Report from the Landscape

You can see the few photos I took on my Picasa Gallery. Click on the photo to go there:


We had a great time, didn't get lost, got fed a fine lunch at an oil field camp, saw antelope and a coyote, donated blood to a few mosquitos, only had a few mule tantrums, and got sunburned around the edges. Life should always be so interesting. A special thanks to Don, who tried to teach us some cowboy songs on the way home.

Riding Across The Landscape

Stefan turned out to be a really dedicated student of horsemanship and it has been all I can do to keep him satisfied with the amount of time he gets in the saddle. First he had to learn balance and an independent seat. Then he had to learn to use the reins.

We made a video of his first week:


Since that time, he has turned into a good rider. He floats along (as long as his horse is relaxed) like a centaur. But, the truth be told, he did get bucked off once by that rascal, Cracker Joe, who has many notches on his belt for all the neophytes he has put in the dust. I told Stefan he couldn't be a good rider until he is bucked off 7 times. He has something to aspire to.

One of his goals was to "ride across the landscape". We managed a short ride at the Devil Springs Ranch on some of the bombproof ranch horses, and today we are riding from our place back to Devil Springs on muleback. That's 20 miles across the landscape! His dream come true for sure. I will be riding Cracker Joe, Stephan will ride Chester. Jane will bring two horses from Devil Springs, one of which Jerri will ride.

Will post photos. Meanwhile I have a few chores to finish this morning since I got up early to feed the steeds. By the way, the donkeys are back home, but we couldn't find Paisley.... maybe I will tell that story later...

Hackamore Heaven

Today I put hackamores on the "colts" just to see if I liked them better than bits or halters. They handled slightly better than in the halters. Cisco is really the best at walking-on. Chaco and Sparky kind of get stuck and I don't want to pressure them to walk, they will get it soon enough. With Chaco, I had him chasing me around the pen and running to the mounting bucket for me to hop on his back. I was leaping on them in all kinds of ways. It was a very joyous time for us all.

Cracker and I went for a long ride through the sagebrush, trying to avoid the prickly pears and little chollas. I stop him frequently to encourage him to put his head down and graze, but he is wound too tight to stop long. He seemed much safer than he did on his ride yesterday.

I think part of my problems with my riding animals are from having saddles that don't fit well. The Syd Hill Australian saddles, classy as they are, keep me from getting my leg back as far as I would like. The Wade just doesn't fit the mules at all and it has no where to attach a britchen. I also like to hop off often and the high back on the Wade is not good for that. I'm avoiding the problem, riding the colts bareback, but sooner or later, I will have to get on and really ride. Right now I am thinking that a Specialized Saddle would be just the thing... adjustable all over. Well, that and a Port Lewis pad to see that they really do fit. To upgrade my saddle system I just have to come up with a couple of grand beyond what I need for hay. Hmmm.. I will happily accept any donations!

Just a few more days until our young German cowboy arrives. Stefan is 17 and hopefully he can stick on a horse like a tick. Well, hopefully he will be quite fearless and agile. We'll see.

So Many Mustangs, So Little Time

When she arrived here, I thought Jerri was too frail to make a hand... but, hey, check this out:



That was yesterday. Today she rode him around in the round pen. He is the best of the three we are currently breaking to ride. I hopped up on Sparky a bunch. He is a little too hormonal these days and gets "ideas" too easy. So we did the halter driving exercise whenever he started dropping, and then as a reward he got to stand by the tire that acted as my trampoline to jump on his back. It was a good trick to make me being on his back the reward. Sparky fell for it.

I drove Cisco for 20 minutes before I rode him. I took him in the training pen (with all of our crazy obstacles) with the intent to stick with the exercise until he finally "got it". Well, he started out having already "got it". He just walked around in the pathway of my choice and listened to my gee and haw commands. He backs up and whoas. No fluff today. It was nice. Then he didn't want to end the training session, so I took him to the round pen and we practiced emergency dismounts. He thought it was fun and kept coming back to the fence to pick me up after I leaped off of him. Cisco is a very narrow horse and emergency dismounts are much easier on him than on Jemez Dancing, the broad boy who dominates the hay piles.

My two new books arrived today on riding on the lunge and on yoga for riders. Great books. I will review them on the HinnyWhisperer in a few days after I read them through. Naturally that is what inspired me to get into emergency dismounts.

I hear the Schultz girls might be coming next week for HorseCamp. We have to make a decision about how to get Lightening Bug and Paisley back home. It would be a 40 mile ride across a vast open area of NM. Hmmmm.

Bits, Hooves, and the Mulehood

Jerri and I put some molasses in a bottle and found a headstall to go on the full-cheek snaffle, then we started sequestering our trainees for bitting lessons. Chaco was first. It turns out that he hates molasses. He will not eat a horse cookie with molasses on it, so a bit with molasses was totally unattractive to him. We left him and went to the pen with Sparky. Sparky is in a totally mouthy stage, typical of a 2 year old stallion. He loves molasses and in a few minutes he had the bit in his mouth sucking it clean. After he had the idea that the bit was a good thing, I started shaping him to put his head in the headstall and take the bit in his mouth. I merely held the headstall open in front of him. He figured it out right away. Ten minutes into his training and I felt we had a confirmed positive regard for the bit. Hold a headstall out for him and he will come running.

We went back to Chaco. We offered honey as a molasses alternative, but just on a horse cookie this time. Chaco will not eat sweets at all, so Cracker got the honey coated cookie. I started using the plain cookies to shape him to put his nose in the headstall and take the bit. It took longer because we had to overcome his suspicions that there was still molasses on the bit, but in about 15 minutes he was putting his lips on the bit. That was enough for Day One.

The last one to get bitted was Cisco. He likes molasses and his training went so fast and smoothly that I suspect I must have taught him that last year. He would have also been bitted by one or both of his previous trainers. I was a bit apprehensive that he would have negative perceptions of the bit, but it turned out not to be the case.

Next time, they will get to wear their bits in the stall during the hot part of the day when they would like to just sleep in the shade.

I finished trimming the hooves this morning before it got really hot. Two things of note: 1) Cisco, almost out of the blue, whacked the side of my knee with the side of his hoof. It was a kick but we don't know why, so I sent him around the "round pen" five times each way then invited him back into the grooming area. No more problems. I'm bruised but no big deal. 2) Chester gets his "mulehood" aroused when he is being handled or trained. It interferes with his thinking, but any time there is positive reinforcement going on, the mulehood drops. I was down at his hooves with my grinder somewhat concerned about the tiny flecks of hoof grindings ricocheting off the mulehood, which was in a totally expanded condition. It might sting, I don't know, and mules kick sidewards, so I was concerned. Finally it seemed like Chester's mulehood was irritated without regard to the hoof flecks, so I reached over and moved it to where I could see the end of it. I could see the "bean", so I pushed around it with my gloved hand and the "bean" popped out. Male equids get waxy buildups in a little pouch at the tip of their "mulehood". These things look like fava beans (aka horse beans), which are like super-sized lima beans. I dropped the bean into the dirt, but then Jerri asked to see it so I picked it back up. She wouldn't take it in her bare hand, so I put it on the fence rail where she examined it. Its gray and waxy. Then she knocked it into the dirt and stepped on the edge of it to check its consistency. It squished on her shoe like a wad of gum. She tried to wipe it off on a stick, but managed to step on the rest of it full on. The squished wad stuck tight. There Jerri was totally grossed out with a mule bean stuck to her shoe. It was very very funny.

Tomorrow everyone is going off on other adventures. Jerri, Laura, and Shawn are going to the Little Beaver PowWow and I am going to work at the cafe. Further horse adventures will have to wait until Sunday.

Driving On

Cisco, Chaco and Sparky are in driving school. Right now they are only driving in the ox-pen, but in a few days, they will be ready for the open road. Surprisingly, the best one is Chaco. He turns, backs, and moves his hindquarters on light cues. He walks straight. In contrast, Cisco and Sparky try to second guess me and end up wandering more than following the fence line. I'm not sure how much to force them into line or if I should just take any forward movement as a gift.

We spent quite a few days working on halter driving. Brad Cameron shows it in detail in his Mulemanship I video. It's also the "Dance" in Frank Bell's 7 Step Safety System. Cisco needed the practice, just to get over his fear of ropes. Jerri needed to master being able to get the animals to walk around her. We took our time and got these issues worked out before we attached any driving lines. Cisco's stress was minimized, Jerri can handle the calmer animals.

The animals wear a surcingle and a web-halter. I have considered putting them on the bit at this point. I should, I know, but they aren't doing badly in their halters. Making bitting decisions is always hard for me, even if I know I really only have one full-cheek snaffle to choose from. They need to learn that resistance is futile and the bit will help them come to the conclusion faster. Maybe I will introduce the concept tomorrow with a squeeze bottle of molasses and the bit without any headstall. I think when I get it going the first day I will just lunge them at liberty carrying the bit and headstall, we will practice some flexion in hand, then the second day I will put a tiedown on them and get them to going along with their heads down even with their withers.

Today I ordered Andrew McLean's horse training book: Training the McLean Way. I loved his The Truth about Horses, so I expect this one to be equally good. I will report on it on the Hinnywhisperer Blog. It has to come all the way from Australia. Shipping is $25!!!

Speaking of the Hinnywhisperer and McLean, I started putting assignments up for my students on the Never Stop Learning forum under the Horsemanship discussion. If you would like to join us, just register for the forum and get to reading. The first assignment was reading Everyrider on Leadership, the second is reading McLean on the seven principles of horse training. You can email me your assignments or post them as a discussion on the forum.

This morning, it was the day to tend to the freshly exfoliated hooves (thanks to a few days of rain). I got Sparky, Chaco, and Cracker trimmed. They were all perfectly mannered, quietly standing for the grinder. I must admit that their hooves have never looked better. Very nice natural hoof shape, finally outgrowing the cracked quarters they had developed with my previous farrier.

Finally, just before the evening feeding, I had the students don their helmets and we took a spoon, a round rock, and JD into the round pen. I lunged them around while they tried to maintain enough elasticity to keep the rock in the spoon. They all did great. I took the last ride. JD was obeying my voice commands. My trotting position was only slightly better than theirs. I know what I need to work on. It needs to start with absolute awareness of what my body is doing.

Yrs,
Patricia

Starting Endurance Race Training One Millimeter at a time

My goal with Cisco is to make him an endurance racer. He has the perfect confirmation and temperament. The fact that I am just breaking him to ride at 9 years old is beside the point. You have to start somewhere, so our first mounted training goal was a distance of 1 mm, which is basically lifting his foot up and putting it back in the same spot. When we could do that calmly it was time to move on. Our next goal was 1 cm and every time he stamps his foot at a fly, I think he moves about 1 cm. So our second session of endurance race training was a stomping success.



The 3rd session was a much bigger deal. One meter. That's a long way from the fence or bucket where I got on. How does Cisco know to step out without getting frightened? Well, he knows the meaning of "Walk-on". Tapping on the mustang is not required. With the first step, which he offered as if he was saying "it's about time!", I was euphoric. Sitting on the sweet wild boy with the cool wind blowing gently through the cottonwoods. It's the culmination of a dream really! Three times we got that meter done, I slid off and made a big deal of Mr. Cisco. He knows he is the best horse to ever walk the planet.

This morning we did sets of 10 meters around the stall and started working on directional control. I want him to go where I point, he figured it out right away. I had him turning gee and haw quite casually as if he had done it all his life. We never bothered to pick up the lead rope he had draped over his neck. He wants to please me.

A big thunderstorm left our world all wet yesterday afternoon. After it was all done, I only had a few moments to work with the horses before I had to feed. I went into the round pen with a pocket full of horse cookies and they all crowded around where I climbed up on my pedestal of an overturned feeder. Cisco, JD and Cracker Joe all pressed against the pedestal, awaiting for me to climb on. I climbed up on the broad back of Jemez Dancing and rewarded him handsomely. For a moment I waited to see if Cisco would explode at the sight of a mounted horseperson, as he always did before, but when instead he reached out and asked for a horse cookie, I rewarded him with his favorite flavor.

My goal, at age 55, is to get this mustang trained to ride without sustaining any signficant level of tissue damage. We are taking it slow. He's making a lot of progress. Now I am starting to dream of buying him his own saddle. We have a lot of kilometers to put under it.

Yrs,
Patricia