, continue feeding her, get the other girl to hold her and give her the shot AND give her more grain after. Excellent.

Also, the other two in the hard to catch herd were now firmly planted near us cool people feeding them. Will be interesting to see how it goes tomorrow.... Wish I could be assigned to just play with them all the time, spend time with them and help them be more savvy about people!

It was really interesting though, the energy from the other girl and how it affected them all. She had a BIG energy, even though I dont think she was conciously projecting it, and she just waded through those horse like the red sea parting, and I dont think that helps very much when you are trying to catch them! Harnessing energy has been one of the biggest things I think I have learned with Parelli, how to send it out, when to send it out and how and when to cut it off!!

I really had a lot of fun with the yearlings, my brain working hard to read them all to assess horsenality and strategies to help everything go smoothly while still working on the timeline of the normal world. I would probably still be out there if it was my timeline!

I had another oh boy moment today when someone was telling me about this super calm horse that 'all of a sudden for no reason at all' spooks sometimes. Hmm. My brain instantly went "Well, he is probably a right brain introvert and got pushed through a zillion thresholds you missed" I was entertained by that, that my head goes into problem solving mode automatically. I think life will be fun in a barn full of LBE's, since that is what most of these horses are. A couple of RBE's, and at least one RBI. Havent met and LBI's yet though, but I havent met all the horses yet.

So far so good, lets hope it stays that way!!
:-)
S

Productive Day

I got a lot done today! And not just with the ponies, so that is good. Unfortunately I cant ride 24/7 and still be able to exist and all that... Maybe some day!

I started the day mowing the ring once more, scalping it on the lowest setting. It looks really nice again AND I didnt get stuck tis time! I may have been aided by the fact that it hasnt been raining every day, but I am still calling that a plus!

Indy got to play first today. It was really really interesting online! We have been playing with upping our figure eight lately and so we went over to play with that. Last night was a bit bracy on the turns but today was just gorgeous and flowy!! I remember thinking "Oh wow.. this feels really good!" She was giving me enthusiasm and canters and really tuned in trying really hard. On my end, when she was drifting to far, I wasnt interrupting her, I was trying to see if I could just redirect her attention and help her find the pattern... lo and behold! Success! Hmmm... how interesting!

We played with transitions as well , and circles over the barrels and some more stick to me. All went very well. Our yo-yo to, is coming along really nicely, she really puts effort into backing up even at phase 1/2! YEY!

After saddling and doing some more little things to check the girth and whatnot, I bridled her and off we went, same set up as yesterday. We did a couple of rounds walking and doing circles at the walk with the reins on her neck AGAIN! She was fabulously responsive! Really following my focus and I wasnt having to use my leg hardly at all. What a neat feeling!

We picked up the trot and went into a cloverleaf pattern, which went surprisingly well! I played with my fluidity, trying out the sitting trot and trying not to over-post. I find I do that a lot with Indy because her stride is big, but its not bouncy, so I over exagerate for no reason, or maybe because I used to have a hard time with her trot, so I try to hard now even though I have a pretty good handle on it. I played a lot wiht letting her motion be the only thing that pushed me around and I must say I was quite surprised how LITTLE I came out of the saddle. Fun Fact: When I was playing with this and finally picked a posting tempo that matched her better, she stopped speeding up at the trot when I posted! HOW INTERESTING! Something to this Fluidity stuff... HA!

After feeling pretty comfy with the trot we moved into the canter and kept it up for longer than we had yesterday. I had an interesting surprise waiting for me - I found out I used the reins to balance at the canter! Not in a haul-on-the-mouth way, just in a position way. I was used to balancing her canter with my hands down where they would be with the reins, and when they werent there my balance was off! Hmm... So we played with that a bit and it got better. Not perfect yet, but definate improvement. Interesting that I never had that with Mo... I think it is the stride length difference and just being accustomed to having reins in my hand, even freestyle.

After a couple of trot/canter transitions Indy got a bit impulsive, so before something went wrong I opted to pick up the reins. We played with some more fluid rein and contact and such. We also played with transitions within the trot - how slow can you go, how fast can you go. The coolest thing with those was that I wasnt using my leg at all, she was super in tune to my body energy! She was very soft and flowy, extending easily and slowing down easily to while maintaing mental contact and following my focus. It was very cool. Very light. It really showed me where lightness can go.

On one particularly sharp extended trot to halt in our question box I jumped off and called it a day. We breifly addressed trailer loading before turning out - it is SO much better. Basically walk up and get in AND be comfy for me to put the but bar up. YEY!

When we were all done and she was out I went home for lunch and came back later to hang with Mo. She was in the shed, so I crawled through the fence to say howdy and we walked over to the gate that way, semi at liberty/led by the mane. My initial plan was to do a passenger lesson bareback, so I just grabbed the confidence snaffle bridle and reins, because they are lighter that the 12' all done up. We played online first of course, with some interesting results.

Right off the bat Mo was in a strange mood. I was walking along and I asked her to go out and around me a *little* bit and she literally took off at a dead gallop. Mo. Dead gallop. The horse I cant get to maintain three circles at a canter lapped me four times at least GALLOPING. I was just to stunned to interrupt, and she looked left brain about it. I just figured she was being oversensitive, so I played with it, aimed her at barrels, got changes of direction, transitions and all kinds of things. A little bit of figure eight to. It was only later when I finally got her to hold still that I saw/felt the emotional sweat and I found out it wasnt left brain. Or maybe it was, just adrenaline, because she was still paying attention and doing what I suggested. I am not quite sure what happened yet.

It worked out in the end, I focused on close range circles, trying to get her to lower her head and relax. She is really good at putting her head down one way, and will do it at the walk trot and canter, to the extent of even kicking herself in the chin on occasion. The other way is a lot harder, I think her ribs are a little out. She made some small changes, but not all the way loose the other way yet. But at least she was calm and not so ready to run off. I chose this moment to mount up.

Surprisingly, after all the fireworks, the ride was beautiful. Not what I expected, but beautiful. I was planning a mostly freestyle bareback passenger lesson. What happened was a beautiful finesse ride! She was softly collect in all gaits, lightly responding to my leg, following the pattern [cloverleaf] just beautifully. I was even impressed in my head by Mo, she was so soft, I was able to suggest a soft feel with the reins and ONLY suggest a soft feel with the reins. I wasnt using the reins for turning or anything else! I am so proud of Mo! Lightness is coming!!!

:-)
S

The Right Brain Extrovert goes BRIDELESS for the FIRST TIME!!

Today is a total first for Indy!!!!!!!!

I have been having some impulsion issues with Indy. Everytime we trot freestyle, she had been running away at the trot a little bit. Very strange, but not really unexpected due to her nature. We have been playing with it, while working on fluid rein and transitions with contact. I feel like she felt a little lost with no contact in zone one.

With that in mind I have been playing with riding with contact and loosening it and picking it up again etc.

Today when I went to play with Indy we warmed up extra strong online. My initial plan had been to play with more contact riding, so I wanted her uber ready to ride. We played with maintain gait at the canter, figure eight - with some real enthusiasm, stick to me at the walk and trot, and getting her to stop over the barrels coming at them at a trot. She was a little go-ey today, really ready to move and I had a hard time stopping or interrupting her patterns, but when she finally got balanced she was my little hovercraft on hooves!

With that nicely acheived, I bridled her with the confidence snaffle, grabbed my dressage whip [was planning on playing with getting lighter sideways] and mounted up. After some friendly and lateral flexion checks we walked off on the rail, with the reins on her neck.

We walked circles and a little bit of cloverleaf as a warm up - with the reins on her neck. Then I got brave and asked for a trot... and we did the same - with the reins on her neck. I only had to use the stick a handfull of times when she leaked out a little on the turns. Then I got braver and asked for a canter, and we cantered the rail, balanced, and confidently - with the reins on her neck!!! HOLY WOW!!!

This is the horse I have been wondering if I would ever advance to bridless riding with... and look what we just accomplished!! I cant believe it!! Her stops and downward transitions were seamless!!! I even got a little bit of transition within gait at the trot!

Lesson of the day : WARM UP STRONG!! I learned that in Florida... why havent I been applying it consistently?!?!?

I am SO proud of Indy!!!!! Even though my plan went right out the window, I cant be happier with what we DID accomplish!!! I even was able to lead her at liberty from the ring to the barn and out to the pasture - another first for her! *squees happily*

:-)
S

Crystal Tries Out Reins!

I played with Crystal today, after playing back hoe driver in the morning and early afternoon. I cut out a little early to get to the farm before a thunderstorm rolled in - luckily I beat it!

We played on the ground with her wearing the bridle, which went well. We worked on cater transitions online because she was swishing her tail undersaddle - interestingly she did it with NOTHING on her back to, so I am wondering if its just an introvert "I dont wanna go" thing. She stopped it after about three transitions. Interesting. I wonder if its related to the bridle?

I re-visited our figure eights, and our circles over two sets of barrel jumps, both are solidly coming along. Crystal's juping for is MUCH improved from the laughable state it was when we started! She is doing so well!

When I saddled her she took a few steps while I was girthing up, so we played with some approach and retreat until she was ok with that again. I think she just wanted to play. She was as playful as I have ever seen her today, offering canter through the figure eight, asking loads of questions about which direction to go and such! Cool stuff!

When I went to ride I put the 12' line as reins AND the finesse reins on the confidence snaffle on the bridle. My logic being that I could direct in a sort of double bridle sense to help transfer follow a feel from the halter to the bit. She did great with it! I am really proud of her! We worked on our cloverleaf pattern in both directions at the trot, and canter transitions -which are getting better and better each time! She even offered it a couple of times when I didnt ask for it! Not sure if thats the greatest yet, but its a nice offer, and it wasnt a bolt, it was an honest offer for what she thought I was asking. I just polietly re-phrased my request and we trotted on.

After the ride we went to play with the trailer. Getting ocnfidence to put her feet on the ramp and then in. Interesting observation - she hasnt been on a trailer since she came to us as a yearling [she is 6 now] BUT she would FOLLOW me into the trailer willingly after her confidence got high with the ramp. She would not be brave enough to go in on her own yet though. I thought that was interesting. "OTs ok if my leader goes in, but if she is outside I should be to" is so far her opinion. We got as far as nose-neck-two front feet on the very edge of the inside confidently beforr I quit for the day. I thought it was a good stop point. She DID put all fours inside, just not on a send, on a yo-yo game instead.

Someone is coming to see Crystal tomorrow, so I hope what we played with today shines through and someone will fall in love with her!!

:-)
S

Mo the Lansdscape Aritist!

I forgot to blog yesterday, but Mo and I had a great session. The best since I have been home - undersaddle at least. It wasnt terribly elaborate, but given Mo's recent proclivity for discontent while being ridden, I am particularly happy :-) We played with the cloverleaf pattern bridless at a walk trot and canter and were incredibly successful! YEY MO!

Then today! This morning I was feeling pretty ambitious. The riding ring has needed mowing for a while I keep ignoring it, hoping Candy will eat it all, but she doesnt and hasnt so I finally caved and got motivated enough to ask Aunty to show me how to operate the mower so I could. Mowing went great, and the ring looks fabulous now [except for the minor detail of me forgetting the mud in one corner and getting the tractor stuck... good thing we have a big tractor to unstick it later!]

Onto the weed eating! My least favorite part, the part with the most work to it, and also the part that really makes it look good when its done. I started pulling weeds by hand, then switched to a mixture of weed-eating and pulling and that worked fairly well until the charge died on the weed-eater. It was a good bunch of hours later anyways and the mosquitoes were coming out by then, and I had finished mostly one solid line of the fence, so I felt good about stopping.

The only other thing I really wanted to accomplish was trimming the trees that smack you every time you try to ride the rail on one side of the ring. For this I gathered some scissors, and my trusty Mo. Honestly, I was to lazy to halter her, so I just led her by the chin in to the arena and over to the mounting block. She was a doll and siddled right up for me to mount. The interesting part of this adventure was that the area where I needed to trim branches is actually the part of the ring that scares Mo. I am not sure why, I have done LOADS of approach and retreat with it, all kinds of squeeze game and she never relaxes all the way. I *think* its because last summer Legend [dog] would always jump out of the bushes over there and run at us.

Cleverly, I didnt realize this until we were already on our way walking over there, and I already had my mission in mind : Trim Branches. I dont know exactly how it happened or why, but maybe because my focus was elsewhere, Mo was perfect. She was my equine ladder and acted her part perfectly. She sidewaysed when I needed her to, back up when I needed her to, moved forwards, stood still, you name it, she did it! All in the name of good landscaping! HA!

Bareback and bridless to boot, so GO MO! I let her graze some after that, as the newly mown grass was EVER so much more enticing than the regular grass. Silly horsey.

:-)
S