Friday in Photos

Working on a blog hop entry and hopefully getting the story of our wedding down in writing some time soon, but in the mean time....

Continuing to explore the other side of the park. I wound up running into a bunch of dead ends and restricted areas, but I'm slowly piecing it together.

Two Days in Photos

I'm liking this whole "day in photos" format for blogging. I suspect things will come to a grinding halt with work soon (it snowed for the second time last night, but it was only a dusting). Until then, I'm not even trying to catch up!

Here was Thursday and Friday of my week.

Thursday the horses got their feet and teeth done. My trimmer and vet are my Dream Team and they work on a lot of cases together. I rarely get to have them in one place at the same time so this was a special treat. No pictures because I was too busy trying to breathe. I haven't laughed so hard in a while...

Footie shaking after a good ride. He is making steady progress following a slight bit change. 

Marcus and Alice

After I took Alice cross country schooling at the Horse Park in August, things sort of slowed down on that front. Her owner and I got together for one more off-property trail ride. We shipped the horses over to Clayton Park the Monday after my hundred and put in a leisurely ride. It had been a long time since I'd been to Clayton, and I enjoyed the once-familiar trails. Marcus and Alice were both on their best behavior despite oppressive heat and bomber flies.

Alice Tries XC

Last week, Alice's owner emailed me to ask if I was interested in taking Alice to a cross country schooling at the Horse Park. I replied cautiously. Outside of taking her off the property to hack that one time, I have not done any jumping with Alice. In fact, she can barely hold a consistent canter in an arena. There's also the fact that Alice gets pretty freaked out by seeing other horses under saddle (even though we ride with Marcus on a regular basis). I voiced my concerns and outlined my approach. I wanted her owner to know what she was getting into and I wasn't about to guarantee results. I was prepared to just go to the Horse Park and lunge Alice out in the open for the exposure. Her owner agreed that this was  a reasonable plan and was ok with the possibility of paying my day fee and the entry fees, and possibly not getting anything to show for it.

"I just want to make sure we're on the same page," I wrote. "If you're up for it, I'm willing to give it a shot!"

My goal for the day was to be able to get on Alice and walk her around. I wanted to get her used to the other horses, and possibly go in the water complex. Reasonable goals.

Marcus and Alice go to the Assunpink

Not enough time to do a ride story, but I can share pictures from my Monday trail ride with Marcus and Alice. We took them over to the Assunpink, which is relatively local to where they live. I haven't ridden in the Assunpink since my Hangover Ride with Sandy and Sherry in 2013. Still, I've spent a lot of time in the park and am familiar with the trails. It was a good way to get the horses really off the property, and to get away from the bugs.

I did a tune up ride on each horse last week in preparation for the 'big' outing. Both tune up rides turned out to be a little more interesting than I anticipated.

Alice Updates

Three non-horse posts in a row?!? I need to get this blog back on track! 

You know who has been making nice, consistent, not-very-exciting progress (the kind I like best)? Alice.

I haven't updated on her since April, but I ride her almost every Monday morning. Talk about a nice way to start my weeks!

At this point, Alice is a pretty solid trail horse. She is naturally brave, which helps. I think she also genuinely enjoys trail riding and has a pleasant attitude the whole time we're out. She does still think that baby strollers are pretty freaky, and I have to give her the fact that a floating baby is scary. Still, her spook is to freeze and gradually elevate her head as her eyes get bigger and bigger. Eventually she looks like a spooky ghost-giraffe. Then, if the scary thing still hasn't resolved, she'll trot in a snorty circle. I typically get off of her when the ghost-giraffe transformation begins. I mean, she's kind enough to give me a twenty minute warning before she does anything dumb, so I might as well take her up on her generous offer of not killing me.

We have done several trail rides both with and without Marcus now. Sometimes we load the horses in the trailer and drive down the street. Sometimes I take Alice by herself and just ride down the road to the park entrance. She is equally good either way, and even self loads into the trailer for me now.

Her owner has been riding her in lessons at home with her centered riding instructor. My next goal is to go on a trail ride with me on Marcus and her on Alice, so she can see how nice Alice really is.

Yesterday morning, we tried something new with Alice! Instead of trailering her and Marcus off the property for a trail ride, we loaded Alice by herself and took her to a local farm to school in their ring. I have not done any ring riding with Alice since her first few sessions at home. I think her owner was a little nervous about how she would do, but I was confident she would be a good girl.

Alice got right in the trailer, despite Marcus calling sadly from his stall. She shipped quietly down the road, and I let her look around for a few minutes before unloading her. She walked up the driveway to the farm, taking in the sights but behaving herself. She did look a little alarmed when the automatic gate swung open, but other than getting wide-eyed she didn't do much.

We tacked her up in the strange barn, and she didn't seem even remotely worried. I walked her out into the large outdoor arena and decided to lunge her before getting on, only because the ring was really wet with standing puddles all over the place, and I wanted to make sure the footing wasn't as slippery as it looked (it wasn't!)

It turns out I didn't need to bother with lunging Alice. She would have been perfectly fine to get on right then and there, but I'm getting cautious (wise?) in my old age.

Alice stood like a lady to mount, as always, then walked calmly around the perimeter of the arena, unfazed by the other horses, the traffic, and hay harvesting in the background. After a nice warm up, we picked up the trot. We trotted all over, doing figure eights and circles of various sizes. We even splashed through several puddles, and I was relieved that Alice showed no sign of being tempted to lay down-- her old bad habit.

I also hopped Alice over some small jumps. Her owner wanted to see her jump. I had told her that I had tried her over some logs on the trail and she showed no interest or talent for jumping. When I canter Marcus at a log, he willingly and gracefully pops over it. I've even jumped some pretty big fallen trees with him. Alice just sort of steps really high and trots whatever I point her at. It's not a bad thing in what is supposed to be a beginner safe trail horse, but I certainly wouldn't spend too much time or money trying to teach her to jump. Still, I agreed to show her what I'm talking about. We approached a few jumps at a big, forward trot. Alice never stopped, but she didn't jump either. I steered her at a bigger jump with some tires under it to make her think outside the box. She went over super honestly, but I had to chuckle at her idea of jumping, especially since she was originally listed as having jumped 3' and 'loving it'.

The big ring provided me with a nice advantage and gave me the chance to work on some cantering. The ring at home is way too small to canter a green horse of this size, so all our cantering has been on trail. Alice rides a bit like a tractor trailer going down a hill when it comes to her canter. She just sort of rolls into it and it takes a while to get there. For now, I'll take it, since she used to buck every time she even thought about cantering. This was the first time I was revisiting the idea of cantering in an arena. It took a little bit of work and more than a couple of strides, but she did pick up the canter on both leads, and once she got the transition, the canter was lovely and there wasn't a buck in sight. I reminded her owner that she used to be a cart/plow horse and that they're really not allowed to canter.

The best thing about taking her to this farm to school was hearing the barn owner back my opinions on the mare. She agreed that Alice has a good mind and is worth putting the time into. She also agreed that there's no point in jumping the horse until her flat work has come along further. We both said her owner should keep putting trail miles on Alice and riding her at home in lessons since her goal is to have a pair of super safe trail horses that her friends can ride with her. Alice's owner has been really awesome about following the plan I've laid out for her, and it's paying off, but I think having an outside perspective to back it all up was very reassuring to her.

We left the farm feeling that Alice's first non-trail outing was a success. To have this mare go from an ornery former broodmare who would lay down if you rode her for more than five minutes to being able to take her to a new farm and ride her w/t/c in a flooded arena and pop over jumps is a good feeling. To do it in a dozen rides or so is awesome!

I'm hoping to take Alice all over the place as the year continues. Her owner and I have discussed trailering her in to Cara's to get her more experience with other horses being ridden around her, and to expose her to the indoor and a real jump course. We also want to take her to some other parks for trail riding so she can experience different terrain and scenery, and also so we can get away from the horrendous bugs at Collier's Mills.

Stay tuned...

Drafty Trail Rides

Alice's trail training continues. We went out again yesterday and she was a very good girl on our nearly two hour trail ride. We saw a lot of things ranging from dirt bikes to a military Humvee surrounded by at least twenty men in camouflage. Alice handled all of that like a seasoned pro, but there was one thing that upset her.

Other horses.

The horror! I know.

We were heading back in when we ran into a pair of riders on a gray and a pinto coming at us. They were very considerate in their approach and I informed them that Alice hasn't seen much of the world just yet.

Alice had stopped with her head up on high alert, and I could feel her heart pounding through the dressage saddle. I let her just stand and stare as the other horses approached us at the walk. I had a feeling she was going to do something dumb, and I was right.

Just as they were almost next to us, Alice decided she couldn't handle it any more and spun 180 degrees and bolted. I was prepared and got her stopped and turned back around in just a few strides. I think the other riders were horrified. I know Alice's owner was stunned.

I dismounted and let her stare some more while the other riders went on their way. She was wide-eyed, but behaved herself. Once they were past us, I climbed back on board and we carried on like nothing had ever happened. I had to laugh at the silliness of it. Loud noises, rushing traffic, barking dogs, rushing water... all of those are fine... but apparently horses carrying humans in the forest are just too much to bear. Never mind that we've had one with us the entire time!

All in all, it was a lovely ride on a beautiful spring day. I am sure that Alice is going to get better and better with more miles. She already seems to have surpassed Marcus in terms of fitness, and I think she'll be a great trail horse in no time.

Best of all, they really are a matching pair:

Alice Updates

I've had a few more rides with Alice since I introduced her. The first two were a bit tricky. You see, Alice has an aversion to going forward in the ring. Much like Ozzy, she doesn't seem to get the point of doing endless circles.

Thankfully, Alice has picked up on lunging very quickly and does well at it. She is very responsive to verbal cues on the ground. I had tried incorporating that into our training, to no avail. Alice quietly ignored any and all leg, and seemed uneducated in both riding and driving terms.

In fact, after a few minutes of refusing to take more than a few steps forward, she actually laid down in protest!! There was nothing malicious about it, and the saddle was left unharmed. I suspect the soft sand in the arena didn't help matters.

I got her back up, lunged her again, and got back on board. This time, I carried a dressage whip. At first, the whip led to much kicking out and even some small bucks, but once Alice realized that I wasn't going to stop pestering her until she moved forward, we found a good note to end on.

During the following session, Mike came out with me. As usual, Alice offered a few nice laps at the walk and trot before stubbornly grinding to a halt and refusing to move forward. Once again, I added the dressage whip, being sure to keep her head up.

Once again, she threw herself on the ground. This time, I hadn't even let her get her head down. She just buckled over at the knees and went down. Sadly, Mike was changing the ISO on the camera and the whole thing was over before he even saw it happening.

This time, I was faster with my response time and she was up and reprimanded before anybody could think too much about it.

By the end of that ride, she'd figured out that I was much less annoying if she just kept moving forward. I was only asking for a walk, so this wasn't exactly hard physical labor. By the time I hopped down, she was walking off of a soft leg cue, enforced by a verbal command.

For our last lesson, I decided to try Alice off the property to see if a change of scenery would do the trick. After all, she was purchased as a back up trail horse, and while I certainly think all horses should oblige occasional ring work, that is not the end game here.

After some coaxing, Alice climbed in the trailer with Marcus. In her defense, I think she'd been trailered once or twice in her eleven years on the planet. She was cautious, but honest, and loading only took a couple minutes.

We drove down the street to the trail head and unloaded without event. After hand walking across the slippery wooden bridge at the trail opening, I climbed on board and tucked Alice in behind Marcus. I was in for a pleasant surprise! After a few moments, Alice passsed Marcus and insisted on being in the lead for the rest of the five mile ride. She walked and trotted bravely in front, past many scary and looky things. She craned her head at a few of the more suspicious obstacles, but didn't put a foot wrong.

I'll admit I was relieved that she was so compliant on trail. She's a very nice horse and I like her a lot, but I think her owner was running out of patience for her antics at home. I think it will be a few more rides before her owner rides for herself, but I suspect that with some mileage, Alice is going to make one heck of a trail horse! She certainly seemed to enjoy herself out there, and didn't think about lying down once! In fact, I think she had more energy at the end than Marcus did.

I'll be sure to bring my camera next time.

Introducing: Alice

As you've probably gathered, warm weather means my business is picking up and I have stuff to blog about again. For the most part, I have the same steady group of clients. I pick up the occasional new horse or rider, but it's pretty much word of mouth at this point, and I like it that way. Less crazies to weed through.

My newest client horse is a mare named Alice.

I don't know how many of you remember Marcus. He's my percheron/paint buddy. I still ride him pretty regularly when the weather is nice. I rarely blog about him because our rides are low key and uneventful. His owner has me keep him in working shape for her, and we trail ride alone in the woods with nobody to take pictures of us. I love him, and he pretty much never puts a foot wrong. There is no better way to start my day than by galloping a draft horse through the Pine Barrens.

Marcus's owner has been casually searching for a second trail horse for quite some time now. Last summer, she rescued a Percheron gelding named Tom from the kill pen. He was a total sweetheart and it was love at first sight for me. I adore draft horses, the bigger the better. Tom had never been ridden, but after a long life as a plow horse, he was about as steady as they come. I rode him the very first time that I met him. Unfortunately, Tom had string halt and wasn't going to hold up to any kind of work. Thankfully, my client found him a loving pasture home and he wound up safe and sound after all.

My ride on Tom. 

Sadly, my client's old warmblood gelding, Cosmo, passed away on Christmas. He was in his thirties and was her heart horse. I was pretty heartbroken for her. Marcus was also taking the loss of his pal pretty hard, and Cosmo's death spurred the search for a second horse. Some time later, she sent me an ad for a Clydesdale cross, a mare named Alice.  This was the same place she got Marcus, and the resemblance was striking, despite the fact that the horses aren't even remotely related.

My response was, "She has blue eyes and is a mare. Ick!" (My client had asked me to talk her down from the ledge. I swear I'm not a jerk!)

The next email I got was, "I bought the yucky blue-eyed mare- yes I should be smacked." When could I come work with her?

On Wednesday, I went down to meet my new draft ride. Alice really does look a lot like Marcus, though I personally think he's put together better than she is. The evaluation went well. I started off on the ground, as always. Alice has obviously been handled quite a bit. She has good ground manners and likes attention and company. She stood like a lady to get groomed and tacked. She knew how to yield to pressure. She did ok on the lunge line. I don't think she's spent a lot of time going in circles. She stayed on a rough circle around me and moved forward pretty willingly. She did throw some pretty impressive bucks at the canter, but I think it was just a lack of fitness and coordination more than anything else.

As with pretty much every draft horse I try, it wasn't long before I was on her back.

Alice stood like a total saint at the mounting block. Whoa is definitely her preferred gait, which is totally fine by me. She walked off with just a cluck and a slight squeeze, and definitely knew the word 'trot'. She had a surprisingly light trot for a horse her size, and she was very comfortable to sit. I don't think she has much experience with steering or dressage concepts, but she was game to try what I asked. We even got a clumsy canter to the right, thankfully without any bucking.

Over all, my impression was that she was green, but very quiet and level-headed. She certainly didn't seem spooked by much of anything. She does have a bit of a stubborn streak and it took some encouragement to keep her going once her quarter was up, but she didn't do anything dirty, even when I picked up a stick.

With some patience and miles, I think she's going to be a great horse. I went back to view her sale videos later and did some research. The girl who had her seems like a nice enough kid, but I get the feeling she pulls these horses from auction and lists them for a lot more than they're worth. They get to be pretty quiet in her hands, but don't get much in terms of formal training. It sounds like Alice started life as a plow horse, probably for the Amish. She is pretty well broke to drive, and is happy to just trot along in a straight line all day. Her riding experience is mostly walking down the trail at a sluggish pace, with the occasional short canter just to show that she can pick one up.

I am scheduled to go back out to work with Alice again this week, and I am looking forward to adding her to my 'draft horse Fridays'. I don't think it will be long before I have her going on trail with her owner, and I think the two horses will make quite the matched pair out there!