A couple of sessions after Shayla headed home, I discovered a new issue- this one is understandable, but it's something I need to work on for the sake of staying safe.
First off, I grabbed the wrong bridle, no big deal but it was pretty obvious Sophie wasn't as happy with it as with the Billy Allen mouthpiece.
She did get to the point where she was giving to the bit both sides, so I decided to step on her and see how she was with going forward and giving to my hands. I'm having trouble with my left hip, so I wanted to climb on the round pen rails and have her sidle up and stand quietly for me to slide on; not having a stick to tap her hip over meant she would not come in parallel, she wanted to just face me at a 45 degree angle, so I had to climb down and position her from the ground. Note to self- bring the flag next time.
Once on, she was pretty good at being soft in the face, all that bitting up is paying off. No bumping the bit or rooting her nose out. There was one point where she wanted to stop her feet like she used to do , but this time she listened to my legs bumping and kept going.
However....
I stepped off and darned if the saddle didn't slide sideways quite a bit as I swung off. (Yes I did tighten the cinch before I got on her.)Well, her eyes got as big as saucers when she spotted that saddle hanging off her side! And she started to jump forward and buck. I had both reins in my hand so was able to control her forward movement and kept pulling her around to the side and hollering whoa at her, about 6 jumps later she stood and let me undo the cinches and straighten up the saddle. Then I longed her off the bridle reins to make sure she was all done bucking- she was. So my thinking was she needs to get used to things going awry without panicking, so I deliberately recreated the saddle off to the side and asked her to step out.
She trusted me although she was clearly still worried. I made sure to stop before the saddle slid all the way under her! To work on this issue I need to come up with some things I can hang off the side of the saddle (other than my body!) I may ask my friend who packs horses to come give me a hand and we can try pack boxes on her.
So that's pretty much the rest of the story. Lots of things to work on with miss Sophie before I will be able to have a connected and conscious ride (on both our part) and feel safe on her.
7 comments:
What a good idea to have a pack horse trainer help out. How nice to have friends when you need them (jealous).
For this reason I can never ride without a breastcollar. I have practiced hanging things off the saddle, but I won't take the chance with my own life: )
boat bumpers tied together with baling string make for great tools. Can be purchased at Cdn Tire.
Poor Sophie hates that bit! I am sure you will make progress with her;0
Yikes. Glad you were safely off when that happened. Calling your friend who packs would be great for her.
Glad you are doing all the things to stay safe, with your skills and caution you will be fine
Stacy Westfall had a video on teaching a horse to deal with things going awry. She put an old saddle without a girth on the horse and attached a line to the horn. As the horse went around she pulled it off. The idea is that the horse learns to stop when someone falls off.
might be worth doing.
Teresa- Shayla and I do something similar when we start colts. We start with blankets or pads and let them fall, then move on to a saddle without cinches on them and send them around and let it fall to the ground.
With Sophie not being a part of our program from the get go, we now have to go back to basics and fill all the holes in her training.
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