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More Work with Wild Horses
Today was a busy day with horses. I started with horses at Return to Freedom Wild Horse Sanctuary. The horses I worked were Ynez, Isadora, Buenos Aires, Autumn, and Diamante.
Diamante is a stallion and he is difficult to work around the girls but he is coming along. He has not been handled much and has a lot of ground manners to learn. Under saddle, he is more concerned with calling to the mares than he is with his rider. A lot of work will have to be done with this boy.
Autumn is a beautiful mare with a lot of empathy. She will either mirror your emotions or improve them almost immediately. She is a bit over weight but that will be taken care of over the next few months. Today we worked mostly on getting her to be straight and accept the demands of a rein back.
Buenos Aires is a huge gelding with a playful personality. He prefers the company of his friends and his herd bound behavior is a problem he is working on. Straightness is also an issue with him although less so than the other horses.
Isadora is an extremely sensitive horse who cannot stand the idea that you are not happy with her. She needs a lot of reassurance and extremely clear signals.
Ynez is a great mare with a lot of potential. She is easy to please, slow to anger, quick to forgive, and almost impossible to offend. And yet, she has a ton of impulsion and is ready and willing to move in any direction.
Today, I worked all the horses on the ground in order to develop their sensitivity to my particular cues. I made sure that they all could turn on the forehand and on their hind quarters as well as circle quietly on the lunge. Next I moved on to working in hand. With the saddle in place, I worked them around the arena in hand giving them cues to move forward and to perform voltes at various intervals. Finally, I mounted them and did my best to develop their response to the rein and to shifts of my weight.
Next I worked with Taser and Bullet at Dutch Meadows Farm. These two horses have been enjoying their new pasture but with the added freedom has come a certain detachment from humans. Although I have always been able to catch them after a bit of negotiation, I noticed that they have always been reluctant to approach me and have not really given me their confidence. So over the next few weeks, it is my intention to do everything I can to become their preferred friends. I have been spending time in their pasture with them as much as I can. I hang out with them during feeding times and try to get them to approach me of their own free will without interacting with them. Ultimately, I would like to be able to catch them in a much larger pasture and never have to worry about them running away. This, of course will take time, but then again, everything worthwhile does.
Finally, I worked with Morgan. Today was an academic day and everything was all business. We started with a warm up walk of straights and voltes. Walking for a few paces and then performing a volte. The volte I speak of is a 6 meter circle at the walk. Next we worked on Piroettes at the walk. She is pretty good at this maneuver and the mechanics. So we just work on getting more response to my shift in weight. After the piroettes, we worked on transitions. The transitions that I worked with are as follows: Walk to Rein back. Trot to Rein back, Canter to Rein back, Walk to Trot, Walk to Canter, Trot to Canter. Next we worked on laterals. The laterals worked are the Travers, Renvers, and the Shoulder in and Shoulder out. After the laterals, we worked on the Counted walk in preparation for the Piaffe, and finally some western wagon wheel drills at the walk for a cool down.
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theenlightenedhorseman posted this
