So things are chugging right along with Mr. Bob. I have taken him out on the trails twice since our Memorial Day ride and he hasn't spooked or got the least bit silly. He sure walks out nicely. The only thing he does that I find odd is that he has to smell EVERYTHING. I mean everything. At first I thought he was trying to take a bite of the vegetation along the trail because he kept swinging his nose over to every tree, shrub and rock, etc. He never slows down and he never opens his mouth to take a bite so I started watching him and he is smelling it. Weird.
In the arena he is getting better and better. As long as you keep it quiet and have a spot to bring him back to when he gets a little anxious he can learn by leaps and bounds. I have found that my trot circle is where we can go to give him that mental break when he needs it. Yesterday we were working on him staying in frame and transitioning from a walk to a trot to a lope. He does the walk to trot well. The trot to the lope he wants to give me attitude. I put him in his circle, pushed him into the bridle and asked him to trot in frame, then ask him to lope, letting him have his face if he stayed on his arc and quiet. He would do it, but he would shake his head and get all wiggly. So back to the trot and pushed up and into frame he would go. It didn't take long for him to figure out that loping off quietly and not giving attitude would give him some "relief" from the working trot. And... he is much better if I pay less attention to his head and more attention to where I want to go. Big lesson right there! He is going to train me to look where I want to go.
Funny thing about Bob... We also worked roll backs on the fence. With Semper, Scooter and Lily, if you were to work a roll back on the fence and you did the same thing 3 or 4 times, they would begin to anticipate it. They would all start to slow at the fence and be thinking "turn now". Not Bob. I must have done the same thing at least a dozen times each direction yesterday and he never once anticipated the turn. He never even gave it a thought.
It was kind of nice that he wasn't thinking as much about what we were going to do next and more about what we were doing right then. It can get a little tough when you are riding those big thinkers. They are pleasers and get so tuned into what you are GOING to do next that they don't pay attention what you are actually trying to get done. Bob stayed with me and went when he was asked instead of constantly saying "want me to do it now" & "how about NOW".
I keep thinking I should have one of those OSHA signs posted in the barn that counts the number of days accident free. It would say... "60 + days and counting since Bob had a meltdown". He has been with me at the barn for 8 weeks and he is still not exhibiting any bad behaviors. In fact, he is turning into a rather solid citizen.
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label training. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Bob Harley, Bob Marley's redneck cousin
When events happen in your life do you try to make a learning experience from them? I want to learn something from every experience I encounter. In some instances that might be a big expectation but in my horse life, I examine everything for a lesson learned. The problem is that I do end up making the same mistakes over and that makes me feel like a total loser. I find it helps if I write my "lessons learned" done. And then you all get to read what a big, fat, dorky loser I can truly be. My current lesson is an "in progress" lesson. I think. Maybe. I really don't know. But I do know that there is some kind of lesson to be learned here, it just isn't crystal clear yet.
Today you all are going to meet Bob Harley, Bob Marley's redneck cousin. AKA In a Smoking Instant
We went to a UCDavis sale a few years back to bid on a a stud horse for a friend of ours. He was going to be out of town and really wanted the horse so we took a trailer and went to do his bidding. Before we got there they pulled the horse he wanted from the sale. We decided to stay and see what they had to offer. Mr. Wonderful gets a bidders number. Now.... Mr. Wonderful with a number is not usually a good thing. He likes auctions and he loves to gamble. I figured it was a horse sale and I was safe. Not so much. The last horse through the sale was a bred mare. She was eight years old, an AQHA pleasure bred mare, but looked more like a cow horse than a pleasure horse. She was bred to the stud we were there to buy, Little Doc Belle. He is by a big time cutting horse sire out of Texas - SR Instant Choice. Mr. Wonderful couldn't help himself and placed the opening bid of $375. No one else bid. No one. Nada-nother bid. So we went home with a bred mare. He just kept repeating... But the stud fee was $750. I got a good deal.
Bob was born the next spring. Mr.Wonderful always refers to him as HIS horse. Whatever. The minute he hit the ground I said...oh baby, baby- What a looker, he is all mine. And he has always been a real looker. Very stylish. You got to love a pretty bay horse. But Bob has had his issues. Bob is not like any of my other horses. He has always been a little obnoxious. At about 3 weeks old, he learned he could push his momma away from her feed. He would literally run backwards and kick the crap out of her. She would just move off and act all butt hurt. She never did the momma mare thing and discipline him. He grew increasingly bold. At four months I decided to have him gelded to see if that put a damper on his attitude. That along with the ground work was helping but he still was a bratty little thing. After I got him to the point where you could catch him, lead him, trim his feet, etc. I pretty much left him alone to grow. But the mistake I made was I left him alone, as in without other horses to teach him some manners. I should have put him out with the twisted sisters. Hindsight is 20/20. So he spent the winter and most of his yearling year on his own. As a two year old I sent him to a cowboy to get him started.
This is the post after I picked him up:
I took Bob Harley to the trainer to start his education. Here comes some of the bad. The trainer feels that he has no sense of self preservation. Not good. I sent him to the same trainer that started Scooter for me. I really like and respect him. I listened to what he said when I picked him up last week and am mulling it over. I turned Bob out with the broodmares and am going to give him until next spring to kind of soak up what he learned and then give him one more chance at a trainer to see if he matures or changes in his time out. I hate to give up on a horse to easy, but on the other hand I hate to throw money away too.
The other issues that my cowboy trainer warned me of was that Bob would try to bite or kick him while he was mounting and dismounting and that he would charge the stall cleaner while she was cleaning the stalls. But the good news was that he was not a bucker.
I did as I had planned and I put him out with the twisted sisters and left him to deal for about 5 months. Beginning of this year, I brought him in and started taking him up to RD's with me. She and I worked with him several times on the ground and then one of us would get on him in the round pen. Things were going o.k. He was a little spastic but I wasn't seeing any of the behavior that the cowboy trainer had mentioned. He was standing still to be mounted and dismounted. He is reactive still but he seemed to be really trying to be good. When I brought Lily home, I left him with RD. I shared all the information that I had from cowboy trainer and we decided to give him some time and see where it went. She called me three days in and said "get rid of this horse, he is dangerous". He had gotten untied and she grabbed at the lead rope he was dragging and he had kicked her in the back. RD has a young daughter and the thought of her possibly getting kicked by my horse overwhelmed me. If he was so ready to fire, he wasn't safe. I corresponded with another horsey friend and asked her opinion. She said the same thing... get rid of him. I had made my decision. Mr. Wonderful was NOT on board with this decision. He said that I was being to quick to judge. He said that I had not spent enough time on this horse to know if I was making the right decision. Frankly I didn't care what he thought, he wasn't the one that had to spend the time or take the risk of getting kicked, bit or bucked off. A week later, RD calls me back and says that she was too quick to judge. That he was coming along nicely and she admitted that it was probably her fault that she got kicked. That she had startled him, she knew what kind of young, reactive horse he was and that she had put herself in a position that she shouldn't have. Well. o.k. Now what? I scrapped the plans to sell him and decided to leave him there for now.
My original plan was to have Scooter go out for training first as he is a year older than Bob. Not being to sure that RD is a perfect fit for Scooter, I sent him to TL. Which is MY choice. But that also means that I have to pull Bob out of training. RD is more than annoyed with me over pulling him. She says he is coming along fine, that he isn't displaying any BAD behaviors but he has a huge motor and that he can and will put up a fight if he doesn't want to do something. She is worried that I can't get through to him or that I will be afraid to go there with him. When I went to pick him up she rode him for me. He walked off while she was getting on, which I hate. She said that she could fix that. He was grinding on the bit and was a nervous mess. She had ridden him that morning and said he was way better in the morning than he was that afternoon. I hate to say this... but I felt that her annoyance with me, had flowed over to my horse. And then I felt guilty.
I decided that Mr. Wonderful was right. Now... here comes the lesson part, finally. I was relying on second hand information to tell me what to do with this horse. I should know this horse better than anyone and I don't. (You would have thought I would have figured that out by now - see Lily posts) I owed it to Bob Harley to get to know him for myself. I took him to the boarding facility where Semper is and started over.
The first day, he was... na,na,na,nervous. Gnawing on the bit. Wouldn't stand still to be mounted. He didn't offer to nip or bite, just would not stand still. So that is all I worked on. I must have gotten on and off eight or ten times before he gave it up and stood still. I just sat there for a good 15 minutes. Wouldn't let him walk off. When he was standing relaxed I got off and put him up. No fight. No mess. Just quiet. Went out the second day and started again. And you know what? He was quieter. It only took two tries and he stood still. Less chomping on the bit and he didn't offer to move off until asked. I walked him around and he was in a hurry and anxious. I quietly asked him to go into a small circle when he got in a hurry. After a few circles he just soften and relaxed. We walked and jogged for about 20 minutes and when he was good and relaxed, soft and willing, I quit, got off and put him up.
This has been the scenario for the last several weeks. Each day adding a little more. I changed things up and put him in a bosal, I spent time working him from the ground, some days before I rode, some days after. TL rode him and she likes him. Sunday I took him out on a trail ride with a good friend. She rides a seasoned trail horse and it was a perfect outing for our first time. We met Lycra clad, helmet wearing bicyclist and he took it all in stride. We even saw a snake on the trail - not a rattler but a snake none the less and he was fine.
I have to say, I couldn't be more disgusted with myself and pleased with him all at the same time. Disgusted because I was so willing to become a sheep and just go along with the hype. Disgusted because I didn't do my due diligence in spending time getting to know this horse. Disgusted because Mr. Wonderful might have been right. (OK not really - I am actually happy he was vocal and persistent) Pleased to know that this horse might just become a good citizen after all. I am not saying he is perfect, or that he is going to be a fabulous show horse, or a kids horse, but pleased because he is teaching me something.
Today you all are going to meet Bob Harley, Bob Marley's redneck cousin. AKA In a Smoking Instant
We went to a UCDavis sale a few years back to bid on a a stud horse for a friend of ours. He was going to be out of town and really wanted the horse so we took a trailer and went to do his bidding. Before we got there they pulled the horse he wanted from the sale. We decided to stay and see what they had to offer. Mr. Wonderful gets a bidders number. Now.... Mr. Wonderful with a number is not usually a good thing. He likes auctions and he loves to gamble. I figured it was a horse sale and I was safe. Not so much. The last horse through the sale was a bred mare. She was eight years old, an AQHA pleasure bred mare, but looked more like a cow horse than a pleasure horse. She was bred to the stud we were there to buy, Little Doc Belle. He is by a big time cutting horse sire out of Texas - SR Instant Choice. Mr. Wonderful couldn't help himself and placed the opening bid of $375. No one else bid. No one. Nada-nother bid. So we went home with a bred mare. He just kept repeating... But the stud fee was $750. I got a good deal.
Bob was born the next spring. Mr.Wonderful always refers to him as HIS horse. Whatever. The minute he hit the ground I said...oh baby, baby- What a looker, he is all mine. And he has always been a real looker. Very stylish. You got to love a pretty bay horse. But Bob has had his issues. Bob is not like any of my other horses. He has always been a little obnoxious. At about 3 weeks old, he learned he could push his momma away from her feed. He would literally run backwards and kick the crap out of her. She would just move off and act all butt hurt. She never did the momma mare thing and discipline him. He grew increasingly bold. At four months I decided to have him gelded to see if that put a damper on his attitude. That along with the ground work was helping but he still was a bratty little thing. After I got him to the point where you could catch him, lead him, trim his feet, etc. I pretty much left him alone to grow. But the mistake I made was I left him alone, as in without other horses to teach him some manners. I should have put him out with the twisted sisters. Hindsight is 20/20. So he spent the winter and most of his yearling year on his own. As a two year old I sent him to a cowboy to get him started.
This is the post after I picked him up:
I took Bob Harley to the trainer to start his education. Here comes some of the bad. The trainer feels that he has no sense of self preservation. Not good. I sent him to the same trainer that started Scooter for me. I really like and respect him. I listened to what he said when I picked him up last week and am mulling it over. I turned Bob out with the broodmares and am going to give him until next spring to kind of soak up what he learned and then give him one more chance at a trainer to see if he matures or changes in his time out. I hate to give up on a horse to easy, but on the other hand I hate to throw money away too.
The other issues that my cowboy trainer warned me of was that Bob would try to bite or kick him while he was mounting and dismounting and that he would charge the stall cleaner while she was cleaning the stalls. But the good news was that he was not a bucker.
I did as I had planned and I put him out with the twisted sisters and left him to deal for about 5 months. Beginning of this year, I brought him in and started taking him up to RD's with me. She and I worked with him several times on the ground and then one of us would get on him in the round pen. Things were going o.k. He was a little spastic but I wasn't seeing any of the behavior that the cowboy trainer had mentioned. He was standing still to be mounted and dismounted. He is reactive still but he seemed to be really trying to be good. When I brought Lily home, I left him with RD. I shared all the information that I had from cowboy trainer and we decided to give him some time and see where it went. She called me three days in and said "get rid of this horse, he is dangerous". He had gotten untied and she grabbed at the lead rope he was dragging and he had kicked her in the back. RD has a young daughter and the thought of her possibly getting kicked by my horse overwhelmed me. If he was so ready to fire, he wasn't safe. I corresponded with another horsey friend and asked her opinion. She said the same thing... get rid of him. I had made my decision. Mr. Wonderful was NOT on board with this decision. He said that I was being to quick to judge. He said that I had not spent enough time on this horse to know if I was making the right decision. Frankly I didn't care what he thought, he wasn't the one that had to spend the time or take the risk of getting kicked, bit or bucked off. A week later, RD calls me back and says that she was too quick to judge. That he was coming along nicely and she admitted that it was probably her fault that she got kicked. That she had startled him, she knew what kind of young, reactive horse he was and that she had put herself in a position that she shouldn't have. Well. o.k. Now what? I scrapped the plans to sell him and decided to leave him there for now.
My original plan was to have Scooter go out for training first as he is a year older than Bob. Not being to sure that RD is a perfect fit for Scooter, I sent him to TL. Which is MY choice. But that also means that I have to pull Bob out of training. RD is more than annoyed with me over pulling him. She says he is coming along fine, that he isn't displaying any BAD behaviors but he has a huge motor and that he can and will put up a fight if he doesn't want to do something. She is worried that I can't get through to him or that I will be afraid to go there with him. When I went to pick him up she rode him for me. He walked off while she was getting on, which I hate. She said that she could fix that. He was grinding on the bit and was a nervous mess. She had ridden him that morning and said he was way better in the morning than he was that afternoon. I hate to say this... but I felt that her annoyance with me, had flowed over to my horse. And then I felt guilty.
I decided that Mr. Wonderful was right. Now... here comes the lesson part, finally. I was relying on second hand information to tell me what to do with this horse. I should know this horse better than anyone and I don't. (You would have thought I would have figured that out by now - see Lily posts) I owed it to Bob Harley to get to know him for myself. I took him to the boarding facility where Semper is and started over.
The first day, he was... na,na,na,nervous. Gnawing on the bit. Wouldn't stand still to be mounted. He didn't offer to nip or bite, just would not stand still. So that is all I worked on. I must have gotten on and off eight or ten times before he gave it up and stood still. I just sat there for a good 15 minutes. Wouldn't let him walk off. When he was standing relaxed I got off and put him up. No fight. No mess. Just quiet. Went out the second day and started again. And you know what? He was quieter. It only took two tries and he stood still. Less chomping on the bit and he didn't offer to move off until asked. I walked him around and he was in a hurry and anxious. I quietly asked him to go into a small circle when he got in a hurry. After a few circles he just soften and relaxed. We walked and jogged for about 20 minutes and when he was good and relaxed, soft and willing, I quit, got off and put him up.
This has been the scenario for the last several weeks. Each day adding a little more. I changed things up and put him in a bosal, I spent time working him from the ground, some days before I rode, some days after. TL rode him and she likes him. Sunday I took him out on a trail ride with a good friend. She rides a seasoned trail horse and it was a perfect outing for our first time. We met Lycra clad, helmet wearing bicyclist and he took it all in stride. We even saw a snake on the trail - not a rattler but a snake none the less and he was fine.
I have to say, I couldn't be more disgusted with myself and pleased with him all at the same time. Disgusted because I was so willing to become a sheep and just go along with the hype. Disgusted because I didn't do my due diligence in spending time getting to know this horse. Disgusted because Mr. Wonderful might have been right. (OK not really - I am actually happy he was vocal and persistent) Pleased to know that this horse might just become a good citizen after all. I am not saying he is perfect, or that he is going to be a fabulous show horse, or a kids horse, but pleased because he is teaching me something.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Thinking to much, again.
I have been thinking about the first show a lot. On Saturday during a lesson I said to TL that Semper had done well even without been ridden the week before, without a proper warm up, etc. She responded "yeah, they do get to that point". I hadn't ever really thought about that. That he would get to the point where he didn't need to be schooled or trained on a lot. That he would get to the point he just knew what I wanted and did it. I mean, I know he knows his job and he wants to please me so why didn't I think we would get to the point where we could just get it done without all the schooling and ass kicking? Later that day I heard her say to another rider... "raise you expectations". Well there you go.
As someone that is not a trainer it is hard to know when to raise your expectations. How do I know when it is time to make those changes? I think, I think to much. my head is going to explode. I should ride more and think less. Definitely. Da,da,da definitely.
You know... I am pretty sure that I was supposed to be born independently wealthy. How can you be born with the HORSE GENE and be born poor. Is that someones idea of a really cruel joke? Am I being punked? This has been going on for far to long for it do be a reality show. Although, it might make for a very entertaining reality show. "Horsaii Women" It would be like Saddle Club on steriods.
As someone that is not a trainer it is hard to know when to raise your expectations. How do I know when it is time to make those changes? I think, I think to much. my head is going to explode. I should ride more and think less. Definitely. Da,da,da definitely.
You know... I am pretty sure that I was supposed to be born independently wealthy. How can you be born with the HORSE GENE and be born poor. Is that someones idea of a really cruel joke? Am I being punked? This has been going on for far to long for it do be a reality show. Although, it might make for a very entertaining reality show. "Horsaii Women" It would be like Saddle Club on steriods.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Before I forget
One of the reasons I started blogging was to chronicle my Wednesday night lessons so I could look back and review what I had learned. The other day I wanted to do a drill that I have done many times with TL and I couldn't for the life of me remember all the intricacies. I came back to my blog and looked to see if I had written it out and of course I hadn't. So tonight I asked TL to go over one more time and she was gracious enough to indulge me. Here it is.
Loping from one corner to the other, round the corner and lope down to the other corner (diagonally - think a rubber band). This gives you a little more distance then just loping straight across. Get a good cadence in the lope where the horse is relaxed and moving well. When you are going along nicely start to push your horse up in the bridle and then release. Make sure not to let the horse dive into the corners. Make sure that if the horse speeds up you make them slow back down by making a small circle until the pace is back where you want it. Continue to lope, and push into the bride, and release, make the corner, lope, push into the bridle, and release. When you are able to do this really smoothly you can ask to push the hip into the inside. Make sure that they are straight or a little bit arched to the inside when they are moving the hip to the inside. Ask for a step or two and release. Eventually you are going to ask for a lead change. After you move the hip to the inside you are going to take your outside leg off and put your inside leg on and ask for the change. If they change you let the fence stop them.
We also worked backing circles. I need to remember to release faster, keep the body arched to the direction I am pushing the hip towards keep the shoulder up. Use both moving the shoulder and the hip to achieve backing nice circles.
Loping from one corner to the other, round the corner and lope down to the other corner (diagonally - think a rubber band). This gives you a little more distance then just loping straight across. Get a good cadence in the lope where the horse is relaxed and moving well. When you are going along nicely start to push your horse up in the bridle and then release. Make sure not to let the horse dive into the corners. Make sure that if the horse speeds up you make them slow back down by making a small circle until the pace is back where you want it. Continue to lope, and push into the bride, and release, make the corner, lope, push into the bridle, and release. When you are able to do this really smoothly you can ask to push the hip into the inside. Make sure that they are straight or a little bit arched to the inside when they are moving the hip to the inside. Ask for a step or two and release. Eventually you are going to ask for a lead change. After you move the hip to the inside you are going to take your outside leg off and put your inside leg on and ask for the change. If they change you let the fence stop them.
We also worked backing circles. I need to remember to release faster, keep the body arched to the direction I am pushing the hip towards keep the shoulder up. Use both moving the shoulder and the hip to achieve backing nice circles.
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