Susan's Viewpoint

Archive for the ‘Powder’ Category

Powder Beauty - April 2011

 Powder is with Tony and Jenny Vaught for her start. (Both Tony and Jenny took two Young Horse Development clinics with Pat Parelli and Ronnie Willis before they had to drop out of the program.) And you know that my horses are gaited. Gait is forever on a gaited horse owner’s mind. Tony said he had been riding Powder about a week or so.

 I gulped and thought, here’s the moment to ask…. “How’s her gait?” I said. Tony didn’t answer for a few seconds. I thought he might say the awful pace word. Finally he replied, “Slow”.

 Slow is good. Slow is the opposite of reactive and bolting. Slow is left brain. I like slow as an answer!

Just singing my happiness living my life with horses.

Friday was wonderful.  Powder came home from her 30 days of training with Tony and Jennifer Vaught.  It was good to have her back in the pasture again.  Powder and Velvet had never met.  Powder didn’t move fast enough to suit Velvet, so Powder lost some hair. She’s very aware of Velvet now.

Friday was lesson night.  I have my winter goals for  with Nova. 

• We are to trail walk with head down until she is really relaxed.  You remember that picture of the Indian sitting on his paint horse. The horse has his head down and it’s titled The End of the Trail.  That’s the general idea except we are to do it at a slow walk.
• We are to always work on flying lead changes and just regular lead changes
• We are to work on our reining horse spins
• We are to do a real trot where I have to post.  Nova’s fox trot is now so developed that I have a difficult time getting her to do a square two beat trot
• We are to do collected canter departs which is the opposite of strung out canter departs.

I was going to talk about riding both Velvet and Nova out on the trail on Sunday.  That was heaven!

I was going to talk about taking Powder to Pine Dell this Monday night and playing with her.  I was blown away by her liberty trotting task and how she maintains the gait. There was no squirty speeding up, no tails up snorting. She just trotted around the round pen.  We went places in the dark, thru a narrow barn door, crossing a bridge while looking for the round pen light.  We started out in the big arena with two horses cantering around us.

Powder was as calm as could be.  I love this horse!

I love them all!!

I was going to go on and on, but Pawn Shop Stars is ready to start.  I must watch that show!

Powder and I took part in the first day of a Colt Start clinic today. She is in colt start training with Jenny, but this is a Colt Start clinic with Tony Vaught.  I love Colt Start Clinics.  You can learn just about everything you should know about horses when you participate in or watch a Colt Start Clinic with Tony Vaught.

Tony was in the Pat Parelli professional program for many a year and he took two Young Horse Development courses from Pat Parelli and Pat’s mentor, Ronnie Willus.  You can’t get much better education than that.

Well, back to Powder.  Our big excitement today was Powder getting to be ponied with JR.  It was so wonderful to watch my former wonderful horse, perform the critical task of pony horse.

JR and Powder – Pony Horse

What does that mean…  The pony horse has to be a finished horse. The pony horse has to go at any speed the rider dictates, stop on a dime, sidepass, and turn on the hindquarters…immediately!

The young horse is attached to the pony horse. The young horse has to learn where the best deal is. The best deal is to go alongside the pony horse exactly where the foal positions itself with the mom. The young horse’s head should stay about even with the pony horse’s shoulder.

(I tried to pony Velvet once with Sage.  I ended up with Velvet snubbed on the wrong side of Sage, with the lead rope under the saddle.  The rider of a pony horse needs to be skilled at this too.)

Being ponied is a big part of the development of the young horse.   The young horse gets used to a rider without being rode. The young horse has to maintain gait and learn that it’s better to do what the lead rope sez. The young horse develops confidence when being ponied.  It’s a must do young horse development task!

I’m so glad that Powder got this experience today!

Sunday, Powder will be headed to “For the Horse” Ranch to enjoy 30 days of training with Jennifer Vaught. 

Jenny was a Parelli 3 Star instructor for 15 years.  Pat found Jenny near the beginning of the development of the Parelli people training system and asked her to be an instructor. She has influenced untold numbers of people in the midwest.  She has influenced my life a great deal!

Jenny has taken two Horse Development courses with Pat Parelli and Pat’s mentor Ronnie Willus and was certified as a Young Horse developer.

Jenny is the secret to all my successes with horses. She’s started all my horses.  I can’t imagine what I would do with a young horse without Jenny being in my life.

Powder will be the fifth horse for me to develop into a finished saddle horse.  I can’t imagine developing a horse without that crucial start from a  Parelli certified “Colt Starter” and one who has started thousands of horses…..including Sage, Velvet, JR, Nova and soon Powder!

Powder has the potential to be the best of them all!

Jenny and Tony are going to be wintering in Florida for 2010.  They are taking in training horses.  They will be about an hour south of Orlando. Contact them if you are interested.

Powder - Winter

Surprise!  I asked Jennifer Vaught if she might want to train Powder for 30 days and the answer is YES!

We’re talking mid October thru Mid November.  I’ve also just about talked Jenny into blogging about training Powder. Wouldn’t that be something!

I think everyone should send Jenny an email and tell her how excited you would be to read a blog about Jenny’s thoughts during 30 days of training.  What does she hope to accomplish in the daily sessions? What happens during Powder’s training.  When does the first ride happen?  How far will Jenny and Powder get in 30 days! Just think about a diary of training one of JJ’s daughter!

Send that email now!  forthehorse@ymail.com

For the Horse Ranch
Vaught Family General Store and Information

Powder - October 2008

She was born two years ago.  Her birthday is today!  But hold on! She’s going to be two again in 2011…for showing purposes!  Powder is two, she’ll have two birthdays.   Isn’t that two cool!

Powder was born in October and the rule is…Oct. thru December babies are deemed to attain their age in the following year.

In this past few weeks, I’m determined that Powder will have the best horse development ever.  I’ve been playing with her at home and taking her to Pine Dell.

Taking Powder to Pine Dell is totally cool. We have to get into the trailer.  At Pine Dell, we have two indoor arenas and two outdoor arenas in which to play. We also have a covered round pen.  Life is good for us.

A couple of days ago, I decided that we would play in the small outdoor arena by the road. We don’t have a busy road at home.  But next to the smaller outdoor arena, cars and trucks and bigger trucks zip up and down that road.  We even had a motorcycle zip by and put on the big ZZZZZZZooom for us.  You know that big load snort horses have for big danger warning?   I’d forgotten about that snort until it went off in my ear.  Powder did the Big Exhale Snort right into my ear.  It made me yell.  Ouch

Tonight we played in the small arena.  There were little sounds in the rafters…like little feet pattering above Powder’s body. SNORT!!!  Whoo WEE!

Later we had another horse come into the arena.  He was having some fun on his lunge line..bucking and carrying on.  Then we had the rumble snorting from Powder.  I got to see Powder with her tail straight up running around for a while.  But when she hit the end of the rope, she softened and came right back into softness.  Love that horse!

After we get done with all these new experiences…maybe this could be called seasoning, we have to get back into the trailer.  This isn’t our favorite thing in the world. Tonight we had horses all over the place and a tractor.  Powder got in the trailer and ran out several times.  We waited until she was semi calm in the trailer before I threw the lead rope over her back and let her stay in.

It’s a short ride home..perfect for trailer “seasoning”.  She was really upset when we got home.  I opened the door. She came out with her front feet and started eating grass.  Her back feet were forgotten as they stayed in the trailer for a time.  Yep, the trailer is a big deal!

Fairy Tale Filly

Here’s my terrible confession.  I am writing this blog just to publish some recent pictures of Powder. Don’t worry, I have more from this great Sunday Fall afternoon.  You’ll get to see all of them, eventually.

Here’s our self protrait.

Self Portrait

It’s my blog.  I can do whatever I want!  See how my eyebrows match her hair.  If I want, I can have half my hair match Powder, but I would never admit that to anyone!  Let’s just leave it at my eyebrows for now.  I love it when my horse and I match!

Powder and I are heavy into training now.  It occured to me to think about the phases of pressure that I use to ask her to do things.  Occasionally, my pressure phase has to get a little high to convince her to do these things. The thinking is that you use enough pressure to get the slightest movement and “the release” from pressure is what teaches.  When the pressure gets too high, Powder thinks about kicking me.  She will go right up into a high pressure phase when it suites her.  Her first pressure is the movement of her head, the next is ears back and then immediately her highest pressure is a swift kick.  These phases happen in about 3 seconds.

My job is to try not to go there and if it does happen, not to be there!

Powder Leading the Liberty Herd

It’s a game we love to play. We turn the horses loose in the arena and wait for them to want to come back to us. The rules for the horses are trot or canter, maintain the same direction and don’t cut thru the middle.That last rule is important because that’s where the humans stand.  Tony called her “sassy”!  Sassy she was indeedy.  In the above picture, her goal was to be the leading horse. She cut the corner to pass Spike and JR.

Not only did Powder cut thru the middle and change direction, but she bluffed me out as well.  My “suggestion” that she change direction was met with total ignore.  It was a game of chicken and I stepped out of her way.

We did three horses at a time in the liberty game and Powder was lucky to get two geldings.  She got JR, who has long learned the rules of the game and Spike who was new to the game, but decided to follow JR.

Powder in the Game!

Powder’s game was to become the leader of the herd!  She broke all the rules to do it too! In the above picture, she is breaking the “go the same direction” rule. She’s out to have a meaningful meeting with JR!

Herd Control!

Powder’s job is to control the herd.  Making them back off and even stop is her desire.  JR got a little to close to Powder and she’s in the process of letting him know!

Powder had a great time at this game and was revved up for quite a while after the game wanting to do it again!

Powder Leading the Herd!

We all suggested that this might be the opportunity to have Tony ride Powder, but he graciously declined.

At the end, JR came into Lynne.  I looked at Powder and gestured her to come to me…and she did. Spike ran around a bit longer and Powder stayed with me for quite a while. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore and went out to lead Spike around the arena a few more time.  When Spike decided the best place for him was with his human, Powder came right back to me.

What a glorius game it is when your horse comes to you at liberty.  Liberty is the Truth.

What an amazing clinic we had today. We had a lot of fun.  All the horses calmly handled all the things presented to them

Powder took on every obstacle immediately when asked.  She was asked to pose for the auditors and decided to wear a hat. The original hat picture had the red eye and I tried to fix her eyes.  Her eyes right now are blue distilled by green.

The Tower of Doom is in the background of one picture.  I led her right thru it with no hesitation on her part. Then I sent her thru it by herself, again she walked right thru it.

She wore a tarp for a while today, but it covered up most of her “Farrah
Fawcett” hair.

She easily handled a big bouncing ball…she wanted to follow it while Karen was bouncing it around the group.  She wanted to eat it when it came her turn. She handled me wallking around opening and closing an umbrella. She smelled the balloon and the streamer ribbon anchored around the arena. She also handled the plastic bag on the end of the carrot stick when I was shaking it and making noise.

Powder?had a great day.  It was a three hour clinic and she did great!  Melissa
was helping with the clinic and exclaimed over her. “I want to ride her when
she old enough! She is calm and laid back with all these obstacles and she’s
beautiful!”?

I had to agree!