Agility

Sorry guys, this is an old post (from December 9th or so) which I wrote and forgot to post.  But I definitely want to post it to remember the exercises so here goes:

Yesterday (well actually about 18 days ago) was a bank holiday in Spain (immaculate conception day, if you can believe that) and since we had hardly any classes last week due to rain, Marina ignored her no-class-on-Mondays rule and gave a regular riding lesson in the morning and a groundwork agility lesson in the afternoon.  I was too busy flying back from Madrid (a nice trip by the way) to go to the regular lesson but I did make it to the groundwork lesson, and boy am I glad I did - we had a great time and I really got some good advice from Marina to put into practice.

We started out with a little longeing to warm up, and then Marina put us to work on a sort of obstacle course she had put together - we had to stay at any of the "stations" long enough to get the horse to go through it correctly, then move on to another one.  If any of the "stations" got to be easy, we had to up the difficulty level by standing farther away from the horse, or doing it in trot rather than walk.

Here's a diagram of the different stations, the smiley face is the person and the green arrows are where the horse is supposed to go.  Below the diagram is a brief description of each station - all of them were to do in both directions.

1 - Two tires about 3 feet apart inside a square formed by four jump poles (maybe 8 - 9 feet long each).  The person stayed outside the square, the horse inside.  The horse had to make a complete circuit of the square without stepping outside, then change direction through the two tires.  This was incredibly difficult, we only did it well like 3 times.

2 - This was a larger, partially open square made of the blue and yellow cushion-like training bars with two cones placed in each corner.  The person was inside the square, and the horse had to go around the square between the bars and cones, without stepping outside.

3 - This was a simple low crossrails jump using two tires as the standards.

4 - Parallel jump poles in an "L" shape.  The horse had to go between the two poles without stepping outside, with the person outside the poles.  Starbuck and I even did it backwards a few times.

5 - Three pairs of cones for the horse to walk between, with the person walking alongside.  This was really easy until I tried to get farther (like 3 - 4 feet) away from Starbuck, then it was much harder to get her to go through the cones.

6 - Ground poles to go over in a circle.  Using only my dressage whip and not having a longe whip, it was difficult to keep her at a trot, but we ended up figuring it out.

7 - This is a solid "wall" made out of plywood in an elongated pyramid shape for the horses to jump in a circle.

8 - Two tires about 6 feet apart.  The person stood back about 6 feet away from them and had to send the horse in a figure eight between and around the two tires.  We've done this before so it wasn't impossible, but she would still "skip" a tire every now and then.

The main thing I took away from the lesson was that instead of just "ignoring" incorrect responses and trying again, Marina suggests I try really hard to stop Starbuck before she does the wrong thing and re-set it up so she can do the right one.  For instance, going around the figure eight tires, I often have the problem where I "undersend" and she doesn't quite make it around one on one side.  Until now, I've always simply let her finish and then try harder the next time.  But Marina says that if I see she's going to "miss" a tire, I should stop her, back her up if I need to and re-send her - repeating all of this until she does it right.  And I could definitely tell she was thinking about it and trying to work it out when she finally made it through and I was reminded of an article I read way back when I started working with her, about replacing the flight response with a problem-solving mindset so the horse gets in the habit of thinking before it reacts.  I don't remember who wrote it, but it's definitely something to keep in mind when working with Starbuck.

Marina also recommended that instead of just doing 10 minutes of walk to warm up before ridden lessons, I work on some of these exercises to warm up and get Starbuck focused on me.  I think this is a fabulous idea and am going to try to remember to do it!

Here and here are two Facebook videos of the lesson (sorry if the visibility's limited, a friend of mine made it), I definitely hope we do more like this in the future.

Photos! And a couple of trail rides

This post is old because I never got around to uploading the photos until now.  So two weeks ago I used my feminine wiles to convince Sergio to come out and visit Starbuck with me, dropping a casual hint that since I had given her a bath with my special shampoo for black horses she would be very photogenic.  So we ended up with a lovely photo shoot to show off our new and improved relationship, which I'll showcase below.

In other news we had a lovely lesson that Saturday morning including a few low jumps where she showed lots of impulsion and a fair amount of straightness both going in to and coming out of the jumps.  Her trot was much more even as well, especially after she warmed up.  And Sunday I went out on a trail ride with Carmen, another friend from the barn.  I was very proud of us because our two horses had always simply followed more confident horses on trail rides and had never gone out "on their own" before.  Carmen's horse Trueno (that's Spanish for "Thunder") wasn't really up to leading, but neither was he really willing to accept Starbuck as a leader at first.  And Starbuck was pretty sure she didn't want to go in front.  So the first 20 minutes or so were really a struggle, as we fought their urge to turn around and hustle back to the barn and sat out the inevitable spooks passing through "mad dog alley" (this is about a 200 foot stretch of road where the houses on either side seem to have about 8 dogs each who are completely freaked out by horses).  I had to use my crop more than I'm proud of, but hopefully I'll be able to rely on it less next time and really when moving traffic is involved the choice is pretty clear.  My goal for Christmas is to be able to ride without a crop.

Our brand new fancy schmancy reflective saddlepad will hopefully make us more visible to traffic (thanks to Carmen for the pics)

Once Starbuck figured out that I really meant to keep going and not let her take charge, she calmed down and kept up a really nice rhythm (except for a little bit of balking at some big brightly colored trash containers) and led the way for the whole ride.  She even let Trueno trot beside her nicely without any ear pinning or other threats, and kept up a nice even, rhythmic trot with only a slight tendency to turn her head to the left (back towards the stable, not surprisingly).  We even "practiced" walking on the sidewalk in one neighborhood and stepping on and off the curb - no problem!  So all in all I'm pretty proud of myself for persisting and not freaking out when the going got tough and extremely proud of Starbuck for being able to trust me enough to take it all in stride and even be the leader for once.

This week I've been sick, but Sunday we went on another trail ride with Virginia and ended up walking all around a park and going through some "obstacles" (like a kid's jungle gym, a platform for people to do steps on, some low-lying poles...) which was loads of fun and I think a real confidence builder for Starbuck.  The only thing which really freaked her out was a kid on a skateboard, and walking past the racketball courts - so two things to keep in mind to work on.  And yesterday I rode her in a lesson and she was much better with her unevenness / limpy thing.  This weekend she'll get another rest since I'll be out of town, so hopefully we'll finally start seeing some real progress.

Here are the lurvely photos... unfortunately my favorite ones were lost in IT-land but this gives me an even better excuse for Sergio to come and take more ;)

Horsey Bachelorette Party

This weekend I participated in a horsey bachelorette party - I've been tagged in a lot of the photos on Facebook but wanted to "interpret" them on here for those of you who may be interested.  My friends Belén and Cynthia organized it all and I thought it was so original and fun that it needed to be immortalized :)  The blushing bride is my friend and stablemate María José whose wedding is next Saturday.

Since we always have a riding lesson on Saturday morning, we figured it would be easy enough to start the party there and just continue on for the rest of the day.  So while we were saddling up, we called her over and gave her her first test - she had to wear a garter, gloves and a veil during the lesson - doesn't she look cute?!  Lots of cries of "Viva la novia" (long live the bride) ensued, and made our lesson even more fun than usual.  I broke out my helmet cam and my brand new helmet strap Sergio gave me for my birthday (no more ribbons y'all!) and video'd the entire thing which you can see here.

After the lesson we went our separate ways to muck out stalls, groom, mix food and whatnot and then took María José up to the bar for a coke while some of the girls hid the rest of the tests around the stable.  Basically each test was tied to something around the stableyard with a ribbon and had the test itself as well as a clue as to the whereabouts of the next test enclosed in a brightly colored envelope.  First she had to succeed at the test and then she could read the clue to get to the next test.  The tests were organized as though she were preparing for her wedding - so the first one was "practice wearing your veil".

So once everything was in place, we called her back and gave her the clue to find her next test (rehearse the procession), which was that she had to make the stable's star stallion Chad walk with her 5 steps.  This was easily accomplished with the help of a few carob beans.  Then we all trooped to the paddock of Compay, the horse María José leases, where she had to "make sure they were soulmates and prove their complicity" by convincing him to lift one of his front feet for ten seconds (this is a "begging" habit he has which María José tends to scold him for).  At first it seemed like it wouldn't come off, but with Marina's advice she was able to get him to hold up first his right leg for a count of five, then he switched legs and held up the left one for another count of five.

She then had to prepare a "special meal" for "her guests" (in this case a couple of ponies) using three different kinds of feed which they had to eat up completely - this wasn't much of a test since we honestly don't have any very picky horses at the stable.  Then, since our stable's in an old orange grove, she had to find three oranges "since they've run out at the bar and can't make any more cocktails".  They weren't ripe yet so we just let her point three out to us.

Her next test was to "make all her guests feel welcome" and get the two potbellied pigs at the stable to come to her and stay still long enough for a photo, at first she was a little worried since they tend to be really screechy (the horses certainly seem to think they're carnivorous monsters) and she thought they might not be very tame but they are sweet, if morbidly obese, pigs and behaved very well.  She didn't even need food to get them to come to her.  After that, she had to "get the party started" by leading us all in a disastrous conga line to the parking lot where her next clue awaited.

Then we had an even sillier test - María José had to "make sure the party was jumping" by giving each of us a number from one to ten and then we had to invent a jumping course one by one to do on foot.  In other words, person # 1 (yours truly, thank God) had to choose one obstacle to jump, then person # 2 had to jump the first obstacle and then choose another one, then person # 3 had to jump the first two and choose yet another one and so on and so forth.  And once all of us had gone, the bride had to jump all of them as well as another of her choosing.  We had lots of fun imitating the horses we normally ride, with bucks, spooks, zigzagging before the jumps, etc.... although it was around 90º and superhumid so most people got over those kinds of capers after about the 4th jump ;)  It did make us all a little more aware of what we ask our horses to do for us in the summertime.

The last test was to "immortalize the moment" by arranging all her guests with the ribbons that had come with each test to make the outline of a horse - as you can see this was easier said than done especially since once again, it was like 90º out and humid, and staying in the sun holding ribbons after dancing the conga and jumping over obstacles felt pretty sucky compared to getting in the pool.

After all this, there was a fun "ending ceremony" where she had to match up photos of the horses at the stable to be "maids of honour", "groomsmen" and "guests" and finally we went to Belen's house for a dip in the pool and some pizzas.

All in all very silly and the most "G-rated" bachelorette party I've ever been to, but really a lot of fun and a day to remember fondly.

Videos!

I don't have very much time before I head off to the stable on this beautiful, sunny Spring day in Mallorca, but I did finally manage to upload the videos from last weekend so here they are!

Starbuck playing with the new Parelli Big Green Ball:

Me riding Starbuck last Saturday:

Aha!

You ever have one of those "Aha" moments with your horse?  I mean where you observe or hear or read something which really leads you to reconsider even your most ingrained habits?  I read the following on Carolyn Resnick's blog this morning which made me really think about training Starbuck in a whole new way.  For those of you unfamiliar with her methods, Carolyn is a proponent of what you could call "Naturist" Natural Horsemanship - naked (no tack, halter, lines, etc...) liberty training is a big part of her method, thus truly allowing the horse to choose whether she wants to accept you as her leader or just walk away.

"When people use tack they can reprimand a horse easier and because of that they do. However, if a horse is at liberty, the horse is able to get away easier when reprimanded, and when he does, he loses interest in that person. Because of this freedom at liberty, the person stays away from reprimanding the horse in order to keep from losing their connection."

--Carolyn Resnick

How many times have I read "Praise your horse when she does what you want her to, ignore her when she doesn't" and that almost all "punishments" are futile?  I have no problem whatsoever in upping my taps with the whip to a whack when Starbuck is ignoring me, letting her barge right into my waving crop in front of her nose when leading or using the leather popper on my rope to protect my personal space, but I really strive never to yell at her or hit her after she's done something "wrong".  I much prefer to just make her work a little harder (backing up and leading forward several times, turning tight circles or yielding her hindquarters right and left) afterwards to get her mind off whatever caused her "misbehaviour" and make her think twice about it the next time.  But it's true - having the rope tying her to me makes it all to easy to give a sharp tug on her halter or yell at her a little when she makes a mistake.

So seeing as how we had such gorgeous weather at lunchtime today, I had a bag full of carrot rounds and I wanted to try something different and fun, I decided to give some liberty work with Starbuck a try.  We started out with a longe line just so she'd get the idea that this was in fact work and that I had treats to give her when she did the right thing, doing a few laps in walk and trot and then doing a little ground tying as well as working on our "back up" and "come here girl" cues.  But after about 15 minutes I manned up and unsnapped the lead rope, leaving it in the sand and waiting to see if she'd just high-tail it towards the grass on the edges of the arena.

And she didn't - she stayed right with me just looking at me asking me what we were going to do next!  At first I just walked around with her following beside me, seeing if she'd stop and back up with me.  She did so well at that that I stopped her and gave her a little rest as well as some rubbing and a carrot round.  I then tried sending her out on a circle like I do in the roundpen.  The first three or four times she went superwide and wandered off, so I adjusted my body language but especially my focus on her and my energy to be able to regain and maintain her attention.  And what do you know if she didn't come back and start walking circles (well, ok, maybe more like ovals or pears) around me at liberty!

We changed direction a couple of times with no problems so I decided to up the difficulty and started jogging a little bit.  She broke right into trot and made her circle a little bit bigger, but stayed tuned in always coming back to me - we ended up cavorting up and down the arena together, changing speed, distance and direction fluently using only my body language.  At one point when she got a little too excited for my comfort zone, I was even able to stop her in her tracks by just inclining my head a little in the direction of her hindquarters.  During the 20 or so minutes we were playing, I stopped every few minutes to give her a rest and a carrot round.

At first she was a little confused and confounded by this new dynamic, but I think the sheer joy that I was feeling must have transferred over to her because she ended up having a good time too, and we even drew a bit of an audience since we started just when lunch was ending and lots of folks had the day off today (yesterday was a regional holiday).  At the very end Marina said what a good job I was doing and that it had been lots of fun to watch and I let Starbuck graze while we were talking, but when it was time to go and I walked away she stayed on the side of the arena grazing.  So Marina told me to call her, which I did, then Marina shuffled her feet which startled Starbuck and she came running right to me, stopped when she reached me and stood still while I snapped the rope back on her halter.  It was a glorious way to spend my lunch break and I feel like we're really taking our relationship to the next level.

Next time I do this I'll try to get some video or at least some photos, but I'll leave you with some amazing footage of Carolyn doing her thing - hopefully some day Starbuck and I can have this kind of connection and finesse!

What do YOU think?

So I got inspired by Snarky Rider's recent postings of some equestrian-themed versions of the "What My Friends Think I Do" meme and decided to make one for Starbuck... I had fun doing it and hope you enjoy it.

By the way I didn't end up doing it because I'm feeling more or less charitable towards Starbuck today, but this was a serious contender for the "What she is" pic (thanks to the Oatmeal for the giggles):

What about YOUR horse?

Roundpen Video

After we finished building the roundpen yesterday I wanted to give it a try, so last night I read up on Sylvia Scott's and John Lyons' roundpenning techniques and led Starbuck in there.  It took about 45 minutes in all, working at a trot in order to not tire her out too much, and I think for a first try it went really well!  I got to the point where I could consistently get her to turn around and then when I stopped she would come up behind me and follow me for a while (until she got hungry and would start munching on the plants which are still growing inside the roundpen).

So for the coming week or two I plan to work in the roundpen a few more times until I can control her feet 100% using only my body language.  Specifically what I'm looking for is:

• Control of speed and gait.
• Change direction facing towards me.
• Follow me in circles, straight lines and zig zags.
• Stop on cue and stand ground tied.
• Turn her head (and body if necessary) to look at me when I "kiss" to her and keep looking at me.
• Come to me on cue.

Videos

Today Starbuck and I had a big day, first I set her loose in the arena with some other horses (Coco and Monty) so she could play for a while and then we did some longeing and leading work.  Luckily I remembered that my phone has a videocamera and my friend Belén was kind enough to record us while we were training.  So here are the videos, enjoy!