All posts tagged horse

Good Ponies

May 9, 2013

My ponies are so good. Today is the first day this week it hasn’t been dumping buckets from the sky. Which means I got to spend some much needed pony time after work. Simon and I got in a nice hack. Lots of circles and just general hacking. Then we did some side passing over the length of a jump pole and backing through an L shaped formation of jump poles laying on the ground.

The entire time I was brushing, tacking, untacking and sponging Simon, Linus was woofling my hair and laying his head on my shoulder. He is such a sweet thing.

Linus hasn’t been worked since last Thursday, and was eager to be groomed and tacked up. He loves the attention. I started him off on the lunge line and we picked right up where we left off a week ago. He happily walked, trotted and halted by voice command. He even showed more confidence than last week. Next I spent some time doing basic ground conditioning, leading him around, climbing on the mounting block at his side and jumping up and down while petting his ears and pulling on his mane. I did this on both sides, patting him all over, flapping the irons, rocking the saddle and lots of jumping around and whooping. Followed by good boys and reassuring pats. I also did some softening on his mouth with the reins, getting him to drop his head. Just general ground work.

I wanted to get on him, but no one was around, and since I ride in an open field, I would like someone to be around when I get on him. Hopefully that will work out Saturday afternoon.

Afterwards he sponged off like a champ and followed me around until I put dinner out. What good ponies.

The Week of Linus

May 7, 2013

Linus ended up getting about 3 weeks off while I got the vet out to sort his teeth, while he was healing up from the extraction and while I was getting Simon ready for MA1. But last week was re-start Linus week.

I started each day by tying him up and giving him a good grooming, hoof picking, etc. He is already good at being tied and groomed, but I wanted to reinforce this and start off on a good note with each session. Next I tacked him up, which he is also comfortable with. Even if I am not going to mount up, I feel that tacking up makes it clear that this is work time. I took him to a different area of the field each day and lunged him.

His lunging is rather rough. I suspect at one time it is possible he was just chased into gates in a roiund pen. I do not think the person I got him from was working him in this manner, but she only had him briefly and reworking this practice takes some time and consistancy. I want to develop a proper controlled and comfortable lunge foundation for Linus in addition to developing voice commands and hand signals. So basics up. We are in no rush.

I took him back to lunging from the ground up. I led him on a long line, and let some distance grow between us. I rotated my body towards him, slowly moving into a facing him position, continuing to let the gap between us grow. While doing this I continued to walk in a circle, moving myself more and more into a lunge position and holding my back arm up, almost in a whip like position, towards his flank. He quickly began a moving in a small lunge circle around me, and after a few nervous attempts to “bust off” he relaxed and began to walk properly around me.

The first day we primarily worked on walk and halt commands, and developing a calm demeaner where he could feel relaxed enough to learn. The second day we continued walk and halt and added in trot, with a lot of transitions up and down. Linus was much more relaxed and trusting and quickly started where we had left off the day before. The third and forth days we continued to work on his paces through trot, and he continued to improve.

He is such a pleasant pony. He is eager to please and happy to learn. But he does have some fear, and he gets nervous so it is important to me to develop a strong level of trust between the two of us. He is particularly fearful of whips, so I have been working without a whip at this point. I will add a whip slowly, because I feel it is important for horses to have respect for whips, but not fear them. Plus I’ll hopefully be starting him on games in the future, which involves whip like flags! But for now I want to work on his basics and trust.

This week it is rainy, and I have not worked him in a few days. But it will clear up eventially and we will get his studies back underway!

Shedding Time

May 3, 2013

This blog post is special for my friend and teammate, Kim.

Its shedding season, and we all know that means hair hair hair. Simon grows a nice thick pony coat, and although I clipped him two times over the winter, I still left a nice thick patch for his saddle. He is healthy and young and is shedding out nicely and running the shedding blade over him is very rewarding.

Two years ago Kim told me she had been using the furminator dog shedding brush on her pony and it was great. I totally poo-pooed her. Last weekend she mentioned it again and again I brushed it off. I believe my comment was something along the lines of, “sure Kim, I am going to use that tiny little brush on my pony, ok.” (in a mocking voice of course).

Well, I decided to give it a try and it was even more rewarding than the horse shedding blade. Simon seemed to enjoy it, and It was fun seeing all the hair clear out. Sort of like pealing glue off your fingers when you were in grade school.

Its not something I will do everyday, but I owe Kim a pat on the back and an apology for poo-pooing her idea.

*While shedding Simon, and brushing Linus – who is mostly shedded out already – Daisy was having a ball rolling around in stinky hay.

Daisy getting her roll on

before

1 Comment

by riderofchaos on May 3, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Pony Stuff

Tagged furminator, horse, pony, shedding

Posted by riderofchaos on May 3, 2013

https://blueridgepony.com/2013/05/03/shedding-time/

Pony Shock Collar Training

May 2, 2013

You already read about the overall experience at MGAA – Mounted Games Across America’s Mid-Atlantic Mounted Games Series #1 competition. You already read about how I locked my keys in my truck, and now you get to read about Pony Shock Training.

Now before you scream abuse, keep in mind the shock was less than an electric fence shock.

As is typical at venues that allow portable paddocks, I popped up a paddock in the camping area for Simon. He loves being in the middle of the action, and being free to move about, and I love the savings I get on the cost of a stall and shavings. Unfortunately, I was unable to find my portable paddock kit before I left. Ironically I packed the portable fence charger, portable spool of fence tape and the gate openers away for the winter in a place that I “would remember where the kit was come spring”. Apparently my memory is not in tune with that thinking.

I managed to scrounge up some loose pieces of tape and figured I would give it a go. I normally forget to turn the charger on anyway, and had not even bothered to hook it up all last year since he never challenged the perimeter.

I should also preference this with how annoying Simon can be. I cannot leave a bucket in his paddock or he throws and kicks it around endlessly. This includes buckets of water. He knocks them over, and then kicks them around. So I remove his buckets, offering him water at frequent and regular intervals, and keep them waiting a few yards from his pen.
Saturday morning, I woke up at 5am, prompted by my bladder. I could see Simon was still laid out snoozing away on the ground, and I slipped back into bed after doing my business, but not before he caught sight (or probably sound) of me, and nickered good morning. I ignored him and crawled back into bed. About 20 minutes later I heard him beating a bucket around. The stinkin pony had pushed his chest into the fence and stretched his neck out so he could get hold of one of his buckets and had it under him, rhythmically kicking it with all 4 feet. I climbed out of bed and took it away from him and decided that I might as well get my day under way.

That evening Simon had already eaten his feed and had a nice pile of hay to keep him company, but I noticed he was watching us with mischievous eyes while we ate our dinner. And I suppose he had had enough of not being the center of attention, and he grabbed the fence tape in his teeth and yanked it up and off the poles. We jumped up, yelled at him and put the fence back in place. But it wasn’t but few minutes later that he grabbed the top of one of the step in posts and pulled it out of the ground and marched on out and into the center of camp. I tied him up to a trailer for a while, but eventually needed to sort out what I was going to do with him for the night and decided to return him to his paddock, where he promptly started the pull-the-fence-down game back up.

Fellow camper, Genevieve had an idea. Let’s try putting the dog training shock collar on him that another fellow camper, Carol Ann had for her dog. Gen got busy, and rigged it up with bailing twine and stepped back for action. Sure enough, as soon as I let go of his halter, he went right to the fence, and Gen gave him a zap. He looked a bit confused, probably because fences usually shock the end of his nose, not his throat, and he immediately tried again. Zap. It took one more go and the pony had it figured out. He stood in the middle of the paddock and glared at us.

After a while of him not testing the fence, we took the collar off, but sure enough he went right back at it, and the collar was back on. He did not test it again, knowing the collar was the culprit.

So it was a bit of a 50/50. He clearly got the message almost instantly, but he also knew it was only enforced by the collar.

Gen applying the collar

eeek, push the button!

Annoyed with the collar on

In time out.

banging a bucket

2013 MGAA Mid-Atlantic #1 Mounted Games Competition

May 1, 2013

The MGAA – Mounted Games Across America – Mid-Atlantic Mounted Games Series started up this weekend with the first edition held at the PG Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

I arrived Friday afternoon and set up camp. Shortly after my teammates and other fellow MGAAers also arrived and set up for the weekend. A couple of us got in a nice hack Friday evening, before grabbing a bite to eat and turning in at a reasonable hour.

My team, Old School, competes in the adult “fossil” division, which usually starts off the day as the first division. This weekend my usual team of Linda, Carol Ann and Kim was joined by longtime friend, Jon and his newish pony Jeeter. Kim was also on a new pony, Milli, who has been blogged about a few times, starting back in December. We all met up in the ring, bright and early Saturday for our first session of 12 games.

We started off pretty decently, with some hand off situations to clear up and some other new pony circumstances to accommodate for. But all in all it was a good session. Simon and I rode clean, with no mistakes, as did most of the team. And we reworked some things before we went back in the afternoon for our second session of 12 games. We must have sorted something adequately because we finished the session in second. Simon and I managed to run clean again, as did most of the team, although Simon was starting to slow down even more than his usual slow pace.

It is never surprising in this division how a single simple mistake can kill the whole race for a team. For the most part riders in the adult “fossils” division complete races cleanly, and at a pretty good clip. With vaulting not being a predominate skill among all riders in the division, teams that have even a few vaulters can annihilate in races that require dismounting and remounting. Our team does not have any vaulters, and it is pretty evident in a few particular races.

After the second session we got together and discussed the orders for Sunday. Taking into account the changes the ponies were making and how the new ponies were developing.

Saturday after the final session I had a meeting with the MGAA International Team. This is a really exciting topic that I have not mentioned yet on this blog and I am not going to elaborate on at this time. So grab that suspense and enjoy the wait until I do start blogging about it in the months to come. Be excited! I am!

After the meeting I spent the evening socializing with my teammates and friends, laughing, eating, roasting marshmallows and playing with Puppies. It was a lot of fun, and Ill talk about ‘pony shock training’ in another post.

Sunday we were back to the ring for our 15 race final session. We hit the field hard with a terrible warm up race through bending, fearing that we were showing our worst side for the day. But luckily we were just working out some bugs and got our tails in gear for the start of the real first races. We cruised through the session, with Kim and Jon both borrowing Simon for a race a piece, and a total bumble on my part in ball and cone race. I pulled up too soon for my placement and was not quite close enough to reach the cone, and Simon was being a pig about moving up to it, so I placed it lefty, which sometimes seems to trick the pony on protest. I think Simon decided to get me back though, because he flicked his tail out as far as it could go, and popped the ball back off the cone. I am always aware of his backend, and had made a point of keeping it clear, so he had to have stretched his tail to its maximum to reach the ball. Stinking pony. I officially killed that race for our team, because, as previously mentioned, a single screw up in a race can cost it all for you.

Also by the final session Simon was totally carousel-ing out on me too. Plodding along at his happy merry-go-round pace, with no urge to race what so ever. He knew what he was doing and I am giving him the virtual stink eye as I type this. Smart evil pony.

I started the final race, flag fliers, and I was rockin on through it, and actually getting a decent simon-pace out of him, and somehow, my flag pull went to pot. As in, it didn’t leave the pot! I felt it slide between my two middle fingers but I wasn’t able to grip at that angle enough to keep hold of it and it slid back into the holder. BOO. Luckily it didn’t come out and I just needed to circle back for it, but wow, does it suck to mess up in the last race of the weekend. Genevieve of EquiStar Photography (who so awesomely allows me to use so many of her fantastic photos on this blog) just happened to get a great shot of me “pulling” the flag and you can totally see it popping up but not in my hand. I wonder if she can photoshop a flag into my hand?

In the end our points from all three sessions added up to a third place finish. I suppose a yellow ribbon does match our team gear. SO pa-za! But Blue matches our gear too.

I already posted about how I locked my keys in the back of my truck in the cap in a previous blog post, which sort of capped off the packing up on Sunday. Otherwise it was a wonderfully uneventful drive home and a great start to the 2013 MGAA Mounted Games Season!