January 27, 2011 Taking obstacles in stride



Pictures lifted from the video of the longe lesson



I brought Rory in today, groomed him and saddled up.  Despite having done nothing for a week, Rory remembered all his lessons and stood quietly in the barn.  He didn't even move when I put the saddle on.  We went out to the arena and I set up the camera to video the lesson.  After reviewing the basics I let him have a bit longer line and he was just as good.  I set up a cavaletti and longed him over it.  The first couple of times Rory trotted up to it he jumped over the obstacle.  He half hopped over it for a while, then figured out how to accomodate his trot to take it in stride.  Before we finished I asked Rory to trot more forward, and then come back to his working trot, and then go forward again.  It was a good session.

January 26, 2011 - A quiet week

I haven't done much with Rory in the last week. We had a very cold snap over the weekend.  Sunday night went down to -34C with very little wind.  The lack of wind meant the horses spent the night in the clouds of their own breath, much of which frosted the tips of their hair all around their heads and necks.  I tried to take a photo of Rory, but he wouldn't stand still far enough away from me to get all the frost in nicely.  Once the sun came up the frost melted away quite quickly.

Rory was quite warm enough in his blanket, and was a bit annoyed that I had to check before he could have his breakfast.  I'm not thrilled with these blankets.  The lining seems to be a very poor quality nylon.  Rory wore through one side of the shoulder lining in his rainsheet in less than two weeks.  Another horse at the barn has the same winter blanket and the lining has several very long rips in it.  I looked at it closely and could see that the material was pulling apart along the stitch lines too.  Rory's lost one of the chest buckles on his winter blanket - it must have broken badly as there was no sign of it.  These blankets have two cross bars - one for the tongue, the other for the nylon strap attaching it to the blanket - and the strap bar breaks leaving the buckle still on the billet.  The nylon loop for the buckle was still intact so I just attached the snap to the loop with a quick link for chains.  I'll be glad when he's finished growing and I can get him the same type of blanket that my other horse wears.

January 20, 2011 Full of energy

 Rory was full of energy today.  I went to see him after riding and he followed me across his paddock and hung over the gate when I left.  I encouraged him to chase Totyo around and after a bit they did start playing.  I took a lot of pictures.

Rory kept coming back to me at the gate and I eventually gave in and brought him into the barn.  I just gave him a grooming today.  He stood very well on the cross ties and didn't fuss about the blanket coming off or going back on.  The little bit of attention seemed to be enough to keep him happy.

January 19, 2011 A bigger circle

Rory was very happy to see me at the gate today.  When I called him he came marching over with a little more energy than he usually does. I took him into the barn, groomed and then we went out to the arena for a little longe lesson.  I didn't bother with the saddle today.

In the arena I let him go to see if he wanted to run, but he just nosed around the stuff in the corner (chair, wheelbarrow, pitchfork) while I retrieved the longe whip.  I went and stood in the middle of the arena and after a minute Rory came over and got a bit of carrot.  I snapped the longeline on and when Rory went to walk away he was surprised that we were attached again.  Today's lesson was walk, trot, halt, and out on the slightly longer line - maybe fifteen feet.  For the most part Rory was very good  if a little slow to come down to walk or to halt at times.  His halts when they came were very good as he stayed out on the circle and didn't turn in to me.  I didn't need to use the "out" command very much today.  I kept the session short with several changes of direction.  Once I pushed a little harder than necessary when he was ignoring my trot command and Rory jumped into a canter.

After we finished with the longe I let Rory loose again and he followed me around as I went and scooped up his poops.  On the way back to the barn I was thinking that I'm going to have to be careful not to bore Rory, and to be sure to keep pushing forward in small steps.  It might be time to introduce the side reins to our longeing lessons.

January 14, 2011 - A demanding day

Totyo and Rory having a snooze

I brought Rory in today and rasped his feet before grooming and tacking up.  He didn't need much more than rolling the edges of his hooves but he was less than cooperative at first.  A couple of times he threatened to lie down, but gave up on the idea when I didn't let go of the foot I was holding.  Once Rory realized I wasn't going to put up with his wiggles and objections he stopped trying to take his feet away from me.

I gave him a quick grooming and saddled up.  We went out to the arena for another longe lesson.  Rory was a little full of energy today.  I made the mistake of giving him a few more feet of longe line and he wasn't as attentive.  Halt was not working, and with the extra distance from me Rory paid more attention to Totyo's whinnies.  The snow on the arena roof was periodically sliding off and the noise startled Rory.  Several times he tried to bolt, but I managed to bring him back to a walk without too much trouble.  Once I realized I'd given him more line I brought him back to about eleven feet again and ran through the walk, out, trot, halt commands again with very good response from Rory.  At the end another load of snow slid off the roof as I was switching the longe line to a different ring on his halter.  Rory saw the shadow slide that time and stood still as he watched it go.

On the way out of the arena I looked at the clock and realized that with all the activities today I'd had Rory paying attention for almost two hours.  None of it was difficult or very new for Rory, but it was a long stretch of time for him to be behaving himself and he had been very good.  He was happy to get back outside.

January 10, 2011 - Combining lessons



Pictures lifted from the video - including one that shows Rory isn't perfect!

 Today I saddled Rory up and went out to the arena for his second lesson on the longe line and the first time longeing with a saddle on.  I set the camera up to video the session before we started.  At this point I'm trying to avoid putting Rory into the position of feeling he must dump the saddle, so I'm not letting him loose in the arena with the saddle on.  This did leave him with a bit more energy than usual, but he was very good.  We worked walk, out, halt and trot again using about eleven feet of the longe line.  A couple of times Rory jumped and bounced into canter, but I managed to keep him on the short line and bring him back down to trot or walk fairly quickly.  Rory didn't show any sign of being particularly concerned about the saddle either time.  We changed directions several times and he did need a little encouragement to stay in the trot.  We're keeping lessons short and sweet at this point.  The purpose is to teach him the commands and what is expected of him during longeing rather than building his strength or fitness.  Exercise for his brain, not his body.

Tacking up is becoming more ho-hum for Rory.  He still gives the saddle blanket a close look, and rolls his eyes at the saddle, but is moving less during the process.  Small steps, but ones that make me realize just how close we really are to riding.

A calming influence



Rory in his new winter blanket.

 The farrier came on Friday.  Totyo was on the list to have his feet done, as was their older paddock buddy.  I brought Totyo in before I headed out to a lesson.  Rory stood at the gate and whinnied a few times.  I was a bit surprised at first, but then I remembered that last time I'd taken Totyo away he hadn't come back.

Totyo had to wait in a stall while the mini had her feet trimmed, but apart from a few whinnies he seemed okay.  I came back after the lesson and found Rory peeking at me from another stall.  Apparently Totyo had been bad enough that they brought Rory in to keep him company and hopefully calm him down.  Totyo has been well behaved in his new home until now, but this was the first time he'd had to leave Rory since they were back together.  Rory had been relaxed enough to have a half roll in the stall and his tail was full of shavings.  He didn't touch the flake of hay, probably because he was interested in the activity.  I took both of the boys back out together and Totyo settled down as soon as he was moving.

On to the longeline

At the walk, moving out on the circle nicely.

 Today I took Rory out to the arena and put him on the longe line for the first time.  He's been very good about walking in a circle around me, and going out on that circle on a lead line.  It was time to make the circle bigger.  I let him loose to get the excess energy out while I set up the camera to take pictures, then hooked up the longe line.  Rory was really good, and went out onto the bigger circle easily.  I had to push him out at the same place on every circle for the first few, then he got better at staying out.  Rory has broken into trot on the lead line circles in the past, so I asked him to trot on the longe today.  Trot wasn't any problem for him.  The transition back to walk was good, but the halt was a little harder on the bigger circle.  I had to use the wall to help a couple of times.  Rory wasn't perfect, stopping when he shouldn't, and trying to canter off once, but I was very happy with his first longe line lesson.

Trot on the right rein.

On Monday (Jan 3rd) I saddled Rory up again and took him for a walk in the arena.  He didn't seem to notice the saddle and did everything I asked him to do.  There were a couple of horses whinnying outside and Rory considered having a little tantrum at one point.  He stopped, whinnied and bounced his front feet as if he were going to rear.  I told him he was not going to do that and quickly pre-empted the meltdown by turning him in a small circle several times, then going to a few steps of backing up, and turning on the forehand before continuing the walk.  We did do a little bit of trot in hand.  The first few steps got a little quick and Rory tossed his head and tried to push ahead of me, but I was expecting him to try something and halted him immediately, backed him up and tried again.  The second time went well and we ended the session there.

I am noticing that while Rory will often get a little nervous and act as if he's about to have a meltdown it's fairly easy for me to distract him.  Once he's back to work the impending meltdown is quickly forgotten.  If there is a specific thing that he's unsure about he needs to stop, look and think about whatever it is for a moment.  Several of his "I'm leaving now" episodes occured when he needed to look at something and I pushed him to keep doing whatever exercise we were working on.  If I give him the time to look he's good to go back to work.  This is important to know as many horses will grow more nervous and need to leave if simply allowed to stop and look at something they find scary.  The need to leave all too often starts with a very sudden spin which can unseat a rider before the horse bolts away.  In Rory's case the need to leave often starts with a buck as well as the sudden change of direction.  Not something I want to be concerned about when I start riding him.

Another important first!

Today, New Year's Day 2011, I saddled Rory for the very first time.  I hadn't yet put my saddle away after riding and once I had Rory on the crossties I wondered if it would fit Rory and what he would think about it.  When I picked the saddle up and walked up beside Rory he huffed at me a little and shifted away.  I persuaded him to sniff the saddle and walked along his left side.  He backed up a bit and shifted away again, then stood quietly when I patted him.  As expected he stepped forward when I lifted the saddle up over his back.  I moved with him and put the saddle down gently when he stopped.  After a few more steps he stopped and I patted him, gave him a bit of carrot and then checked the fit of the saddle.  Right now it's a tiny bit wide at his withers, but  otherwise it's a good fit.  I wasn't sure my girth would be short enough so I held it up to see what the chances were and it looked reasonable.

I took the saddle off, and saddled him up properly with saddle blanket, pad and girth.  Rory shifted a little when I took the saddle off, and regarded the saddle blanket with some uncertainty.  It's been a while since I had the saddle blanket on him so I went through a quick session of rubbing it over him, dragging it off his bum, and flipping it onto his back several times.  Very quickly Rory relaxed as he remembered the routine.  When I brought the saddle back, as he had the first time he moved away, and then forward as I lifted it up over his back.  I snugged the girth up tight enough to be sure it would stay in place if he jumped and there were still a couple of holes left to go even tighter.  All we did was walk up and down the barn, but Rory was comfortable enough to be looking around and ignoring the saddle on his back.  I considered taking him for a walk in the arena, but it was raining quite heavily and I didn't feel like going over.  One step at a time - there's no reason to hurry his training.

Happy New Year to all of Rory's fans!