In memory..

Hoof beats on pavement, we're following the white line, homeward bound.

Safe, warm, the sweet scent of horse.

We reach the hill and you ask "Can we?"

The surge, the thrill, the wind in my ears, "We can!"

Then you teach me to fly...

Forced relaxation

It's an important lesson to learn, and invaluable when riding or training horses. How to force your body to relax, particularly when it doesn't want to.

It's a truth of riding that if you are tense, your horse will be tense, but it is also true, that if your horse gets tense, and you tense up with them, they will think they are fully justified in being tense, cue panicked horse!

This is especially true with young green horses.

I had a very good refresher course in forced relaxation this weekend with Fritha. Normally Fritha is a very sweet and willing horse. She is a bit of a worry wort, and likes to take her dear sweet time with things, but she normally doesn't have an ornery bone in her body. However this weekend I was riding Miss Grumpy Horse. Due to many events conspiring against me, I haven't been able to ride her much lately, and she has been feeling the lack.

She started out our ride with a little jiggle in her step, and the occasional hunching of her back that indicated she was thinking of a nice buck.

It was very muddy and slick, so we had to keep our pace to a walk, and it was clear she thought we should at least be trotting. I admit, that in a way I enjoyed her antics. She was striding out beautifully, and had so much GO! However, I knew that the explosion was coming. Cue time to force my back to relax. There's nothing quite like knowing that your very strong and green horse is going to explode soon, for making your body tense up. It's very hard to fight instinct on this.

Several very interesting trips around the back field, including an attempted buck while sliding down a wet muddy hill later, and we were ready to head out on our ride.

Fritha settled down for a while, and I started to really relax. Then we hit a certain corner on our ride, and she was suddenly full of it again. Not sure what it was about that corner that decided her, we hadn't turned towards home or anything, but suddenly she was hunching her back again, and trying to break into a trot every few strides.

I had just moved her away from some gopher holes in the trail, when I felt her hunch her back again. I'm not sure if she was just thinking about it again, or if she was actually going to let one fly, but regardless, something made her trip a little. Her knees buckled a little in front, and then she sat down. So there I am, suddenly much closer to the ground, perched and balanced precariously, trying to keep us both upright, and trying to figure out how to get off so she can get up, without knocking her over. My friend who was riding with us said it was the most amazing looking thing. Fritha was sitting on the ground, with her front legs slightly buckled in front of her, and my friend who had seen the whole thing said she had no idea how it happened.

As I was trying to figure out my dismounting strategy I felt Fritha gather herself, and just stand back up. Cue astonished expressions for my friend and I. That mare really does the most astounding things some times.

So after a quick lameness check we continued on with our ride. Fritha was behaving much better, perhaps because she now believed I had the magic ability to make the ground swallow her half up. Fritha had settled down, but I hadn't. I was tense as a harp string. Cue time for more forced relaxation. Big deep breath, let it out, relax my lower back. All of four strides later, I had to repeat the process.

If there is one thing I hate as a horse rider, it is having my horse go down with me. Now that Fritha was back up and walking, and I should have been able to relax, of course I couldn't. Reaction hit, and my body was pumped full of adrenaline. This is of course all completely normal human reaction. It is also of course completely wrong for what I needed. It took me 8 times to convince my body to stay relaxed.

Once I convinced myself that the danger was over and managed to relax, the difference was immediately apparent in Fritha. She relaxed and went out confidently, listening well. She had gotten her piss and vinegar out of her system, I was relaxed, and she went back to being the dream to ride that she normally is.

We even had our first water crossing. She did wonderfully, despite trying to stop in the middle and roll.

We had a great ride.

Relax.........

Breathe deep..............

and RIDE!

Not to much, not to little.

One of the things that I worry about, is how to maintain the appropriate level of training for the age of the horse.

It's not so hard with Fritha. At 4 she is old enough to do quite a bit of training and trail riding, but all the same, I occasionally have to remind myself that she is only 4, and she has many more years to learn and advance.

I worry about the day I bring home my Barb foal. Will I remember to go slow? Will I go too slow, and not teach enough?

My best (human) friend ran up against this worry recently. That's her lovely 18 month old Friesian colt in the pictures. She started worrying that she wasn't doing enough with him. "Does he know everything he needs to know at this age?" or even "Is there anything more I could be teaching him right now?"

I gave her lots of reassurance that he was right on track, and not to worry. He's a good boy,

very sensitive, very responsive. She's gone through all the ground work with him. He bathes, he stands for the farrier. He's learning all about the clippers. We've even ponied him along with us on some short trail rides, so that he can learn all about the world.

He's a good boy, and she is doing a good job with him, but still she worries. It makes her a good horse person.

So today she got a second (or maybe it was third or fourth) opinion. Sure enough, he's doing great. He's right where he needs to be.

Right now, all he needs is consistant handling, and lots of good quality time with his human. As for my friend, she was much reassured.



I can only hope that when the time comes, and I'm all worried about my Barb colt, "Am I doing enough, or am I doing to much." She will be the one to tell me when it's just right.

I might be crazy

As I slogged through the ankle deep mud picking sodden poop out of Fritha's paddock tonight, I felt a great sense of peace and satisfaction.

Obviously there is something very wrong with me. It was cold, wet and miserable. The mud bogged the wheelbarrow down. The poop was heavy. I was happy.

As wonderful as it is to go for a long trail ride, or to have a great break through in the arena, the daily peace and joy that comes just from being at the barn, and around my horse is what sustains me.

When I was done cleaning her paddock, I gave Fritha a pat on the neck, and she gave me a shove with her nose, as if to say "Hey Human servant, enough pets, I would like my food now", and that made me happy too. Yep, I'm pretty sure I'm crazy.

Training with praise.

My mother always taught me to ride with soft hands, and soft aids. She emphasized that you want the horse to respond to the softest possible cues. She told me that if I had the opportunity to train a horse for myself, if I kept them soft, and trained them right, that it would be like magic. I would be able to communicate so well with my horse, that I could place each hoof upon the ground just so.

I must admit that on some level I never quite believed her. You were right Mom! I admit it. But still, when it came time to train my own horse, I knew that I wanted to follow her principles of training.

My mother taught me a lot, but Fritha has taught me so much more. Understand, despite my many years riding and training horses, I've never been the one to take a horse all the way through the process, from ground work to under saddle. I'd been in on lots of bits and pieces of it, but I'd never been through the whole thing myself, and I was pretty scared of messing it up.

Most of the training I've done on horses through the years has been retraining. I'm used to having to work to get the respect of a soured horse. I'm used to softening a horse, but I'm also used to lots of stubbornness.

The training I've done instilled a level of hardness in me. A quickness to jump in with correction. A tendency to discipline to sternly. Fritha has forced me to learn a different way, and I have to say, it has been nothing but beneficial.

Normally with horses there is a period of time where it must be established between horse and rider, who is the leader. With some horses, particularly dominant ones, it must be reinforced on a regular basis. Fritha is a very dominant horse. I knew this about her before going to see her the first time. She was also said to be very standoffish, and nervous in her own way. I expected that it would take some time working with her before she warmed up to me, and before she respected me. Instead, it happened within moments of meeting her. I still do now know how I lucked out, that she acknowledged me right away as being dominant, but she did. Maybe it has to do with the communication between us instead. Regardless, I never had to establish my leadership with her. This put us on different footing right away.

Fritha is a great horse to teach you things, because as I said before, she speaks to you. She doesn't hide her feelings in the least. I discovered very soon after meeting her that she was extremely eager to please. She worried constantly about doing the wrong thing, and getting in trouble completely frazzled her nerves. This was both wonderful for training, and difficult.

I quickly learned that most of the emphasis with her needs to be on PRAISING the good behavior, and that discipline needed to be limited, and used very carefully. The best lesson on this for me, was teaching Fritha to stand still for mounting.

My first inclination when Fritha started moving off before I had even hit the saddle at mounting time, was to correct the bad behaviour. A stearn "No" a check with the reins, reinforcing the Stand command, try again. This was a new behaviour for Fritha, and had to do with her being eager to get started, but the more I corrected the bad behaviour, the more nervous and upset she got about it, until mounting times had become dangerous, and I was back to having someone hold her for mounting, as I had done when first starting her under saddle.

One day I decided to work on just mounting and dismounting. She was OK in the arena, not great, but OK, but once we tried mounting in the back field her behaviour went down hill again. I would position myself to mount, she would fidget backwards. I would correct sternly, she would get more upset. I tried backing her every time she moved away from me, to show her it was easier to just stand, but this only frazzled her brain worse. Finally I stopped, totally frustrated, and then it hit me. I wasn't listening to her at all. I'd stopped listening to my horse. I was trying to train her using all of these "methods" I knew, but I wasn't using the strongest tool in my arsenal. So I gave my horse a hug, and walked with her a bit, she calmed down, and I started listening to her. We went back to the place we had been practicing our mounts, and I stopped her there, and praised her. I told her to stand, and then praised her for not moving. I stood stroking her shoulder, telling her to stand, and praising her for not moving. Then I moved back to the saddle and she stepped away a little. I didn't correct, I just moved with her, waited till she stood still, and then praised for not moving. A light bulb went off in her head "You mean you want me to just stand here?"

Yep, all that frustration, all that supposed training, she had understood none of it. All she really needed was to understand what I wanted. Within a few minutes of praise and repeated stand commands she was standing patiently while I hopped on and off. The best of it is, that training has STUCK.

Now I find that my horse training has improved over all. When I am working with the stubborn lesson horse, that has been spoiled by students, I'm more likely to remember to praise, praise, praise the good behavior, and the amazing thing is how well it works on all the horses. I've always known that you should train with a balance of praise and discipline, but this lesson was just the reinforcement of that ideal that I needed. I've made my over all training softer, more praise driven, and I think I am a better horse person for it.

So now I think maybe my Mother would be proud. I have softer training to go with the soft hands and soft cues she taught me. Now to see what else my horse will teach me.

Re-finding your skills as a Re-rider.

As a re-rider, one of the hardest, and most humiliating things has been finding out exactly where my skills have atrophied. I still distinctly remember the first time back up on a horse. It had been a couple years at least since the last time I'd found a horse to ride. I was a little nervous getting on. I kept thinking "how much have I forgotton?", but once I was on board that all went out the window. I was too busy thinking "Holy Cow, when did the ground get so far away!" to worry about atrophied skills. Of course once I relaxed a little, my old rusty muscle memory squeaked something to me about seat, and posture, and hands, and soon I was relaxed, and speaking to the horse again. But some part of me still goes "Holy Cow, when did the ground get so far away" every time I get on.
Before getting Fritha, I spent some time with a good friend of mine, riding her horses. She has a couple of lovely lesson horses. I'm so glad now that I got that ride time in before tackling Fritha. However, those lesson horses are all Paint/QH's. The main lesson horse Beau has the very typical smooth jog trot. Riding Beau bareback gave me a very false sense of confidence about my skills.
I recently started riding bareback on Fritha. I had planned to wait to ride her bareback until she was closer to 6, but some problems with saddle fit pushed that up a little.
I was nervous about her reaction to my being up there with no saddle, and very nervous about how she would deal with bareback mounting, and all the flailing that has to go on in order to get my short round self up on a horse . I SHOULD have been nervous about my rusty skills. Fritha was a doll for mounting. Fritha was as willing to please as always once I was mounted. She was a little nervous, but otherwise was listening for the slightest cues I might give her. Unfortunately I was giving her all sorts of unintentional cues, slight and otherwise. Every shift in my seat, every clutch with my thighs was a cue she tried to follow. We weaved a rather drunken path through the arena. I was finally able to quiet myself at the walk enough to build confidence and start to enjoy the added sensitivity. Then I asked for a trot. I am so very glad there was no one there to witness it. Fritha the wonderful patient soul that she is refused to try and trot again. It took much to convince her that I wasn't going to fall off, and that it was safe to trot. She finally tried again, and I was maybe a smidgeon better. Where were my skills?
I've always been good at sitting trots bareback. I rode some rather spectacularly bouncy trots as a teen. I'd practiced on those lesson horses...but of course, that was the problem. Practicing on those smooth low jog trots in no way prepared me for sitting Fritha's big, round, forward trot.
So what was a the solution? More practice of course, this time on Fritha. I'm slowly remembering the things my body needs to do.
Of course, in the perverse way of things, I retain muscle memory, not just for the good riding I've done, but also for the bad. All those hard lessons I learned as a kid about keeping my legs long I get to learn all over again.
But I admit, the occasional bout of humiliation aside, I am loving every minute of it. Even feeling like a sack of potatoes, the joy of being on my horse is there. The feeling of peace and contentedness follows me through my day.

Introducing myself and Fritha

Meet Fritha.
Fritha saved my sanity.
I grew up with horses. As a young child I was absolutely in love with my parents draft horses. Our old Belgian gelding Fritz used to baby sit me. When I was old enough, my mother got me a lovely cantankerous Welsh pony. Amos taught me much about horsemanship and riding, and much more about patience, and the importance of taking a grain bucket into the pasture with you to catch a pony. Then came Drum. Those of you who know me, know Drum, even if you never met him. I spent most of my teen years on that horse, and I loved every minute of it. Drum's death seemed to sap the joy I took in horses right out of me. I eventually let horses slide from my life.
Fast forward 7 years. My mother, the horse woman who taught me so much has died, and I'm suffering from depression. I've become a mother, a wife, but I am no longer the one thing that has always brought me peace...a horse woman. My best (human) friend has bought a Friesian colt, my dream horse, another good friend Tamara, is raising the most beautiful Barb horses. I'm ashamed to admit, part of me was jealous. I longed for a horse. I was terrified of getting one. Then Tamara, who is a true friend, and understands the horsey longing, offered to breed me my very own Barb foal! I was excited, and scared. If you read her blog, you will understand what a fabulous horse woman she is. What if I couldn't get my skills back. What if I made a mess of the beautiful horse she entrusted to me. For all my fear and confusion on the subject, I was also somewhat distanced from the idea. I was very depressed at the time, and afraid to get my hopes up about a foal. When the news came that Sandstorm had lost the foal, it hurt, but Tamara said we could try again the next year. On some level, I think I believed I would never have a horse again, so I accepted it. Then Tamara contacted me with a video, that I swear to this day looked like a baby moving around inside Sandstorm. We weren't sure if she had not lost the baby before after all, or if she had aborted a twin, or even if Insider had re bred Sandstorm. Regardless, I had a baby on the way, and this time I was excited, no scratch that, I was over the moon. Everyone saw that video. I'm afraid I inflicted it on every single co-worker to pass by my desk. I started buying horsey gear. I arranged board. I arranged hay. I was set. Sandstorms due date came and went. No baby. We waited, but no sign of baby, and no sign of pregnancy. This time I was devastated. My hopes had been sky high. I was ready to have a horse again, still scared to death of messing it all up, but ready. I could have waited a year. Trudged on in depression, and started out with a baby, scared to death of messing it up. I'm so very glad that's not what happened.
Enter Fritha.
I decided since I had everything set up to get a horse this year, that I should go ahead and get a horse, but what kind of horse. I wanted a horse that my husband might be able to ride eventually. My husband is a large man, so it had to be a solid horse. My husband is also afraid of heights, so it couldn't be too tall a horse. I went looking for draft crosses. It was a real eye opener to take a look around the Internet for horses. I soon had leads for a number of horses, but none of them seemed right. Then I saw an ad for a horse named Jasmine a four year old Percheron/QH cross.

I liked the look of her right away. She looked solid, with a nice stocky draft build. I liked her owner almost instantly upon talking to her, and the more we discussed the mare, the more sure I became that this horse was going to be the one. She was going to an interesting training prospect. She had 30 days training on her, and had been ridden, but from everything the owner said, none of it had stuck with her, and she was going to need to be started over again. I admit this sounded intriguing to me, but I tried to keep my options open. I went and saw another horse, and contacted more people about their horses. Finally I got my chance to go meet Jasmine. I won't say it was love at first sight, but it was pretty darn close. Maybe it was more, that my inner horse ear, the one that I swear can sometimes hear a horse thinking perked up and started quivering. This mare spoke to me, loud and clear. Within moments of meeting her, she was telling me exactly what she needed. I didn't have to dig it out of her, and I didn't have to strain myself to hear. Jasmine came home with me, and was given a new name Fritha.

So now I have a horse again, now I have my therapy. Fritha is like magic in my life.

I hope to share here in this blog, about the magic that is Fritha in my life, about learning the horse world again as a re-rider, about rediscovering the truth in the wonderful training that my mother instilled in me, and most of all about the journey that Fritha and I have together.