Day 22--Cash takes a field trip

This week was a study in typical Colorado weather--a blizzard on Tuesday, lot of mud through Friday, hurricane-like winds on Saturday, and a great ending of calm 60 degree sunshine on Sunday. So our riding was a little hit and miss this week, but we did take our first field trip to Elizabeth's indoor arena in Wellington on Tuesday, amidst the blizzard. Cash did great and stole Elizabeth's and Analia's hearts with his calm sweetness. We rode around a bit, checked out the mirrors, and spent some good time hanging out away from the miserable blowing snow.

Under saddle, Cash is starting to feel a lot more comfortable and confident. He's got a super smooth and slow western pleasure type jog when you let him go slow. And his canter is getting easier and easier. We've started doing some turn on the forehand and haunches. Stopping and turning is getting better and better, and he's starting to stop with a very soft neck.

And today I shot the .22 from his back. He did take one step forward, but it was because he wanted to go say hello to the people on the other side of the fence in front of him. Otherwise, he was a calm statue. And you can see (from the pictures below) that we've been playing around over the obstacles some more. He really has fun with those.

Cash is bowing pretty nicely now (that's the "secret" trick we started working on last week--I guess it doesn't have to be too secret). I still have to help him hold his foot up as he leans back and down to bow, but I think pretty soon he'll have it down from voice command.

I'll hopefully have Cash's teeth floated this upcoming week and then he'll learn to wear a bit. After having his feet finished by Blaine, he seems to be moving a lot more comfortably--before, he had a very clubby right hind foot. It looks better now, even after just one trim.

Weather's supposed to be great next week, so I look forward to lots of wet saddle pads. Pretty soon, we'll need to find some cows to go play around with. Part of the competition in June is a cowhorse phase, and I have a distinct lack of cow experience, so I'll be seeking out someone with cows and cow expertise to get me going.

Hard to believe he was untouched 22 days ago. I've probably said it enough, but Cash is such a sweet, calm horse--he's really something special.

Day 22 Pictures

Day Fifteen

So, first of all, I have to say--I know, I know, his mane looks incredibly silly. You all have my complete permission to laugh. All the other horses around here already have been. But I want to protect Cash's oh-so-lovely long locks, and Bob graciously donated the use of some of his old dress socks. At least they match.

It was a beautiful day today, albeit a bit muddy from all the melting snow from our not-so-beautiful days last week. Cash and I are now riding completely outside the roundpen at all three gaits. Usually, the first canter on a colt outside of the roundpen is a bit of a yahoo moment, but not so with Cash. I was surprised by how easily he transitioned into the canter and how relatively relaxed he felt. See the last two pictures of the post below to see some canter shots from today. Cash has also started learning direct flexion /softening at the halt, and he feels pretty soft in your hand, so I'm excited to start doing some while moving. He's gonna be a heck of a pretty little thing when he moves when he's all "finished."

We didn't get any pictures of it today, but we're riding over the tarps and the plywood sheet now. Now I just need to build a bridge obstacle. And, as you can see below, we've progressed to the .22 black powder blanks with no problem. I'm not sure if I'm going to use guns in my freestyle (if we make it to the freestyle) but I'm sure someone else will, so I figure he should get used to it.

We started learning some tricks on our too-cold-and-snowy to ride Friday. For reasons of creative security, I can't reveal which tricks we're learning, but they're nothing too out of the ordinary. But still fun, of course.

Cash had his first hoof trim and it went pretty well. We got 3 1/2 feet trimmed with no problem. Then he decided that he didn't want to keep his right hind up for trimming and he kept wanting to move his hind end away. My trimmer, Blaine St. Peter (he's great!) opted to wait a few days and come back to finish that hoof. So we've since spent lots of time working on lifting and keeping that hoof up comfortably. We'll see if our work there has paid off tomorrow when Blaine comes back out.

Perhaps the coolest thing is that Cash now nickers to greet me whenever I walk up towards his paddock. He has a very endearing nicker--kind of sounds more like foal than a 4yo horse. He's very sweet.

Stay tuned for our next happenings--I hope to be able to trailer in somewhere this week. I think Cash is ready for a little adventure.

Day Fifteen Pictures

Day Ten--trailers, guns, and tarps, oh my!

Oh my, what a non-"event" they all were! So we have been doing lots of fun stuff the past few days. Yesterday, we loaded in the trailer, and it was so not a big deal. We just walked in, stood, walked out, and repeated. About ten times. No biggie. I figured that it wouldn't be a problem when he started to follow me into the little enclosed hay storage part of his shed last week. It's a pretty small space and he just marched right in there to eat some hay.

Yesterday we also did our first session with the cap gun. I pulled the trigger with the gun empty lots of times all around him. No reaction. So I put the caps in. Shot the cap gun off to his side, then closer, then directly above his head. I think he may have possibly put his head up an inch. Once. And that's it. What a quiet guy! So next we move on to the .22 with blanks.

We saw our first tarp today. I just put it on the ground and led him up to it to see what he thought. Well, he took a sniff pawed at it and pawed it right underneath him and onto his back legs. Then he stood there with this really proud look like he had just done something great. Very cute. After playing with it, biting it, pawing it, etc. we walked over it. He acted like he walks over tarps every day. So then he wore the tarp and carried it around a bit. Again, he acted like he has loud crunchy sounding things hanging off of his back every day. No biggie.

And we finally cantered today. I tried cantering him on my own yesterday, but I ended up basically just desensitizing him to my legs kicking. I didn't have the right reins to use to slap his hiney, and I didn't have my dressage whip. So he decided that tolerating my strongly kicking legs was not that bad and all we got was trot-trot-trot. So today I brought back my equine motivational device a.k.a. Stacy in the middle of the roundpen, and we cantered with no problem. I will definitely be carrying some sort of whacking device with me in the saddle next time we canter on our own--with calm comes a little lazy, I guess. DEFINITELY not complaining about that though--I'll take a little lazy any day!

We also rode out of the roundpen today. No problems, even with four dogs running around and about five different people doing all sorts of stuff in and around the arena. We had to work a bit on our steering, but we got it figured out and walked and trotted around the arena.

And we're now going for walks (leading walks) all over the place and down the road a bit. He's learned that going away from "home" means great things like a bit of grazing time and getting to sniff all sorts of cool stuff.

And perhaps my biggest victory today was finding something other than hay that he likes to eat. I hope to teach him some tricks, but that's hard to do if I don't have any treats to reward him with. I've tried sweet feed, senior feed, anise flavored horse cookies, apples, carrots, and some other cookies. No takers. He'd sniff them and then make a face. But today I tried some soaked alfalfa cubes and bingo! So from there, I can hopefully introduce some grain and hopefully introduce something I can use as a treat/reward.

Trailers, guns, tarps, cantering, riding outside the roundpen, leading all over the place, and learning about goodies. Pretty big couple of days. I will have more pictures posted hopefully on Saturday when my photographer for hire (aka my hubby) is back in town.

Yeehaw!

Well, we had our first ride yesterday (Friday). This little horse is such a find--I never thought I'd be on my mustang within a week, but he was ready for it, so we did it! I had a helper in the roundpen to help get him moving if need be, but we really didn't need too much help with that. I was surprised at how not sticky his feet were. I figured with him being so calm that getting him to move out would be troublesome, but that wasn't the case. But thanks Stacy for being there and helping to get us going!

And thanks to Jen from Happy Horse Tack in Ft Collins. She's great. She came out in the morning to do a saddle fitting on Cash and we found that he needs a saddle with semi-quarter horse bars. So I'll be doing some looking for a saddle to use on him that fits better than my big full quarter horse saddle. Thankfully, we had Bridget's saddle around and that fit him quite well, so we did our first ride in Bridget's saddle. (by the way, Bridget--I borrowed your saddle--thanks!)

The pictures you see in the post below are of stuff that we've been working on in the last week. Longeing on a line, desensitizing, Jeffries method stuff, stirrup driving, and flexing. And of course, our first ride.

He did great for the ride--we walked and trotted and worked on flexing and one rein stops so that he has a foundation for understanding stopping and turning. It took him a little while to figure out his feet and his balance with a rider when flexing, but he got it--and thankfully got it without falling over! He moved out nicely and it didn't take any work at all to get him trotting. The stirrup driving from the ground really helps with that. We only had one minor yeehaw moment when Stacy said the wind blew his tail up his butt and he did a butt-tuck scooch thing. But he didn't panic or explode and got his composure right back. I wouldn't like my tail between my butt cheeks if I didn't put it there either.

Again, a special thanks to Jen for coming out and doing a saddle fitting for us. I have Jen out to check the saddle fit on every horse I train, as I've learned the hard way that saddle fit matters. A lot.

Well, whew! The first ride is done and out of the way. Now to put some miles under his feet...

Day Four--we have a name and a saddle

We have a name! Cash. Everybody likes cash, everybody wants cash, cash is good pretty much everywhere, and Johnny Cash was a pretty talented guy who overcame a lot in his life. And it sounds pretty catchy--Cash. Hopefully, Cash will help me win some cash at the competition in June!

I would call Cash about 75% halter broke at this point. He still gets confused sometimes and needs pressure from behind to move forward with energy when being led, but is mostly great with leading. He still needs to learn to give better to halter pressure from directly in front of him, but he's getting it. He backs up really nicely in the halter and wants to be soft in his face, so I think he'll turn out to be a heck of a soft horse in the bridle.

So, today, on day four, we did a lot more desensitizing and continued with lots of "longeing for respect" and getting him to move his front end and hindquarters. He's getting pretty good at that. We also did some more loose roundpenning and he joined up great today--totally followed me around. That's such a cool feeling! When I first put him in the roundpen loose today, I walked out to take care of a few things, and within about five seconds he took a saddle pad that was on the fence into his mouth and started flipping it up and down. Not scared of it so much, I guess!

Our big accomplishment of the day was wearing the saddle. He did fantastic with it and didn't buck at all. Just did a bit of a butt-tucked-under trot and canter as the saddle strings flapped on his hiney. Also did some flexing and some Jeffries method laying on top of his back sort of stuff--we'll do a bit more of that tomorrow and maybe ride tomorrow or the next day. I can't wait.

He's such a quiet horse. If you go by the "whorl" theory, he's born to be a quiet horse since his whorl is about half way down his nose. In fact, it's the lowest whorl I think I've ever seen on a horse. More pictures coming soon--I will definitely have someone to take pictures of our first ride.

Sunday, March7, Day Two

Well, we now have a roundpen--yay! Thanks Elizabeth for letting us borrow your roundpen! Today we did some more work on giving to halter pressure in preparation for leading him out of his pen and down to the roundpen. He did great with that and picked up on the idea very quickly. He is now completely approachable and you can pretty much pet him all over. He still shies away sometimes when you reach towards his eyes, but he doesn't leave you, he just moves his head. So we're doing lots of desensitizing with that.

We made it down to the roundpen without much fuss, although I will admit that I made a bit of a funnel effect with my truck blocking one potential escape route, my gator blocking another, and Bob behind us to give him some pressure from behind if need be. So we did some roundpenning and I'm pretty sure that he hasn't gone faster than a slow walk for the three years he's been in BLM holding facilities. He eventually got some energy in his feet, but he is hardly what I would call "flighy"! He didn't fully join up with me, but he did end facing up to me, so that's something. We did some desensitizing with the stick and with the plastic bag and we worked on leading in the bigger space of the roundpen. With how good he's been, I think the BLM may have mistakenly given me somebody's ol' broke kids pony. Okay, so he's not quite a kids pony yet, but boy is he quiet! All in all, a lot of progress for day two.

Pictures from Day One