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Post by Casper on Sept 17, 2008 17:22:55 GMT 1
Hope you are incredibly proud of yourself Row, for what you gave to the gorgeous Nostalgia. I know she gave you an awful lot too. A formidable team, and a link between the two of you which will never be broken. You've put her in a great place to go forwards again now, into the light.
xx
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Post by june on Sept 18, 2008 14:12:14 GMT 1
Guess I'll continue the story then! Tal is back at my yard and settling in well.
I rode her for the first time last night. She's obviously used to people getting on and asking her to go, so the go button is pretty light to the touch, in fact, doesn't even need touching! She was on her toes for a while, wanting to go faster than a walk but she came back to walk and was fine. Had nice slow walk on both reins by the end of the session. Jo asked what narrow seatbones would do and sure enough they slowed her down. Always useful having eyes on the ground. Got a halt easily by the end just by stopping me.
Rode her again this morning. She wanted to trot from the beginning so I let her and then she wanted to canter so I let her. Both were in control and very nice. She came back from canter when I asked and back from trot to walk when I asked and then we had a nice chilled out walk for about 20 mins.
Wasn't planning on doing anything more than walk for a while but it felt right to take what she offered and show her it wasn't an issue and it seemed to work.
What's really nice is I can give her a stroke and she no longer shakes!
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Post by rj on Sept 18, 2008 17:36:05 GMT 1
Cool!
Don't want to nag, but will you she give you halt now? Although you have the confidence to let her go, which is great, I felt that Tom & Sarah were right in saying that getting her to just stand & chill for longer periods did result in more relaxed paces when she was on the move, even if she resisted in the first place.
But honest, am just so pleased she can get on with the job now. That's what you need, and I suspect there is very little she will not be capable of in the future. (Will update title from home, can't do it from here)
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Post by june on Sept 19, 2008 0:46:30 GMT 1
She still feels like she needs to move her legs and relax on the move for a while and then she's happy to halt. She feels very similar to the little fizzy bay we've got, Purita, whose ex owner nicknamed her Paprika because she was so hot. With her I worked on control on the move and she quickly settled down.
With Tal I can get a halt if I ask for it and she'll stand there but she feels happier on the move and it isn't a soft halt yet but that will come. I don't want to make it an issue. She needs to get used to me first and realise that her job is no longer to go fast all the time. It feels like I have quite a lot of control of speed on the move and she settled much more quickly today than yesterday. I had her on the buckle a lot of the time.
She has the old familar polo halt which happens when you kick your feet out of the stirrups! I've made a point both times I've ridden her of halting at the end of the session and just sitting there on the buckle for a short time before getting off. I'll increase the length of time I sit there over the next few sessions and the reward for standing still will be me getting off. If that doesn't work then we'll go to the circles if she doesn't stand still in halt, but right now I feel like I want to give her every opportunity to get things right and build her confidence rather than put in too many corrections. We didn't have the rush off today as soon as I got on so that was already better and we had no jogging after the initial trot and canter.
Remember my speciality is making horses slow so I know the halts will come without me having to work too hard on them! My missing piece is getting horses to go. Ambar was sent to teach me that!
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Post by rj on Sept 19, 2008 8:21:03 GMT 1
Thanks & I do understand. It's all working out really well; keep on with the updates!
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Post by june on Sept 19, 2008 21:48:03 GMT 1
Rode her in my Nicky Smith (Mary Wanless coach) lesson this morning. Spent most of the lesson really making sure I had control of the feet and had both sides of her back, so same amount of horse under each seat bone, which made a huge difference to the steering. She's perfect for this type of lesson as she registers minute changes and feeds them back to you instantly. We then worked on walk halt transitions. Could get them with a thought after the first couple, so rj's work has really paid off there. She was happy to stand still for as long as I wanted her to and coped with Nicky coming over and adjusting my position a couple of times.
The only negative was we put another horse in with her today, one she'd met over the fence for the last few days. They seemed to get on fine at first but when I went up to check on her later she was covered in sweat and galloping up and down the fence line while the other horse was happily grazing on the other side of the field. No idea what that was about but I brought her in and hosed her down and she was much more relaxed. I'll put her in with a different horse tomorrow to see if that helps. Very strange as she was fine when she went out with our herd last year and fine with rj's Herbie and the herd at the yard she moved to.
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Post by june on Sept 20, 2008 19:36:26 GMT 1
She was out today with one of our other horses and the two Shetlands and they all seemed very relaxed. Means she's in the stable at night but she seems happy with that too. They are in the process of building a golf course next door so she'll be pretty used to diggers and lorries by the time they've finished!
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Post by rj on Sept 21, 2008 12:07:02 GMT 1
Glad she's got some friends to play with (or not, I'd guess) & wonder what was going on in the previous scenario. They'd not been fighting I assime - she shows up every bite or kick mark, but something obviously seriously upset her. It would have helped your relationship move even further on with her, that you took her away & calmed her down. Would like to have got over this w/e but we had logs to move and I just finished washing & disinfecting Tal's old stable at our yard this am, before trimming Herbie's feet.
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Post by june on Sept 21, 2008 12:56:24 GMT 1
No marks on her so no idea what happened. She seems perfectly happy in with the Shetlands and Purita. They are all grazing together as a group so that looks like a good solution. Being in the stable overnight probably isn't such a bad thing as she'll get used to lots of different people handling her and things going on around her.
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Post by Jo with Ben & Schooner on Sept 30, 2008 22:22:19 GMT 1
I rode Tal today!!!!! She's really lovely and not at all as fizzy as I had imagined really. She's like a little clockwork toy, when she's in walk, she walking and that's it, she's not pulling or fighting to go faster she just walking and you can vary the speed of the walk quite successfully with your seat, slowing your seat bones, bearing down etc she listens to it all. She turns on a sixpence just from the slightest forward movement of a seatbone, lovely and light and responsive - really nice. We did some trot but I'm not really sure she understand the trot too well - june and I were discussing it and I think she finds it quite a strange thing to do lol - she's pulling herself along on the forehand in trot and her hind end isn't as well developed, but she has a powerful front end/shoulder. So it's a really up and down trot. Instead of getting that kick up the bum that pushes you up and forward out of the saddle she bops you up and down from the withers - hard to explain really but it makes for a fairly bumpy ride. We had a few strides of canter here and there and they were lovely - June said she even looked to be offering soft so we may go for establishing more soft in the walk and canter and then take it to the trot? All in all a lovely ride today and I'm relieved to find that she doesn't scare me half as much as I thought she would, bit more practice on developing her understanding of the trot and she will be great - I really enjoyed riding her. Oh and we had some great little halts too - bear down, stop seat bones, then close hand gently as the full stop at the end of the sentence (combined with an out breath) and hey presto - lovely square halt. Good Girl!!
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Post by rj on Oct 1, 2008 9:30:39 GMT 1
Ah, glad it wasn't just me with the trot then Jo. I thought I had to be doing something wrong to get that bobbing gait. I know I was holding her back & thought that was it.
The thing is she does lovely slow collected trots on line, I love to work her in trot from the ground, so I wonder why it doesn't work the same under saddle?
It's interesting to read the descriptions of mechanical or anatomical cues (that's your RWYM stuff I know) because I can't do that! I just think or breathe into a transition or a turn, and it works too, but obviously the thought & the breath affects the muscles and position, so perhaps it is the same thing?
Anyway glad you enjoyed riding her too. Special ginger pone!
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Post by june on Oct 8, 2008 0:46:44 GMT 1
Well, today was the first time I've ridden her where she didn't spook at her own shadow! Yes, I really do mean that, she spooks when her shadow crosses from one side to the other. Not big spooks but it takes her by surprise pretty much every time it happens. I've never known a horse do that before!
JowithBenandSchooner was riding one of the polo ponies at the same time and we rode alongside for quite a while. She was concentrating on me but the other horse being in the arena obviously gave her confidence. She wasn't bothered when Jo set off to do some faster work but still seemed happy to have company in the arena.
We got some really good halts by the end, 4 steps of walk, halt, 4 steps of walk, halt. And she felt able to stand still and not walk off almost immediately from the halt. So, we're making progress.
rj came over last week and did some work putting the bridle on and off and the reins over her head. She seems to have an issue with things touching her ears. She was much more settled with that today and I discovered that if I put the reins over her head from behind, so reaching forwards from under her neck, if that makes sense, then she's fine about it, but if you lift your hands in front of her face she's concerned. A similar technique works for taking the bridle off, pushing it over her ears by reaching up from behind, rather than pulling it forwards over her ears. I guess that must be something to do with being hit or maybe ear twitched in the past.
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Post by rj on Oct 8, 2008 14:10:17 GMT 1
I guess the shadow could remind her of a stick coming over her head? But she's getting there, whoo-hooo and still listening to you despite having another horse there!
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Post by june on Oct 11, 2008 18:58:56 GMT 1
Well, today was a breakthrough. She was calm right from the beginning of the session. No attempt to trot or canter. I've been used to her wanting to rush off as soon as I get on and have let her do it, but in control. I was thinking I probably ought to stop allowing that to happen as it was going to get into a habit but today she changed the habit herself!
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Sue & Tinta
Grand Prix Poster
Grand Prix Poster
Equine Touch Student & Area Coordinator
Posts: 1,434
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Post by Sue & Tinta on Oct 13, 2008 12:04:01 GMT 1
Really good to catch up on Tal's journey - keep the updates coming - cannot wait to see her again next weekend and see how much furthur she has come on - she is certainly one very lucky horse to have found such loving people and every day seems to be gaining more and more trust.
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