OMG JUMPING!!!

First off, I didn't die.

The more I try to get back into fighting shape, the more things go on my "Must Do Without Dying" list.  I do have one.  Really, I do.  One that's been lingering is jumping.  I mean.  What?!  I used to jump ALL the time and was actually pretty boss at it.  My trainers in high school were great about telling me to just get my ass over things and be done with it.

Gotta love eventers!

Problem was, I am now acutely aware of how much guts and glory training I had.  I understand strides but would be hard pressed to hit them exactly.  I have a vague idea of how big a jump is (this one is bigger than that one!) and a laundry list of other things I never was taught/bothered to learn properly.  Natural talent gets you far as a fit youngster but once your body has been pilaged by pregnancy and injury, natural talent seems like the enemy.

Aww, you can do it!

Ugh.

So logically I began the process.  While my background seems wild and wooly, we were definitely NOT the kids jumping anything and everything just to do it.  No, it was always in lessons, clinics, or schooling days and NEVER unsupervised.  As someone that is on her own with her horses, this is a terrifying concept now.

Thinking back on my past, I decided to contact someone that I'd loved to train with before: Ruth Sawin.  Pine Hill was my favorite place to be during a trying teenage period and in some ways I feel like I'm going to Graceland when I'm there.  I contacted Ruth.  Surely she was too busy to babysit some crazy 34 year old out of shape has been.  She'd never email me back.

But she did.  Immediately.

The surge of relief and horror flew over me.  This was going to happen!  Wait, this was going to happen!?!?!  Oh crap.

The day came and it was brutally cold.  I could back out...  NO!  I needed to do this.  If I was rubbish then I could simply bail and do reining where I keep my feet on a ground.  In the back of my mind I knew that was not the right path, so I loaded up Katy (the trustworthy one) like a weenie and made the drive I will know by heart until I die.

I think when we arrived it was nipping at about 30 degrees F.  In Texas, that's cold.  And naturally there was a wind.  My mare was good - until I went to get on her.  Awesomepants.  I took a breath and just jumped on her.  She was uptight.  I was going to die.  Moving her on and focusing on work I found that we could walk, trot, canter and not die.  Going good so far.  I could call it quits and be happy probably.

Then Ruth showed up.  I was nervous, excited, happy, and frozen.  My butt.literally.was.frozen.  She was kind and had nice things to say about my Craigslist Special horse.  I was relieved and informed her that my goal was to simply jump something.  Anything.  A 6" crossrail would suffice.  They have those, right?  I have no idea.

The lesson went fine and I was relieved to find out that while I was out of shape, I wasn't going to die.  Jumping was a bit like riding a bike and that brought some confidence.  Ruth kindly let us go play over some logs - LOGS!- on cross country and we trotted through the water.  And over the bridge.  And yes, through the woods.  The jumps were tiny but I remembered now why I loved eventing.

She also pointed out that my 40 year old Stubben Sieg from Germany was not the best option for my butt.  Ruth probably said this much more eloquently but that was the gist of it.  More on that later... but for now:

Sold.   And not dead. Victory is mine!

Piper's Grindstone

Christmas break is a time of wonder for most people.  For me, as a state/University employee, it's also known as my annual vacation.  I will get around to taking a real vacation with my family sometime, but in the meantime, this is when I rock it.  By rock it, I mean ride my horses during the daytime and do things like hike with my dogs at the nearby forest.

I'm out of control, I know.

This year was different in that I had Arthur to work with and Piper, while coming along, really needed a come to Jesus set of training times.  Arthur progressed with his ground work and I ended up on him bareback with a halter.  We rode calmly for 100 feet and then a circle each way before I slid off by the end of the break. Not bad, eh?

Now for Piper.

Piper is a headstrong, confident, gutsy little thing.  She doesn't know the word no though which is a contradiction.  Part of the reason I love riding her is she is SOOO smart and will readily give me her all.  The reason I DON'T like riding Piper is that she owns her training.  In this case, her OLD and outdated training I'm trying to change.  Once she knows something, she KNOWS it.  You can build on it, but taking it down is tough.  Its about 2 hours of work on my part when I normally was hoping for about 45 minutes.

So for break, I was going head to head with the little wee beastie.  She needed to learn to get the heck off my hands and balance herself!  Piper is naturally VERY well balanced, catty, and agile.  Moving her body around is not an issue.  Compensating for a rider, even my size, is not an issue for her.  Much like a racehorse however, she was "held back" when she wanted to go and taught to pull down and out to get her way.  Awesomesauce.

The game this break was to take away her ability to lean on me.  Balance herself.  All those goodies.

My tool of choice?  A rope halter and my reining saddle.

I just went to the riding area and asked her to move around.  If she pulled on me, we one rein stopped to a halt.  She hates that.  Like a legitimate, no moving until I say go halt.  It was like her sky had fallen.  We worked on this concept of "wait until I tell you to go up a gear" and "stop means stop until I say go."  Working our way up to circles, that meant no "falling in" the circle.  If she did, she was one rein stopped to a halt again.

Bottom line, we progressed this way daily for about 2 hours each day with me just being consistent with these concepts.  Again, she's very smart so within the 2 weeks she figured out how to go nicely on the flat without dragging me around/wheeling in tiny circles like she's still barrel racing.  It's a work in progress and she wasn't happy but we got it done.  By the end of the training, she was much more chill and flexible in her work.  My son was her cool out rider for most of the days and he loved it.

Merry Christmas Pipes!

Arthur's Retraining Begins

Whenever I get a new horse in, I've always given them time to settle in before "real" training begins.  This doesn't mean I do nothing to them though.  I start by touching them.  In the pasture.  However and where ever I want.  Mango was the worst at this with the bunch of horses I got this year.  It may sound odd, but just like my dogs, I want them to learn that training can happen anytime, anywhere.  There is never a really true "off" time.  Granted they get to spend most of their time doing whatever they want, how they want,  and when they want so I have little sympathy.

So much like my other horses I've trained, I spent time in the pasture to start with.  For my sanity, I left a halter on Arthur since he had shown he could be a turd about being caught or basically anytime he didn't want to have a person around him (which was most always).  I normally start out while feeding since this can be the most dangerous time as the horse WANTS what you have and most horses have TERRIBLE feeding manners.  I just touch their shoulder with a flat palm or whatever (no poking) and then I dump the feed.  When they start eating, I touch their shoulder or neck again.  Most new horses will pin their ears back or something similar and I'll snort and throw my hands up and chase them away from the food.

MY FOOD!

I'll repeat this until they stop the behavior.  Less ambitious horses will sigh and I'll walk off.

This is the start of all things they hate.  Might as well get it going, right?  The other thing I start doing is following them.  This is a bit like what Monty Roberts used to talk about in his early books.  I have no idea what he does now with his training but when I want to single a horse out (basics of catching them), I follow them.  They move I move.  They stop I pause.  Most new horses hate this and will run around like idiots.  I just keep following.  Its REALLY fun to watch my older horses in the pasture, you can basically see them shaking their heads at the newbie.

So Arthur hated all this, he took his big sexy self and floated around my pasture arrogantly.  My pasture is divided into two larger portions connected by a long 20 foot wide "chute" area.  I patiently cut the other horses to one side of my body and him to the other as I stood in the chute.  He charged me.  I convincingly drove him away with the lead rope and he darted back to his side of the pasture.  This took about an hour, but he finally sighed and just stared at me as though wondering what my deal was and why I hadn't given up.  I walked over, lead rope in hand and pet him.  Then I left.  This is when they normally go "WTF" and I like leaving them with that thought.  It means they are thinking so +1 there.

Most people are so quick to snag the halter and that's not the point.  Your horse should accept your presence and wait for you to make the move.  Grabbing a halter as your first move doesn't show trust or confidence at all on your part.

The next day he was less apt to run.  I calmly touched him then his halter and then began touching his forehead.  One pat = one release.  We continued this twice a day for about a week. Once I got to the point where I could rub his face and he was seemingly happy/accepting about it, I worked on moving north and onto his ears.  He was fine with that for about as long as it would take to put a bridle on.  When I lingered longer one morning, he reared up and tried to drag me.  I let go and commenced following him around.  Recapture, retry, recapture, retry.  This went on for about an hour before I could even put one finger near the base of his ear.

We had something concrete to work on.

When I got Arthur I knew that accepting and understanding pressure was going to be his "thing."  He's a kind boy and VERY smart so I knew patience and just "messing" with him was going to be the way.  The hard part on a horse like this is you first have to "break" him.  Not by spirit, but his old habits.  Everything he did, he was good for the "normal" amount of time.  Come up with a lead rope?  He'd stand long enough for you to clip it on.  If you didn't directly do that, he'd arrogantly charge off like he'd won a prize.  Touch his ears?  Only long enough for a bridle.  "No sightseeing here please!" he was screaming.  Petting was something he simply accepted and then shut down about.  Get pushed? Shut down.  This lack of coping skills meant that at some point he'd blow.  And that was why he was considered "unpredictable" and such a dangerous horse. 

I had to break all this up like an ice flow in Greenland.  I think Greenland has ice flows...

To effectively do this however, you have to be systematic about it.  Build trust, then push it.  Build trust, then push it.  Push, pull.  That's about all there is with horses.  And patience.  Patience of a saint helps.  You cannot get emotionally involved either. Rebuild when you need and always have a plan. And always ALWAYS be willing to temporarily change that plan to help the horse understand the goals.  Keep pushing...  Keep building... Rebuild if need be.

So every day we touched and I pushed him a little further.  Touching near his ear in the pasture moved on to touching an ear.  Then the other ear.  Then petting the ears back then holding my hand on them.  Then petting them forward.  Then back.  Then I began rotating and manipulating them in my hands for as long as I pleased.  An accompanying exercise I was working on, was yielding to poll pressure.  I never did both exercises at once in the beginning.  I either did poll pressure OR the petting.  If his head went up even a fraction with poll pressure, I asked him to lower it a fraction until he did.  Once he was good with both pieces, I started putting them together.  Lower the head, touch the ears.  Lower the head, touch the ears.  Soon his head was on the ground and he was ok with his ears being inspected.  This was the point where the two exercises had effectively come together.

This was basically our first two - three weeks.  No lead rope, no leading, not even leaving the pasture.  I like to work my horses around the other better trained horses so they get used to distractions like that from the start.

A boy named Arthur.

Do you want a project horse?

No.

He's free!

I don't care.

Its a registered APHA (solid bred) and is like 17 hands tall.

*sigh*  Where is he? How old?

Here in town!  One mile from your house in fact!  6 years old.

*grumbles* Fine, I'll look at him.

Lets review that at this point in my life, I have 3 horses.  They're all mares ranging from 13h-15+ hands and 8 years old to about 20.  I've spent most of the past year working on them and myself to make them walk, trot, canter and not flip out over dumb crap.  I'm in the home stretch!  I'm about to be able to start them in reining, dressage, jumping, WHATEVER.

So I don't need a horse.

I looked up his registered name online and naturally, he was bred perfectly for what I'd been lusting after for about 10 years but assumed I'd always been too cheap to buy.    Here's his dad (7x World Champion, 1x World Challenge Champion, 6x Reserve World Champion; Multiple Reichert Champion , 2x APHA World Show All-Around Horse, 2010 APHA High Point English Horse The Big Sensation)  and I've been obsessed with his maternal grandsire for like ever.  Who is that?  Artful Move of course...  So yes, I was going to go see him.
 
Upon arrival the previous owner showed me to his stall and proceeded to thump thump thump on his forehead in greeting.  Any of my previous horses probably would have backed up at least or thrown their head up.  This horse just stared and took it.  OK, problem one might be checking out under stress.  The reason he was free was that the current "owner/lessee/etc" needed to move and wanted him gone ASAP.  He'd had an illustrious career of going to various trainers and while he was great to ride, he would randomly and unpredictably buck when you went to mount.

I don't believe in unpredictability.  Nothing with horses "just happens out of the blue."

So I pulled him out and decided to stress him in hopes of seeing him act up.  I stood on a muck bucket and had him move around me.  I pushed on him, I grabbed him.  When he crowded me, I cow kicked him out for being rude.  When he was calm, I was calm and he quickly reacted positively to that.  After about 15 minutes he was standing still and receptively with me on the bucket.  Hmmm.  We took him to the round pen so I could see about hi moving laterally.  He did it well, but cluelessly.  At this point he was doing the "young baby horse" thing where he's just trying to get you happy so he can escape the pressure.  But again, no blow ups.

We ended with a mounting block and me jumping up/at/on him.  His head was up but he never flinched or moved away.  After laying on his back with no reaction, I slid off and said I'd think about it.  I've NEVER pushed a horse that hard when meeting them but I wanted to see what sort of volatile beast I was getting.  When I pick out a new project, I have rules.  No bite, buck, kick, or rear.  I don't like fixing those things and I worry about a horse's trustworthiness over time.  

That night I talked to a friend of mine who works with her husband with "fixing" horses to see what she thought.  I was thinking his foundation just sucked and he was anxious as a result.  She agreed and I was left to make the decision.  "I don't need/want another horse" was the main phrase that went through my head that night.  But he was a sad lost little guy and while I'm not sentimental, he was also a hell of a horse and something that I'd always had on my "horse bucket list."

So I got him.  He's a hot mess of worry, but with time, consistency, and patience we'll get there.  And test my training skills in the process.







 

Family Trail Ride Day

With the fam kinda rocking the whole horse riding thing, I figured what was the worst that could happen if we took the show on the road?  I picked Indian Spirit Springs, a lovely ranch that's open for people to come ride.  They're gunning to be an endurance event location but right now they're awesome with plenty of nice trails, great scenery, and thoughtful amenities.  Oh and they're in town and $10 a head for a half day.

Yspls.

We took the new trailer with all three slots filled with horses (and a pony or technically two) and headed out there.  I was still working on "horses as a family" thing for this trip so I decided I would ride in my reining saddle and forego the helmet.  Helmet was for "real" riding.  Naturally this made me feel good and panicky at the same time.  Another thing to note about taking 3 horses with 3 sets of tack and only one knowledgeable person - the knowledgeable person ends up doing a LOT of work.

But it was fine and we had everyone mounted and heading out in short order.  Natrually Piper was raring to go and I wasn't going to fight with her for four hours.  She led and I had to do circles around the group as she was in her "on a mission" walk from hell.  She wasn't trotting, so no laws of mine were being violated but ugh.  Not relaxing or enjoyable riding a working horse.

Most of the ride was uneventful.

About two hours in though, Piper had a "spook" at some deer.  It was really lame and completely out of boredom.  I ended up in a compromising position and started to scramble to stay on.  Then I recalled my horse is about 2 feet off the ground, I had a good amount of control and hold on the reins, and the ground was soft.  I let go.  Then it was on like donky kong.  She wanted to work, so we worked.  The.remaining.two.hours.

Not relaxing and I did look more than once with envy at my family on their calm boring horses, but it is what is is.   Piper is not a recreational sort of horse and once I gave her a task, she was fine.  Yay trailriding?

Test Ride

Part of the reason for getting these horses (as opposed to my usual elephant types that are the norm for english events), was for them to be more family friendly.  There was no denying that my lovely thoroughbred that I'd owned for 10 years prior to these mares was a great horse.  He was also huge, doofy, prone to making bad decisions, and a bit to cuddly for most people to be able to take in.  My warmblood that was his pasture mate was arrogant, gorgeous, hot blooded, and sassy britches about things.  People were intimidated by them and when I did go on vacation in 2010, my horse sitter with limited experience found herself in a panic over "having" to blanket them (despite me assuring her they could make it one cold night in the barn).  She contacted her nonhorsey mother who built her confidence up enough to get the job done.

Mkay.

After the birth of my son, the horses were put on the back burner.  I WANTED to ride but now had all the obligations of if I kill myself on them, the man I love was going to have to raise this child alone.  Not that he couldn't, but well, that wasn't the objective of this exercise.  My horse boys were getting older too and it was time to decide if I was going to mount a comeback on them or not.  I decided to interview people rather than sell them and find a great home that could learn on them while understanding their aging needs.

Fast forward to this year and I once again was horse shopping.  I was SO CLOSE to making it.  Just taking lessons or leasing something  But alas, I'm too cheap for that.  I wanted a big dopey paint that would be decent at low-mid level whatever I wanted to do.  Reining, HUS, eventing, dressage, trails, just whatever hit my heart.  We know this didn't work out that way.

But, even with Piper being a 4* horse in her heart, I have Katy and Mango who are definitely chill yet ready for whatever.  They (and Piper) have extensive experience on trails and the like.  I bought the horse trailer for family outings and I'd been training the horses.  It was time to put the fam on the horses.

So yes, I was nervous underneath my cool demeanor.

Pierce had been on Katy a few times and had some lessons with me so I was less freaked out about that.  He'd been on Mango a few times on his own, so that was less crazy.  My husband though, ugh.  He'd been on a horse exactly ONCE in his life before when my sister in law had put him on a horse with no instruction and then they went on a torturous 6 hour trail ride through East Texas.  No mention to putting the weight in your heels was given, so my hubby had spent the whole ride sitting on his junk and hating every minute.

With Pierce wandering happily on Mango, I explained Katy to Joe in motorcycle terms.  "You kick gently to move up a gear, you sit down and gently take hold of the reins to gear down."  My husband is athletically gifted and also fairly analytical.  We went to the back pasture where I watched and helped as needed.  Freakishly my husband was able to confidently walk, trot, and canter Katy in an open pasture with no issues at all.  Seriously?  WHO DOES THAT?!

But I was happy and he looked great on her.  And no, he didn't have a life altering experience and still greatly prefers motor vehicles to horses.  Sadness on my part.  He'd be a fantastic event rider.  Just have to focus on the kid who is almost as good :P

Jerks. <3

Because I Bet You Didn't See This Coming...

Every fall is my favorite time for dog shows.  The weather is finally starting to not be "furnace level" and the venues are ones that I enjoy going to.  There are also shows that hit on agility, obedience, rally, and conformation at the same show.  Lots of bang for my buck.

But wait, this is the horse blog?!

Yes, yes it is.  We will get there good friend.

I decided that showing dogs would be better with an RV.  Remember my post about being logical? Well, there's a method.  Now that I owned The Sexy Beast Truck, I could haul a significant trailer.  I'd also become the owner of a rocking Town and Country minivan to help share mileage duty with my truck and my excessive driving issues.  So I could get something that the minivan could tow, or something beastly for the Beast.

Why aren't you getting a horse trailer?!?!  Living quarters are the bomb!

Yes, I agree with you.  However, due to some odd quirk, I can't get a horse trailer of any kind financed but I can buy any RV.  Huh?  Exactly.  Such has been my situation for several years so I was giving up at this time.  My old old Shelby can still and my pride can handle it, so whatever.

I stalked all sorts of RV places online.  I learned as much about them as I could and debated hauling options with my available vehicles.  All the costs involved, etc.  It was all researched obsessively cause well, that's me.  The day came when I went, research in hand, to the carefully selected and financing preapproved RV dealer that I liked and had the used RVs I wanted.  We checked out the RVs, asked questions, debated ideas.  The salesman was lovely but... it didn't feel right.  They had a REALLY nice motorhome though and hubbs fell in love with it.

FAMILY VACATIONS!  CAMPING!  SO MUCH FUN!

I bit my lip and debated.  It did sound like fun, but it wasn't the most efficient thing.  We COULD pull the Shelby with it though so therefore a living quarter/horse trailer option?  I liked that idea except... insurance was going to put this "cheap" venture way over where I wanted it.  Husband was pressuring, I was balking, so I did what I do:  asked about the bank and figured out a way to leave to think things over.

We got home and I debated.  Finally, I hit on it:  horse trailer or bust.  It made the most sense ALL AROUND.  Something with a gooseneck and pre installed AC, 3-4 horses, rear tack.  Nothing flashy, but functional and we could do anything we wanted in it... dogs, horses, camping, travel, etc.  And I prefer hauling a gooseneck over a HEAVY and LONG bumper pull.

So I called the bank the next day.  The lady was amazing and happily swapped the loan to a farm loan and told me the guidelines for finding a used horse trailer.  Since I'm an internet stalker always, I knew the horse trailer dealerships I liked best.  Well, I'd also called and tried to get financing from several of them over the years so I knew which I disliked and which would be a pita.

NRS Trailers in Decatur always has a great influx of trailers coming through there so I contacted a salesman to give him my wish list- I was willing to wait.  He gave me a few stock numbers to check out on their online inventory and I was able to help him hone it down to what I was wanting.  At the end of the conversation, he told me about a nice trailer they'd just gotten in, but it was steel, not aluminum like I wanted.  I frowned but agreed to check it out.

I was hooked immediately.

We picked it up that Friday and now I have a beautiful, but frugal rig.  HAPPY!