Even though we wish all sessions with our equines were positive from beginning to end, that isn't reality. I try to keep in mind what John Lyons stated in one or more of his books, "leave the training session with your horse being calmer than when you started." At some times this is much more difficult to do than other times. Here are a few things I've learned over the years:
Weather can play a factor in training sessions. Whether it is sunny and warm, or cloudy and windy, you can work with your horse and have them be calmer at the end than when you first entered their stall. Remember also that you should only ride (or work your horse) where you can, not where you can't. Though it would be fun to just get on and ride anywhere, you want to keep you and your horse safe. Once when I was riding Seyvilla the weather had been sunny and warm, but it quickly got cloudy and windy. We were out in the field and it wasn't going to be simple to just ride home, the wind was really whipping around us. I had a few options, I could 1)keep riding and hope it cleared up, 2)I could turn around and ride home, or 3)I could dismount and turn back toward home. All options could work well, so in situations like this you need to look at the situation completely to decide what to do. Here are some questions to ask yourself: 1)If I turn around now, can do I something on the way back or when I get back, to have the horse be more calm before I put him/her away? 2)Am I riding with a less experienced rider that might get hurt? It might depend on which horse they are riding and how they are reacting to the situation.
Training updates per horse and some reality sessions:
Shine: Though Shine is pretty great in all situations, he does have some times when he has been too excited at the time of his training sessions that I can't do what I had been planning to do with him. He is turning 5 years old next month, so he's pretty strong on most of the basic training things...giving to pressure, bending, keeping his head down, riding over uneven ground, cantering fast while still listening to the rider, picking up his feet, standing while brushed, etc. However, on some windy days I have noticed him pacing in his stall and at times even nipping at me which isn't normal for him. The pacing started when we realized our neighbor had just bought a goat. Shine wasn't afraid of the goat, but he wasn't used to it either. It took him a few days before he was back to his calm self. I used those days to work more on the basic training steps, to do more groundwork and get him listening to me while still working on a few new things. He was easily distracted by the goat in the next yard, so working on a lot of new training items wasn't super effective. Since I have now been training him for 4 1/2 years I can pretty much tell when it's a "back to basics" day, or a day that I can do a lot of new things. One of the new things he enjoys is helping me check the mail, though even now that he does it great in good weather, there are still days I decide not to do it because of where his head space is.
Soot: We are still not doing long sessions with us on his back as he is still growing a lot! We plan to do more consistent riding when he turns 4 years old in April. As I have mentioned before, riding a draft horse is better to do once the horse is 4 years old. Since he is much taller than us now, we must be careful to work with him to make sure he doesn't push into our space. With our other horses, we can see over their backs, but with Soot we can't, so if something scares him on the side we can't see, we can't be ready to react. This being said, we have noticed that while working Soot in the round pen, he has stopped and raised his head high to look at something far away that we can't even see. That isn't an issue ...unless it is. Do we want him to do this while we're riding or when he's pulling a wagon or sleigh? Not really. We want him focused on what we want him focused on. We are continuing to work with him on this, so he keeps his focus on us. He still loves pulling and even on days that he's excited, he seems to calm down when he sees the tire and knows he's going to be asked to pull. Back to the motto that draft horses love a job to do. Maybe we can use him to help us pull the track area or part of the field in the spring when we work on grading for our riding arena.
Serita: She just turned 1 year old this month, but we need to be careful where we work her because all the surroundings are still so new. She is comfortable in her stall and since it's 24'x24' we can work her in there for now. Recently we were leading her to the round pen and she got excited. She pulled the lead rope hard and was able to get away from us but was quickly caught. This reminded us that we need to continue to work with her on leading so she knows when we're leading she needs to follow our lead and not push ahead. This could have ended more negatively if she had gotten caught up in a fence or twisted her ankle. Thankfully she did not hurt herself or us. Working her in her stall gives us time to work with her on giving to pressure, bending, yielding to the lead rope, and listening to us, then we can work more on leading when we walk outside the stall. She continues to improve, but we can't rush the process or someone (human or equine) might get hurt.
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