Quiet Conversations

MONDAY LESSON - Quiet Conversations: It is our observation that it is harder mentally and physically for the human to train/ride “quietly” than it is for them to train/ride “loudly” and that once a concepts appears to be understood it is just plain COOL to ask the horse to perform it quietly and have them do it! That was the focus of this session. It was about 5:30pm when we got to Pioneer Park Arena. We played it smart and have the horses a hearty snack about 4:00pm so they had some energy. The weather was nice and the breeze was very welcomed!

We did our usual warm up with Annie and then moved into groundwork that focused on lateral and vertical flexion, backing, bending lateral movements and balance. She was doing really well with the exercises and was doing lots of “licking and chewing” as she processed what was asked. Since the lope is the one gait where she needs more personal confidence and understanding (mentally and physically) we decided to break out the LONG LINE. 25 feet of rope from my hand to her halter! If I walk a large (say 10-15 foot) circle Annie gets LOTS to room to lope BIG circles and have a focus point (me) to pay attention to. She did pretty darn well! She began to find her balance, leads, pace and cadence. It is really cool to see it happen.

Under saddle thing really came together. We worked on her stop/back-up a bit which was great. Vertical flexion at the walk, side passing and lateral/diagonal movements, transitions, direction changes/rollbacks and learning that when her human asks for “more life” in a maneuver it does not mean “get worried” and to come back down calmly when asked. She is really getting this concept. We did more “relaxing and rubbing” between exercises and allowed each experience to really soak in. We focused on what Richard Winters calls “schooling outside the maneuver” quite a bit which translates to doing something else that incorporates the movements/cues/actions of the maneuver you hope to do and then go back to the maneuver. We are working hard on using verbal accents like clucking and ”whoa” only when we really mean it. Again, this comes back to the theme of Quiet Conversation. This is a mare who is sensitive and smart and by no means lazy. So, we have to sculpt the concepts we are hoping to pass along to fit her learning style. That, dear Reader, is why we do what we do with these “project horses” – the journey of horsemanship is all about learning and adapting! For the horse it is about finding the “best them” that they can and hopefully find a forever home where that now accessible potential can be fostered.

Reviewing this journal periodically allows us to see how far Annie has progressed in her development. While it does made us mad that she was not given the opportunity to really grow and shine with her previous humans we are happy that we are getting to be the ones who are helping her find her best self. She is going to make some very lucky human a really fine horse that will grow with them in their journey together.

Chalk up one more productive session!

You can see a short video of Annie loading up in the trailer and backing to some steady pressure at: https://youtu.be/akjQxW-4Xng

You can see Annie’s 5 minute “Sale” video at: https://youtu.be/W8OVMVGyHDA