Posts Tagged ‘natural horsemanship
Take a Seat
We’re now less than a month away from the first appearance of the summer for Painting Pony. This year our first appearance will be in New Jersey, at the site of the Mounted Games Across America National Competition. This is a new venue for us, and I’ve been racking my brain for a new performance idea, or some new tricks. I finally decided that we just need some more “wow” tricks. To me this means some funny/goofy tricks, and some amazing tricks.
So trick number one involves the magnificent Boomerang! Boomer will be attending this competition as my designated mount, while Minnow will be attending solely as a performer. Since its rare that I bring two trick ponies along with me to a performance, I decided to utilize this rarity by teaching Boomer something “amazing”.
See Minnow’s specialty is manipulating objects around him. He will pick up anything I hand him, and can easily figure out what to “do with it”. His weakness is putting himself into vulnerable positions. I attribute this to his wild island pony background, as well has his brief stint in a home that neglected him. And although I have been working with him for the past 7 years, he still feels too vulnerable to let me near him when he lays down. So for my next planned trick, Boomer was the obvious choice.
For I decided to teach him to sit.
In the past two weeks I have been working on moving Boomer from the ground. We’ve worked on his backup, his spin on the haunches, and spin on the forehand. With each day, Boomer is becoming progressively lighter in all directions. So on Monday I decided to lug out a bale of straw to see if I could get him to learn the beginnings of putting some of his weight on it.
Boomer is a pretty trusting pony, having had no major life traumas and the fact that he was “home raised” in a loving environment. He’s pretty willing to try anything, and if it involves food he’ll definitely try it. Within a minute of asking Boomer to back his hind end into the straw bale it was evident that he was going to take to sitting pretty quickly. After about the third try I had him resting a good bit of his weight on his hocks, which were leaning on the haybale – and I had him holding it!
Had I moved the bales away from the fence line I probably could have had him “sitting” on them too! But I decided to save the next step for another day.
Boomer was pretty proud of himself and his new trick. As I stepped back to snap a few photos of him he just kept trying to sit deeper and deeper onto the bale (of course I was sure to keep clicking a rewarding each effort he gave). I can’t wait to drag the haybales out tomorrow for another session with him…this time I have a few bean bag chairs too!
Boomerang Training Update
As many of you know I have been training my now 7 year old Chincoteague Pony, Boomerang, to play mounted games since August of 2008. I’ve spent a long time working with him and we still have a long way to go. This year was the first year I stepped him up to compete in the masters level of Mounted Games, because I believed he was emotionally ready. And while he is emotionally ready, we still have a lot of specific skills I’d like to work on with him. Our training will never be finished as I believe there is always more we can learn together, but I do think with a few more specific skills he will be pretty polished.
On Sunday we had a clinic at the farm with Natural Horsemanship Trainer, Chris Carlile. I was able to take away a few things that I will start to implement into his training. I plan to do a full post and review on the clinic later – as I’m waiting to get some photos and videos back from my dad.
But in the meantime I do have a video from yesterday.
I was working with Boomer on teaching him to ride with speed to an object, settle into a nice square halt, and then ride off with speed when I gave him the signal. Obviously when we started out we began at a trot and have now worked up to a controlled canter, but the hope is to eventually be able to do this at a gallop. In mounted games, the best ponies are able to ride with bursts of speed, yet quickly transition to a solid halt so their riders can perform tasks like putting a flag into a chute, or placing a ring on a peg. If Boomer can master this skill in the heat of competition, then I will have a valuable “weapon” to use in wining a race.
I love watching this video because I can see Boomer really starting to push off of his hind end more. I’ve spent a long time teaching him to rock his weight back in order to propel himself forward. Boomer is naturally more on his forehand, and its been a challenge to teach him not to be, but this video proves that he’s definitely starting to get it, and build the muscle for it. I’m excited to see more improvement in the months to come.
Painting Pony Website Has New Look!
After months and months of hard work, mostly on my husband’s part, we have finally launched the new Painting Pony Website. The old website was outdated and drab, mostly because it was the product of my tinkering and teaching myself how to design a website on my own. And while I WAS thoroughly impressed with myself and my ability to at least create a functional website, it wasn’t a true representation of Painting Pony.
Painting Pony needed a brighter look that was playful and fun, just like the ponies. I also envisioned a beach-ier feel, after all the ponies do hail from an island, and I wanted the website to have more information about Misty of Chincoteague.
Enter my graphic designer husband. He unknowingly agreed to design me a new site, probably not realizing it would take up most of his free time for the next 6 months. He deserves a big pat on the back for putting up with all my changes and stipulations. I promised him the ponies would sell more paintings so I can take him out to dinner to celebrate!
So to help kick off the launch of the new website I’m offering a FREE 5×7 mini painting with EVERY purchase. Makes a great gift for your favorite horse lover, or simply keep it for yourself! Enter the coupon code NEWWEB in the notes to seller section during check out to get your free gift. This offer will expire on May 31, 2010.
Mid-Atlantic #1 with Boomerang
This week has been crazy busy, so I’m just now finally getting around to posting about what has been going on. Last weekend I traveled to Upper Marlboro, Maryland (and the Prince George Equestrian Center) with Boomerang, the Dachshund, and my husband. The purpose, to take Boomer to his very first mounted games competition in the Masters division. I spent two days competing and camping with my little crew.
What I love about Boomer is his ability to adapt to almost anything. After 3 plus hours of travel Boomer walked off the trailer in pitch black darkness in a strange place. He glanced around, took a deep breath and looked at me like “ok, whats next”? No calling for his friends, no worrying, just a calm relaxed pony.
I pretty much knew that’s how Boomer would be, he’s been like that since he came to live with me in the Summer of 2008 (probably attributable to his great upbringing at 1000 Welcomes Farm in NC). What I wasn’t sure about was how he’d be competing in the Masters Division. For the past 2 years I’ve been training him for this, working on control and the races, and eventually working up to more speed. In my equine sport, this is rare. If you can equate mounted games with anything, its horse racing. Fast, Fast, Fast, all the time. Ponies are thrust into competition and taught to go, go, go. As a result I’ve seen many ponies have meltdowns. Refusing to cross the start line, exploding with aggression during competition. I didn’t want to train Boomer this way. I wanted him to LOVE mounted games as much as I do.
Naturally I’m a more cautious rider, I prefer to have a pony that I KNOW will stop when I want him to, but is also willing to GO FAST when I want him to. I knew what would happen if I just threw Boomer into top-level competition too soon. I’d be faced with a pony that fed off the adrenaline of the other ponies, jumping and rearing on the start, then flying out of control through the races. Boomer needed to learn self-control first. So instead of rushing him, I spent 2 years training him with clicker training. I taught him an amazing stop (in a bitless bridle I might add), I taught him to move off my leg, I taught him to balance his body better (he could barely walk down a hill without tripping over his 5 year old body when I got him), and I taught him to spin properly with the power coming from his hind end (not such an easy task when you have a pony that’s naturally on their forehand) among many other things.
So this was it, my two years of work with him culminating to this moment. As I stood on the start line with him I could feel Boomer’s excitement rising. He felt the energy of the other ponies, riders, and me. No matter how hard I tried to make myself relax, Boomer could still feel my excitement. I could think calm all I wanted, but my body language still said “its racing time”!
Boomer let out a few initial low rears on the start, which is certainly understandable for this newly turned 7 year old – its the nature of the beast. But what I didn’t expect was his off like lightning speed, after spending 5 years as a hunter show pony he was still overcoming his need to keep a steady rhythmic pace. So with the excitement of the day his desire to run kicked in, he kept up with his much speedier competition yet still had himself under control. His halts were amazing as he slowed just to my voice commands for the most part. Boomer even had himself rocked back onto his hind end for our spins. My teammates commented on how they loved how Boomer used his back end to propel himself into the turns and how light he was on his front end. My Boomer? This is not something I ever equated him with. After 2 years I was still struggling to get him to rock back around a tight spin, but somehow this day it all clicked for him.
I was extremely pleased with Boomerang’s performance over the weekend. We had a few issues with him scooting away during hand-offs (because he was scared), but that is certainly understandable since I haven’t had anyone to ride or practice with in nearly 6 months. Luckily one of my teammates was able to help me work on handoffs a little as I clicked Boomer for keeping his feet stationary and not shying away. We will definitely have to work on this more in the coming months.
Boomer was as magnificent as I pictured him to be. Slowly we are forming a relationship and an understanding of each other. – something I have been longing for since I had to retire my one true horse love, Minnow. Nothing will ever compare to the connection that Minnow and I share, but I hope to one day come close with Boomerang. I’m very much looking forward to this mounted games season, and excited to see how much more Boomer will progress. This is only the beginning.
New Paintings by the Boys
Things have been crazy busy around here, but the boys and I finally found time to create some new paintings. And with that I have exciting news as well, Chesapeake Boomerang has learned to paint! He now joins his brothers as the third painting Chincoteague Pony, but more on that later. For now I give you Chincoteague Minnow’s and Chesapeake Lightning’s newest creations from on April 19, 2010! We started experimenting with new paintbrushes and I think the results are fantastic. These paintings are very different from anything the boys have painted before. So if you see one that catches your fancy be sure to snatch it up, remember these are one-of-a-kind original paintings and no two will ever be the same. To see all of the available paintings visit our online shop HERE.
"Yellow Buttercup" by Chincoteague Minnow
"April Raindrops" by Chincoteague Minnow
"Swoosh" by Chesapeake Lightning
"Spring Mix" by Chincoteague Minnow
"Dancing with the Wind" by Chesapeake Lightning
So what do you think? Have a favorite? Do you like the new effects with our new brushes? We’d love to hear your feedback!
