Updates for everyone

I've been playing a lot with all my horses in the past few weeks, so I'll see if I can provide an update on all of them:

Sherlock: Actually I haven't done much with him because he injured himself 10 days ago. He scared the crap out of me when I found him struggling to come up the hill (after all the other horses were up at the hay), dragging his front leg. In my panic, I was thinking he broke his leg (being a mom -- or is it just being female? -- I immediately feared the worst!). But after taking a few deep breaths, and upon closer examination, nothing seemed obviously injured. He had a bit of blood on his shoulder and some swelling, but no other marks. I thought he must have been kicked and he injured his shoulder. So I backed the trailer to the gate and managed to encourage him to hop on 3 legs up the hill to the gate and into the trailer. He's such a trooper. I was so amazed when he even hopped into the trailer on 3 legs! What a guy. The vet poked and prodded him, shaved his shoulder and revealed a puncture wound. She could not feel any damage to the shoulder at all and his range of motion seemed ok, despite the soreness. She figured that the punture probably jammed some nerves. So she put him on bute for 4 days and antibiotics for 10. After 3 days on bute, he was trotting around like his old self. Big relief.

Allegro: I took him to 3D a couple weeks ago to play with him online. He's starting to settle down a bit... less tail swishing and pulling away when he's asked to do something. He can circle both ways (better to the right) with slack in the line, yoyo is spectacular, driving is about 80% consistent and even sideways is getting better. He's really ticklish too, so porcupine tends to lead to friendly. But he does move away from the pressure pretty quickly.

He loves to play with the tarp, so I started putting it on his back. Really no big deal (see short video clip at the end). He's still pretty skeptical, but is starting to be more interested than upset when we try something new.

Saphira: I've probably done the most with her recently. She's going to be a nice horse (provided I don't screw up!). She's starting to learn to move off my leg pressure (forward as well as sideways). Sometimes I still have to go to phase 4, but I think that's more about her testing me rather than not understanding. However sideways off my leg still needs work. Her first instinct is to move into my leg. I've tried incorporating adding driving with the stick if she moves into my leg, and that has worked sort of, although I'm pretty uncoordinated with the stick while on her back, so I've abandoned that. She's starting to understand the different cues for moving her front feet vs her back feet. Although we've only worked on this at the standstill, not walk or trot yet. On the ground, her sideways is OK, but could use more work: I can drive the front end and the back end, but not both together yet. Yoyo is nice and light and the circle is wonderful to the left, but still a bit stiff to the right (she tends to stop and look at me a lot more going to the right).

We've started playing with obstacles too now. I tried sideways over a barrel last week. I had to take it really slow - I think she thought I was trying to drive her into a wall! She did eventually figure out that the barrel would fit under her and I let her stand there until she licked and chewed, then let her step out. Smart girl! I still can't get Skittles to do that! I'm still working on the pole with Skittles, not even close to a barrel yet!

Skittles: I haven't rode her in a couple of weeks, but I played at liberty with her last week which was kind of fun. I had her going sideways, yoyoing (although the bring-back was more like a catching game!) and even backing by pulling on her tail. She does all of it really well... although she did decide to leave a few times. I got her up on the pedestal at liberty too. Just the front though. I'm hoping to work with Tania to get her "bring-back" a little sharper. Even online, her first response to pressure on the halter is to pull back. It's only for a second, then she comes forward, but I'd like to fix that. Plus the bring-back is sluggish, so if I can get Tania to swing a savvy string behind her when she pulls back, maybe she'll come forward quicker.

Gypsy: Gypsy is pregnant now, so I will only have a few more months to ride her before she starts to get big and uncomfortable. I took her to 3D with Saphira last week so my daughter and her friend could ride her. She's my friend/kid-proof horse. Although she was a bit wingy when we got there, so I did some ground work and riding before I let the girls get on her. She's such a pleasure to work with. Sure we still have some things to work on (lots!), but she's so responsive and tries so much for me, I just love playing with her. We've really come a long way. She still struggles with cantering online. She - like Saphira - is much better to the left than the right. I know she can do this because we did it for the L2 tasks, but that was in a huge outdoor arena... I wonder if that has anything to do with it (perception of more space)??. Anyway, I did manage to get nearly a full circle of canter to the left, and about a half circle to the right. I was focusing more on her response to "the allow" than the actual distance she cantered. I just wanted her to pick it up. I left it at that, then got on and rode for a while.

She is so much softer than a year ago. Her rooting is almost gone and her sideways and lateral flexion are starting to get nice and soft. She's even starting to get some vertical flexion. I'm so pleased with that progress, because it's been a long time coming. I had a hard time relinquishing her to the girls! Next time I'd like to work more on sharper transitions. That's our next big obstacle.

Skittles + Tarp

I know it's been ages since I've blogged, and I apologize for those who've mentioned it :-).
I've been busy with the horses, I just haven't taken photos or blogged, and I apologize.

Saphira is coming along really well. She started out with sticky feet (didn't want to go) and wiggly lines (couldn't walk in a straight line), and was very stiff circling to the right -- which was more like a square actually. Left was nice and soft. However, now she's got lots of forward, is getting nice and straight, has maintained very quick, soft responses to cues and has even started softening on the circle to the right. I haven't done anything in about a week with her now because one hind leg was swollen the last time I took her out, so I've been leaving her to heal. She doesn't appear to be lame, so it could have just been a kick or a strain from slipping in the mud or something. She seems a lot better now, so will probably try to ride her again tomorrow.

I've also been working a lot with Skittles. She's also been doing well. She had about 2 months off after she dumped me back at the beginning of August. Did I ever mention that? We were walking along in the ditch near my house and she reached her nose down (I thought she was reaching for a bite of clover). She sniffed a scrap of newspaper, it fluttered, and she LAUNCHED into the stratosphere, striking at the killer piece of paper with her front feet, and lept sideways at the same time, leaving me hovering up in the clouds. I landed, as you can imagine, quite hard -- on my left cheek. Thankfully there's lots of padding there, but it still hurt like hell and required sitting on ice for several days, while it turned every possible shade of purple, black and blue. There's still a dent. After I was able to breathe again, I got up, picked up the offending piece of paper, put it in my pocket, got back on Skittles and walked her up and down the ditch again, got off at home and played friendly game with the paper. She got as far as sniffing it with her neck outstretched and I left it at that (she started with flying around me on the 12' line, so I felt that was pretty good progress).

Since then, I've mostly been focusing on the colts and Saphira (i.e. not sitting in a saddle for a while). So it was way past time to get back on Skittles... which I did early in Oct. and have been riding her every week since.

Last week - on Monday, I spent close to an hour with her and a tarp. Tarps are categorized in the same "killer" category as fluttery pieces of paper. I've been avoiding tarps - because they're difficult, and I'd rather work on things that are easy. Wrong approach, I know, but that's the way my brain works (and don't tell me yours doesn't either!). Anyway, long story short, we made a bit of a breakthrough.... she's still not entirely hunky dorey with the tarps, so we'll continue to work with it, but she's WAYYYYYY better than before. At the end of Monday, she was able to put one toe (if she had a toe) on the tarp, and I was able to rub her all over on both sides with it, walk away and she was licking and chewing.

The video clip below is last Wednesday -- session #2 with the tarp. She even stepped on it with a back foot! :-) I will continue to play with the tarp until it's as common as dirt for her. The difficult is starting to get easier.