Taping Wendy's Level 2 Freestyle Audition

Rachel, Wendy and I had planned on showing Maverick this weekend, but we couldn't when he came up lame with a hoof abscess. I was disppointed, but since I generally try not to fret over disappointments, I realized quickly that I was now freed up for more playtime with my horses.

First, Rachel and I still went to the horse show to see what Maverick's competition would have been, and it was a small, but pretty good class. It was good to see that the actual showing is not complicated, but I realized that 99% of the work comes in the preparation. Getting Maverick really fit is job one. As he gets fitter, the more all the primping and preening for a show will pay off.

Then it occurred to me that after watching Wendy and Bingo ride the last time we were both at the barn, it was ridiculous that Wendy doesn't have her blue string (Level 2 Parelli graduate). So I told her since we couldn't show Mav on Sunday that we should use that time to tape her Level 2 freestyle audition. So that is exactly what we decided to do.

Yesterday afternoon, we tacked up Walker and Bingo and warmed them up. I played the yo-yo game with Walker at the canter, which was a lot of fun, then we hung out while Wendy and Bingo went through a couple of practice runs. They looked good together, so I had a good feeling that Sunday would go well. While we put all our tack and equipment away, we let Bingo and Walker graze together in the front pasture. The air was cool and there was a soft breeze coming from the gulf. After the sun went down, the sky was a beautiful combination of blues and soft pale oranges. This may be the best time of the year in Houston, before the heat returns in full fury.

Today, Wendy and I got to the barn at about 10 and got right to the task of putting out tack and setting up the arena. We thought that if we started early, we might get the arena to ourselves, and we got our wish. Wendy and I talked it through, she had a couple of small changes she wanted to make, like making the cones around the barrels for her figure eight set up closer to the barrels and simplfying her sideways game. Those changes made sense, because when you only have 10 minutes to get everything done, simpler is better.

We have learned, having taped past auditions, you tape every one, because often, the first one is best. Once Wendy did her preliminary compulsories, mounting, lateral flexion and indirect/direct reining, they headed out to the rail, and Bingo's extrovert came out, which was fun to watch. Even when all Wendy asked for was the trot, Bingo really wanted to canter, and Wendy handled his exuberance without squelching it. I had to keep reminding myself to focus on taping and not watching, because it was obvious they were both having fun.

At one point, the wind was blowing so hard, it almost took me off my feet; extra points should go to Wendy and Bingo for performing in a gale, a frenetic atmosphere for doing any audition. They really pulled it off. In my never to be humble opinion, they earned that blue string today!

Wendy took Bingo's saddle off, and he seemed quite happy to just hang out with us. After I got a couple of pictures of Wendy and Bingo relaxing, I asked Wendy if I could play with him at Liberty, and she said yes. It made me happy, because I thought he might just be in the right mood for some stick to me game.

When Wendy or I have asked Bingo to play trot stick to me, especially in a big arena, he has generally squirted away like a Mentos coming out of a full Coke bottle. Today, I really tried to concentrate on asking for what I wanted only after he got to do what he wanted to do. If he wanted to go to the left instead of right, we went left, but I directed to a barrel where he got a cookie. I did several changes of direction on the rail so I could draw him towards me.

After going around the arena with small starts and stops of trotting, we did a big trot together along the long side of the arena and when I stopped, he stopped. Wow, that felt really good, I think for both of us. Then we did a couple of circles at one end of the arena both left and right. What fun! Wendy enjoyed seeing how well Bingo is moving now without shoes. Wendy then took Bingo to get a well deserved hose down. I think it was a very good day for Bingo.

While Bingo got his bath, I went to get Maverick. He was waiting near the gate and came right over as soon as he saw me. He just loves playing with Wendy and me. He loves the attention. He loves the games, he loves to learn. He was still feeling a little off from the hoof abcess, but not enough not to get some exercise, so we decided we would start with getting a better circle game. After about 15 minutes of consistently asking for a better circle by bumping him to the middle, we got some really nice circles.

Then we did some figure eights online, which he is learning to do really well. I realized I was not sending him as he gave me two eyes coming around the barrels. When I got more precise, Maverick got much smoother doing the figure eight, and we quit. Then it was time to ride, which both of us did; I rode while Wendy sent Maverick on the circle. I followed that by doing a big figure eight, which he did better than the last time we did it, so it was time to hop off and let Wendy play.

One of the wonderful things about having Wendy as a partner in training Maverick is that she brings another dynamic and perspective in approaching what we do when we play with him. She rode him along the rail doing transitions for a bit along with playing with him doing the figure eight. But she had a great idea, as he was so calm, she thought a trotting passenger lesson would be really good for him, allowing him to make some decisions of his own. Interestingly, he followed the rail at first, but then he did not quite know what to do!

So, today, Wendy started feeding that part of Mav's inner horse, the one who knows he can make good decisions on his own, whether we are with him or not. Of course, today, he wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but we both know it's only a matter of time. The picture was taken while Maverick was licking the photographer. He really seems to love licking us as some form of relaxation or affirmation or concentration, depending on the moment.

Showing

With Rachel's encouragement and assistance, Wendy and I have decided to show Maverick this weekend. So we are trying to get our act together as we have little time to get educated and ready. Rachel is giving us plenty of help, which is good, as neither Wendy or I have much showing experience. Our focus will be on Maverick mostly, and it is really two shows in one at the Great Southwest Equestrian Center, so I will show Maverick on Friday and Wendy will show him on Sunday. I am going to have to leave really early on Friday morning, so I better get plenty of sleep Thursday night. Tomorrow, I need to make a list of everything I will need to bring so I can be properly prepared. I will have to plan on spending some time with Walker on Saturday, as this week I will have to focus most of my efforts with Maverick.

Wendy, Rachel and I got together to talk about what we need to do to get Maverick ready. I had a stressful though successful day at work today, so I was a bit scattered when I arrived. We decided to get Maverick groomed tomorrow, and it looks like I will make a trip to Arcola, probably on Wednesday to pick up a few sundries for prepping Mav for the show. In the meantime, he needs plenty of exercise, so after Wendy left for dinner with her family and Rachel headed home to Needville after helping me bring some obtacles over from the arena, I decided to play with him in the round pen. We started with some hill therapy over two jumps placed across each other on opposite sides of the round pen. Maverick was a bit spooked in there, so moving over the small jumps was good to help dissipate his uneasiness. This is a mostly mindless task for Maverick at this point, so I decided I would eventually play with his transitions on the circle. First, I wanted to play with his forehand around the hindquarters with the porcupine game, as we had not done it in awhile. After a couple of tries he did an entire circle in both directions. Then I asked him to do just a back up, and he assumed I still wanted him to turn on the hindquarters again. He reminded me that it's important I check in with him to make sure he is actually focusing on what I am asking now, not what I was asking a minute ago. Then I asked him to do a walking figure eight, which he did really well. By now, most of his jitters had gone away, so we stood together in the middle of the round pen. He licked my hand while I rubbed his jaw. There was a nice southeasterly breeze with a mild mist coming from low hanging clouds. We could hear the plinking of balls striking aluminum bats at the nearby ball fields. The combined sounds made for a soothing interlude. I then asked him back on the circle and started asking for upward transitions at half circle intervals followed by downward transitions with the carrot stick at half circle intervals. He still is interpreting the stick as a "go" sign, but after about 15 minutes of very consistent communication on my part, Mav slowed to a walk without turning fully to the middle, and finally stopping without turning into the middle. When I praised him with my voice and moved towards him to give him a cookie, he nickered then took in and blew out a big breath. It felt like the perfect time to stop, so I did. After leading him to his stall, I stretched his legs and picked his feet. Though he seems to have no objection to stretching his back legs, he still doesn't like stretching his front legs, which makes me believe they are still sore, but I lightly persisted until he softened slightly, rubbed his neck and told him goodnight. Then I stretched Walker's legs, which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit, picked his feet, fed him cookies and told him goodnight. The last sound I heard as I closed my truck door was the sound of the wind whipping the flags against the flagpole in the barn's courtyard.

Feeding the Inner Horse

It has been wonderful and revealing to now have the opportunity to play with Maverick, a horse with none of the baggage that often comes from horses interacting with people. The people who do interact inappropriately with horses rarely if ever admit it is their problem. But that is for another post. Maverick loves people, a tribute to Rachel, his owner of 3 1/2 years before she sold him to Wendy and me. What Maverick has revealed to me is the importance of feeding the inner horse.
For horses to excel, they need an excellent feeding regimen, which at Huntington Stables, I believe we do. Horses need plenty of exercise, not just for the body, but also for the mind. They need interaction with other horses. As important as all of these things are, I am now convinced that what is most important for horses is how we feed their souls, the things we can give them that mother nature and other horses do not provide. Horses and humans did not evolve together, and yet, when I see a real connection between a person and a horse, I know it is because that person has fulfilled something in that horse that could not be filled in any other way. There is a divine connection open to those of us who choose to seek it.
When Walker and I started our journey together, he had been so emotionally and mentally damaged, only until recently has he trusted me enough to begin to allow that connection between us. Maverick is so trusting, he has allowed us into his inner world almost immediately. Yesterday, Wendy and I played with Walker and Bingo first and had an excellent session together. When I play with Walker now, it's fun; I don't have to worry about him losing his emotional or mental control, at least not long enough to be worrisome. When we were done, Wendy went to give Bingo a quick hose down, as the day was unusually warm for a February, even in Houston, and Bingo has gotten a good sweat up. Walker had sweated very little, so I turned him out in the large front pasture in front of the barn to graze. When I went to get Maverick, he was waiting for me, head over the gate, ears focused forward. There was expectation, energy and excitement in that look. I placed the halter on him, asked him through the gate, and he had plenty of energy, so we trotted together to the arena. Wendy joined me just as I was starting to groom him, and as we stood chatting and grooming him, he started to yawn; not a small yawn, an eye rolling, tongue lolling yawn. Wendy looked at me and said, "He was stressed out that we were not playing with him!" All the thoughts I had started to have about the divine connection between horses and humans coalesced in that moment. He really needed us. And the truth is, for those of us who feel that connection, we need our horses too.
For now, I will give one example of how we feed Maverick's inner horse. Everytime he is learning something new and we draw him back to us, he starts to lick us. Sometimes it's just a few licks, sometimes it can be for minutes at a time. Most of the time, he does not blink while he is licking. Then he starts to blink,  then to nibble us with his teeth and we know he is ready to move on. We get it. We know he needs the time to process, and he knows we know. With horses, it's all about dominance games, but with his humans, Wendy and me, it's all about becoming more than any of us could be without the others. It's not about the instinctual, it's about the relationship.

Pedestals and puzzle pieces

I have had a couple of days to digest what happened with Walker and me Wednesday morning, and it is still difficult to parse all the thoughts I have had about it. Here is how it played out:
I decided that we would ride and focus on my being more particular about how I was asking for what I wanted while riding, especially while turning, since this is an area with which Walker has trouble doing calmly. This decision to be more particular really exposed what I already knew, which is that he turns much more easily to the left than to the right. So we played with riding the rail and doing lots of half circle changes of direction. After doing this while interspersing changes of gait, Walker was much better at turning to the right and being calm while doing it. Now it was time to test this with the cloverleaf pattern, where I could reinforce this exercise and tie it to a different task so Walker could see why I had been asking for being particular about his turns. There was a significant improvement in the way Walker performed the cloverleaf pattern, both at the trot and at the canter. He was able to pick up both leads equally well, so I believe that the half circle exercises helped him bend his ribs, allowing him to pick up his left lead much more easily. Once we had done the cloverleaf so nicely both to the left and right, I allowed him to walk anywhere he wanted to so he could cool off. We jumped a small jump a couple of times, which he did very calmly also. Then I hopped off, took all his tack off, and we played for just a few minutes at liberty, playing with zone 5 driving along the rail, and going sideways around a box, both with the front feet inside and outside the box. Then we combined the two by going along the rail, stopping at cones I had placed in the four ends of the arena, going sideways over those from zone 5 and then trotting on to the next cone. As my son Ben likes to say, we lathered, rinsed and repeated this game four times, and the last time, Walker did it so softly and beautifully, we stopped and I fed him plenty of cookies. I then gently passed my hand along his back and down his tail to release him so he could go roll in the arena dirt if he wanted to do so.
He did! I crawled over to him to feed him a cookie while he was still down, as I am playing with him being more comfortable staying on the ground with me. After gobbling up his cookie, he popped to his hooves, shook and blew. I was thinking, “What a fabulous play session!” when he started to move toward the tall, rectangular pedestal that we have been playing with for the last two years or so. He has had no trouble putting two feet on it, but four feet has been a huge issue. I have attributed this to his general zone 3 fears, which we have been playing with a lot. I was just standing nearby, leaning on my carrot stick and watching him with amused curiosity.  He circled and circled and circled around it, it must have been for about a minute. Then he put two feet on it and looked at me. I smiled, but did nothing else. Then he walked/hopped over it, something he has never done. At this point my heart is thumping pretty hard in my chest, because going over that large obstacle voluntarily, exposing his zone 3 to all the danger he perceives it to be is an enormous threshold for him to cross on his own. But I was totally unprepared for what he did next. He circled it one more time, then lined HIMSELF along the long end of the rectangle, He put two hooves straight on it, then casually stepped up on the pedestal with his other two.
He stopped up there. He turned his head and looked right at me. Now I am crying, but as calmly as I could muster, I walked over to him and fed him a cookie. He has no halter and no rope on him. Over the last two years, I must have asked him up on that pedestal with his four hooves at least a hundred times, and he just couldn’t do it. That morning, he was ready, and at that point, he had figured it out for himself: he does not have to be afraid of everything that passes under his barrel. To me, it felt as though the last piece of the puzzle was laid down for him so he could see the whole picture.
It is not enough to say that Walker has been improved through natural horsemanship; he has been nothing less than transformed. And the best part is, the transformation continues…