All About The Horses

The last few days have been fantastic weather days and one of those days even broke 70 degrees! Now that's what I'm talkin' about! You never know when the weather is going to change around these parts, so I figured I would get as much done with the ponies while I had the chance. I don't usually get consistent training days in a row, it's usually a day here and a day there. I am extremely lucky when I get 2 days in a row. I have been getting anywhere from 1-3 days a week of training with Chance. It just poured rain all last week, so Chance did not get out at all. 

 

 The last 3 days we have been focusing on bitting, long lining and ground driving. She knows how to turn right and left and whoa off the bit. She is extremely light in the mouth and has made this whole training process so easy. I started ground driving her Monday and since she hasn't had any problems in the long lines, she accepted ground driving very well. Since she has been so good, I thought it would be a good time to teach her how to back. As I was ground driving her, I asked her to whoa and I pulled back on both lines, clucked and said "back". At first she just put her nose down to the ground and was very confused of what I was asking of her. I kept the pressure on until I saw her front left hoof lift up and.....she took one step back! I released rein pressure and told her what a good girl she was. A few seconds later I asked her to back again. She lifted her left front and proceeded to take 2 steps back. I eventually got a good 6 steps back and called it a day. 

 

Today I had her trotting in the long lines and she is really getting the reverse down. For those of you that don't know about long lining, the person stands in the middle like you are lunging, but you have 2 longs lines, one goes through the ring on the surcingle on the right side then attaches to the right side of the bit and one goes through the ring on the left side of the surcingle and attaches to the left side of the bit. If the horse is going to the left, the right long line will come up over the horses back to the persons right hand and the left line just goes straight back to the persons left hand while the person is in the middle of the round pen or arena. This is how you long line. You can do pretty much everything you would do ground driving but the lines are in a different position as is the person. So learning to reverse in the lines isn't the easiest thing for them at first. So lets say Chance is going to the left while long lining and I want her to reverse. We would whoa, then I would pull on the right long line until her nose turns to the outside (towards the rail), once she gets her neck bent around, her hindquarters will swing around to the inside and she is now facing the right on the rail. I then have to swing my left long line up and over her hindquarters, so I have both my lines on the same side again. Then we move off at a walk or trot. I hope I am explaining this right. It is not the most easy thing to explain or maybe I am just not good at explaining! Either way, once the horse figures it out, it is simple for them to do. After long lining, I again did ground driving with her. I basically just work on steering and stopping and backing. Chance got a little testy with me today when I asked her to back. She wants to still put her nose to the ground, so I would take one of my lines and whack her on the butt to get her attention. She would put her head back up and I would ask for her to back. She was backing but she got a little frustrated and again put her nose down to the ground. Whacked her again (when I say whack, I am not hitting her hard, just a tap with one of the lines wakes her up and gets her attention back to where it needs to be, on me) and she put her head back up. I finally got her to back a good 6 pretty straight steps without trying to evade me by putting her head down. I immediately dropped my lines and called it good. What I really love about this horse is that she doesn't really overreact to anything new and when she does, she throws a mild tantrum of confusion then realizes "Oh, that is what you were asking me to do!" She gets it. I think we are going to have another nice weekend, so I will continue long lining and ground driving her the rest of this week. Then it's time to get that saddle back on her next week. Now I know I will have some control when I get back up in the saddle again, she definitely knows what it all means now!

Now that Fritzy has shoes back on again, I have been putting her back to work as well. On Sunday I just lunged her and oh my goodness!! She totally forgot how to lunge, how to whoa and she just wanted to run over the top of me. I have put a lot of time into Fritzy's ground work and I could not believe how terrible she was. She got a good workout and I do not put up with horses that want to run over the top of me. On Monday I did another lunging lesson with her and she was way better. So I kept it short and sweet. Maybe she remembered she didn't like me too much on Sunday and didn't want to see that person again! I gave her today off. She's probably pretty sore after a couple days of lunging (she is not the most coordinated or athletic horse). I will lunge her a few more times this week and then get back to riding her. 

Brandy has just been hanging out in the pasture. I want to get her back into shape too, but she isn't a priority. With her arthritis I don't want to work her too hard. So I will bring her back slowly. This year will be the true test on how much she is going to be able to do physically. Her knees were not good last summer and I will still trail ride her this summer, but if she continues to have problems with her knees buckling, or if the buckling causes her to go down on her knees, she may have to be retired for the safety of myself and her of course. I am hoping to get another summer or two of trail riding on her. We will see.

I will try to get a video of long lining or ground driving this weekend so you all can see how Chance is coming along!!