A very interesting two days

Well, Sante never ceases to amaze me!

I began yesterday, walking through the paddock with the friend that was with me the day before, both going to catch our horses. We got within about 20-30 metres away from our horses, and my friend called out to her horse - who's head immediately shot up, and she wandered over. I continued walking towards Sante, and was saying to my friend "See, we just don't have that anymore - he knows I'm here, he saw me before, and he's ignoring me" I took a couple more paces forward and called his name - Sante's head immediately shot up - and he nickered at me.

Don't ya just LOVE being prooved wrong!! When its like this - I'll take it any day :D

He started wandering over, NICKERED AGAIN and walked all the way up to me with a "You took you sweet arse time!" Look on his face. He was interesed, and ready to go.

We wandered out at liberty, and so began the plan for the day.

I'd previously decided with my friend that she would ride from the spelling paddocks, over to the main agistment facility (about 2.5km) - I decided to long reign Sante - I was thrilled at having the opportunity of someone else who is into natural horsemanship, have a look at Sante, and give me a second opinion.

We got within about 50 metres of the gate way out the back of the paddock, and Sante started with the avoidance behaviour. My friend was riding ahead - and continued so as not to interfer. I did a little tit for tat - Sante tried and tried to do his own thing, but having the long reins was brilliant, i just turned his bad behaviour into a circling game and asked him to trot until he wanted a second shot at behaving. His tantrum lasted a minute or two, and then he decided to leave the paddock.

Interestingly: All the spots he usually shies at didn't give him any bother today. I know we were riding out with someone, but they were well ahead... Sante should have been anxious to catch up, but he wasnt.

After a little way - We swapped positions, so that Sante was now leading, and my friend behind.

Sante's behaviour immediately changed, his pace slowed, ears went from being half back / relaxed to forward and alert, head came up and confidence dropped. We took it nice and easy, I let him stop, asked him to back up a little, and then got him moving forward again. His unconfidence passed quickly, and the head lowered, walk became nice and relaxed, slow swish of the tail, and nice slow blink.

He stopped a little, so each time he did i decreased the amount of time i let him stand.

Generally he did really well! At one time, I got one rein stuck in a branch of a tree, I asked him to "Woah" and "Stand" he did so immediately and i was able to unhook him. - The whole trip over was pretty good.

Once over there, i took everything off him and just let him chill out for a while.

I then put him in the round yard and hooked everything back up to him, with the intention of long reining him in the yard, and trying ot work on a little contact / collection.

My plan was simple: keep a contact on the inside rein and "play" with the outside rein until his head lowers & tucks. The SECOND that he felt the pressure and lowered his head, i released. I've played around with this idea once or twice before, but today i was trying to get 4-5 strides with his head lowered, using his hind quarters.

He pretty much mastered it in the walk, and we moved onto trot, at first he was not happy, kept throwing his head up, and trying to shake out of it, I kept up the contact until his head lowered and then immediately stopped everything.

As soon as he tried what I was asking I took the contact away and stopped the game. I was thrilled when every so he would look at me, and the look on his face was "Was that good? Can i come in now" I didn't deny him - and let him come in each time he asked. As a consequence, he offered more, and within 15 - 20 minutes, we were trotting half a lap in the round yard, with a lowered head carriage and REALLY using our hind quarters.

Again, I took everythign off ,and then just to see what I had - asked him for a few laps of trot at liberty.

He was strething out, nose to the ground, shaking his head and blowing out nice & relaxed. His trot was nice & slow, and I got the feeling he was quite relaxed, and enjoying having a stretch out.

Anyway - the trip back over was pretty uneventful, I only had to correct him once, when the rein became wrapped around my leg and he wouldn't stand still - but other than that he lead the whole way home, and was completely relaxed.

Observations:
Overly Left Brained the whole time
Vey very rarely tripped or stumbled, unlike when he's ridden, he's always falling over his back feet.
Rarely argumentative.

How interesting.



So today i turned up - not quite sure how he would be - yesterday we'd done 5km - I'd long reigned him in a bit, and I wasn't sure how he would react to that - So i turned up (had the dog with me) and whistled out to him to let him know I was there - I could JUST see him on the ridge of the first hill in the paddock (bout 50m away) I tied the dog up, got her some water and wandered over to the gate - whistled out to him again, and called his name.

He nickered.

And walked over the whole distance without stopping. When he was about 15m out, another horse ran over, ears pinned to try to run him off, but Sante just weaved around him, never once taking his eyes off me and pretty much marched purposefully up to the now open gate, and went through without so much as a "Got cookies?"

WOW. WOW WOW.WOOW

We did absolutely nothing but chill out. Gave him a brush, and a bit of feed. The dog rediscovered her detestation of horses. Sante attempted to make friends on a number of occasions, but after being severly reprimanded for trying to bite Sante, she decided that if she couldn't see the horse, he didn't exist. Thus, she sat in the car with her back to him, refusing to come out unless he was no where near the car.

Well...... there's a new challenge!

Don't Assume!!!!!

So, today i arrived at GV early - it was due to hit 40 degrees (celcius) today, and i had no intention of playing in that heat.

On the way to the valley - I was contemplating whether i should cheat and ride him over to the main agistment facilities (he's in spelling paddocks at the moment - no arena, no round yard, no wash bays, nothing) and leave him there for the 4 days i have off.. I was even contemplating leading him over htere, so that i didn't break my promise, when i recalled that last week, I hade completely unpacked the car - and as such didn't have my saddle, bridle or reins in the car in order to ride. "Ha!" i thought to myself - now you CAN'T cheat!

This of course caused me to realize that "completely unpacking" the car meant - no halter, leadrope, carrot stick, string ... .. feedbucket.. *sigh*.

So I resigned myself to the knowledge that Sante was going to be completely at liberty, and totally given freedom to do whatever he wanted.

I pulled up thinking of the possible scenarios... he sees me and ignores me.. he sees me and runs off... he sees me and runs me over? .. .

Imagine my surprise!!! He saw me - NICKERED AT ME and wandered over.

Say what?

I fed him the carrots I had in my pocket, and turned to walk off.. he followed.

Woweee!!!

All i did today, was give him a choice - I didn't groom him, i gave him scratches, I rubbed his face, i let him explore my pockets, I checked his feet, - all at liberty.

I broke up a packet of carrots into little snack size bits, and surveyed what i had...

A content horse who had his head in the grass ignoring me - by doing a low energy version of the catching game, i got his attention and when he gave me his eyes, i rewarded him. It only took a few goes of this, and suddenly i was more interesting than the grass.

All i did was a few minutes of driving game at liberty, stick to me (at walk and trot) and we even managed a few bows - all at liberty.

After about an hour of chilling out (picking grass for him) a friend that was with me leant me her stock whip, and I put sante back into the paddock with his friends (more running room, and he's happy cause he's with his mates) - its amazing how his attitude changed - He doesn't hate the stock whip, but he respects it, if that makes sense - we started with stick to me, and when I gently flicked the whip way out behind me, he tucked his chin, and trotted up on my shoulder, collecting himself, and looking - lets face it - HANDSOME!!

The presence of the whip bought up his energy - not fear, not unconfidence, but his life.. He was like "oooooooh what are we doing"

We ran! Like loonies! When he got in front of me I'd throw in a change of direction and run for it - he'd spin around and run after me, snaking his neck, and bucking his ridiculously uncoordinated thoroughbred bucks.

In the past I introduced him to the idea of turning the "stick to me" game into a kind of send, and sending him out in front of me, then disengaging the hind quarters from a distance, and getting him to run back to me - We tried it today - the SECOND i lifted my leading hand - he bolted in front of me -After a few seconds, i stopped, disengaged him and ran off in the other direction - he came bolting after me - bucking and snaking his neck.

I accidently cracked the whip, and sent the whole paddock of horses bolting across the paddock - Sante saw them running and shot off the mark. - When i caught up to him he was like "hi!!!! Now what!?!?!?" and we ran ALL THE WAY BACK to the gate (with his girlfriend in tow). The entire day, from getting him out of the paddock, to running all the way back to the gate - was done without a leadrope or halter in sight.

We finished the session sitting in the grass, grazing, i picked grass for him, he nibbled on my shoes -and, well.... we made geniune progess on the "fun" mission.

All is not as bad as what it seems.

He appears to still love me *sigh*

Back on the net, new commitment to the blog

I know -- Its been way way to long :(

I haven't updated in nearly a year! Can't beleive I've let it go that long. So much has happened!!

I moved out of home, moved sante to my new house and saw him every day - had to move back home and return sante to his former home, the paradise of Glenworth Valley. We've been doing lots of riding, most of it by ourselves!!

Less than a fortnight ago, we completed second "ride out" since i've owned him - we went to the Snowy Mountains, and rode with the wild brumbies - totally awesome experience.

He can now canter on a circle outside the roundyard - I had to become assertive, and show a lot more leadership than I ever thought i would need - but in the end- his "issue" ended up being dominance, and a knowledge that he controlled the outcome of the game. Once i learnt to beat him at his own game, he found cantering on the circle a lot more fun.

We are now in teh process of changing our focus back to ground work. I've got the feeling that with all the focus I've had on riding, Sante has really lost interest. Our catching game sucks :(

So, I promised him that when we returned from the Snowy, he would get time off, and we would concentrate on nothing but groundplay, and "simulating" rides - that is - long reigning him down the trails, in order to work on his confidence issues.

He's been really argumentative under saddle. In the beginning it was fear & unconfidence, whereas now its just because he plain well doesn't want to!

When we DO start riding, the plan is to give him complete control (within reason) of where we ride - he has the wonderful habit of refusing to walk down a trail without trying to head off into the scrub. SO, I'm goign to start playing the "Sure! We can go that direction.. .. .. but at a trot" game with him - that is - every time he changes direction and goes bush bashing, I allow it, but increase gait to a trot. Hopefully, eventually he'll figure out that its if he wants to walk... stay on the trail!!

Thats still a little way off - I have to do something about our relationship first! I need to change the look on his face from "Oh no" back to "Oh boy!" - Concentrating to much on the riding has really ruined us - but we're about to change all that back!

Onto other stuff - We have learnt to bow! He can even stay down now (only for a second or two), and last weekend, he actually bowed with someone on his back!! How awesome is that!!!

So - I promise to update a lot more reguarly - twice a week!! (although I might bve able to squeeze in more updates since i'm seeing him every day for the next four days.