Two Days One Post

I haven't posted in a while but I have ridden a couple of times. I would have ridden more, but I managed to throw myself down the stairs, I'm not the least bit klutzy am I?
So the first time I rode this week was windy, which he hates, but I'm sick of waiting for the wind to stop before I ride. So he wasn't great, he objected a little bit but he did everything that I asked for. Someone gave me the tip of putting Vick's on his nose, well I didn't have any of that but I did have some Calm Coat which has a strong lavender and eucalyptus scent. So I put a little bit of that on a paper towel and rubbed it over his muzzle and a little bit inside, but only on the dark skin not the moist pink skin, I thought that might hurt. That really did seem to help with the snorts.
The day I feel down the stairs I decided to just free lunge him. He trotted and cantered in both directions, so I decided to send him over some barrels. He did really well, he went over single barrels laid on their sides, two barrels on their sides, then I lined them up so that he had to go over the length of the barrels, he did that too!! With no refusals!
I rode yesterday, not for long tho because he just didn't seem himself. We walked and trotted, did circles, but that was all. I didn't know what was different but I didn't want to push it. I figure he was just having an off day.

Tomorrow

OK, so what I hope to achieve tomorrow. If it's windy, which I'm kind of hoping for, I am going to try out a few suggestions and ideas. When it's windy he tends not to listen to me, I think I've mentioned that before. So the suggestions I had were to put Vick's on his nose, so he can't smell any new and scary things, and cotton in his ears so he can't hear anything scary. My idea is to over do the distractions, so I bought some speakers for my MP3 player, which is loaded with everything from Korn to Josh Groban, and I have a sleigh bell collar that I've lunged him in before. So I'm going to hang the bells round his neck and crank up the tunes, he'll either get a clue and tune into me as opposed to everything around me, or I will see just how high he can jump! The rails around the arena are about 3'9. But seriously, what I really want tomorrow, is to have a good schooling session where he listens to me are we get something accomplished.

Gotta love a MudBall!

I didn't ride yesterday, it's been raining here for the past couple of days and whent i went out to get him he was a total MudBall, I just didn't feel like going thru a hour long grooming session, just to fight with him for an hour.
So I rode the other, semi-normal horse. At least she's normally normal. Not yesterday. Yesterday the local boogey man, who normally hangs out in puddles, had decided to take up residence under the bridge that has to be crossed to go on a trail ride. Now it's not a wooden bridge or anything that makes noise, it's tarmac over a small piece of concrete pipe, so the stream can continue. I tried everything, circles, backing, I made her canter in the field next to me, everything. Finally I resorted to using twings and cornstalks as crops, that didn't work either, normally this horse sees a crop in her space and she Goes, but not yesterday. I finally resorted to the old hop off, lead her across, get back on trick. That worked. The rest of the ride was fine. So coming back we have to go across the bridge again, she hot footed it that time, I'm thinking only because she knew she was going home.
Still even a bad ride is still a ride!

Attack of the Barrel Monster

Ok, it’s pretty bad when your great and mighty plans barely make it out of the starting gate!! I rode Friday and Saturday and didn’t get a chance either day to type what happened or my plans for the next day. So here I go now. Friday wasn’t that bad, it was a little bit windy, which by the by Himself HATES!! So I took him out figured I would go for about a half hour of his attention then call it a day. He was good to start then he decided that barrels I was using for figure 8’s were going to eat him. He’d already gone around them a few times. Ok, that wasn’t so bad; I convinced him he was not going to be eaten. So then he decides that the black barrel was going to eat him, oh joy. So I hopped down and re-introduced him to the stupid barrel. After that things went just fine.

So, Saturday it was calm, that is until I went to get him from the field, and then the wind kicks up. So I decide that I’m going to try for a few minutes of attention. We’re doing our thing for about five minutes when he decides he doesn’t like the black barrel again, fine whatever, I took him to the other side of the arena. Everything was going good, except the wind, I decided to try introducing him to the barrel again. Not a good idea. Since it had rained the night before the whole top of the barrel was full of water. We were barely five feet away from the barrel, the wind suddenly kicks up, blows over the barrel, sprays the fearless wonder with water, and we end up twenty feet on the other side of the arena. At this point I decided to cut my losses, just tell him he was a good boy and send him back to the relative safety of his pasture!

...And so it begins!

So I’ve had my boy for the past ten years, give or take, and all we’ve really done is hack around the barn occasionally, and done some serious ground work! So I decided that I would like to put some REAL training on him, that’s sort of when I decided to start this. I figured that what I would do is note what we did and what I hoped to achieve the next day. So begins the real training of my OTTB!!!!