A sunny afternoon

Of course, it's a beautiful day: Sunny and slightly cool with that wonderful smell of fall on the air. But, my riding area is muddy, the pastures are muddy, so no riding and no real working of Gabe for me today.

But, I still wanted to spend some quality time with my critters so I roped my husband and my youngest daughter into taking the horses for a nice, leisurely walk. Of course, I had an ulterior motive - to get Gabe out and about and exposed to new things in the company of his buddies. He was kind of a turd - rushing ahead on the lead, snorting and getting kind of pissy if either of the other two got too far ahead. We had a few little chit chats about who was in charge of this outing.

Chief and Gabe making nice. Kayleigh is encouraging them to be best buds. Not gonna happen.

Robert with his girl, Calypso. He's explaining to Kayleigh the benefits and joys of a nice, leisurely walk. Pardon the mud on our critters. We wanted to take advantage of the most daylight possible. They got the mud knocked off 'em later.Kayleigh loves her old man. At a spunky 22-years-old, I sure hope the old guy is with us for many more years. He worth more than his weight in gold. Sure, he can be crabby, he is set in his ways and sometimes, Kayleigh is the only one who can catch him, but he is SUCH a good boy for her.

Is there anything more beautiful than a little girl and her best friend? Every horse deserves to be loved by a little girl at least once in their life. Chief is a pretty lucky guy.

Little mysteries

There is something freaky going on around the farm.

Last week I left fly masks on the horses overnight...the mosquitoes were HORRIBLE. I sprayed the heck out of their bodies to keep the nasty little things away, but you know you just can't do a good job on their faces. So, on go the fly masks. 

Come morning, Gabe is minus his mask. Okay. I can deal with that, he's tough on his clothes. So, I search his paddock. No mask. I search Calypso and Chief's paddock, thinking maybe they were playing over the fence and one of them stole his mask. Nope. No mask. I thought, well, maybe his mask is hidden in some of the tall grass in his paddock. So, I mowed. No mask. Huh. What the heck? I mow Calypso and Chief's paddock. Still NO MASK. 

Of course I'm wondering if the big pig ate his mask. I even checked in the water tank, under his hay manger and around the outside of his paddock, just in case. Nada. 

We have two paddocks and three good-sized pastures. The horses are all locked into their paddocks at night. No one stays out in the pasture overnight. So, I'm out mowing a section of land that hasn't been fenced yet (that's on next year's list of things to get done!) and I glance over into one of our pastures and what do I see there? THE MASK! Ummm...what the heck? How did Gabe's fly mask get off his face, across his paddock, across Calypso and Chief's paddock and on the OTHER SIDE of a 2 acre pasture? It's a mystery to me! I'm going with the theory that the wind blew it there. Which would be a great theory if we had HAD any wind that night. Which we didn't. I wonder if an animal would carry something like that off. I can't imagine it, but you never know.

Second mystery: Last night I went out to the very far pasture to bring Gabe and Calypso in for the night. They come running up to the gate because they love me (read: Feed us NOW!) and I noticed Gabe's face looks odd. Really odd. Like during the day his head went from steel and dark gray to chestnut. How bizarre is that? Great, my gray horse has a weird color gene expressing itself. 

Nope. It was RUST all over his face. Rust or something like it. But I can't for the life of me figure out how the heck he got a dusting of this rust-colored stuff all over his face. Aside from the fence posts, there is no metal in the pasture. The water tubs are plastic, the gate is currently electric fencing. There is nothing he could have rubbed his head on to get it covered in this stuff. There aren't even any weeds in that pasture that would have rust-colored pollen. It rubbed off easily enough and seems harmless, but it just has me shaking my head, wondering what this horse managed to get into to leave his face chestnut colored! Weird.

I haven't worked with Gabe for the last couple of days. With the daylight waning so very early I'm only able to work one horse a night. Or give Kayleigh a lunge lesson on Chief. She has been asking more and more often to go riding with me so I do. Soon enough mom won't be cool any more and I'll be riding alone again, so I'll take every bit of riding time with her I can get. We're enjoying it. She's been riding the old man bareback which just thrills the heck out of her.

Gabe's new clothes arrived yesterday. I haven't tried them on him yet, but I must say, these blankets are the BIGGEST horse clothes I've ever owned! Star wore a 76" blanket. Gabe wears an 80". I even measured him twice, just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating! 

Ready to rumble!

Doesn't he look ready to work! He was very eager and willing today. Notice he's standing very happily tied. I've been tying him up regularly, grooming him, and just letting him stand for awhile before I do anything else. He seems to have figured it out. And no, he's not tied to the chain link fence! He'd rip that thing down in half a second if I did. My snubbing post is right next to the chain link.

I dug out a loose ring snaffle Myler bit that I absolutely love, cobbled together a bridle big enough to fit his giant head and put it on him. What a mouthy, mouthy beast he is! He played and played and played with that bit. He sucked it up in his mouth, tried to suck it back to his molars to gnaw on it and wiggled it around quite a bit with his tongue. I left his rope halter on and just worked him off the halter without touching the bit. I want him to get used to having a bit just hanging around in there not doing a thing before I start working him off the bit itself. He had a nice, thick white "lipstick" of foam on his mouth and around the bit by the time we were done. Foam is good!

I love, love, love the Myler bits. They are a tad pricey, but I really like the design of their basic bits. The more "advanced" styles of bits boggle me and I see no use for any of them.

The one I put on him is a Myler Loose Ring Comfort Snaffle, like this one.
The typical loose ring snaffle can have a potentially painful "nutcracker" effect, especially on horses with fairly narrow jaws and low palates. He has both. The Myler bits are curved to follow the contour of the mouth and tongue and add a curved "barrel" where the joint is to eliminate the nutcracker effect. It's a very, very mild bit and most horses I've used it on seem to respond very well to it. It's not entirely a copper mouth, it does have copper inlay, which has a similar effect of a full copper mouth.

The way he responded to the loose ring today I'm rethinking the full cheek snaffle. I may just leave him in this one for awhile and see how it goes. If we need to go to the full cheek, we will. I do, however, need a bridle that fits him, one that's not cobbled together from about four other bridles! He looked like an unkempt street urchin with his oh-so-attractive bridle of various shades of leather, including black AND that really, really light blondish shade. Sad.

Gearing up for winter

Robert now calls Gabe my "boyfriend." If he's my boyfriend, I must be his Sugar Mama. That boy is going to be the best dressed horse on the block! A new turnout sheet and a medium weight turnout blanket are on their way to my tackroom for His Highness right now. You know what the coolest thing about gray horses is? They can wear ANY color and look fabulous. All my horses wear purple, but I'm venturing out of purple with him and trying black, charcoal gray and navy. He just looks great in anything. I don't think I'll ever put him in pink, but, you get the drift.

I also ordered a new set of long reins. My old ones just aren't working. I used them so much with Star they developed some wear areas where they go through the rings on the surcingle, and they tend to snag. Not such a good thing when lightness and sensitivity are what I'm aiming for. It just doesn't enhance his experience if he's getting jerky tugs through the reins because they won't slide properly. I also found a decent, inexpensive lunging cavesson to complete the ensemble. I've been using his halter, but we've been having some issues with it sliding into his eye on turns. Not good, not when you want the whole long reining thing to be a pleasant experience, not one that leaves him half-blinded on sharp turns!

It has been so hard for me to not go out there and toss a saddle on him and just go for a ride. I'm LONGING to ride him. But there are a couple of things keeping me in check. I still haven't bitted him up and that's a big one. I have to measure his mouth before I pick up a new bit for him. I have probably 20 different bits in my tack trunk, but none I would use on him at this stage. I'm going to start him in a full-cheek copper-mouth plain snaffle. It's about as mild as you can get and I firmly believe all horses should go easily in a plain snaffle. Why the full-cheek? It's all about moving away from pressure. The full-cheek is designed to put pressure on the outside of his face, not just the outside of his lips and on his gums, all while preventing the bit from moving around in his mouth or sliding through his mouth if he doesn't "get it" right away. Once he figures it out, we'll move up to a D-ring copper mouth snaffle or an eggbutt copper-mouth snaffle. Can you tell I like the copper mouths? Calypso goes in a copper roller D-ring snaffle because she likes something in there to "play with", but Chief does not. He doesn't like the taste of copper at all and because he's a bit hard-mouthed and ridden by a 7-year-old, he goes in a low port Kimberwick.

I will also admit I'm a little bit wary about the first ride. I just don't know how he'll react and 16.2hh is awful high to fall from. I'm more cautious at 35 than I was at 16. I break and bruise easier and don't bounce quite as well as I once did. It's not that I'm afraid of Gabe, I'm worried that my seat won't be quite steady enough for any initial adverse reactions and I won't be able to stick it. I've been putting quite a bit more time in the saddle on Calypso and Chief in an attempt to prepare myself for the first ride on Gabe. I really need to get my butt to the gym, or commit to working out at home again and lose a few extra pounds, then I'll feel even more confident about that first ride.

I do know that once I get over the "first ride" hump, it will all be good. Well, as long as I don't get unceremoniously dumped into the dirt on the first ride of course!

Oooh! Scary!

What happens when you ask your husband to follow you and your big horse around the field popping open and closed a huge rainbow-colored umbrella and dragging a noisy tarp while you are lunging the horse?

Same thing that happens when you ask him to stand on one side of the circle you are lunging your big horse on and asking him to wave, swing, open and close the same huge rainbow-colored umbrella.

Not a thing. Not a spook, snort or white eye to be found.

Gabe looked, raised his head, eye-balled Robert and the Scary Stuff for a minute, made a couple of small, cautious steps sideways then went on his merry way listening to my commands. He even lunged over the noisy tarp and let both of us stand next to him holding the open umbrella over our heads then over his.

He was more worried about whether or not the umbrella and the tarp were edible, rather than whether they would eat HIM. I tossed the tarp up over his back, dragged it up his neck, led him around with the tarp over his body and rubbed it all over his legs and belly. He didn't care.

When he got tired of the tarp being on him, he reached around and casually pulled it off. I have a feeling this horse is going to be really, really tough on blankets this winter.

We continue our forward progression. I'm waiting for a new set of long lines to arrive before we go forward with the long reining. The ones I do have are old and keep getting snagged up in the surcingle rings, and that just won't do.

However, I have run into a bit of snag that I'm not quite sure how to fix.

Gabe walks, trots, canters and reverses on the lunge all by voice commands and body language. He halts, too, but when he halts he turns to look at me and walks in towards me. I can't figure out how to teach him to stand on the outside of the circle on a halt instead of coming in to see me and trying to stand next to my right shoulder as if he's on the lead rope. If I halt him while in close proximity and try to make him stand still while I move back to the center, he follows me. I've tried pushing him back out with the whip, I've tried re-positioning myself when asking for a halt as I'm moving towards his head and shoulder while asking for a halt instead of standing opposite his girth area. Nothing is working. I don't want to punish him for coming in to me to halt because in his mind, he's doing what I'm asking...he's halting. He's just not halting where I want him to halt while on the lunge. He's halting beautifully...if he were on the lead rope!

Any suggestions are much appreciated!

Yes, I'm a dork

Sometimes, I just can't help it. Go ahead, groan, they're bad. But you have to admit, they're funny.

Tying, revisited

I didn't get to the ridin' part last night, I got caught up in working Gabe and ran out of daylight. Another big negative about not having a real arena. Tonight will be a riding night. Calypso and I both need the work!

Gabe came out of his paddock full of spit and fire. Not bad, just up and jiggly. He was trying really, really hard to be good but I could tell he just wanted to GO!

I moved him around for awhile, sideways, forwards, backwards, small circles, turns on forehand and haunches, trying to switch gears in his brain so he could focus. He is figuring out that his job, while on the lead, is to keep a bit of slack in the lead rope while paying attention. Pulling back, going sideways or rushing is a great big no-no. Going sideways into me is an even bigger no-no and he gets a quick, sharp elbow in his shoulder and I move him quickly out of my space by forcing him over then backwards a few steps. He was wiggly and took a big jump sideways like he wanted to just dip his head and buck and leap and PLAY. I checked him with a quick,hard pull of the lead then made him back, back, back to refocus.

He grunts when he gets checked or when I growl a "no" or "Whoa" at him. It's kind of funny. He's probably the most vocal horse I've ever been around. He grunts and groans when he rolls and when he stretches, when he pees, when he bucks or rears or tosses his head around. He grunts when I reprimand him. He also makes those weird noises that only geldings make when he trots. He grinds his teeth when he gets frustrated or impatient.

I tied him to the post and he made googly eyes and snot-snorted at the upside-down bucket that wasn't there last time. Oh! The HORRORS! How dare that bucket be there! He sniffed it, I sat on it and moved it around and he got over it. He stood mostly still while I groomed him. Not as still as I like, but I'll take the few steps sideways movement over the flying backwards movement any day of the week. While I groomed his right side he tried to reach around and bite me. This has happened a couple of times previously and I just pushed him away, hoping to get his attention without having to pop him. Last night he got an elbow and the hard side of my body brush in the lips a few times for the teeth. After the third pop on his lips, he quit the biting attempts.

I thought, well, maybe he has a knot or a sore spot somewhere so I massaged and pressed and probed his neck and shoulder and side and couldn't find anywhere that elicted any kind of pain or discomfort response. I can curry him really hard and deep and he loves it, he leans his body into the curry and will actually start swaying against it, like a horse itching on a post or a tree. Yes, he grunts and groans during this part. It's when I get out a softer brush that the biting attempts start. Only on the right side. I don't know. Learned response maybe? Overstimulation? His way of telling me he's not quite done with the curry? I have no idea.

Once the grooming was done I let him stand. I moved a safe distance away and sat. And he stood. He tried to walk away and realized he was tied. He backed, slowly, a step, two steps and realized he was still tied and stepped forward to lessen the pressure. So he stood. And stood. Got bored enough to rest a hind foot and drop his head. He stood quietly. Then started getting impatient and pawed a few times. I growled "no" at him and he stopped pawing. I let him stand there figuring things out. He stood tied, not counting the grooming time, for nearly 45 minutes. Not one attempt to go violently backwards. Yay! Almost post broke!

I rewarded him with an apple, untied him, and took him out for a walk down the driveway and a graze. He was mostly good on the walk, still a bit wiggly with pent-up energy, but good. He is learning, sometimes he still behaves like a rotten teenager, but the rotten teenager moments are fewer and shorter. He is staying at my shoulder instead of barging ahead, and instead of barging ahead when he feels frisky, he tucks his head, arches his neck and takes shorter, quicker steps, all while working really hard to keep the lead rope slack, which is what I absolutely require.

I know some people would say "What a waste of time. Get on that horse!" I enjoy this ground training part, a lot, and I truly believe strong training on the ground leads to better responses and quicker understanding in the saddle. Sure, I want to ride him, but he's not ready for that step quite yet.

I've worked with far, far too many awful mannered show horses who were never taught to behave on the ground. Most of these horses did their job as a show horse very well, but were complete shits to ride and even worse to handle. I've been hurt by some of them and frightened by more than a couple. I've known ones you couldn't lead without a lip chain, groom or tack without a twitch or go into the stall without a whip. I will not own that horse. Ever. Every moment I spend on the ground instilling respect and obedience in Gabe is a better moment in the saddle, for both of us.