We ended our Question Box Pattern ride today  by riding bridleless.  I took off her bridle and we ventured around the circles.  Fancy is a go, and go faster horse.  I’ve been dreading this.  There is a maneuver that can be used to slow down a horse if you have a Horsemanship stick.  When they speed up and go too fast, you direct their head into the wall.  Arena walls are very handy.  We ended with a nice full lap at a flat foot walk. Yes, it worked.  It worked…

Occasionally when Fancy gets to run around the arena at liberty or on the 22’ rope she gets exuberant. Her tail sticks out behind and she gallops. Many times she will turn in and face me and do little rearing hops.  Today, she turned, faced and did some big rears.  She was impressive.  She also bucked a few times when running. While she was in her exhuberant state,  a dog came running into the arena behind her.  Fancy jumped straight up.  All four feet left the ground at the same time.  I’ve seen only two other horses do this.  It is almost the same as how a deer jumps.  The  Lippizon  Stallions do something similar in their Spanish Riding Demonstration.

Fancy has athletic talent galore!  (P. S.  This is not Fancy)

Later we were dragging a large cone on the end of the 22’ rope around the arena.  She has been trained to drag.  We stopped, turned and faced the cone.  I started dragging it towards her and she was frightened of it.  She walked up to the frightening cone and stomped and stepped on it till it died.  That has become a ground exercise now.  I remember something like this as a level 2 or 3 Parelli task.

Day 3 of Question Box Pattern

Yee Haw.  We continued the Question Box Pattern.  We did walk, flat foot walk, fox trot and canter transitions.  We could not canter around the Question Box circle.  Fancy did not want to make the turn in the middle.  It was too tight a turn for her and she won the argument.  We cantered on the outside of the entire Question Box.  It was not pretty.  Once while I was urging her to canter down the rail, she did pick up her hind legs in protests.

Fancy Fierce

See yesterday’s post about Fancy’s thoughts on body domination.  If Fancy gets too close to me, it is not in her genes to back out of my space. At a nasty 23 degree New Year’s Day, I elected to veg out at home. Late afternoon I went to visit Fancy. It would be nice to feed her the pelleted alfalfa and clean her stall.  I used the horsemanship stick with the rope around her neck to lead her from the pasture through the sliding barn door in the 20’ trek…

Fancy is a Go horse.  She likes to go.  She likes to speed up.  Fancy is a wheels down freight train.  These are true statements unless she wants to argue. Day two of Question Box Pattern.  I decided to ride with her bridle on today.  I mounted and we practiced with the neck rope.  We turned circles around the question box obstacles.  I really don't like the neck rope.  It's too short. I have to put the neck rope up on her neck which makes me lean forward.  That isn't…

Al Dunning was giving a clinic and I was delighted to be an auditor.  He talked about the time it takes a trainer to get a horse ready for the show arena with enough skills to have a chance of winning.  He said, "It takes 100 hours to start a horse and ready to show."  A trainer usually rides five days a week for as long as twenty minutes to forty-five minutes with an average of thirty minutes.  Figure out how long a 100 hours takes...about a year.  Now the…