Dutifully posting..

I got to ride both of my boys today--first Cowboy, who has been dreadfully but blissfully neglected. He's a trooper and was my steady guy--I'd say as usual, but getting Cowboy to "steady" mode has been a project years in the making.

Then it was Dublin's turn. First he got worked online and did well. My assignment is to work on respect (getting him to respect me, I already have a pretty healthy respect for him!). To that end, getting a snappier back-up and sideways. So we worked on those with mixed results. He's a big horse with a "so what" attitude, so it takes a much bigger effort than I'm used to giving to make him stand up and pay attention, and then to give a bigger and snappier response. We did get a snappier backup, with a lot of lip-licking, so he is cogitating on that one. For sideways, I started him on a circle and headed him toward the rail, then asked him to sideways away from me while he still had some momentum. We have some challenges here. He moves his hind end away nicely but that front end gets stuck. So a bit of work to figure out the key to this one.

I am also to start him working at Liberty. We've already done some of this, and I really enjoy working horses at Liberty, so I turned him loose with just a rope line around the base of his neck and worked on Stick To Me and Circling. He did well, so I dropped the rope, and got a very very nice circling game from him at both walk and trot. He would occasionally head off to a corner but was easy to get back. I thought we had it at the canter but after 3/4 of a circle, he would veer off and away from me toward the other end of the arena. Pure sass!  After a bit of a joyful, thumb-nosing gallop around the arena, he would suddenly give me both ears and eyes and come trotting to me with a big spring in his step. Cowboy does the same thing, and I love to see a happy horse coming to me at a big bouncy trot! Then Dublin gives me big nuzzles as if to say "Hey! That was fun!"

Time to saddle up. He still has an attitude about being saddled, and I'm trying to make sure that there isn't anything uncomfortable about the saddle. I'm trying to ease it up there like a hug but I have to admit that when he snakes his head around with teeth bared as the saddle swings up, it does affect my delivery. On the plus side, he is so much better about accepting the bit. For the first few weeks, it was quite a game to see if he would take the bit, but now he takes it quite happily.

Things to work on while riding are making sure he responds to leg pressure, and that he can accept a correction with the stick without taking it personally. He's fine with a small correction, but if he ignores it and I phase up, I get a lot of ears back, head up, back hollow, and moving aggressively into the pressure. I'm not doing anything to hurt him, just being firm and letting him know I expect a response, so he needs to learn how to accept the correction and move away from the stick when asked. We'll get there--I'm still not certain about just exactly how belligerent he is willing to get and I want to make sure I stay safe while obtaining the level of respect I so richly deserve. So I'm inching toward applying more pressure and dealing with the response. I also tried to get him into a canter but wasn't successful. This horse can trot FAST and his a big stride, and it's a small arena. so by the time I've got him up to speed it's time to turn. Plus by then I'm worn out! I think I'm going to need to use the stick to pop him into a canter and I'd like to make sure first that he isn't going to launch me over it!

I forgot to include the link to his mock Level 2 Online audition with the last post so here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdLrnRuxUHE&list=UUfJydi1hTYF-TUN-5v10liQ&feature=share

Back In The Saddle--Again

Those injuries I received in the last post (3 months ago!) turned out to be more painful and slow to heal than I would have imagined, and I was out of the saddle for over 2 months. I'm happy to report that I can now ride again with only minor pain in the posterior. Between the injury, tax season, settling my mother's estate, and a much-needed rainy spell, Dublin and Cowboy have been lounging around not doing much. But most of those issues are in the past and it's time to get down to business.

I'm still in my Parelli coaching program with Julia Ryman Bell, and my assignment for the next month is to keep a log of my successes with Dublin, and this seems like the ideal platform for that! So you will be seeing more frequent posts going forward.

Some causes for celebration now that Dublin is back at work is that he did not back-slide very far during his time off. He is also getting much more responsive to leg pressure and a bit more respectful of my space. We still have some work to do there!

My assignment for the last month was to get Dublin to the point where we could film a Parelli Level 2 On-Line audition. Tasks we needed to capture on film were all 7 games (Friendly, Porcupine, Driving, Yo-Yo, Circling, Sideways, Squeeze), at a walk and trot, use 2 barrels for obstacles, do a Figure 8, trot-to-backup, and leg massage. We accomplished it all and got it on video! I could submit the video to Parelli and get him officially assessed, but I'm happy just knowing we did it.

For the month coming up, we need to work on a Level 2 Freestyle (riding) audition. We need to work on patterns (Cloverleaf, Follow-The-Rail, Question Box) and see if we can get him to do this in a relaxed fashion, on a loose rein, with a bare minimum of correction. When he relaxes and blows out, we should stop! That indicates he "gets it". Also we need to work on sideways, backing and indirect/direct rein. I need to do some brushing up! Sideways and backwards are tough for the Thoroughbred--he likes forward a lot!

We also will be starting Liberty work. We've already done some of that so we have a start. Cowboy loves Liberty, Dublin not so much. For a horse that can be sulky when given direction, he really doesn't like having no physical connection to his leader! This will be a real confidence-builder for him.

Also time to start back on trailer loading and riding. I did get a new truck a few weeks ago and it's just about past its break-in period, so we can start on that shortly.

More to follow as we progress!