Fond Memories

I got an email the other day.

My last and favorite TB that I had from my breeding program years ago had been sold. I have never been good at selling horses for this reason alone. You never really get to say what happens to them after they are gone. Lucky for me, I had befriended the couple that I had sold him to and was fortunate enough to have been keeping in touch, getting updates and even got to see Wes every summer at the local events for the last 4 years. They gave him a great home and he was doing well in his show career. Their decision to sell came after a series of injuries , which left Wes unable to compete at the higher levels that the owners were at . At first, their decision seemed selfish to me but I understand . Limited time, limited resources and as much as we all may want to , we can't always just keep horses to just sit around. Wes could still be used for novice low level jumping, trail riding and easy work but that would be the extent of it. From what I am told his new owners sound like they will also give him a good home. I hope he does well for them.

I was reorganizing and saving off pictures to discs when I ran across this series of photos taken of me riding him a few years back. These pictures were taken right before a horse show I was preparing him for. (please ignore my bad crotch hands!)

It was fun to take a moment to remember Wes . We learned alot from each other and he will always have a special place in my heart.

When its Good Enough

In most aspects of my life, settling for good enough is not an option ; but with horse training, it can make the difference between getting through to a horse or sending them down the wrong path of resentment. Every time I lead a horse out to the arena for a training session , I remind myself to look for the moment when it's "good enough".

What is good enough?

It's like a cameleon that changes colors, camoflaging itself into the landscape or like an late afternoon shadow that races past you before you realize it. "Good enough" in horse training is always in motion, it changes day to day, sometimes moment to moment.
For the last couple of sessions in the arena with JB, I have had to really pay attention to that phrase , or take a chance of going too far with him. I am working JB through a few "sticky " spots in regards to softness and gettting more with less. I found myself slipping into wanting more when it's good, but not good enough....
JB can be a deceptive little horse because from the outside he often looks calm and quiet, but to the unattentive trainer, a storm can be brewing just below the surface. He will not wear his heart on his sleeve, no, he is much too proud for that. His typical M.O. is to give me only the slightest signals when something is amiss with him. Rarely , if ever, will he be so obvious as throw a tantrum or buck..
Traveling to the left, JB tenses into the corners of the arena, falling onto his inside shoulder, rib cage stiff. I ask for a bend with a little sqeeze on the inside rein and a suppporting inside leg at the girth. My outside leg remains soft and is a bit behind the girth to encourage him to maintain his impulsion. JB tenses more, rushes through the corner, falling heavy on his forehand. Arrgggg...failed attempt.. we have three more corners yet, so we'll try again. Down the long side of the arena, I ask for him to lengthen his stride. We'll try again at the next corner, not making a fuss about it. Here comes the corner again, again he quietly ignores the cues I am giving. His left ear flicks back to me in a fleeting moment, as if to say, "Yes, I hear you, but it's awful hard to focus at the moment". His reluctance to soften and the flick of his ear is his signal to me that something isn't jiving for him; Nothing more, nothing less.

While this excercise is nothing new for JB , today is a different day and today , he is struggling a bit. Each time I ask for him to ride into the corner as opposed to stiffen and cut the corner, his head comes up a bit, his pace quickens . he becomes unbalanced because his hind end is not engaged and he is heavy on the forehand. A rather common , fixable problem.
Since I know he understands the cues for for what I am asking, I need to change something in how I am presenting it to him and this usually means breaking it down into smaller pieces, setting it up so I know he can have some success.
I ask him into a walk and work on a spiraling in and out of circle traveling to the left. I give a little feel on the inside rein, and little squeeze at the girth with my inside leg, timed with his inside leg, just prior to when it pushes off the ground. This will encourage him to step bigger underneath himself. He responds with a softened ribcage and he is now traveling on the circle. He chews the bit down, softening his back. I let the reins slide through my fingers as he reaches down further and further, encouraging him to reach and stretch down. I work him through each corner of the arena doing this excercise and after each corner we travel down the corresponding long side of the arena with soft contact and a nice working walk. He is making his grunting , soft blowing sounds he often makes when he is letting go and relaxed and he feels light and responsive. The stiffness I had previously felt through his body is no longer there. He feels more like maleable clay in my hands and legs. Much better.....We spend a few more moments on a couple of lateral excercises like shoulder in, shoulder-out, etc. JB is responding softly and quietly to everything I am asking.


At this point, I have to consider, do I stop here? Is this good enough?

My answer?


Yes, it was indeed good enough. In fact it was more than good enough. My decision to stop at that point was based on his experience. I had chosen a place to stop where he was feeling good about the session, which builds his confidence, which will lay the groundwork for the next time. There is no need to drill an excercise in order to get what I am asking of him. He already knows the cues and for this particular day, doing this at a trot was more than he could manag. Instead of going back and risking failure, we got it good at the walk and left it at that. He was responsive, soft and mentally in a good place. Why get greedy?

I think this is a tough thing for trainers to accept. We often have these things called "agenda's and get caught up in them. The thoughts of " I must have this horse jumping 3 and 1/2 feet in a month to be ready for that show" or " I must have this horse doing flying lead changes next week for the dressage show".. etc, etc..

I have found that when I adjust to meet my horse at the half way point and work with him from where he is, instead of where I might want him to be at any given moment, it comes back to me twofold and we get further faster . My horse then looks forward to our sessions and is willing to try harder for me.

Waiting a little longer in order to accomplish that effortless Leg Yield, and more importantly having a happy horse, is well worth it in my opinion.

Saturday's Ride

It's already Tuesday and I meant to get to this sooner but time escapes me. I hate weekends. Either I can’t manage my time very well or there is just too darn much to do to try to cram into two days. But let me start over. I love weekends that are like this past weekend. Saturday was a splendid day for JB and I.

My weekend started out with an early Saturday morning dressage lesson with my instructor, Nisca. Once a month , she travels to this area and once a month , I meet her for an hour session. The lessons were being held at Herron Park, the same place the Blacktail Mountain Classic endurance ride was last weekend. I mentioned in an earlier post that Herron Park used to be the site of the local eventing club and hosted many 3 day events. Therefore there are two dressage arena’s with decent footing, a cross country course and access to miles of trails. I love having lessons at Herron Park because after the lesson is over , I can take off and go do a few miles of trails to get in some great trail and condition time. Or take a few small jumps. The opportunities are endless!
Hauling over there meant that I had to get up extra early to make sure JB had a full belly before his day of work. The lesson was scheduled for 9:00 a.m but I like to get there about a half hour to an hour early so I have time to warm up before hand. I knew after the lesson, we would take advantage of the trails.
Ofcourse, we werer running later than I wanted and by the time we arrived, , I was feeling a bit rushed. I wrestled on JB’s easy boots , mounted up and headed down to the where the arena was , on the other side of the park. As we made our way , a dog caught sight of us in the distance (the park is frequently used by hikers, bikers and dogwalkers as well) and was now running towards us. Visions of a dog/horse collision ran through my mind and thoughts of the recent situation Tamara of In the Night Farms began to make my heart jump a bit. The owner, far off in the distance was calling the dog back but it was of no use. The dog was far more interested in this large animal coming it’s way. The dog appeared to be a lab cross of some kind and seemed to just be coming to say hi. I continued to stay our course and the dog kept coming. JB and the dog were now locked in on eachother. JB isn’t afraid of dogs but he is not particularly fond of them either. His stallion instincts tend to kick in a bit. He will attack a dog given the right opportunity , even his own dogs. The dog slowed as it approached and JB pinned his ears and swished his tail. The dog made a wide circle around us a few times to try to figure things out. I tried to keep JB on our slated path , towards the arena. The dog continued to stay near, now dashing back and forth in front of us, behind us and around us like a little yellow bullet. JB was , if anything, as irritated as I was at this distraction and ofcourse the dog was now his main focus. I could still hear the owner yelling for the dog and the dog continued to ignore his attempts to retrieve her.

If I was nice, I wouldn’t have ridden over to the owner , delivered the dog, politely informed the dog owner of the risks he creates by allowing his dog to run after livestock, and then go about my way.

I was not feeling nice at the moment.
I was feeling down right irritable.

So instead ; I kept riding right past the owner as the dog followed me....

Ok, I admit, it was a bit defiant.

But , I gave the owner every opportunity to catch his dog and he didn’t. The owner attempted to grab the dog once , yelling at him to come back but the dog had the " ignore owner" trick down to a science.
JB, myself and our new friend now made our way to the arena. Right about then, I thought “ I bet this dog, would follow us if I picked up a nice trot and headed up the trails". Maybe it would teach the dog owner a good lesson, watching helplessly as his dog disappeared into the woods with a stranger. As it was, the owner didn’t seem to be too concerned as he stood at the top of the parking lot and never bothered to actually come retrieve his animal.
I had just about decided to go ahead with my plan when the dog and, moreso the owner, was saved by the bell.
Right about then Nisca arrived and shouted out to me

“ Hello, I see we are tense today!”

“Yep, dog kind of set things in motion for us today” I replied.

Nisca could see that I was struggling to get JB’s mind on the task at hand. Ofcourse, who couldn't see that. He was more concerned about which direction that darn dog was going next. We moved around with his head up high , tense back , kinda like a camel. Needless to say, she caught us in less than a pretty moment! Thankfully, the dog finally hightailed it back to the owner , seemingly satisfied and apparently growing bored with us .

Ofcourse, the remnants the dog left behind would sabotage the first half of my riding lesson. I spent the first 15 minutes of the lesson getting JB to refocus on anything but “where is that dog”.
Once we got back to work mode, Nisca pointed out that she noticed that as JB went around the arena tense, hollowed back, so did I. "Really??? I am surprised you noticed" I said and laughed.

OK- I give..... it was time for a refresher course on my tendency to hollow my lower back in times when JB is already tense.

Have you ever tried breathing into your lower back? Unless your familiar and good at yoga, you might find it as difficult as it sounds. Needless to say, Nisca stood on a step stool next to me while I was in the saddle on JB and we worked on correct breathing.

Boring you say??

Just try it and you might find it one of the most frustrating things you have attempted in a while. The concept sounds simple enought but apparently the tensions of life teach us to only breathe using the tup third of our lungs.

Your probably saying, OK, so what does breathing have to do with tensing my lower back , right?

Wait for it....

When I don’t breathe correctly, I don’t soften my seat correctly. When I don't soften me seat and lower back correctly, I hinder the space he can lift his back into. In order for my horse to soften and lift his back , he has to have a place to lift into. Tensing and hollowing my back get in his way.

This concept isn't anything knew for me but doing it consistently tends to elude me.

So , how do I fix it?

Here is the sequence of events that Nisca took me through to get on the right path...

1. First, position yourself to allow the correct breathing. This means I have to tilt the pelvis back the slightest bit, kind of like tucking your tail bone underneath you a bit so you are on the flat part of your sit bones as opposed to the points of them. This flattens my lower back , gets rid of the hollowness, and engages my abdominals correctly.

2.Breathe into my lower back, using all of my lung capacity instead of just the top half. This fills the lower back with each inhale. This is the correct breathing that naturally occurs when we sleep. Life and stress teaches us how not to breathe apparently. ( the way I see, I should have stopped breathing completely years ago!)

3. Open my chest across my clavicle and bring my shoulders down and back so that the bottom tips of the scapula come to a point, almost like the bottom of a heart shape.

****Warning, don’t just pull shoulders back and down because this will cause your lower back to hollow again. Focus instead on moving the bottom points of the scapulas toward one another.

Sound easy?? Feel free to give it a try and maintain it while you are riding your horse. For me, I have spent the better part of my adult life at a desk on a computer and have developed some bad posture habits. Opening up the clavicle and maintaining it can be very difficult for me.

So for an hour , JB and I walked around and worked on this. We only trotted for a little bit but mostly worked at a walk. What I found was that by the time I ran through my mental check list of …
breathe
keep pelvis tilted under and back with abdominal correctly engaged
don’t round shoulders
keep elbows resting quietly at sides
look up, etc, etc ,

I had stopped breathing correctly. Ok- start again at the top of the list… and the process would begin again. Eventually with enough correct practice this should come without a second thought. Atleast that is what I am hoping for !

Once the lesson was done, we decided to head up the trail for a few miles. Ofcourse, the first 2 miles is all up hill . JB, just coming off 12 days of little to no work we took it slow and only trotted on the few flat spots we could find. We rode for about an hour and then turned around, as much as I didn't want to , I could tell that if I went any further, it may have been just a little too much. Round trip it was approx 7 miles.

Back at the park , there is also a cross country course set up year round and luck would have it that this weekend, there was also a Trail Challenge competition scheduled for Sunday. So, there were obstacles set up for it, including a freshly filled water jump. YEE HAA!!

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to cross water and work on a few small jumps with JB. Ofcourse, JB thought the water jump was just a really huge water tank and took a big drink , which was great. The jump has both a jump in/jump out approach of a walk in walk/out approach. We walked through it about 3 times. Then I attempted to canter him through but he put on the brakes and walked gingerly through. He finally caught on to the game and we made a few nice trot throughs without breaking gate. The cool water splashing him as he trotted through kind of weirded him out a bit! He is not a big fan of water but only because I haven’t had much opportunity to expose him to it. Eventually JB got to where he okay with water splashing, no thanks to Tom and Cassidy ,w ho kept galloping through and soaking us !! Laughing as he went by. JB finally figured out he would get less wet if he kept going. After a bit we even got to where he could trot in , trot across the width of the jump (about 12 feet) and then jump up and out of it, about a 2 foot jump out height. We jumped over a few of the lower level jumps like logs and few regular cross rails with regular jump standards. I had a blast and it made me miss my eventing days back when I was a pony clubber. JB seemed to really enjoy the jumping as well. He appears to be cautious jumper and picks his feet up well over the fence.
Saturday was a great day spent on the back of my horse. One of the better days I have had in some time. We did a little bit of everything and JB was a real trooper with each task I asked of him. This little horse continues to impress me with his willingness to try whatever I ask of him and give it his all to the best of his ability. If he never wows the crowd with speed on the endurance trail, I suspect he will make up for it in versatility.

Weekend Dressage Clinic

Getting back to my riding “roots’ these days has been great but also challenging. For the past few years I have ridden mostly in a western saddle. Even though it’s a very well made Western saddle , lets face it, western saddles , simply by the nature of the amount of leather there is , tend to allow a lot of cheating when it comes to riding. It is really easy to become lazy in one’s position and use of effective aids. In preparation for this past weekend clinic , I had hopped back into the English saddle again. Good thing I did.

Over the weekend, I attended a Liz Tukey clinic. She is an instructor/clinician who teaches /coaches and judges various English disciplines. It was a rare opportunity that I was able to ride with a trainer of her caliber. Her teaching is geared more toward 3 day eventing, but she really shines with dressage instruction. I have been working on a lot of basic dressage with JB recently to try teach him to use his body correctly in his gaits, so he’ll be that much better cruising down the trail.

We arrived Saturday midday and my first lesson was scheduled for 3:45. The 3 hour ride to Hamilton included 1 hour of road construction so JB was well “bounced” by the time we arrived. Subsequently, when I pulled him out of the trailer and put him in his corral at the farm that the clinic was being held, he was quiet as a mouse and just wanted a mouthful of hay and something to drink. His “stallion “ alter ego had apparently gotten left behind at home with the mares… thank goodness.

Due to the cold and torrential downpour of rain, the clinic got moved to an indoor arena a few miles from the original clinic location. So at about 3:00, 2 hours after I had arrived , I loaded JB back in the trailer and headed over to the arena. He was a very good sport about it considering. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was not among the same ilk of folks that regularly attended her clinics. Most of the clinic attendees were dressage riders who competed or rode dressage regularly or evented regularly. Every other rider had a horse 3 times the size of JB. Perfectly groomed horses with enough coat shine to blind a person, perfectly turned out tack with perfectly white dressage saddle pads that would have passed an A rating pony club rally with flying colors. Well trained, well collected horses that were fussed , primped and hairs parted just so by their owners (don’t mean to offend anyone here !!)

........and here I show up

with a 14.2 hand Barb stallion; wild mane and tail and barely brushed below the hocks. My tack is clean and I keep JB pretty well groomed, but nothing compared to these other horses.

No, I can’t be accused of bubble wrapping my horse. I don't even wrap legs for traveling anymore. GASP!

I guess I have become more practical since I got out of the show ring so many years ago. This weekend really made me appreciate the endurance crowd!! Everyone was very nice but it was very obvious I was among a pocket of the horse industry that I have long since forgotten the ways of.

On the other hand, I did get a lot of “He’s so cute” comments. Yeah, well…. what can I say.

Glad to be out of the rain, I warmed JB up for a while and talked to Liz about JB, what we have been working on, what I would like to accomplish over the next couple of days and long term goals. My goals were quite different than the rest of the clinic goers who were 3 day eventers or dressage riders working toward perfect collection or better form over fences.

My goal?

To eventually ride this horse 100 miles in an endurance race.

Why Dressage? To help him learn to use his body correctly on the trail to avoid breaking down later on.

I explained to Liz that JB struggles with moving forward and balanced. She watched us for a while and then we moved right into the lesson. She observed that JB tends to come in at the stifle and out at the hocks , which is causing that unbalanced way of going that I have been experiencing. Apparently this is not an uncommon thing in horses, which was a relief to hear. Now we just had to work on fixing it. She coached me through some different approaches to help him engage his hocks and step underneath himself better which would better align the joints. It was also advantageous that the footing in the arena was deep enough that he had to pick up his feet and actually engage the hock joint more. The exercises she had us working through were requiring me to put a lot of leg on JB, more leg than I was accustomed to using on him and 30 minutes into the lesson I wanted to beg for mercy. I was feeling the burn of riding English again. The sweat was pouring off me! At that moment, I was thinking that I would gladly take a posting trot down the trail for 15 miles any day over what I was experiencing at that moment! 45 minutes working at a sitting trot, getting the engagement to come from behind? That was work. At the end of the lesson, I felt that we had made some good steps towards getting his hocks underneath him better and I had a better idea of what I needed to do with my aid s to help him. It was going to require a lot more work on both of our parts but I now I had some better tools to use. Tom observed that by the end of the lesson, JB was relaxed and moving much better , stepping much deeper underneath him self and interestingly enough, the paddling movement JB often gets in his front end lessened as he relaxed more and more.

I slept like a baby Saturday night. Sunday rolled around and we were to do more of the same even though it was tempting to just bag all that and send him over a few jumps!! Sundays ride was a different animal. I had an inclination when I went to load him into the trailer that we might have a different day ahead of us. JB was reluctant to step up into the trailer. He was likely sore from working so hard. I knew I was!! Between the work and the footing, his whole hindquarter was probably very tired. It’s probably akin to you or I doing 300 squats after running 10 miles in mud.
Sundays ride wasn’t as productive for me, but it may have had a silver lining for JB long term. Liz got to see JB at his worst. He was very rigid in the shoulders and counter bent. It’s not uncommon for him to get like this and when he does , my usual approach is a good half hour of working him through a series of lateral exercises at a walk before I can get anything accomplished. Even then, we don’t always have it sorted out completely.

Having Liz’s keenly trained eye to observe him while he was like this was exactly what we needed. We got the hind end figured out, now we had to figure out the front end. Liz observed that instead of relaxing his shoulders and letting them move freely forward and out, he pinches them back almost behind the saddle and pulls himself along. When he does this he also starts traveling with his front legs winging out and landing hard. As a result, he can’t extend his front end and he can’t move freely forward. It was a real “ AHA” moment that Liz got to see this. It was easy to see that this issue was not a result of JB being resistant or purposely difficult, but more related to the fact that he has something physiologically going wrong in his shoulder girdle keeping him from moving comfortably and correctly.
She gave me a few exercises to work on but then suggested I contact Pat Young, who is a reputable equine physical therapist who uses a variety of processes to help both human and animals release deep muscle spasms. Pat has also written a book called Basic Equine Energy Balancing: A Horseman’s Horse Therapy . It just so happens that Pat is from this immediate area and relatively accessible. Here is her link http://www.lazyp.com for those of you interested in learning more about what she does.

Liz thought that having Pat work on JB’s shoulders would really help get us moving in the right direction as this could be the root of the forward and balance issue. I sure hope so!

I will keep you posted on his progress and our experience with Pat.Anyone else ever used similar methods ? What was your outcomes with it?

The Stars Might Be Aligning

My weekend did not include much riding at all. Unfortunately, Saturday required me to go into work so I couldn’t ride but Tom did ride him for me and spent quite a bit of time cantering. His only comment later that day when I arrived home was that JB needed a lot of canter work. JB tends to be fairly tense in the canter yet. We didn’t do a lot of cantering last year and so part of it is that he is unsure and has not developed the balance to canter easily. The other issue on Saturday was that there were three other strange horses in the arena at the same time. Archery friends had come over to use our arena that day and JB was much more interested in socializing than working.
Sunday, I was not feeling well but dragged myself out to the round pen, JB in tow with my syrcingle and long lines. Not having the energy to ride, I thought it might be a good opportunity to work on the canter without the added weight and burden of a rider. It has been quite some time since I had him in lines but he remembered quickly and listened quite well to voice commands as I took him up and down through walk/trot/canter/halt . He offered a couple of nice easy canters that I was very happy with. Last year, I couldn’t get him to canter on the lines for anything so I was pleased that he willingly went into that gait. After about 20 minutes of long lining I changed gears and revisited the “bowing” cue. I came prepared with baby carrots in my pocket which he smelled right away so it was a bit distracting for him initially.

“You mean I have to do something to earn the carrots?”

We are only at the very beginning stages of this trick but using his halter and leadrope, I tap his shoulder, then ask for him to pick up his hoof and with the other hand with the lead rope, ask him to rock back on his haunches. As he rocks back, I reward that by offering him a treat and letting him have his leg back so he can stand up again. As we go along, eventually I build up to where I don’t release and offer the treat until he rocks back far enough so that his knee rests on the ground. As soon as he offers that, then I release... and more carrots…The next step is getting him to stay in that bowed position a bit longer each time.
As we revisited this, JB quickly caught on. Last summer we left off where he was just starting to drop his knee on the ground. Pretty soon, when I tapped his shoulder, he picked up his foot and was willingly rocking back to put his knee on the ground. Almost too fast and leaving me behind a bit! We only did it a few times and I decided since he was doing so well , I didn’t want to wear it out so I called it good for the day. I have read with trick training that you can over due it as well so I definitely wanted to avoid that. I was pleased with how quickly it came back to him. I had also started teaching JB the cue for the Spanish walk last year but that was a little more difficult. We were both frustrated so I stopped until I could figure out how to better execute the cue. I hope to revisit that however so if anyone has any pointers please let me know!!
While I do miss the focus of the endurance training and conditioning, I am really enjoying my new direction with JB for this season. Much more that I thought I would. It’s nice not to have to feel like such a task master with him, no more stress of “I have to do blank # of miles this week . Now, I just catch him JB a few times a week and head out to the arena or round pen to do what ever needs doing. I try to listen and let him tell me what we work on for that day. Sometimes, we just walk around and work on some easy bending because he is tense, or bothered because the wind blew his hair sideways that day. Some days, we work around obstacles, the Garrocha or trot poles. Other days we get down to business and I ask for more, with transitions, leg yields, shoulder-ion and more cantering to help him build the strength and confidence to travel in this gait comfortably. My point is that whatever it is for each day, we work through it together. If it takes us an hour to get a nice soft up transition into a trot, then that's okay.
Initially when I opted to take a step back and focus on getting him “right” before getting him “out”, I felt like it was a step backwards. Now that I have had some time to reflect and have started seeing some of the changes he is making, I can see that it has definitely been the right decision for him and us. I suspect by next year, we will be miles ahead of where we would have been if I just kept the focus on conditioning. While I enjoyed being out there conditioning and fulfilling my dream and my goals, I really don’t think JB ever did. I didn't want that. He wasn’t mentally or physically ready for the endurance conditioning last year and I probably shouldn't have pushed him.
With our less strenuous training schedule this year, a trail ride or ride out down the road doesn’t have to feel like a chore anymore and JB seems much happier as a result. Everything feels right, moreso than things ever did last year. I can't describe it really, and sometimes there are no words. It just seems like JB is happy, he looks good, he feels good and that makes me happy. I don't know if its just the stars have finally aligned for us but I am seeing a lot of potential in this little horse that I would not otherwise have if I didn’t give JB the opportunity to show me. I am just glad I finally listened to him.

The Garrocha

I got an email the other day from my dressage instructor . She is trying to coordinate a few lessons for her students in this area (she travels here from another area once a month). I really need to get with her as it’s been a while since I have had a lesson but in addition to the scheduling, she was asking about my goals for the year and what I have been focusing on. It was perfect timing because for the last week or more, I have stayed close to home with JB, working primarily in our outdoor arena or in our pasture. In the course of doing some initial refresher work in the arena a few weeks back (in the snow) JB ever so kindly reminded me that we have much work to do on a few key things that he didn’t think he had quite down yet. I had to agree with him, he did need a little more work on some things, as did I. If I ever have any hope of doing flying lead changes with JB, I guess I better nip this in the bud and continue to work on getting the lateral work more concrete. If I can get conditioning in alongside of the classroom time, so much the better but we may have to forego the May ride. We’ll see how he progresses. To me it’s more important at this point that JB gets better about suppleness and engagement of the hindquarters = a better ride on the trail later. That I can live with, a horse traveling around on his forehand? Not so much….
Since I find that arena work can become painfully boring I wanted to spice it up a bit. You might have noticed on the sidebar that I have Garrocha listed under JB’s 2009 conditioning schedule. I have decided begin to implement the use of the Garrocha with JB. I was introduced to this last year at Alice Trindle’s clinic when she did a quick demo for us, using Tom’s horse Cassidy, of her newly found skills in the Doma Vaquero traditions and the Garrocha. Being partial to Spanish horses myself, and the traditions that go along with them, I found the Garrocha quite fascinating. In Spain, the Doma Vaquero uses the Garrocha, a 13 ft wooden pole to work the Spanish bulls, but there is a lot more than meets the eye. Leg-yields, half passes, counter canter, rollbacks, stops, flying leads changes , canter pirouette, etc are all elements that are required to master the working the bulls. Hmm, sounds like all the same stuff we are all trying to accomplish with our horses doesn’t it? There are several YouTube videos out there that have some great footage of the “Garrachista” performing in competition if your curious. You will see that they do this with no reins and the horse is cued with only seat, leg and the communication that is required between horse and rider is a wonderful display of horsemanship.
While I don’t think I would ever get to the level of those performing, I found that the Garrocha work offered some key things that would be really helpful in the training with JB and any other horse for that matter. One of the first things that jump out at me is Rhythm, as you work around the garrocha, you can see that the rider and the horse are performing a dance , leg yields become effortless in time; Bending; the pole gives horse and rider something visual to bend around; Timing, you have to be in sync with your horse with your cues as you work around the pole and your horse has to be paying attention to your cues as you turn around and under the pole, the rider even comes into better balance and better posture and lastly but maybe most important is Purpose. The pole suddenly tied the bending exercises to an actual job, something I find really helps keep JB’s mind with me. All of these things are right in line with getting a horse lighter and more responsive.It also seems to force the rider to properly apply seat and leg aids instead of relying on your reins. As a secondary gain, the cues much more clear. It seems to keep the lesson much more interesting than just using barrels or standing objects to turn around. Besides when first learning, it offers a great entertainment source to any bystanders as I fumbled and dropped the pole.
I could see the first thing I had to do before I could teach JB was to teach my self and become somewhat comfortable with managing a 13 foot pole, and at the same time directing my horse and trying not to drop the pole or hit myself or the horse with it.. I am not the most coordinated individual so Tom had a few good laughs as I fumbled around with it. He was kind enough to offer Cassidy to me to start on, since good ol Cass already knew the ropes. I could focus less on my horse and more on me. He was very patient. Tom was nice enough to even snap some photos of our fumbling…

Then I moved on to Rebel. I felt like I was starting to get it….maybe.. There were glimmers of moments where I found myself and my horse in the correct place and balance together. Here we were kind of falling out of sync but when we had it right...What a thrill to feel lightness, willingness and harmony. For glimmers of moments it all came together just right.. Guess we will keep practicing!

This photo was our first attempt at turning back under the pole and change direction.

So, now that I sort of have a sense of what I am doing... JB, may I have this dance?

The Levade

Yesterday and today I spent some time working with JB from the ground. We reviewed many of the basics with some flag work, tarps, the bridge , hind end releases, shoulder-in, shoulder-out, etc. JB was rusty at first but came around right away. JB displayed some rather animated stunts today on the line. Tom snapped some photos of our session from his horse Cassidy ( got his ear in the photo). Looks like JB has almost perfected his Levade....What do you think???Almost ready for the Spanish Riding School?

After this initial display of "Molto Vivace", JB did settle down and get to work in a nice working trot, reaching and bending. The round pen is still full of snow so I found one small patch of dry dirt in our pasture for our work area.

This is more like the soft responsive boy I know!

I was quite pleased to see the drape in the rein when I saw this photo.

Well, regardless of the training bumps of late, he sure can be a fun horse and a handsome one at that!