Sunday Funday: Sledding With Horses!

Today I got the chance to scratch something off my horsey bucket list. The weather has been absolutely horrible thanks to the polar vortex of doom here in the US. However, today we decided to take advantage of the snow and play with something new. Yesterday, one of the girls at our barn decided it would be fun to hook her ponies up to a harness and have them pull a sled. After hearing about it and seeing the videos, of course I wanted to try it with my two horses!

With this plan in mind, I started my session with Rydel with a lot of friendly game. My ultimate goal was to get her to be able to drag something behind her confidently. I have to say, when I pulled the tarp out (after conveniently stashing it away all winter), Rydel's snorts and skepticism quickly had me thinking this was not going to be as easy as I had initially anticipated. After playing various versions of the friendly game in every zone for about a half hour, Rydel was still not very confident having the tarp or bag dragged behind her. Sensing the need to retreat, I decided to take a break and focus my attention elsewhere. After a short but sweet time at liberty, I decided to hop on Rydel bareback and watch as my fellow barn-mates took turns having their horses pull the sled. After some more friendly game following them around on horseback and of course, after I took a turn riding in the sled myself, I decided to bite the bullet and put the harness on Rydel. I wanted to see how she would react, and I was basically prepared for the worst.

At first, Evan stayed behind and put a little pressure on the rope while I lead Rydel around. Once we got the hang of that, I had Evan get in the sled and led Rydel again. I was AMAZED at how well she did. She really seemed to understand the purpose and even leaned into the harness to give herself more leverage. Before I knew it, we were trotting around and having a great time! We played with this with both Rydel and Lilah and they both did great! Even though we were having a lot of fun, we kept our playtime short, sweet, and successful, knowing that we would definitely be practicing with the sled again.

At the end of our playtime with the sled, Rydel let out a big yawn and had a big emotional release. I could not be more proud of the confidence she demonstrated today, and I am even more humbled that she so willingly accepted my leadership and attempted something scary that she had never done before. What a great way to end the weekend!

What is on your horsey bucket list?

Soaring With Eagles (Part 3)

(Click to go back to Part 1 and Part 2)

Part 3: Outside My Comfort Zone

Some "wait" time for my RBI

Now, I know I was just saying how much the Level 3/4 clinic was a major boost to my confidence, and in just a few sentences it may sound like I'm about to retract that statement, but bear with me! The final day of the the clinic we focused on two of my biggest personal challenges, liberty and freestyle in an open, unfenced area.*gulp* Here's the story....

The day started out well enough, we began by troubleshooting issues from the previous day and recapping what we all learned, as we talked we enjoyed sitting outside in the cool(ish) morning breeze and it set the mood for a great day. Next we took our horses into the field on the 45 foot line. I didn't have one of my own so Jesse graciously let me borrow one of his. This was the first time we had ever played on the 45 and I was quite nervous about looking foolish. I certainly did not know how to coil the rope back up as I reeled it in, and found out pretty quickly that our phase 1 and 2 were pretty ineffective starting at about 23 feet! :/ After a quick warm up, Jesse asked everyone to work on flying lead changes either online or at liberty. Well, we had never done them but I figured, "why not!" and began watching Jesse instruct a fellow participant on how to use the fence to aid in the change of direction. Standing so the horse creates an arc or half circle as them move using the fence to block their path, Jesse would tell us to "drive, drive, drive" the horse to the fence, then "draw, draw, draw" them back in at a canter and then ask for the lead change by "drive, drive, drive-ing" them the other way. We were essentially using the figure 8 pattern in a very long range and using the fence to help aid the turn. At first Jesse pointed out that I wasn't bringing my energy up enough to encourage her to canter in to me, I literally had to run backwards and then send her out again. After some laps of counter-cantering, we finally got some really good lead changes in both directions! I was ecstatic and exhausted as the sun had risen overhead to about 95 degrees. After just 3 flying changes we moved on to a new task altogether (short, sweet, and successful!)

Rydel after doing a perfect flying change!

Not surprised to see our "draw" was broken, we have this problem at shorter ranges too. It took a lot of effort to get her to come into me at the right speed.

The next task was liberty, which required starting in individual round pens with the idea of slowly moving into bigger and bigger spaces. Let me preface this by saying, yes, we have done some liberty practice before, but I dont normally demand much during our sessions and definitely do not try to work through RB behavior without putting on my safety net (rope). Of course, being in a new setting with many other horses was not conducive for helping her stay focused on me while at liberty. Again, our hide your hinny was broken and we played with this as the key to perfecting our stick to me game. Whenever she would break free from me, it was hide your hinny until you connect with me with both eyes, and game over. That's the game- can you stay connected? For almost two hours we played with this in various capacities.

Stick To Me.

The most challenging was when we had to put all our horses together in the same open space, surrounded by a big fence (the largest part of the honeycomb), the idea was to have your horse stay with you and protect "your" space by making it very uncomfortable for a horse who has broken free from its human to do anything but go back to its proper human. Well, this was definitely a fun game for the left brain horses, but for the right brain ones, as soon as a little pressure was put on them, they couldn't think at all to try to get back to their humans. Not only was this a challenge for my horse, but it was challenging for me to stay calm and focus on keeping my horse connected to me while worrying about fending off other horses and not brining my energy up in a way that my horse felt it was being directed at her! Ack! Eventually I was able to keep her relaxed enough to stick with me but we were never able to achieve some of the higher level tasks such as having your horse maintain a circle around you. By the end, I was hot and miserable and feeling slightly defeated. 

Partial view of the Honeycomb.

The final task was freestyle in a wooded area without a fence. This was definitely outside my comfort zone and I was not feeing good about it. I knew it would be difficult to keep myself and my horse focused on a pattern with no rail to follow and no straight lines to use. I tried doing the figure 8 around some trees but it was difficult to maintain consistency and things fell apart at higher gaits. Next, Jesse had everyone work on steady rein and practicing stretching into the bit, something I couldnt do because I wasn't in a bridle, just a natural hackamore. As the session went on I rode around aimlessly feeling really depressed. Jesse seemed to ignore this though, I believe now he was waiting for me to find the courage to ask questions, something I'm not very good at. Finally he started giving us more directive tasks, sideways from point to point, back around a tree (which we were actually REALLY good at!) These simple tasks helped me regain confidence and after the backing I was feeling a lot better. Finally, Jesse had us pair up and do a trail ride through the woods two at a time. Rydel and I were paired with Sjoujke Janssen and her arab, Dyna. The arabs loved running through the wooded trail! Rydel was really excited and extroverted and was putting a lot of effort into going forward. She even jumped some logs and cantered willingly! I it was a lot of fun and she stayed pretty LB all things considered. On that good note we did a few more things and then ended our ride and consequently our clinic.

Really happy with her flexion here!

Trying hard!

How interesting, I weight my right stirrup more than my left.

We wrapped up with some final words sharing what we all learned. For me, it was a total mix of emotions. Happy because of all we had accomplished and grateful for the glimpse of our potential. A little frustrated at how good everyone was compared to us, but determined at the same time to go home and get to work. And finally, empowered thanks to having the tools and savvy necessary to make our dreams happen! :D 

Two hearts, one soul <3

Weekend Fun!

This weekend was an absolute blast. Saturday, Evan and I went to the Kentucky Derby with the OSU Horseman's Association. We didn't win any bets but we had a great time! 

After having such a good time, I went to the barn today and was in such a great mood! Rydel seemed extra cute and being with her made me so happy. Well, I think my good mood must have rubbed off because Rydel was particularly extroverted today and also very left brained!!! It was so much fun, she was following me everywhere and volunteering to play with things like the pedestal and the ball. She gave me some great canter circles and did a LOT of licking and chewing! With us both in a good mood I decided to ride and had a lot more success with saddling this time. We rode for about fifteen minutes but I rarely had to correct with my reins and was happy that Rydel was offering to trot! After I unsaddled we just played around with stick to me and then some undemanding time. All in all a great day and one more success I can attribute to our progress and ever-growing relationship!

Not exactly sure about this one...

You can see Sonny in the background

I'm in love!

Happy Day :D

After feeling discouraged for about a week or so now, I finally have a reason to be happy. Yesterday, in an effort to work on our "relationship problems" and fix our catching game, I set up a small make-shift round pen in our indoor arena out of big cones and yard tape. I started playing around with hindquarter disengagement leading into the stick to me game- this is where I found our problem (or one of them). I noticed, and was not surprised, that Rydel can't move her hindquarters around and give me her right eye, but she will do it from the opposite side to give me her left eye. Hmmm! So I need to do more friendly game on her right side. After playing with it some more she finally understood that walking in an arc toward her hind end and putting a little pressure on her means "spin around, give me two eyes, and walk with me." Keeping things short, sweet, and successful, we ended when she could do it on both sides and was feeling pretty relaxed with me on her right side.

Well...Today was a huge testament to the fact that doing less sooner pays off because when I went into the pasture to get Rydel, all it took was a little pressure on her hindquarters and she was walking back toward the barn with me!! She had to stop at some thresholds in which case we took our time and played the game again, but I was thrilled when she stopped a few times to blow out and relax. She even followed me all the way into the barn without me having to touch her at all and walked right into her stall! :D That is a success in my book.

Short, Sweet, and Successful!

This past weekend I had a chance to go to Equine Affaire multiple times and it was a great source of motivation! I watched four different demos put on by Linda Parelli and all of them were eye opening, especially the Game of Contact! During her demo Linda said one thing that really resonated with me... "Keep your sessions short, sweet, and successful." In other words, when learning something new it doesn't take a lot to get your horse's mind working. My motto from now on, is now "short, sweet, and successful."

Throughout the weekend, I've had a lot of time to reflect on my horsemanship journey with Rydel.

(I even got to tell my story to Linda!)

Rydel and I have come a LONG way in the last two years, and while it has taken a while to get to this point, our momentum is only gaining. I'm grateful to Linda for developing "Horsenalities" as I truly believe this was the breakthrough I needed that turned everything around. It's going to be a great summer :)