Natural Horsemanship

Hey, everyone!

I'm currently working on my EPQ, and I thought that it would be a really good idea to run a survey to help my research. I'd really appreciate it if you could take a minute or two to answer the questions and share this post on! The more replies I get, the better the research my will be.

Okay, so onto my EPQ. I'm looking into the ways in which natural horsemanship affects equine behaviour and rehabilitation. Not having a horse myself, I can't practice this first hand, but I'm always impressed watching people like Monty Roberts. That in mind, I'd love to know your experiences.

1) Do you practice natural horsemanship? Why (not)?

2a) If yes, have you tried different methods (e.g. Parelli, Join-Up etc) or stuck to one style?

2b) If no, would you consider practising natural horsemanship?

3) What is your relationship with your horse like?

4) Has your relationship improved since practising natural horsemanship?

5) Have there been any other changes in behaviour, positive or negative, since practising natural horsemanship?

If you could please answer these questions in as much detail as possible, I would be much obliged!

Thanks guys,

Until next time :)

Confidence

It's funny how the little things make such a big difference when horse riding, isn't it?

You may remember how in this post I mentioned that I had a slight loss of control of Izzy when learning to do flying changes. Well, I've since had two more lessons on her (both PC) and I have to say things have gone from bad to worse.

Normally, after a little mishap, I'm perfectly fine. I just get on with it. But for whatever reason, this time, that isn't happening. The next lesson I had on this headstrong mare was a pony club session dedicated towards jumping. There were three jumps to go over by the end of the lesson, and I felt more agitated each time.

The first time I went out to jump the combination, I turned to go out on the track when trusty old ponio spooked for no apparent reason, nearly colliding with Bails. Great start, huh? She then proceeded to get twitchy every time I tried to get her to go out on the track, which is what I wanted to do so that I could have more time to bend her and get straight. I walked up to the jump for the most part, hoping that I could just trot over them, but she wasn't having any of that! We cantered over the combination. The thing is, she doesn't put a hoof wrong when jumping. She goes over the jumps without hesitation and she's so easy to stick with. The problem was getting to the jump. She kept threatening to spook every time after that.

Thus concludes that lesson. Physically I had the shakes after the spooking incident, not massively but the knots in my stomach and then my hands not being quite so steady. Mentally I was fine at first, but then the onset of feeling physically shaken up meant that a mental aspect did come into play. And so began Saturday's lesson just gone. I had a different instructor last weekend, and we were doing flatwork, so apart from feeling apprehensive when I had to canter everything was fine (oh, and the couple of times she reacted to the horse behind me getting a tap on the shoulder because she kept napping).

Yet the feeling of nervousness carried on. I don't know what it is because honestly, the lesson was fine. I'm just hoping that whatever the problem is, it'll go away with another good lesson and I can regain my confidence because it can't be nice for Izzy to feel my apprehension, even if she doesn't show it!

Do you guys have any tips for this sort of confidence issue?

Until next time!

Nostalgia

Do you ever just have them days where you find yourself missing the ponies you used to love? Today is one of them days.

We were using the old computer yesterday to upload some photos from various things that have happened over the past few months. Having not used the computer for a long, long time I couldn't resist the temptation to look through a file titled "Holly horse riding", and what I saw gave me a wave of nostalgia for the stables I used to ride at.

There are two horses in particular that I miss because I rode them a lot. The first of these horses is called Nigel. He is an Irish Sport Horse (though riding him you wouldn't believe it - his attitude was far from get up and go!). He is 15.2hh, and according to an old page on the stable's website he was 13 years old when they uploaded the profile.

How adorable is that face? I learnt to canter on this horse. I'm not entirely sure when the website was made, because although it's copyrighted to 2009 I have no clue as to whether that was for the previous website they had, or whether it's from when they revamped it and added all the horsey profiles. If we go by the copyright, then he's 19 years old now. I absolutely loved this horse, and was quite sad when his owner moved him to a different yard. I've not seen Nigel since, and he was so loveable. Obviously, I have no way of tracking him down so I don't even know if he's still alive, but he is definitely one of the horses that I'll always remember.

The second horse I'm feeling particularly nostalgic about is another Irish Sport Horse called Ronnie. Now, his canter always made me feel like I was sitting weirdly in the saddle. He had such a skinny frame that his canter literally made my hips feel like one side was further forward. But it was such a lovely canter, if I remember correctly. Ronnie was absolutely fab, and such a gorgeous roan too. He's 16hh, and according to the website he's competed for PC and BE.

I think he was sold, but I don't know who to. I've no clue if he is used for a riding school or what. I know he is a fab horse though, and whoever has owned him since his days at the stables I used to go to is really lucky. At the time the picture was taken he was about 9 years old, so he must be 15 years old by now, again assuming he's had a healthy life.

These horses taught me so much. I could list a few others from my old stables, but one of the others that I loved unfortunately passed away when an unknown virus hit the stables. The other horse, as far as I know, is still there but towards the end of my time at the stables, when I rode he r it wasn't the same as when I was beginning to ride. Although she is lovely, I think I was too used to the slightly more unpredictable youngsters.

Anywho, it'd be interesting to see if any of you recognise the above! Wouldn't that be a small world?
I hope you are all well. Feel free to share any memories you have of the horses and ponies that have stuck with you throughout the years.

Until next time!

NB: I didn't take the photos - they are sourced directly from the website owned by my old stables.

Following the leader & Plaiting

Hey everyone!

Yesterday I had my first pony club session in quite a while, and I was on my favourite horse. Naturally, I had high hopes for the lesson. Unfortunately, Bails had other ideas and decided that he would be in his follow-the-horse-in-front mood. I wouldn't have minded this too much because I was having quite the battle with the stirrups (which I had to twist twice because they were so long, and even then they were still three holes away from the shortest length) but it meant that I couldn't successfully complete the serpentine. The whole point of us doing them was to encourage bend, but where he kept falling in slightly to try and cut corners to be up close and personal to the pony in front, I had a hard time encouraging that bend when I also had to keep a firm hold on the outside rein as he wasn't responding to my leg. So that was fun. I would have worked on just the bend, but we were working on accuracy so I kind of had to keep him on the track.

We later had a little bit of a competition so see who could strike off most accurately into canter at A. Bailey, the rascal, knew he was cantering and so on the first attempt he went in the F/A corner without me asking for it. On the second attempt he still went as I moved my leg mere millimetres - not even squeezing or anything like that - and he went off like a rocket so I went too early. He lost brownies points for not listening to me, but it is something I plan to work on next time.

Another thing we started yesterday was plaiting, as we're working towards this badge next. I'm quite excited as it'll be my first badge. I'm possibly going to get the equine first aid one, but I don't feel deserving of it as I missed at least two of the sessions in regards to it and my knowledge is quite lacking. I wouldn't know what to do if an injured horse was in front of me, to be perfectly honest! I think the blue cross website and the manual of horsemanship may have to be my friend for quite a while.

Anyway, I was plaiting Bails' mane in his stable, and needless to say he wasn't helping. I've never plaited a mane before, and his was quite knotty so the separations weren't all that clean. Then, as I started to plait his head was a bit like a yo-yo as he found the best parts of the hay to eat.

I think he was deliberately being annoying when I went to tie to the braid. We were just using elastics, but he would not keep his head still, and then the braid just looked wrong. You know how you fold the braid so it's in that ball shape? Well, two folds seemed too little, but a third fold emphasised the lack of braiding at the top. I hope that makes sense. It would have helped if the separations were better.

My instructor said that next time we will be working with a needle and thread. Goodness knows I won't find that quite so therapeutic! If any of you have any tips for the plaiting the mane of a hungry horse that doesn't like keeping still, please tell me haha.

That's about all from the stables. Have you ever had any tack that just wasn't the right length/size?

Until next time :)

Almost flying!

Hey guys,

First off I just want to apologise for my erratic update schedule (or lack of). I have not forgotten about this blog, I just haven't gotten around to writing anything in a while. So today I'm going to tell you about my last two riding lessons, because they both nearly saw me flying - in very different ways.

A few weeks ago I was riding a lovely cob, who I'm sure has made an appearance in one of my other posts, and we did some no stirrup work. It was a group lesson, so thankfully there was plenty of walking. The first thing that was a bit problematic was that after the normal stretches you do when the stirrups are taken away (swinging your leg backwards and forwards from your knee then hip, rotating your ankles etc) my legs felt quite tight, uncomfortably so. The stretches basically had the opposite effect to what they should have had. I tried to shake my legs out but it didn't really help. I have narrowed down the source of the problem to either my own dehydration or perhaps because the said cob is quite wide in comparison to what I usually ride, and maybe my legs were at a weirder angle than normal, thus reacting differently to the exercises. Whatever it was, it eventually faded away and I got on with paying attention. So the next incident (and enough time has passed that I'm not quite sure if we had our stirrups back or not - if we did, then I lost them) was when we were cantering. We cantered from the front of the ride to the back, but went past the ride to circle. For whatever reason, my centre of gravity was not matching up with the horse's, so the circle was a nightmare and I very nearly came a cropper. If he wasn't one of the slightly lazier horses who is only too happy to slow the pace, then I probably would have fallen off. Thankfully I could slow him to a walk within a few steps and correct myself. It was really frustrating because I haven't had that sort of problem for a very long time, and I used to ride a horse that treated corners as though he were a motorbike. So that was that lesson, with my near flight being due to almost falling off.

The next lesson was much more dramatic. I was riding the horse I did when I had the cross country experience a few months ago. She was practically a different horse in this lesson. It was a private lesson because pony club had been cancelled, so maybe being by herself was the cause of the issue. Whatever it was, I wasn't best pleased. The first part of the lesson was fine, but the moment we got cantering it went downhill. She is quite quick, and she was not slowing down for anyone, and she was so strong that the exercise might as well have not worked. But the problem is that the horse doesn't realise she's doing anything wrong. She isn't doing it to be naughty, and it isn't that she is trying to get rid of me. She's just fast. My instructor was introducing me to flying changes, so we were supposed to pick up a canter in a corner, then cross the diagonal. We were supposed to trot over X and then pick up canter as we reached the track. By the end of the lesson I felt like I had no control over the horse. I could just about slow her down but she wasn't listening particularly well. In fact, over the diagonal she didn't trot at all, just jumped over the pole that was in the centre of the school and did a flying change. She's smart enough to know that was what we were aiming for. It was a little scary, but my instructor had faith that I would be able to pull her up. Which I did. It just meant I wasn't focussing on the riding aspect as much as staying on and slowing down. The part where I was really flying, however, was that in one corner she picked up the wrong lead and I tried to slow her down and move my feet to give a clearer aid. She hadn't come back to a trot when I must have brushed her with my heels or something (I definitely didn't kick her because I was being so careful about that, the little roadrunner she is). Anyway, she took off at what must have been very close to if not a gallop down the long side. She came back to an overly fast canter for the corner. Such fun! Hopefully the next time I work towards doing a flying change I'll be on a different, more sensible and calm horse haha.

That's about everything for this post. I hope you are all well :)

Until next time!

Flatwork Lesson

Hi everyone!

So on Friday evening, I had a private lesson on a wonderful horse that excels in Dressage (or used to... he's still fab but no longer competes as far as I know). Anyway, given that I had my normal riding instructor and the horse doesn't do jumping, we got to working on movement and suppleness. For the first five to ten minutes or so, I was riding with really long reins to ensure that the horse was stretching through his neck. Trotting with long reins is a really weird sensation, and it made me realise how much I rely on them. It's not as though I pull on them for balance, but it kind of acts as a guideline for where my hands need to be, if that makes sense. I actually kind of liked having to find my position from feeling. It made me feel slightly more competent haha! Anyway, after this warm up we worked on getting him to bend through his neck, so up the long sides we were getting him to flex his head inwards (as in turning towards the centre of the school). His left side was so stiff in comparison to his right! We worked on bending until he was supple and then threw in some serpentines. Being able to feel the change in the bend when going across the school during the serpentine was awesome. I don't think I've ever really felt that before, but with this horse you really could, and knowing what I should be feeling meant that my aids were clearer too. We also did some circles, which consisted of a few accidental canters. I think I lightly touched him with the schooling whip by accident, and my outside leg had probably slipped back as I was concentrating on using my inside leg and hand to keep him bending. He was good in coming back to the trot though, so it was ok!

Then we got onto the cantering, and wow. This horse's canter is so lovely. You know how when you watch dressage you can see the impulsion of the movement, and you can kind of sense how free it must feel? I had that sensation. Honestly, the impulsion and control was in a perfect balance, and his outline just topped everything off. It was so incredible to feel that sort of powerful elegance and I really want to book another lesson on him just to experience it again. I love Bailey, but I don't think I've ever had a canter that emulates the same feelings just because I'm spending half the time checking him as he gets too excited and just wants to go faster and faster. That's not to say that all the cantering on Friday was perfect - there were a few moments where I lost the outline and had to collect him again, but it wasn't like he was running off to get the lesson over and done with. My instructor was really happy with my riding at the end of the lesson, but in all honesty I think it was due to the horse. If he had been having an off day, then my riding would have sucked. He's just so enthusiastic about flatwork and anything remotely dressage-y that it automatically allows the rider to focus on him or herself a bit more.

My favourite part of the lesson though was actually when I was putting the horse in his stall. He decided to move to make a fuss of my dad who was outside the stable door as I was taking a bandage off, so I just took the other three off as quickly as possible seen as the first one had become a mess anyway. So once I'd done that and managed to get out of the door whilst keeping the lovable boy in the stables, I then started wrapping the bandages up properly. Whilst I was doing this, he was rubbing his nose on my arm and it was adorable. It wasn't a "I have an itch so be my scratching post" - I would have moved away if it was. The nudges were more like "Hey, what are you doing? Can I see? Pleeeaaasseee? And pass me the food that's down there?" It was so cute <3 I felt bad leaving him but alas, I can't stay at the stables 24/7. The only downside of the lesson was the length of it. When going private I can only afford a half hour lesson, but I quite happily would have been riding for an hour. Definitely one of the best lessons I've had in a while.

Well that's all from me. I hope you are well, and I'd love to hear about some of your favourite riding experiences!

Until next time :)

Back in the Saddle

Hi guys,

It's been a while since I last posted and I have a valid reason for that - I haven't been horse riding in about a month. It's been quite annoying to have missed so many sessions, especially as there are things I need to get off my instructor and of course I've missed being at the yard, but it hasn't been possible to get to my pony club sessions. Why, I hear you ask? University. That's right folks, it's that scary time of year when I must write my personal statement, pick a university and course, and make sure I have enough work experience to give me that extra edge. But perhaps all that can come in a later post!

Yesterday morning, I actually managed to have a riding lesson. Pony club had been cancelled due to a lack of people going (just a one off thing) so instead I went to my former usual riding spot of 11am on a Saturday. It wasn't my normal riding instructor taking the hour group lesson (she's on holiday and I'm a bit envious to say the least), but rather someone I had never had before. Now I don't know whether it's just because it was quite warm, or because I didn't know three of the other people in the group, or if it was just an off day, but the vibe was different. I've had better lessons to say the least. What we were doing was fine, pretty good considering that I haven't been riding in a while, but there was just a lack of engagement. But, like I say, that might not have been down to the instructor. She didn't know a few of us as well, so there wasn't a relationship as such. I don't know. I'm rambling now so I'll just get onto what we were doing haha.

I was riding my absolute favourite horse at the stables, and this definitely put me a good mood as I haven't ridden him in yonks. He was being a bit of pickle when we got to the school, as he decided he didn't want to face the wall, but rather a close by horse - meaning I had to keep a close eye on what he was doing in case he decided to kick or bite the horses either side of him. He's usually pretty good, but he was just a bit fidgety. We had been waiting longer than anyone else and he just wanted to get going! Anyway, once we were all ready, Bails and I lead the ride. We did some trot work, then we changed the order of the ride. In truth, I didn't really like this because we reversed the order. The bigger horses ended up at the back, and they were struggling to be so slow. Keeping the correct distance apart was impossible due to one horse that kept napping/wasn't sure if it needed the loo and then there was the matter of not being able to circle due to the ponies at the front eventually ending up at the back. So that part was a bit disappointing. On the plus side, we got to do some no stirrup work.

Normally, I quite like doing no stirrup work because my balance is typically quite bad, and it really opens up my pelvis and gets me sitting way deeper in the saddle. I genuinely think that after doing the no stirrup work I could have happily put the stirrups down at least one, probably two, holes. I didn't for the simple reason that I wanted to ensure my heels stayed down. The downside to the no stirrup work was that Bails wasn't feeling so kind as to give me a slow trot to sit to. He was either walking or doing his working/medium trot. There was no in between, the monkey. His bouncy trot meant that my position was absolute rubbish. I forgave him though because later on in the lesson he collected his canter quite nicely and didn't cause the horse in front to start a race.

Another good thing about the instructor was that she picked up on some riding position faults. Now, I cannot say with certainty that the faults are ones that I've had for a while, that I have because I haven't ridden in a while or because of the horse I was riding (does anyone else have any position related problems with certain horses?), but my lower legs were creeping forward and I was sitting too far back in the saddle. I was a bit worried that the saddle was too far back at the start of the lesson, so maybe I was compensating because I could feel Bails' ribs. I don't know. At least it's something I can work on for the next time I ride (and goodness knows when that will be!) so I was quite happy to have these issues pointed out. By the end of the lesson the instructor established that it's basically just my position in trot that's problematic. Canter is fine - is that a reason to just miss a gait? :P

Well that's all for today. Quite a long post, but hey, I'll probably fall of the radar for a while. I hope you're having a lovely day, wherever you are!

Until next time, friends :)