Finally!

After a pretty solid week of Starbuck doing really good groundwork and the sun shining long enough to dry out the footing in the roundpen, I finally was ready to ride her again today!  So before lunch I took her out to longe for a little while on the scary side of the arena and work on her spooking, then after lunch I ran out to saddle her up for a little ride.  At first I was supernervous - I hadn't ridden her in so long and at first she was NOT happy about it, but my friend Virginia reminded me to do my breathing exercises (breathe in three counts, breathe out six counts) and relax my upper body and we both started enjoying the ride.  We worked on turns with some coaching from my friends - I've been pulling my hand too far away from her neck which overflexes her and leads her to stop midway through the turn so a little advice helped us out a lot.

After about 10 minutes in walk, I pulled out my crop, took up a little more contact and asked her politely for trot (fully expecting to need to have to use heavy side-kicking and the crop to get her to do so).  And what do you know?  She went right into a nice trot without even having to kick her once!  At first she was a little rebellious about staying with it and even tried a couple of bounces, but nothing serious and she quieted down really quickly.  I'd much rather she rebel in a controlled environment sooner rather than later, and figure out fast that it doesn't tend to get her what she wants.

One of the things Virginia suggested was for me to just THINK about her hindquarters while I was trotting to see if we could get some of her weight off her shoulders, which I'm pretty sure I could feel working (although with all this thinking about hindquarters I forgot to think about where we were going and the circle turned into a pear!).  But it was super interesting nonetheless.

After all that, we just did some work around cones, doing some cloverleaf patterns, walk to stop transitions and finally a little rein-back.  All in all a really nice ride and in the end I feel like the past month hasn't been wasted after all.  And to reward her when our ride had ended, Virginia and I took Starbuck and Coco on a grazing walk where we ran into some supercute goats!  Starbuck was great on the walk too, she didn't freak out or act up at all.  I can't believe my luck today and know she won't always be this way, but I feel renewed faith in my abilities as a trainer.

The video is only for folks who are really interested in our progress or superbored, but I hope you enjoy the goat photos!

Thanks girl for a wonderful day!

Heartbeats

Thanks to ChestOfBooks.com for the image!

Starbuck and I had a very good groundwork session today-- the footing in the roundpen was finally more or less dry and it was a bright sunny day (albeit super windy).  But most of all we just had a really solid connection today. I've been working on using non-verbal cues for transitions (using first my focus, then body language, then stepping up the body language and finally accompanying the body language with a verbal cue if none of the above works).  The idea is that instead of her having to learn to speak my language, I try to "speak" hers.  Today I didn't have to use any words at all, she was tuned in enough to me to follow my lead!

I also have been accompanying her when roundpenning by walking about 4 feet away from her as she goes around the pen - the first few times we tried it she freaked out a little and didn't like me so close to her while she was working.  I think she must have seen it as micromanaging at first, but she's now realized that it's just something we do sometimes and today did really well.  At first she tried to veer away from the fence towards me, but I flicked the string of my whip at her shoulder a few times and she got the picture.  She did so well we even escalated to changing reins across the round pen while maintaining speed and rhythm.  All of this interspersed with lots of breaks where we worked on standing tied, pivots on the hind- and forequarters and the "come here" cue.

Anyhow the best part of the session was at the very end when I gave her a long, long rubdown complete with a face massage to reward her for such a fabulous job.  At the end, I gave her a hug and pressed my face against her neck and realized that I could hear her heart beating.  It was slow, much slower than I would expect.  Maybe because she's so big?  Anyhow it completely mesmerized me and I just let my whole being tune into her being, the sound of her heart beating and her breath whooshing through her throat and the smell and feel of her coat against my face and the weight of her jaw resting on top of my head.

An amazing moment I hope I never forget and can often repeat.

For all those science geeks out there, here are some links on the equine heart:

• The Equine Heart: Anatomy, Function and Performance
• Cardiology: The Equine Heart

Random Conformation Pics

My little girl is growing-- she's getting wider and heavier and starting to really develop some muscle, so when I saw her standing almost square on Sunday (albeit a little underneath herself) I decided to snap some conformation shots.

Then when I saw the fantastic offer on Fugly for horse portraits yesterday, I got her all purtied up with a Spanish braid and took some headshots as well: