Wednesday Fluidity I Day Eight

We started the day in the usual fashion with Remuda, taken this time by Kristi. It was a good session covering topics from the past couple of days and any issues anyone was having with fluidity or their relationship with their horse. Kristi did cite Roget as a 'difficult' horse in answer to someone's question - so it seems he has a reputation! Although I do find him challenging and he is testing me along the way, I think we're doing pretty good (famous last words!).

So then it was into the classroom for some theory on Trail Riding and Spooky Silhouettes. The lecture began by looking at thresholds, both horse and human, and how by ignoring and blasting through these, you are only damaging the relationship. Horse thresholds are identified by a stop, a turn, getting tense or spooking; the humans, by that inner voice that really indicates fear. Although it is necessary to expand the comfort zone 'bubble' to be in a learning frame of mind, blasting through is not good.

Trail Riding should always be set up for success; success is achieved by carefully selecting your fellow riders, choosing the route wisely and by putting your relationship ahead of anything else (goals, people or time lines). The following are the safe trail riding guidelines:

1. Safety - get off and fix a problem on the ground.
2. Protect your herd of 2 - always protect your horse from others, so he doesn't have to!
3. Rider responsibilities - point your horse's nose at the one in front's tail (use the power of focus) and maintain the space behind your horse with a carrot stick. Never allow your horse to turn sideways, this puts you in the horse behind's kicking zone!
4. 3 Musketeer Rule - success for everyone - all horses and riders.
5. Have a plan - confirm etiquette with other riders and agree the route.
6. Have fun with your horsemanship - if it feels like work to you. it feels like work to your horse - PLAY!

Spooky silhouettes are anything your horse deems fearful - squirrels, plastic bags, cattle, stumps, leaves rustling, lorries....... Never use the 'Black Stump Syndrome' where you make your horse approach the spooky silhouette and 'get over it'. This will ruin your relationship. Use approach and retreat, preferable practice at home by setting up a similar situation in your horse's safe environment and then try this out on the trail. Jon demonstrated, with the help of Carin and Boe and their horses, how this can be achieved by using the 'spooky cow' simulator (see picture). This was a great demo - using the approach and retreat method, the horses actually fixed onto the cow and wanted to follow it!

As an aside in the demo, Jon described the process for teaching horses to drag objects. Like all natural horsemanship it is purely common sense, but since us humans seem to lose our minds around horses, I thought it prudent to document! Firstly this must be achieved successfully on the ground first. When confidence is achieved on the ground and the human has good rope handling skills you can then mount up and begin by walking small circles around the object allowing it to spin on the spot. Then build up to larger circles, dragging the object on a smaller circle. Eventually this will result in the object being dragged in zone 5. Safety point - never tie the object to the horn until you are certain of the horse's confidence.

Today's activity with Roget was obviously trail riding, so we successfully passed all our pre-saddling and pr-mounting checks (yesterday obviously had a lasting effect!) and then mosied out to the playground where we played with the obstacles whilst trail riding around the playground. This was great fun and definitely built my confidence in Roget. I realised that I do not trust Roget yet and thus need to concentrate on a purpose to keep my mind from wondering what he might do next! Funny how when I stopped thinking about the bad possibilities, he stopped being tense and became more engaged.... lesson learned!