Another amazing week has disappeared!
Marie-Claire returned from her surgery on Saturday and sha gave me and the other working students a lesson with our horses. she rode Origon, and was brilliant at spotting the holes in our playing. I used some Karen Rholf stretching excercises with Paris before i rode him to continue playing with the quality of our transitions. Paris was starting to fall asleep everytime we halted so i threw in a canter around the arena. i was so happy that my posture felt really good and my bum was glued to the saddle then Marie-Claire called me over. She said Paris was cantering "bad banana" and that the only way i could sit it was by pushing his back down more and so she wanted me to do a canter in the standing position. we took off around the arena and Marie-Claire got me to rub him whenever he started to lift his back and encourage him to relax. it was a very interesting excercise and she agreed that a theraflex pad is a very good idea for Paris.
i then played with Riva. we have made good progress, she is circling better and much more respectful. i trotted her around the arena and it was the most beautiful trot, like floating on air! on Monday we decided to take the big youngsters for a trail ride and Riva coped very well. at one point the other horses spooked but she just flicked her ears in the direction the others were looking! i played leap frog with Elvira who was riding Quasi. We took turns to trot past each other and then we would halt, back up and continue for a while before trotting past each other again. it was a brilliant game for keeping the horses tuned into us and not the hind end of the horse in front. Riva backed up from my seat aid and she really got her hind quarters underneath her and did the best backup i have ever ridden! it was amazing to me to feel how good it could be even with a young green horse! I was meant to play with Riva on Wednesday but the heavens opened up and we had an almighty storm. i was in the paddock paradise and Riva was pretending not to exist, hiding with her head under a haynet. i just mirrored her in the pouring rain until she showed interest and touche me then i walked off and left her. the next day i went into the paddock paradise to play with Tauria and Riva came straight over and followed me all the way to the gate. over 500m away! she has come to me everytime i have been near the youngsters ever since!
Tuesday was my first play session with Tauria. she was originally started by Anna de Winter over a year ago but didn't get too far in her education. Gabi has been playing with her and put a few rides on her in the last couple of weeks and has offered her to me as my little youngster to put trail rides on. The plan was get to know the horse, play online, saddle, mount and do a "follow the rail trail ride". Tauria is a very smart left brained four year old and has managed to learn to pull against the halter. i played a lot with procupine game from her head, back up by the nose, wrapping the rope around her and getting her to start following the feel. She did really well but we hit a point where when i asked for canter on the right lead she would leap in the air bucking and bronking. i just ran with her, holding the rope and kept asking for forward until she game me some nice canter strides. i then made a game of putting a sweet spot for halting on the circle so when i asked for canter she was thinking about getting to the stopping place rather than taking off all over the arena! it went really well and i really got to practice persistence in the proper position! she has a lot of Riva's qualities although they are from very different mares. Riva is the daughter of Bahia the lead mare in Marie-Claire's breeding herd. Tauria is from Miss Blue who was the spookiest of the broodmares. Yesterday was my second play session with Tauria who was already much better with her porcupine game but did still test me. at one point i asked her for canter and she turned out bucking towards me with such vigour that she got her hind leg over the rope and scared herself, i went with her but had to drop the rope before the situation escalated ads she was going right brained. she immediately calmed back to left brain and i asked for the canter again. she didn't bronc again but i think it was a combination of she had scared herself and i had become firmer about her head was not going out of the circle. soon she was ready to tack up. i took time to saddle exactly as Pat teaches, wwarmed her up a little more - she was not bothered by the saddle, girth, stirrups, so i prepared to mount. we spent a long while at the mounting block because she would not stand still at first. finally i was able to mount and i gave her a few minutes of sitting still before testing the rein positions. she did really well. once we strarted walking around the arena i tested the steering - there's plenty of room for improvement but there's some steering! before i knew it we were trotting around the arena. she was much more introverted once i was on board than when i was on the ground. Gabi asked me to get her to trot from phase two, which i got quite quickly so Gabi asked me to get trot from phase one! we did! we maintained the trot for a whole circuit of "follow the rail" following Gabi who was riding Quimrahil. i am so over the moon with Tauria! she also gave me a full lap of canter on the 22 ft line, nicely and in balance! she is extremely talented!
Paris has been fascinating me although at times the line had blurred with fascination! after our leson with Marie-Claire i spent undemanding time with Paris in his pasture. our next lesson i was working on walk pirouettes online from zone 5. Marie-Claire gave me some pointers to really get it good from zone 3 and also to improve driving from zone 3. we were trying to get Paris interested in what we were doing but he would not ask me questions, or Marie-Claire. i'm having so much fun with Riva and Tauria who ask me questions constantly but Paris just seems to be there in body but not in spirit, just going through the motions! that felt horrible. the next day i spent some undemanding time with him. i was brushing him all over (found a new big bald patch on his withers and a small cut on his fetlock) then haltered him and took him for point to points btween shady patches of clover. i was really excited the next day to see whether there would be any difference in Paris and there was - he wouldn't come to me at all! Joke and I spent two hours trying to get into our hores brains in an advanced catching game but it didn't work, we still ended up resorting to the low level catching game where we went 95% of the way to the horses and they only closed the final 5% for some carrots. we have decided that we only feed them and spend UDT near the hayrack so we can make it into a sweet spot and get them to come when we whislte. When i turned up and whislted yesterday both Paris and Rox turned and walked the other way. i was devestated and almost burst into tears! later that evening i turned up with the feed buckets and whislted and they slowly came over. i ignored Paris until i was about to leave when i asked him for a "kiss" and gave him a peice of carrot turned and left. i'm happy to keep doing this until he starts to get more enthusiastic and in the mean time i can focus on Tauria and Riva.
Unfortunatly our little herd was starting to get bite marks and minor injuries again. Also Kalhua was blocking our horses from coming down the corridor. his behaviour is quite confusing swinging from dominance to fear and we don't know why the biting started again. my own theory is that Kalhua was not so confident in the new environment but now he is finding his feet he is testing to hierarchy again. unfortunatly we can't risk any more injuries! so we made the decision to put Kalhua back in the paddock next to our horses. Anna will be back on Monday and we'll be able to come up with a better, hopefully more savvy, approach to sort the situation.
It was Marie-Claire's birthday on Wednesday and we had a barbeque to celebrate. it was a lot of fun, we had a big table outside and Origan was walking around the table asking for scratches! it is such an wondeful place to be with horses freely roaming around at parties!
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