Last night I had watched the latest Parelli pod cast. It was about horses that are scared to have horses behind them or meet other horses. Talk about right on time Pod Cast!
Pat rode his pretend fearful horse, Cash, in the round pen. Linda’s job was to canter around the outside of the round pen. Cash rode on the rail inside and when she got too nervous, Pat just took her off the rail and went into and out of the middle. It’s approach and retreat. He did that for a while. Then he and Cash rode with Linda..side by side separated by the round pen fence. After that went well, he went the other way and met Linda and she cantered towards him.
HOW COOL! And we have a round pen set up in our large arena at Pine Dell.
This morning I was asked what I wanted to work on and I explained the concept to Jenny. Her eyes lit up with glee. We had a lot of horses that needed to go around the outside of the round pen throughout the lesson.
Everyone did liberty on the ground in the round pen and then it was my turn to ride in the round pen. Certain people throughout the morning were assigned to ride outside the round pen. Some were trotting. Some were cantering. The final person, friend Barb and Cocoa, walked bridleless!
Sue and I rode in front of the horses…with the horse coming up and passing us. We rode besides the horses. We turned and met the horses. It was GREAT!
Sue and I have never rode with the carrot stick. It’s a stick! We have been playing the friendly extreme game with the carrot stick when I first bought her and she is doing great. I’ve been afraid to ride with the carrot stick.
Here’s the other problem I was having with Sue. Don’t change gaits…Sue sometimes drags herself from stop to a go. Sometimes we are going along at a nice speed and she drops to a walk…she occasionally doesn’t respond to my squeezing of my legs to get her to speed up.
She still is terrified of something that appears to want to hit her. I have been using a very small slap of my hand on my thigh to make a very small clap noise. The smallest clap noise makes her startle and speed up. I hate the startle part. Other times she ignores my clap noise and just remains in the slower speed.
In the round pen to get her to speed up, I started clapping my hand on my thigh. When she ignored that, I put my hand behind her. She ignored that and I was able to touch her with my hand. She startled and sped up. We did that for a while until she quit the startle movement. WOW!
Then I asked Jenny to hand me the carrot stick. The exchange went well and I was holding the carrot stick and was still alive. Sue didn’t move.
I played the friendly game with the carrot stick. I rubbed her front part. We moved to the middle of the round pen and resumed the friendly game. I actually touched her belly and then came the time to touch her rear end. This was a scary part. The carrot stick touched her rear and and she didn’t even flinch! Wild Applause!
We started moving around the round pen. When she dropped into a trot, I managed to touch her rear end with the carrot stick…and we TOOK OFF! But it wasn’t that wild power surge. It was a medium power surge. After a moment or two, I was able to get her slowed down.
So this went on for a while. I learned that if I had the reins picked up with feel on her mouth, that my hands automatically pulled back when she surged forward. I started riding in the push passenger mode. I let the reins go slack, pushed against the saddle horn and let her go where she wanted. All I wanted was to keep at a trot-like gait. When I touched her with the carrot stick, my hands didn’t automatically tighten. I actually rode out some of the power surges without pulling on her mouth. Wild Applause here!
Near the end, she was getting mighty tired and started slowing down a lot. I had plenty of opportunities to touch her rear with the carrot stick. Occasionally I tapped her twice before I got a response. As we were going at the desired speed, my body told her to stop and we were very successful.
I also got to feed her treats while seated on her back. I tried to do that last Monday and she got scared of my leg when she bent around to take the treat!
We got out of the arena and zipped around on the wall. We had a horse pass and meet us and didn’t flinch!
I took her to the front, sidepassed to the deck fence and got off on the fence…another first. I have to lean over and slide down her side until my foot hits an opening in the wood. She didn’t move. I was grateful to live through this too.
It all was a HUGE DAY!