Gimme an Egg!

So I was cruising around other training blogs yesterday and came upon a few good ideas. Let me just tell you, I am one of those people who takes 3 recipes and combines the parts of each that I like to make my own. I made the most awesome Chicken Pot Pie the other day using 3 recipes combined so that I didn't have to do the bits I did not like. So anyways, I use this same theory on training with Foxy.

Foxy is one of those horses that does well with Natural Horsemanship. She is very sweet and also very lazy. So if you give her choices and there is a clear cut easy way out...she will take it! And if not, you can usually convince her pretty easily. She is also VERY sensitive and so if all else fails, I can resort to being irritated and she snaps out of it quickly (unless, of course, I kick her side while riding late at night...then she bucks me off! but other than that).

Back when I was riding her, we worked mostly by ourselves but I also took a few lessons from a lady at the barn who helped me out with Foxy. I would work with Foxy on my own and get ideas from her on things to work on...and then a few weekends in a row we would ride for 30-45 minutes while she instructed me on things to do. This was more of a supervised training ride for Foxy than an actual lesson on my own body. In reality, Foxy needed (needs) a more experienced rider...but because she will not tolerate other people riding her and also I cannot afford it, I just have to do it myself.

So I am looking forward to riding Foxy. I am still stuck on the soundness issue, but assuming the trim/boots start helping, I am looking forward to working through her issues again. She is actually kind of fun to ride. She is one of those horses who is ultra sensitive. Because she does not like a lot of leg contact and knows voice commands, we had been working mostly off voice commands and introducing seat and legs. This is difficult for me as I am seriously seriously a beginner. If you expect me to convince a horse to do something with my seat and legs....you are almost out of luck. But that is what we worked on in the lessons. We used to walk and halt and do slow jogs to fast trots back to slow jogs. I learned more in those few lessons than in years of actual english riding lessons.

However, Foxy is also one of those horses who does well with a routine. I think if I could find something to do while riding...it would help us out. Even if it meant riding from one end of the arena with ball and putting it in a bucket at the opposite. And then picking up another ball and riding to the opposite end and putting it a bucket there and vice versa. I think I need to get my mind off nitpicking her every movement and concentrate more on "riding". I have a feeling my body will give her enough clues on its own that we may work better together. And that saying about looking where you want to go? I think that is basically how this will work....if I am picking something up and looking to the bucket and asking Foxy to ride over there...that may work better for her than boring circles and loops around the outside of the arena. But will still work the same issues; starting, stopping, transitions, steering, etc.

I get so nervous working with Foxy and basically have been assuming I will be completely restarting her since she was not "well broke" and it has been a long time. But then she has done so well so far and I started thinking back...I had been riding her a couple months when she had her blowup. We were walking, trotting, mostly steering, doing circles and figure eights, and working off some very light leg aids. We worked in the regular small arenas and would also walk around the property (large boarding barn) and also ride in the huge ungated arena (walk and trot). While she obviously still has some issues to work through, she had the basics of riding down well. The basics being: move forward, stop, turn. Assuming she does not act crazy when I finally get up on her....we should be able to have a couple short refresher classes and hopefully move basically right back to where we left off. We had been a bit stuck in place...I could not seem to get her any better at riding/steering at the walk and trot....and then got bucked off and stopped trying. But we had been at the same point in our training for a good month or two.

So maybe this time off and a renewed training outlook will help us out a bit. I want to ride on her while holding an egg! That is my long term goal! Egg on a spoon! I want to do the ridiculous redneck horsey games....I have no interest in competing on her. I just want to have fun. Really I just want her sound enough to ride around in an arena or pasture. I am a bit of an arena girl and so I dont think she will be a trail horse any time soon. But if I could hop on and lope around a field a time or two..I would be in heaven!

In sort of related news, Foxy is incredibly "light". She responds to the slightest squeeze or cluck. She will go from a walk to a fast trot with just a cluck or two. And she whoas relatively well. She has even tucked her butt a little and just about skidded to a stop on just a verbal whoa while riding. I find it so weird to have a horse like that when I was used to riding the old lesson horses than you had to nag and nag and nag and nag and wears spurs and carry crops, etc. On Foxy I just have to cluck and off she goes...and say "ho" and she stops. It's so weird! Let's hope she is still this way once I can get back up on her. While it is interesting she is so sensitive....I also think a lot of it is fear based on her end. She is nervous with me up there and trying to do anything and everything I ask. She always looks so hateful in her riding pics as she has her ears straight back listening to me. I don't know that I have a single riding picture where he ears are forward. I would think that she is actually pissy about the riding except for how she responds to every little thing....so I guess she really is just paying really close attention.

I miss riding Foxy :( This blogging really does get your interest back though....now to make some phone calls about boots....