Posts Tagged ‘parelli
Alternative Competitions
As I have mentioned before in Mid-May my family and I will be moving our 5 horses, plus 2 borders out to our new farm, Iron Horse Farm. In order to be able to afford our beautiful place we need to make a certain amount of money each month. Our borders will cover some of the costs, but it isn’t going to be quite enough. So to defray some of the costs associated with our new farm I have been brainstorming ideas of how we can achieve this. I thought about taking on some project ponies to train and resell, but while the ponies are at our place they will cost money, and honestly I have never had to sell a horse. I am certainly capable of training a horse (I have countless ponies/horses I have trained over the years) but having to give up a horse you worked so hard to develop might be difficult for me – not to mention I have my own ponies to train. There is the option of taking on some other borders (we have 2 more open stalls), but honestly we like the idea of a “small private farm”, so its an option, but more of a last resort.
Iron Horse Farm's Large Outdoor Arena
So my final conclusion was to hold some competitions – certainly our enormous 150′ x 280′ ring will be a wonderful asset for competitions. The only drawback is that currently we have screenings put on it as a base for atleast 6 months when we can then apply a footing to it. Most serious competitors will not travel for inadequate footing – and honestly I’m not really interested in the typical hunter/jumper show – or even a dressage show. My first choice would be a mounted games competition (being that this is my discipline of choice), but again the footing will not be ready for this high-speed action yet. So I thought the perfect solution would be a gymkhana/trail class/skill challenge type event. I saw something similar to this at a horse expo this year where they took riders from all disciplines and asked them to complete a series of challenges where judges judged them on how well they completed the tasks. In my area we have a very large Parelli barn that is always interested in taking their horses to events such as this. I think it would be a great way to provide all disciplines with a competition that could hone skills, introduce their horses to new things, and just be a lot of fun to attend. Now I have to set about developing this competition – I’m determined to make it unlike anything else that is out there today – I think I have a lot of work ahead of me. Running through my mind right now is a mixture of timed events, skill completion events, and strictly fun events. Any and all suggestions are welcome – above all I want to make it a positive experience for everyone who attends, I think it should be a competition tailored more to achieving goals with your horse rather then earning a first place ribbon. If I held these once a month I think it would give people a goal to work towards – like last time my horse wouldn’t go near that ball, maybe this time he will calmly walk past it.
View of our farm from my father's plane, you can really see the large arena!
I’m looking forward to starting a new trend in competitions in my area – or so I hope. I feel very up to the challenge!
Music to my Horse’s Ear
I came across a website today with some surprisingly addictive music on it. I don’t consider myself a “fan” of country music at all really, but for some reason the music of artist Mary Ann Kennedy made me laugh and want to jump in the saddle all at the same time.
Grammy nominated hit songwriter from Nashville, TN., Mary Ann Kennedy, creates music that celebrates the horse. A dedicated Parelli Natural Horsemanship student herself, Mary Ann seems to express what we all feel in our hearts for our beloved horses and the life we all live with them. Through melody, rhythm and humor in song, this is music that we horse lovers can listen and ride to.
It was interesting to find out that the artist is also a Parelli follower, with many of her songs made specifically for the Parelli program. Horsenality being one of the most recognizable Parelli ones to me (I haven’t really followed the program, but on occasion I receive articles and readings from my instructor who is a dedicated follower of Parelli – I’ve discovered that I have 2 left brained ponies and one right brained one). Horses in Heaven was sort of a neat song for me, made my think of one of my childhood ponies that I lost last summer unexpectedly, he had been with me since I was 10 years old. You can see a photo tribute to my beloved, Oopsie Daisy by clicking HERE. On the lighter side of things I thought Barn Cat was pretty humorous, there are some other great ones on her website too. I thought some of the songs might be great to perform to with my horses. Anyway, enjoy!
Boomer in Training
Chesapeake Boomerang 4/13/09
I decided to post a video I took today while I was working with Chesapeake Boomerang or Boomer. I wish I had a video from when I first brought him home, because the difference in him is amazing. Boomer is a 2003 registered Chincoteague Pony (which makes him 6 years old currently), I still consider him to be very young and inexperienced. When I got him last year he was broke to ride, but he still needed (and still does) a lot more improvement. Unfortunately where I keep him right now there is no ring, and the only area that is remotely useable is a semi-flat open field, that also floods. So when I first started riding him in this area, lets just say our rides together were far from calm. I was dealing with bucks and rearing and I would have never been able to ride him alone.
But from this video (sorry for the far-away shot, it was difficult to film by myself) you can see that I have a much different horse. It was a little swampy so we had some sticky spots – and this is mostly why I am only trotting him. But incase its too far away to tell – I am working on getting Boomer to stop with his hind end under him, I then proceed to ask him to back up and spin on his haunches. It might be hard to tell but I am actually barely using rein pressure, I’m instead over exaggerating my seat and leg movements, hence why I throw my legs forward for the halt and why I lean way back when asking him to back up. Eventually when Boomer’s responses to these signals are much quicker I will not over-exaggerate them as much.
Boomer in his bitless bridle 4/13/09
After watching this video you may be asking yourself, I thought she used reward-based training methods to teach her horses, so where are the treats? And my response to that is that I don’t use it for everything, or all the time for that matter, simply because I don’t need to (again a common misconception among people is that you always need treats when riding if you use reward based methods). When I first got Boomer one of the first things I did with him was teach him to target a ball, shake hands, stand on a pedestal and give me a kiss. For these “tricks” I used clicker training (with treats) to train him. Once I had a language going with Boomer (I ask you something, you figure out what it is, you get rewarded) we had a solid way to communicate. So when I took to riding Boomer, and for example wanted to teach him to back up, all I did was sit way far back and give light taps on the rein. As I waited patiently (sometimes for a very long time) for even a step, Boomer was constantly thinking about what he had learned with me before (I ask you something, you figure out what it is, you get rewarded), so when that first step came Boomer got a great big pat and good boy. (All my ponies learn that good boy/girl means job well done – since all my treats are accompanied by this in the beginning). He didn’t need a treat right then, the “good boy” was reward enough for him. The promise of something good when he figures it out is all he needs, I truly believe horses thrive off of our approval and they simply just want to please us. Its in their nature to be “part of the herd” so to speak.
Slow down, you move to fast
Taking small steps to get Blitz to target the ball when he first came to live with me. May 2008
I just read a great article on a Parelli Blog about moving too quickly for your horse. You can read the article HERE. I don’t really follow the Parelli method, but I think as trainers we can take inspiration from any and everything. This article really touches on what I was talking about yesterday in my “to observe” post. We all want everything done RIGHT NOW (hence why fast food came about), but the fact is our horse may not be ready for “our right now”. We need to learn to take cues from our horses about whether or not we are moving too quickly for them. Horses are smart but they aren’t mind readers, just because we think what we are asking them is so simple doesn’t mean they understand. One of my favorite trainers always says to me “ride for tomorrow” meaning ride and train your horse for what you want it to be tomorrow not today – more simply put, don’t rush it. You will have a better animal if you take simple steps to get to your bigger goal.
-KD
