Just Needed to Squee.,.

So today I woke up feeling a little yucky. It was grey out, I was warm and cozy in bed, and more than happy to stay there, but the call of work pulled me out of my warm cove. Usually, I am pretty happy to go to work. I like my job, I get to be outside, I get to be physical and I get to hang out with horses all day. That is pretty cool for me. Just a blah day today, they happen.

I guess I did something right because Karma decided to smile on me because when I got to work I found out one of the riders was off today and instead of just doing sets of two, one of us [barn staff] would be filling in! It was between me and M, but M had only running shoes, so by default I won the vote and GOT TO BE A RIDER FOR A DAY! And not just ride one, on the last set because there wasnt enough time, no, RIDE FIVE horses all morning... FOR MY JOB! HA! How cool is that?!

It was a jog day, but it was still on the track, so that was cool, and in a racing saddle, which is fun. Just in case they ever get famous, I want to be able to say I rode them - I rode Tahiti Pearl, Moon Stalker, Grey Boundary, Wedding Scripture and Like the Look. Moon Stalker, by the way, is the biggest horse I ever rode... he is about 17.2 and he is a two year old! He moves just like a normal horse though, I was surprised at that. I figured he would have a big nice floaty stride, but nope. Flat, boring, had to work to post. Boundary, Pearl and Headlight [Like the Look] were the nicest. Pearl just floats in her extended trot, Boundary is sooooo smooth and flowy and Headlight is just beyond power and comfort!

It was really fun seeing how their ground personalities matched up with their track personalities. Wedding Scripture is EXACTLY the same. She is a total LBI and it was ridiculous trying to get her to just maintain a TROT. And she's a racehorse... figure that one out!  Pearl was a surprise. She always drags her feet when going to or from the paddocks, she is super calm and slow for everything and then she was all floaty wonderful forward and delightful undersaddle. Not runaway, but forwards. Stalker was the same, just medium. He is kind of a giant lummox. He is adorable, and huge [on my tip toes I can barely reach the top of his bum] and not really sure what to do with himself, and that tranferred I think. He goes, but he is very "okey dokey" about it. Boundary was a treat to ride. He is GORGEOUS [ beautiful dapple grey] and I have admired him since the beginning. He is a treat to ride to, apparently! Forward, but not unstoppable and sooooo comfortable. He is one of those horses you stop and stare at when he plays in the paddocks.

Headlight was herself I think. She always wants to go somewhere, do something, has a schedule. She was that way undersaddle to. Strong, ready to go, powering off and I had better come to or have a darn good reason why she was staying slow. Funny horse.

I think I smiled and laughed a lot this morning because lets face it, how often do I get on a racehorse and go ride on a track?! I think thats pretty cool!!!  So thats my story, I just needed to squee.... I have the coolest job ever. Today, clean stalls, tomorrow, ride a racehorse... who knows what the future holds?? I am just glad I keep my helmet and half chaps in the car!!!

:-)
S

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

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