Putting up the Posts

My dad, nephew Nathan and niece Kylie were all hard at work today putting up the new fence posts along the driveway. I can't wait to see the finished product! It's going to be so cool to have a wooden fence after having the old wire one for the past 20 years. Wow, I can't believe it's been that long since I bought my first horse! Thanks guys for all your hard work!

Training with Jamie

This week Jamie has continued to ride and train Ben for me. It's been really nice to just sit and watch them work together and learn from the ground her quiet and patient ways. Some of the things she's been working on have been riding effectively through the corners and giving with the reins. When riding through the corners she lifts her inside hand and taps Ben's inside hind each time she would rise in the trot. This encourages Ben to reach under himself more with his hind leg and in turn lift his back and give with his neck. It all allows him to relax more and work in a proper frame.

She has also been riding with her hands much higher than you would normally ride with but in Ben's case you have to give with you reins and over compensate for his fear of you pulling on the bit too much. By saying to him, "I'm not going to pull on you," hopefully he'll quit pulling against the rider, relax and come round on his own.

Like Gerd Hueschmann taught in his clinic, Jamie insists, "Don't even think or worry about the horse's head." It's not yours for taking and forcing it "on the bit." Rather, when the hind end is working properly and the horse is using it's back correctly, the head will come on it's own. The key to remember: Encourage natural movement from behind and don't force the horse's head down with your hands. It's a bad habit, but one I'm thankful that Jamie is helping me to break.

Jamie Takes the Reins

My chiropractor told me today, that I should take another week off to ensure that I'm totally healed from my fall, so I decided to talk to my friend Jamie about riding Ben for me. She's been Ulla's assistant at Barnabee for the last 10 years and has know her for the past 30. She's seen me ride Ben before in lessons with Ulla and also in the Heuschmann clinic, so she has had time to think about what type of training would work well for him. With all of her experience riding and training horses, I had no problem handing over the reins to her.

Since Ben has only been ridden twice since he hurt himself on March 13th, Jamie decided to take things slow. She first lounged him and worked with him on a circle to the right, since that's his more relaxed side. He did pretty well and only got hyper a couple times but she was able to easily keep control and keep him thinking. She worked on lots of transitions between walk and trot and then trot and canter. She also kept him at the walk on the lounge line along the track and worked on keeping him in front of her aides and trying to get him to relax and give. After trying to switch to the left on the lounge, Ben got really goofy, so Jamie decided to work on some rein exercises instead. She lead him around the track, giving and taking with the inside rein. She'd then ask him to stop by putting her foot in front of his hoof. It really got him to pay attention to her and he seemed to catch on quickly.

After these exercises she rode him for a little bit at the walk. She worked on trying to relax him on the bit while also engaging from behind. Since Ben's has had a history of riders trying to force him on the bit, he was gained a distrust for his riders. I'm sure I haven' helped the situation much, since my hands can get pretty heavy at times too. So Jamie's plan with Ben is to not even move up to the trot or ask anything more complicated until he can give properly at the walk. I don't know how long this will take, but hopefully in the next week of her helping me to ride him that we start to see some progress.

No, this is not Ben and Jamie. Nor is it even close to what they looked like today. But someday I hope to learn the art of Long Reining and develop this sort of control with a horse. It's absolutely stunning!