planBE

Before we talk about the chronic mistakes, let’s discuss the occasional slips and telegraphing. I’ve had much success in focusing only on the behaviour. As training evolves, and my “box” narrows, my “ask” becomes increasingly specific. This may actually be the reason why I despise arena work these days, as Im not interested in the work and discipline required to be so specific. I believe in the philosophy of whisper, request, ask, demand with at least a beat of time in between each escalation. I believe in the release of aids while the horse is completing the ask and I believe the horse needs to maintain the ask until I provide a new instruction. Im pretty black and white. It starts at the mounting block. I spent six months teaching Q to parallel park using Tristan Tuckers turn on the forehand move. I get on, fuss with the saddle and bridle, feed Q a peppermint, wait some more, and then I move on with a specific request (either turn on the haunches or straight forward walk). Th...

The heat and humidity peaked today at 40 degrees Celsius. Yuck! Then the skies released buckets of rain with thunderstorms on the way. So it was arena day. We have been playing with Tristan Tuckers front lift exercise and practicing haunches in. We also got the long lines out and worked on contact and transition from walk-trot-walk. I really should practice this more often (last time was 6 months ago). Q was lazy and I was clucking like a mad woman. It was awful with that humidity and after 15 minutes I was D-O-N-E. Q was bone dry and cool. Hopefully we can hit the trials tomorrow!

Had a great and fast ride with C the lovely intern. It left both of us (yes, even the spry 20 year old) exhausted and sore. Neither of us wanted to ride today. Here are a few clips from our trek. Q was happy to get some chill time. He really could care less about having a clean tail and mane. But I care! As a special treat I let him eat a beech tree. He enjoyed it more than the grass at his feet?!? Tomorrow I climb back in the saddle. Heatwave warning for the weekend so it will be easy riding in the shaded trails.

I did it again. But Im actually prouder of having persuaded two others to hop on their horses bareback. One of them just kept her halter on and borrowed my neck ring, and she worked it out. The other kept the bridle on and trotted around doing some of our trail obstacles. Very cool! It felt like summer camp when you are a kid, and you have nothing better to do then to do silly crazy things with your pony. In my own second session, my confidence was way stronger than the first. But we discovered LOTS of steering problems. And I think Q figured out that I stop in the middle, so while we were trotting a nice circle at a good pace/impulsion he would sharply turn towards the middle while I tried to steer him back. So what did I do? I stopped. Euh, I just rewarded him for it. So I think my next session is going to be with bridle and saddle, AND the neck ring. I will just do my regular schooling routine of 15-20 minutes and then once he is tuned up I will drop the reins on t...

The stars had aligned and we were heading out for my first trail in sector 3 in months. Our lovely intern C was along for the ride and the skies were blue. As we crossed the big field 2-3 km out, I noticed the dark sky a bit west of us. I figured it was just the rain clouds that were predicted to drop some showers 3 hours later. Plenty of time for us to do our trail and make it back home. C and I decided that we weren’t going to worry about rain but we were both concerned about thunder and lightening. I checked my phone to reconfirm that the rain wasn’t until much later. Then the skies turned blue again. We had a lovely trot through the woods. And twenty minutes later the air changed. No wind. No breeze. Dampness and stillness. I checked my phone again. Tornado Warning. We hightailed it out of there and began the one hour trip back home. Our horses were on fire! My silly Q leaped over a puddle like it was filled with alligators. He was begging to gallop at ever...

I did a crazy thing today. Jumped off the cliff. Let go of the handlebars. Tossed caution to the wind. I did not listen to my inner voice that says “If Only” + whatever is blocking... as in If only I was younger, fitter. If only I was a better rider. If only my horse was better trained. If only I had a better roundpen. If only I had a safer horse. If only. I listened to the voice of my 9 year old self that says “Imagine” + whatever you dream about. I may have four decades on my 9 year old self with all the physical and mental limitations that brings, but today I said Carpe Diem. The peanut gallery looked on in shock and amazement as I approached the mounting block without saddle or bridle. As I stood on the block and Q parallel parked beside me, I suggested someone predial 911 just in case, slight apprehension in my voice. Q was confused at first as we left the mounting block, and he did a 10 meter circle to park again at the block because he clearly felt I had forgotten som...

Im rereading a book these days called Adversity Advantage to reacquaint myself with some of the concepts before sharing with my students this fall. Some of my students really struggle with self awareness and behaviour control when working in team settings. One of the many concepts is on building your capacity to leverage Adversity as an opportunity, to crystallize your Why, and to strengthen your Ego. The concept is titled AWE. While the first two pieces are intuitive, it does often seem more socially acceptable to overweight on humility vs ego. There is good research to show that in negotiations and interpersonal relationships, a healthy and measured ego and sense of self-worth play a strong part in setting ambitious goals and reaching for something that might stretch you out of your comfort zone. So yesterday, while heading out on trail for the first time in weeks with our lovely intern C, she followed me in to a warm-up trot down the trail. Within a minute, I decided to do a...

I have been knee deep in a heavy workload this last week as we finished up the last Masters presentations, coordinated grading and enabled these bright young professionals to graduate. And in five weeks we start allover again with a new cohort. Much planning and organizing is going on, zoom-style. So its been a rather sparse week for riding. But after a couple of days busy at work I finally had a sliver of time to head to the barn. I tacked up, mounted up, and headed for the trailhead some 100 feet from the mounting block. I can’t express how much joy I took in knowing I had a reliable horse to saunter down the trails without much care in the world (despite the trail accident of 2 days ago). It was so enjoyable that for the first few minutes as I thought through my trail plan, I considered just doing a short quiet walk on the buckle and just chill. Ha ha ha. Five minutes later I was jogging down the trail with some really exceptional lopes where Q is learning to stay in rhythm ...

There was an accident on the trail yesterday and the rider was taken away by an ambulance. The horse tripped, got caught in the reins, panicked, the rider fell, and then the horse fell on her. The ambulance was able to drive down the trail in a special AWD vehicle and retrieve the rider that has probably broken her leg. We are still waiting for confirmation. It was a freak incident. Rider and horse are well tuned trail horses and have lots of miles under their belt. But accidents happen. So what did the horse do? The mare stood stock still next to its owner until help came. Friends and family made it to the trail section of the incident and walked the mare home while the owner got loaded in the ambulance to then spend several hours at the hospital getting x-rays. Clearly this wasn't a "mistake". But I thought I would spend some time thinking about the "correct answer" before I deep dive into the land of errors, snafus, and miscommunications. Having sta...

I do a lot of singing on the trail but have done it more to relax my breathing and establish a rhythm especially for trotting and cantering. I never thought it had any particular benefit to my horse until I watched this beautiful video by Robin Parrish on facebook this morning. Enjoy, and hope it inspires you to add some music to your routine. Music from Robin Parrish

The breeder told me many years ago that I would have to be very consistent with drawing the line on acceptable behaviour as my Q was a sneaky cheeky foal that would take advantage of me very quickly. Being smart and dominant, this could be a slippery slope. Four years later I can absolutely confirm that he is a cheeky fellow, but also adorable and charming ... so it’s easy to let the lines blur. A beautiful stretch for a canter He is also a pleaser, and he tries really hard to figure out what I want and give it to me before I ask. He has allowed me short cuts in training that I never imagined possible and he has bolstered my confidence like no other horse before him. He also makes a ton of mistakes. Most of the time he would not consider them “mistakes” (he is the benevolent king after all, and does not admit to mistakes lightly), but just testing the lines of yes/no. They are not mistakes for him, he just thought my request wasn’t serious and he wanted to offer another optio...

The company and conversation is a nice change of pace as I ride out with others after many weeks of mostly riding alone. I have come to realize that our pace has changed and while we would never be competitive in a western pleasure ring, my Q has been pulling out a gorgeous and comfortable jog along the trail as my fellow riders seek to match his gait. We switch positions, go side by side, and it doesn’t matter what the other horse is doing ... he just sticks to his rhythm like a slow salsa or merengue. My coach and mentor who I haven’t worked with in years first taught me the jog and often used the reference of dancing, lightly shifting weight from left to right stirrup in the cadence you wish to horse to maintain. When we “get it”, it's just magic. While riding alone, I have gotten in to the habit of singing in tempo especially when jogging or loping and once Q achieves the set pace I drop all contact with reins/legs and just dance with him. So I guess w...

Tack up Get on Grant peppermint Off you go... Try to avoid off-road snacking. More peppermints, bananas and carrots at the finish line. And go fix the saddle squeak when you are done grooming. Im not quite sure who works for who. 🤷‍♀️

Q struggles with tires, balls, tarps and all objects that are unnatural. He is not a big fan of plastic bags but since carrots come in plastic bags he has learned to be more curious than fearful. Back in 2016, when we were starting out with groundwork I was convinced he could plow through a set of old tires just like the Missouri Foxtrotters do. We tried but we had more fails than success, and then I got distracted by the next shiny thing. So we never mastered tires. Certainly not like this pretty mare at minute 3:42. Amazing! And backwards 😱! So when I came into the ring one day and saw a short stack of tires, I thought “cool, lets see what what Q thinks about that”! He was a little “looky” that day as there were many new obstacles around and the barn crew was replacing the gate with a set of powertools. So I serpentined around the obstacles and jumps and then went towards the tires. Q looked and stopped 6 feet from them. I noticed the narrow opening between the obstac...