Impulsion:Control

So Starbuck's back on the "Go" stretch of the Whoa / Go cycle.  After nearly three weeks of being nearly bombproof, she's suddenly started spooking again at absolutely nothing and I even got dumped again the other day (no harm done luckily).  On the other hand, she's much more responsive to my leg aids (and needs less nagging to keep going) so that's a nice change.  And talking to some stable-mates the other day I realized, with Starbuck I either have impulsion (go) or I have control (whoa) but the moment I have one I lose a considerable amount of the other and get around a 80/20 ratio (if it's a good day) instead of the 50/50 I'm working toward.  I guess this is probably a fairly common occurrence in horse training and it probably shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out the relationship between the two, but there it is.  Sometimes I have a hard time recognizing the obvious.

I think one reason is that up until now I've been subconsciously happy enough to relinquish impulsion for control, but I realize that's been a pretty big mistake.  For one thing, as my personal muse Carolyn Resnick says, the most important thing to have when training is a gas pedal.  And my gas pedal takes like a minute to go from 0 to 60 when I'm asking for it (of course when there's an imaginary tiger in the bushes she can channel her Thoroughbred race horse ancestors in about 2 seconds).  For another, if I only practice being in control when there's next to no impulsion, how can I hope to control her in stressful situations (trail rides, shows, etc...) or when she's just feeling silly?  And finally, if we want to progress in dressage or even get her moving in a healthy, sustainable way, I really need to be able to command those hind legs to get moving and support her instead of trailing along behind.

So if this is all about baby steps and setting us up for success and taking our time, what seems to me to make sense is to work on the two issues together in alternating or combined exercises, trying to even out the ratio.  And if in a month we have 75/25 instead of 80/20 I'll know I'm on the right track - I know I can't hope for 50/50 right off the bat but at least I'll know in which direction to keep going (or that I need to choose a new one).  So in addition to what Daniela and Marina have been suggesting in my lessons with them, we're working on the following exercises:

• Walk - Canter - Walk - Halt transitions
• Trot - Halt - Back - Trot transitions
• Trot from one side of the arena to the other like your life depended on it, then stop and rest for as long as you were trotting.  Then turn around and repeat.
• "Slower - faster" transitions within each gait, especially at trot and canter

On the slower - faster transitions within each gait, I recently read something on a forum which resonated with me - "I think it's important for a lazy horse to feel both ends of each gait; if you are constantly driving forward, forward, forward, you won't get anywhere, and your horse probably won't figure out what you want. Instead, if you ask for a little at first, then gauge back, then ask for more each time, you will find a bigger improvement."  I already try really hard to not have my leg on constantly, but this is really good to keep in mind - I can't just ask for her to lengthen her stride on the entire long side of the arena right off the bat and expect her to do it well, or be motivated to do it better the next time.  So I'm going to start asking her to lengthen and as soon as she does it stop asking, praise and let her drop back into her normal stride.  Then when she consistently lengthens as soon as I ask for it, I'll ask for a few more lengthened strides, then move up from there.

And once I have control not only of "whoa" but of "go" as well, I think we'll be a lot closer to our long-term goal of working happily, healthily, sustainably and safely together.

Too busy to write

I've been really busy with non-horsey stuff (Thanksgiving anyone?) these past weeks and haven't been posting much, on the other hand there hasn't been a whole lot I've wanted to write about on the horse front.  But here's a brief (well, as brief as I can be) summary just to keep things recorded:

Uneven trot thing - doing much better, although there have been a few times she's once again been kind of stiff and uneven especially when starting out a ride.  Transitions seem to work really well loosening her up.  Also been doing a lot of turns on the haunches.

Behavior - she's once again starting to oscillate between almost completely dead to my leg aids and needing to be pushed every stride or absolutely electric, spooking and running away with me every few minutes.  I'm hoping this is one of those "two steps back before the big step forward" things, and the truth is that the other day we had a ride where she was pretty electric and just barely controllable at first but with just the right guidance was much more fun to ride than usual as I didn't have to push her constantly.  So maybe it's a matter of me becoming comfortable with her kicking it up a notch.

It's been a rainy week and she's hurt her hoof (see more below) so she had a couple of days off, then yesterday when I took her out to the parking lot to lunge a bit she had a spook and shouldered me off the path.  I'm pretty bummed that this is something that keeps happening - granted it hardly ever happens any more and when it does she doesn't actually run me over like she used to, but she's still not beyond shoving me aside and I'm painfully aware that this is evidence of her lack of trust and respect for me.  Anyhow I've been thinking about it and I think that my response when she does this is inappropriate and may be in fact making things worse - I tend to get aggravated, make myself larger and get her focussed on me (in hopes she won't run me over) in a fairly aggressive way, jerking at the lead rope, tapping her with my stick and reprimanding her or even giving a quick "Hey!" shout.  But if I think about it rationally, a whisper would probably do as well (or better) as a shout, and the truth is I can't expect her to trust me if my response to her being scared is effectively scaring her more.  So next time, I'm planning to try to keep my body language as non-threatening and neutral as possible and talk to her calmly, reassuring her there's nothing to be afraid of.  Whatever happens it will be a learning experience.

Dentist - so the equine dentist came over from Barcelona on her yearly visit and everything was more or less fine.  A few points but nothing to write home about.  Starbuck behaved nicely (the sedation helps) and it went much faster than expected.  Sandra Fortuny's my dentist, she's more expensive than just having the vet float their teeth but I really like her and think she does a really good job, plus she's really good and patient with the horsies.  She studied (she's actually a qualified equine surgeon) for a while in the US and did her residency at the animal hospital near Aqueduct race tracks.

New boo boos - her new bald spot is healing nicely and starting to have a thin layer of fur, and she has less fly-scratchy scabs than she does in the dead of summer, but she still has them.  And it's not surprising, as there are still a fair amount of flies.  I lent my fly mask to a friend whose horse has eye issues, but I'm thinking I may have to keep the fly mask on her year-round.  She's the scabbiest on her cheeks where she scratches herself with her hind hoof.  And what blog post would be complete without a new wound?  When I went to clean out her feet on Monday I noticed she was missing a chunk of her front left hoof and frog where I'm guessing she stepped on herself with one of the studs on her horseshoes.  It wasn't bleeding and didn't seem to hurt her when I probed it and cleaned it out, so I wasn't too worried but I checked with my vet and she recommended bandaging it with gauze and disinfectant for at least two days so that's what I've been doing.  After four days of bandaging she isn't lame at all and the wound has grown noticeably smaller so today I just cleaned it but didn't put a bandage on her and we'll see how it goes - she'll have a rest this weekend since I'm going to Madrid.

OK, I think that's all for now.  All in all we're making progress, I'm just going through a phase where I'm feeling very doubtful and inquisitive about what we're doing and where we're going, and especially about our relationship.  We're still at a level where I have to ask / nag / demand and I wonder how much of this is her, and how much of it is me (pretty sure it's nearly all me).  I know there's a better way to do things, and having just finished reading Alois Podjasky's "My Horses, My Teachers" I'm really motivated to try to find it.  But right now I'm completely at a loss as to how to motivate her in more positive ways - I'm getting better at this but she's just not the kind of horse that responds much to cuddles.  Anyhow it's simply yet another daily reminder of the mindblowing amount of things I still have to learn about horses.

Got to remember my mantra - Try different things.

Mixed Feelings

This week is one of mixed feelings.  On the one hand, Starbuck's still uneven at the trot and doesn't reach as far underneath her with her right hind.  While it's not exactly lameness, I still don't feel confident working her 100% and it's something I have on my mind pretty much constantly.  She has no visible swelling, hotspots or pain anywhere in her legs.  At the walk she's perfect.  At the canter she's perfect.  But trotting (especially going to the left) you can tell that there's something wrong.  My vet has ruled out tendon or bone issues and is convinced it's back or hip tension causing this, I've had the physical therapist out to work on her and between holidays, rain and preparing for the show with Vent she's had what amounts to about a month and a half of paddock rest with a few interludes of hour-long hacks, lungeing and very light riding.

Since she was doing better a couple of weeks ago but has now reverted to her old gimpy highjinks, I'm a little tempted to call up the "specializes in lameness" vet and ask for a second opinion.  But both my vet and the physical therapist advised me to work her normally, with an emphasis on extensions.  So I've decided to keep doing just that for at least a little while longer - if she gets worse or doesn't improve at all after a few weeks I can always stop working her and call the other vet and if she gets better then great.  I'm trying to be objective about it and remember that when I personally have pain issues (especially back pain), generally the only way I can get it to go away is through exercise.

On the other hand, we are really reaching a new level in our relationship which I'm absolutely thrilled with.  I'm convinced that my focussing on giving her more positive feedback and trying to dial down the negative feedback (less scolding, more praise) is really having a great effect on her behavior and motivation.  I'm also able to use lighter and fewer aids than before and hardly ever get to the point of having a battle of wills.  It actually feels like she's listening to me and waiting for my next instruction, and I hardly have to nag at her to keep going at all.  In our lessons, to try to ensure that she doesn't just go around and around "practicing" unevenness, Marina has suggested that I do lots of transitions and work a lot over ground poles and tires and stuff so she has to think quick on her feet.  We're also doing a fair amount of turns on the haunches to loosen up her back (which she's starting to get pretty good at), shoulder-in to build her up a little for more impulsion and trotting poles to work on her abdominal muscles.

As a result of all of this, her transitions are really getting spot-on - right when I ask for them, with ever-lighter aids and less dragging of feet than she usually does (trot?  you REALLY want me to trot?  are you SURE about that?  oooooookay...).  And after about 20 minutes of warming up with walk-stop-walk and walk-trot-walk transitions, her trot is definitely a lot more even and the irregularity is barely noticeable.  But best of all?  Her canter has improved immeasurably!  Tuesday and Wednesday we only did transitions, never letting her get more than 5 or 6 canter strides in before going back to a trot.  But yesterday she was moving well enough I decided to let her keep going for about a 30 meter circle to the right, and it was the best canter I've ever experienced on her.  Smooth, rhythmic, energetic, even a little floaty... it was like a dream come true!  And in the other direction it was almost as good, although there was a little head-shaking (probably related to the unevenness thing).  And best of all?  In the three lessons we've had this week, even now that it's dark enough for the arena lights to cast long and scary shadows, she's only spooked ONCE - and even that was when another horse spooked first, and she didn't take off galloping, only jumped to the side and spun a little.

So I'm really having a blast riding her both out on the trail and in lessons, and we get along much better on the ground - she pays much more attention to me and is a lot less bargey now that she knows that a neck rub, a "good girl" or a carob bean are right around the corner.  And best of all, she seems to actually be enjoying our rides nearly as much as I do.  So if we can get her movement and back issues worked out, we'll be right on track.

Green + Green

How it all started

Three years ago my husband gave me an untrained, spooky, affection-starved warmblood filly for my birthday.  Three years ago I embarked upon one of the most challenging, stimulating and rewarding journeys of my life so far (and believe me, I've had a few).  Three years ago to this very day I started this blog.  When I decided to take on the challenge of training Starbuck with very little (funny, it seemed more at the time) equine experience under my belt, I was definitely blinded by the fact that I'd always wanted a horse more than anything else in the world and here one was, right in front of me!  I was also completely unaware of just how difficult and frustrating it would be and how important real life experience is, and having read accounts of three-day colt starting clinics, easily convinced myself that with enough love, patience and the internet we'd be galloping off into the sunset in no time.  In retrospect, I am awed and amused by my foolishness and lack of foresight, but at the same time am so very grateful I didn't know any better.  I also have to thank Marina, my husband and my parents for having enough faith in me to encourage me to take on the challenge, even though they must have been much more aware of the risks than I was.

Bumps and bruises

There's an old saying that goes "green plus green makes black and blue" referring to a green horse and a green rider, and I have to admit that the risks were (and still are, to a certain extent) considerable - I've been kicked at, stepped on, run over, dragged behind, bucked off and head-butted more times than I can count.  Any of them could have incurred broken bones or worse, and didn't (well, maybe a toe or two).  And what I was even more afraid of than bodily harm - training Starbuck so badly that she would be unrideable for me and ruined for anyone else - could very easily have happened had Starbuck been one of these really sensitive, fearful horses instead of being nearly as stubborn, brash, clumsy and confident as I am.  But as it turned out, she had enough 'tude to put up with me having absolutely no feel or timing for the first few months, and I had enough 'tude (and luck and apparently rubber bones) to keep getting up, dusting myself off and getting back on.

Some early vids

The crazy thing is that what I thought would be hard were the easy parts and vice versa.  Longeing?  I figured it'd be a piece of cake and didn't even bother to learn how to do it with a "normal horse" but it turned out to be near impossible the first few times - she would either spook and gallop off, dragging me behind her (the little known sport of horse-skiing), or stop and turn to look at me so that she ended up longeing me rather than the other way around.  She had no problem with me rubbing plastic bags, feed sacks and eventually even full-sized tarps all over her body but absolutely refused to pick up her hind feet for what seemed like forever.  And the thing I was most apprehensive about - our very first ride - went so well that I would never have predicted that three years later she still throws the not-so-occasional buck.

Lessons learned

What I really appreciate about having started Starbuck myself is that I have so many priceless memories from before I ever even got in the saddle - the sacking out, the early days at the tying post with my three loops of baling twine, the first time she wore a numnah and girth, then a saddle, then her bridle with a bit..., the first time I worked her in the roundpen (newly built just for her), the first time I triumphantly took her on a walk outside the stable grounds to a nearby orange grove, all the groundwork...  In fact, I'm actually thankful she was spooky and rambunctious enough for me to put off riding her longer than I had planned, since the Parelli games, roundpenning and other groundwork really cemented our relationship and taught me a few important lessons (like how important feel and timing were, and how to start developing them) without even having to get on.

Our first ride

And the first ride?  I still remember how elated and grateful to her I felt, and the wonder of her movement melding with mine as Marina led us around the roundpen.  Then the first ride on our own when I discovered that she didn't really mind me being up there (although she definitely resented me squeezing and kicking her until she figured out what it meant).  The first five or so rides, we really progressed by leaps and bounds and I figured I had it all figured out.  But then we rode in the big arena for the first time and I realized just how wrong I was.  It turns out the first rides were the easy ones, and the hardest ones were (and probably are) still to come.  And after the first few months in the saddle teaching her the basics of go, turn, faster / slower, back, sideways, stop and stand still, more than working on her I've mostly been working on myself, to paraphrase Ray Hunt.  My balance and "stickability", the consistency of my aids, my ability to keep my body relaxed when my mind is freaking out, my striving for an independent seat, not to mention little things like courage, patience, equanimity... you get the picture.

Woooooo!

First ride outside the arena

What we've been up to lately...

Over the past three years we've come pretty far - from just worrying about staying on, to figuring out how to start, steer and stop, to working on correctly performing gaits, simple movements and transitions and by now are so far along that my main concerns these days are more about me refining my aids so they're less bothersome, and Starbuck moving her body in the most efficient, comfortable and sustainable way for her.  Which is in itself a lifelong pursuit, so I don't see us getting bored anytime soon.  And if we do get hung up along the way, we can always get back on track with a little jumping (up to 3 feet now!), trail riding, bomb-proofing, TTouch massage, riding over trail obstacles, longeing, in-hand or liberty groundwork, riding bareback, with a parelli rope halter or just with a neck rope, simply spending quality time together sharing territory or something we've never even tried before.  So does green plus green equal black and blue?  Sure, but somewhere down the line all those bumps, bruises and hard lessons have slowly and surely changed our relationship to solid gold.

Happy Summer!

I can think of few things more summery than eating a perfectly ripe watermelon so sloppily that you get the juice everywhere.  Here's Starbuck's particular rendition of this classic summertime ritual.

Positive

Lately I've been having second thoughts about my relationship with Starbuck.  On the face of it, things seem pretty great - she neighs at me when I get to the stable, she comes when I call, she generally sticks her own head into the halter, she's much more affectionate (well, at least more tolerant of affection) than she was a year ago, she's obviously comfortable with my presence and she generally behaves quite well under saddle.  And I would say that 80% of the time, I'm really proud of what a well-adjusted mare I have.

Of the other 20%, part of that is just basic mare/fillyness like screeching or pinning her ears at other horses when they get in her personal space, which I'm honestly not too worried about - I kind of like her bitchy.  But there's also a residual rebellious streak where she'll just decide to try to do whatever she wants, then I say no, then she says "you're not the boss of me", then I say "wanna bet" and it escalates into a "who's the stubbornest of them all" battle.  For example on the ground when she wants to run around me in the other direction instead of calmly walking by something scary or when there's a yummy looking patch of grass she suddenly veers off towards.  Or while riding - she'll very deliberately cut a corner or go from a canter to a full out gallop interspersed with rodeo bucks or decide that she just doesn't feel like trotting.

But what really lurks in the corner of my mind, slowly eating away at my confidence is her spookiness - it's improved but is still definitely there.  Something I've read again and again about spooky horses is the idea that if they have a good enough leader, they generally trust this person not to put them in dangerous situations and thus don't tend to spook.  If this is the case, I obviously haven't gained Starbuck's unconditional trust yet.  And maybe I never will, and maybe like Marina claims, sometimes she spooks "for fun" or at least as a momentary distraction from the hard work of a lesson.  But I do think that reducing the amount of conflict between us and increasing her trust in me are two things definitely worth working toward.

I was trying to explain the conflict thing to my husband this morning giving the example of me trying to train her not to scratch her neck and chest against the tying post.  At first I just started punishing her ("ssht" noise, then a louder "ssht", then a "ssht" with a slap) every time she scratched herself, which worked OK as long as I was there, but as soon as I walked away she would start scratching herself again.  And of course it makes me the wicked witch of the West - always nagging and saying "no".  But then I thought, instead of telling her NOT to scratch herself, what if I gave her something else TO DO which prevented her from scratching?  So I've been reinforcing her early training of "stand still" and now when I tie her at the posts I back her up a few feet until she can't reach the actual post anymore, and tell her to "stand still".  If she moves forward, I simply back her up and ask her to stand still again, and if she stays where she is I praise her periodically with a "good girl" or by giving her sporadic cookies.  And it's working pretty well - I can now leave the tying post and as long as she knows (or thinks) I'm paying attention to her, she'll stay where I put her.  As soon as I start talking to someone she moves back and starts scratching again, but as far as I can tell this strategy is much more effective than constantly punishing her for something I can't blame her for in the first place (poor thing, being itchy sucks).

So I basically want more of this, which I think will improve our relationship, reduce my "pigheaded frustrated dominant hag" moments and perhaps eventually will even lead to her increasing her trust in me.  The trouble is that it's easier for me to be reactive than proactive and I'm not terribly creative about finding positive ways to structure her behavior, so I got an e-book yesterday called "The Power of Positive Horse Training: Saying "yes" to your horse" by Sarah Blanchard.  So far the theory seems pretty sound and there are a bunch of different exercises to discover the rewards you have to offer your horse (neither food nor clickers are featured which is a plus as far as I'm concerned) and to learn how and when to give them appropriately.  I already have plans to spend some quality time finding which spots she likes to be rubbed on can be reached from the saddle, to be able to give her a good reward while riding.  If I find something which works particularly well, I'll share it here.

By the way we're progressing well on the Spanish Walk front - for a couple of weeks she just picked up her feet but finally she figured out the "striking" motion and we're currently practicing this.  When I can get her to do the striking with just a voice command ("march"), we'll try to add some forward motion.  So one-two-march-march, or if that's too complicated, one-two-three-march.

Also lately I've been riding her with a running martingale so she can't throw her head up and avoid contact with the bit - Marina recommended using one for a few months and like everything else, we'll try it and see how it goes.  Try different things :-)

The Ears Have It

Thanks to As the Herd Turns for the photo!

Thanks to Belinda Skipper for the photo!

Hangovers and skittish horses don't mix.  That's what I was telling myself yesterday as I was driving to the stable with a splitting headache, the result of lambrusco + amaretto (oh sugar you evil dog).  It was beautiful and sunny, but it was also superwindy and considering that Starbuck hadn't worked at all since Tuesday, in my weakened state the last thing I wanted to do was deal with constant spookiness.  Plus when I got to the stable the thick coat of mud that Starbuck had accumulated by repeated rolling over the last few days sealed the deal.  So I wimped out and asked Marina if I could ride one of her horses and she assigned me Chadwick, her Holstein stallion.

Chad's not the kind of horse I'd ever look to buy, he's a little ponderous and very laid back and doesn't have much of a spark.  He's also very large and has a long, not terribly comfortable stride.  And there's that stallion thing - he's really well trained and a dream to ride, but you can't tie him up just anywhere and you have to be a little strategic while riding, not getting too close to other stallions and mares in heat.  But as I said, he's very well trained and behaves extremely well under saddle so it was fun to not have to worry about spooks or tantrums and focus on my posture and moving with the horse for a while.  So a really nice lesson.  But as the lesson went on, the wind died down and I started to regret not having ridden my little girl, so after the lesson ended and I had unsaddled and left Chad in his paddock I decided to ride Starbuck too.

We gatecrashed a little girls' jumping lesson, so it was five 10 year olds and us keeping things exciting.  Starbuck had a couple of spooks but mostly did very well during the lesson but what mostly stood out to me (and what inspired this post) was one point when the little girls were working on a lengthy jump course and Starbuck and I retired to the top of the arena to work on our own.  Since we don't do transitions much in lessons, I decided to work on them so walk - stop - walk - trot - walk - trot - stop - trot and so on.  At first of course there was a lag in response times and a certain tendency to pay too much attention to scary things like tiny birds flying into and out of the brush nearby.  But after only a couple of minutes I noticed a different kind of energy coming off of Starbuck's body - more impulsion in general and a much quicker response to the aids.  And I looked at her ears to see if she was about to spook and she had them swivelled back listening to me, just like in the photos above!  And the best part was that she kept them swivelled back for a good minute or so while we continued our transitions.  For anyone with a well trained horse, this is no miracle, but for me it was a triumph - she's never given me her undivided attention for so long that I know of, and it was a real pleasure to be so in tune with her that I could simply think "trot" and tighten my calve muscles and off she went.

Definitely transitions are something to continue working on in the future.  And one of my goals for the next month or so is to think about and identify more exercises that "get her attention" in the same way.

First ride outside the arena!

We did it!!!  A lot later than I had initially thought and now I think I could have done it a lot sooner, but I finally worked up the courage to ride Starbuck out of the arena and around the stableyard!

Yesterday's ride was a good one, we started out a little lazy since she wasn't moving very well with her hind legs, thus falling onto her forehand and stumbling a fair amount.  So we just worked on lots of walk and a few trot transitions in the upper part and non-scary side of the arena until she was completely relaxed.  Then we went over to the scary side where my friend Belén and her horse Cancunen were doing some canter exercises and walked in a 15 meter circle inside their circle.  With Cancunen on the outside protecting her from all those invisible monsters she did fine, however once they headed off to cool down and we were all by ourselves Starbuck got nervous again, with lots of jumps and spins and stalls.  I was at least able to keep my seat and keep her more or less headed in the direction I wanted her to go most of the time. 

We were making some good progress and she just was starting to relax when someone came out of the bar holding some shopping bags and it all went to hell in a handbasket.  She tried out all her moves at once - sideways jump, 180º spin and a dash in the other direction but luckily I trained her to do a one-rein stop and was able to get her and myself under control.  Even so I ended up with one foot out of the stirrup and sitting on altogether the wrong part of the saddle.  I was so mad!  So I steered her over to the upper part of the arena where she doesn't freak out and asked for a brisk trot which I made her keep up for a good 5-7 minutes until she was obviously listening to me (this time she didn't stumble) and when I slowed down to a walk I called out to Belén who having finished her lesson was passing the arena and told her to wait up, that I'd join her for a walk around the stableyard.

I was a little worried as we walked through the arena gate and past the tying posts - Starbuck got a little tense and flicked her ears back as if she were asking me what to do, so I just rubbed her withers a little and kept her going the same speed as Cancunen as we walked all the way around the paddocks and back to the arena.  And after that first little question to me, she didn't bat an eye!  She was totally calm, even when we walked by the stallions and one of them lunged at us, and even seemed to enjoy the change of pace.  I'm so excited since this means that in the future we can cool down this way and hopefully will be able to go on our first trail ride soon!  Wooooooo!!!!!

More videos...

Last Sunday I was lucky enough to ride Starbuck again, first we did some longeing in the big arena where she was super super obedient, focused and relaxed.  Afterwards, for something new I spread out a big blue tarp on the ground in the roundpen so we could practice riding over it (she's actually supercool with this kind of thing, we've done work with the tarp before and she had no problem with it then either).

She walked and trotted over it calmly while free-longeing, but once I mounted up she decided she needed to destroy the tarp a little by pawing at it before we could ride over it ;p  At any rate, in the end we walked and trotted over it without any trouble - I was so proud of her and people kept saying how impressive it was and how much she trusted me (and in fact a few tried it with their grown-up horses afterwards and weren't so successful).  I know that there are other things which scare her more and which would be a better test of her trust, but I also know that I need to introduce challenges to her a little at a time, so I'm happy to pat myself on my back a little for this.

She did so well and was so laid back about all of it that I asked my friend Ivón to help us by longeing Starbuck with me on her back in the big arena.  That way I figured that both Starbuck and I could build up our confidence about riding there, and if she wasn't worried we could unsnap the longe line and ride a little without "help" from the ground.  And it worked!  She wasn't worried at all, didn't spook even a little and we were able to walk and trot around the non-scary side of the arena without any trouble whatsoever.  

At the end of our ride Ivón had to leave so we enlisted Virginia to walk us around the entire arena - even beside the scary tiger house - so Starbuck would get used to it.  And once again, she didn't skip a beat (this for me is really test of her trust)!  It was a short ride but she did so well that I wanted to reward her while we were ahead, so after the lap around the arena I untacked her, gave her a quick leg and belly shower (if you didn't notice it was warm enough for me to be wearing a t-shirt so imagine her in her winter coat) and prepared her a big bucket of savoury bran mash before cleaning out her paddock and making her an even bigger and fluffier bed of straw in her stall.

Once again, a marvellous day thanks to my fabulous filly Starbuck!

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

Rainy Day

OK, I know I've been kind of lax on the blog front lately but I've had the flu, that's a good excuse, right?  I actually think that I was a little too productive for a few weeks there and now I have a little writing hangover, so I'm going to keep it short for a few posts.  Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that for the past few days we've had some really rainy weather-- too muddy and slippery to do much work.  So I've pretty much just been doing some tack cleaning and hanging out in the bar where there's a wood burning stove and they make you thick spanish hot chocolate for a euro.

Both yesterday and today Virginia and I have walked Starbuck and Coco out to a newly cleared field so they could get out of their paddocks and get a little exercise-- yesterday we just set them loose and let them run and graze but today I longed Starbuck a little while Coco was grazing nearby to remind her that it's not always playtime when the two of them are together... at first she was pretty rebellious but a few changes of direction had her licking her lips and dropping her head and at that point I stopped her and let her go play with her friend.

Marina the barn owner has lent me a new lead line, it's the one recommended for young horses by Linda Tellington-Jones-- it's like a chain lead to be used over the nose but with a thin rope instead of a chain.  We'll see how it goes, I think I need to stop worrying about possibly hurting her and more about stepping up and being a confident leader.

Anyhow here are some random photos from today:

Barn kitty napping between my alfalfa and my hay- nice and dry under the plastic sheeting :-)

Another cute shot of bar kitty with Starbuck getting a little wet while she eats her mid-morning snack.

And another one... Cute!

It's kind of hard to tell but that's SNOW on the Tramuntana mountains- first time I've seen snow here in Mallorca!

This is the kind of food we eat at my stable-- lobster stew.  Not bad for 8€, huh?