Well I've done absolutely nothing with the horses this week, they've been getting hay and feed, grooming when it's dry and lots of hugs but it seems silly to waste their feed intake on play/riding when it's there to keep them warm during the day. They're mostly rugless apart from Holly at night and Solly at night if he's damp or wet so they really need their feed and I believe in keeping them as natural as possible.
Hopefully the snow will go soon and then we may be able to have some slow play sessions or riding in walk around the arena.
SO, for now I just want to wish you a
VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES AND HORSES
AND MAY 2010 BE A REALLY GOOD YEAR FOR YOU ALL
TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES AND HORSES
AND MAY 2010 BE A REALLY GOOD YEAR FOR YOU ALL
Friday 25th December
Well what a LOT of fun Tara and I had today. I've had the idea of having her pull me whilst I sit in a kids plastic sled for a few years now...today that dream came true ;-) Maybe one day I'll learn to do it with ski's (skijoring)
Firstly I made sure she was okay with the harness again, haven't used it for years. Then I made sure she could follow the sled, put her nose on it and then Mark walked her about whilst I slid the sled further and further behind her to make sure she was okay with it behind her. We used only half of the harness (breaching/brakes bit not needed), I also made sure that the sled and hames (leathers that run behind her which do the pulling) were only joined by a wrapped string that I held the end of, this way I could release the string and she and I would be parted making sure that if anything went wrong it wouldn't frighten her.
I just had to get used to using the 2x22' lines as reins in one hand, hold the harness string in the other and balance myself in the sled so as not to fall out. I realised soon that I had to go against the turns when going around corners or I'd fall out, a bit like being in a boat....sure tested my balance. lol. I also had to make sure the weight was on the collar of the harness not on the reins and this was just co-ordination.
Well after a couple of test runs (where I did actually fall out of the very unstable sled! lol) and where Mark stayed near Tara's head in case I needed him to stop her, I eventually just went for it, any falling out of the sled was on a very soft landing and Tara's not known for running off. lol.
It was ENORMOUS FUN. Haven't laughed so much in ages, it was great when Tara trotted and once she went around the small roundpen and all those early days of 'follow the rail' really came in useful. She just went and stopped on my energy really and she seemed to be enjoying herself as much as I did. Mark has put up a short video for you to see of it all...check out the Movies section, for now though, here are some piccies' of the day...YEEHAA.
Tara pulling me on a sled, all tinselled and jingle belled up ;-)
Still using the 'retarding seat' to stop tara from the sled, really worked well ;-)
Tara and me after our sledging...may give it another go tomorrow ;-)Wednesday 22nd December
Well not much going on up here horse-wise BUT lots of SNOW! ;-) We had about 5" up to last night but during the night we got a load more, now it's about 10"-12" deep. We're SO lucky to have a great team at the council who come out regularly to clear it off the roads with a huge snowplough...
The snowploughIt was hard to get around this morning, the dogs enjoyed it but our little dog was so small he kept getting lost in it all! lol.
Little Rusty almost lost in the snow! lol
Me looking down....snow almost to the top of my long boots! eek ;-)
The scenery is beautiful though so I took a few piccie's of it for you all 
The horses in their field, eating hay...the road just cleared by snowplough
Dear Fortune in her 'ecosystem' under the snow laden tree ;-)
Curious Solly watching Frodo running up the roadHave a very Merry Xmas
AND a Peaceful
New Year
from
Shelley, Mark
Frodo, Rusty (dogs)
Solly, Tara, Holly, Stormy & Fortune (horses)
Saturday 19th December
Well today started off really really cold and we put the herd up into the playfield for some grass BUT then it started snowing so we collected them up, put their rugs on and brought them back down to their normal grazing field...this is because the top playfield is rather open with NO shelter at all. At least with their normal grazing field they have dens and trees to help shelter them. All this moving about has been great for their confidence and for me getting used to leading three at a time (Solly, Tara & Fortune) and today we managed to get a piccie of me with all 5 of them...will have to try this again later in the year when it's not a snow blizzard! lol
Me w/Stormy...two feet each on the pedastal
All 5 of our beaties...Tara, Solly, Fortune, Me, Stormy & Holly ;-)Wednesday 16th December
It was threatening to rain all day but I wanted to re-arrange my roundpen so out I went. I made a VERY VERY large rectangular arena where my very large roundpen used to be. I've done this for two reasons. 1, so that Sol and I can do the corners game, point to point and better circling and serpentines, and 2, so that it gives us a change of scenery and keeps us on our toes with our emotional fitness in different environments. It took me a whilte to set it up, get the jumps out into the field and put the cones down the centre line for weaving and serpentines...phew!
It was past 2pm when I'd finished and I knew there wasn't much daylight left, the horses had all been put to graze up here in the playfield and they were all going back to their normal grazing field at about 3pm SO, I managed to just have a little short session with Solly today ;-)
He caught me nicely at the bottom of the field and we played some stick 2 me going back to the top where the arena is and then popped him over a few jumps squeeze style which he did well. I brought him into the arena and just played around a bit to get him used to the difference in the space. I then mounted him bareback and went to a corner and stopped and waited. I porcupined his head down in my signal for him to graze but he didn't want to...this told me that he was sceptical of either what we were doing, being bareback or his surroundings SO I turned him to face the next corner and asked him to get to that one in a positive, forward walk. He was a bit sluggish but we got there, I asked him to stop with my energy and the fence then I backed him up four steps and again asked him to lower his head to graze. I did this about 6 times before he actually felt okay about lowering his head and grazing, after that he was fine ;-)
I did nothing else, just asking for a good walk and grazing. I realised I do very little in walk and will try to dedicate a lot of this winter to getting that better, after all, even in bad weather we can walk! lol. I'm also hoping that the set up for serpentines now will help us get into good habits for lead changes later on.
Saturday 12th December
Didn't think we'd do much today if anything as it was very frosty and cold with rock hard ground. In the afternoon we took the herd up to the playfield for grazing and I decided it would be fun to do some bareback riding with Solly and Tara today, just in the large round pen, just for fun.
So, I played with them for a while on the ground and then did bits of bareback riding in w/t (and canter w/Tara). We did some fig 8's, RtR, weave and cod's with each of them. It was fun to ride Tara bareback, she's so easy to sit to and comfy. She's nice and responsive and we have fun RtR in all three gaits nicely.
Solly was fun too, it felt good and just natural to ride him bareback and he felt calm and responsive. I tried to make sure my weight was in the right place for turning and his DHQ's and LF's were very light. Here's a couple of piccie's from the day...
Thursday 10th December
Very cold today but sun shining and frosty grass slowly melts. We put the herd in the playfield today, better ground, more sunshine and more grazing for them...they all like that a lot ;-)
First today I played quickly with Tara and then just took her for an hours bareback hack on the forest track. She's getting 'wide' again (great doer) and she needs exercise. The ride out was fun and she sure helped my stiff body to relax and get more mobile before playing with Solly. She was quite on her toes today and very up for trotting a lot of the track, I think she enjoyed her ride out as much as I did.
Then it was Solly's turn. This is what we did together today:
1) Stick 2 Me:
After he caught me so well I haltered him and played stick 2 me from the bottom of the field to the small roundpen (w/t/bkup). He was a little slow to warm up today but we're both chilly so we take things slowly.
2) Circling:
I start today at liberty, not sure why, just decide to have a change. I want to try to find a way to help Solly learn to circle me at liberty without running off (which he thinks is a lot of fun ;-) SO, I start by asking him to backup a bit and turn his FQ's onto a circle and then ask him to slowly move forward in that circle. I have to really tone down my energy and use my finger as a pointer to keep him going around. It sort of works okay but without much impulsion so I go back to using the halter and 22' line keeping slack on the ground but trying to keep him close. Then I try it again with the halter just tied around his neck. He manages to do it okay but we'll just have to see if this works out in the long run.
Next I ask him to do some large circles with just the halter around his neck and the line, trying to simulate liberty, he does it quite well, no pulling right to the outside of the circle, just trotting on an inside track. cool. So I leave circling for today and will try this again next time to see if it worked a bit.
3) Hoolahoop fun:
There was a hoolahoop in the round pen so I decided to have some fun with it. First I played the friendly game all over Solly's body with it, over his head, on his back, belly, rattling it on his rump etc (him still at liberty), he was fine with this. Then I placed it on the floor and asked him to put one front foot in it. When he did this I then massaged his leg with my hands and then picked up the hoolahoop and played friendly with it around his leg. Once I was certain he was okay with it I put it behind his knee and asked him to step forward from the slight pressure I placed there with the hoolahoop. He had a think about that and then moved forward. I did this a couple of times and then dropped the hoolahoop, asked him to step out of it and then asked him to put his other foot into it so that I could do the same with that one. It went very well and I was very pleased that all the hoolahoop fun last year was remembered ;-)
After that success I decided to try something different with the hoolahoop. This time I dropped the hoop on the floor and asked Sol to place one back foot in the hoop. Now this was quite a bit harder for him (maybe sidewaysing over things has been about his back feet!) and it took a few asks but I made sure I went very very slowly, everytime he made even the smallest attempt I released my energy. Then he just got it and placed his back foot into the hoop very decisively...it was very deliberate and slow and it was so cool. So after a long rest I asked him to try the other back foot and again after a think about it, he just did it ;-) This was still all at liberty which was even cooler.
4) CS/SS fun:
We took a long rest and grazed for a bit and then onto playing with the SS (still at liberty). First I played friendly game over Sol's back and then on one throw over I managed to catch the SS under his belly. I then took the CS over Sol's head so that I stood in Z1 and had the CS in one hand and the SS in the other hand and I played friendly game with the back of his legs. Then I took the SS down to just below his knees and asked him to move two steps forward which he did very nicely.
Then I took the CS back over his head so that I was standing in Z3, CS in one hand, SS in the other and asked him to move away from pressure and sideways towards me. This was slightly more difficult for him, first time and all, and I helped him by using rhythmic pressure with the CS on his back and then he got it and moved. I then asked him again with just the pressure of the SS on his side and he moved towards me okay. He's a fast learner with some things for sure.
Next I took the CS back over his rump so that the SS was around his back legs and me in Z5 and I asked him to backup from pressure (porcupine game) on his back legs. This he got straight away and obliged by giving me 4 great backup steps. This was fun.
5) Fig 8's:
After another grazing break I took Sol over too two cones for some fig 8's. He had been doing a lot of slow decisive things and going up a pace to trotting the fig 8 seemed to miff him a bit...he was shoving his shoulder into my space A LOT so I had to work on getting him to move away from me more. Probably wasn't helped by working on tight circles to start with but I took the horse that showed up and worked on this issue until it was good. It didn't take long and we then got some nice trotting ones and some cantering ones with FLC's. The thing that stuck in my mind here today was to stick with it and not stop until we got it good as all the ingredients were okay it was just that he was testing me today with this pattern.
6) Ridden:
After saddling and cinching I mounted and did my pre-flight checks. Then I did some freestyle CS riding RtR pattern. With this pattern I did some DHQ, move the FQ's around whilst doing the RtR. This started out a bit 'bracy' but got lighter and lighter as we did it more, I made sure we did it to the L&R before stopping for a rest.
Then I did a bit of slow stuff with the neck string. Just move the FQ's over, DHQ's and backup...all went very well so I left that on a good note.
I went back to some more freestyle CS riding with RtR transitions. Today I started with w/t/w/t trans'. Then we went to h/t/h/t trans, which went very well as we've been working on these online ;-) Final transitions today were t/c/t/c with some bowtie thrown in to help ol and I get our left leads. I seem to have huge trouble asking Sol for leads (not a problem with any of our other horses) so I think maybe I'm trying way too hard with this. He's really getting it together online and he's balanced and working well most of the time SO I'm going to just try less and work on focussing more ;-) just have to see what happens next time. I also have to trust that he'll do it and not worry about if he's going to buck as he very rarely bucks nowadays.
Lastly today we went to the two fig 8 cones and did some freestyle CS fig 8's. He had a bit of trouble to start with, I started in walk to let him know the pattern we were going to do and then when we went into trot he seemed to get it quicker and we did a few good 'rounds' of the pattern before finally stopping for the day. Again this was a matter of doing it right until a change is made and then stop on a good note ;-)
I was very pleased with the session even though I realised I didn't have much of a plan today...hey ho. We did some nice things, some new things and some reinforcing of patterns we need to move on with so that was good. I want to now try to maybe take a hack out now and then, with or without company...just around the forest tracks but to put some purpose into our training and to get Solly out and about more so that he doesn't become arena sweet.
Tuesday 8th December
Today was another shooting day on the estate so horses were again up in the playfield and I played with them at liberty with the umbrella again. Same as yesterday, lots of approach and retreat with a small umbrella building it all up to an open umbrella...and all went well today as you can see from some piccie's I took.
Extreme friendly w/Tara at liberty and the umbrella ;-)
Friendly game with Solly in Z4
Friendly game w/Solly in Z1 & 2
Solly making friends with the umbrella in Z1 high up
Extreme friendly with Solly and the umbrella in Z3After playing with the umbrella the shooting started close by so I just waited it out with them, they were pretty cool and I found the closer I stood to them and just breathed out lots for them the easier it was for them to chill out and hang close with me. I've found that this breathing technique really helps them to release their breath and thereby relax more....the art of suggestion works very well when you have a good connection to your horses (or any animal for that matter!)
So once the shoot had gone I got Solly to catch me and I haltered him and put him on the 22' line for a bit of a play session. Here's what I did with him today:
1) Fig 8's:
Only at trot today as the ground was pretty hard and frosty. He did them very nicely and I didn't over do the task, just got it good, me doing hardly anything and him being obedient and with good impulsion. Quit on a good note.
2) Circling:
I asked him to do a few circles at walk/trot with a couple of COD's thrown in and then used moving circles to get from the open field into the large arena. His impulsion is good and he wanted to canter for me but I lowered my energy so that he didn't hurt his feet.
3) Sideways:
In the large pen we did some nice sideways away and towards and then with me in Z1 he half circled sideways around me to the left and then to the right. Then I asked if he would sideways over the small white barrel. He still has sticky feet with this and today I just went back to asking with retreat and re-approach and a gentle ask. He really struggles with this one and I can see it bothers him that the barrel can have the ability to move thereby making it unstable underneath him and near his feet. He's more confident when it's a log under him. But he makes a HUGE effort and goes over it well from left to right.
4) Jumping:
Again, I don't do many of these as the ground is hard but there is plenty of spongy grass around the jumps in the arena so to get him off sideways for a second or two I ask him to jump our biggest jump yet...3'1" (two stacks of 3 tyres each end of the jump with a pole on top and two upright tyres in the middle) he does it with ease and stops, turns and waits for one the other way too.
5) Sideways again:
After the jump I go back to the white barrel to see if I can help him more in this session. I go to the other side, which has the open side of the barrel with a pole coming out of it to stop it moving and I ask him to just cross the pole...wow...he has a huge problem with this. When he eventually goes over it it's with a very controlled, slow motion, jump move. He puts his whole weight calmly on his HQ's and then lifts his FQ's and plants them across the pole (like doing a jump and waiting with the jump or barrel under the belly), very nice me thinks BUT he did this because of something about the barrel and pole.
6) Poles:
Admittedly it looks strange and there could be a worry with the open side of the barrel SO I just stay with the pole and ask him to try to put just one foot over it and stop/wait. Then back up again. Then put that foot back over it again, and repeat this a few times. Then I go to working with two feet over the pole and back up again, repeat a few times. THEN I ask for all four feet over the pole and stop/wait, then back up over it again. This works very well and it become more about being obedient with his feet rather than the pole or barrel and I leave it there on a good note ;-)
7) Pedastal:
He stands on the pedastal with 2 feet but it's a bit cold/slippery to ask for all 4, so instead I stand on the pedastal and ask Solly to sidle up to the ped as if mounting on both sides. He's quite good at this now on the L&R. I then ask once more and then jump up and down and put myself over his back (belly button near the withers) and play the friendly game with his side. He stands perfectly still whilst I do this on the L&R and then as a last one I mount up, sit for a few seconds and then dismount on the other side. They're just about to start shooting again over the river which is a bit close for any bareback riding, so I leave it there, put him back next to the herd and call it a day.
It was a good day and even though I couldn't do too much because of the shoot, it was a positive day and put to good use ;-)
Monday 7th December
Today was another shoot day on the estate so horses were back up into the playfield all day. They'd had their breakfast and I went and got a quick breakfast myself and then I went up to the field to make sure they were all okay during the shoot. The shooting itself now is not such a bit worry, they're used to that noise, but up in the playfield they get to see and hear the 'beaters'. Now beaters are people with short sticks with plastic 'flags' on them and they wave them around them to make the pheasants fly up to be shot. The flags make a very loud whoosh or sometimes a slight bang when they're being waved about so this is what gets the horses going a bit. Luckily we're taking it as an opportunity to desensitize the horses to this sort of thing so I try to make it fun. I do all of the following at liberty with the herd in a field.
First, before any of the beaters is out I relax the horses with lots of friendly game and I also do this with a folded up small umbrella. The guy comes in through the field with the quad bike and goes to feed the birds in the next field which gets the horses attention but I just continue playing the friendly game around and with them all. Then I lengthen the umbrella's handle so that I can play the friendly game from more of a distance, it makes a noise when rubbing them but they're all pretty cool about it. As I'm doing more and more I wander off and back (approach and retreat) with the umbrella at waist height, opening and closing it slowly. Holly, Fortune and Stormy are a bit sceptical of it, even though Stormy has done quite a bit with an umbrella before, it's different today (different field, distances, noises, at liberty etc) so I just take it slowly.
When two men come into the field with a couple of dogs to help the beaters the horses attention is taken away from me so I just wander about with the umbrella over my shoulder opened up. I stop when they stop and as I'm watching the men and dogs Solly comes over and touches the umbrella. He's a very clever boy and I put the umbrella down and fuss him a lot.
Next, to help desensitize him personally, I spend a lot of time rubbing the umbrella over his body, wherever I can and approach and retreat when it's more worrying. First the umbrella is closed, then closed with a long handle, then opened. He's sceptical about it being over his ears so I do a lot of retreat with that, he's happy biting it and smelling it and I get it over his back and along his rump and down his front legs, chest, neck, face and ears. I then give him a rest and do the same thing with Stormy and then Tara too (as she's very sceptical of it but goes SO introverted that she looks okay!)
Finally I go back to Solly and as he's grazing I circle him (15 metres or so) one way and then the next opening and closing the umbrella on the outside of the circle, then on the inside of the circle and then finally above my head. Each time it's good I retreat and then come back a little closer. Solly just handles it very well and when I get very close he keeps his nose in my direction and I fuss him for being a good boy.
I'm amazed as most of the umbrella work was done whilst there was shooting going on too, not right in the next field (I just let them do their thing with that) but a couple of fields away which still is quite loud. We have another shoot tomorrow, probably just the am but I will go out again with the umbrella and do another day of fun desentization with the horses. Sorry there weren't any more piccie's but it was raining most of the day too ;-(
Friday 4th December
Today was really chilly but some sunshine shone for us here so I went out to do something with Solly. I was going to play and ride in the playfield but decided to just take him out for a play/walk along the track and forest pathway as it's been a while since we chummed up and walked together, I also get to put a purpose to the games out on the track so it would be fun for us both to have a change of scenery.
I went into the grazing field and Sol came and caught me nicely, he had a nice look on his face and before haltering I gave him a load of scratches on his thickening coat to say a big hello ;-)
I start out leading him down the lane, keeping his confidence with lots of friendly game with the cs/ss over his back in walk. He has a few 'stops' but I just backup and re-approach and everythings fine. A little way down the first track there I see a fun obstacle. On the right hand side is a large newly dug up ditch with quite a lot of water in it and a good landing of grass on the opposite bank SO, not wanting to miss that bit of fun I ask Sol to jump the ditch. He is a little sceptical of it so I use a lot of backup and re-approach and then some sideways away/towards to repostion him. After a few mins I jump the bank myself and he follows nicely. Then when he's had a rest and a short graze I squeeze him back to the pathway, then back to me and away again so that he jumps the ditch 4 times and each time it was better so that worked nicely.
First ditch which he jumped nicely after a worrying start ;-)By the end of the first track I start asking for more driving from Z3. I use this opportunity to toss the rope over Sol's head from Z3 and then going to the other side to drive from Z3 again. This goes very well and at the first turn on the track I ask for some circling in trot with some cod's to keep his attention.
Next up is a small ditch with a little trickly of water in it! what could we do with that? Well I decide to see if he will squeeze into and along the stream. First few times he doesn't want to even try to put his feet in the ditch and pushes me with his shoulder as he squeezes between me and the edge of the ditch...and it's such a shallow ditch. But I persevere and make sure that my squeeze 'sends' are good and that he moves his shoulder away from me before moving off. This works very well and he does a good few squeezes actually down the ditch and into the water before we move off along the track. So far, so good and we're having fun with all this playing around with natural obstacles ;-)
Next we have a long upward part of the hill to the top. I decide to do more driving but from Z4/5 now, tossing the rope over his head regularly and keeping my inside hand on his rump and stroking him for his confidence. This is fun and he really starts to 'lead' nicely. I also put in a few halt/bckup transitions with the walking forward. At the top of the hill I find some nice grass for him and he grazes.
Looking back where we had come from before decent off hillWhen we set off down the other side of the hill I again do Z4 driving, this time we do some w/t/w transitions and again I toss the rope over his head to work on both sides. When he's in trot I also do some friendly game with the cs/ss on his back, this is something that caught us out at Stoneleigh as I'd never thought of playing the friendly game when in motion! duh ;-) Today though he has no problems with it at all and it's fun testing it out.
Z4 drivingNear the end of the walk I found a HUGE boulder in the ditch...what could I possibly try out with this? I decided that I would stand on the boulder and see if Solly would walk down the quite steep bank into the ditch...not sure he would do it as it was steep but blow my socks off he did do it!! yeehaa.....He then surprised me even more by squeezing around the large boulder to the other side and up to the road again, there wasn't much room next to the boulder but he kept his footing on the slope of the opposite bank. What a star!
Large boulder in ditch (doesn't look much but it was BIG ;-)Tuesday 1st December
Each person seemed to get the right horse which is pretty cool and although it was cold we spent about 3 hours playing online, some liberty and some riding too. Great fun, great company and well behaved horses. What more could anyone ask. If you want to see more pictures then go to www.savvyscotland.co.uk (Photo gallery/Dec 1st)
Me with the stunningly beautiful Fortune(companion horse only)
Our Savvy friends with our horses:Doreen w/Tara, Hilary w/Stormy, Carin w/Solly, Me and Dot w/Holly
