Prince goes home tomorrow.  When you train a horse like him, you always want the best for him.  You want him to be treated well, so that he gets along good.  You always hope he gets the best deal.  We took Prince on a trail ride today.  We went about 5 miles around our little hill.  He loved it and did very well.  He walked along bobbing his head and didn't have a bit of trouble.  We also took our horse Junior, who is calm and steady.  The only thing we had a little spook with was a donkey.  Both horses put their heads up and looked at the donkeys. 
When we send a horse home like this, we always hope their owners will work the ground skills and ride him with confidence so he will have a good ride.  We also hope they will keep coming to lessons and clinics to continue his and the owners education.

We worked on Gully's lateral flexion, head set, and collection.  Gully is in the place of any three year old colt.  And as with most 3 year olds, you have about 20 minutes of teaching time.  Gully is extremely atheletic, and when you ride him, you can feel every muscle in his body.  He is a very unusual horse. 

We don't write every day on this blog.  Sometimes we skip several days.  It all depends on our work and travel schedule. 

There are a lot of things we do in horse training that are repetitive.  In reading this blog we repeat steps over and over.  This is done to address certain issues that arise when riding a horse.  Sometimes this takes multiple days to fix these issues. 
Prince is at this stage now.  We are working on two things, stopping and backing.  When Prince stops, he tends to go downhill.  He is improving daily on this.  When he has trouble with backing he isn't engaging his hindquarters enough.  So we are working on that.  He will go home soon.

This is Gully's sixth ride.  He is doing well.  We are spending a lot of time working on lateral flexion, by tipping the nose in, disengaging his hind end, and making him push in.   We have started stopping and backing to help him to break at the poll. 

Cinco has made significant improvement in his trust issues.  He still has a tendency to hide from people and he also has a hard time when he starts to learn something new.  We are driving him, working on lateral flexion and turning, stopping, backing and side passing.  His biggest problem is still trust.  Cinco needs a very confident leader who will help him when he gets worried. 

Something we need to remember as horseman is that horses are not like a car or motorcycle.  If you take your horse to a trainer, and then get him back, he is not like a motorcycle or a car.  You can't just park him in the barn and take him out the next time and he will be in the same place.  You still have to keep the horse tuned up.  You have to get out and ride at least 3 times a week (and more if you can) and you have to be consistent. 

We worked Prince on forward, stop and circles, and following the focus.  This is same thing we have working on with Prince on most of the time.  We have been consistant with him.  He is really doing well and is getting a lot more trustworthy.  Prince goes home at the end of this month and has progressed well. 

George is just the sweet horse he has been since we have had him.  He is stopping, backing and does everything very well.  He has gotten very soft in his face and will be going home soon.  He will make a very nice horse for his owner. 

Cinco had a really good day.  We drove him for the first time this day.  He took to it like a duck to water.  He remained calm through the whole thing.  This is a really big thing for him. 

Gully had his second ride today.  He is a quick study and is very responsive and light and sensitive.  He is a fast learner.  He is growing mentally a lot.  He doesn't throw his fits like he did and he stays calm longer. 

Sugarfoot had a little snit today.  She is a very dominent pushy mare.  After she tried being dominent, she settled right back to learning.  This is her second time to be saddled.  She did well with the saddeling. 

Fred had a good day today.  We had to work on him catching us, because he forgot how to do it.  We also worked at liberty on desensitization.  He is still a little spooky.  We also worked on draw.  We went in a circle and asked for disengagement and when his head started to face us, we walked off.  This develops draw. 

Junior is a new horse we are helping a friend with.  He had the best day and the biggest change of all the horses we worked today.   First we changed saddles because we noticed that his shoulders were rotating.  That made him much more relaxed and then we put the saddle behind the shoulder extension.  That made him carry his head low and his owner says he never has done this.  His mind is more engaged and he is yawning to get the Adrenalin out.  We know now that we are on the right track with this horse. 

Gully turned a corner today.  He is soft and supple in his face and body.  We warmed up with the ground skills and played the cutting exercise.  We also drove him and he is getting the balance, stop and release.  We worked on correct circles and body arcs and stopped him with one rein. 

Cinco finally stopped hiding today.  He is much calmer and doesn't spook nearly as much.  He finally trusts us and believes what we are doing is OK and now we are going on to some new stuff.  We hope to drive him and see if the trust is still there. 

We finally found the one problem that George had hidden.  We found it after mentally preparing him, getting his feet fixed, and figuring out his personality.   We also found that George is the perfect example that horses forgive, because if he didn't forgive, he would have been a handful.   George is really bracey in the bit and feels that every time someone touches the reins, they are going to rip on his mouth.  If you ask him to back, he immediately begins gaping his mouth, chewing the bit and trying to avoid you.  He becomes nervous, but if you stay SOFT and persistent with him, he finally releases to the feel and finds the soft spot in the bridle.  We found that he likes to drop his head and stretch his back.  This is a good reward for him for getting over being bracey. 

Prince wakes up in a new world every day.  He is still very immature and can't figure out what you want of him, but after you ride him awhile, he comes around.  Today we worked on him going in straight lines.  He has a tendency to wander and can't follow your focus.  Tomorrow, we will be doing more of the driving exercises, like driving him to an object to have him follow your focus. 

We worked on Gully, trying to get him to catch the human.  We warmed up on the ground skills and then went to driving with him.  He is still putting his ears back in a dominance attitude.  He is not near as bad as he was though and he is making progress with learning all the ground skills.  Next week we will probably put a saddle on him. 

Cinco is a changed boy.  At least around here.  If you took him to a horse show, he might still be wild and woolly.  His trust and curiosity are starting to show.  Today he would go around the round pen and smell things, where before he has never shown any interest in them at all.  He is an not a confident learner, needing you to have a short line and keep him pretty close to you.  He still has a lot of brace in his body, which means he has brace in his mind too. 

We worked on George's ground skills today, just as a review to make sure he does them with perfection.  He is still the willing kind horse he always has been for us.  His biggest problem is going inside himself and getting introverted.  We do a lot of scratching, rubbing and just sitting with him.  This will build a bond and he won't be so introverted. 

We have been having a lot of rain yesterday and today, so can't really do anything in the mud.  But we did get Cinco's feet trimmed.  And he did a great job!!  Our farrier did the front feet without a bit of trouble.  Then he only had a little trouble with the back feet.  Cinco didn't kick or anything, he just kind of pulled.  Cinco is learning that he doesn't have to fight with everyone, and he is getting more trust in the people who are handling him.  This is a major step forward for him.  He is gaining a little trust. 
We get quite a few horses of this type.  They think someone is going to kill them and they are the goosey, jump in the air, and land on you, and their first instinct is to fight.  This is one of the most dangerous types of horses for the "new to horses" person.  If you have a horse like this, you need to get some professional help from a REAL Natural Horseman.  Don't go to just anyone, because this horse can't be forced.  He will get worse with force and someone will get hurt. 

Gully had a very good day today.  He is getting the ground exercises down well and we have driven him quite a bit.  He has the driving pretty well figured out.  The only thing he does, that isn't right yet, is he goes behind Jere's back in the circle and snakes his head at him.  This is probably stallion behavior, but will soon disappear.  He still has a tendency to be a little aggressive, and Jere still has to prove his leadership and will probably have to do it over and over for a while.  Jere played the catching game with him today and he got it.  Tomorrow we are going to take him onto the playground to see how he does with a longer rope. 

Cinco's eyes are getting larger and more liquid.  This is a sure sign that he is getting calmer and starting to trust.  The Cinco you see today is a far cry from the scared, nervous, jumpy horse that came to us.  When he came, you couldn't touch his ears, the shoer wanted to drug him to get him trimmed, and he was a jumpy bundle of nerves.  Today we trimmed his front feet with absolutely no problems at all.  We didn't even have anyone hold the lead rope.  What a difference in a horse.  This Natural Horsemanship will really work, if you give it the time.  It is so much fun to see a horse like Cinco change.  Of course we still have a long way to go, but now the owner knows there is hope for him. 

George is just a nice, sweet, horse, that tries really hard for us.  He does not need any severe measures with his training, or with his equipment.  He is willing and docile.  His main problem is that he is a left brained introvert and he goes inside himself to protect himself, until he has had all he can stand, and then he reacts. 
Today was an easy day for him.  He put his head down, his ears up and just enjoyed himself with all the things Jere asked of him.  Just a super horse.  Wish he was ours!!!

Prince's journey has been a long and trying one, both for him and for us.  We are making some progress with him though.  His main problems are that he stops with his feet all strung out, he lacks impulsion, and he doesn't know how to stop balanced.   He is just an immature colt, that grew physically faster than mentally. 

This pictures is an example of the unbalanced stop Prince makes.  See how far apart his feet are?  He can't engage his body from this position.  We are making progress with Prince.  He is doing a lot more balanced stops now. 
Lots of colts, that are big physically, have this sort of issue.  They just grow faster than their mind does.  Remember this when you want to buy a 4 year old and he is big.  A good place to go for information on this phenomenon is Dr. Deb Bennett's page on the Internet. 

Riding Clinic, Sept 4, 2010

Our son Cully, rode Prince in the horsemanship clinic we had on Saturday.  Our goals were mainly to get Prince out with other horses and to get him used to paying attention to his rider instead of all the exciting stuff that is going on around him.  He did very well.  Cully has been riding him for awhile now, and he is used to his methods.  They worked on the basics in this clinic and Prince needs help with stopping, backing, and hindquarter engagement. 

Sugarfoot was her usual self.  She is very loving and dominant!!  What a combination.  We worked on her ground skills.  She is doing real well on them.  We saddled her and she will be started driving next week.  She doesn't object to the saddle at all.  Her owner is coming to ride her soon.  He is our grandson, Clay. 

Fred went to the gym today.  He was soaking wet when he was done.  He had a pretty hard day and he didn't trust as much as he has other days.  You can see the trust developing, but he has times when he looses it.  Then he goes to the cones and puts his feet on it.  That is his safety place.  He knows he was successful at that so he goes there.  He is just going to take a lot of time to become trusting of people. 

Cinco is really working out.  Everything jelled for him today.  Of course he still is very claustrophobic on the right side.  He is getting good at all the ground skills and didn't loose his cool on any of them.  All four of his feet were picked up without any trouble and that is a major deal.  He is starting to trust us a little better and a couple of people have been working him, so that is also a major deal. 

Gully had another rough day.  He certainly has his ups and downs.  He is like a big spoiled kid.  He still has a tendency to want to run his own program and gets a little aggressive sometimes.  We worked again on ground skills.  We drove him and he was very receptive to that.  Gully is a high energy horse, with lots of drive and movement.  If he had a job every day, it would be better for him.  But time will make him better.

George is becoming very supple, very light in the bridle.  His whoa and go is very balanced.  He is starting to turn around very fast.  He has no problems to speak of and is just a very nice horse.  If the owner will ride him a couple of times a week, he is going to make a very nice trail horse. 

Prince is still having his impulsion problem.  He also is heavy on the front end, leans on the bit, and is used to people pulling on him without giving him any release when he gives to them.  This is all related to impulsion.

To fix this we are teaching him to engage his hindquarters, with the inside hind foot taking the first step.  We did a lot of walk, trot, stop and back transitions on him, and asked him forward again.  When he breaks at the poll and gives we release pressure on his face.