Day thirteen
20 February 2009 02:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronToday was a really great day.
We went out for a couple of rides today out on Martin's friend's ranch and it was brilliant. I was lucky enough to be riding little Daisy the Apaloosa on my first set which is always a pleasure. The only problem I had was that whenever we got started going more quickly my hat blew off. It wasn't even that my hat is a bad fit, it just seemed to be colluding with the wind to be a little bit too light on my head just when we stepped up the pace. Very embarrassing but at least holding on my hat means I don't pull on the reins I guess, which has been the main habit I have been needing to shift up until now.
Daisy was as sweet, full of try, comfortable and generally great as ever. It's hard to believe that she's still had less than ten rides in total.
In the second set I was riding Socks, my other favourite among the horses I've ridden here.
The view over Socks' ears.
We did some interesting work on stopping today, starting with the one-rein stop that the horses and riders are already familiar with and developing it towards a straight-line stop, which has been something we have so far mostly attained through the fine art of running into the back of the colt in front up until now.
The approach we were taking was to take the hind feet as you would in a regular one-rein stop but the moment they start to come, change the rein and take the other side, in much the same way that we were developing the back-up a few days ago. In this way wee effectively stop the hind feet one after the other. It's easy to understand for the horse and it gives a really smooth stop.
Like so much of the stuff that Martin teaches, all this one-rein work really helps to avoid making the horse feel constrained as they might if you were to be pulling on both reins. Feeling constrained is one of the things that is likely to be most bothersome to a horse, especially a less experienced one, so this is a really big deal for them.
Socks got the idea pretty quick once I got myself using my balance correctly and as before he was just perfectly on the balance of forward and calm that makes for really enjoyable riding.
Jack Brainard and his students joined us for lunch, after which we did some work with a few yearlings who needed their jabs and to learn about leading. Martin haltered them for us in a small pen and then we went into the round-pen to do some leading work with them. I was working with a little bay filly who was pulling back as hard as she possibly could when she was first haltered, to the point that she was almost lying down one time. I thought she might be quite anxious but actually she was as sweet as anything. We did some leading around the pen, having the horses following their handler with Martin in the middle with a flag to move on any horses that got stuck.
We moved on to getting them used to staying still and being comfortable being touched- most of the horses wanted to move a lot at this point but my one just wanted to stay still, I think that was mostly because of the power of scratchies that little horses really appreciate. Anyway, we got on just fine- she let me pick up all of her feet and was generally just inquisitive and bless. I felt a bit bad that she needed to have injections after all that, but they were forgotten as soon as they were done and she was fine afterwards.
The bay horse in the front is the one I was working with.
Interestingly, we only had four young horses to work with and three of our group ( the others were riding a third set of horses ) and one of Jack's students were helping the little ones- the other person was a really nice lady called Barb Apple and as far as I can gather she was Pat Parelli's first instructor when he was setting up his organisation. Certainly a very experienced trainer and clinician in her own right. I really enjoy being around people at that level, although I could probably spend years learning from any of them.
All in all, it was a really good day.
Also, for those of you who wanted one, a picture of me in a hat:
Out here that hat is like camouflage.
We went out for a couple of rides today out on Martin's friend's ranch and it was brilliant. I was lucky enough to be riding little Daisy the Apaloosa on my first set which is always a pleasure. The only problem I had was that whenever we got started going more quickly my hat blew off. It wasn't even that my hat is a bad fit, it just seemed to be colluding with the wind to be a little bit too light on my head just when we stepped up the pace. Very embarrassing but at least holding on my hat means I don't pull on the reins I guess, which has been the main habit I have been needing to shift up until now.
Daisy was as sweet, full of try, comfortable and generally great as ever. It's hard to believe that she's still had less than ten rides in total.
In the second set I was riding Socks, my other favourite among the horses I've ridden here.
The view over Socks' ears.
We did some interesting work on stopping today, starting with the one-rein stop that the horses and riders are already familiar with and developing it towards a straight-line stop, which has been something we have so far mostly attained through the fine art of running into the back of the colt in front up until now.
The approach we were taking was to take the hind feet as you would in a regular one-rein stop but the moment they start to come, change the rein and take the other side, in much the same way that we were developing the back-up a few days ago. In this way wee effectively stop the hind feet one after the other. It's easy to understand for the horse and it gives a really smooth stop.
Like so much of the stuff that Martin teaches, all this one-rein work really helps to avoid making the horse feel constrained as they might if you were to be pulling on both reins. Feeling constrained is one of the things that is likely to be most bothersome to a horse, especially a less experienced one, so this is a really big deal for them.
Socks got the idea pretty quick once I got myself using my balance correctly and as before he was just perfectly on the balance of forward and calm that makes for really enjoyable riding.
Jack Brainard and his students joined us for lunch, after which we did some work with a few yearlings who needed their jabs and to learn about leading. Martin haltered them for us in a small pen and then we went into the round-pen to do some leading work with them. I was working with a little bay filly who was pulling back as hard as she possibly could when she was first haltered, to the point that she was almost lying down one time. I thought she might be quite anxious but actually she was as sweet as anything. We did some leading around the pen, having the horses following their handler with Martin in the middle with a flag to move on any horses that got stuck.
We moved on to getting them used to staying still and being comfortable being touched- most of the horses wanted to move a lot at this point but my one just wanted to stay still, I think that was mostly because of the power of scratchies that little horses really appreciate. Anyway, we got on just fine- she let me pick up all of her feet and was generally just inquisitive and bless. I felt a bit bad that she needed to have injections after all that, but they were forgotten as soon as they were done and she was fine afterwards.
The bay horse in the front is the one I was working with.
Interestingly, we only had four young horses to work with and three of our group ( the others were riding a third set of horses ) and one of Jack's students were helping the little ones- the other person was a really nice lady called Barb Apple and as far as I can gather she was Pat Parelli's first instructor when he was setting up his organisation. Certainly a very experienced trainer and clinician in her own right. I really enjoy being around people at that level, although I could probably spend years learning from any of them.
All in all, it was a really good day.
Also, for those of you who wanted one, a picture of me in a hat:
Out here that hat is like camouflage.
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Date: 19 Feb 2009 08:58 (UTC)It's like Young Guns meets Young Guns 2!
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Date: 19 Feb 2009 13:44 (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Feb 2009 13:56 (UTC)- Crump