All about my horses!

Monthly Archives: March 2008

Nova – My First Ride

Nova has been in training with Jenny for a while. I rode Nova for the
1st time today in Jenny’s 11:00 lesson. I managed to keep my
butterflies in formation upon first getting on. I might have been
somewhat relaxed when we stopped riding.

I haven’t rode a young horse since JR was young about 6 years ago!

Wow! Is she ever nice.

Nova is Sage’s daughter. Sage is a lesson horse at Pine Dell and lives
in the pasture horse. Sage was in the arena when I took my first ride
on her first daughter. In fact, Jenny was riding her. How cool is
that!

Sue – How Do You Do The “Catch Me” Game with your Daughter!?

You know Sue was the horse that can’t be caught now the horse that mostly can be caught.

Except for today…and a few days in the past.

Sue is still in training with 12 yr old Nichole Copple.  Sue lives in a huge pasture with other horses that are in training with Tony and Jenny Vaught.  Occasionally Sue has new horse friends that don’t know how wonderful people are and they “don’t like to be caught”.  But gradually, these horses learn that people are wonderful and come to or stand to be haltered.

Sue no longer has horse friends that like to run when people come into the pasture.  She sez “Drat!  It was a lot of fun when the three of them were flying around the training pasture!”

Today, she decided that she didn’t want to be caught.  Off she went.

Sue’s daughter, Diva, is in training with Tony Vaught at Pine Dell.  Tony got Diva, saddled her up and went out into the training pasture to help Sue understand her role in the “catch me” game.  Diva really got into her role!  She had her ears back when Sue wouldn’t readily move towards the front of the pasture and the halter person.  Then Tony would rub her on the neck.  Her ears sprung forward.  She was liking it when Tony told her “good job”.  Then back to the Sue “catch me” game again and Diva reverted to a cow horse.

Poor Sue…to be rounded up by her own daughter.

Sue gave up her role in the catch me game and was delighted to have the halter put on.  Nichole rode. 

Nichole, Jenny and I are excited about Sue’s progress.

Sue is cantering longer now before breaking gait.  Remember, Sue is about 13 years old and was not cantered under saddle before I got her.

Another thing Sue is doing is getting into the fox trot quicker!  You know when Sue gets nervous, she tenses up. This causes the pace.  Now she is flat foot walking and then fox trotting a lot earlier.  She is relaxing at an early stage and then the gait comes.  Nichole spends a lot more time now in the flat foot walk and the fox trot than she does in the pace.  This is Way Cool.

Sue’s full sister is a World Grand Champion!

Sue- How Do You Do- No-Where Horse Back at the Park!

Sue and I went on a trail ride at James A. Reed Park.

It took us 14 months to get here. This park is the precipitating event of why she became my horse.

When she spooked at this park and her rider (who was trying her out as a trail horse) fell off, Sue set herself up to come to me. Neither of us knew it at the time.

She had no where to go after that. The no-where horse became my horse.

After 14 months of slow fear recovery, we made it back and rode the entire park with a nice low key friend…both horse and human.

Sue and I have now entered another phase of our relationship. Instead of Traumatized Horse, she has become:
Sue-“Studying for Level 3 in the Parelli program”.

There’s much difference in the two labels for both me and her.

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