Horse Update, August

As in July's update, K3 has been coming once a week to 'help' me with training the LBM.  This is good for the Little Black Mare, as it reminds her that she has to listen to humans of any size, not just adults and not just me (as a rather strict human when it comes to minding personal space or who's the boss in the horse-human relationship).

It is also good for K3 as it gives her something she can be responsible for (keeping her 'job' schedule of working the horse once a week), something of her own interest to learn and work at, and it gets her into the mentally calming atmosphere of being around a horse.

Each week, when it's her day, K3 and I talk about our game plan for that training session.  And then I put her in charge as much as possible.  She has to get the horse.  She has to groom the horse.  I do the saddling as she's not strong enough and the saddle is too heavy for her to lift over the LBM's back and set down nicely.  The LBM came to this little place here being rather nervous about the whole saddling thing and it took months for her to learn to stand still, that I wasn't going to fling this saddle at her and whack her in the back and sides with it's parts and pieces.  So, for now, I do the placing of the saddle and K3 does the girthing.  We are working on K3 getting coordinated enough to do the bridling.  That's coming along, but I still stand behind K3 and help hold the LBM's head still and in the right position while K3 fumbles with holding the bit in one hand and the crownpiece in the other and keeping everything from twisting.

Once the LBM is saddled and bridled, the three of us walk out to the 'arena' that is behind the barn (so there's a fenced in area in case of mishaps and a loose horse) and K3 does the longeing.  This is something she has been learning, and, while I typically still stand behind her and man the whip as needed (which entails just raising it as needed as encouragement to move out on the line or to change speed--or keep moving when the horse gets lazy and slows--not cracking it or touching the LBM with it), K3 makes the decisions on how long to walk, when to begin trotting, when there's been enough trotting, when to halt and change directions.

Then it's time for K3 to get on.  We are still having her begin each ride on the longe line.  That is when we do a quick recheck that the LBM is listening to K3's aids for walking, halting and trotting.  It's also when K3 rides in trot, as she is still learning her seat and trying to stay balanced at that bouncy gait. I don't want her using her reins for balance (and inadvertently banging the horse's mouth), so rather than have her try to trot and keep her balance and steer right now, we're sticking with being on the longe where she just needs to think about balance and going into and out of the trot.  We'll tackle steering--ie going solo--at the trot when she's developed her seat a bit more.

Depending on how much trot we work on and how tired K3 is from that, we either end the session there, or I remove the longe line and K3 rides solo at the walk for a bit.

Solo walk work involves a lot of turning, halting, and going over a single ground pole.  Both to make sure the LBM is listening to her rider (vs just following me around) and to give K3 practice at these skills (and being the boss of the pair, not just a passenger).

On the days when K3 isn't the rider, I work with the LBM on developing more balance at the trot and canter as well as riding through visually confined spaces in a relaxed manner.  She was doing awesome riding out and around the property until about mid-July when the corn in the fields got tall enough to not be able to see over.  And thick enough that you can't see through it.  And the leaves long enough that they wave in any sort of wind.  Scary stuff for a prey animal like a horse.  And we're practically surrounded by corn this summer, including in our own 15ish acres that we lease out to a crop farmer. 

So I had to take a step back from riding her anywhere and everywhere and concentrate on getting her to be calm while working our way closer and closer to the monster-hiding corn. Which meant sticking to super familiar areas with great visual distance for a few weeks as well as keeping a fence between us and the corn.  This week we finally rode between the fence and the corn for a short distance at the end of a training session, then turned and went back to the barn before she had the chance to get anxious about what might be lurking inside the wavy seven foot tall green wall.

Poetess just had her very own long post, which pretty much brought you up to date with how she's doing.  I will add that this morning I rode her for the first time without anyone else being on the property.  DH had to go in to work in person today, and I really didn't want to lose out on a training session with the Poetess in his absence, so I figured I'd work her like I normally do and see what happens.  She was very good and it was no big deal.  In retrospect she had no idea if he was home or not, so his absence only matters to me (as a safety measure in case the horse manure hits the fan--causing me to hit the ground--which so far she's shown no inclination to initiate.)

Barn-wise, there hasn't been any new construction done.  I've disappointingly had to replace dozens of the T-post insulator caps in the past three weeks.  I will have to get in contact with where I purchased them from last fall, as they are supposed to have a 5 year warranty and we haven't even gotten through twelve months of use yet.  It's not the horses pushing on the fence that's breaking them where the fence tape runs through them, either, as it's always in the mornings that I find the top 'rail' of the fence sagging with another broken insulator and the horses are always in the barn overnight.  If anything is putting excessive force on the insulators, must be deer hitting them.  Which, if they are designed for a horse to push on/bounce off of the fence without breaking, a little 100-some pound deer shouldn't be beyond the integrity of the caps.