I am swooning... right now, it is for Breezy. The lady that has done the body work on my horses emailed me and asked if I wanted to head out this morning on a ride. BEAUTIFUL weather. I decided to take Breezy. My friend had her 5 year old and Breezy is good to have with me for that...He keeps his head about himself when Jester, the baby horse, suddenly becomes “Twister” and does a spin over a duck that takes off or something.
Today it was walking through ice covering a pond crossing...Jester did go a bit bonkers...but Breezy stood still and waited for Jester to reclaim his brain. Then he calmly asked my friend for a carrot. :-) Her belief about “the thought of the horse” is that if she keeps carrots in her pommel pack that she just needs to unzip the zipper at any point in time and presto...the thought of the horse returns. LOL! She has a point, I must admit.
Today, I got to enjoy the fruit of all the body work that my friend has done on Breezy--a most deserving horse. Breezy was feeling so good. He wanted to move out and he just simply seemed to be having a great time. He offered to canter numerous times and did a little kick out that seemed totally gleeful! It was amazing...I am just loving it. He was such good boy. My friend is an endurance rider, but you would never know her horses are endurance horses. I guess I am prejudiced against “typical endurance” because it typically means hollow back, high head and scrawny. Her horses carry themselves beautifully and are VERRRY “thick.” (Well muscled and then some...) She is trying to convince me that Breezy and I could babysit her and Jester on their first 25 mile endurance ride in the Spring. After today, I am just silly enough to believe it. :-)
And to think that Breezy used to be retired!
Heidi
(Who is heading out to the arena now to try to see what is up with Harley.)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Mini-Doc Update
Some of you may remember Doc, my APHA grullo horse featured at this link.
This past spring, at 10 years of age, I began to notice that he seemed sound! By August, I had no doubt, so brought him out of retirement. After body work, he even went to Melissa’s (my trainer’s) for a month.
You can see some photos of him here. In many of the photos I am concentrating on some things Melissa asked me to work on during our lesson. She wanted to have photographic “evidence” of just how off kilter I was :-), so had picked up a camera to shoot images of Doc and me.
This is a short video of Doc at liberty in August
A video the first time Doc had a rider aboard in over 3 years…Melissa gets up on him after working with him some first
After Doc returned from Melissa’s, I free leased him to someone that would spend time with him daily, but it didn’t work out (after only a week). I look forward to a new beginning with him in the spring and have signed up for a Harry camp in August of 2009.
When I found myself up on Doc in August for the first time since we had our many “rodeo moments” over three years prior, I realized just how much working with Harley for 18 months had increased my confidence and awareness. Harley has been VERY good for me and TO me. We have a lot we are working on and a long road ahead, but have come so far…It is really amazing when I stop and think about it!
Heidi
This past spring, at 10 years of age, I began to notice that he seemed sound! By August, I had no doubt, so brought him out of retirement. After body work, he even went to Melissa’s (my trainer’s) for a month.
You can see some photos of him here. In many of the photos I am concentrating on some things Melissa asked me to work on during our lesson. She wanted to have photographic “evidence” of just how off kilter I was :-), so had picked up a camera to shoot images of Doc and me.
This is a short video of Doc at liberty in August
A video the first time Doc had a rider aboard in over 3 years…Melissa gets up on him after working with him some first
After Doc returned from Melissa’s, I free leased him to someone that would spend time with him daily, but it didn’t work out (after only a week). I look forward to a new beginning with him in the spring and have signed up for a Harry camp in August of 2009.
When I found myself up on Doc in August for the first time since we had our many “rodeo moments” over three years prior, I realized just how much working with Harley for 18 months had increased my confidence and awareness. Harley has been VERY good for me and TO me. We have a lot we are working on and a long road ahead, but have come so far…It is really amazing when I stop and think about it!
Heidi
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Matter of Fact-Ness
Having finished Tom Moates’ book last week, when I took Harley to the arena yesterday (after having an AWESOME ride on him on Monday out on the trail), I decided to be “matter of fact” like Tom describes (well...that was my intention, anyhow).
I got in the truck with my husband and explained the concept a bit to him and that I was going to be “matter of fact” with Harley today. He was along to try to video me as the video from August showed me a lot of things that I hope have changed (about my riding).
I decided that I was going to be matter of fact with Harley and we were going to get down to business PERIOD. :-/
There was a lot going on at the arena, true, but I think I took my intention to be “matter of fact” and totally butchered the idea. We didn’t get to use the round pen...it was locked tight.
So, in the arena, I asked Harley out on the line and instead of calmly taking his thought out and following it, he jumped sideways like he thought I was going to blast him or something! My goal was smooth transitions on the line...his thought carrying him upward calmly and back down calmly, breathing, head down...a lot to ask for I think. Especially given the way we started! As we got started (after that initial reaction), we could go from the walk to the trot ok, but when I asked for the canter, it was met with bucking, rearing, striking, kicking out. Not just initially like in a “woo hoo! I feel great!” sort of way, either. I don’t know if I was still transmitting my “matter of fact-ness” in splattered, scattered energy or what...but every single request for a canter was met with that at some level.
I had to change my goals considerably. Eventually, after an initial humpy bumpy backy thingie on the line when asked for a canter, he could offer me a softer canter on the line, but if I dared to breath “good boy,” he planted his rear feet in the ground and stopped on a dime and whipped around to face me. Then he thought he was in trouble when I told him to get back out on the circle...that I would ask for him to stop...gosh...This was the first time I recall having so much excitement from him on the line when I didn’t do a bunch of emotional stuff. I felt pretty calm about it all. Which surprises me. I didn’t get angry or scared...this is good. I knew what I wanted and was sure of what it would look like when I got it.
I did ride him...walked, trotted, and cantered. NONE of it was pretty. :-/ I realize that Harley may have had a physical thing going on to add to this...but I think there is more to it than that. I hope to sort it out today by another trip to the arena.
I guess I have a lot of work to do before I “get” the matter of fact-ness described by Tom.
As we were getting ready to load back into the trailer for home, Harley let me know that he wasn’t particularly motivated to get in the trailer. I told him out loud (my husband witnessed this) that I hadn’t been angry at him at all today...that I didn’t feel anger, but now if he gave me guff about the trailer, I just might end up angry and that would be no way to end this session...(truth was, I was very disappointed...very sad...and anger *was* a secondary emotion very close to the surface by this time). In the midst of my explanation to Harley about how he needed not to “make mom angry” he slapped my face with one of those stupid kisses I taught him a few years ago. In spite of how inappropriate this may be to a knowledgeable horse person, the timing of it sure made my husband and I crack up...
Tell me horses don’t have personality! HA!
I got in the truck with my husband and explained the concept a bit to him and that I was going to be “matter of fact” with Harley today. He was along to try to video me as the video from August showed me a lot of things that I hope have changed (about my riding).
I decided that I was going to be matter of fact with Harley and we were going to get down to business PERIOD. :-/
There was a lot going on at the arena, true, but I think I took my intention to be “matter of fact” and totally butchered the idea. We didn’t get to use the round pen...it was locked tight.
So, in the arena, I asked Harley out on the line and instead of calmly taking his thought out and following it, he jumped sideways like he thought I was going to blast him or something! My goal was smooth transitions on the line...his thought carrying him upward calmly and back down calmly, breathing, head down...a lot to ask for I think. Especially given the way we started! As we got started (after that initial reaction), we could go from the walk to the trot ok, but when I asked for the canter, it was met with bucking, rearing, striking, kicking out. Not just initially like in a “woo hoo! I feel great!” sort of way, either. I don’t know if I was still transmitting my “matter of fact-ness” in splattered, scattered energy or what...but every single request for a canter was met with that at some level.
I had to change my goals considerably. Eventually, after an initial humpy bumpy backy thingie on the line when asked for a canter, he could offer me a softer canter on the line, but if I dared to breath “good boy,” he planted his rear feet in the ground and stopped on a dime and whipped around to face me. Then he thought he was in trouble when I told him to get back out on the circle...that I would ask for him to stop...gosh...This was the first time I recall having so much excitement from him on the line when I didn’t do a bunch of emotional stuff. I felt pretty calm about it all. Which surprises me. I didn’t get angry or scared...this is good. I knew what I wanted and was sure of what it would look like when I got it.
I did ride him...walked, trotted, and cantered. NONE of it was pretty. :-/ I realize that Harley may have had a physical thing going on to add to this...but I think there is more to it than that. I hope to sort it out today by another trip to the arena.
I guess I have a lot of work to do before I “get” the matter of fact-ness described by Tom.
As we were getting ready to load back into the trailer for home, Harley let me know that he wasn’t particularly motivated to get in the trailer. I told him out loud (my husband witnessed this) that I hadn’t been angry at him at all today...that I didn’t feel anger, but now if he gave me guff about the trailer, I just might end up angry and that would be no way to end this session...(truth was, I was very disappointed...very sad...and anger *was* a secondary emotion very close to the surface by this time). In the midst of my explanation to Harley about how he needed not to “make mom angry” he slapped my face with one of those stupid kisses I taught him a few years ago. In spite of how inappropriate this may be to a knowledgeable horse person, the timing of it sure made my husband and I crack up...
Tell me horses don’t have personality! HA!
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