Riding Quietly

The other day I posted a video of Mark riding Trax, and how I wish I could ride quietly like that and like others that I have seen.

Here is another link of someone I have seen who rides quietly.

I guess the correct term would be "with proper equitation".

That is one of my goals as a rider, so today when I rode I tried to analyze what the heck it is I am doing.

Now I know.

But first let me back up just a hair.


You see, the horse in that other video, she is for sale.  If you have not watched the video, please go back and do so now....I'll wait.

Okay, so if you saw my comments on youtube under the video you know now that I have contacted this gal about buying this horse.

(I wonder how many of you are thinking....you don't have time for the horses you have!- and you are right, luckily this is not a young horse who needs constant training and riding every day.)

 I was sick on Saturday so did not go to the clinic.  I knew Friday I was not going to make it, because I felt like crud then too.

However by Sunday I did feel better, and so I did make the trip down to see Miss Melody, the mare.

When I arrived the gal was just finishing up with a sorting practice and the mare was a little wound up. Not like fire breathing dragon wound up, just a little hot.   She put her through her moves, then hopped off (with perfect grace) and asked if I wanted to ride her.

Well duh!

This mare is quite tall.  I really had to haul myself up to get on her, about like Killian I guess.  And we set off in cute little circles around the arena.

Now I know what it really feels like to ride a horse that is truly soft in the face. My horse is not soft yet.  He is getting there, but he isn't there yet.

Now I know what it feels like to ride a horse that truly understands and accepts what leg cues are.  With this girl, it is all leg.  The owner kept having to tell me, "Ride her one handed!"

I squeezed gently with my legs and we were trotting, another slight squeeze and she had the sweetest little lope I have ever felt in my life.  All I had to do was sit there....

...and I was riding quietly.

Yes ladies and gentlemen we have a winner!

I fumbled around with asking for a lead change, a couple of times I got it right, most of the time I did not, and in spite of me, she figured out what I wanted and gave it to me.   She was a very patient horse.

Then I asked the gal how to do the spin.  I will admit to being a little bit nervous.

I should not have been. Melody took fantastic care of me.

"Drop your hand, push with the outside leg."

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Then I heard, "Release your legs!"

So I did and wham!  We stopped.  Then we went the other direction. This time I did not need help.

I rode her around a little more.  In all that time, there stood TC with not one but 2 phones that take video. I finally asked him to take some video and he did.  The only video he actually got was one of us standing there and even then he cut our heads off.

I am in love.

She will be mine and I will learn much from her, and I will hopefully be able to transfer that from her to Trax and Sassy...and maybe even Killian.  Right now I am trying to move heaven and earth to make this happen.

In the mean time, I went back to riding my boy. He is a good boy and he is trying really hard....except when he isn't.

That's okay, at least he is trying some of the time.

His new favorite thing is long trotting while collected. I have not yet decided if he likes showing off his skills, or if he likes it because it is as close as he is allowed to get to loping.

Not that I never lope him, but I never lope him for very long.   Anyway, he did good today, we struggled with our lead changes, but finally sort of mastered them.  I know now that I am teaching him wrong. But I don't know how to get around that yet.

We did side passes, and leg yields and his version of spins, which he is starting to do pretty well as long as I remember to sit down in my seat.

I tried my best to just sit still and ride him, but it just isn't possible. He requires constant manipulation or he just goes off and does his own thing.  This true with everything we do except long trotting.  I can ask him to hold it, and just ride it out, and hardly move a muscle.  I guess that is progress.  I can speed him up or slow him down with just a shift in my weight, however walking has become non-existent again, so we went back to "rail classes" where we did lots of walk, trot, extended the trot, lope, trot, walk, and stop. Turn around and do it again.    By time we were done he was loping nicely, head down and not chargy at all.  We did some stops from the lope, they were fair, not perfect, but decent enough for now I guess.

So that is the key, I can see that now. When my horse is doing his job, I can ride just fine. When he isn't then I am all over the place just trying to keep control of his feet....and brain.  This isn't about me not trusting him either.  When he acts like a horse I can trust, I do so implicitly. When he acts like he could go either way...well self preservation takes over, and I take control.   I think I would be a fool not too at this point.

We did do some ground driving yesterday.  I did he and Sassy.

Sassy being a big girl

He never did get quite as nice as he did the
first time. However, he had been ridden
just a few horse before the first time as well. 

Here he is thinking about it all.
At one point he kept trying to spin around into the
the long reins. So I let him.
When he finally calmed down, I used my reins to turn him
round and untangle himself.  

So, I have much to learn, much to do, the weather is getting warmer now, and I'm less motivated. However the next clinic is in June in Flagstaff, and I would still really like to go.  I am developing an understanding about Trax.  I am asking him to walk before he as even learned how to crawl yet.  I am really start focusing our time together on the basics, and quit worrying about the fancy moves and such. For now, lets just learn how to ride correctly together.

This....

Work was really slow last night, and I ended up watching some more videos at the very end of the night.

There was one in particular that I watched several times over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkEDfDBWfoo

This is my former trainer Mark on our second or third lesson.

I really want to ride my horse (any horse) this nicely.  His hands are quiet even when he is using them.  He brings out the best in my horse.

I watch video's of horses for sale, and wish I could ride like those people.

Quiet.

No title cuz I can't think of one

Today's ride was short although not so sweet.  I think I was the biggest problem in the equation today. I just wasn't into it.   It is an odd thing to hear those words come out of my mouth, but then in light of all that has hit me in the last couple of days, not too surprising.

I was all set and oh so excited to be able to go to a Dick Pieper clinic this weekend.  Yesterday we learned that Mr. Pieper is ill, and will not be able to facilitate.  They have found someone else to fill in, and I am sure she is more than capable, but she is not (cue angels singing) Dick Pieper.  So at this point I am kind of on the fence about going.  Yesterday I was still going for sure, today I'm more like "meh". Who knows what tomorrow will bring.  I have decided not to make my decision until Friday morning.  Yup, nothing like waiting till the last minute.

On a side note: I do hope that Mr. Pieper is going to be okay.  I do feel kind of selfish putting my own desires above another persons health....kind of.

Then there were some personal issues going on within in my household which tends to take the wind out of my sails.  In fact it is down right depressing.  But I shall not dwell on that here, either.

So I did finally get off my butt and go ride.  But my heart wasn't into it. My head was some place else and there was very little connection between the my partner and I.   Still we muddled through.

However I did manage to come to terms with a few topics that are floating around the blogesphere.  Over at BEC's several of us are waiting patiently on a post about on and off switches.  And I have been thinking about those team penning horses I saw last year.  Those horses went from being baby sitters to fire breathing, cow eating dragons, and back to baby sitters in a matter of seconds.  On top of that, those horses were the ones who were REALLY good at their jobs. Where as the horses that were wound up all the time had a really hard time focusing on the task at hand. They were just too amped up.

So then I took that information, the information that BEC is starting to lay out, and what I know about my horses past and started piecing things together.

It used to be that we did laps around the arena to get him "warmed up" but pretty soon I came to realize that all that did was take him up (on) and keep him there.  He went to far and bringing him back was next to impossible.

So then I went to avoiding loping at all costs, which was good.  It kept him at a lower energy level, and made it much easier to keep his brain engaged and on me, rather than on the dark place he goes when he leaves town.   On the down side of that, getting him to move his feet with any sort of urgency was also next to impossible.

So my next goal is to find the happy medium for this guy.  Today, even with my lack of desire to even be there, we kind of had a little tiny bit of a break through.

It started with a couple of slow circles and lead changes.  He was getting chargey and a little high headed and out of control.  I wasn't digging it AT ALL.  So when he refused to break down for a change I ended up just driving his butt into the dirt and making him stand still.  While we sat there I thought for a minute.

I left the lead change exercise, took him back to long trotting and then we went back to lead changes. He was better but still head high.   So we went to the serp drills, and then back to lead changes. At one point he even did his own flying lead change, and I was like "Hey! What just happened here???"  But getting him to do it again...well I wasn't sure how we did it the first time, so repeating it was not happening.  But he did finally give me some very nice one or two step lead changes, and I was happy with that.

Then we went back to long trotting, serp drills, and leg yields none of which were what I would call nice.  After a bit we just walked around a little and then tried our imaginary flag work.  He got too hot too quick and I started to lose him again. This time we went straight to long trotting until he was soft again. After I had him soft for a while, I asked for the flag work again and this time...he moved his feet with purpose...was following my lead...was giving me the best stops that I am capable of asking for...and although he still got a little head high, he never got out of control.

From there I went straight back to long trotting until he got soft again, then we walked, then we did leg yields and they were pretty darn nice.  Then I called it a day.  I think we were out there 45 minutes.

So what I am learning about Trax is that he can and will flip like a switch, but the results are generally disastrous or even dangerous.  Trax is a horse that needs to be brought up gradually, not pushed past his breaking point, and then brought back down slowly.  If I take him up, then just stop. He will stop and stand still (most of the time) but the minute I ask for forward movement again...it is balls to the wall because he is still wound up so tight.  So if I bring him up slowly, monitor his mental state constantly, and then bring him down slowly (before he blows a gasket) it will slowly allow his "rubber band" to gain more elasticity.

I wish I could take credit for all of this super cool revelation...but I can't.  I have to be honest and say that I had some help (okay- a lot) from BEC. She is the first one to introduce the rubber band analogy to me (quite some time ago) and we did have a long talk today about Trax and the best way to help him turn on and off and how to push his boundaries without pushing to far.  I would strongly urge anyone who is more interested in the subject of the on/off switch to keep a weather eye on HER BLOG.  I'll bet dollars to doughnuts  there is a killer post coming up that really breaks down the entire thought process.  The girl has her training brain in 4WD right now, and good stuff always comes out of that! (No pressure BEC- lol)

Tomorrow I will go back to ground driving...and not just Trax....very excited about that!  I'll try to set up the tripod and get some killer video of it.

Oh one thing I forgot to add earlier is that I am noticing one really big change in Trax and this has nothing to do with the supplements, the chiro, or anything else.  It is everything to do with what I have changed in our training sessions.  When we lope now, he is always waiting for the stop cue.  He knows it is coming, and I can feel him "reading" me every second waiting for that cue.  (okay well most of the time anyways)  This is a huge step for him.  It is how I know that he really really wants to get this stuff right. I still don't think it is because he is just so damn happy to make me happy, but he has suddenly decided that stopping is awesome and to me....that is awesome.

Maybe....Just Maybe

I knew I had lots to do Sunday, and since Saturday,  my ride on Trax had been cut short by having to give "lessons" to the "experienced" rider who came out to ride Killian the day before, I decided to try to hit the desert early.  I had to be back before noon to go with my son somewhere.  I had to get home and get pens cleaned, and I knew that CNJ was coming at 3:30 to help me with my ground driving.

So as soon as I could we were saddled up and ready to go. I rarely ever ground work him before desert riding. This time was no different I saddled up, and we headed down the road.  He is so ploddy when we ride out alone.  A little barn sour I'd say.  I don't really fight the issue except to ask him to walk a little faster, since most of that portion of our ride is concrete or asphalt.

But once we hit the gate it is all business.  He knows it, and doesn't seem to mind one bit.  We kick up to the long trot and head out.  I'll tell ya, one of the things I love most about my horse is that when I say go....we go, and there is no peddling required.  The only time he even considers slowing down is if we hit a rocky area and it hurts his feet.  but I generally try to steer him around those.

At first we just go in straight lines.  He always starts out head high, I assume looking for predators, but it doesn't take too long to get him to drop his head and stretch out. Once he does that then we start weaving our way in and out of trees, through washes, up and down hills. I am constantly looking for ways to make our work in the arena translate to desert riding.  We never take the same path twice so he can not anticipate what I am going to ask. He has to follow my cues.

Every so often I will throw in some loping with some lead changes and lots and lots of stopping.  I especially like to turn him towards home, ask him to lope, stop him after 20 feet and then turn him back the other way.  He doesn't love it when I do that, but he handles it.

At one point yesterday, we were loping a long and I dropped my rein.  I instantly went to the bad place in my head, a million bad scenarios flashed through my mind in an instant I thought I was going to be sick.  This all happened in a matter of 2 seconds.  By the tick of 4 seconds I had my completely calm horse standing still while I reached down and picked up my rein.  Meanwhile praising the hell out of my horse.

Say what?????

Filed that away for one of those "Huh, imagine that." moments, and moved on.

We worked on our leg yields and he still struggles initially from the right, but if I can get him to give me one good step and release, then we are golden from then on.

We tootled around, moved some cows, talked on the phone, stopped for a pee break, and of course a photo shoot

Did you hear that?

I definitely heard something!

Seriously...I could stare at my horse all day long! 

Then we started riding again. Of course the minute we head towards home he really stretches out that trot, which is fine with me as long as he carries him self correctly.  He does not get a choice in the matter.  However, because he basically is just making a beeline for home, this is when we really mix things up.  I do so much stopping, bending, pushing, transitions, and lots and lots of backing up.  Because he is just wanting to ignore me and go forward, this is when it seems to be the most important that I keep his mind engaged.

 At one point I backed him into a little dead tree which reached up and poked him right in the butt. Normally he would have left town and looked back 100 miles later.  This time he jumped forward just a touch, turned around to see what was behind him, and then stood there.  Again I thought, "Hmmm, that is strange."

Once home I threw him out in the pasture and got some other stuff done.  Then I went out to the pasture with my halter. At first he ran to the opposite end of the pasture, I walked towards him some, then I backed up and he came towards me.  I walked forward again and he trotted back to the front of the pasture.  I thought, "Crap gonna have to send him down to the catch pen."  Then he stopped and so I stopped. He took a step towards me, so I waited.  Then he let out a big sigh. So I walked right up to him and put the halter on him.

This sort of behavior has been completely unheard of in the entire time I have owned this horse. I have done it with a string before, but a halter means work to him, so usually he runs.  I took him to my spare pen and gave him a treat for being such a good boy.  Then I kicked the other two horses out so I could start cleaning pens. You should have seen the look on his face when they got to go out and he didn't.  Ya know how some times you can look at your horse and hear exactly what they are thinking?  This was one of those times.  Basically it was WTH???

So then CNJ arrived and we got right to work.

He was a little confused at both of us in the round pen, but it was necessary so that she could get a feel for what cues I use for him.  Then she put the surcingle on him, and I stepped out to let her do her thing.

Here is video 1, where she was just starting out.   I seriously expected more of a reaction out of him with the long reins and having someone behind him.  He was bothered and unsure, but handled it like a big boy, waited for instruction, and once he understood what was required, did exactly what was expected of him.   He almost makes me out to be a liar about his rope fears. But I assure you, other people have seen him lose it over ropes.  I swear it really does happen.

Here is video # 2  Where he is just flipping awesome!  We also did some stuff where we were directly behind him.  He never once over reacted to anything.  He was just cool about it all.

Here are some pictures of me trying my hand at it.  I am not near as handy at this as CNJ. She has mad skills! But with her guidance I did manage to muddle through.

Can you say, "Oooooh Pretty!"

So Thank you CNJ for taking the time to help me with this. This is definitely something we will be working on more.

Now, as you all may recall, I just started Trax on his Mag-restore about a week ago. I started him a loading of dose of 4000mg a day.  2 days ago I upped it to 6000mg a day.  Yesterday I saw a horse that was more like a normal horse.  I think that maybe...just maybe, it is making a difference.

I won't keep him on that high a dose, I will just keep him there for a few more days and then I will taper him back down.

I think I am going to have to start giving him just a little bit more food.  He is lean and fit, but I can see his ribs.  I don't like to see his ribs.

So that was our day yesterday.  Today all the ponies get some pasture time (even the other two got worked this weekend) while I get some of my human responsibilities done.  Like housework, and blogging, and facebooking...lol!

Mutant Invasion

I am always on the look out for mutants

Helloooo Nice Ladies and Men of the horse world.  Trax here today with some very important news for all horse lovers of the world.

If you are not sitting down right now, you probably should be, as this is very disturbing news.  At first I thought it was just my imagination, but now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are being invaded by mutants.

I have seen them here and there before, but was not sure of what I was seeing.  I saw one once at the big arena when we lived at the cold place.  I caught a glimpse of one, that one day as we went down the busy road, and I saw the same one again the last time we road in the desert, just a few days ago.

Even though I have seen them before, I never spoke of them because I do not like it when people call me the "C" word, and I knew that if I started spouting off about mutants in our midst, I'd be headed to the slaughter house, where true crazy horses go.  I assure you, I am not crazy. They are here and they have moved in....RIGHT.....NEXT....DOOR!

Today my lady and I were exercising in the arena...okay well I was exercising, she was sitting her fat (and growing fatter) lazy butt up on my back telling me what to do.   That was when I saw a commotion going on next door where the nice horses used to live.  I saw people there, and they had all kinds of little creatures running around.  They also had a horse trailer, and I could hear commotion going on inside.  Then they opened the door of the trailer and all the little mutants came running out!

Since I can no longer trust my lady to know when we are in danger, I took it upon myself to take us to a safe distance, but my lady seems to think that mutants are cute and we should be come friends with them.

I'm sure you have all heard the story of how she bumped her head on the tree when I was trying to save us from the log that was chasing us.  So not only is her judgement impaired due to head trauma....she never did have any clue what real danger looks like.

She insisted that I go to the fence and act like a gentleman, while the mutants were just one small pasture away from us. They were right there....making their mutant noises, which by the way, sound very much like sheep.  She has no clue if they have mutant germs, or mutant contagions.  What if I start growing horns out of my head from being so close.  Or even worse...what if I start to smell like them????  ARGH!  I swear if I start to smell like a mutant I will unlock my gate and run head on into traffic...or...or I will find a cliff and jump off it it, and I will take my crazy lady with me, and it will serve her right for forcing me to catch mutant germs.

Then of course, she had to go and be all friendly with the neighbor lady/ mutant hoarder.   I heard the lady yell out, "Nice Horse!"

(hoarder or not, she at least has great taste in horses)

And my lady answers, "Thank you!  He's afraid of your goats."

(Oh sure- make me out to be the strange one)

The other lady said, "Oh I'm sorry."

(No she isn't)

My lady says, "Oh don't be, it is good for him to get used to them."

(No it isn't)

The Mutant Hoarder then said, "Oh wait till he meets our Alpaca then!"

(Your What???)

And my lady then talked about how excited she is for me to meet this Alpaca thing.

(She is not right in her head)

I can only assume that an Alpaca is a mutant leader, who probably eats paint horses for lunch.

Just for Fun

It seems like lately all my posts have been so serious.  No real fun, just work work work.

But life has not been all work and no fun.  Even within all the work I still manage to have fun.  Even my worst day includes a large amount of laughing...at myself if nothing else.

I had already posted the pictures from our desert ride the other day, but I did not post everything from that day.

First there is This video  where in I sing a song to my horse.

I actually sing to him a lot, and we talk constantly.  When we were long trotting and doing our serp drills out there, I chanted with each step, telling him what we are doing, what a good boy he is, or telling him he "is" a hunter jumper.  You know...just goofy stuff.  He flicks his ear back and forth constantly. Listening to me, and watching for pumas....or ghost donkeys.


After our ride that day I had hosed him off and let him roll and took some pictures.  But since I didn't have time to really look at them, I did not post them. Especially since we have all seen a rolling horse before.

But today I looked at them.  I absolutely love the expressions on his face. So here they are.

It starts with the perfect spot

and then thoroughly digging in so as to
 maximize the use of your dirt

you must always remember good form

Make sure you get your sides even

don't forget your head and neck

Got to work extra hard to get your mane

get yourself into good position again

This is where crunches come in handy
to get the hollow spot below your withers

A good shake to rid yourself of the excess

Now that is how you do a proper dirt bath! 

I did not ride today, or even work anyone today.  Today I reclaimed 30 feet of my arena.  I gave up 15 or 20 so TC can have better access to his shop, which in turn gives me access to my round pen from both the tack room (where it will be when we are done) and from the arena.  I put my fence back up, made a make shift gate until we can move the good one, and got out there and started working the ground.  Ooh baby! It is sure hard where they were driving on it.  But with the added weight of a semi truck brake drum on my tractor attachment, I was digging right in to most spots.  A couple of spots will require water.

One of my potential riders will be out Saturday to test ride Killian, and tomorrow I may try to run over and push some cows around.  Sunday we are doing ground driving.  So lots going on this weekend.  

Sinking In

It seems as though our recent meltdowns and extra training has brought about some changes in both my horse and in myself. I am going to call them good changes, because I think in the long run it will keep me safer, and keep him from failing it such epic proportions.

The biggest change in me is awareness, and paying attention to detail. As I was saddling I noticed every movement he made in reaction to each of my movements. Shirley, I did wave my hand in front of his eye, enough to make him blink and he did not shy away at all. However I also noticed/remembered that his right eye is the eye that has a spot in it, and more than one vet has asked if he has issues with vision in that eye.

As we walked to the arena I noticed what was going on around us. The new neighbors were out there with their 6 horses, and 5,000 (okay 7) goats. I noticed what was open, what was closed, what was a potential death trap, and what wasn't. I made sure the big gate was shut, and took him close to the neighbors fence to give him time to eyeball all the commotion going on next door. My main reason for doing this is because after the donkey and goat incident, I wanted to make sure he knew they were there before we started rather than finding out as we are loping circles or something....chicken? Maybe, but mostly just wanted to give him a heads up. I was really hoping the goats were in a pen closer to fence so he could really get used to them, but they weren't.

He spent some time observing the new horses next door, saw the goats, decided they were not worthy of his attention and then was ready to go to work.

I forgot to mention earlier that I am no longer giving him the Purina wel-solve. It is too expensive and has .5mg of mag per serving. That is pretty much non-existent when you think of what most people give to over reactive horses. I ended up trying a product called Mag-restore. It contains 2000mg of elemental mag per scoop and he is getting 4 scoops a day. Here is a a link to their website with some information. The type of mag is a di magnesium malate, which allegedly has a greater uptake than mag-oxide or mag-sulfate. Keep in mind I have no idea if this is true. I do have a history of letting people blow smoke up my skirt and me falling for all that they tell me. However, I have found several on line forums of people, not paid by the company, who really love this stuff. I also found an interesting article on burned out horses written by a vet who also mentioned the DI MAGNESIUM MALATE as being very effective. Also I sent the company an email asking some questions and got an immediate response from a live person who even called me today to make sure all my questions were answered. So although I cannot say whether or not their product is any good yet, they atleast have decent customer service. He has been on this since Sat evening, so hopefully we should see some results in the next week or so.  If I don't like it, I can always switch to something else.  I admit to buying this on a whim, because I needed to quit procrastinating and get something in him. 

So, today I didn't do anything too crazy, just worked on refining some of the things we have been working on already. I was really curious about the left and right contradiction thing so I found myself paying special attention to that. Since he is so much stiffer when asked to give to the right, I spent sometime just really stretching those muscles while I was on the ground. I really do think that, that part of him is having physical troubles. I can kind of relate. Due to some accidents of my own I can hardly turn my own head to the right. But still I asked him to stretch and hold as far and as long as he could and we did that several times. It seemed to me like each time he got a little further and was able to hold it a little longer.

When riding, I really wanted to revisit those silky smooth soft in the face leg yields, but first we just warmed up, did our serps, and long trotting. I did a little loping and a couple of lead changes, and of course our lope, stop, back and roll the shoulders. It did not take him near as long to drop his head and move out in a nice trot, and he held that collection longer than he ever has. I find that when he is in his right mind and I apply a little pressure he is really starting to seek that soft place over bracing, more and more. He is even starting to look for it on his own. Even backing up, I was able to back him one handed and have him drop his head and back nicely rather than fighting it. Usually I have had to use 2 hands for that.

Now BEC and CNJ both gave me some great stuff for building the muscles he needs, and I did try it...I think, but I think I need to go back and re-read it, and perhaps when one of them is around have them talk me through it again. Not sure I am getting the whole concept.

Then we went to the side passing/leg yields. My goal was to get him silky smooth on both sides, with out having to work him into the ground again.

We started with his good side and it only took a second to get him back to where we left off Sat. But the other direction when I picked up on the rein he just turned. I messed with it for a bit, went back to the other side and tried desperately to figure out what I was doing wrong. Then it hit me.

On the left side he is already soft. I pick up the rein, milk it just a tad, and he drops his head to his shoulder almost, then I apply the left leg, remove the right leg and he just melts into it. On the right side he is never as soft so when I start out he is already in the wrong position which makes my cue infective. Interestingly enough, something that BEC said to me the other day in a conversation that had nothing to do with Trax and everything to do with Buck Branneman (get your horse soft and then ask him to stop) clicked in my mind and I realized that it just might make a difference if I took a couple of extra seconds to set him for the maneuver by getting him soft first, and then asking to give to that side before moving his shoulder over.

BINGO!

He tends to still want to try to stop and crab walk sideways the minute he feels that leg on his side, but I was able to just coax him forward and pretty soon he was doing it every time. I was pretty impressed with both me for figuring it out, and him for giving in and doing it.

Holy crap I think some of this stuff is starting to sink in!

We didn't do much after that, just some trail obstacles, and then I went over to one of my barrels. There was a halter that I had left behind one day and I thought that maybe I would see if we could just pick it up and take it back to the tack room with us.

We didn't even get that far. He suddenly decided he was afraid of the barrel. The same barrel that has been out there for weeks.

Okay, Trax, no worries. If you are afraid we don't have to do this right now, but now because you won't walk around the barrel we are going to have to go work again.

Back to our serp drills for another 10 minutes, and then we parked next the barrel to rest. We did this at both barrels until he was okay to stand next to them, and walk around them from either direction. Then I dismounted and threw the halter at him. Okay so I only sort of threw it at him. Really I tossed it on him, tossed it around him. Threw the lead rope around his legs, and was just generally annoying but he only flinched so we ended it there.

All in all I was pretty happy with our progress, I really hope it continues like this. I know there will be ups and downs as I continue to stretch the boundaries of his comfort zone, but I'll take days like today every chance I can get.

In other news, I decided to go out on a limb and bring in some help with Killian. He is wasting away, and I hate it. So I put an ad on a horse for sale site, asking for someone with some experience to come and ride him once or twice, or as often as they would like, a week. I had some interesting responses. One was from a 12 year old girl who lives close to me. I had to decline that one simply because I do not have time to baby sit....and judging from her pics on facebook, I am pretty darn sure she is ten times the rider I am. LOL

But I do have 2 other gals, who are interested, knowing that there is no pay in this, and they will be signing a release, and they still want to come and ride the big boy. If they are telling me the truth they both have quite a bit of experience, the right kind of experience, and understand that if at any time I don't like the way they are treating Killian, the deal is done. So I hope to meet with them, watch them ride, and once I am comfortable with how they ride my horse, I will allow them to ride him when ever they want. My goal is to get him back into shape physically and keep him tuned up mentally. If I like them a lot, I may have one even ride Sassy a little for me. But I won't throw that out until I know them very well.

One respondent was a retired man who is just looking for someone to ride with....um no. Another gal wanted to haul him to her trainer. Um no.

I don't know if I will end up regretting this decision, but he isn't getting any exercise in his pen, Trax is taking up all of my time, Sassy takes up all of my money, and no one else in my house seems to be willing to help. Plus, I think they end up doing more harm than good. So maybe these girls won't.

I did take Sassy out for a walk today. She seemed better today than she has lately....Yay!

*update- In reference to the first paragraph- That wasn't Shirley that told me to do the hand over the eye thing, and I forgot about the popping noise. Will try that tomorrow.

* A reality just hit me. Our incident last week shook me up more than I realized.  It was the first time I have ever felt completely out of control with Trax, and in fear for my safety.  I can see that I am worried about things that I never worried about before.  In some ways that is a good thing, but I have to be careful not to let it take over. It is an even bigger motivator to get back to those basics and get moving ahead again.