HORSE KARMA:
Everything Happens For A Reason
To say this last few days has been “horse
focused” would be an understatement! In a crazy turn of events the nice folks
who currently own Freya had to, for a variety of uncool reasons, move her from
a bad situation to a safe situation. Our place (Lucky Star Ranch) was the safe
place. Even though we just met Freya and her humans we felt they were good
souls. When we heard about the craziness we opted to help. So in short, Freya
is staying with us until she finds a new home (see Evaluations: Meeting Freya
to learn more about this beautiful Warlander mare. Now that the horse is safe
and getting a little extra attention to help refine some of her skills from us
the owner can relax a bit, screen potential families and make the RIGHT and BEST
choice for Freya. She also had some time to do a little research on what the
value of the breed is in the current market. Combined with our evaluation and
suggestions she has opted to set her rehome fee at $900.00. Any interested
family will need to answer some screening questions and demonstrate that they
can work with Freya. Seems fair and logical. Yes, we are the first point of
contact so if you want to know more about Freya contact us at Michael.canfield66@gmail.com.
We worked with Freya yesterday in
the round pen. She is a mover! Once she realized what was expected of her (so
many distractions to be distracted by) she performed well. We were able to help
her understand what we wanted and rewarded the positive tries. She needs a
gentle but confident hand to learn. She has to believe in the leadership (not
always easy for a mare of her type and experience) and make that connection in
her brain that the leadership is good and consistent. It was a little
challenging but really fun! We will do some more of these, focusing on the concepts
introduced.
Freya
Freya
Adding to all this fun is our new “project
horse” who we are picking up on Saturday! AQHA Registered Bay Roan mare “Toimpulsivetonotice”
is a 2011 model with a really unique coloring –almost silver in her roaning -
and nice frame. Nice breeding too. At just 5 years old she has some
foundational skills on the ground and under saddle but they will need some work
to refine and make “user friendly” to be sure.
Our first meeting was a good one. After
getting some basic history Michael went into the pen and gave the Horseman’s
handshake – basically letting the horse get a sniff, retreat slightly, repeat
and when things look good a few soft rubs of the shoulder and neck. When that
went well it was “rub all over time” to see if there are any “oh no” spots. Once
that is done we got to work in the round pen! The mare was a little tender from
a hoof trim that happened the day before but worked through it. (NOTE: The
humans are putting shoes back on her feet before we pick her up because we felt
that she needs them to handle the level of training and the terrain at our
place). She was a bit sassy about moving out at the trot. When we increased to
the lope we got some more sass and some kick-outs. Yes, it had been a while
since the mare had seen work, combined with some negative training experience
the mare had previously. We worked through it and got “two eyes” consistently
from both directions. She picked up her trot and lope better by the end of the
session. As we ran through the gambit of “what do YOU know” exercises we took
lots of breaks to praise and rub. The mare “locked on” pretty quickly. Giving
up the “horse trains human” union card will take a few more sessions but she
seemed to learn quick! She got lots of rubs and praise for trying hard. So
amazing how they respond to the praise. Life lesson reight there. We even slipped her a cookie on the down-low.
We then hooked up the line, did
some “despooking”, backing, yields, flexion and even introduce the concept of
“ground school circles” to Cali. She had not really had training like this
(lots of corner were cut and steps left out in our opinion) and much of what we
asked her to do was new to her. Overall she did really well considering that he
has not had much done with him in a (by our standards) long time. She seemed
willing for the most part. Not too over-reactive but often unaware of “personal
space” which will need to be worked on. We spend close to two hours with her.
As the sun was setting we said our goodbyes.
Toimpressivetonotice
Toimressivetonotice
Saturday morning she gets thrown
into the deep end of a new reality. We’ll have Ronan and Argent in the trailer
with us as we’ll all be heading to Lodi (from Stockton) to the monthly Golden
State Horsemanship Club practice. Since one of the mini-workshops we will be
having is “round pen skills” our new mare gets to dive right in! And so it
begins! We hope that she develops nicely into a solid horse with good manners,
nice foundational skills and a great attitude. We envision a slightly longer
process because of her youth but the efforts should pay off nicely.
Stay tuned! The journey continues
and it looks to be a fun and interesting one!
No comments:
Post a Comment