Tarps Eat Horses, Adventures In Groundwork

Daily groundwork sessions are getting more creative adding in tarps and kid toys, it's so interesting to see how each horse reacts, what it takes to get them back to normal, and how they respond to scary stuff after the fear is gone.

Each horse spooked right out of the barn.

Spotlight spooked by jumping on top of me since the tarp and toys were on his far side. He literally pushed my hips over and stomped my foot. The hardest part of working him in this exercise was getting his pony body out of my space! Once he gave me space and one ear we moved forward again.

After calming, he never truly relaxed but was responsive to what I asked of him and loaded onto the tarp after one spook learning that it made noise when stepped on.

Bandon spooked by going head-up, snorting, frozen rigid in space. The hardest thing for him was when we walked away from it, Bandon wanted to surge ahead.

Once he was calm he was super inquisitive, chewing his relaxed mouth, and totally trusting of me.

He even let me put some objects on his body after going slow and conditioning both sides.

Czech spooked by running behind me and had a hard time getting out of that position. He was perfectly fine to let me handle whatever it was. Here the tarp and toys are up on the hill in front of him. Where Bandon & Spotlight couldn't take their eyes off the objects, Czech quickly decided not to take his eyes off me.

"You go first."

At the objects he was less eager to interact with them, holding his composure and remaining calm, just not interested in getting up close and personal.

He took the longest to convince to stand on the tarp and never quite got to a point of being happy about it.

Each horse reacted to the same situation so differently. I would have thought Bandon would take the longest to get on the tarp, and he did blow up the biggest, but he was the easiest to accept the new situation.

Not one of them minded being apart from the herd, even when horses in the barn were calling. They had no choice but to turn to me and work out what they saw in their mind as a bigger problem than being away from each other. Another sweaty, humid, muddy day spent well.

Before I leave this particular post, I feel like I need to clarify how I worked through this since there was no way to take video of how it all went down. First off, I believe doing work like this teaches me about how my horses react, how to help them overcome reactive situations, gives them some experience to draw on to condition them for better responses in the future, and makes us look to each other for trust. We worked mostly with forward and backward motion, circles if needed, until the horse was ready for more. Nothing was forced.

Second, I do not believe in simply desensitizing aka sacking out. I don't personally feel that scaring a horse on purpose over and over until it stops moving in response to that particular fear, is teaching anything and can create instability (especially if you are working Thoroughbreds). Same goes for forcing a horse to run every time it reacts, as punishment for a fear response, I don't believe that's a smart way to handle ex-racehorses.

I could be wrong but that's where my beliefs are at on the matter today based on what my horses tell me and I'll probably hold to that until they tell me something different.

“There is no way that the horse will ever try to take  advantage of you. He’s as honest and as truthful as anything you could ever work with. He has no ego that gets in his way. He has no pride that gets in his way. He doesn't know what win or lose is. And those are the four things that get in the human’s way. It’s very sad. All the horse is trying to do is survive; he’s trying to make it. So I try to work with him like he was me, just like I hope he would work with me.”  Ray Hunt 

Clocking In

School has officially started for my entire crew of 5. It was surreal reaching a milestone like that after 9 years of at least one child with me 24/7. All at once I wanted all the time I'd had with them back, it was a tough morning.

The horses must have known that I'd be seeking comfort from them and needed to stay busy, they obliged my need by coming up the first day completely covered in wet mud. Mother nature had not been as considerate of me dumping inches of rain the day before school and likely continuing for at the next 10.

Since riding is out in these conditions, groundwork after grooming was all that was left. We had to do something. 

Groundwork stinks. It's the tedious work that builds great foundation blah blah blah. It's good stuff for your horse and your training, it's dull as tarnish for a girl who prefers to have the wind in her face, and more repulsive when there is sticky boot-sucking mud coupled with humidity so high your clothes are stuck to you before 9 am. But it's needed for a bratty pony and two big boys who need reminding that I'm important in new areas on the ground away from the herd.

Earlier this week I had a great chiropractor from Alabama come out and he spent quite a while working Czech's hip, when Czech would pop he'd stretch his neck out and sigh a groan of approval. Two days later I saw him in the pasture canter on his usual left lead, then choose to pick up his right without cross cantering. Fingers crossed that helped.

This groundwork stuff I know we should be doing diligently all along, but let's face it, most of us on limited time just get on and go with just a little longe first. Now that my time is open for the horses during the day, maybe some October shows would be a good goal. Working the horses out alone is also tremendously good for their minds and their respect/bond to me. Having the time consistently to do the work facing some of these problems is exciting.

I still miss her all the time. I find myself cleaning her stall sign and wishing her head was nudging me while I did it. The skills she taught me I use today and the courage I found with her pushes me to see what heights I can go with the boys.