Luna is getting the hang of the forward button. She is also learning the bridle and to give to the bit.
Repetition, consistency, repetition, consistency....do I say it enough😅. This little filly was started under saddle here last year, she did good but needed to grow alittle more so we sent her home to mature for the last year. This should be all the evidence you need to see the foundation that I try and put into all of my trainings. She picked up exactly where we left off last spring. Good job ruby on not losing any ground.
For those that have been following. Sera went home Thursday so we let her settle back in for a few days and today I went there to make sure that everything we have worked on transfered home. The wind was kicking pretty good this morning so it took a little bit of ground driving to get her bearings and calm down. But then we hooked the cart up and she did wonderful, she drove around the mowed area in her field for about half an hour. We had a couple of stops due to some noises and such but faced them like a champ and continued on.
Luna has been working on moving under saddle the last few days. She's been a little reluctant to move forward so we've been doing alot of bending and turning, I'm pretty sure she starts falling asleep when I ask her to move...lol
It's been such a windy, spooky morning so far and miss ellie just wasnt getting anywhere with her riding in it. So we went back to some of our roots this morning. Using the wind to our advantage...well... until it stopped blowing....I'm also pretty sure she was giving me the cold shoulder.
Seras mom has been asking me if I had tested out her riding skills yet as she was sold to her being broke to ride by kids. So between the heat and the flies we took a break from the cart today to see how she does with a rider. All in all she wasn't as explosive as I thought she was going to be. It only took us about 15 minutes prior to this to get my leg over her. I left the vocals on so you can hear me reassuring her and asking her not to buck me off...lol
Luna got her first full mount today from both sides today. The last month of hard work in prepping for this moment has paid off. Tomorrow we begin her riding work.
Owen has been with me for a little over a week now. He has been conquering some fears with desensitizing. He is a 6 year old quarter horse here for some trail training. He has only ever been in a show ring. I always say I wish I would have videoed some the horses first days, but when we are caught in the moment it's not something that always comes to mind. The first few days Owen was quite flighty to new objects, he would snort and try to run away, I don't say bolt, because he was respectful enough to not try and pull out of my hands. He is still not a huge fan of the noodles, but you can see him visibly relax after a minute and accept that that object is not something to be afraid of. Desensitizing is something that I feel should be done with every horse, regardless of what discipline they are going into. With any horse there is a calmness that I like to get to before I throw them out into an new surrounding such as the trail, the more we can get him used to here, the easier it is for him to transition to the woods.
Sorry, long post
Sera started her education with me about 114 days ago. When we began our assessment of what she knows and her personality, Sera was fearful of most everything. We can always speculate as to what the cause was , but whether it was lack of knowledge, past trauma or poor prior training, we learned quickly what her limits were. We started with some desensitizing to bags, tarps, flags and all sorts of scary things. She would snort, spook, lash out, bolt and kick. Everyday we pushed her limits a little bit more and everyday she became less fearful. We started utilizing the harness and at first she did not like anything that touched her back legs or her hips. We had a few setbacks, and it took us a day or two to recover. I knew there was a hump that we needed to get over, a point where everything finally clicked and it would be continuously uphill from there. The first thing that we tried pulling was a jet sled. The first day I hooked the sled up behind her and she pulled it like a champ, I even sat in it as she pulled me throught the snow. I thought, oh boy, this may be easier that I thought. Boy was I wrong. The second day we had a major setback as she spooked, then panicked, then bolted and lost all control of herself. There was out hump. Devestation and defeat started to set in. Her owner started asking if we should continue or just let her be a pasture pet. I said no, no we will get this...I didn't want to give up on her. So I started rewatching some old training videos and talking to some of my mentors for some advice. So we started back from the beginning and it took us a full 30 days to recover our senses, and get back to facing fears. We set off with the sled again and oh my she pulled it! We shortened the ropes everyday until we were right behind her and she was pulling it as I ground drove behind. After a couple of weeks we were pulling the sled out of the round pen and down the driveway on a loose rein with no bolting. We mo
Sera had one little panic today when we went to change direction in the cart, but she responded when I told her to whoa, collected her senses and we were off again. Today we went straight from the crossties to the cart, no lunging, ground driving or mini cart work before the real thing with me in it.. So It was a new sensation for her and I expected a little resistance. I love it when they prove me wrong.
