Bridle work updates

Drifter's first bridling was last Tuesday. I bridled her in a stall and lunged her with the cavesson over the bridle. She demonstrated a lot of tongue thrusting and mouthing of the bit. She quieted down with her mouth during lunging, with only an occasional attempt to remove the metal from her mouth. I almost wished I had taken more time to do mouth TTouches with her. I then worked on walking around with my hands on the reins in riding postion from beside her. This was a totally foreign concept to her and "driving" her around the farm this way was a challenge. I was able to bump her with my hip at the right spot for my leg to cue her to walk and worked on steering from beside her. She eventually got the hang of it from both the left and right sides.

I find that I am fairly regimented with her work at this point. I have been "very busy" and always have an agenda when I am there- I may modify it to suit her temperament and the ring availability that day, but it's mostly been about work. I feel like I have to keep working to meet some of our goals and therefore have neglected some of the more spiritual and connective work- this is fairly typical, considering that my paying job is "working" with horses and that mindset it the easiest for me to access. Having been very busy and very broke has not encouraged me to make "frivolous" trips to the barn or just given me the grace to spend 20 minutes "playing" with her. I usually have about two hours to "get it done", which means to work her and ride Fritz and put away all my stuff and to get in the car and drive home or to work. Maybe I should take Saturday and spend more time playing with her again.

On this Tuesday, a whole week from the last bridling, I went to get Drifter and she wasn't wearing a halter or sun/fly mask. I had to trek around the whole field (wasting time) to find the now broken halter. She must have snagged it on something good because she broke the leather crown piece. Poor girl. I was expecting that maybe she would be lame or sore or something, because pulling back hard enough to break a halter should have pulled some muscle or something, but she seemed okay. I groomed her quickly and put on her surcingle. I bridled her in the indoor ring and she was really horrible for this. She quickly threw up her head and bulldozed right through me. It took a couple of tries before I got it over one ear- the other ear got squished under the crown piece. I think I should drop it a few holes loose before putting it on again. I have the bit up high and tight because she got her tongue over the bit that first night. Occasionally, she is throwing up her head and turning away from the direct rein pressure. This time my focus was to long line her off the bit. I want to be very light with my hands on her newly minted mouth, but I also want her to learn to accept contact and to yield to contact. She did the same initial rubber neck, ewe neck, resistance, but learned that softening was a better solution. When I asked her to do more then she felt capable of she would just stop. Stop and stand and refuse to go! No amount of clucking, shaking the lines or saying "walk" was helping. I need to carry a whip to reinforce go. Although having a horse stop is sometimes not a bad thing when they are confused. She isn't threatening to go up stopping, she is just calmly stopping and waiting. This happened twice when I used an outside supporting rein contact with an inside bending rein. I think there was just too much pressure for her to figure out the correct response or I was too slow in responding to the correct response. She was also reluctant to trot and this was probably because we were uncoordinated together. She is wobbly and not straight steering from the bit and I have some delays in asking for the right thing, so I would over ask or not ask soon enough and she would feel unsure and come back to the walk. I am hoping this safety conscious part carries over into our mounted work the first time I get on her.

I am hoping to get on her soon. I am looking for someone at my barn who will hold her for me for the first time. I have the "question" out to someone, so hopefully they are willing and we can schedule a time that works for us. I plan on doing more bridle work on Friday and hopefully I can pull back on the work schedule for Saturday and enjoy spending time and fussing with her.

I also think that I saw the baby move during work time this week.

Preparation

I worked with Drifter on Friday and again today. Friday was all about being a good girl and getting over the whole long lining freak out about the lines again. I worked a lot on changes of direction where I was direction behind her and she was tense when she couldn't see me. However, with practice she was much improved. This was also the first time she cantered on the long lines. She was a good girl. Afterwards I hosed her off to work on standing in the wash stall and did great on the right side and okay hosing the left side. This was an improvement.

Today the barn was very busy. I began with focusing on standing by the mounting block while I leaned on her. She was good with this and overall we stood by three mounting blocks. I also began to "pretend" mount from the ground by putting weighting in the stirrup and pulling up. This made her a little nervous, but overall she was okay with it. She did the mounting block and stirrups from both left and right sides. I lunged her in the outdoor with good manners and attention and added asking her to lunge in the dressage ring today. She was good with this until a HUGE bomber landed on her- then she was a little more quick and distracted. We finished again in the wash stall and she was much better.

I had to go back to the fly sheet as she is getting some dry skin and scratchy parts. She is really getting a belly now. The dentist is coming on Friday. Then next week she will begin work in the bridle and hopefully I will be getting on her in two weeks. There isn't much more work I can do from the ground- improving her lunge and long lining work is always room for improvement, but I think she is really ready for mounted work.

I would like to incorporate some "extra curricular" work with her. I would like to add more interesting techniques and incorporate TTouch again. I guess time is always a factor.

Day three

Yesterday I went to visit a friend in Maryland, so Drifter didn't have any work. She was however moved from her stall to another for stall cleaning and did fine.

Today was a big day.

First, I ripped off the nasty scab on her RH and cleaned and bandaged the wound. There was a lot of pus under the scab, hopefully it can heal nicely now with no effect on the tendons. She was very good for this, despite that fact that it must have hurt like hell.

Then I put a surcingle on her. This was the first time that she has been girthed up that I know of. Her only reaction was to back up when I tightened it.

Here she is in her stall, standing calmly with it on.

So, then we tried lunging. We walked to the outdoor riding ring for the first time and hooked up the lunge line.

I hooked it through her halter to the surcingle, so that she couldn't turn to the outside and bolt. The downside to hooking the line this way is that if she does turn to the outside, you now have the lunge around her neck and can't pull on it because you are pulling her away from yourself.

Of course, this happened several times, but she quickly learned to stop and allow me to switch sides and not panic. She lunged well to the left for the first time. She was tending to pull towards the barn/horses side of the ring and cut into me on the other side. Luckily, she isn't the overreative type, so that I was able to shake the line at her to move her out. By the time we got to the right side, she was getting tired and a bit frazzled, so we didn't do as much or as well to the right. She also picked up on the "bllt" sound for a downwards transition, as I was using this before she hit the end of the lunge and she started responding by slowing and not pulling. Another kudos to her is that she didn't go up when she felt the pressure of the line bending her nose towards the surcingle. She had some nice moments of roundess and a lot of moments of invertedness. We still have a long way to go.

Drifter had her feet done in March. The vet commented that she had her feet done in the stocks. Today I was able to lift and hold both front feet, she didn't even fight- just seemed a little unbalanced.

Drifter ate all her wormer today- she is also eating hand fed alfalfa cubed from the barn staff.

Drifter was turned out in the paddock for the first time today. I was told she was hard to catch, but when I walked by the paddock and called her name, she followed me. She stood right by the gate and was ready to come in. I am still working on her leading manners.