Into Pressure?

March 18, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

Everything you learn about horses involves applying pressure in varying amounts in order to get a response. And it works extremely well.

That is until you get a horse who seeks the pressure. This is an issue we’ve had with Laredo since we got him. It does not come up all the time, and it never happens on the ground, but there are many times under saddle where he will seek contact with the bit. This hasn’t been an issue in the hackamore until just the last few rides. He is hunting for pressure in the way you hope a horse will hunt for the release.

This has been tough for me, and our rides have not been the best lately. I know it is hard on Laredo, too. He has to go back and forth between two riders. Robin, due to her experience and working with Steen (and perhaps just who she is) is softer and quicker than I am. There are so many things I’m still learning, and I have been extremely fortunate to learn on Bear these past few years. He is very forgiving of my mistakes; he will get soft and responsive, but he won’t clam up if I get too rough or start mistiming my releases.

Laredo is not quite as forgiving. Nor should he be, as he’s only a three year old. So Sunday we found ourselves having a pretty bad ride. He was stiff, not very attentive, and constantly pushing his nose out and seeking pressure. It was pretty frustrating.

Luckily I was able to get some more help from Robin. She watched us for a while, and then we talked over what we were seeing. We didn’t have any great fixes, but it was abundantly clear that he was tuning me out every time he went for the end of the hackamore. So we decided to walk and trot around, and if he nosed out, I would bring him into a bend. Left and right and left etc. Then we’d go straight again and see how things were.

I probably spent almost 10 solid minutes of doing this. We rarely got more than 20 meters of good, attentive riding before we’d have to go through some more bends. But then all of a sudden he started listening again. He was lighter, his eyes were more focused, and he was constantly flicking his ears in my direction.

I know this is not a serious fix. It is more like putting a band aid on an open wound. But it gives Laredo and I a start in working on our problems. Hopefully with a few days off and some more focused goals on my part, we can get back into good riding territory.

There were some good notes for the day, though. He was excellent with his head and ears for bridling, and he stood like a champ for the farrier. And in every other aspect of our relationship he just keeps getting more comfortable.

Me and the guys waiting our turn for the farrier.

More Energy

Brian

March 16, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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Bear has always been an extremely dependable horse. I can count on him to more or less go where I want him to and in the gait I want him to. He rarely spooks or gets frazzled, and he is always friendly.

What I do struggle with is getting him to move out with more life and energy. On our last couple of rides I’ve started with some more demanding groundwork, and that is having a nice carry over into the rides. I’ve been working hard to get him moving out of my space when I come in with energy, and we have also been putting more time in on the walking, half-circle exercise.

When I climbed on he was his usual, attentive self. He was moving off my seat well and my legs could send him wherever I wanted to go. But the backing on the ground did not have a great carryover to the ride, so I tried the same technique I was using on Laredo. For him it was a listening and paying attention problem, for Bear I think it is more of a ‘I’m an old guy and I’ve been backing slowly for a long time’ kind of thing. When I started asking for more, with more energy, I started to get more. We didn’t get to the point where our first steps were flying back, but I saw some big changes in him.

We were also able to build on our two issues from the previous ride. He continues to put more effort into rocking back on his haunches so he can bring his front end over, and today I don’t think he once jumped into the lope from the trot unasked. He was also happy to keep moving along after we had been running around a bit.

Robin was running out of exercises to work on with Laredo, so she suggested we do the routine. It had been a few weeks, so we figured it would be good to get back to it. The first round was pretty good for us. We matched each other pretty well, but Laredo was not really that into it. So we decided to see how he would handle throwing the lope into the straightaways. Both the guys were great with it. I was happy that I had been doing a lot of lope/trot transitions, as they clearly paid off when we needed them to. And Laredo might have been bored doing the routine at the trot, but he loved the challenge of extra running.

We finished up right when some other boarders were getting ready, which was perfect. Tomorrow the farrier comes, so we probably won’t be able to have the place to ourselves.

The Mid-Week Rides

Brian

March 15, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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The weather is slowly improving and so is our motivation. So this week we got out to the barn on two afternoons.

On Wednesday I rode Bear. He continues to come in feeling good and loose. The blanket has definitely been a smart choice with all the cold and damp weather we’ve had lately. I suppose next winter I will almost certainly be blanketing him for all of it.

Our ride was not only fun, but very productive. There are a few things I have been working on a lot with Bear that are just so so, and I want them to get a lot better. The first is lope/trot/lope transitions. I can always get a good stop out of Bear, and I can usually bring him out of the lope pretty well. But too often he will want to dive for the center of the arena or very quickly leap back into the lope. On this ride we spent a lot of time moving in and out of the lope and trot. Initially he was inclined to keep hopping back into the lope, but after a while he started to settle in nicely. A few times he started to pick up the lope, but I just kept on posting and he brought himself down to match my rhythm.

Since we were running around quite a bit it was nice to have a quiet exercise to work on so we could ‘rest.’ My other big sticking point with Bear is getting him to pivot on his hind end and step his forequarters over. So often he want to either rock forward or turn in a way that involves moving both the forequarters and the hindquarters.

From watching our Buck videos and getting some help from Robin, I developed a nice plan to block him but also encourage him to be in the correct frame. Ideally I could keep my hands out of his head completely, but since he really rocks forward a lot, I started putting just the littlest bit of energy into the hackamore to discourage the forward movement. If he doesn’t rock back off that, then I set him back three or four steps in a less than gentle manner.

This proved to be really effective. Bear had to think pretty hard, and at a couple points I could see him getting just the littlest bit frustrated. But then we started getting some great energetic steps over, and you could see he was pretty proud of himself for figuring it out.

Thursday was our anniversary. We’ve been married for four great years, and for the past three we have always been able to celebrate with an afternoon ride before going out for a nice dinner. We were lucky to have a really pretty afternoon. Sunny and even a little warm.

I rode Laredo, and I was really excited to have a good ride with him. Robin has again been getting some really great things out of him. But I have been struggling a little bit, and today turned out to be another struggle.

When I climbed on he was really good and responsive. He would move off my seat, and if he drifted off the wall or too close to the wall I could very gently get him back with just a subtle shift of my weight. Unfortunately, this didn’t last. He started losing interest really fast, and then when a young girl on a pony and her father came to join us, Laredo was very distracted.

At this point I struggled to keep him soft, get him to back up, and get him to listen to my seat. Again I got some good pointers from Robin on backing, so I decided to work on that more than the other stuff.

Laredo and I used to have such a good back up working for us, but lately it has been getting worse and worse. He will lighten up to the softest pressure, but often when I ask him to back he gets stuck and then just leans into the hackamore. Robin suggested I work a steady slack and pull rhythm to encourage some response and life from him. It totally worked. I had to practice my timing quite a bit, and to use the reins in that manner was a little awkward for me, so I had to spend some time figuring out how to set everything up.

It was nice to get some good responses out of him and get him paying attention to me again. We ended the ride by heading outside for short turn on the strip. The ground was still sopping wet in most places, but there was enough good footing to move around. Laredo was his usual relaxed and curious self outside, but I was also happy that he kept listening to me the whole time. I could back him up, move him over, and move in and out of the trot with no troubles. Like me, I think he was just happy to be out.

Warm and Loose

Brian

March 11, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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Again we trudged out to the pasture in a steady rain. It continued to rain on and off through the night, and I was happy we put the blanket on yesterday. I found him tucked up to the bale munching on some hay. He seemed happy to see me, as he probably knew I was taking him indoors. We walked by Laredo, who was also eating, to see how he was doing. He is so young and not bothered by things like rain. I was even surprised to see he had the driest face of all the horses. He probably had it buried in the bale for most of the night.

While Bear’s head and neck were soaked, the blanket did its job and kept his body completely dry. It made grooming and tacking a whole lot faster.

We did a little groundwork to get started, and I could already tell he was moving well. I climbed on and we proceeded to do our usual warming up of walking through various bends and working on collection and backing. We did not have to do nearly as long a warm up as usual.

When we moved to the trot it was big and energetic, but also very controlled. Robin said he was really reaching with his hind end, and I could feel it. So often when he gets tight it is like his hind end is stuttering through at about 70 percent. Not today.

We did a lot of work at the trot and lope and he felt great. Another surprising thing was that he never once tried to pick up the lope unasked. I think when he does that he is just uncomfortable and wants to move in a different way. With no physical distractions he was happy to listen to my cues for the whole ride.

One specific thing we worked on was trot/lope/trot transitions. Robin and I tried to stay exactly half a lap apart and proceeded to ride one lap at the trot and then one lap at the lope, on and on and on. The guys started out full of energy, and I was working hard to keep Bear’s trot a little slower so we wouldn’t run up on Steen. At one point we even had to turn a sharp circle, and we still didn’t fall behind at all.

I definitely have a lot of work to do with the lope to trot transition. I don’t do it a whole lot, and when I do, I am not very specific about exactly where to come out of it. Today’s exercise might have been a little bit much to really focus on that as I was also worried about where we were in the arena, but this is definitely something I’ll continue to do for a while.

We followed that up by working some figure-eights at the walk. Again Robin and I spaced ourselves evenly through the patter, and when we hit the center we alternated who went first and who went second. The idea was to work on varying our pace at the walk. Bear was not super happy with the exercise. He had to think pretty hard to get what I was asking him to do. The upside is that we got some really nice energetic walks going. Not every time I needed it, but we got it enough. Again, something to build on.

I decided to leave the blanket on him another night. I’m glad I did as it continued to rain for most of the day, and tonight it could shift over into snow. I hope I don’t have to leave it on much longer. It is almost mid-March. Either way, it is nice that we have the spare. And I think next winter might be the year we start blanketing Bear all the time.

Some Challenging Groundwork

Brian

March 10, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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Whoops. Looks like I missed last weekend’s rides. It is getting a little tough staying on top of the blogging as we still don’t have a great rhythm going for 2013. I do know I rode Laredo and I rode Bear. Again inside. We did a lot of walking, troting, and loping and everything was pretty fun.

Today we got to the barn to find the guys sopping wet. It had rained through most of the night. The pasture was still mostly covered in snow and ice, but now there were standing puddles of water on top of that. Gross.

Steen ran right up to Robin as he was uncomfortable, and Laredo looked at me but decided to go to Robin, too. Not ideal, so I moved him around some (and splashed through quite a few ice puddles) to get him to come to me.

Because they were so wet, we really didn’t want to let them roll around in the sand. It is really tough to get the sand out of their soaking wet coats before saddling them. So we just brought them in, toweled them off as best we could, and then proceeded to tack them up.

Everything about getting ready was great. Laredo was happy to be rubbed down, and getting the hackamore on him was not much trouble at all. He was willing to follow me in the arena and get to work, but once I asked him for some simple circle work on the ground, he got a little agitated.

Always working on the ears and bridling with Laredo. Things have come a long way, but we’ve still got more to do.

I’m not sure if he was just frisky or if his saddle was bothering his wet back a little or what. But he was inclined to run around and not listen much. I just stuck with him, asked for a lot of direction changes, and found good spots to pause and give him pets. He was always happy to stand, and he never appeared agitated when he wasn’t moving. I figured he would be just fine to climb on, but I thought it would be better practice for both of us if I kept working him until he could do the moves in a relaxed and attentive manner.

Since I was pushing him a bit, he continued to get a little riled up. At one point he got stuck when I was asking for a back up. I kept coming at him and working to move him off. Instead of going back he rolled back on his haunches and gave a half hearted strike with both front feet. He was nowhere close to hitting me, nor do I think he wanted to, but I was not pleased with this behavior. So I really got after him and asked for some serious hustle and attention. When he went by me the first time he popped his butt up and kicked out at me. Again, not really close or trying to get me, but definitely not cool.

At this point he realized he had made a mistake. I was moving him all over the arena, and when he wasn’t listening I would quarter him in a not very gentle manner. His attitude changed real fast. He was all eyes and ears on me, and he would move off at the exact pace I wanted. For a little while we worked fast, and when he was doing really well we took a short break. Then we returned to what I had been looking for the whole time, just walking a nice circle around me. He gave it to me with no problems.

This whole ordeal took about 20 minutes, but it was time very well spent. I climbed on and he continued to be extra attentive. He moved off my legs with very little pressure, and when we were working on trotting some tight figure-eights, he was engaging his haunches more than I’ve ever felt.

Over all we had a really great ride, though I did make one mistake. Once we were going, I was just happy to ride how we normally ride. But after the difficult groundwork, Laredo was not really ready to focus for a long time. After about half an hour, he was getting pretty checked out. I was still going along with our normal stuff, but I wasn’t getting anything done.

The groundwork and beginning of our ride were so effective that I should have found an excellent place to stop and hopped off him. I know I didn’t do any kind of damage by continuing the ride; he’s not that delicate. But he is still young enough that it would have been a little better if I quit when we were still doing well. As it was I got a few good things to end the ride on, but we just had to go through a whole lot of not-so-great to get there.

When we put the guys back out we gave Bear his vitamins. It was raining and the wind was blowing, and we were surprised to see he was shaking a little bit. Not normal for Big Bear. As it was supposed to be cold and rainy for the entire weekend, we decided to bring him in, dry him off a little, and put our spare blanket on him.

Such a cutie. Hopefully it helps keep him comfortable through the night. He did seem relieved as soon as I threw it over him.

Birthday Chinks

Brian

February 25, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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In addition to a gorgeous mecate and a few other gifts, Robin also got me a pair of custom chinks for my birthday. It took a few months for them to get made, but the wait was worth it. We got them from LW Leather, and they are extremely well made and comfortable. I was really surprised to learn how good they felt in the saddle. I almost thought the extra material might cause some issues. Not so. If anything, the chinks really enhance the way you connect with the saddle. So that, on top of providing some additional warmth, make them pretty darn amazing.

This weekend we had some fun rides. The weather continues to be less than ideal, but that’s all right. We are still having fun in the indoor, and it is always nice to play around with them before we get down to grooming and tacking.

Today I was running around with Laredo. He’d follow me around and then run off when I stopped to go after him, then he’d get curious again and come follow me. Super funny.

He’s been getting increasingly friendly and comfortable lately. Slipping the hackamore on is getting easier and easier, but he still has his odd things. He doe snot love you being on his right side. So whenever we’re hanging out and grooming we make sure to spend more time on that side of him just rubbing him down and getting him used to it. He’s getting better, but you can see a definite lean away from me in the pic below.

His groundwork also continues to improve. He is really starting to move off the feel of the rope, and I rarely have to encourage him to move off faster or clamp down on the rope with a sharp correction. It is neat to see.

And things keep going well with Bear. Though the weather has not been great, it hasn’t been awful, either. And he seems to be overall moving better than he was in January. Today we did a lot of loping around again and he was very relaxed and attentive. Of course, he is always happy to hangout in his other favorite gait, too.

Just The Bear and I

Brian

February 20, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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Robin has been extremely busy with work this year, and that has cut down on some of our mid-week rides. But today I felt determined to get out there. Robin stayed home to work, so it was just Bear and I.

We also had the barn to ourselves for most of the afternoon. So I brought him in and let him loose to roll and play. The guys love doing this when they come in from the frozen pasture, so I was curious what Bear would do on his own. He ended up rolling three times (one or twice is his norm). Then he jumped up, kicked out, threw his head around and trotted right up to me. I gave him a few pets and started walking around. He was keen on following me, so I started running a little and playing a little chase. He’d cut hard and then run away, then I’d run away and he would come after me. Then I went after him again and he turn on the gas loping some hard circles around me. I stopped and turned away from him and he just slowed down and came right up to me. We had never practiced any of this stuff, so it was neat to see how he responded.

When I climbed on he was very attentive. I forget how much having another horse in the arena affects them. He basically just had me to pay attention to. I was also happy to see how good he was feeling. Much looser than the past couple of weeks. Perhaps it is the slightly more regular exercise, or maybe it is just that we have been getting him more senior vitamins, but it is nice to see. Today we only did about ten minutes of warming up before he felt ready to go.

We went through a few laps at the lope in each direction. After that we took advantage of the empty arena to work on simple lead changes. These are tough on me and on Bear, so instead of figur-eighting the whole time and changing each half lap, I would cut across the arena for our change and then do a full lap and a half on the new lead before cutting back to the middle for another change.

This gave us a lot of time to settle in and get ready. I still need quite a few steps in the trot before we’re ready to move off into the lope again, but we improved each time we did it. Bear was definitely anticipating me, and he was always happy when he got it right. When he didn’t he would dip his head, shake it hard, and then move off into the correct lead. It almost seemed like he was made at me or himself, or maybe both.

We did not spend much time trotting today, and perhaps that was also a part of why Bear was feeling so good. We would go through a few sessions of the simple lead changes, and then work on walking around without the reins or pivoting on individual feet. Then we’d get back to some more loping.

We also worked a little on getting the lope from the walk (I almost always move into it from the trot). We had a couple of so-so upward transitions, and then I realized I wasn’t softly collecting him. So I picked up the reins, shaped up my legs, and then asked him to move out. He took off like a rocket. It was the fastest I’d felt a horse move in the arena. His head was up and he was kind of looking around. It wasn’t until we made the turn at the other end of the arena that I saw all the barn dogs down there kicking it up. They had recently been let out by the barn owner, but I wasn’t paying much attention to them. It turns out they came bursting through the arena gate right when I asked Bear for the lope. So funny.

I always forget how fun it can be to hang out with just Bear and no one else. I will definitely have to make this a more regular occurance.

Cruisin on Laredo

Brian

February 17, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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We had our best ride together since sometime early in the fall. After that I wasn’t riding him a lot due to Steen’s injury. Then we had our couple of run-away moments just before the holidays (apparently I didn’t blog about the second one). They were excellent learning experiences, but they definitely set my Laredo comfort level back a little bit.

But since January we’ve been doing more and more rides, and today was the best one yet. He was very attentive to my legs and happy to walk, trot, or lope around. We started moving into the lope very early in the ride, and Laredo was eager to keep doing it. For the most part I don’t worry too much about steering him. We just more or less go along the rail and work on staying relaxed and getting comfortable with it. Sometimes we stop from the lope (which Laredo is really good at) and sometimes we transition down to the trot or walk. He is good at looking for the signals, but at times he still misses things. So sometimes we move in and out of the lope unexpectedly, or other times he will cut across the arena when I did not expect it. As Ray Hunt says, it is a great moment to practice going with your horse.

During one of these sharp dashes across the arena we got pretty close to the wall and I had no idea what he was going to do, so I just reached down and gently picked up on the right rein. Laredo tucked his butt, changed leads, and effortlessly moved off to the right. No pulling or yanking or anything that would push him off balance. It was one of the most amazing moments I’ve had on a horse. It is great to see him responding so well to the hackamore.

Robin and I finished out the ride playing a few transition games and then working on the routine. The first round left something to be desired. Laredo wanted to nip and play with Steen, and Steen wasn’t that happy about it, and then one of us was always going too fast or too slow. It was probably one of our worst runs at the routine yet. Thankfully the next couple improved quite a bit. I was a little worried that I had reached the end of Laredo’s attention span, but he came right back to me and got to work.

I’m really excited about this ride, and I hope it marks a nice turning point for Laredo and I. I have no doubt something else will come along in the future, and even though working through those tricky moments is never fun, it is always great to come out the other side.

Feeling Good

Brian

February 16, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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Again we got out to the barn early in the morning. And it was pretty cold. This week it got really nice, but we were busy with work stuff. So this morning’s 11 degrees felt pretty chilly.

Thankfully the pasture has improved some. It is still full of frozen lumps, but they are more rounded and not quite as hard as they used to be. Also, there is only one major frozen puddle now. We arrived to find all three of our guys soaking up the sun behind the windblock.

Bear was quite tight coming in. When we turned him loose with Laredo, he took quite a few minutes before he rolled, and then he walked around for a while longer before they finally started moving freely and kicking it up a bit. We could easily see Bear was moving better in the lope than the trot, but each time he started going faster, he looked better. That was a good sign.

When I climbed on he was still stiff, and like our last ride, I just took it slow. We spent almost 20 minutes doing some gradual serpentines, going forward and backwards, pivoting on all four feet, and just getting loose.

He started feeling good so I asked for the trot. It was the first ride all winter that he didn’t hop and kick out a little. So we moved into the lope and it was really smooth. He was attentive to my seat and legs and seemed to be really happy to be moving around. We went back and forth in each direction and every lap was smooth and fun.

Half way through the ride I grabbed a couple of cones and we set them up to play cow. We didn’t play long, but we had fun. The first round Laredo was the ‘horse’ and Bear and I were the ‘cow.’ We were doing alright, but Laredo was getting a little sluggish. When we switched it up, though, Robin really livened Laredo up and we had a great little session. He was trotting and loping in nice, tight circles, stopping well, and backing with enthusiasm. So that kind of ended the ride. We always look for nice endings with Laredo.

Even though it is still quite cold, I’m hoping being half way through February means Bear will have more good days than bad days. It will probably also help us get out to the barn a little more. I’m ahead of where I was this time last year, but with the lofty goal of 200 hours in the saddle, I should start picking it up soon.

Getting Out Early

Brian

February 11, 2013

Novels for Horse-Lovers

The Tipped Z Ranch books feature fictional stories but real horsemanship.

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When we went to bed Saturday night, we knew there was a good chance Sunday would be not so nice. So I decided to just get up the next morning, have my coffee and breakfast, and then go to the barn. No matter what.

It was a good thing I made that decision, because otherwise we might have stayed home. The guys were happy to see us and come inside for a while. They were completely soaked, and they had a lot of fun running around in the arena before we groomed and tacked them up.

Definitely wet, but not too unhappy.

The ride was pretty nice. Laredo and I warmed up with some easy walking and trotting and then moved into working on the lope. I had my spurs on today, but I don’t think I used them once. He was happy to move out for me, and we had some nice upward and downward transitions. I would have liked to have worked on it more, but we were then joined by another border. With three horses in the arena it can get a little crowded.

Instead we focused on smaller stuff. He is getting great at moving his front end or hind over with very little pressure from me. Here is a not so exciting shot of my moving his hind end to the left.

Just moving my leg back and rotating my weight onto that hip bone gets him stepping over very nicely. He is so good at it that it’s hard not to do it all the time.

He did continue to have some nose up issues today, but not much. They mostly happened after the third horse and rider joined us in the arena. I really changed up what we were doing, and I think he got a little bored with it. It is always hard to say, but overall, it was a good ride and he is continually adjusting to the hackamore.