A chilled Filly

Saturday 23 April 2011

Trotting Billy

Having managed to get an osteopath checkout for Billy it was time to start trotting him. I wanted a physical checkout done first to ensure that bouncing around on his back would not cause him pain.
We ran through the plan as usual, the touch all over section now includes a back massage to try and relieve the soreness in his back. In addition the osteopath has requested that I get him confident with gentle tapping down either side of the spine to prepare him for more manipulations.
I am pleased to report that the saddling section went much better. Not perfect yet, and I did have to make him move around more than he wanted to when he tried to move away from the saddling process. In the end he decided just standing still was much the easier option.
To prepare for trotting for the first time I paid  particular attention to several laps of trot on the circle. This was to check that he looked confident with the stirrups flapping about, the feel of the girth and the general environment. All passed with flying colours.
I have been banned from mounting from the ground by the osteo until his back problem is sorted out. However I felt we could do more mounting practise from the mounting block. He always presents his right side to me for mounting, but I need to be able to mount from either side. After a short while he did present his left side, but interestingly had a real problem allowing me to mount from there. He continuously moved off as I started to mount thus proving that just because your horse is happy with you doing something on one side doesn't necessarily translate to being happy on the other side. We worked on this for around ten minutes until he would let me put my foot in the stirrup and weight it a little. Eventually I mounted from the right side with no issues at all.
Lateral flexion was not so good today to start with. The tendency to bite my leg reappeared. Worked on this until I got two good flexions on each side, then straight into follow the rail at walk. To test I had brakes for when we started trotting I asked for indirect to direct rein at walk. This involved doing an indirect rein towards the fence forcing him to swing his hind quarters out towards the enter of the school followed by a direct rein to lead him off in the opposite direction. To the right they were very good, to the left just acceptable.
We then did a few circles at walk and once I was feeling confident I asked for a trot. Such a light aid was required and a quiet "kiss" from me. He moved up into a complete mess of a gait. Certainly not a trot, but not a walk either. After a few strides he nearly fell over and so we stopped.
If you are only used to riding schooled horses this may surprise you, but horses have to learn each gait all over again with the weight of a rider on the back. This was so disjointed that it was impossible to try and rise with him, and I complained to Ritchie that it was really making my lower back sore. He did not seem unconfident however, just uncoordinated. So practise was required. Three or four trot attempts later and he had sorted his legs out. We were rewarded with a few strides of very pleasant trot, with me rising (posting).
Stopping him was simplicity itself. A very slight bend to a halt with me "quitting" riding was all it took. All my fears of him tanking off were unfounded !!
His interest in the lesson really perked up at these trot attempts, with pricked ears and loads of licking and chewing. After the balanced trot it was time to reward him by getting off and taking him back to his stable.
As this is the first horse I have backed it is amazing how rewarding it feels to get him to do something as simple as a trot. A seasoned rider on a seasoned horse will think nothing of trotting, for us it was a really big deal. A visit to the pub for celebration was in order.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Helping Billy by using the plan

After the last episode with Billy which resulted in a very right brain episode when I tried to mount from the ground I needed to carefully consider my next move. In a way it was fortunate that I had to go to Hyderabad in India for a 5 day trip. This gave me more than ample time to analyse the situation whilst eating curry for breakfast (it's true they serve curry for breakfast !), lunch and dinner.

Now I have repeatedly said the plan provides an analytical tool for solving just this sort of problem. So let's break the problem down into component parts.
1) He initially was happy when I put my foot up into the stirrup.
2) He was initially happy when I bounced round to face forwards
3) He exploded when I tried to stand up in the stirrup
4) This then lead to him not being happy with my foot being placed in the stirrup at all and it took considerable time to get back to that point
5) Even after all this he was happy, even very willing, to allow me to mount from the mounting block and ride him.

This has to all be considered in the context of the sections in the plan prior to "Mount with Savvy", so let's take them one at a time.

"Have the horse catch you". No problems there at all. Once on the mounting block he walked over at liberty to allow me to mount. I would say that constituted catching me !
"Halter with Savvy". Not really relevant to the problem. He had willingly accepted the halter earlier on.
"Touch all Over". This is an interesting section. Whilst I had touched him all over with my hands, how about my boot from the ground? As I swung my foot up to the stirrup it inevitably touched his side as he is a big boy and I am not that flexible. In addition as I hop around to face the front it is quite possible my toe was touching his side.
"Place feet down". Not an issue.
"Standstill". Another interesting section given his reaction to my mounting. I had done lots of standstill with commotion occurring around him such as slapping the ground with a stick, skipping towards him and bumping him with my knee, but not standing next to him and swinging my foot up and down.
"Saddle with Savvy". Again an interesting section. His standstill when doing up the girth is not great.
"Prepare to be Ridden". This mainly concerns preparing for what was going to happen once I was mounted and riding and we didn't get that far.
"Pre-flight checks". These had actually gone very well so I don't feel there was an big problem here."

Looking at the list we therefore have possible problems in "Touch all Over","Standstill" and "Saddle with Savvy". All are confidence sections as may be expected as he was certainly not confident as I tried to mount.
Armed with this knowledge I now needed to decide on a course of action.

"Touch all over" and "Standstill" are closely related in this instance.
Whilst I had done the touch all over with my hands I clearly needed to get more athletic and introduce my feet as well. To this end I spent a long time working on getting his confidence as I gently rubbed his side and belly with first my knee and then my foot. Interestingly he was fine with my knee, but it took some time, and muscle cramp, before I could rub his belly with my toes. I guess from a prey animals point of view I predator swinging their claw laden feet at his soft underbelly was going to be a bit alarming. I allowed him to retreat as he needed to until slowly he realised that I was just playing the Friendly game and could relax as I rubbed him. I think a few more session may be needed for total acceptance.
Now I needed to work on the "Standstill" section with the same sort of activities. The main difference being that in this instance my foot was going to be swinging around near his belly, not just gently caressing it. This is where the Can-can dancing came in. Boy those girls must have be fit ! It took a long time to get a good standstill as I swung my leg up and down, hopped around to simulate turning to face his front etc. It was also the warmest day of the year so far, so I built up quite a sweat.
With this on its' way to being sorted I moved onto Saddle with Savvy. He has always taken a few steps as I placed the saddle on, normally backwards. I had been rather lax in sorting this out, so now the time had come. This involved swinging the saddle onto his back, and if he moved off helping him to move backwards further than he wanted. This is an example of reverse psychology. If it is his idea to move I say "good idea lets move more". Not what he expects, so he rapidly decides that it is not his idea to move, but mine. This is one of the few times you can use opposition reflex to your advantage. By making the movement our idea he will tend to oppose you and want to stand still, which is what we actually want.
The same procedure had to be gone through with doing up the girth. This took a long time before I could get an acceptable standstill as I bought the girth up under his belly. Basically I just took a feel on the girth under his belly without actually buckling it up. If he moved, I moved with him and caused him to move further for a bit, until he decided to stop, at which point I let go of the girth to reward the standstill.
All this took several hours, but was rewarded in the end with I more confident Billy.
The "Touch all Over" section is partly there to check the horse for confidence, but also to check that he is not sore anywhere on the day. Given his extreme reaction to my mounting attempts we also decided to get him checked over by a chiropractor. She did find that his back is sore just in front of his hips, and in a spot such that mounting from the ground was likely to have caused discomfort.

I hope this post has given an insight into how to use the plan to analyse and fix problems that may crop up. For me it certainly provided a way to think about the problem and hatch a possible solution. My solution may not work, only time will tell, but it is better than floundering looking randomly for a solution. The worst thing I could have done was to have just persisted in trying to mount without finding the underlying issues. This would have only lead to frustration and possible injury for both of us. As the Parellis are so fond of saying "It is not about the ...". In this case "..." is mounting.

Friday 8 April 2011

Ouch

Just time for a session with Billy tonight. Filly is now getting out in a field for a few hours each day so I feel less pressure to entertain her every day !
Outdoor school for a change so preparation had to be very thorough on the zone 3 driving game following the rail. All went well until we got to the usual spooky corner where he jumped sideways into me and landed on my right foot "OUCH". He hit the end of the rope turned and approached the spooky spot with an inqusitive face. This was just as well as I was hanging on the fence trying not to swear. I am pleased to report that I never blamed or got angry with him. It wasn't his fault afterall, he was just frightened and I was in the way.
Next time round he snorted and moved sideways and carried on past. Next time he just ignored it.
The rest of the pre ride plan was going reasonably well. There was a sticky bit with doing the girth up. He kept moving backwards and this took sometime to correct. I tried several tactics including helping him go backwards further than he wanted to, or making him take two steps forwards for one back etc. Eventually we got an acceptable standstill, but not great. More work needed.
Mounting was very very challenging. Ritchie suggested I mount from the ground instead of the mounting block. Having got my foot in the stirrup and bounced round to face the front I started to stand up. He EXPLODED. Big bucking fit, the lot. A more energetic Billy than I had seen before. This surprised me as the Standstill during the plan was going very well, with me bumping into his side, swinging my leg up, bouncing up and down etc. Over the next ten minutes we had lots of excitement with several more bolts when I was half mounted. Fortunately I always managed to get off and land on my feet. I tried to stay on and bend him to a stop but failed each time.
Eventually I gave up on trying to actually mount and just concentrated on getting him happy with my leg being in the stirupp and me bouncing up and down. This was eventually achieved and I felt I had limited the damage done by the mounting attempts.
I still wanted to ride, so having got him relaxed and calm again went to the mounting block. It would have been easy to be out focussed by the previous events, but horses live in the moment. He was now standing very relaxed with his head down and eyes soft so I saw no reason not to ride. He willingly came over to the block and stood next to me in the mounting position. With such a clear invite I got on with no problems at all. Even the initial standstill was better than before. Follow the rail was the task again. He gave the spooky corner a wide birth the first time. I did not force the issue and as a result each lap got closer and closer until eventually we stopped and rested right in the corner. A few circles rounded of a good ride. I also made a point of getting off in the spooky spot and releasing the girth there. I want to make the spooky spot the sweet spot.
I won't be able to play for a while now. We have two days at the UK Parelli Celebration and then I have 6 days work, including 3 days in Hyderabad. Plenty of time to watch DVDs and read. Maybe the odd curry as well !!

Thursday 7 April 2011

Better ride on Billy

Another good day with Billy. Plan went to plan so to speak and I remembered to include zone 3 driving again as preparation for follow the rail. The sun was setting and glaring down the school so I was expecting problems and to be honest there were a few in the online driving. I made the sunny end the place of rest and after a few laps he was seeking out that corner.
After mounting the lateral flexions were much improved, but still a brace of his neck and a tendency to nibble my boot on the left. I also did some nine step backup which worked really well. Indirect rein was not as soft today but acceptable.
Initially asking for follow the rail he was not happy at all to go towards the sun, so rather than just fight I redirected his energy across the school, and when we had some momentum then asked to go towards the sun. Still hesitant but by maintaining my focus on the spot I wanted to go to we made it, albeit via the middle of the school, not the rail. Next time round was better and the next near perfect.
The power of focussing on the destination never ceases to amaze me but it does take discipline and confidence to achieve when there is an unconfident horse prancing about under you. It is so hard to not break focus and look at them. You must keep all your bodies energy pointing towards the required spot. Should you break focus, of course, you will increase the horses anxiety as they will feel they do not have a proper leader directing them. It really helps to have a helper in this situation to make sure you maintain focus. Ritchie had to remind me at least twice today !!
As an exercise in improving Billy's inclination to follow my focus we also did some more figure 8 and point to point patterns. All went pretty well and he only head butted the wall once today proving even Billy has a learning curve.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Billy Improves by using Liberty.


Another day and another ride on Billy. After the last ride I felt I had to work on Billy's confidence issues. One of the best Savvys to do this in is Liberty (playing on the ground with no lead rope). I was fairly confident this would go ok, but had only done one session at liberty with Billy before.

After entering the indoor school much to his surprise I just let him loose. To get him used to the sensation I allowed him to wander wherever he wanted to go and investigate the school. Trying to approach him however he looked unconfident which surprised me as he is so confident near me when online. The key now was not to panic, in a training sense, just give him time to work it out. As he was happy at a distance I asked for circling game and was rewarded with some pretty energetic circling around the edge of the school. I really tried to match energy here, but not in the way you think. I wanted to get our combined energy to 10 and he was at 9 so I had to go to 1. Just standing in the middle of the school did the trick after a couple of minutes. The mad rush slowly morphed into the prettiest trot on a 22 foot circle I could have wished for. His energy had dropped now so I could bring mine up a bit and did so by asking for direction changes. Again his energy exploded to a 9 and I dropped back to a snooze as he worked throught his issues. To cut a long story short we went through this cycle 3 or 4 times at the end of which he suddenly really relaxed and could focus on me.
Now we could start liberty properly, and what a session we had. For what was really a first go he was spectacular. Circles were now confident and controlled, even changing gait was not a big issue. YoYo was great on the backup, but initially hesitant on the draw. If he got stuck I just drove zone 1 around a fraction to unstick his feet, or zone 4 if he was standing crooked, then asked for the draw again. That worked a treat and soon he was coming to within a couple of feet of me.
We then moved onto “Stick to Me”, a bit like heel work with a dog. For this I tend to use a carrot stick with a plastic bag on the end as an aid. To start with he tended to pass me by as I stopped, but a quick shake of the bag in front of zone 1 soon corrected that resulting in very accurate stops at my side. We even did stick to me at trot and, with me running very hard, canter. Again all transitions were very accurate and easy.
I did try figure 8 at Liberty, but that was pushing things a bit too quickly and I soon gave up. He wasn't being disobedient, just could not work out what I wanted.
All in all a really fun session. The attention he gave me as I put him in his stable suggested he had fun to which to me is more important than getting results as it builds rapport which will translate into a better session the next day.

The next evening it was time to ride again with Ritchie along to help. The preparation work went really well but this time I made a point of doing lots of zone 3 driving around the edge of the school. One of my errors during the last ride was not to do this prior to mounting thus breaking my rule of simulating on the ground what I am going to do when riding.
On mounting he did move backwards a few steps, so lateral flexion was used until he stopped. This needed to be done anyway and is slowly improving. Getting him to bring his head round is easy, getting him to stop chewing my boot is hard.
Once settled with a nice standstill is was back to follow the rail again. This time with no sun in his eyes and after the proper preparation it was a joy. Many fewer directional corrections are needed now, he just sticks to the rail. As for maintaining the walk he rarely breaks gait. If he does the slightest reminder is all that is usually needed. To stop all I do is relax my body and exhale to get an almost military stop, no need for lateral flexion or anything else. I made a point of stopping at identifiable points, such has at the letter half way along the wall, or right in a corner to avoid him making the assumption that we always turn at a corner.
To prevent him getting bored I added in the point to point pattern. In this pattern we follow the rail until we get to a dressage letter on the wall. At this point we turn 90 degrees and head straight across the school until re approach the opposite wall going straight at it. Just as we get there I ask for a stop and we rest. This gives him a known point at which he is going to rest. Allows us to practise our walk to halt, and takes him away for the “safety net” of the rail so that he has to pay more attention to my directional cues. On one memorable occasion I asked for stop a little late but he kept straight until he lightly head butted the wall. Now that is obedience, but a bit low on IQ.
We had several cones out so finished with some figure 8 pattern. A little difficult to start as he was frustrated by me continually asking for a direction change, but he soon settled down. Ritchie asked if I was using leg at all on the corners which I wasn't. Next corner I used a little inside leg to push him around, but was rewarded with a very nice indirect rein hind quarter disengagement to a halt. So light I barely felt my foot on his side, but as it was what I had inadvertently asked for I rewarded him by getting off. Session over.

Filly
Just a quick note on Filly about something I am rather proud her for. We have been doing lots of Liberty recently just to give her a sense of fun in life. To cut a long story short I was practising Liberty sideways, and making a mess of it. She kept turning away from me and just walking on with me behind. It suddenly occurred to me I was in the perfect zone 5 driving spot, but at Liberty, with my carrot stick/bag. Would she respond to zone 5 driving. You bet. Using the stick and bag to direct by driving her nose around (she is short !!) we did lots of nice manoeuvres including figure 8, circling, follow the rail. Not something I had ever planned on being able to do but she just offered it.

Sunday 3 April 2011

A tale of two Billys

Two more rides on Billy, one very good, one .... challenging.
First the good one.
This was two evening ago. I arrived at the yard and waited for the outdoor school to become free. When it was all the kit was taken out to the school followed by Billy. We ran through the normal plan and in the prepare to ride section I was particularly working on maintaining gait and transitions as we want to start trotting very soon. Transition walk to trot is very easy, but getting him to go trot to walk is way more difficult. If I have asked for the transition to trot I go very slowly through the phases to get the walk again, but this still often arrives at a good deal of commotion in phase 3. If however he breaks the walk gait and trots without my asking then I go straight to phase 2/3 matching the energy he has broken gait with. This was getting results, but then another rider came in to do some jumping. Two jumps were set up and she then cantered around the outside of the school (with the odd spook in one corner). This was fine by me as it gave me the opportunity to make sure Billy was listening to me, not the other horse. However the rider was upset by my "rope wriggling" and it became obvious that I had to leave.
We moved into the indoor school and after a few minutes of preparation work in this new environment I mounted. The ride was brilliant. Follow the rail was a breeze with very few stops. As a result there is very little to report. Even the indirect rein was much better especially so if I was very light on the rein and concentrated on body position and leg aids.
Ride two.
As I suggested at the beginning this was not nearly as good. Again there were riders outdoors and so I went to the indoor school, confident that after the previous ride in there all would be well. Again preparation went pretty well, transitions a tad easier. At the risk of showing a loss of focus I should mention that as I mounted the sun was setting and shining full on into the school through wooden slatting. As soon as I mounted it became obvious that Billy was not at all happy to move towards the setting sun, which to be fair was blinding. Lateral flexions were however very good so I was confident I could stop him if required. Asking for walk the rail towards the sun resulted in lots of little bucks and stamping of the front feet in a real tantrum. I tried this for around 10 minutes but it was obvious that we were not going to go towards the sun without putting a huge amount of pressure on him which I did not wish to do.
I was now in a difficult spot. I did not want to get off until I could get him left brain confident again, but was also confined to a small section of the school. Fortunately I had a couple of cones there and so set about utilising them. After just walking back and forward in the shady end for a while I started doing small circles around one of the cones. This is a pattern he knows well on the ground so after around 4 or 5 laps I could feel him relax and soften. There being two cones I then centred the circle on the second one which was closer to the sun. A few laps of unconfident behaviour and then he was fine again. To keep things progressing and interesting I then moved to figure of 8 pattern around the cones. Of course this meant a short straight line towards the sun with more confidence issues. Once he realised I was not going to push him past his threshold (about half way down the school) he softened yet again. We also did some more practise with the 9 step backup, which is getting very good, and indirect rein with which I achieved a full turn for the first time with no biting on his part.
Upon dismounting I removed the saddle and gave him a quick rub, but this was not lesson over. I needed to get his confidence at the spooky end so we did several laps of zone 3 driving which revealed the problem yet again. Zone 3 driving was continued until we got three nice follow the rail circuits on each rein.
I should have done this before riding of course, but made a mistake by not doing so. Then again as Mark Rashid says "it is only really a mistake if you don't learn from it".

Friday 1 April 2011

More sideways with Filly

Having flown in from Calgary I was feeling a little tired yesterday so just had a bit of fun with Filly. More sideways on a circle was the aim of the day.
Circles don't all have to be large of course. I did repeat some of the previous sessions exercises on a 22 foot rope, getting her to go sideways such that she could avoid going over a pole, but also added in some very close sideways. This is almost like asking for a hind quarter yield, but continuously such that she goes in a circle around me whilst facing me at all times. I used the driving game with the carrot stick on the hind quarters and made a Savvy breakthrough for me. I found that rather than just waving the stick randomly at the hind legs if I timed the stick so that it approached the hind legs as she crossed the nearest leg to the stick through it made way more sense to her. Obvious really, and I have seen Pat getting his timing right on DVDs but never really appreciated how important it was.
I also started on getting her to sidepass whilst walking next to her. This has two purposes. First it will help her to yield to pressure and not invade humans space and second it will be the start of all the sideways movements she will need to do when ridden. I was surprised how quickly she picked this up.
Using the same pole I had previously been using for sideways on the circling game I lead her, with me in zone one, towards the pole and stopped as we got there. Then I turned just my head, not my shoulders, to focus over the top of her neck in the direction I wish to go. I then crossed my legs over towards her and at the same time used my shoulder to ask for a fore quarter yield. My outside hand had my carrot stick held out horizontally behind me. This made me in to a "long body". I could then gently drive the hind quarters sideways with very light taps on the hips. With the pole providing a visual cue I was surprised when after just a few minutes she understood what I wanted and neatly side passed with me. This is just the start of course. We have only done it in one direction, and eventually I want to get away from using the both the pole and the stick. The ultimate is to get her to move her front legs in time with mine, but this might be a while !!