The Calm Horse Revisited, and Finally a Ride on Dawn

This morning I had a lovely ride on Dawn and she looked very pretty in the new black bridle.  It was about 20F in the arena, so we rode with the rump rug.  She'd had 8 days off, but I just got on and we went about our usual routine.  She was wonderful - plenty forward but also delightfully responsive and soft.

Then all three horses had their hoof trims, and all three were polite as can be.  Red was done before Pie, and when I turned him out he waited calmly at the pasture gate for Pie to come out after his trim, without any calling that I heard, and then they cantered off together.

There was an interesting (at least to me) moment during my ride with Red yesterday.  We were trotting, and he kept asking to halt.  I wasn't sure what that was all about . . .  But then I reached down and felt that the cinch was pretty loose, so I got off and retightened it.  I wouldn't put it past Red to have been telling me that I needed to attend to the cinch by stopping . . .

After doing some chores this morning - Dawn had "beshat" one of her water buckets (again), so I washed that out and made up some feed baggies.  As I was walking through the arena on my way to my truck, there was a boarder in the arena with her horse, loose.  She had started to free lunge him (really run him, if truth be told), but had to stop because another boarder was wanting to ride.  She said "he's going to kill me if I don't lunge him".

And then she said, "my horse has a lot more energy than Dawn, that's why I have to lunge him before I ride him."  Um, no.  Her horse doesn't have a lot more energy than Dawn, but I didn't say anything.  Dawn isn't calm when I ride her because she's tired or out of energy - far from it - she's calm because she's calm. A lot of people seem to have the misconception that the only way their horses can be calm is if they're tired - that's not calm, that's just tired.

My horses are at a point now where they can pretty much consistently carry their interior calm with them into our daily work, regardless of what's going on in the arena, how many days off they've had or how cold it is.  I'm delighted that we've gotten this far.  The next challenge is to have them carry that calmness into unfamiliar situations - riding out on the property or the trail, or going to another location.  Red and Dawn also still tend to lose some of their softness when we do a lot of canter work. We're not to consistent, total, calm yet, but I'm hoping we can get there over time, and we're closer to that than we've ever been before, and every day we get closer.  It's mainly about work I have to do on me, and what I can present to the horse . . .

More posts coming on the calm horse . . .

Dawn Gets a Pretty - are Quarter Horses Only in Petite Now?

The lovely new black headstall that I got for Red, to match his black saddle, doesn't fit him very well.  It's supposedly a normal horse size, and it's from Tucker, a pretty mainstream manufacturer.  Red isn't particularly large - he's 15 hands and normally wears a headstall only one hole larger in the cheekpieces and throat latch than Dawn, who is a fairly feminine 15.1 thoroughbred mare.  Red's head is nowhere near as large as Pie's - Pie uses a 5.5 inch bit and has to have a one-ear bridle because I've been unable to find him a headstall where the browband and throat latch aren't way too short - even his side pull had to have an extra extender strap added to the noseband and he can only wear a halter with an adjustable noseband.  But Red does have a very masculine head, with a well-defined jaw and forehead.

Anyway, the new bridle is a bit too tight in the brow band, and also just barely adequate in the throat latch on the last hole.  And it's a bit delicate for Red's face, although the tooling is beautiful. What's up with this sizing issue?  Are Quarter Horses only being produced in petite these days?

So, Dawn's getting a new bridle and will be very pretty in it.  I haven't tried it on her yet, but expect it will fit her perfectly, and it'll go very nicely with her black dressage saddle and saddle pad.  Red is keeping the new Mylar bit and reins, which he's happy with, and will be using his old (natural) headstall - it's very nice but doesn't match his saddle.   But then I have lots of tack that doesn't match - I use Western saddles with English bridles (without nosebands) or vice versa and I'm happy with that.  Pie didn't get any new tack, but he doesn't care as long as there's enough hay . . .

The horses got their first full day of turnout today since the latest cold snap, so this afternoon, finally, I rode.  Red and Pie both had 7 days off, and although it was in the 20s and windy - banging arena door and howling wind and buzzing roof - I just got on and rode like I always do and they were both just about perfect.  So long as I put the feel of the transition into my body before asking Red to do it - feeling as if I were moving from walk to trot or back again - and keep my contact soft, there was no problem.  If I failed to do that, there was only occasional bracing.  Red kept all of the learning we'd gained in our last three days of work despite the long layoff.  I'd say he's at about 70 to 80% now with perfect transitions.

Pie was also wonderful.  We were in a very crowded ring, but he just motored around in a lovely, soft, forward trot, and so long as I kept my position neutral and eyes up, his corners were wonderful, deep and round.

It was such a delight to ride again - I usually ride at least one horse, and usually two or three, every day except Sunday, and it had been too long.  May spring come soon . . .

Mark Rashid Book/DVD Review . . . and a Birthday (with Wild Horses)!

During our blast of extremely cold weather, since there was no riding going on, I watched the two DVDs that accompany Mark Rashid's new book A Journey to Softness.  I had already read the book, and its accompanying book of quotes collected by Mark's students.  All I can say is . . . wow!  This set is a distillation of Mark's philosophy of working with horses, and touches on almost every important point I've heard Mark articulate over the years - many of you know that I've been fortunate to have had the opportunity to ride with Mark on a number of occasions over more than the past 10 years, and this has been transformational for me and my horses.

The book of quotes is great - lots of pithy wisdom.  The book A Journey to Softness spells out how Mark came to some of his thinking on various issues, usually by contact with a specific horse and situation - the stories are very powerful.  If this was all there was, the package would be great.

And then there are the DVDs - almost 3 hours of them.  There are two of them, and very little in them is about mechanics or technique, although that is touched on - this isn't a set demonstrating training a horse to do something specific.  There about the foundations of Mark's thinking about horses, and the relationship with horses, in the form of question/answer interviews (his friend Skip Ewing is the questioner), interspersed with some demonstrations.  That foundation is what the training arises out of.

If you attend one of Mark's clinics, he doesn't start with groundwork for horses, he starts with groundwork for people, demonstrating some of the basic principles in a way that is very powerful.  The first DVD is all about the human's role in developing softness - it starts with us, not the horse.  Although experiencing the demonstrations - I've done most of them and lots of others Mark uses - is of course a more revealing experience than just watching them, the DVD conveys some of the power they have to transform how we think about and approach our interactions with our horses.

The second DVD covers a variety of topics concerning our interactions with our horses, and Mark's philosophy about how to most effectively work with our horses by building softness, one step at a time.  He even covers some of what I would call the most advanced topics, such as using thought and energy, instead of physical aids.  Mark demonstrates some of this with his horse Rocky and it's delightful to see.  It's actually very simple - we often overcomplicate things - and it all starts with us.

The road of horsemanship Mark lays out isn't quick or easy and requires us to look inside ourselves.

A couple of highlights for me:

I now know why my horses often brace on the first ask for backing in our work sessions, while they don't later on - and it isn't because the horse isn't soft yet, it's because I'm not soft yet.  This has to do with how I first take up contact with the reins - I'm offering a brace instead of softness, so that's what the horse gives me. 

There are different types of braces - emotional, mental and physical. 

A lot of our disappointment/frustrations with our horses are because our expectations exceed the horse's knowledge base - everything we teach has to be connected to something the horse already knows. 

If we teach a horse something, and the horse is able to repeat the behavior, we pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves a good trainer.  If we teach a horse something we don't mean to, and the horse repeats the behavior, we call the horse a bad horse - there's something wrong with that picture.

Anyway, get the set, read and watch it - highly recommended.

* * * * * *
On a minor personal side note - I've turned 60 today.  I'm pretty darn excited about life and where it will take me and my horses next.  No riding today - horses are finally going to get some turnout time and I've got my music lessons.

I was at the barn in time to turn my own horses out - lots of excitement as they hadn't been out since Sunday.  I took Pie and Red out together - I let Pie go first and he galloped off, and then Red tried to as well - he bolted but I asked him to stop and he did and stood until I took his halter off.  Then he took off like a shot after Pie - Red is very fast - and all the geldings did a lot of galloping around, bucking and rolling.  Dawn went out first in the mare pasture, and when I let her go, squealed and did a rear/pirouette and galloped all the way up the hill and then back again before the other mares went out, then there was more running around.  Everyone then settled down to their hay - there will be tired horses this evening!

-8 and Dropping . . .

Right now, the temperature is -8F with a wind chill of -28F.  And overnight, temperatures are supposed to drop to around -17, with wind chills in the -30s.  My horses have been in their stalls all day, and will be in all day tomorrow - things are supposed to improve somewhat by mid-day Wednesday, so they'll probably get a few hours of turnout.

Today, I was at the barn twice to pick stalls, groom and hand walk the horses.  Everybody's doing fine - Dawn is resigned and hates the cold weather anyway, Pie is happy to get out for a few minutes but glad to go back in his stall if there's hay, and Red is very fretful and dissatisfied, although he settles down once our routine is completed.

More of the same tomorrow, and perhaps I'll have some time to start watching the Mark Rashid videos, on softness, that came with the books . . .

Dawn Doesn't Kill the Mini, and the Boys Say Hello

I had a busy morning at the barn, even though I didn't ride.  It's warmer than it's been - it was 19F this morning and we're supposed to get up in the 20s, but the wind was howling.  Dawn wasn't happy about the wind and was huddled by the gate.  I brought her in so she could take a break in the warm barn while I washed water buckets and made up feed packets.  When I was out getting her, I also discovered that the geldings' water tanks had frozen over - some sort of problem with the heaters - so I broke the ice and texted the barn owner.

When I turned Dawn back out, all the other mares had gone out to eat at the bales despite the wind, but Dawn refused to budge from the gate.  Fortunately, one of the paddock horses had been taken inside for a lesson, so I was able to put Dawn in a paddock on the south side of the barn out of the wind.  She was happy with that, and was enjoying her hay.

I saw the boys down at the bottom of their pasture, and they both came up to the gate to say hi to me. I took a few minutes to talk to them both, and rub their faces and just hang out, which they seemed to enjoy.

I waited a while for the barn owner to get there so we could work on the water tanks, and in the meantime I did an impromptu massage on a horse that was in the aisle - whenever I'm talking with a horse (and the horse's people), I find it hard not to rub and massage the horse - this horse seemed to be really enjoying it.

The barn owner and I tested the heaters and they seemed to be fine once we reset the breaker, but she swapped in one bigger heater since one of the older heaters seemed to be not working well.  Not sure what caused the problem and we'll have to keep an eye on it.

When we went out to work on the heaters, we discovered that the mini who was in the pen next to Dawn had squeezed through the small gap between the gate and the post, and had ended up in Dawn's paddock!  He was in the far corner, as far as possible away from Dawn, but was uninjured.  Dawn can be quite aggressive with horses she doesn't know, so that was lucky.  I guess he came to say hi, and she told him to mind his own business and go over there, and he complied.  We moved the mini over to another paddock to prevent further shenanigans . . .

Snow tomorrow, and then back into the deep freeze for several days - highs aren't supposed to get above zero, and lows at night will be much colder with ferocious winds.  Not much looking forward to that, as horses will be in and there will be no access to the indoor for hand-wallking as it will be occupied by the pasture horses.  I'm usually one who enjoys winter, but this winter has already been very cold and hard - every day is one day closer to spring . . .

It Isn't About Fixing the Horse, and a Note on Cantering

One of the most important messages of Mark's new book, and his teaching in the years I've been watching him work, is that working effectively with horses isn't about fixing the horse - it's about making changes to ourselves and how we present ourselves to the horse so that the horse can connect with us and find the solution we are seeking.

It's really about developing, in addition to physical softness, a quiet mind and internal softness.   This of course is a lifelong path of seeking connection with ourselves at a deep level first, so we can offer that connection to the horse.  And most importantly, a point Mark has made over and over again - this connection and softness has to be developed in every aspect of our lives, not just when we're with our horses.

I'm certainly not there yet, but it's something to aspire to and work on, and I expect to be working on it for the rest of my life - to me, this is immensely challenging but also heartening.  To quote from the book:

To be really good at it, and I mean really good at it, softness must be practiced in all aspects of our life - in everything we do, all the time, without exception.

As one of Mark's students says:

In the end, it really isn't about working on the horse.  It is about what level we are willing to work on the inside of ourselves, and in turn, offer the horse.

* * * *
And a note on cantering.  My work with Red and Pie this week has made some things clear to me.

Lesson one: With Red, one reason the bracing issue on walk/trot transitions had been such a persistent issue (in addition to the fact I was counter-bracing against him) was that, every day, I had blown past it and just gone on to do lots of trot work, and even quite a bit of canter work, with Red.  His trot is magnificent and his canter is powerful and round - it's just so much fun to ride so that's what I wanted to do.  But the brace was still in there at walk/trot, and the more canter work we did without dealing with that, the more the brace showed up.  His canter work wasn't soft as it could be because the softness of other things was missing. The foundation wasn't as solid as it needed to be and by skipping over something we needed to deal with, I was baking it in.

Lesson two: With Pie, I was so focussed on him staying in canter to get the breathing issue fixed that I was creating/amplifying the breathing issue by being too insistent with him and much less soft than I need to be - I was forcing the issue rather than staying soft and letting him figure things out.  I was in a hurry to get it done, because his canter is improving so rapidly that I can see how nice it's going to become.  The fact that he was getting all revved up and losing his softness, even at the trot after cantering, meant that my softness was lacking.  I need to offer him softness in canter transitions and during the canter, and deal softly, rather than insistently, with what comes up.  We need to take our time and stay soft together.

I've got work to do - on me . . .

Offering Softness in a Brace to Red, Dawn Excels and Pie and I Take a Step Back

First, on Dawn.  Despite the extreme cold - this morning it was barely 10F in the indoor, and Dawn had been in almost all the day before, she was exceptional - soft, willing and relaxed.  She had her "rump rug" and I had my balaclava, so we were comfortable. I turned her out after my ride and she seems to have survived the below zero wind chills well, eating plenty of hay to keep warm.

Second, on Pie.  He and I have been making good progress on our canter work and his breathing.  Today he got a bit too revved up about the canter and having to keep cantering, and it caused him to lose his relaxation - his early trot work was very good but after the canter work he struggled a bit to relax - we got there eventually.  We need to slow things down a bit and I need to offer him more softness and relaxation from the beginning, with more trot work and a lot less cantering for now.  Pie is much less demonstrative than Dawn or Red, and I have to remember that he has feelings too, even though they're not as easy to see sometimes - or they would be if I paid more attention.  I need to remember to offer him as much softness as I'm working to offer Red - Pie needs it just as much even though he doesn't say so as clearly as Red does.

Third, on Red. Many people would interpret Red's bracing up and to the right on transitions as disobedience, or avoiding the aids, or him "acting up" or "getting away with something" - all interpretations of his behavior that might lead his rider to up the ante - bigger aids, "making" him do the transition, using a martingale or tie-down so he couldn't "avoid" keeping his head down, or punishing him.

But think about it - do you really think a horse that is doing this sort of thing is happy about it?  Do you really think the horse wants to brace (or in other cases, that the horse wants to spook, or pull on your hands, or be anxious).  No, that's an unhappy horse who is only doing what he does because he feels he needs to do it to protect himself.

What Red was doing was defensively bracing against an anticipated hit to his mouth that could come when he was asked to go faster.  I have no idea really why he was worried about this but it doesn't really matter.  What matters is that his behavior was learned, and that it could be unlearned - provided what I did simply didn't reinforce what he was worried about.  And bracing against his brace - by pulling on the left rein and using a strong left leg to try to keep him straight - simply confirmed to him that he was right to be worried - there was in fact strong pressure on his mouth - I was simply bracing against him.

What I needed to do was offer softness to his brace, so he could find his way to a more comfortable place.  There was a story in Mark Rashid's new book that really resonated with me, although on the surface it doesn't seem to have much to do with Red's situation.  The story involved a mare, and trailer loading. Mark was loading the mare, whom he had never handled before and knew nothing about, when she suddenly and violently pulled back and flew backwards out of the trailer.  It turns out that the mare had a history of this sort of behavior and was considered very difficult to load. In contrast to what most of us would have done - trying to hold on for dear life - he let her go backwards but put very slight pressure on the rope as she went backwards.  She backed out twice more, with Mark going with her and putting slight pressure on the lead, and each time she put less and less energy into the backwards movement.  The next time she loaded right up with no problem at all.

This approach - not getting into a fight with the horse or offering a brace to their brace - was what I needed to be trying with Red.  Instead of trying to block his movement to the right, I needed to go with him, while softly maintaining contact and indicating to him by this that I wanted him to straighten up and go forward into the transition.  This is a good illustration of the principle I try to follow of focussing only on the thing I do want - a straight and soft transition from walk to trot - and ignoring everything else he was doing.  If he felt he had to do that "to the right" thing, well and good, but I was going to continue to softly ask for what I wanted without attempting to block him.  I wanted to offer him a better place to be, and a better way to feel.

I also added as much softness as I could to other aspects of our ride - our grooming, tacking, mounting and how I took up the first contact with the reins and how I applied my aids, keeping things slow and soft, not fast and abrupt.  I also tried to remember, and implement, that softness isn't just about what you do with your hands and arms, it's about your whole body, and in fact is about what's inside of you and offering this to the horse. These are things I'm trying to build into everything I do, not just my work with horses, so it was a good reminder.  I also made sure to generously praise each thing he accomplished, however small.  We also did some in-hand softening work and then a generous walk warm up with lots of turns to the left with a soft opening rein.

Our "dialogue" might have sounded like this:

We're doing our "big" walk . . .

Me: "I'm thinking about trotting . . ."
Red: " . . . thinking about trotting . . ."
Me: "Do you think you could trot now?"
Red: "Must . . . brace . . . hard . . . to . . . right . . ."
Me: OK, go right if you need to but I'm still asking for straight and trot with this little bit of rein pressure."
Red: "I'm turning to the right?  But you're not pulling on me? How can I brace to the right if there's nothing to brace against? What??"
Me: "I'm just asking you to straighten and trot with this soft, following left rein pressure and a little rubbing of the right rein on your neck. Isn't it a lot of work to turn in circles when you could just trot off straight, since there's nothing to pull against?"
Red: "Bending left to straighten, lowering head and trotting off straight . . ."

So, over the past three rides, we've been working on this together.  In our first session, we had to do lots of walk work first to get him to turn left on a soft opening rein - interestingly enough, the bracing behavior even showed up at the walk, probably because I was noticing more. By the end of our first session, he'd already given up some behaviors he'd used in the past - he didn't any longer balk or stop going forward (even though forward sometime meant turning to the right), or spring into canter instead through the "blockage" - mainly because I no longer was counter-bracing against him or upping the ante with aids.

We got a bunch of nice transitions in our first session.  In the second session, the issues at the walk were pretty much gone, and good transitions were up to 50% of the total, including some on the straight sides of the arena, which I'd been avoiding previously since sometimes his throwing his body to the right had the effect of slamming my leg into the wall when tracking right.  Sometimes he still circled or took up the trot with his head and neck bent to the right, but he was experimenting with what I was asking - this meant he was already much less worried.  (Empowering our horses to experiment until they figure out how to do what we're asking can be very effective in reducing anxiety and tension.) Sometimes all I and to do was gently redirect his head and neck to the left just as he was thinking about bracing to the right, and that was all that was needed.

Our third session today went as I had hoped it would, despite some excitement in the ring - snow sliding off the roof (Red jumped but then calmed right down) and horses jumping all over the place (and humans overreacting to this and forcing horses where they didn't want to go - no softness there and trust me, Red noticed and didn't approve).  There was almost no bracing on upwards transitions - just a hint a few times but he stayed straight and went willingly right into trot, and 90% of the time he was straight when he did it.  What a very fine horse . . . I told him so, too.

Over the past week or so, Red's demeanor has also changed.  Although he's now off his chaste tree berry, despite the very cold weather, he's noticeably more calm and relaxed, in the stall, on cross ties and when we ride, even if circumstances are challenging or distracting in the arena due to the number of horses and people.

We've got more work to do to improve the consistency of our transitions, particularly since the behavior was very embedded (and reinforced by some things I'd been doing) but I think the hardest part is already done - and as usual the hardest part was about changing how I was dealing with the horse, to make it easier for the horse to find the solution.

Tomorrow, it's going to be even colder and windier - hard to believe that's possible but it is - and we're all taking a day off.