More With Less: The Sunday Edition

INTERLUDE: The Western States Horse Expo which is held in Sacramento at Cal Expo each year is a great way to learn from some of the best clinicians and trainers in the country as well as seeing all the new innovations in the equine industry. We took TONS of notes and pictures! Crain Cameron, Julie Goodnight, Richard Winters and Chris Cox were the highlights for us.

The vendors were a tad thin this year and the crowds a bit lower but overall it was a great learning experience.

Tomorrow we are taking all the cool things we learned and will be introducing them to our horses at the weekly “Spur of the Moment Ride” session.

A SUNDAY SESSION: After Friday’s mental adjustment Annie seemed in MUCH better mental and emotional shape! One of the lessons for us as humans (which we picked up from the Expo) was to really have clarity in Mind (mental), Body (physical) and Spirit (emotional) which will translate to the horse…at least in theory (grin). One of the hardest things for us as humans is to “shut off” our emotions during training but maintain a level of empathy and sensitivity so we can communicate better with the horse. As humans we are works in progress!

One of the things we noted about Annie is that the more fit she gets the more fire she has. In many ways this is a good thing. She is NOT a lazy horse at all. If you look at her breeding and the QUALITY of the genetics you can tell that “more whoa than go) is not part of who she is. What we are hoping to do with this round of training is to condition her mind to being ready to stop and relax or get up and go depending on what is requested without her feeling like she needs to lead the situation. It is getting better but is a work in progress. Because if her history (meaning before we got to work with her) she was often left to her own devices and got to choose her own path. This reality is shifting a great deal. Changing eleven years of behavior does not happen overnight. We celebrate the victories no matter what the size and understand it is a journey, not a race.

Improvements on a variety of things we introduced on Friday. Her stop to the seat was MUCH better, rollbacks were better, transition were better, bend in the body was much better, groundwork “Susan” circles were much better. NEW STUFF was tossed at the girl today too! Side passing along the fence (on the ground and under saddle), vertical flexion at the walk, lateral diagonals along the fence, serpentine transitions and the use of SPURS. She did really well! The few times she got sassy were shorter in duration and she was faster to refocus on the task at hand. We wrapped up with some nice turns at the walk on a really loose rein. It was a workout for everyone but very productive. We always started with “a quiet conversation” in regards to cues/aids. If we needed to get “louder” we did but ALWAYS returned to the “quiet”. Lots of rubbing and loving on Annie when she did well or at least tried well.

It was a really good session.