DAY 27-28: Well,
the barn name “Brody” seems to have stuck. He hears the names and comes to meet
us (most of the time) when we call him so…Brody it is. It is sometimes hard to
remember that he has been with us less than a month! We have really tossed him
in the deep end this season! We suspect he has been more active in that several
weeks than he has in the last couple of years. Still, he seems to enjoy the
mental and physical activity and always seems willing to try. Our challenges
have been (in order of priority) getting the right balance of weight
(muscle/fat) on his frame, getting his feet balanced and healthy, increasing
his strength/stamina and working through the Fundamental level of the Method.
Our exercise challenges have been (on the ground) Yielding the Forequarters,
Circle Driving on the right side and proper targeting of Flexing. In these
exercises he would probable get a C grade. Still he is improving (and my
feel/timing is getting better too –grin). Under saddle we work on his brakes
with the One Rein Stop and his steering wheel with Follow the Fence (along with
some other drills). His stop is something that seems to need the most work as I
have set the bar at rating my seat. He will stop when you lift and pull back
slightly on one reign (better on the left than the right) but he mostly misses
the seat cue. So, the focus is to make the cue exaggerated and do it MANY
times. Follow the Fence has been hard until recently because the public arena
in Somerset has
been a swamp at the rails. On the up side, he is able to trot longer than in
previous training sessions and relaxes on the loose reign without speeding up
(which is SO nice). He is beginning to pick up the seat/leg cues better and
when corrections with the reins are needed he is pretty light and is not over
correcting as much.
I have to remember that he was a family horse for the last
six years and while he most definitely was loved he was not on a regimented
training program with goals and standards. So in essence he is learning a new
language and new standards which cannot be easy for him. Sweat happens
regularly…but so does love, scratches, rubs and cookies! It is all about
balance.
We
introduced a new element to Brody today (Day 27)…barding! Barding is like a
blanket and was used in the middle ages to protect the horse in battle and to
dress them up for occasions like parades and tournaments. Brody’s barding is
fairly light and hangs almost to his knees. We put it on him without any fuss
and did some groundwork in the round pen and pasture for about 30 minutes. He
did fine and it didn’t seem t bother him at all. The next step will be to tack
him up and do the process again followed by some riding (if all goes well. Why
use barding as part of the training process? Laurie and I are part of a living
history group and when horses are a focal point we dress them up and run
various gymkhana style games with them (along with ACTHA trail challenges and
other activities). Medieval clothing on Brody’s human will also happen in the
near future!
We went to a new place! Our pass to the El Dorado County
Fairgrounds Equestrian
Park came today (Day 28).
The arena has lights and a cover so now rain or darkness won’t be a road block!
We got to the arena last night about 5:30pm. It was already dark out. Once
unloaded from the trailer, Brody seemed a bit excited. So after checking his
feet we did some groundwork to calm him down and get him focused.
Grooming and tacking happened. Brody is a bit “cinchy”
especially when tied up. He dances about a bit. He has some saddle spots on his
back so we assume he was cinched up a bit harshly in is past. We are working on
this by bending his head towards the cinch and girthing in stages followed by
praise and rubs. It is getting better but it is going to be a process. Once
that was done we entered the arena and started on our ground work. At the time
there was one other person in the large arena so we got to the middle and did
our usual routine. We always get looks from other horsemen/horsewomen when we
do our exercises. Curiosity I guess. Once the horses (Argent was here too of
course) we saddled up. The footing was really nice! The lighting cast some
unusual shadows and made it hard to see past the rail which led to some
corrections during Follow the Fence. Just as we were getting started two other
folks showed up. We found out that on Wednesdays folks ca practice barrels and
bring out obstacles. Well these two horsewomen bring out their mounts who are
already revved up and proceed to trot and lope all over the place with little
regard to where we were. It felt kind of rude but we stuck to our program and
tried to stay out of the way and we walked and trotted along. The one gal
decides, unannounced, to run a barrel pattern, just as Brody and I pass through
to the middle of the arena in order to get out of the other gal’s way who was
cantering about without much control. Sigh. So I put on my” martial arts
teacher/stern face” and trotted over to Rude Gal #1 and mentioned that if she
would announce that she is going to do a run we can move out of the way…unless
she can’t control her mount long enough to allow us to give her room. That
seemed to fix the issue. We won’t even get into the cigarette smoking in the
arena issue. I think my “really?” comment shut that down quickly. Brody did
well all in all. It was apparent that he knew what barrels were (he had be
doing them when he was 3-4 years old according to the last owners) and thought
he was supposed to run them. We discussed the matter and he was allowed to trot
around them a bit. He felt better after having got the impulse out of his
system. When the gals did a run we parked ourselves in a corner to watch. We
did lots of trotting in this session which was nice. Brody’s had a legitimate
spook and slip (I stayed on –no unauthorized dismounts around the rude people)
so we walked and trotted past the scary place and he calmed right down (I think
it was one of the feral cats moving under a tarp just at the edge of the
lighted area). Later as we were doing some direction changes at the trot, his
right rear leg slipped/gave out a bit. He recovered quickly but I took that as
a signal that it was time to cool down. We lapped the arena at the walk a
couple of times, went to the center, backed up and dismounted to watch Laurie
and Argent work. We did some stretches and Leading Beside to keep Brody’s
limber. We left the arena a little after 8:00pm. All in all it was a good
session.
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