Did it make a difference?

When I turned up at the field today I was intrigued to see whether or not my play session yesterday had made any impact on Bella.  Judging by the fact that she was at the field gate before I had even got the main gate open so I would say YES,  Good sign!

I started our session with a little online to get us both ready for our ridden session. Bella was doing great even if she was in a bit of a punkie mood (cheeky punk rather than the normal stroppy punk!).  

I started the freestyle session with a bit of circling round a barrel and touch it trying to use my body then backing up with my carrot stick.  The purpose of this was to try to get us in-tune a bit more.  Then I did a few halt, walk, trot transition and moved on to the 'Bowtie' pattern. 

My plan today was to work on the 'Bowtie' pattern with the aim to start cantering.  I started in walk just to get her established on the pattern, then started to ask for trot across the diaginal parts.  We have played with this pattern before so she soon remembered and was soon picking up the trot just from a slight shift in energy from me. 

Thing where going well so I up my energy and she shot forward into a few fast steps of trot, which was a nice offer, but next time I asked she got really stroppy, dropped her head a threatened to buck .... mmm, how interesting! I guess I over did it a bit so I backed off and she went back to happily offering a gentle trot so I left it there.

We stopped and had a graze for a bit then I asked her to do a few transitions. At first she was really grumpy so a went to point to point till I got a few nice transitions and quit there for the day.

When I untacked I noticed that there where some rubbing marks in the hair on her shoulders where the saddle was sitting. Her muscles are building up where she is using her back more now so her saddle is not fitting as well.  Need to see if I can pad or shim it differently and get it off her shoulder more, maybe this is causing some of her crankiness in going forward ....

Not the best riding session ever, but one to give me a few things to think about!

 

Flying visit? ... Make it count

After yet another 11hr day at work today my visit with Bella was somewhat brief tonight but I wanted to make it count particularly as it is Friday and we haven't done anything most of the week due to work commitments.  I didn't want to just turn up tomorrow and go 'ok Bella I know I've barely seen you all week but today we are going to play then ride and start work on cantering Freestyle!'  Hardly seams fair or very partner like does it??

So what did I want to get out of my 10 minute session?  Well I decided I was going to try to be provocative but without making her work hard. Just enough to spark her interest then quit so that when I see her in the morning she is in a curious mood to see what I am going to do this time.


I started the session with a good scratch - always a winner in her books, then it was straight on with the 45ft line, no messing today.  Instead of doing more friendly and checking her 1st 3 games out as I normally do, I caught her off guard by going straight into the 'sliding rock' pattern, then on one of the sideway kept her going out till she was about 20ft away from me, then instead of yeilding her hind end I sent her forwards into trot and begin driving her from z5 to play touch it with the pedistall where I let her stop.  Now being a LB horse that bounces between In & Ex I knew I could do this without worrying her.  


I certainly got her attention but only to the point that she was watching me a doing what I asked but she was still being a bit snotty about it (being the dominant mare that she is if I don't play with her for even one day she is snotty till she decides i've earnt the right to be incharge again).  


Now that she knew I was there it was time to prove my leadership and I started to play stick to me with a 12ft distance between us and every time her ears went back or she gave a brace (mental or physical) she got a firm shut down and backup FAST.  It only took three times before she decided it wasn't going to work and droped her head and licked her lips and we were ready to begin!


I was flicking through the SC vault the other day when I saw the SC dvd lesson that Linda did with Allure on moving sideway to mount from a fence. This was something I stated with Bella a while ago but got put on the back burner whilst I concentrated on getting my L2 Freestyle done.  Anyway, this is what I had decided would be my provicitve task for the day as it would make her think but not use up to much energy! I knew we wouldn't complete it due to our time restriction but I just wanted one step tonight, that was the goal. 


So over to the pedistall we went.  After a slight hitch of me trying to convice Bella to get off the pedistal and stand next to it we got started.  At first she did what I knew she would do and moved into the pressure, but once I continued to keep the pressure she figured that was wrong and steped back to where she started so I stopped and rubbed her.  Then asked again. This time she went to move away and hesitatied and shifted her weight to the inside so I stopped and rubbed her again. The next time I asked she shifted her weight towards me a took one step towards me! Yes! So I stopped, rubbed her and we left the pedistall for a scratch and end of session.


I then fed her and once she was eating her hay I went back into her padock to do her water and she left her hay (LBI/E remember) and came to see if we were starting to play again! I rewarded her with a sratch under her tummy and left her for the night.  Cant wait to see what the effect of tonight has when I turn up in the morning :)

Getting closer to my dreams one step at a time

Do you remember what first made you want to be with horses? What made you take this path? What gets you through the tough times?

Well for me I have loved horses from before I could remember.  It's not the riding, I mean it blows me away that we are allowed by these amazing creatures to be carried on their back, let alone jump, do dressage (my personal passion) etc, that's all just a bonus it's way more than that, its about the way they move, their beauty, athleticism and the passion, pure natural raw love, forgiveness and peace that they represent which is something we all strive to reach in our lives.

I remember the first time I really saw what Parelli was.  It was just after I had bought Bella as a 5 month old foal and I knew I didn't want to train her the traditional way ... but how?  I was looking on Ebay for 'natural horsmanship' and it pulled up the normal selection which I know about but non of them was quite 'right'. Then I saw an 'introduction to Parelli' dvd for 99p! The best 99p I have ever spent!  This dvd was about 10mins long I think and it showed you all the things you could do with your horse using the program: trailer loading, riding bridleless, liberty, jumping big logs etc, which blew me a way. 

But you know what? It wasn't all these fancy things that made me want to do Parelli.  It was this one lady playing a liberty with her horse in a huge field and she asked the horse to canter a circle around her so close that it was almost touching her and the horse was doing it willingly with its ears forward and looking at the lady with a look that still to this day blows me away.  I knew then, in that moment that this was the program for me.  I wanted THAT relationship with Bella.

Well, that was 5 years ago and to this day I still have that DVD and 4 days ago Bella offered me a taste of that dream.  We were having fun playing at liberty after a brilliant online session when I asked her to circle me. Now normally she would go a few steps then stop or just leave with a grumpy look on her face! But this day she put her ears forwards and walked a complete circle around me so close I could almost feel her breath as she went behind me, then she stopped back in the same place she started from still with her ears forward.  I was almost in bouncing up and down in excitement by this point! Ok, so it wasn't a canter but it was a taste of my dream and proof that I will get it one day.

So my question is to you, do you notice every baby step or only the big leaps?

Mind your head!

You know when you are having one of those days when everything is going perfect then BAM ... your in A&E and wondering what happened?  Well last Saturday that very thing happened to me. Here's what happened;

Lynne, my good friend and fellow L2 Parelli Student, came over for a playday as we haven't gotten together in ages.  We started the morning playing with our horses online with the plan in mind that we where going to ride after lunch.  The horses where all in great moods and offered us loads, including tackling the very scary Tyre Jump ... 

After a quick lunch and a chat (not quite so quick ;) ) we tacked up and began going though our pre-flight checks.  Bella was being amazing. She was so switched into me it reminded me of the film "AVATAR" when they plug into their dragons and they do everything just from a thought ... now of course i'm not saying that Bella is a dragon ... well not these days anyway, but it was the feeling of that kind of connection.  Every breath, thought, step was in harmony.  


That where is all when wrong!  I was letting Bella graze next to me as a reward for a big try she had just made when something made her jump and she stood on her rope, pulled back sharply and her head collided with mine! 


It was a accident pure and simple. But Owww it hurt! I leant up against a handy barrel and the world started to spin.  After a quick examination of my head and finding a large dent and sharp pain starting to spread in my head I handed Bella, who was standing where I had left her just watching me, to Lynne and mum wizzed me of to A&E. 


I ended up with concussion for a week and a dent that a week and a half on is fading slowly, but will probably always remain as a reminder to keep my head away from hers!

Now, I wanted to share something that blew me away about the partner my horse was that day.  After I was rushed off to the hospital Lynne and my dad put her horse and mums horse away, packed up all the toy, jumps etc and Bella just stood there, stock still where I had left her for a good half hour! It was only when dad decided she wasn't planning on moving and went to 'collect her' did she move.  She wasn't worried or introverted, she was just 'waiting' for me to come back for her!  I have been doing alot of 'leaving' her and going to the tack room, or to move a cone and having her 'stay put' as part of the training for things like Horseagility and it hadn't even crossed my mind to think that as she was tacked up she would think she was meant to wait there!  


Needless to say when I got out of A&E I insisted my fiancee drive me to see her and check that she was ok and tell her what a good partner she was. 

The other thing that was annoying and HUGE breakthrough was that I REALLY wanted to ride that day! If you read my blog on my Ride out course with Terri you will understand why this is so huge!  I put this completely down to that course so thank you again Terri! 

2nd Sept 2010 - It's the small changes that make the big differences

The last few session I have noticed that the back-up part of our Yo-Yo has been getting a bit 'wiggly' and as I was starting to play with Bella tonight I remembered the saying 'slow and right beats fast and wrong', so I decided to abandon the canter circles exercise I was going to work on and get the back-up fixed.  

With this in mind I started to think 'what is causing it to go wiggly?' Is it confidence? I don't want to? Is she preempting the send? I was pretty sure it wasn't 'don't want to' as she had a soft look on her face and was backing from a phase one, so that voided that option.   So was she preempting? I remembered seeing Pat on one of the DVD's, I think it might have been on one of the LHB ones but can't remember, backing his horse out then turn his back to the horse for a while then turn back and when the horse asks a question he asked it in, then he repeated this exercise, sometimes sending on a circle, sometimes not.  I tried this with Bella but after a few tries there was no change. 

So this left me with confidence which lead me to thinking about thresholds.  This time as I backed her out I asked her to go S-L-O-W, almost one foot at a time, and if she started to wiggle I would ask her to stop, draw to me a step or two, stop then slowly back again.  This was when I found the 1st threshold.  At about 8ft she hesitated, just for a second, so I stopped her, drew her in then re-asked her back just 1 step and she lowered her head, snorted and yawned over and over again! Wow!  I left her there till she started to graze then asked her back to me for a rub and a release.  Then I repeated this over and over every time I saw a hesitation, her head lift a bit, an ear flick, even her weight shift wrong, and every time she made a huge sigh and yawned.  

After about 30 mins she was backing straight and rhythmically to about 15ft with no wiggling or hesitation so I decided to leave it there on a good note while she was feeling successful and brought her in for a good scratch followed by some UDT while she grazed. 

I will now make this a pattern for the next 7 sessions with the aim to get her all the way on the 45ft CONFIDENTLY then I will start it again at liberty.