Posts Tagged ‘trick
Hippo….what?
As promised I have plenty of new and exciting things going on with the trick ponies! I stayed at Iron Horse Farm until 10pm last night working with the horses. I missed them so much after my week-long beach vacation. After spending the week reading my new book “The Click that Teaches: Riding with the Clicker” by Alexandra Kurland I had lots of ideas spinning in my head that I wanted to try with my own horses. So when I arrived at the barn around 6pm last night, the first thing I did was drag out an old bareback pad that I had. I attached stirrups to it as well as some extra thick pads underneath for added cusioning. I “saddled” up Minnow and threw a bitless bridle on him. I think Minnow was a bit concerned because he hasn’t had any type of girth on in well over a year – due to his diagnosis of ringbone (equine arthritis) in March of 2008. (don’t worry all we did was walk)
My plan was to attempt the hippodrome stand. Now if you are hearing this word for the first time you are probably thinking – what the heck? Basically the hippodrome is a trick riding term which pertains to standing on the top of your horse while he usually gallops around the arena. Many trick riders use this in their performances and some even perform the hippodrome roman style – meaning having 2 horses in tandem that they stand on. I’ve never had any trick riding training, and honestly I’ve only ever seen it performed in demos/exhibitions. I secretly wish I could attend a trick riding school because it looks so cool.
So that being said – here is an example of a young girl doing the hippodrome stand on her pony Puddles.
I have noticed that most trick riders perform the hippodrome with a special trick riding saddle that in addition to having lots of extra straps and handles to hold onto, it has 2 foot loops near the front to put your feet into in order to perform the hippodrome. But since I don’t own a trick saddle I figured I’d try to do it bareback (hence the bareback pad). I have seen bareback roman riding – but I haven’t been able to locate any hippodrome stands with a single horse and bareback. Maybe its not possible? Its definitely hard! Lucky for me Minnow is so fat and wide that I had a little extra room to spread my legs for balance. But before I say much more….watch my attempt below:
As you can see when Minnow starts and stops suddenly it is very hard to keep my balance (hence why I fell off at the end). I was trying to experiment with different ways to position my feet for balance. I think I’m going to have to do a bit more research – especially to find out if anyone performs the hippodrome without straps to straddle the horse. This idea would be very similar to the way a jockey rides. Their stirrups are so short that when a jockey straightens his legs he’s almost standing.
So anyway I hope you enjoyed my failed attempt at the hippodrome stand. If there is any trick riders out there I welcome as much help as I can get! Check back on tuesday – because I not only worked on the hippodrome stand with Minnow, but I also taught him a brand new trick. But for suspense you will have to wait till after the weekend to hear about it!
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Targeting
My new target stick infront of some of Minnow's paintings
I just recieved my new trick whip (or target stick) that I ordered from Imagine A Horse. Its advertised as a foal want because the ball on the end is extra large and soft and the stick is more like the length of a riding crop. I chose it (obviously not because I have a foal), but because I needed something shorter that I could attach to my belt and wouldn’t drag on the ground. I currently had one of their combo whips which I use ALL the time. All of my boys are very target oriented and I use the wand to direct them into positions and even point to objects I want them to pick up. For any of you that don’t know what targeting is, its teaching the horse to touch an object, in my case I use this whip with a ball at the end as my target. I love teaching my ponies to target because it can be used for anything, and its such a useful skill to have in your bag. I have used the target to teach all of my ponies to self load onto the trailer. I also have used it with Blitz to convince him the the wash stall is not a scary place. And imagine your horses get loose at a horse show, all you have to do is whip out the target stick and you quickly have an easily catchable horse. (Sadly I admit this has happened to me a few times – Minnow can have a naughtly streak) 🙂
Targeting is the very first thing that I teach all of my horses. Its also a great way to introduce them to the clicker. Everytime they touch the ball they get a click and a treat.
I’ve also found that my target sticks can be used to give cues too. I use the end of the stick pointed towards their ears to signal them to say “No” (or shake their heads), I also use a tap of the stick to the ankle to signal a bow. I even used the targeting aspect of the stick to teach Minnow to bow. The target allowed me to entice him to bring his head down and between his legs (essentially making him put a knee to the ground in order to do so).
I’ve even used the target to help me free jump my horses – and if you buy the extra long target stick I’m sure you could free lunge your horse as well!
As a little side note, Imagine a Horse has a new DVD out about using treats as a training tool. I haven’t seen it yet, but you can be sure that it will be on my Christmas list!
My Little Pony
Minnow’s newest painting, created June 29th, is now up on the website and available for purchase. I titled this painting “My Little Pony” because the bright/fun colors reminded me of the My Little Ponies of my youth. I love the way this painting turned out and I can just picture it hanging in some lucky little girl’s bedroom! So if you are that little girl, or know that little girl, you better snatch this painting up before someone else does!
"My Little Pony" by Chincoteague Minnow
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Camper for a Day
Yesterday Minnow entertained a group of campers from Fox Meadow Farm as well as a neighboring camp. There was a big turnout (bigger than I expected) and everyone seemed very interested to learn about the amazing Minnow. Minnow performed (for the first time I might add) his skit that he will be performing at Pony Penning 2009, he then demonstrated the basics of clicker training (such as targeting and building onto things to learn a specific skill), we then answered questions by the campers. Later Minnow demonstrated how he has learned to paint – I will have his latest creation up shortly – and to wrap up Minnow painted t-shirts for all the campers. If you are looking for a camper, Casita found on shoppok.com it is perfect for you! You will find the Best Class B RVs for Winter Traveling. Winter camping comes with some obvious challenges. Whether pursuing a good environment for winter sports or simply seeking the peaceful solitude of a snowy landscape, winter campers looking for the right RV might wonder where to start.
Minnow with the campers
I let everyone choose the colors they wanted and Minnow set about painting 15 t-shirts. Everyone was amazed at his focus and the fact that he waited and stood at his easle the entire time. I think Minnow found it relaxing because as the day went on I noticed his eyes starting to droop to the point that he was actually painting with his eyes closed. When we were finally done with the t-shirts I had a hard time getting Minnow to go back to his stall, he wanted to paint more!
Everytime I see Minnow perform it puts a smile on my face. I see how it lights him up and how he loves the attention given to him by the audience. He was born to be a performer – and even better he has become an ambassador for his breed, the Chincoteague Pony. I’m looking forward to our trip to Chincoteague with Minnow, as I’m sure he is too.
Left, Boomer & Right, Blitz
After the campers left I felt a little guilty that Boomer and Blitz didn’t get to participate in the day’s fun (although they did get lots of pets by little hands). So I pulled each of them out of their stalls and let them create their first “signature”. I painted their right hoof and had them stamp it on a piece of paper. Later I will use this image to create a stamp of their hoof prints which then will be used to stamp the back of any canvases they paint (essentially creating their unique signature). I already have one that I did for Minnow a couple years back and all of his paintings come with his unique signature stamped on the back.
Overall it was a great day, I even got time to hop on Boomer later for a short trail ride (in which he took off through the woods because he was so excited to be out – good thing I’m training him to be a racing pony.
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Clicker Training 6 year old Boomer
Yesterday I was able to get some videos of me playing games on Boomerang. I’ve been training him to be my mounted games pony since September of 2008 – but until our recent move to Iron Horse Farm we hadn’t been able to get much detailed mounted games training without a ring. So the last few weeks it has been intense mounted games boot camp for Boomer in the hopes that I can have him competeing in his first mounted games competition in the Masters division at the end of August in New Jersey. He’s really taking a liking to it, and I’m amazed at how this once sluggish pony (the hunter show ring will do that to a horse) now has some get-up-and-go. He’s eager to move off my leg and quickly breaks from the walk to a canter. We’ve even perfected a sliding western stop that will come in real handy when I have him going full out.
So anyway, below you will see a video of Boomer and I practicing in an open field. This was filmed in April of 2009 and its a pretty good comparison to the videos I took yesterday. You can see that he trots most of the bending poles (he was very unbalanced) and his spin around the end pole is definitely not great – he has to break to the trot and he makes a wide loop.
Now watching this next video you can see Boomer is much more balanced and able to canter all of the poles. His spin has improved, but he still gets a little stuck and I’d prefer him to sit more on his hind end rather than putting most of his weight on his forehand. He’s definitely much improved though.
Now this final video is of Boomer and I playing 2 Flag. Races like these can be difficult for a young/inexperienced horse because they don’t understand the concept of running in a straight line when they have no fence to guide them. Especially with green horses they tend to wiggle the line and when they approach the cones most tend to drift away from them making it difficult for the rider to reach the equipment. Unfortunately I don’t have a video to compare this to, but in this recent video you can see that Boomer is running a pretty straight line and his canter is pretty balanced, making it easy for me to gauge when to grab the flags. He requires slight corrections to keep him from drifting, but overall he’s doing pretty well.
The clicker training I have been doing with Boomer has really helped him. I usually run the races and when he completes them correctly I click and reward him when we reach the finish line. Sometimes I will choose a specific skill within the game to work on, such as the spin around the end pole. So if Boomer doesn’t do a nice spin for me he won’t get rewarded at the end. An added benefit to rewarding after crossing the finish line is that Boomer slams on the breaks as soon as we cross the line, which is wonderful because if I ever drop a handoff or need to go back I have him poised to slam on the breaks so we can quickly spin to correct our mistakes.
Overall Boomer is a very eager to learn pony, and I can tell he’s also DYING to learn more tricks. He acts so starved for attention sometimes. As soon as I have Minnow’s trip to Chincoteague over I plan to start working on Boomer’s trick training.
