Bruce is Back - First Session

Livia returned Bruce to me, safe and sound, a couple of weeks ago. She and I spent an enjoyable few days together, playing with him, riding, and talking about some of the things she learned during her time as an extern at the Parelli ranch in Pagosa Springs. During one session, I watched her ride Bruce in the Cradle Bridle. I think both Livia and Bruce were tired, and the session wasn't great. It really got me thinking, yet again, about where I stand on bits, on so-called collection, etc.



Like a lot of Parelli students, I would prefer to ride without a bit. I'm not vehemently against them, but they aren't my ideal, either. However, I'm curions, and recently experimented a little with Iona in the Cradle, and found it pretty easy to get a "soft feel" that might just develop into something we could both enjoy. The conclusion that I've come to is that most of us don't have our Porcupine Game in Zone 1 anywhere near good enough to be messing around with contact with a bit. For sure, Bruce's Zone 1 stuff has never been very good at all. When I first started riding him, I couldn't steer him at all in a hackamore. Of course, I thought that just because we could play the 7 Games fairly well that it was time to get on and start riding him. And when that was difficult, I just fought with him as best I could.

I haven't ridden him in the hackamore since he came back from the ISC, so I don't know yet what may have changed. It is a testament to Livia that she managed some good sessions with him in the Cradle. However, I've made up my mind to make a big effort to get all our horses soft, soft, soft in all their Zone 1 yields, and to explore whether we can even make some steps into contact and collection in the hackamore before we use bits for these things.

All this is really just a prelude to telling you about my session with Brucie today, as I didn't want to interrup the flow of the description explaining all this.

The first things I played with today was yielding the forehand with finger pressure just in front of the girth. Bruce was doing well with this previously, but found it trick to keep his feet still for a complete 360 degree turn. He can do that now, and is lighter and more confident with it than before. Yay!! I also played with lowering his head, backing him up with my fingers on his nose, lateral flexion with my hand on his muzzle, etc. These things felt really good. He need a little more friendly game in his mouth, I think, and then I might try some lead by the lip.

I am still working my way through the tasks I planned with the trailer (see I Have a Plan) so I thought we'd go do that next. My plan was to play the games On Line inside the trailer. We headed to the trailer, which I keep in a roped off area. However, I didn't think I'd need to close the gate! Well, it seems that Bruce has a few concerns about the trailer. Whether he doesn't want to take a six hour trip only to find himself away from home for three months, or just didn't like the hunks of bark and stuff that were decorating the trailer floor (Mark hauled some firewood) I really don't know. I got him in on the first couple of sends, did something he didn't like, so he came out. No big deal. I re-sent him and he just left. Went to talk to the cows about borrowing some alfalfa. Okay, so he still knows how to leave. Not surprised!

Back at the trailer again, I shut the gate this time and tried a few hard sends on a circle, but of course he's too smart for that. Back to trailer loading, then. He wasn't enthusiastic, but it didn't take much to get him going in the trailer easily. He was more sceptical about me coming in, though, so we played with that, and with me playing a bit of Friendly Game with the back door of the trailer, too. In the end, we did manage to play the games inside, although I'd say there were some reactions amongst the responses. It wasn't easy enough to get him to lower his head, for one thing. However, I decided to keep things light and not make the session too long, so I wound things up, and will come back to it later. 

Our last task today was circles. My goal was 5 laps of trot on the 22' line. We did this in the arena, in the corner nearest to the loafing shed. I fully expected to have trouble hanging onto him, but he never left. When we started the session my plan was to get first one lap, then three, and then five. He started off constantly breaking gait and leaning on the rope. I decided to fix the leaning first, so I asked for walk. The moment he put slack in the rope I brought him in for a rest. The next time I waited about 12 strides, after he put the slack in, and the next time he managed a full circle. It doesn't take him long to figure things out! (I was proud of myself for remembering my goal of lightness in Zone 1.)

We moved on to trot, and it really didn't take much to reach my goal of 1, 3 and 5 laps. He didn't have a lot of impulsion, and on the five laps, he leaned on the rope sometimes. But I never stopped while he was leaning! We will sort those things out, but at least he maintained gait in this simple task, and understood that slack in the rope is important.

Fun and Games!

We had a fun time on Sunday. I decided to invite everyone over for a day of mad games that I thought up, based on the 7 Games and Parelli Patterns, but with a few evil twists! We weren't seriously keeping score, but Barney and Kathy Eddy's team won, just in case anybody asks!!

These were the rules - which we bent a little from time to time, along with a few photos.

ON LINE

1.Round Pen Mirror   Time 3 minutes
"Leading" pair stand inside the pen, near the gateway. The "mirroring" pair stand outside the pen, at the same point. Follow the rail for one lap, doing a movement at each of the four marked posts. These movements are called out by the leader, and must be mirrored exactly by the other pair. Use HQ and FQ yields, back-up, sideways, squeeze, Driving Game, Porcupine Game, zone 3 driving or Stick to Me creatively. Do not use the same move twice in the same lap. After completing the first lap, riders pass through the open gate and trade leadership for the next lap.

Failure to mirror -1 per task   Successful mirror +2 per task

2. Cloverleaf    Time 5 minutes

Start with humans side by side, facing carport, one on either side of the yellow cone (X). Horses in zone 3 driving position. Humans are joined together by each holding one end of a Savvy string. Play Friendly Game (neutral, relax, reward, scratch) at X for 10 seconds. Walk one complete Cloverleaf pattern to the right. Stop at X for a 10 second Friendly Game. Do one complete Cloverleaf to the left. The second (and third if you have time!) can be done at trot, if you wish.

+20 for each full Cloverleaf    +20 for good rhythm

-20 for getting lost!    -10 for dropping the string

3. Pedestal Send    Time 3 minutes

With horses on 22' lines, each human sits in a chair, with horse backed up and facing them. On the signal to go, send your horse to the pedestal on your right. When team members are ready, they trade ropes, and send the next horse to their pedestal, always moving to the right.

Nose touch +1    1 foot (or pawing) +2

2 feet +4    4 feet +8

Predatory behavior -10 

4. Carrot Stick Hat Weave    Time 3 Minutes

Team members stand at one end of the Weave pattern. At the signal to go one human picks up the hat using their carrot stick and directs their horse through the Weave pattern. The human must not pass through the cones.

When the first pair has completed the pattern, they pass the hat to their partner's stick, who does the pattern next. Neither team member is allowed to touch the hat at any time!


Each pattern completed +8

Dropping hat -3

Coming off pattern (missing a cone, etc) -6

5. Yo-yo toss    Time 2 minutes
Stand in the lane of poles, beside your horse, facing your partner's horse, 4' (length of a carrot stick) apart, with the center cone between you. One human has a carrot stick (string removed). On the signal to go, the stickless person asks their horse to back up, encouraged by the person with the stick, who moves forward with their horse to maintain the original distance. Move until the backing pair are just behind the end cone.


The stick is now tossed to the other person, distance adjusted if needed, and the other pair back down the lane to their end cone. Toss stick and repeat.


Each end cone reached +7    Dropping stick -4

Stepping out of lane -6    Not maintaining distance -3

6. Washing Line Point to Point    Time 4 minutes

Move the 4 rags from one line to the other, one at a time, as many times as you can. Remember to play a little Friendly Game each time you stop at a washing line. One line must be completely emptied before you start to move the rags back again. Each person can only move one rag at a time. Team members may divide the work any way they wish, or work independently.

Each item moved +5    Dropped item - 10

Failure to play friendly game - 10    Breaking gait during a trip - 5

FREESTYLE

1.Round Pen Mirror    Time 3 minutes

"Leading" pair stand inside the pen, near the gateway. The "mirroring" pair stand outside the pen, at the same point. Follow the rail for one lap, doing a movement at each of the four marked posts. These movements may be called out by the leader, and must be mirrored exactly by the other pair. Use direct and indirect reins, halts, back-up, sideways, half or full turns, etc. creatively. Do not use the same move twice in the same lap. After completing the first lap, riders pass through the open gate and trade leadership for the next lap.

Failure to mirror -1 per task    Successful mirror +2 per task
Completing a lap silently +10


2. Cloverleaf    Time 4 minutes
Riding side by side, start facing carport, one on either side of the yellow cone (X). Humans are joined together by each holding one end of a Savvy string. Play Friendly Game (neutral, relax, reward, scratch) at X for 10 seconds. Walk one complete Cloverleaf pattern to the right. Stop at X for a 10 second Friendly Game. Do one complete Cloverleaf to the left. The second can be done at trot, the third at canter, if you wish.


+20 for each full Cloverleaf    +20 for good rhythm
-20 for getting lost!    -10 for dropping the string


3. Pedestal Send    Time 3 minutes per person
One human rides as a passenger, the other sits in a chair, with teammates on 22' line, backed up and facing them. On the signal to go, send your teammates to the small pedestal. With their permission, continue to the large pedestal.


Please use the pedestal for mounting, NOT the chair!


Nose touch +1    1 foot (or pawing) +2
2 feet +4    4 feet +8

Scaring your passenger -10

Passenger uses reins (non-emergency) - 10


4. Carrot Stick Hat Weave    Time 3 Minutes
Team members stand at one end of the Weave pattern. At the signal to go one human picks up the hat using their carrot stick and rides the Weave pattern. When the first pair has completed the pattern, they pass the hat to their partner's stick, who does the pattern next. Neither team member is allowed to touch the hat at any time!


Each pattern completed +8
Dropping hat -3

Coming off pattern (missing a cone, etc) -6


5. Yo-yo toss   Time 2 minutes

Riders face one another, 4' apart, with the center cone between you. One human has a carrot stick (string removed). On the signal to go, the stickless person asks their horse to back up, encouraged by the person with the stick, who moves forward with their horse to maintain the original distance. Move until the backing pair are just behind the end cone.

The stick is now tossed to the other person, distance adjusted if needed, and the other pair back down the lane to their end cone. Toss stick and repeat.


Each end cone reached +7    Dropping stick -4
Stepping out of lane -6    Not maintaining distance -3


6. Washing Line Point to Point    Time 3 minutes
Move the 4 rags from one line to the other, one at a time, as many times as you can. Remember to play a little Friendly Game each time you stop at a washing line. One line must be completely emptied before you start to move the rags back again. Each person can only move one rag at a time. Team members may divide the work any way they wish, or work independently.


Each item moved +5    Dropped item - 10
Failure to play friendly game - 10    Breaking gait during a trip - 5

The News from Springvalley

It's been another amazing summer. Fun, challenging, hot and busy. We've made new friends and spent time with familiar ones, run some  successful events and made quite a few improvements to the place. I'm afraid it didn't leave me enough energy for blogging, which I often regretted, but hopefully I will do better now! So much has happened since that last time I posted that I think a catch up is in order.  

Coming Events
Playday!
We need to have some fun in this cooler weather, so I'm organising a playday on Sunday, the 26th of September. I plan to organise some challenges for us, which will involve a look at some of the Patterns and 7 Games as you've probably never imagined them! Just purely for Savvy fun for our regulars and their horses. I can't wait!


More Fun!
This time with Petra Christensen (who is now a 2* Instructor), 2* Kime Conkright and 3* Instructor Jena Cody. On October 17th, they are offering a morning of free (yes, it did say "free") lessons, followed by an afternoon of Parelli Games. We hope to see lots of new local faces and make new friends at this event. We are hoping that Livia will also be around for this. More information coming soon!


And Cooler Weather

This summer was a challenge for me, and others, too. However, we are lucky to have  nice autumn weather here, which often stretches into the early winter. September, October and December are usually pretty dry. (Statistically, November is a little wetter, here.) It's a great time to visit us. Why not hook a few extra days onto one of our events, like the Playday or Funday? Staying on after an event is particularly useful, as it gives you the opportunity to play with your horse and consolidate what you learned before returning to the distractions of "real life".

Of course we can't promise that any week of the year will have a particular type of weather, but there is a good chance of dry days which are mild to crisp in temperature. We are keeping our prices the same for now, with short breaks to suit even the tightest budget, money saving working holiday options or easy-going bed and board options that are still great value. For lots more information, and a complete price list click here. We look forward to seeing you!

Bruce on the Loose!

In July, Livia Meneau, from Switzerland, arrived to spend a week with us before taking Bruce to the Colorado ISC (Parelli ranch in Pagosa Springs) for 3 months while she does her externship. We were very impressed with her attitude and I feel she has potential to become a great Parelli Professional. She and I spent an enjoyable week together - playing, riding and preparing. We even managed to fit in a trail ride one day. That may sound like no big deal, but it had been almost two years since I had ridden off the property! The opportunity has been there for awhile, as our neighbor to the east has generously allowed us to ride on his 800 acres. There is a lot of great riding over there, which I'm having fun exploring.

Livia and Bruce checking out our neighbor's water hole

Livia and Bruce are doing well at the ISC, and of course Brucie is a bit of a celebrity, as I would expect. I get little snippets of news from Livia. Being and extern is not an easy road, and she doesn't have much time to write. I also hear a little about them from Petra, as she is working at the ranch and keeping her horses near Bruce. Livia will be back in October for another visit. I am looking forward to spending time and sharing Savvy with her. And I will be thrilled to have Mr Bruce home again!

Partners at the ISC

Holidaymakers

Petra spent a week with us near the end of July. She had the brilliant idea to offer lessons to anyone who wanted to stay here at Springvalley that week, and she also was a very dedicated horseman, herself, spending all the moments she could grab riding and playing with Cash and JB. It was nice to have her around, and to see "The Browns" again. Cash made some nice changes during their week here.

Toward the end of the week we were joined by Harlene and JoAnna and their two horses. They travelled up from the Walsenburg/Gardner area, a couple of hours to the southwest of us.  Linda came and stayed and took lessons, too, so we were quite a party. They all had daily lessons, played with their horses and we watched Parelli DVDs together in our spare time. It was a very hot week, in a very hot summer, so a little challenging for all of us, at times. I hope we might see them again when things cool off!

The week was rounded off by the second lesson in the Summer Series with Petra and Kime. It was great to see the group progressing. I felt a little sorry for our spectators, who had to sit in the heat all day, however, Mark had a plan, and it was just a question on time...

Our Auditors Now Have it Made in the Shade!

We became aware in the spring that our clinic and lesson auditors were struggling in the summer heat. We considered various solutions, then Mark had a brainstorm. A carport! So he ordered one of those super-duper pre-fab metal ones (in green, of course!). It provides plenty of sun (or rain) shelter for auditors, and we can park things under it the rest of the time. Unfortunately it took it's time arriving, but we were finally able to use it at the last summer lesson, and what a difference it made! Just as well, too, as the temperature was 105F. 

Our Big Arena

Barney and Ducky enjoy the acres of sand!

Somehow, over the summer, my "playground" has morphed into an arena. My idea of having some semi-permanant obstacles on a natural/native surface was gradually defeated by our climate and weeds. The only thing to do was turn it into a sand arena. Mark has put in a lot of time and effort to make this happen. Luckily, we are sitting on pretty good sand, so it's been a matter or hoeing out the weeds (with a tractor) then using a revolving arena harrow to fluff it up. We bought in some sand to top things up around the obstacles and near the front, where it had hardpanned over the winter, but now we wonder whether that was actually necessary. The result is great. We have an almost 300' x 300' arena. The only problem is the semi-permanent obstacles, which have to be moved every time we harrow. Well, that's the next challenge, I guess.

We have another area earmarked for a playground with permanent obstacles, but this time we will have to do some serious thinking about the surface before we start.

Grass + Cows = Beef
Up until the last four or five weeks, we've been blessed with generous rainfall again this year. The pastures are responding well to this and I have managed to do a lot of mowing for weed control. As a result, the grass is coming back surprisingly well. We still have years of pasture improvement ahead of us, but it's nice to see it paying off already. The calves are looking fantastic. They have grown and fattened up really well. So we are now taking orders for grass fed beef for local customers. We put no chemicals whatsoever on our pastures, and of course we don't give our cattle growth hormones, routine antibiotics or other nasties.

But you won't be eating Bonnie here.

We hope this heifer is going places in our breeding program!

To email me about upcoming events, holidays or beef click here
                                                                                                                                                                                                        

A Vistor's Story

My friend, Linda, and her dad, Barney, spent a week with us in May. We had quite an agenda! It was the week that we were planning on finally getting the calves out to pasture as part of our grazing cell rotation, both Linda and Barney were getting ready to film their auditions (Barney L1 and Linda L2 On Line) and had a few rough edges to sand off, Barney is just getting back into riding after - oh - maybe 60 years, and at the end of the week....Barney's 80th birthday!

Linda recently sent me a little write-up about the first part of their visit. They literally arrived, got out of their car, unloaded their horses, and started helping us with the fence. And the next morning, the first order of the day was Trailer Loading . . . . calves! Linda is incredibly game when it comes to anything like this, and she actually did most of the loading. Talk about principles to purpose! The real fun started when we released them into the grazing cell. Typically, a couple of them decided to run through the hot wire. It was a real test of non-predatory behavior for all of us!

We formulate a plan

Making the right thing a little easier

Then it's all about watching Linda do the work!!

And work

And just a little more

work!

Then the smart Herefords almost load themselves

C'mon in! It's really not that bad!

Yay!!

 Here it is, in Linda's own words:

Earlier this summer I spent a week at The Farm with my father, Barney and our two horses. Every time we come over we see the results of Kris and Mark's continuing progress with the facilities and pasture management. Our plan for this visit was to relax and make progress with our horse-man-ship without the distractions of my fixer upper home and my full time job. And all along the high point of the week was to celebrate Barney's 80th birthday and his Level 1 audition completion. Our unofficial non plan plan is always to join in the life and times of Springvalley Farm.

The first task after settling the horses and ourselves, was to help finish clipping the southern fence lines after Mark had restretched them. All five of us including Denise quickly secured the fencing. Its a first time 3 of us have hooked and looped wire to a t-post. Add that to my suburban girl rancher wannabe horsey girl tool box.

Well, that prerequisite set us up for Mark's grand entry of the weaner calves to the track system's cell grazing. I had a blast moving calves with only a carrot stick and one dvd view of Pat Parelli's tips: pressure on when they look the wrong way and no pressure when they move the right direction. Well, young calves need some support hiking up into a trailer and calming them down after release into acreage. It doesnt work to impulsively snag a 200 lb right brain calf with a carrot string and stick to finish the catching game one yard from the hotwire! Predator impulse still present ! Dad had some great fun moving the two escapees 75 yards back to cell, only to lose them with a last second phase 4. We eventually succeeded while Mark held the hotwire up, and Kris kept the small herd from scattering out the open wire.

We thought this would be the easy part.

Just let 'em go, right?

Cool, calm and collected cowgirl.

Mark and Barney round up the strays.

City Slickers redux (PNH subtitles).

More Impulsion!

I spent a nice morning with Iona, mostly riding. The weather is very hot here, and it's a struggle for me to get up and out early enough to beat the heat. I just don't sleep well if I go to bed unusually early. I'm working on it! However, I have done a little better this week - played with Iona a couple of mornings and Hunter once, too. (Pat on back!)

Circles aren't going as well again. I suspect there is some "make" creeping in on my part. So the pendulum has already swung a little too far in the dominance game, I guess. Iona is playing The Eating Game with me, and the Running Off With the Line Attached Game. I am finally learning to hang on a little better, so I am grateful for the chance to learn about that. I see that my assertiveness is starting to border on aggression about the eating, though. Need to think of some Savvy Arrows quick. Maybe I just need to play the Own the Grass/Food game more, and build the distance. Yep, that should work. Okaaaaay.....it's not as much fun as making her run around, but I'll put it on the list.

I think one reason I was impatient this morning was because I had a plan about riding, and Travelling Circles on the 45' line were supposed to be the warm up. Which they were, but not that pretty. All the eating/running off stuff happened on the right rein as I was trying to increase the distance and just walk around a little, doing walk-trot transitions. We did finally get to the end of the line with some respect. I did a few trot-canter transitons on the left rein, then felt more like doing simple changes instead, so we did a few of those, which she was better with, so I stopped.

She was now all saddled up and I think she was surprised when we left the playground and headed out on the track. Part one of my plan was underway! Hunter and Bruce had obliged nicely by leaving beforehand and going about 1/2 mile or so around. So we were going to have no impulsion problems getting that far! My plan was to catch up with them, and then play with overtaking them, retreating back to them, etc. Play was the important word in that last sentence. We started down the drive at a brisk walk, and I worked on my Fluidity, which has been really lacking in the saddle, the odd time I've bothered with one recently. It really felt awful at first - a foreign object wedged between me and my horse. (Yes, I mean my beautifully fitting and seriously expensive Balance saddle.) I peddled like crazy. We did a little sitting and rising trot. That felt a bit better.We turned the first corner in walk. I decided to involve my arms in my fluidity exercises, and that was an excuse to trot. That was okay with me, but downward transitions were hard and not very long lasting, so we did some direct and indirect reins, just to resume communication. Around the next corner and I figured she was ready to canter. Yep! So we trotted and cantered most of the rest of the way, then hung out with the boys for a bit.

The going ahead and retreating went much more easily than I expected, thanks to Mr Hunter. What I hadn't realised was that he will go with Iona and leave Bruce, I still did some approach and retreat, but it turned out to be pretty easy for the next half mile or so. One place where she's always sticky she went "I'm gonna sull up and buck now." I said "Go ahead" and she said "Yeah, never mind." Hmmmm. The first time I asked for canter she wouldn't, so I just blew her mind by asking her to do a short one back toward Bruce (who hadn't bothered to follow us at all). Then I let her eat (still a long way from Bruce) and after that canter was easy. Fancy that!

When we got half way around by the olive trees we lost Hunter, and I thought we would have an arguement. Wrong. Now bugs came to my aid. I suspect Hunter knew about these, which is why he left us. However, Iona decided any direction would do as long as we kept moving, so the rest of my ride was controlled, but quite speedy. Fun! Well, except for the flies and mosquitos...

I was so pleased, I wondered whether to quit for the day, but I decided to go ahead with part two of my plan. Patterns in the playground. These went so well that there's not really much to describe. I managed to do both Figure 8 and Weave at trot, with just a few corrections at first and finished up both of them without using my reins or stick. Hooray!! I'm sure that long warm up ride helped us both.

One other thing I noticed was from a tip I had from Jerry Williams about the Theraflex pad. I've been using the sideways shimming pattern that Linda P now recommends for low withered horses for awhile, but Jerry told me to actually let the two halves of the pad splay apart at the front, and this seemed to help today with the pad and saddle going in opposite directions, Everything stayed in place better, and I think we were both more comfortable as a result.

What a great morning! I watched some Parelli DVDs in the nice cool house after that to celebrate.

Learning Frame of Mind

Had a session with Iona yesterday. Even though we started fairly early in the morning, it was very hot! Think it got up to 101F or something yesteday. However, I was determined, and thankfully a breeze and a few clouds made it possible for awhile! We played with canter circles, which ended up taking some time. She's in season, and was making a fuss about being away from Bruce. There was a bit of running off, but we weren't in a very big space, so I just persevered. I was trying for six laps. Got three easily each way, but when I went for six, she would get almost to six and then break gait. This happens so often that I wonder whether there is a change in my energy when we get close. I do my best to control it, but I still wonder...

We got six on the left rein with either a minor correction from me or self correction. Then on the right she decided to run around and leave me because Bruce and Hunter were on the move on the track. We went into a roundpen and finished pretty easily there. We were both hot and sweaty, so we called it a day and I hosed her off.

I got up nice and early this morning to beat the heat, and it worked out really well. We headed out to the playground where I had set out some half barrels for a Weave and cones for a Figure 8. I wanted to work on Weave on the 45' line. This hasn't been going well. We warmed up with some Traveling Circles. Iona is still Iona, and has her opinions, but I was left feeling like "When did we get to the place where I can move you through time and space on a longer line, and you do maintain gait? Wow! This is new and cool!" (I had much the same feeling playing with Bruce the other night. Gee - maybe I'm changing...) So we did that for awhile, and she was great! Then I realised that I needed to go shut a gate out in the pasture, so I left her happily eating grass or a few minutes.

Okay, time for the dreaded Weave!! The first thing I noticed was that she had lots of go. Excellent! The next thing I noticed was that I wasn't doing a great job of directing her. She was actually trying, but when I was unclear she just made up her own stuff, like jump the half barrel, go around two, stop and eat... I bagan to sort out my timing, and in the process I realised that the further away I am the less I have to move and the easier it is to be clear, too, I think. Again, Iona did a pretty good job of maintaining gait, and really tried for me. That, in turn, made it a lot easier to be able to work on my end of the deal. It's a completely different game than when a horse is just stopping and goofing off all the time. Then it's very hard for the human to make progress. I was really pleased with Iona and I felt we made a lot of progress on this!

After a suitable break, we moved on to Freestyle Figure 8 at trot. Or tried to. Again, Iona got really distracted by Bruce and Hunter out on the track. She was actually going around with her head in the air calling to them. If she could get that big tail in the air she'd have been doing a pretty good imitation of an Arab. I thought we'd start with a little point to point just to see where we were. Did I mention we were bareback? I was gonna use tack, but discovered a HUGE welt from a bug bite just where the girth goes.... Boy am I out of shape! Haven't been riding enough, so I'm up there slipping around on her nice shiny summer coat. Yikes!

Point to point was do-able, so I decided to just go for it. Then I remembered I was supposed to be riding with my stick. Doh! Got that, and Iona took off in her punchiest, most jarring fast trot, with a big loop on the side where the boys were and completely missing X, also in favour of going toward males, then trying to just go straight and run around at the other end of the pattern. Great. I was all over the place - trying to resist te urge to use my reins for balance, frustrated by the stick and must have left my balance point at the breakfast table. Wonderful.

This whole crazy trot thing seems to surface at times when I am bareback and/or riding with the stick. I've wondered why. I'm not always that unbalanced, but have wondered if there's a lack of confidence with the stick, a discomfort with the bareback trot, or what. Still don't know the answer, However, what I learned today was that it is okay to do something about it. I think I have been sort of like a rabbit in the headlights with it. Just gamely riding it and waiting and hoping for a change. Sometimes it does come eventually.... So after 5 or 10 minutes (felt much longer!) of awful, during which I managed to stay on, stay roughly on the pattern and saw no improvement - I had a brainstorm........I sinply asked her to slow down. Not walk. We could do that. Just trot slower and relax. And then we did it. Problem solved.

I also discovered some of the same problems with my timing on asking for a change of bend, that I found earlier on the Weave. I'm really happy with what I learned today. Sometimes I feel like I'm not progressing, because I can't figure out what I need to learn. I love breakthrough days!

Oh, yes - she never bucked.

More fun with Bruce!

My Beautiful Brucie

(taken in Scotland)

Denise and I have had a few sessions with Bruce since I last posted. Their partnership is improving. Denise has stepped up to take on the things I am asking her to do with him, and he is having a lot of fun playing and enjoying the extra attention. Yesterday evening was really fun, though!

We started by looking at playing Games 4-7 in a flow, and I suggested that Brucie should really be trotting 90% of the time. I played first, and I have to say I was surprised at just how well he did. I didn't need to ask him to pick up the pace much at all - he just went. Denise also had a good little session, although she needed to remember to "expect a lot" as she just didn't realise he could easily do much more for her at first.

We then had a look at tacking him up with a bareback pad. Typically, he was trying to undo the latigos and "help" her put it on. He is always impatient with tacking up. He thinks it take too long.

In the interest of continuing with the Impulsion Programs, I had to think of a way to play the Trotting Game dismounted. I decided we could try Liberty. We were in the small arena, so Denise and I each took a half and I sent him off - really to go where he liked as long as he trotted! And if he went over to Denise's side, then it was up to her to keep him trotting. Naturally, he had no idea what we were asking him to do. However, that just seemed to make it more fun for him and he was pretty expressive. Only one or two little moments of "uh-oh, I guess I'm wrong!" He mostly offered to do big circles around us, and we ended up having to sort of discuss how to get him to go to the other person's side. We all had a blast, and ended up asking him not to canter more than not to walk, by far. It would be very easy to get him to do a big Figure 8 around the two of us, I think.

Denise then mounted up to work on her lateral flexion, friendly game and a bit of Passenger Lesson. I'm not sure that too much Passenger Lesson will be a good thing for Bruce, so this may be a bit of a compromise. Hopefully, Denise can sort of get that just riding him around with me and Iona before too long.

Because of Bruce's impending trip, I thought I'd better work on his trailer loading. We haven't done much with it since the Trailer Woes thing this autumn. However, after a little initial scepticism he went on and off several times easily. I then experimented with how he felt about me coming in. No problem, so we played a little Yo-yo game and stuff in there, and I also experimented with running the lead rope through the bars to simulate tying him up. That also went just fine. I think that's where we had problems the last time - or at the next step, where I dallied the rope to something and left him - and then he panicked a little. No problem this time. I didn't dally the rope, but did get out of the trailer and go around and give him a treat through the bars from the outside. A pattern he knows from our old trailer in Scotland. I was really happy with that session, and with how the whole evening went.