Trust

Another excellent post from The Red Mare yesterday, who is the horse at the heart of The Happy Horse book.

It's all about people wanting a quick fix for horses with "problems" and buying gadgets or calmers to try and make them easier to work with.

"No calmer in the world will give you a bond of trust with your horse. If you do not build that bond of trust, day by slow day, there is always going to be a moment when you will find yourself in trouble."

The trust I have been building all these years with my horses has really paid off this weekend. I very rarely ride Sky. I have ridden her maybe half a dozen times in all the years we've had her. But I have done a lot of groundwork with her and general day to day interactions so she knows that I am the one who makes decisions and she also knows that if she gets scared, she can turn to me for help. She does get scared quite a lot. Yesterday she was snorting at a patch of snow on the ground because it was well, white, and it hadn't been there the day before. But I said it was OK and we went past it and it didn't jump up and eat her.

Anyway, a friend had brought her Total Contact saddle over for Ali to try. And after she'd done that, I fancied a go. So I got on Sky, she looked round at me as I was on the mounting block as if to say "Well this doesn't normally happen" but she stood still as I mounted and stood waiting for me to tell her what to do. We rode up and down the lane in walk and trot and she followed all my instructions perfectly. She was calm and relaxed, and amazingly sensitive and supple. She really is a credit to Ali.

Would she have let anyone else do that? Probably not. Our years of building up a trusting relationship really have paid off. And of course I trust her too. She was only wearing a cordeo......

In other news, I rode Tari for the first time ever today. I think she trusts me too :-)

And we're off.......

Some unusual nice weather last weekend saw us off out for a hack with all 3 horses. Decided to put Ali on Tari to see what would happen. Largely, nothing at all, as it turned out........

We went along the little back lane which meant the occasional need to trot on past a car or two, and there was no problem with that. The only real issue was the usual: Tari thought she was only there to eat as much of the grass verge as possible.......

Towards the end, we didn't even bother with the lead rein :-)

And here's a bit of vid, obviously we can totally ignore any attempt to steer if we think we can get over to the side for a munch ;-)

For the first time.....

.....I rode my baby horse yesterday. Wasn't planning to, Ali started out the hack on board, but Sky was being a total brat and it was all about the grass. So we swapped and I got my first ride. My friend Sarah was here and rode Kinna, who was a very good girl.

 We went up the steep grass track somewhat faster than we usually do as the girls seemed to be up for a bit of a race....... G very sensibly took it at a more sedate pace. Then at the top we let them graze and when it was time to move on, Sky really went for it, planting, going backwards, sideways, anything to stay on the grass, even when the others went out of sight. So I had to get off and lead her off. We had a few more grass related arguments along the rest of the ride, but she didn't spook or do anything else silly and didn't seem at all bothered to be carrying me around.

This morning I took her out again with Ali on Gandalf just to consolidate behaviour and we had far less arguing, the worst she did was stop dead a couple of times to see if she could get to the verge. We had a lot going on too, hunters out in force, herds of MAMILs on bicycles, loose dogs, builders with power tools, motorcyclists, a bit of sun and everyone comes out of hibernation!

Funny looking at a pair of spotty ears! She feels too small to me, but so do most horses as I'm used to G. Still not going to ride her regularly til she grows a bit more, but she is very light and responsive, hopefully I can keep her that way.....

Aliénor gets on with it!

Today Ali rode Seraphina for the first time since she fell off her last year. She was a bit apprehensive to start with but once she realised Missy wasn't going to do anything dreadful, she soon relaxed and started enjoying herself!

She even got a bit adventurous......

So after the hack out on the lead rein, we let her loose in the school, and it went very well.

Going to get her working on just listening to her rider, lots of bending, trying to keep her head low. As soon as she goes up a gear she tends to get her head up and stop listening so we'll stick to walking for now.
Here's some video. I love the way Ali sings to her in the woods!