Zoey Gets a Trim

Zoey has been in need of a trim since we got her, but it took us until today to coordinate with the farrier. I had a meeting in Cedar Rapids in the afternoon, but my morning was quiet so I went out early to sneak in a ride before he arrived at 11:00.

I rode Steen. It was a chilly morning, and I wanted to be able to be fast when the farrier came, so I put Zoey and Bear (we thought he might need a trim too) in the side pen and rode in the indoor arena. Steen was great. We rattled through all sorts of things, including lots of work in a circle, and some simple lead changes. Those were good. I feel like we had more control returning to the trot and going back out of it in a deliberate way, rather than just rushing through the transition.

I stayed focused on being precise with the hackamore, and we got some nice circles moving into and out of collection. I also worked on varying speed at the trot. Steen has gotten pretty complacent and happy to just jog around, so I worked on more extension and also collection and extension simultaneously. We had some nice moments.

Duke arrived. Bear didn't need a trim, but Zoey certainly did. He watched her walk before trimming, and pointed out her crooked left front foot, which of course I have been aware of. He says she strikes that foot on the outside. Duke is a pretty awesome farrier, and I have known that, but none of our geldings have "flaws" that interfere with their movement, so it was interesting to talk with him about this trait of Zoey's and how it affects her locomotion. He trimmed it and left a bit more toe on the outside, to help her learn to bear weight on the inside. He watched her walk again after the trim, and said the other three feet are great, but with that one it's going to take some work. He said with more regular foot care she will probably learn to use it better over time, but in the meantime to be a little careful we don't demand too much of her in terms of bearing weight on that leg. So that was interesting, and it will be interesting to see how this pans out in the coming months.

She was pretty good for him. She was nervous at first, but one of the things I love about Duke is he takes the time to reassure a horse. She tried to pull away once with the first foot, but after each foot he came up to her head to love on her and hang out with her for a minute, and after other than that one pull, she was quiet.

Ride Time: 0:45
Horseback Hours YTD: 67:10

The One Where I Don't Fall Off

Today was Steen's birthday. He turned 13. My gift to him was a day off, which translated into some quality alone time with the bale.

I rode Zoey today. We started off trying to saddle at the hitching post. In my efforts to be graceful with this, I tied my offside stirrup up with my saddle strings, so I wouldn't have to swing it at her to get it on.

She did ok. Three seems to be the magic number with her. She managed to stay still for the pad (just some serious crunching up and stiffening the first time), but the first time I raised the saddle she stepped away. I went with her until she got to the rail and stopped, and I set the saddle on her back. Not ideal. I moved her back into position, removed the saddle, and petted her until she relaxed a little.

We tried again. She stepped away but only a couple of steps. We reset, and tried a third time, and she stayed put. Then I took a whole lot of extra time with her bridle. She deals with being bridled the same way she deals with so many things. She stiffens up and suffers through it. Today I wanted her to accept the bridling, which meant taking the bit without moving her head up and away from me first. I'd pet her, raise the bridle, she'd stiffen and move her head up and out, I'd apply light pressure to her poll or jaw until she brought her head back and relaxed. We did this over and over and over, but finally we got it done without the bracing and the nerves.

To the outdoor arena we went. The ride started out great. She was relaxed and responsive. We walked and trotted around. She's a lot more "up" for things lately. Like we worked on short-serpentines, and instead of getting defensive or scared, she just went with me and tried to feel them out.

Things were going so well I thought I might see about her lope again. I had her trotting a nice big circle, and I was getting ready to ask when she started to poop. I let my horses stop to poop, because I am never going to be in a show ring, and it seems so much kinder to let them do what is natural. So she was standing there and I was talking to Brian and I noticed the leg of one of my breeches had gotten a little twisted, so I leaned down to fix it.

And therein I made my first real mistake riding Zoey. She is so quiet and so easy to get along with, it is easy to forget she has these serious holes in her foundation. One thing we've noticed with her is she can be funny with things around her sides. She has a tendency to give the end of Brian's mecate (which hangs just behind his boot most of the time) the stink-eye when she bends in that direction. One of the reasons I like riding with saddle-strings and big dangly latigoes and the mecate rope is it acclimates a horse to the feel of things randomly touching them, and gets them used to seeing things moving around their sides and legs. It's important for a horse to understand the difference between incidental contact and contact that has meaning. And already we've seen some improvement with how Zoey takes these things.

But apparently me leaning down like that was too much for her. As I started to straighten back up, she lost it and bolted away from "me."

I had one of those moments where you really think you're going to come off. I was out of balance because I'd been leaning down, and she really squirted out and to the side with a whole lot of energy. In any other saddle, I think I'd have been toast. But I had at least been smart enough to shorten my outside rein before I bent down, and I managed to pick up contact on her head and start to bend her. This slowed her momentum and pulled me back into the saddle at the same time. A second later, I got my other hand on the horn.

Let me just say, I love the big, fat horn style of the Wade. The shape and size give you a great handle for a good, strong grip. With my hand on the horn, I felt a whole lot better. I settled back into place.

But Zoey was still very upset. I had got her bent, but she was spinning in fast, tight circles in spazzy movements. I took me a second to realize I'd lost my left stirrup, and it would fly out away from her when she started to spin, and then we'd slow a little it would flop back in and bump her, and she'd go flying off again. This is another thing I love about the Wade: pre-turned stirrups. My horse was spinning in crazy erratic circles, I had one hand on the horn and the other keeping her bent. Problem? Nope. My stirrup was there waiting for me. I just slipped my toe back in where it belongs in one effortless movement.

With the bouncing demon-stirrup tamed, Zoey stopped spinning. But she was rigid through her whole body. I tried to release her, and the second she had an inch to move she tried to straighten out and take off again. So I bent her again and let her find a way to stop again and then we stood there for quite a while. I wasn't pulling on her head, but I didn't give her any slack until I saw the quivering muscles in her neck loosen up a little. With my free hand, I rubbed her neck and her rump. She was shaking all over, poor thing.

We stood there until she was softer in the head and neck. I gave her her head back and she stood. We stayed put until we'd both regained our equilibrium.

For a while we went back to easy, confidence-building, non-demanding stuff, although every time we stopped for a while I flapped my legs around randomly after she'd been standing for minute. I kept this up until it stopped making her flinch.

We kept going. Twenty minutes later or so she'd returned back to the correct mindset and we had a good thing going again, so I returned to the idea of a lope. I got her in a nice trot again, and asked for a lope.

This did not go well. In retrospect, I was too ambitious. I know she has trouble balancing at the lope, so my thought was to keep her in a medium-sized circle to help her stay back on her haunches and learn to bend. Except I was just plain wrong. The moment I asked for the lope, she got nervous, which made her start seeking the bit again, dropping her head down and in, and collapsing her inside shoulder. I kept bumping her to bring her head up and hopefully encourage her to balance more to the outside, but without much success. She kept trying to escape out of the circle. I'd get her into the lope for a few strides, she'd fall apart before we got to anything I could reward her for, and we'd have to start over.

We went around and around and around and around and it was horrible. I stopped hoping for a full circle and just started looking for anything good enough to stop on. It felt like forever but it was really only three minutes. Brian got it on video, and it didn't look nearly as bad as it felt. But still, it was not fun. Finally she got into a lope that didn't involve blowing through my hand or my leg, and stayed there for a few strides. I sat up and let her stop.

We took a big break. We were both breathing hard and I felt pretty bad I'd misjudged what she was capable of. We went back to easy things for a while, and I thought about the problem at hand. For Zoey's long-term success, it's pretty critical we get her lope somewhere further along than helter-skelter unbalanced madness before we try to resell her, but I am always telling other people you can't work the lope. You've either prepared the horse sufficiently and the lope with work, or you haven't and it won't. I needed a way to work on the lope without loping.

Which made me think back to the Martin Black clinic and the people there who were having lope troubles. Martin told one person to get the horse as close to loping as they could without actually asking for the lope. Get to that point, and back off, get to that point, and back off. This gets the horse used to faster movement, and used to dialing up and down. And finally when you get to that spot and things feel balanced and comfortable, you will feel that the horse is willing to lope. That's when you see if they'll leave the trot. Not before.

So we returned to trotting. I asked her to move out, asking for life but not a different gait. She responded really well, and soon we were zipping around the arena with loads of life but intact trajectory and velocity controls.

I stayed entirely off her head, and worked on easing her up and down and up and down with the energy in my body and then, suddenly, she offered a single lope stride. It happened so fast I wasn't sure if that's what it had been. So I pushed her just a bit more, and she offered me another. Brian said, "Hey, that was a lope." So I stopped riding and she slowed to a stop and stood there and she got big time pets.

Then we went the other way, and after a few laps of big trots I could feel we were at that point. The tricky thing with this is you encourage the horse to leave the trot, you don't ask them to lope. This sounds like a ridiculous distinction of semantics, but it's not. It's the difference between allowing a horse to find something on their own and forcing them to go there.

Zoey found the lope, and it was an amazing lope. No more heavy on the forehand, no more dishing around corners and dropping head and shoulder while leaning down for the bit. She was back and centered and solid and it felt great.

We went about four strides and I stopped riding and let my seat go still. She came down and stood there licking her lips while I gave her more big pets. I figured if there was ever a high note to end a ride on, that was it. I stepped down. I tried to move away a little to take a picture, and she just kept wanting to stay right at my elbow.

So, it was one of those highly educational rides. It almost went bad twice, but we held it together. Hopefully we won't have another one quite like this any time soon.

Ride Time: 1:10
Horseback Hours YTD: 66:25

A Ride on a Different Girl

Bear seems to be over his bug. So although he's probably still struggling with the anemia, the vet suggested getting him back into some light riding would be good. So today we set out to ride all our horses, two each.

I started on Laredo in the outdoor arena. We rode him there a lot last spring, right when we first got him, but not at all since. He was lively and curious about the different space. During our groundwork I experimented with something we saw recently in a Richard Caldwell video (Starting in the Jaquima) where he used his hands and arms to apply pressure from a distance to a particular part of the horse when the horse was walking around him in a circle, and thus helped the horse maintain a more consistent bend in its body while moving without a rider. Laredo can be a bit spacey at times (part of the territory as far as being three goes, I think). When his attention is on you, he's responsive, but when it's not, you might as well not even be there. He can definitely check out during groundwork, and this proved to be a nice, low-impact way of getting his mind back. He'd tip his nose off and gaze towards the horizon and I'd step in a tad and raise my hands to put pressure on his rib cage. His nose would come back in and his ribs would bend out, and we'd keep going. Cool.

The ride was good. I watched Zoey and Brian a fair bit, but got some good work done on Laredo as well. We've been really working on his head carriage. He still has this odd tic where he wants to push his nose way out in front of him sometimes. He seems to mostly do it when he's frustrated, which is often when we're asking him for a little more life and he doesn't want to put the effort in. For a long time we've ignored this behavior, because it seems highly emotional for him, and related to some of the issues he had with his head/ears/face/bit. But we've finally worked through those things on the ground, so it seems time to start addressing them under saddle. The main problem with him doing this is it seems to really distract him mentally, and pulls him off-balance physically.

So today, every time Laredo pushed his nose out, I picked up on him a little and tipped his nose to the inside, to help him bend his neck and put his head back in position. He wasn't resistant to the correction. Most of the time when you snap him out of this movement it's like he's a bit started to find you're riding him, as if he practically blacks out when doing this. Obviously we don't want to punish him for something that is so clearly an emotional defense mechanism, but that doesn't mean we can't address it at all. I just kept things gentle and consistent, and I also corrected him by lifting his poll if his head got too low. It's amazing how his energy comes up with his head, every time.

For the most part he's feeling really smooth and solid lately. We worked on precise upwards and downwards transitions a lot, and got a lot of really excellent departures into the canter from the walk, which is something I haven't done much with him before.

Ride Time: 1:00

After ride one, we swapped out Laredo and Zoey for Steen and Bear, and ventured out into the stall horse lot. We've never ridden in this area before, but today the stall horses were all out in the trees, so we had the brilliant idea to close them in and ride in their pasture. It was nice out there, with some steep downhills and also some flatter areas we could use to work.

I continued to work on my recent to-do list with Steen, which is mostly getting him more consistent about staying collected in different gaits. He was actually kind of bad about this today. He seemed bracey. You can see in the photo above that I have pressure on the reins and he is not giving. This is unusual for him, and we worked at it quite a bit without getting anywhere. I took breaks, and loped some big circles, and came back to it. Still he was stiff. I upped the pressure on him once or twice, and that just made him stiffer.

So I took a break and thought about it for a while. One thing Richard Caldwell emphasized his video (and we've heard Martin Black bring up again and again and again) is that you can't pull on the hackamore without a warning. Every time you apply anything more than light pressure, you should take the slack out of the rein first, so the button comes up under the horse's chin and is tucked under the jaw, and only then can you start bumping, and keep bumping until the horse gives you a response.

The reason this is so important is because without that initial "taking the slack out" warning, the horse won't know a correction is coming. Applying pressure out of the blue is the definition of how to develop a defensive brace in your horse.

The problem with taking the slack out of the rein every time you pick up on a horse is it's HARD. Sure, when you're just riding along, picking up one rein gently and holding pressure for one beat is no problem. What's difficult is these moments always come with transitions, which means I'm in the middle of trying to set up my body for the change. Also the timing is so important, both in terms of how quickly you do something, and when you ask the horse for a change based on where their feet are. You have to take the slack out on the correct stride, wait a single beat to see if the horse responds or not, then if they do not, come in quickly enough that there is no time in between for them to lean on you. The calibration requires so much feel and timing. I try, but I know I get it wrong a lot. And lately I must admit with Steen being so good about everything, I have gotten a little lazy about trying so hard.

So after my little rumination period, I thought I could see the reason for Steen's stiffness. I've gotten sloppy with my bumping. I went back to working on the same stuff as before, but resolved to administer not even the smallest bump without taking the slack out first.

A lot of the time with horses, you change your riding and it takes days if not weeks to see a change in the horse. This was immediate. I asked Steen to back. He went back, but he did it with a brace in his neck, and slowly, with his haunch not at all engaged. I took the slack out, and applied gentle bumps on his nose until he gave. We did that a few times and, presto, I was riding a different horse. He started collecting and floating backwards off the teeniest lift in the rein.

So I'm recommitted to using the hackamore properly, which means no more bumping with slack in the reins, ever.

Ride Time: 1:00

We had Steen and Bear untacked and I went inside to put my saddle away, and our barn owner was there. Another boarder had been exercising Stella, who is a five year old Saddlebred mare that has been around our barn since she was a yearling, and has been trained as a showhorse. You know, a Saddlebred showhorse. To say our style doesn't quite mesh with the ways of the Saddlebred show circuit is a gross understatement. But Stella was standing there all tacked up, and our barn owner saw me and said, "Hey, you should go trot some circles on Stella in the outdoor arena."

When I was younger, I'd get on any horse I could. Any horse, anytime, anywhere, any set-up. I've climbed bareback onto horses I've known for five minutes and loped off down someone else's driveway. I've happily hopped up onto horses someone else just came off hard. I've ridden horses I could  barely handle because I felt safer being on their back than on the ground next to them. If circumstance offered me a ride, I took it. But when I got Steen about five years ago, and through him learned exactly how much I did not know, I've grown a lot more cautious. What's odd is it's not like I ever had a bad accident. I think it just finally gelled for me how many crazy stupid risks I had taken, and how lucky I was things had never truly come apart on me. For a period of time I actually found it stressful to ride other horses.

Fortunately, I've recently started swinging back in the other direction. While I still know I have so much to learn, I've got a lot of new tools that I can use before I get on a strange horse to make sure things aren't likely to fly apart. And riding Laredo and Zoey regularly has given me a lot more versatility. I want to be smart, but I don't want to be overly cautious.

So while I was a bit tired from the two hours of riding I'd just finished, I accepted the reins and took Stella outside. She was wearing a hunter-style saddle, and these itty-bitty leather reins that felt like they were going to break in my hands. But they were supple enough and long enough that I could put a coil in them, so I did that, and hopped on.

The barn owner came out to watch and to scold me constantly (but good-naturedly) about maintaining more contact. I have never ridden "with contact," and in recent years have gone increasingly in the opposite direction, riding on an ultra loose rein unless I am collecting the horse for a specific movement.

Stella is a nice horse, and she knows her job. She's also trained to be push-button, which is just so different from how we ride. We try to time up with the horse, and let our body influence their body. Stella does what she's told, whether you're in the right place for it or not. Our barn owner would explain her cue to me, I'd apply it, and Stella would move off into whatever gait I was asking for.

So we walked, trotted, and loped around. We got through the ride without any awkward moments. After I got to know her feel a bit better, I even used the bit like I was supposed to, and brought Stella into a collected frame and moved her out with my seat. She's got some serious action and leg movement, but she's smooth to ride. It was a fun little experience. I was probably on her for ten minutes or less, but I'm glad I got the chance to feel another horse.

Horseback Hours YTD: 65:15

Just One

It stormed in the night. The area around the barn was soaked and soggy, and there were more patchy storms that had the potential to hit us. With Zoey, we were again confined to the indoor.

On the bright side, Zoey came to meet us in the pasture today, was scared off by Laredo pinning his ears at her, came again, was scared off again, and finally let me approach and halter her with no fuss. So in spite of our interfering youngster, that was a big step in the right direction. She was ultra relaxed for grooming, too, and almost seemed happy to be hanging out with us.

I again started with groundwork in the indoor arena. Touches from the flag caused no flinching today, and I had Brian help with saddling again to help things be smoother. She only shied away twice, then stood quietly and accepted the saddle. She also stood solidly when I mounted, which was good because Brian had some trouble getting on her yesterday. We moved off and got to work.

The ride started out really well. Zoey was relaxed as she's ever been with me on her back. Her lateral flexion was improved enough that I was able to start working on elevating her poll, keeping her from over-flexing, and keeping her face perpendicular with the ground.

We walked some pretty nice circles, and then moved on to trotting. Our first trotting session was the nicest I've ever had on her. She wasn't getting off-balanced and forward, and her motor was only dying every now and then. Brian even took some video, so we have some Not Highly Exciting Video of Zoey trotting!

Unfortunately after about half an hour our ride hit a little hiccup. Mostly the problem was it was really hot in the indoor, and Zoey got tired and kinda started checking out mentally. She stopped responding to my legs and started pushing through them. At one point we were trying to trot a circle and she was like she had a tow hook attached to her shoulder, dragging her through my leg towards where Brian was sitting on Bear. I had to get on her a little bit. It was the first time I ever really upped the pressure while riding her, and she didn't like it. I worked on making her uncomfortable on the side of the circle she was trying to get to, and super nice and comfortable on the other side. Then we just kept trotting circles until she figured it out. As she got agitated, she fell back into her habit of seeking the bit, and since I had her in a turn this meant she was really dropping her head and shoulder, which was not helping with her balance issues. I worked on encouraging her to stay off the bit and keep her head up. We kept at it. I have to say, it took long enough that I was starting to doubt my method. But finally, finally, we came around the bend and she moved off my leg instead of into it. Phew.

Naturally, we had to work out the same issue going the other way, but after that the ride went back to being better. We took a good long break, then worked on less demanding stuff for a while. At the very end, we practiced being snappier with upwards transitions. She's kind of slow to take your meaning when you want a little more speed. Up until today I was giving her multiple small bumps to help her figure it out, but today I started working on teaching her to respond to just the shifting of my pelvis.

One other thing that was amazing today was her backing. Instead of over flexing and getting stuck, she was softening up and moving off a light touch on the bit.

By the end of the ride she was tired but relaxed again, and when we took her to the hitching post she was yawning and sighing while I rubbed the sweat out of her coat. I've never seen her relaxed enough to yawn before. So I'm feeling good about the progress we've made. She'll get the day off tomorrow. It's been a busy eight days since she arrived. I think she certainly deserves a break.

When we got off Bear and Zoey, it was looking ready to storm. Brian and I were also both pretty tired and over-heated from riding inside, and we didn't want another hour in the arena. We agreed to throw in the towel and content ourselves with one ride only. Fortunately, the addition of a fourth horse has certainly helped give us the riding boost we'd hoped for. My saddle hours shot up this week and we're on track for our goal. And Zoey is already a visible presence on my riding chart.

Ride Time: 1:05
Horseback Hours YTD: 63:10

A Young Whippersnapper. Also, Trees

The outdoor arena at our barn is kind of a joke. It's not really an area at all, just a fenced off area that doubles as an isolation pen for sick/injured/special-needs horses. It's rarely available. Today it was empty, and while the footing on one half is jagged dried mud too rough to ride on, the other half was actually in a usable state.

It was Brian's day to ride Zoey, and we were hoping to do this outside. Yesterday the indoor arena was overheated and crowded, but we're not so settled in with Zoey yet that we want to test her in the wide open spaces where we usually ride. So we started the day in the outdoor arena.

We brought Zoey, Laredo and Steen up to the barn, (Bear seems to have started wondering why he's not invited anymore. He hurried up to me in the pasture today and stood there looking hurt when I didn't put a halter on him.) groomed them all, then left Laredo and Steen in the side pen while Brian took Zoey to the arena. I went inside and stepped into the stall of a young horse named Dallas.

Dallas is two years old, and he belongs to our barn owner's daughter. He has an unfortunate need to chew off other horses' tails. Coming out to find their horses with an unplanned, ragged bob-cut doesn't sit well with most horse owners, so Dallas spends a lot of time in isolation. His owner has also been extra busy lately. The combination of being alone and being handled only around meal times has started to give young Dallas some notions that are making life difficult for the barn staff. A week or two ago our barn owner asked me to work with him a little, before the new habits could get too out of hand.

I worked with Dallas once before, a few days before we got Zoey, but we didn't do a whole lot. Since then our barn trips have been full, and he keeps getting bumped off my to-do list. Today, though, I needed to start fulfilling my promise in earnest. I  haltered Dallas and our lessons began.

Dallas is young and inexperienced, so my intention was to be patient and gentle with him. Then he charged over me trying to hurry out a gate that was in front of us, and I had to firm up a good bit to avoid being trampled. Dallas did not appreciate my firming up, and let me know with some pops up onto his hind end and some more attempts to charge into my space. I was glad I had both the flag and a popper on the end of my lead rope. I had to use them both to get him to back off.

We spent the next 20 minutes or so defining the boundaries of my personal bubble. Dallas is a Quarter Horse, and quiet by nature. In his case this seems to mean he doesn't pick up on the subtler warnings I give him if he's starting to transgress. Then when I up the pressure because I've run out of space and time to let him find the answer, he has a total meltdown. When he's having a meltdown, he's borderline aggressive. Once he even attempted to line his haunch up with me and kicked out.

Fortunately for me, I have a lot more practice handling difficult horses than Dallas has bulldogging over people. Other than the initial surprising moment, he never got the upper hand. More than anything, I wanted to be fair to him. When I have to be hard on a horse, I work hard to keep my emotions neutral  Particularly when you feel like your safety has been threatened, this can be a challenge. I am always trying to remind myself to search for the moment I can stop being hard. With Dallas, I had to send him back and forth on the rope a lot, whacking his inside shoulder with the flag to keep him from diving into me, and stopping him with a pull on the rope if he tried to take his nose away and put me in line with his haunches. It took probably five minutes of high-energy driving and blocking for me to establish my authority. From there things went a lot better. He was still prone to trying to crowd, but I was able to keep him much further away from me and correct him with less drama before he was anywhere near my actual bubble. He started to understand that the raised flag and a step forward from me meant he needed to back off pronto.

After about twenty minutes, he was a different horse. He'd back off one finger's worth of light pressure on the halter, he'd step the front one way or the other when I pointed. He would walk in a quiet, bent circle around me when I asked him to, and stand with his head down and let me pet his face.

You can tell he's young, and his pseudo-aggressive habits are also young. He has these huge reactions and opinions, but when things go south on him he's quite willing to cede authority. Hopefully some of what we learned today will stick, and next time we can start in a place that feels better for both of us. I do feel bad for horses who don't have the chance to learn about respect and hierarchy in a natural herd environment. I think it makes their lives a lot more difficult and stressful in the long run.

It was a relief to go get Steen. By the time I got to the outdoor arena, Brian was done with groundwork and about to get on Zoey. I sat around on Steen, working on small foot-control exercises while they had their ride. Things went pretty well for them. Then Brian swapped Zoey for Laredo and we went out into the tree pasture.

We hadn't ridden in the trees since last fall, and it was good to be back out there. Steen was quiet and happy, and just amazing, really. We walked, trotted, and loped all around, and Steen never got upset, never got antsy, never spooked or shied or even looked askance at anything. He didn't care where Brian and Laredo were, didn't care where the barn was. He didn't care about the fertilizer-spraying quad that was zooming around the pasture while he rode. He was rock solid, and our ride was a total blast. I've always wanted to lope patterns through the trees out there, but we've never quite gotten to that level of control before. Today, we did tons of it. I worked both on switching leads to go around different trees and holding Steen in a shallow counter-canter. This isn't that easy for him, but he was game to try, and did well. We walked figure-eights around trees with the reins looped over the saddle horn and my arms crossed on my chest, worked on collected movement at the walk and the trot, and practiced canter departures from a standstill.

We stayed out for quite a while, enjoying the sun and the breeze and the big shadows of the trees.

Ride Time: 2:05
Horseback Hours YTD: 62:05

Friday at the Barn

We were super happy to wave goodbye to the work week and head for the barn today. We found the herd warm and bored, and everyone but Zoey seemed really happy to see us. I wove my way through the welcoming committee at the gate and went into the second pasture.

Zoey seems to have systematically dismissed her enthusiastic entourage. Even the pony seems over it as far as she's concerned. She was grazing alone.

I employed a different strategy catching Zoey. Instead of walking up to her, I circled around her and put some pressure on her haunch. I was hoping this would build on our lesson in the arena yesterday, but instead it pushed her forward. She walked into the other lot. I didn't up the pressure on her, but I followed her at a consistent distance, keeping with her enough so she couldn't relax and forget about me, but not pushing her enough to make her run away.

She went into the herd and wove around. I kept after her. No one else reacted to my presence, but a couple horses put their ears back at her. Finding no solace there, she exited the herd, and got stuck when my angle cut hers off. She stopped walking. I walked up to her and put the rope around her neck and she didn't try to leave.

Brian brought Steen and Laredo in, and we took the three of them to the tie rack. Zoe was the calmest I've seen her during grooming, and better with her feet than she's ever been for me. Signs of progress.

I took my tack to the indoor arena, and brought her in as well. I did some work on the line first, just moving her around, working on flexing and yielding the front and the hind. She is still pretty dismal at separating the different parts of her body, but it was better than yesterday, so that is something.

Then I brought the flag out. She didn't flinch at all the first time I touched her with it on her left side. She did some spazzy shakes at first on the right side (she's much more defensive on that side) but calmed down quickly. We worked on more yielding. Between every movement, I worked on softening her neck and bringing her head down. There was a lot of the commotion in the barn, but I was able to mostly keep her attention on me, and she started to show signs that she's figuring out this is a comfortable place.

Since she did so well with the groundwork, I upped the ante a bit for saddling. Up until now, we've just tried to help her get through saddling with as little stress as possible. Today I wanted to make it more challenging for her since this will ultimately lead to making it easier for her in the long run. I started with flipping the saddle pad on and off, which she took with no problem at all. So then I started using the saddle pad to drive her hind around, asking her step under away from the pressure. She got worried, but I just kept pushing gently until she was stepping away in a good rhythm. Then I switched back to asking her to stand still for the pad. We went back and forth between the two things, on both sides, and soon she started to figure moving is fine and standing is fine, but standing is easier.

Then came the saddle. Unfortunately, mostly due to my recent three week battle with the crazy muscle-devouring flu bug, I'm currently the weakest I've been in a long, long time. Although my saddle is relatively light for what it is, I do not have the height or strength to flip it on and off even a short horse seamlessly. So I kept with the same strategy I'd done with the pad. I approached with the saddle in a pretty sloppy manner, and asked her to move away from it. She was pretty worried about this at first, but again I kept at it until I got her moving smoothly. Then I asked her to stand still and she thought that sounded like a great idea. It took a few tries, but she soon was able to accept even a somewhat sloppy heaving of the saddle up onto her back.

She stood still while I mounted and even stayed still while I picked up my stirrups and settled in.

The ride was good. I just kept building on everything we worked on with groundwork. She was a little tired and far more relaxed than she's been with me on her back ever before.

I rode for just over half an hour. She was considerably less heavy on the forehand, and although at first she was having trouble stepping under, we eventually got this working very well. She is definitely a fast learner Her trot was way less chargey and unbalanced, and she was bending better in circles going both directions. She was also happy to stand still and chill out every time I asked.

I got off feeling pleased with the ride, and then she stepped away from me as I stepped down. So then I had to get on again, and she wasn't all that happy with that idea, so we had to do more work on moving away sometimes and standing still sometimes. I'm discovering with her that she's like Steen in that it's easy to put a bit too much pressure on her, but unlike Steen it's harder to tell where the line is because she is so stoic. The first few times I bent her and moved her hindquarters away, she was flinging herself around and staying quite tense. I'd let her stop, approach her side, and she'd move away. Finally I brought my energy down quite a bit, and waited until I got her stepping evenly with a nice bend in her neck before I asked her to stand again. That time when I put my foot in the stirrup she didn't budge. I got on and off three times and she didn't even twitch.

After riding Zoey, getting on Laredo felt like pulling on a favorite, broken in pair of jeans. Brian had been riding him in the indoor while I did Zoey work, so he was nicely warmed up. He's so much more light on his feet since Brian and I have agreed to focus on expecting more effort from him. We each had about one ride where we had to be pretty hard on him, and now he feels like a different horse. You can direct his feet with very little effort.

My work with Zoe left me rather worn out, so we didn't do a whole lot. I mostly worked on little detail stuff, and we had a couple of forays around into the trot and the lope. We worked on leg-yields, too. Historically, Laredo has had trouble with lateral work. His motor dies and he gets stuck and won't move off your leg. I employed my "you must try something when I ask you for this" mindset, and although it took a few reminders that a leg means move, pretty soon he was at least yielding off my leg at the walk and the trot while maintaining decent forward movement.

Then we loped some circles. He was a little convinced he didn't have a lot of energy for these at first, but I livened him up without too much trouble.

But of course he was really happy to stop. We'd lope a few laps in one direction, stop, go to the other way, stop, go the other way, etc.. The shot below was actually one of sloppiest stops (you can see he's only stopping on one hind leg). You can see at age (almost) 4 with barely a  year of consistent handling, he's light years better at this than my seasoned saddle horse. I suppose we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

While I was on Laredo, Brian had another really good ride on Steen. They seem to be clicking, and suddenly they're able to communicate on a whole new level. Steen doesn't seem to get nervous with Brian on his back the way he always has until quite recently. I think this says great things about both of them, and it's so neat to see Steen soften up and work really well with someone other than me.

Ride Time: 0:35
Ride Time: 0:35
Horseback Hours YTD: 60:00