In-hand clinic

Had a nice morning with my friend and trainer Trudi Dempsey at the Swang Pony Centre and a lovely little pony called Alice. She is 7, but pretty much untouched. I went to meet her as she was tied up waiting to start work and she really didn't seem keen on people in general, and me in particular! It's so easy to forget that not all horses are trusting like mine......She was OK with me scratching her neck, but wasn't at all keen on me going further back than her shoulder, and any move towards the rear end was met with a sharp step away!

Anyway, we took her into the school, she really wasn't at all reassured to start with. We swapped her rope headcollar (which was one of those ones that tightens over the nose) for a sidepull, and then had a look at her conformation and how she moved. As with most cobs, she is solidly built and so probably wouldn't find it as easy to flex and bend as a finer, larger horse. She was also very tense in the neck, due to her anxiety about the total strangers in charge of her.

Trudi started by showing me how to do some simple neck flexions, just asking her gently to move her head first to one side, then the other. It was immediately apparent that she found this easier to the left. I led her around to see if she would stop and start when I did (bit sticky at first, but she soon started looking to follow me) and back up (needed quite a lot of energy the first time, but she quickly got the idea).

Then I had to combine the asking for bend with moving forwards. Again, she was pretty quick on the uptake, and after a very short time she was lowering her head and the tension in the neck was lessening. We worked on flexions both towards and away from me, and stopping with the slightest lift of the rein. She was very responsive. When she got a bit "stuck" I was able to change the bend to the other side and she would carry on walking.

I was very impressed by how quickly she decided to trust me and let me move her around. At first she didn't want me anywhere but where she could keep both eyes on me, so we had to start with leading from the front, but she soon realised that it would be OK to let me stand by her shoulder instead. However, the back end is still a no-go area, that will need more time I think!

By the end of the hour, we had a far more relaxed pony who was starting to step under with her hinds as we circled and was stopping, backing up and moving off from the lightest of signals. She lowered her head of her own accord and accepted scratches and strokes on her poll and ears. There were a few yawns too! I turned her out in the field next door and she promptly wandered over to the other ponies and went for a lie down. Lessons are obviously  hard work ;-)

Trudi took some video so I could see what her feet were doing. As you can see, at the start, we got stuck a few times. It's amazing how little bend you need to get those hinds really stepping under the body.

After that we stayed to watch some other lessons. There was another in-hand lesson with this rather gorgeous chap

......and a ridden lesson which was very interesting. The horse was falling in to the inside when circling and spiralling but with the simple addition of some outside bend when on the long side of the arena, it helped the horse support itself better in the bends.

What was really interesting was that the rider started off thinking she needed a lot more rein contact to get the horse to listen to her but when Trudi showed her that less is more and how to lengthen the reins a bit the horse seemed a lot more relaxed and responsive.

 

So a great morning and lots of things to take home and try with my lot :-) And hopefully we can get Trudi to come and do a clinic at the new yard now we've got somewhere to work.......two of my new fellow liveries came along to watch today and found it very interesting :-)

More practise.....

Another little session this week doing the stuff from the Western clinic. Sky really wasn't wanting to be with Ali at first and wanted to be back with the herd (presumably so she could get back to flirting with the boys). So when Ali got on bareback with just the lead rope, she was having real difficulty getting her attention!

If she'd been in her usual tack, and with schooling whip, Ali could have forced her to pay attention and move away from the gate. Not so easy with just a headcollar, it really showed her how much she relies on her tack! So she got off and went back to groundwork. Sky was just doing her own thing, so Ali needed to get her attention, which she did (sorry about the blurry pic, only had my phone with me)

After that, when it was clear that Ali wasn't going to give up and go away, she decided to cooperate for a while......

I showed her some of the leading from behind technique we'd done with Adam Shereston, that seemed to go quite well, Sky was willing to be "led" away from the herd....

And after we'd finished and took her lead rope off, she didn't immediately get her head down to the grass or wander back to the gate as I thought she would, but stayed with us for few minutes, just standing (and thinking?)

So she got lots of scratches :-)

Putting things into practise.....

Had a little session today trying some of the stuff from the Honest Horsemanship clinic last week. Sky was trying to go off ahead of Ali when we fetched them from the field and was generally not taking much notice of her or me, so I started by showing Ali the disengaging the quarters, then I did the kicking backwards when she got too close. I didn't need to touch her at all, but it certainly got her attention, this is the pic Ali took just after!

Left Ali to do some stuff with her, and I moved on to G. Who decided he didn't want to do anything except eat and actually raised his back legs at me! So I swung his quarters around and got him moving how I wanted him to. Was very surprised to be honest, but maybe shouldn't be, my fault for neglecting his groundwork.....

Next we moved on to the mounted stuff, planking and all ;-)

 (obviously I had to cheat and go up to the yard to use the mounting block )

Mr G was good as gold after his "telling off". Then we went for a hack (with saddles)

Going to play with this stuff some more :-)

Tellington Touch

Went to a talk about this today, to find out what it's all about. Very interesting, and we only really scratched the surface. If you've never heard of this, you can read all about it here

Basically the aim is to decrease tension and resistance in horses by, well, touching them. There are many different touches, with bizarre names such as the Python Lift and the Clouded Leopard. More on those here. It combines these with groundwork to relax horses and help them use their body better. Also effective with dogs, cats and humans, apparently!

The speaker was Danielle Dibbens who is based in the Charente, would be interesting to get her to come and look at our lot sometime. I am going to find out more about it and give it a try, especially for Gandalf as sometimes he is very stiff, poor old boy.......

We were given an article written by another TTouch instructor, you can read it here. A lot of this makes sense to me, quite a bit of it is stuff I have been saying for ages, like what people see as "misbehaviour" in horses is often a lack of understanding -  the horse not understanding what the handler wants and the handler not understanding why the horse behaves as he does. I especially like the "candles" metaphor........and in the end, it all improves your relationship with your horse and enables trust between you, which is the most important thing for me.

Practising.....

....what we learned at the weekend. As Sky and Kinna are currently down at Tanya's where there's a round pen. Ali got Kinna in, and worked on getting her attention, which was OK to start with:

But Kinna is hard work, even Eric said that the other day, and this next bit clearly shows what happens if the horse realises you don't MEAN what you're doing, and they always do know!! (it also shows why you shouldn't teach your own kids, I get so impatient, Eric is much nicer to her..... )

So I had to take over, and she decided to be bit, um, uncooperative......that's teenagers for you.

So we went to plan B for Ali and got Sky.....she is a much more cooperative kind of horse so although Ali still had problems keeping her attention, she got there in the end with no silly behaviour!

After that I had her sit on for a bit and just do nothing. Then every time she moved of her own accord, Ali clicked her tongue so we can hopefully start her learning that this is the cue for moving under saddle as well as on the ground......

Ali was still sitting on her when Tess and Caitlin arrived on Fina and Chester and Sky was so cool about that, Kinna was bombing about like a loony in the field.

So top marks to Sky, Kinna gets "could do better....."

Bag on a stick......

Tried this last week with Seraphina, she wasn't too sure at first

but she soon decided it wasn't going to eat her......

And some video here

Great session with Chezza today.....

After being a star at the rallye on Sunday, I did some more with Ches today. We can now stop without touching his mouth at all, and we can stand still without fidgeting.....he is just starting to realise that he doesn't have to fight the bit all the time, today I really felt like he was "listening" to my hands for the first time. I think he has been hauled about by his mouth in the past which is why he keeps trying to snatch the reins, he always puts his head straight down whenever he stops and it's become a habit now, even when you have little or no contact....


Here's a little video We did some walk trot transitions too and he wasn't too bad at those either.

Then I made Tanya get on and he was a good boy for her too, another video
He doesn't like the round pen much though, I think he finds it pointless, he's very forward going out on a hack and seems generally more interested in what's going on. So we are going to do more rides and rallyes with him as he seemed to enjoy himself on Sunday!

After that I did a bit of groundwork, seeing if he's do a turn on the forehand for the Interdressage test, he does strange things with his feet sometimes, at one point he was standing with his hind legs crossed like he does in this video

He does have a funny way of going sometimes, he seems to drag his hinds at the trot and really rolls his hips from side to side, maybe it's the way he's built? The long back and short legs......

Here's a video of him freeschooling.

Anyway, he's a funny little character, and I think he's going to make a nice little cheval de randonée, he's so cool out and about, today on the campsite Tanya's dad was burning a load of tree branches and using a chainsaw and he never turned a hair.........

Love him.....