Wednesday 31st December
Today was cold but very good for playing in so I went up to the new top playfield with Solly, Holly and Tara. My brother Paul and nephew Alex came up too and played with Tara and Holly. I wanted to play with Solly so I used him to demonstrate a few things and to also have some fun. We didn't have much time so tried to get through the 7 games as quickly and well as possible.
So, this is what I did with Solly:
1) energy exercises, w/t/bkup
2) circling, normally and then with stick to me at w/t/c
3) yo-yo's, getting faster
4) porcupine, especially with lowering his head and me jumping up and down as if I was going to try to get him to help me to mount up
5) close up circling, which went very well in trot
6) driving game from Z4
7) friendly game, rope tossing over his head from Z4/5
8) backing up from his tail, Z5
9) sideways without a fence
10) 'sniff this' from 22' feet away to a cone, then another cone, and then another cone, cool!
11) then I demonstrated the figure of 8 at walk and trot with Sol for Paul and Alex to see and he did this very well. Tried it at liberty but he walked off so I just left him until he came to us when we went to leave the field. lol.
Here are some piccie's from today....
stick to me cantering
close circling at trot
figure of 8 Wednesday 24th December
Having family up for Xmas has meant not much horse-play going on, but today me and nephew Alex (who passed his L1 this year) went out to play with two horses, he with my Tara and me with Solly.
I played with Solly and Alex did the same as I did, so we ran through the 7 games and then got our horses to stand on the pedastal with 2 feet and then 4 feet. Then we went into the roundpen and I helped Alex do a bit of bareback and bridleless riding at walk and trot. I let Solly go as he had played all our games well and enjoyed being with us for a while.
Alex asking Tara to jump, not her favorite thing ;-)
Alex and Tara's very first 'four feet on a pedastal'...cool!Next week another person is coming to live on the estate with her 2 horses so we have to move our playfield back to the nice top field we had at the beginning of the year, this is what we will do just before the new year and I will try to get some pictures of it all set up there. Soon I will get back to playing and riding Sol but it's always good to give the horses some time off over Xmas, keeps them keen ;-)
Hope you all had a good Xmas and are looking forward to a great 2009. See you next year! lol
Wednesday 17th December
Well hey ho, the drizzle has finally got rid of the snow and ice and I was feeling good, not too cold so I went out with my halter, rope and carrot stick. I wasn't sure if I was going to do anything really, just be with the herd and make sure my roundpens and jumps were still up. All of that was fine so I went and saw if Sol wanted to catch me after such a long time doing nothing much at all! lol. Well he came over after some thought and seemed to enjoy just hanging out with me. I halter him and ask him to walk/trot with me and backup to see if our energies are matching today. He did very well and it felt good being with him again.
So, here is what we got up to:
1) did some circling at walk/trot and a bit of canter
2) jumped the tyre jump I just put together
3) Sol stood on the pedastal with front feet and then all 4 feet
4) asked Sol to back towards the pedastal putting Z5 by it, he had a bit of trouble with this so I took quite a bit of time just asking for the smallest steps with lots of release and resting
5) then into the 100' roundpen and asked for a few trotting fig 8's
6) asked him to sidle to a barrel and jumped on him bareback
7) started with LF and DHQ
8) then figure 8's at walk and trot
9) and then ride the rail with some small circle COD's thrown in
10) after a rest we did some sideways point to point between two barrels
11) then asked him to backup around a barrel which went very well
12) then I jumped off and asked him to stick to me at w/t and a bit of canter at liberty, he's slowly getting the hang of this and it's a lot of fun for me too
13) then asked for fig 8's at liberty but he was drifting off so I put him back online and asked for them online, after a couple of LBext moments he gave me some really lovely fig 8's at trot, with me just pointing my finger in the direction I asked of him....the best I think he's ever done. They were cool
I'm so glad I went out and played with Sol, I've missed being with the herd and especially Sol and it was good to see he remembers everything we've done so far. If it stays good I'll try to get out with him again before Xmas. He does look like a hairy Highland at the moment though! lol ;-)
Friday 5th December
Well the snow has landed and not much I can do at the moment. Snow about 6" thick and the ground is very very hard underneath so I'm worried about two things:
1) Sol will use valuable energy playing which should just be keeping him warm (he's rugless so far)
2) He could hurt himself/legs by playing big and landing badly on ice or rough mud under the snow.
So I will just leave all playing and riding until it's safer...oh for an indoor arena ;-)
Tuesday 2nd December
Well today we woke up to 4" of snow and it finished falling at about 5" deep. The ground underneath the snow is VERY hard and isn't very safe for much play or ridden work at the moment SO I decided to give them an 'Equine Touch' session instead. I went to a 3 day workshop down in Biggar, Lanarkshire over the weekend (hence no play at the end of November) and came back armed with lots of knowledge and techniques to perform this body work on our herd.
I've known about ET since 2004 at the Parelli Conference down in Solihull. Jock and Ivana Ruddock were there demonstrating with some of the PNH Instructors horses. I was very interested but it's taken me this long to actually go and learn the discipline myself. I can only describe it as a body work technique which works on the fascia over the muscles and puts the whole horses body back into harmony. It's fascinating and I hope to continue my studies with it as it feels really good to give something back to our horses.
So, I managed to work on all 5 of our horses and Solly was second in line. He didn't have any 'hot' spots or worries really but I wanted to give him the gift of ET while he's got some time off due to the weather. He really enjoyed it, from the start this very LBext/mouthy horse was quiet, calm and stood still patiently. He was only ground tied, I didn't have anyone to help hold him and he just waited whilst I did a full body balance on him.
As you can see from the picture above he went all dozy, sleepy eyed and laid back. He did quite a bit of licking and chewing and at one point yawned a lot too. I think he really enjoyed it and I will do another session in a couple of weeks or whenever I feel he needs it.
Check out ET on http://www.theequinetouchuk.com/
