Skyfaxa or Shadowfax?

Continuing our little and often approach with Sky seems to be doing the trick. Ali has been doing a little bit of work with her a few times a week and we have now progressed to totally bridleless riding. We've done plenty just at walk to start with, and as there's nothing on her head to brace against, she seems to be more relaxed......

Then yesterday we decided to try a trot and see if things changed. Usually, any increase in pace brings with it an increase in stress and anxiety, and fairly often a tendency to bog off, but this time, she was really listening.....even when she got a bit distracted by the dog!

So we will continue to build on this, as long as the weather allows (still no sign of the indoor school being finished). Ali says Sky seems more relaxed and attentive with nothing on her head. And Ali must be pleased, she even broke into a smile :-)

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.