Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Gambit Updates: A Western Horse is Born
Becky has now had Gambit (formerly Shrek) for two months now. So how are they doing? The short answer is AWESOME.I am currently working with Gambit twice a week. On Wednesdays, Becky rides him under my instruction. On Fridays, I ride him while she's at work. It's a great system that's working well for everyone involved. The last couple of Wednesdays, I haven't even had to get on Gambit because Becky is getting to know him so well.
With consistency and clear expectations, Gambit quickly figured out what we wanted. The first few sessions were pretty frustrating, especially for Becky, who was going through some OMG-I-have-a-horse-now-what-do-I-do-with-it jitters.
Becky wants Gambit to gait, which is part of why she chose a pacer to begin with. She has never been a fan of trotting, and rode some walkers (and a standardbred) when she was a kid. Imagine her dismay when she realized she had one of the few pacers out there who preferred to trot!! I had a good chuckle about that one.
For a while there, Gambit's response to being asked to gait was either to slam on the brakes, canter in place (!!) or buck. It was pretty clear that he'd been chased into a canter on more than one occasion, and that his dressage training was a dusty old memory. He had two gaits: walk or gallop. And he had seemingly never heard of softening or collection.
Slowly,but surely, things started to fall into place. These days, Gambit is a gaiting machine. He'll gait fast or slow, one handed or two, and, most recently, inside or out. Hooray!
Getting him to canter is not an issue, really, though we are starting to work on collecting, slowing down, and even *gasp* loping.
Best of all, we've been able to do all of this without eliminating his trot from his repertoire. It took a lot of repetition, but Gambit is putting together the difference between being asked to gait and being asked to trot. He has also figured out that Becky always wants him to gait. This does lead to some pretty choppy pacing from time to time when he gets confused, but he's got the right idea.
Gambit also picked up neck reining in record time. To be fair, I'm sure it's something he was at least introduced to during his time in Kentucky.
Now that the basics are generally established, and Gambit is no longer acting worried or ornery during lessons, we've started to play with some fun stuff. During a particularly good session two weeks ago, I wound up taking him around a faux barrel in the indoor, which is when we discovered that he has a natural interest in gaming.
Despite his partially western training background, I don't think Gambit has had any formal work with poles or barrels. He certainly doesn't sit back or turn like a gaming horse.
Still, Gambit has quickly picked up on the 'fun stuff', and is a really good sport about learning how to carry himself with more balance, even at high speeds. Best of all, he has excellent brakes and goes right back to being a relaxed horse on a loosey goosey rein once you're done.
Last week, Becky got to try Gambit around some obstacles for the first time. He is already grasping the pole bending pattern, and gets excited (but manageable) when he sees the poles coming.
They also ran mock barrel dash for the first time together.
Currently, I am working on continuing to clarify, balance, and soften all of Gambit's gaits. I want his intermediate gaits to be fluid, relaxed, and easy to sit. I want his canter to cover a gradient of movements, from a collected lope to a full out gallop, without muddling his foot fall. His walk is pretty much golden, so there's no nitpicking there.
As for the gaming stuff... Becky would love to compete with him some day, which I think is a really fun goal. When you're against the clock, the quality of your gaits doesn't come into question, and I think Gambit could actually give the other horses around here a run for their money if he learns to sit and turn properly.
We are working on all sorts of exercises to make Gambit more supple and responsive, both to leg and rein. On Friday afternoon, he actually dropped his hindquarters and pivoted around the last pole for me.
In the mean time, we're having a ton of fun with him. As it turns out, Gambit is game for pretty much everything. We even jumped him around a bit while we were in the outdoor. Flower boxes and walls don't faze him at all.
 |
| April takes a turn with Gambit. |
This handsome horse seems to be turning over a new leaf at last. His story makes me a little sad. It sounds like he has had a bunch of adopters return him, and I am betting the lack of consistency in his life is at the root of most of his problems, many of which seem to be resolving almost on their own now that he's in some sort of program.
We all heard nightmare stories through the grapevine when Becky adopted Gambit. He was nicknamed Shrek for a reason. These days, he has mostly left that nickname behind. Sure, he can be a bit of an ogre at times, but we're peeling back those onion layers* and finding a really good soul underneath. (*See what I did there?) Bit by bit, Gambit's ground manners are going from atrocious to downright lovely. In fact, to see him following Becky around like a puppy dog, you would never guess that this is the horse who once plowed over me in the pasture and left me splashing butt-first into a mud puddle, earning himself a first class ticket out of state!
Gambit got really lucky when Becky adopted him because she's the type of person who is willing to work hard to achieve what she wants. It hasn't been a perfect journey, but I don't think this horse is going anywhere!
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Jupiter Updates
I haven't posted about Jupiter in a while, mostly because I haven't had any media to show for all the training we've done. Honestly, who wants to read dry training reports anyway?
Jupiter now trailer loads like a normal horse. He will self load, and stay facing forward while I shut the divider, then the door. I still have to give him a shove with the divider to get him to take that last step over, but hey, that's fine by me. I still have no evidence of the fact that we've even addressed this, so you'll have to take my word for it.
Jupiter's owner has been out to ride him a few more times since I last blogged about Jupiter. She has been lessoning on saddlebred school horses at another barn, and it has been an adjustment for her to ride something young, green, sensitive, and reactive. I have been explaining the concept of increasing pressure gradually, not just jumping to smacking the horse forward like you might do with a schoolie who is dead to the leg.
I will say that Jupiter has been a pretty good sport about the whole thing. His owner is still dealing with some back issues and rider fitness battles. She expressed some concerns about 'ruining' Jupiter's training. My response was, "It's all well and good that a trainer can ride your horse,but at the end of the day, he's your boy, and he needs to learn to be ridden by you as much as you need to learn to ride him."
Here is a brief clip of Jupiter's owner riding him for the second time:
Jupiter now trailer loads like a normal horse. He will self load, and stay facing forward while I shut the divider, then the door. I still have to give him a shove with the divider to get him to take that last step over, but hey, that's fine by me. I still have no evidence of the fact that we've even addressed this, so you'll have to take my word for it.
Jupiter's owner has been out to ride him a few more times since I last blogged about Jupiter. She has been lessoning on saddlebred school horses at another barn, and it has been an adjustment for her to ride something young, green, sensitive, and reactive. I have been explaining the concept of increasing pressure gradually, not just jumping to smacking the horse forward like you might do with a schoolie who is dead to the leg.
I will say that Jupiter has been a pretty good sport about the whole thing. His owner is still dealing with some back issues and rider fitness battles. She expressed some concerns about 'ruining' Jupiter's training. My response was, "It's all well and good that a trainer can ride your horse,but at the end of the day, he's your boy, and he needs to learn to be ridden by you as much as you need to learn to ride him."
Here is a brief clip of Jupiter's owner riding him for the second time:
You can see how careful he is with her at the walk, which I think is adorable.
Those of you with a good eye may also notice that he's in a cutback saddle in the video. We did try him briefly in that saddle, since it is what he will eventually have to go in. It was my first time riding in a cutback, and I have to say, I didn't hate it! Maybe I should just switch to saddleseat, where my chair leg will be acceptable. Haha. In all seriousness though, I now totally understand why they ride these horses in these saddles. They make riding those gaits a lot more natural!
The saddle has caused some issues, however, and we had a bit of a set back in training as a result. With a long backed horse who is still developing a top line, you have to be careful anyway, but when you add a saddle that puts you further back on the horse's spine, you're bound to have a problem.
After a few rides in the cut back, Jupiter started to fuss about going forward. He absolutely did not want to trot, and he was being very 'expressive' about it. I immediately pin pointed the issue and switched back to my saddle. Jupiter was still reluctant to move, but after a brief discussion, he moved up into the trot. Once he realized he was back in the saddle that didn't bother him, he got over it in two sessions.
As luck would have it, the chiropractor was coming to the barn the following week, and I convinced Jupiter's owner to add him to the list of horses getting adjusted.
In the mean time, Jupiter's owner is looking into saddle fitting options to eventually get Jupiter back in a cutback. I have, of course, made some training suggestions, including dressage exercises to help strengthen and stretch a long back.
Thankfully, Jupiter's owner has also been reading a blog aimed at amateur saddlebred owners. To my delight, this blog actually touches on a lot of concepts that I've been trying to instill in Jupiter's owner's mind.
On Wednesday, his owner told me, "I'm so glad to learn that there is another way to train these horses, other than the traditional method. I know the person who writes that blog is an exception to the rule, but it has been such a good resource."
Speaking of which... (here's the big news for this entry...)
Jupiter's owner has decided not to send him to a show barn! She had already decided to pick a different barn from where the horse was previously, but this month, she decided to keep him where he is and keep me on as his trainer, at least for the time being. She is putting him on self care board,where he will be turned out almost constantly, with access to a run-in shed, free choice hay, grass, and other horses! I just about did a cartwheel when I found out.
In the mean time, I've been learning more and more about saddleseat concepts (though I still know very little about the discipline). Jupiter's breeder has also been a good resource.
We have started to play with certain saddleseat concepts, including parking out. On a good day, Jupiter will now park on verbal command. We're getting ready to work on parking out with a rider on board next. We are also going to start having him rock his weight forward very soon.
By now, Jupiter has also perfected the turn on the forehand, which I was surprised to learn is actually a valuable movement in the saddleseat world!
Most recently, I have been trying to ride Jupiter in the big outdoor more frequently. I think we are both bored in the small, crowded indoor, and there's only so much you can do in such a tight space. A horse can only go in so many mindless circles before he starts to protest, and I suspect that some of Jupiter's recent sassy behavior is due in part to boredom.
The problem is that Jupiter is boarded at a very busy lesson barn, and it's the middle of the summer. This means lots of boarders riding, lots of lessons going on, and, worst of all, kid camp during the day!! I don't mind sharing the ring with boarders, but I refuse to be the person who barges in on lessons. I try to come during the evening as much as possible, but I inevitably have to go during the day at least once a week. We end up getting exiled to the hot, stuffy indoor more often than not.
I did get lucky one day last week. I arrived in the late morning and the farm was teeming with children, boarders, and volunteers for the therapeutic riding program. Luckily for me, it had just rained...
Half of the outdoor ring was under water, which left everybody fighting for the indoor. That worked just fine for me! I saddled Jupiter, led him to the mounting block, and hopped on board. After some initial wiggling, he rode right through the fetlock-deep puddles on both sides of the arena. Before I knew it, I had him boldly trotting through the water, and I was resisting the urge to giggle.
To all professional saddleseat trainers who know way more than I do:
Instead of all those gadgets, just trot all your horses through water!
You should have seen the knee and hock action I got that day!!
Seriously, though, I couldn't ask much more of a four year old horse who has had 60 days of training :)
On Thursday night, Mike got done with work early, so I dragged him to the barn with me. Of course, it turned out that both outdoor rings were in use. I started out by working with Jupiter with the clippers. I had introduced him to a small, wireless set a little while ago, and he had done a lot of dancing before he got over it. The corded clippers were much louder, and left me tethered to the wall, but after about five minutes, I was able to clip Jupiter's bridle path. He even put his head down for me to do his forelock. Good boy!
The rings were still full, so I warmed up in the indoor. I was getting a little bummed because the light outside was stunning.
Still, Mike managed to get some pretty artsy photos:
We walked. trotted, and cantered in both directions and worked on some leg yields and changes of direction, by which point, I think both the horse and I were getting fed up with being in the stuffy, dusty indoor.
Just as I was about to quit for the night, the main outdoor ring freed up. Hooray!! I scurried over to claim it for myself. Haha. It was the first time I got to ride out there without a single puddle. Despite the fact that Jupiter had already put in a ride for the night, he was happy to go back to work. I climbed on board and he was forward, peppy, and relaxed. I think a change of scenery did us both some good.,
Best of all, Mike got a lovely photo of us cantering in the setting sun before my camera battery died.
That pretty much does it for updates on the big, golden boy. He's currently in training three days a week, and it would appear that that will continue for the foreseeable future. Goals for August include parking under saddle, re-introducing the cutback saddle, and having his owner ride him more regularly. I'd say we're doing ok!
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Sienna Updates: Riding in the Pasture
I am really hoping to have Mike come with me to Sienna's one week. I bet he would get some really lovely photos, and the little mare is really starting to come together nicely. I asked her owner if she would be ok with a photo session one night, and she's all for it. I bet she'd love a before and after post to share on the auction rescue pages.
It has been raining every Tuesday like clockwork, and yesterday was no exception. I texted to confirm our lesson time and it was sunny. I walked to the bedroom and put on my breeches. When I turned around, it was pouring. Luckily, Sienna is only a couple miles down the road so we were able to just wait it out. The rain turned out to be a good thing, because it cooled the weather and got rid of the bugs just long enough to get a session in without them.
Sienna's owner has been doing her homework in between sessions, and has been sending me updates. She did several ground driving sessions, including some in the back pasture, and also sat on the mare a few times. She has mostly been working in the rope halter because we were still finding the right bit.
Yesterday, I finally remembered to bring Dancer's old bridle over to try on Sienna. As I suspected, the bit fit her perfectly. A few adjustments later, Sienna was finally in a bridle with a noseband that fit her properly. The brow band also looked stunning on her if I do say so myself.
We started off with some bending and flexing exercises on the ground. Until that point, I had only asked with the rope halter, because the loose ring snaffle would have slid right through her mouth. Not surprisingly, Sienna transferred the concept to the bit immediately. Good girl! She makes all of this look easy. I am thrilled that her owner can appreciate the little things that are a big deal with horses, because Sienna is the type of horse people take for granted, skip steps with, and end up in trouble with down the line.
Vertical flexion, on the other hand, was met with a ton of resistance, some grinding teeth, and some sassy head tossing. I hear ya loud and clear, Sienna. We'll revisit that concept later. Still, she's reinforcing my theory that she was not a riding horse in her past life.
So I cut right to the chase and got on her. As always, she stood like a lady at the mounting block. By now she gets the game. The weird human comes and sits on me. I walk around in a couple circles. The weird human gets in her little blue car and goes home.
At first, Sienna seemed pretty worried about the bit. She seemed to be expecting something, and it wasn't good. She would walk a few steps, then fret about the bit and come grinding to a halt. I switched my reins to one hand, planted that hand on her withers with just enough contact to prevent Sienna from throwing her head down or rooting the reins out of my hand. That's it.
I went back to my French and Algebra analogy. We are working on steering and stopping while going forward (ground driving). We are working on carrying a person and going forward (sitting on her in the pen). Some day, we'll put all those concepts together, but not all at once.
Once Sienna realized that I wasn't going to get all up in her mouth, she relaxed, I added some steering with a bump-bump of one leg or the other. We went around and around the pen and I added a little bit of rein to back up the steering.
Next thing I knew, Sienna was marching around that pen with no hesitation, I threw in a few changes of direction and let her have a loose rein. Good girl!! She was acting like an old school horse, not a green broodmare.
I upped the pressure to see what would happen, and Sienna tossed her head in protest. So we spent a few laps on that, until no amount of 'nagging' seemed to bother her. Then, I clucked and kicked and asked her to go. Sienna picked up a lovely gait, no problem. Smooth as butter!!! Her owner commented, "That looks very comfortable!" I confirmed.
The nice thing about this mare is that she has really nice, clean gaits. I don't think we'll have to micromanage her like I do with some of the other gaited horses I ride, and that's awesome!! When I told Sienna's owner that theory she laughed and said, "I'm glad you have experience with gaited horses. I didn't even take that into consideration when I hired you, so I guess I got lucky!"
Sienna seemed to be enjoying our session, and we still had some time left, so I decided to try her in the back pasture instead of the dry lot. Sienna is not at all spooky, and I felt confident that she wouldn't have a problem with this next step.
This is the part I wish I had Mike for. I rode around the back pasture, golden rays of the setting sun hanging heavy in the post-rain air, the Amwell Valley sprawling behind me, and Sienna's deep chestnut coat gleaming in the light. It would have made for an incredible shot.
Sienna did pretty well considering it was her first time being ridden outside the pen! Her pal, Enya, was screaming for her back in the barn, but she didn't seem to mind much. Ironically, Sienna would actually slow down and relax when we turned towards home. Most horses are sluggish going away from the barn and in a hurry going towards it, but Sienna was the opposite. More like, "O, goodness... the lady is taking me away. She's definitely taking me. O gosh... O.. phew... we're going home after all." Silly girl.
Sienna's owner did get a brief clip with her phone, so that will have to do as your visual!!
It has been raining every Tuesday like clockwork, and yesterday was no exception. I texted to confirm our lesson time and it was sunny. I walked to the bedroom and put on my breeches. When I turned around, it was pouring. Luckily, Sienna is only a couple miles down the road so we were able to just wait it out. The rain turned out to be a good thing, because it cooled the weather and got rid of the bugs just long enough to get a session in without them.
Sienna's owner has been doing her homework in between sessions, and has been sending me updates. She did several ground driving sessions, including some in the back pasture, and also sat on the mare a few times. She has mostly been working in the rope halter because we were still finding the right bit.
Yesterday, I finally remembered to bring Dancer's old bridle over to try on Sienna. As I suspected, the bit fit her perfectly. A few adjustments later, Sienna was finally in a bridle with a noseband that fit her properly. The brow band also looked stunning on her if I do say so myself.
We started off with some bending and flexing exercises on the ground. Until that point, I had only asked with the rope halter, because the loose ring snaffle would have slid right through her mouth. Not surprisingly, Sienna transferred the concept to the bit immediately. Good girl! She makes all of this look easy. I am thrilled that her owner can appreciate the little things that are a big deal with horses, because Sienna is the type of horse people take for granted, skip steps with, and end up in trouble with down the line.
Vertical flexion, on the other hand, was met with a ton of resistance, some grinding teeth, and some sassy head tossing. I hear ya loud and clear, Sienna. We'll revisit that concept later. Still, she's reinforcing my theory that she was not a riding horse in her past life.
So I cut right to the chase and got on her. As always, she stood like a lady at the mounting block. By now she gets the game. The weird human comes and sits on me. I walk around in a couple circles. The weird human gets in her little blue car and goes home.
At first, Sienna seemed pretty worried about the bit. She seemed to be expecting something, and it wasn't good. She would walk a few steps, then fret about the bit and come grinding to a halt. I switched my reins to one hand, planted that hand on her withers with just enough contact to prevent Sienna from throwing her head down or rooting the reins out of my hand. That's it.
I went back to my French and Algebra analogy. We are working on steering and stopping while going forward (ground driving). We are working on carrying a person and going forward (sitting on her in the pen). Some day, we'll put all those concepts together, but not all at once.
Once Sienna realized that I wasn't going to get all up in her mouth, she relaxed, I added some steering with a bump-bump of one leg or the other. We went around and around the pen and I added a little bit of rein to back up the steering.
Next thing I knew, Sienna was marching around that pen with no hesitation, I threw in a few changes of direction and let her have a loose rein. Good girl!! She was acting like an old school horse, not a green broodmare.
I upped the pressure to see what would happen, and Sienna tossed her head in protest. So we spent a few laps on that, until no amount of 'nagging' seemed to bother her. Then, I clucked and kicked and asked her to go. Sienna picked up a lovely gait, no problem. Smooth as butter!!! Her owner commented, "That looks very comfortable!" I confirmed.
The nice thing about this mare is that she has really nice, clean gaits. I don't think we'll have to micromanage her like I do with some of the other gaited horses I ride, and that's awesome!! When I told Sienna's owner that theory she laughed and said, "I'm glad you have experience with gaited horses. I didn't even take that into consideration when I hired you, so I guess I got lucky!"
Sienna seemed to be enjoying our session, and we still had some time left, so I decided to try her in the back pasture instead of the dry lot. Sienna is not at all spooky, and I felt confident that she wouldn't have a problem with this next step.
This is the part I wish I had Mike for. I rode around the back pasture, golden rays of the setting sun hanging heavy in the post-rain air, the Amwell Valley sprawling behind me, and Sienna's deep chestnut coat gleaming in the light. It would have made for an incredible shot.
Sienna did pretty well considering it was her first time being ridden outside the pen! Her pal, Enya, was screaming for her back in the barn, but she didn't seem to mind much. Ironically, Sienna would actually slow down and relax when we turned towards home. Most horses are sluggish going away from the barn and in a hurry going towards it, but Sienna was the opposite. More like, "O, goodness... the lady is taking me away. She's definitely taking me. O gosh... O.. phew... we're going home after all." Silly girl.
Sienna's owner did get a brief clip with her phone, so that will have to do as your visual!!
I advised Sienna's owner to do more ground driving away from home this week. In fact, I think ground driving out on trail would be a great step. In the mean time, I told her she can definitely ride the mare at the walk in the pen. If she gets brave, I'm sure she'd be fine gaiting around in there as well.
I think we'll have this mare out on trail by the end of the summer :)
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Sunday Stills: Me and Gambit
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Booger Turns Five (and other updates)
Monday was Booger's fifth birthday. She is officially a mare now, and I suppose I have to stop using her age as an excuse (or, alternately, to show off how awesome she is).
The time has flown. It feels like just yesterday that I met her as a gangling barely-two year old. We have come a very long way from her refusing to be caught, rearing at the slightest excuse, and crashing through fences to get out of work. It was a hard earned victory, and she's still very much a work in progress, but I really feel like this year was one of growth and maturity for Boo-mare. She has gone from spooky, violently reactive, ornery, and cranky to being a cuddle bug who finds new tasks fascinating, loves to work, and meets scary obstacles with a 'can do' attitude.
Needless to say, I have gotten very, very attached to this little horse in the last year.
We have had to slow it down a bit recently. I came to the barn two weeks ago to find Booger's left front leg swollen to twice its normal size. I tried to palpate it and she jerked it up to hide it under her belly. Ouch! Thankfully, her owner was home and the vet was only five minutes out.
Thankfully, the injury appeared to be completely superficial. I'm guessing Booger was rattling the gate and stuck her leg through, causing an edema to the front of her canon bone. There was no tendon or soft tissue involvement. I had already cold hosed the leg, and a day of stall rest followed by a few days of individual turn out seemed to do the trick. I also dug out a container of Corona ointment to slather on her itchy bug-bit jaw/chin.
After a few days off, I put Booger in the round pen to make sure she was sound. She was, so we spent a session doing some new ground work. It took Booger about five minutes to grasp the concept of Clinton Anderson's Circle Driving, and I have a feeling we're going to be adding some fun new activities soon.
The next day, I came back out for a light ride back. We stuck to the walk and trot, just working on softness and balance.
Before I rode, I warmed Booger up in the side reins.
I haven't been lunging her much in the last few months because she doesn't need it mentally. She has turned into the kind of horse you can just grab out of the pasture after time off and throw a leg over, which I love. I have never been an advocate of lunging just for the sake of warming up.
I do think I have to start incorporating the side reins back into our routine, however. Booger is back to cross firing at the canter. I talked her owner into having a chiropractor out to assess her, but I suspect it's due to her half-gaited breeding, because it's something she's always done, even at liberty as a baby. If I really support her at the canter, I can correct the problem when I ride, but I'm hoping that strengthening her hind end through ground work will make her less inclined to cross canter in the first place.
Friday was my last ride with Booger as a four year old, and I decided to do it sans saddle. I've been trying to do more bareback riding to work a bit on my own strength and fitness. I was delighted when we wound up working at the walk, trot, and canter in both directions.
I was so happy with the way Booger rode on Friday that I asked Mike to come take pictures of us in a repeat performance last night. After three days off, Booger walked quietly into the barn, actually enjoyed a good grooming (this horse couldn't stand to be touched when I started with her), and dozed at the mounting block while I swung on board. Despite deer bouncing in the woods, thunder rumbling in the distance, and the new farm guy doing miscellaneous farm tasks on the other side of the fence, Boo was totally focused and a pleasure to ride. Mike got some lovely photos and I was delighted.
(Of course, I can't look at photos of myself riding without being critical. I need to LOOK UP above everything else. Shoulders back should follow suit. Haha. I also realized that Boo is 1)extremely short backed and 2)fat, fat, fat. But then... I like my horses on the round side.)
The time has flown. It feels like just yesterday that I met her as a gangling barely-two year old. We have come a very long way from her refusing to be caught, rearing at the slightest excuse, and crashing through fences to get out of work. It was a hard earned victory, and she's still very much a work in progress, but I really feel like this year was one of growth and maturity for Boo-mare. She has gone from spooky, violently reactive, ornery, and cranky to being a cuddle bug who finds new tasks fascinating, loves to work, and meets scary obstacles with a 'can do' attitude.
Needless to say, I have gotten very, very attached to this little horse in the last year.
We have had to slow it down a bit recently. I came to the barn two weeks ago to find Booger's left front leg swollen to twice its normal size. I tried to palpate it and she jerked it up to hide it under her belly. Ouch! Thankfully, her owner was home and the vet was only five minutes out.
Thankfully, the injury appeared to be completely superficial. I'm guessing Booger was rattling the gate and stuck her leg through, causing an edema to the front of her canon bone. There was no tendon or soft tissue involvement. I had already cold hosed the leg, and a day of stall rest followed by a few days of individual turn out seemed to do the trick. I also dug out a container of Corona ointment to slather on her itchy bug-bit jaw/chin.
After a few days off, I put Booger in the round pen to make sure she was sound. She was, so we spent a session doing some new ground work. It took Booger about five minutes to grasp the concept of Clinton Anderson's Circle Driving, and I have a feeling we're going to be adding some fun new activities soon.
The next day, I came back out for a light ride back. We stuck to the walk and trot, just working on softness and balance.
Before I rode, I warmed Booger up in the side reins.
I haven't been lunging her much in the last few months because she doesn't need it mentally. She has turned into the kind of horse you can just grab out of the pasture after time off and throw a leg over, which I love. I have never been an advocate of lunging just for the sake of warming up.
I do think I have to start incorporating the side reins back into our routine, however. Booger is back to cross firing at the canter. I talked her owner into having a chiropractor out to assess her, but I suspect it's due to her half-gaited breeding, because it's something she's always done, even at liberty as a baby. If I really support her at the canter, I can correct the problem when I ride, but I'm hoping that strengthening her hind end through ground work will make her less inclined to cross canter in the first place.
Friday was my last ride with Booger as a four year old, and I decided to do it sans saddle. I've been trying to do more bareback riding to work a bit on my own strength and fitness. I was delighted when we wound up working at the walk, trot, and canter in both directions.
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| #saddlesareforwimps |
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| Bareback selfie. |
(Of course, I can't look at photos of myself riding without being critical. I need to LOOK UP above everything else. Shoulders back should follow suit. Haha. I also realized that Boo is 1)extremely short backed and 2)fat, fat, fat. But then... I like my horses on the round side.)
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
In Which I Walk Away
It has been nearly a year since this went down, but I still haven't gotten it together enough to write it down. I keep mentioning (in passing) that I still deal with my fair share of crazy. Well... this one was one for the books!
I have had a few clients come and go through Wink's barn. Some have stopped being clients on better terms than others. Patty stopped taking lessons when her grades failed. I turned down a couple with three horses because I simply don't have the time to take them on. Another couple had two thoroughbreds in training with me for a little while, and I'll blog about them soon, too.
And then there was Nancy.
Nancy has two horses. One is a mustang cross named Stormy. The other is a really ugly appaloosa mare named Lilly.
Initially, I was hired to work with Stormy. Stormy is a middle aged (twelve? year old) gelding , and Nancy got him as a 'green broke' two year old from some cowboy in Florida (she lived there at the time). Her ultimate goal with Stormy is to ride training level dressage, something just about anyone should be able to accomplish on a sane, sound horse, if they so desire.
The story with Stormy is that he is basically fine so long as you let him do whatever he wants. He can ride at the walk and trot in the ring by the barn, as long as he gets to go where he pleases and you don't try to tell him what to do too much. He will trail ride to some degree if he's following another horse. That's about it.
I was told that Stormy "doesn't do" the ring at the front of the farm.
Apparently, there are a lot of things that Stormy doesn't do. He doesn't stand for the mounting block. He doesn't bend. He doesn't canter.
My evaluation consisted of me taking him down to the bottom ring and doing ground work. I found a horse who was pushy, rude, and jumpy. He bucked, he pulled, and when I didn't let him get away with any of that, he resorted to rearing. I informed Nancy that he wasn't a horse I would even sit on without filling in a lot of the apparent holes. Sorry, I have too many nice horses to ride to get hurt by one who has never had any boundaries. Nancy swore up and down that he doesn't do anything bad under saddle, but she also wasn't willing to get on him. Ha. Been there, heard that, have the hardware to prove it.
Two sessions later, I arrived at the barn to have Nancy ask me if I would be willing to work with Lilly. Until that point, the BO, who I get along with pretty well, had been working with Lilly. I didn't want to step on any toes and hadn't even asked about the mare. That day, however, the BO handed me the reins and said, "You can have her! I'm done!"
Lilly's story is even better than Stormy's. Nancy bred Lilly herself. She is half thoroughbred, and her dam was banned from racing after she developed the nasty habit of maliciously dumping her jockeys out of the blue. So Nancy, the genius that she is, decided to breed the mare to an appaloosa of all things. Shoot me.
Lilly is 8 years old and has accomplished exactly nothing. She has been through one trainer after another, and it sounds like the story is always the same. She makes progress, working up to the point where the trainers can walk and trot her around safely. Then, one day, she goes off, throwing epic bucks until someone gets hurt. Then she gets moved on down the line.
Nancy is convinced that the mare was horribly abused by more than one of these trainers, but I have met two of them myself, and can say with a lot of certainty that neither one would beat on a horse.
The BO had been working with Lilly and was riding her around on a pretty regular basis, but that week Lilly had gone off with no warning, and had launched the BO, sending her into the fence and injuring her more than a little bit.
Once again, I told Nancy that I wouldn't just throw a leg over and see if I could stay there. Sorry. Not my M.O.
And this is where the fun begins. I spent some time working with Lilly on the ground. She had a pretty good idea of lunging, disengaging her hindquarters, and bending. We moved along to the next step and I put her next to the mounting block. Bend left, bend right, check parking brake. Check, check, check. So I leaned over her. She stood completely still, which would have been a good thing if she wasn't completely rigid.
I thumped Lilly with the off stirrup and she went off like a rocket. She bucked so hard I heard her back crack! I quietly slid back to the ground, landing softly on my butt in the deep sand. Lilly kept right on bucking, and I can honestly say they were probably the biggest bucks I've ever seen in a non-rodeo horse. She bucked so hard that she actually left ruts all around the arena. And she kept going and going and going.
I brushed off my breeches and declared, "And this is why I won't just get on her."
And so the run around began. Nancy was a terrible client from day one, but I was already at the barn every Friday, so I was game for some extra cash on the weeks that she could get her act together. No matter how much I preached about the importance of consistency in horse handling, Nancy couldn't stick to a plan. She wasn't willing to pay for more than half an hour of training per week. She rarely lessoned two weeks in a row. Sometimes she would lesson before Wink. Sometimes after. Sometimes she would call me at the last second to schedule a lesson. Sometimes she would cancel with barely enough notice for me not to drive down there. I rolled my eyes, but hoped her schedule would eventually settle.
In the mean time, I made slow progress with Lilly. We started a desensitizing regimen. I would get her comfortable with a level of pressure, only to have her explode the second we moved on to the next step. Every time she exploded, it was into a series of very impressive bucks. Once, she bucked so hard and so recklessly that she ran head first into the side of the barn and fell over. I wasn't even touching her for that one.
I was able to convince Nancy to have a chiropractor and a vet out. We didn't even have a saddle on at this point, but she does have a very nice dressage saddle that gets regularly fitted to the mare. Lilly does have a weak stifle, but nothing that would cause the sort of behavior she was displaying.
After a few sessions, Nancy started to wonder if her money would be better spent on lessons with Stormy. She was willing to ride him, and wanted help 'fine tuning' him. I agreed to coach her for half an hour a week.
On our first session, it became very clear that Stormy had been trained with draw reins at some point in his life. Just the slightest bit of pressure on the bit would send him behind the vertical, where he would hide to evade the bit. He didn't know the first thing about moving forward into the contact, and he would hold his head stiffly tucked to his chest from the second Nancy got on him until the second she got down.
When I asked if he'd ever been in draw reins, Nancy vehemently denied it. I asked if she broke the horse herself or had him trained, and she admitted he came 'green broke' as a two year old. When I asked what that entailed she said, "Oh, you know, walk trot canter in a frame..." I hate to tell you, but a two year old who walks, trots, and canters in a frame when you get him has more than likely had some short cuts taken in his training.
All the while, Nancy was constantly late and was often still tacking up half an hour into our lesson slot. I am not one of those trainers who starts the clock the second she sets foot on the property, but it was getting ridiculous and I wound up having to cut her already brief lessons even shorter to get my day done.
On top of that, Nancy is a very high strung, nervous, and weepy person... not a good combo around horses. She was always on the verge of a nervous melt down and she made me jittery just from being around her. Yikes....
One day, the ring by the barn wasn't available. By the time we got to the front arena, Nancy was a nervous wreck. She was shaking as she led Stormy to the mounting block. Needless to say, he wouldn't stand still for her to get on him. I tried to coach her, but she just got worse and worse until I took Stormy's reins myself.
After a little bit of bending and parking, I decided to get on the horse. And I totally misread him. He was standing still, nice and relaxed, nothing amiss. I put a foot in the stirrup and Stormy tried to walk off. I bent his nose toward me, like I had a hundred times before. I should have known better. Stormy did exactly what a horse who has been trained with draw reins often does when he feels he can't go forward. He went straight up in the air.
I was totally caught off guard and tumbled off his back into the sand. Two for two, her horses had dumped me within a month of each other. To add insult to injury, Stormy then looked over his shoulder at me, deliberately lined me up, and tried to kick me. He missed because I saw it coming and dove back into the dirt away from him, at which point he went bucking and rearing around the ring.
Nancy swore up and down that he has never reared ever, ever, ever. I had my doubts about that. He certainly felt like he had rearing down to an art. He knew exactly how high to go to dislodge me without going over. Mike and the BO both saw the whole thing happen and agreed that it looked very deliberate, and that there hadn't been any warning from the horse.
I talked to the BO later and found out that he often rears because he, "Doesn't like to be restrained."
He doesn't like to be restrained.
A twelve year old domesticated horse.
Who has been broke since he was two.
Doesn't like to be restrained.
Nancy had a lot to say about what she would have done differently. I resisted the urge to point out that she wasn't willing or able to get on the horse herself.
Then, I told her, "This is going to be a very hard thing for you to hear, but it needs to be said. You have two horses. Both of them have very bad, very dangerous habits under saddle. One is a mare, one is a gelding. One is an appaloosa. One is a mustang cross. One is eight, one is twelve. One you've had since birth, one you got already broke. They have lived in different places. They have had different trainers. What is the common denominator?"
She stared at me blankly.
"You, Nancy. You are what is making your horses nuts."
I went on to tell her that her lack of consistency, her unwillingness to set boundaries, and her nervous nature were all working against her horses.
I also told her, "You brought Lilly into this world. It is your responsibility to look out for her future. You cannot, in clean conscience, sell her to someone. She will kill somebody. It's not right to auction her. So what are your other options? Can you afford to keep this horse for the rest of her life as a pasture mate if you're not willing to put in the time and the money to get her trained? Half an hour every couple of weeks just isn't going to do the trick. You need to be here every day doing the legwork with this horse, and it doesn't sound like you can do that right now. I don't think it would be right to euthanize her because you haven't done right by her. She's not dangerous in the pasture or on the ground, but she is definitely not fit as a riding horse right now, and that's not going to change if you don't actively do something about it."
I fully expected her to fire me on the spot. In fact, I was half hoping she would. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea why I put up with any of it for more than a nanosecond, but there I was.
Instead, Nancy tucked her tail between her legs and agreed with me.
Then, I didn't hear from her for a week. I assumed that was that.
At 4pm the following Friday, I showed up at the barn for my lesson with Wink. Nancy was standing in the barn aisle, arms crossed, scowling. "What happened to our lesson?" she barked when I walked in the door.
"You never contacted me to schedule one."
"I thought this was our regular time," she wailed, already growing hysterical.
"You have yet to take a lesson at the same time two weeks in a row. I hardly think we have a regular time. If I had showed up at three, and you weren't here, I would have had to charge you for the slot, and you would have been unhappy. At least this way you're not out of money." She continued to pout and argue and I finally said, "I don't know what to tell you, Nancy. Everybody else seems to understand how scheduling works."
"Do you confirm with Wink every week?"
"No. I don't have to. Wink's owners have had the same lesson slot every week for three years. If they have to miss a lesson, they call and cancel long in advance. If they need to reschedule, they do it ahead of time. They show up on time, have the horse tacked up when I arrive, and pay me in a timely fashion."
O yeah... did I mention she still owed me for our last session at this point? It would take me another month and an invoice with a very large 'late payment' charge for me to finally get my money.
"Well, I'm sorry I'm not one of your precious clients!!!" Nancy screamed, throwing her arms up in the air."
"I'm just telling you why I don't have to confirm with Wink every week."
Suddenly, Nancy took a deep breath and said, with an eerie calm, "Dom, I am getting a very bad vibe off of you right now. Do I need to find a new trainer?"
"You know what, Nancy... that is probably a good idea."
Well... that set her off. She went off, berating me, screaming about how my methods don't work anyway (apparently not being able to fix her two horses' decade-long training issues in three hours combined makes me a bad trainer), and crying while chasing me down the driveway (she's only about four feet tall, and I walk fast to begin with).
Finally, I spun around, put my hand up, and declared, "Nancy. This is not how I conduct my business. I am a professional, and part of free lancing is that I don't need to and do not put up with this sort of behavior. I wish you the best of luck in your hunt for your next trainer. I want nothing but the best for your horses. I will be in my car waiting for my other clients now."
Dear god.
I have had several evaluations that didn't lead to anything else. I've had people who use me until their horses are 'better' and then move on, either to other trainers or to ride on their own. I even had a client never call me back because I suggested changing farriers. The horse had very long toes and kept tripping with the man's wife in the saddle. Apparently the farrier was a lifelong friend, and the husband (a seventy year old cowboy) was pretty offended at my suggestion. But I have not had anyone go off on me like Nancy did since I started my own business.
I suspect there were some underlying issues and some personal stuff. All the same, it made me grateful that I walked away from the situation before anyone got hurt.
As always, I am learning from bad experiences. What I learned from this one was not to take on crazy clients out of pity for their horses. I also stopped offering half hour training sessions. I also raised my rate for remedial horses.
But the story isn't over yet.
I still go to Wink's every Friday, and often times Nancy is there. She does the feeding on some Friday afternoons (always a delightful disaster to watch... delightful because it's not my barn, and they're not my horses). I guess she has gotten over whatever happened that day because she is super perky around me now. Not in the fake polite way either. She banters at me about all the little things in her life and cracks jokes at me and even gossips about the other boarders, which I find hilarious. I have heard from several people now that she's a walking disaster, and I just wish someone had told me that before I had to figure it out myself (not that it took long).
Two weeks after Nancy fired me, I saw that the fence in the bottom arena was broken. I asked one of my lesson kids what had happened, and she informed me that Stormy had thrown Nancy through the fence. I asked how it happened and the girl told me, "He spooked and reared straight up." When I said that Nancy told me he never reared before, the girl laughed and said, "He rears all the time. Everyone knows that."
Just this month, I found out Nancy's new training approach. For $150 per session (!!!) she is paying an 'equine healer' to come work with Lilly. The healer brings crystals and does healing chants and communicates with the horse.
I managed to keep a straight face when Nancy told me all of this. I asked, "Is it working?"
"O my gosh, yes! We are really making progress. I can even bridle Lilly now!" (The horse never had a problem with tacking up or ground manners when I worked with her.)
"Are you riding her already?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"O no. The healer says the reason your methods didn't work is because they were too aggressive." (I lunged the horse in a saddle and bridle, and rattled some aluminum cans near her. That's as far as we got.)"She also says that Lilly has a dark history of abuse and may never be able to handle being ridden, but that's ok..."
Guys... I am so in the wrong end of this industry. I need to just start training horses by talking to them on the phone. I can just sit home and drink my vodka and collect three times as much money as currently do. In fact, I'll probably end up with less bumps and bruises that way. I betcha nobody has ever gotten kicked by a horse over the phone...
What makes me sad about all of this is that when I go out to the paddock these days, Lilly follows me around, being a total snuggle bug. She has been doing this since the very first time I stepped foot on the property, before I knew who she was. Last week, Nancy saw her following me and exclaimed that the healing is working and Lilly feels comfortable enough to approach me.
"Nancy... this horse is always following me around. Shut up." (I may be out of professionalism for this one.)
Gosh. It's too bad that my aggressive training traumatized this horse so badly. She probably has nightmares about me.
Did I mention that Nancy is now riding Stormy around with no helmet? When another boarder asked her if she forgot something, she stated, "O... I'm just walking him around. He hasn't been ridden in a couple months, and my back is bothering me so I don't need a helmet." To me, that sounds like more reason to wear a helmet, but that must be my aggressive training coming out....
I have had a few clients come and go through Wink's barn. Some have stopped being clients on better terms than others. Patty stopped taking lessons when her grades failed. I turned down a couple with three horses because I simply don't have the time to take them on. Another couple had two thoroughbreds in training with me for a little while, and I'll blog about them soon, too.
And then there was Nancy.
Nancy has two horses. One is a mustang cross named Stormy. The other is a really ugly appaloosa mare named Lilly.
Initially, I was hired to work with Stormy. Stormy is a middle aged (twelve? year old) gelding , and Nancy got him as a 'green broke' two year old from some cowboy in Florida (she lived there at the time). Her ultimate goal with Stormy is to ride training level dressage, something just about anyone should be able to accomplish on a sane, sound horse, if they so desire.
The story with Stormy is that he is basically fine so long as you let him do whatever he wants. He can ride at the walk and trot in the ring by the barn, as long as he gets to go where he pleases and you don't try to tell him what to do too much. He will trail ride to some degree if he's following another horse. That's about it.
I was told that Stormy "doesn't do" the ring at the front of the farm.
Apparently, there are a lot of things that Stormy doesn't do. He doesn't stand for the mounting block. He doesn't bend. He doesn't canter.
My evaluation consisted of me taking him down to the bottom ring and doing ground work. I found a horse who was pushy, rude, and jumpy. He bucked, he pulled, and when I didn't let him get away with any of that, he resorted to rearing. I informed Nancy that he wasn't a horse I would even sit on without filling in a lot of the apparent holes. Sorry, I have too many nice horses to ride to get hurt by one who has never had any boundaries. Nancy swore up and down that he doesn't do anything bad under saddle, but she also wasn't willing to get on him. Ha. Been there, heard that, have the hardware to prove it.
Two sessions later, I arrived at the barn to have Nancy ask me if I would be willing to work with Lilly. Until that point, the BO, who I get along with pretty well, had been working with Lilly. I didn't want to step on any toes and hadn't even asked about the mare. That day, however, the BO handed me the reins and said, "You can have her! I'm done!"
Lilly's story is even better than Stormy's. Nancy bred Lilly herself. She is half thoroughbred, and her dam was banned from racing after she developed the nasty habit of maliciously dumping her jockeys out of the blue. So Nancy, the genius that she is, decided to breed the mare to an appaloosa of all things. Shoot me.
Lilly is 8 years old and has accomplished exactly nothing. She has been through one trainer after another, and it sounds like the story is always the same. She makes progress, working up to the point where the trainers can walk and trot her around safely. Then, one day, she goes off, throwing epic bucks until someone gets hurt. Then she gets moved on down the line.Nancy is convinced that the mare was horribly abused by more than one of these trainers, but I have met two of them myself, and can say with a lot of certainty that neither one would beat on a horse.
The BO had been working with Lilly and was riding her around on a pretty regular basis, but that week Lilly had gone off with no warning, and had launched the BO, sending her into the fence and injuring her more than a little bit.
Once again, I told Nancy that I wouldn't just throw a leg over and see if I could stay there. Sorry. Not my M.O.
And this is where the fun begins. I spent some time working with Lilly on the ground. She had a pretty good idea of lunging, disengaging her hindquarters, and bending. We moved along to the next step and I put her next to the mounting block. Bend left, bend right, check parking brake. Check, check, check. So I leaned over her. She stood completely still, which would have been a good thing if she wasn't completely rigid.
I thumped Lilly with the off stirrup and she went off like a rocket. She bucked so hard I heard her back crack! I quietly slid back to the ground, landing softly on my butt in the deep sand. Lilly kept right on bucking, and I can honestly say they were probably the biggest bucks I've ever seen in a non-rodeo horse. She bucked so hard that she actually left ruts all around the arena. And she kept going and going and going.
I brushed off my breeches and declared, "And this is why I won't just get on her."
And so the run around began. Nancy was a terrible client from day one, but I was already at the barn every Friday, so I was game for some extra cash on the weeks that she could get her act together. No matter how much I preached about the importance of consistency in horse handling, Nancy couldn't stick to a plan. She wasn't willing to pay for more than half an hour of training per week. She rarely lessoned two weeks in a row. Sometimes she would lesson before Wink. Sometimes after. Sometimes she would call me at the last second to schedule a lesson. Sometimes she would cancel with barely enough notice for me not to drive down there. I rolled my eyes, but hoped her schedule would eventually settle.
In the mean time, I made slow progress with Lilly. We started a desensitizing regimen. I would get her comfortable with a level of pressure, only to have her explode the second we moved on to the next step. Every time she exploded, it was into a series of very impressive bucks. Once, she bucked so hard and so recklessly that she ran head first into the side of the barn and fell over. I wasn't even touching her for that one.
I was able to convince Nancy to have a chiropractor and a vet out. We didn't even have a saddle on at this point, but she does have a very nice dressage saddle that gets regularly fitted to the mare. Lilly does have a weak stifle, but nothing that would cause the sort of behavior she was displaying.After a few sessions, Nancy started to wonder if her money would be better spent on lessons with Stormy. She was willing to ride him, and wanted help 'fine tuning' him. I agreed to coach her for half an hour a week.
On our first session, it became very clear that Stormy had been trained with draw reins at some point in his life. Just the slightest bit of pressure on the bit would send him behind the vertical, where he would hide to evade the bit. He didn't know the first thing about moving forward into the contact, and he would hold his head stiffly tucked to his chest from the second Nancy got on him until the second she got down.
When I asked if he'd ever been in draw reins, Nancy vehemently denied it. I asked if she broke the horse herself or had him trained, and she admitted he came 'green broke' as a two year old. When I asked what that entailed she said, "Oh, you know, walk trot canter in a frame..." I hate to tell you, but a two year old who walks, trots, and canters in a frame when you get him has more than likely had some short cuts taken in his training.
All the while, Nancy was constantly late and was often still tacking up half an hour into our lesson slot. I am not one of those trainers who starts the clock the second she sets foot on the property, but it was getting ridiculous and I wound up having to cut her already brief lessons even shorter to get my day done.
On top of that, Nancy is a very high strung, nervous, and weepy person... not a good combo around horses. She was always on the verge of a nervous melt down and she made me jittery just from being around her. Yikes....
One day, the ring by the barn wasn't available. By the time we got to the front arena, Nancy was a nervous wreck. She was shaking as she led Stormy to the mounting block. Needless to say, he wouldn't stand still for her to get on him. I tried to coach her, but she just got worse and worse until I took Stormy's reins myself.
After a little bit of bending and parking, I decided to get on the horse. And I totally misread him. He was standing still, nice and relaxed, nothing amiss. I put a foot in the stirrup and Stormy tried to walk off. I bent his nose toward me, like I had a hundred times before. I should have known better. Stormy did exactly what a horse who has been trained with draw reins often does when he feels he can't go forward. He went straight up in the air.
I was totally caught off guard and tumbled off his back into the sand. Two for two, her horses had dumped me within a month of each other. To add insult to injury, Stormy then looked over his shoulder at me, deliberately lined me up, and tried to kick me. He missed because I saw it coming and dove back into the dirt away from him, at which point he went bucking and rearing around the ring.
Nancy swore up and down that he has never reared ever, ever, ever. I had my doubts about that. He certainly felt like he had rearing down to an art. He knew exactly how high to go to dislodge me without going over. Mike and the BO both saw the whole thing happen and agreed that it looked very deliberate, and that there hadn't been any warning from the horse.
I talked to the BO later and found out that he often rears because he, "Doesn't like to be restrained."
He doesn't like to be restrained.
A twelve year old domesticated horse.
Who has been broke since he was two.
Doesn't like to be restrained.
Nancy had a lot to say about what she would have done differently. I resisted the urge to point out that she wasn't willing or able to get on the horse herself.
Then, I told her, "This is going to be a very hard thing for you to hear, but it needs to be said. You have two horses. Both of them have very bad, very dangerous habits under saddle. One is a mare, one is a gelding. One is an appaloosa. One is a mustang cross. One is eight, one is twelve. One you've had since birth, one you got already broke. They have lived in different places. They have had different trainers. What is the common denominator?"
She stared at me blankly.
"You, Nancy. You are what is making your horses nuts."
I went on to tell her that her lack of consistency, her unwillingness to set boundaries, and her nervous nature were all working against her horses.
I also told her, "You brought Lilly into this world. It is your responsibility to look out for her future. You cannot, in clean conscience, sell her to someone. She will kill somebody. It's not right to auction her. So what are your other options? Can you afford to keep this horse for the rest of her life as a pasture mate if you're not willing to put in the time and the money to get her trained? Half an hour every couple of weeks just isn't going to do the trick. You need to be here every day doing the legwork with this horse, and it doesn't sound like you can do that right now. I don't think it would be right to euthanize her because you haven't done right by her. She's not dangerous in the pasture or on the ground, but she is definitely not fit as a riding horse right now, and that's not going to change if you don't actively do something about it."
I fully expected her to fire me on the spot. In fact, I was half hoping she would. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea why I put up with any of it for more than a nanosecond, but there I was.
Instead, Nancy tucked her tail between her legs and agreed with me.
Then, I didn't hear from her for a week. I assumed that was that.
At 4pm the following Friday, I showed up at the barn for my lesson with Wink. Nancy was standing in the barn aisle, arms crossed, scowling. "What happened to our lesson?" she barked when I walked in the door.
"You never contacted me to schedule one."
"I thought this was our regular time," she wailed, already growing hysterical.
"You have yet to take a lesson at the same time two weeks in a row. I hardly think we have a regular time. If I had showed up at three, and you weren't here, I would have had to charge you for the slot, and you would have been unhappy. At least this way you're not out of money." She continued to pout and argue and I finally said, "I don't know what to tell you, Nancy. Everybody else seems to understand how scheduling works."
"Do you confirm with Wink every week?"
"No. I don't have to. Wink's owners have had the same lesson slot every week for three years. If they have to miss a lesson, they call and cancel long in advance. If they need to reschedule, they do it ahead of time. They show up on time, have the horse tacked up when I arrive, and pay me in a timely fashion."
O yeah... did I mention she still owed me for our last session at this point? It would take me another month and an invoice with a very large 'late payment' charge for me to finally get my money.
"Well, I'm sorry I'm not one of your precious clients!!!" Nancy screamed, throwing her arms up in the air."
"I'm just telling you why I don't have to confirm with Wink every week."
Suddenly, Nancy took a deep breath and said, with an eerie calm, "Dom, I am getting a very bad vibe off of you right now. Do I need to find a new trainer?"
"You know what, Nancy... that is probably a good idea."
Well... that set her off. She went off, berating me, screaming about how my methods don't work anyway (apparently not being able to fix her two horses' decade-long training issues in three hours combined makes me a bad trainer), and crying while chasing me down the driveway (she's only about four feet tall, and I walk fast to begin with).
Finally, I spun around, put my hand up, and declared, "Nancy. This is not how I conduct my business. I am a professional, and part of free lancing is that I don't need to and do not put up with this sort of behavior. I wish you the best of luck in your hunt for your next trainer. I want nothing but the best for your horses. I will be in my car waiting for my other clients now."
Dear god.
I have had several evaluations that didn't lead to anything else. I've had people who use me until their horses are 'better' and then move on, either to other trainers or to ride on their own. I even had a client never call me back because I suggested changing farriers. The horse had very long toes and kept tripping with the man's wife in the saddle. Apparently the farrier was a lifelong friend, and the husband (a seventy year old cowboy) was pretty offended at my suggestion. But I have not had anyone go off on me like Nancy did since I started my own business.I suspect there were some underlying issues and some personal stuff. All the same, it made me grateful that I walked away from the situation before anyone got hurt.
As always, I am learning from bad experiences. What I learned from this one was not to take on crazy clients out of pity for their horses. I also stopped offering half hour training sessions. I also raised my rate for remedial horses.
But the story isn't over yet.
I still go to Wink's every Friday, and often times Nancy is there. She does the feeding on some Friday afternoons (always a delightful disaster to watch... delightful because it's not my barn, and they're not my horses). I guess she has gotten over whatever happened that day because she is super perky around me now. Not in the fake polite way either. She banters at me about all the little things in her life and cracks jokes at me and even gossips about the other boarders, which I find hilarious. I have heard from several people now that she's a walking disaster, and I just wish someone had told me that before I had to figure it out myself (not that it took long).
Two weeks after Nancy fired me, I saw that the fence in the bottom arena was broken. I asked one of my lesson kids what had happened, and she informed me that Stormy had thrown Nancy through the fence. I asked how it happened and the girl told me, "He spooked and reared straight up." When I said that Nancy told me he never reared before, the girl laughed and said, "He rears all the time. Everyone knows that."
Just this month, I found out Nancy's new training approach. For $150 per session (!!!) she is paying an 'equine healer' to come work with Lilly. The healer brings crystals and does healing chants and communicates with the horse.
I managed to keep a straight face when Nancy told me all of this. I asked, "Is it working?"
"O my gosh, yes! We are really making progress. I can even bridle Lilly now!" (The horse never had a problem with tacking up or ground manners when I worked with her.)
"Are you riding her already?" I asked, already knowing the answer."O no. The healer says the reason your methods didn't work is because they were too aggressive." (I lunged the horse in a saddle and bridle, and rattled some aluminum cans near her. That's as far as we got.)"She also says that Lilly has a dark history of abuse and may never be able to handle being ridden, but that's ok..."
Guys... I am so in the wrong end of this industry. I need to just start training horses by talking to them on the phone. I can just sit home and drink my vodka and collect three times as much money as currently do. In fact, I'll probably end up with less bumps and bruises that way. I betcha nobody has ever gotten kicked by a horse over the phone...
What makes me sad about all of this is that when I go out to the paddock these days, Lilly follows me around, being a total snuggle bug. She has been doing this since the very first time I stepped foot on the property, before I knew who she was. Last week, Nancy saw her following me and exclaimed that the healing is working and Lilly feels comfortable enough to approach me.
"Nancy... this horse is always following me around. Shut up." (I may be out of professionalism for this one.)
Gosh. It's too bad that my aggressive training traumatized this horse so badly. She probably has nightmares about me.
Did I mention that Nancy is now riding Stormy around with no helmet? When another boarder asked her if she forgot something, she stated, "O... I'm just walking him around. He hasn't been ridden in a couple months, and my back is bothering me so I don't need a helmet." To me, that sounds like more reason to wear a helmet, but that must be my aggressive training coming out....
Monday, July 13, 2015
Weekend Getaway
This past weekend, Mike and I got to do something we almost never do. We took a completely horse-free weekend road trip.
After work on Friday, Mike and I packed the new car*, grabbed the dogs, and took the six hour drive up to Andrew and Amy's lake house in the Adirondacks.
*That's right... I don't think I've mentioned this off of Facebook yet! Mike bought a new car two weeks ago! This has been in the works for months now. Mike is quite the car guy and did a ton of research on what the best vehicle for our endurance adventures would be. We needed something roomy but fuel efficient, powerful but comfortable, sporty but rugged, bigger than a car but cheaper than an SUV. In the end, he decided on the Toyota Rav4. After test driving a brandy new one, Mike decided on exactly which model (year, mileage, package) he wanted, and the hunt was on. Three weeks ago, his beloved S10 Xtreme sold to a guy in Connecticut. The following week, we drove two hours to see a 2012 Rav4 Sport with only 35,000 miles on it. We came home with a new car, and I think it's safe to say we both absolutely love it! Lots of room for dogs and camping gear. A big engine for hill climbs. Great gas mileage. And a sun roof just for fun. :)
Anyhoodles...
So we drove up in the middle of the night. We took the NY Thruway, and I reminisced about adventures past. As we passed through Saratoga, I remembered the good times spent there in my racing days.
I do have one complaint...
There are apparently two separate Exit 23's on the Thruway. They are about 50 miles apart, and they both feature left turns onto completely separate route 9's. As we took an unwanted detour through Albany, I did have to wonder about the brains behind that operation.
Thankfully, our GPS came through for a change and we were back on track in no time, and probably saved some money on tolls in the meantime.
I took over driving once we were off the highway. Mike had been up much longer than I had and worked a really long day. After the fourth time that I caught him alternating between 40 and 60 mph, I insisted on taking the wheel. He dozed off while I finished the rest of the drive, buzzing on the huge coffee I'd had late in the day.
We arrived at the cabin on Big Moose Lake around 2am. It's a touristy spot that was also the scene of a murder in 1906. In fact, the movie, A Place In the Sun, is based on these events.
Andrew and Amy had taken shifts waiting up for us, and I think they were a bit surprised that we had no trouble finding the cabin. It's in a pretty remote area, where there are more snow mobile trails than roads, and there was less than zero cell phone reception for the last several miles. After the weekend, Amy kindly informed us that the nearest hospital is two hours away. Eek!
We stayed up longer than we intended catching up with Andrew and Amy. Despite the fact that we live near each other, we don't hang out nearly enough. Now that Mike and I don't work the Haunted Hay Ride in the fall, we're not as up to date on The Farm happenings as we'd like. In fact, we haven't been to a bonfire there since last year!! Aside from one spur of the moment dinner, we hadn't seen Andrew and Amy since the Monster Truck show in January.
Once we finally went to bed, I was out before my head hit the pillow. Mike and I slept like the dead until late into the morning, when the four of us ran to town to grab breakfast and stop at the jet ski/ snowmobile store, where it was decided that Amy's next jet ski must be teal.
We spent some of the afternoon swimming and playing in the lake. The water was on the cold side, but felt refreshing once you were in. I had to suck it up and just jump off the dock. There was no way I was going to convince myself to wade in.
Some of the neighbors were out as well, floating on a tube and paddle boarding with their dog. The four of us swam out to 'rescue' their daughter when she floated too far out, and their labradoodle picked up on what we were doing and kept hauling her back to land every time she strayed out onto the lake.
Eventually, I climbed out of the water and just sat, enjoying the sun and the view.
I also tried to get some pictures of the loons that were fishing out in the water. They were bigger and more nicely marked than the ones here in NJ.
Once we got tired and hungry, we went inside to fix ourselves sandwiches for lunch. Andrew was already spoiling the dogs rotten, and they were both on their best behavior. In fact, Julio had walked past a dog on a porch that was barking its head off without even glancing at it! I was so proud. I think Herbie was just relieved that we weren't at yet another ride camp. No horses or trailers in sight! Just a couch and a grassy yard. Haha.
At that point, we all decided that we were still completely exhausted, and decided to take a nap like grown ups do. It was another three hours before any of us woke up.
After our nap, we felt up to taking a brief hike, and I was happy to bring the dogs along. Initially, we were going to climb up to Billy's Bald Spot, a ridge that offers a splendid view of the lake, but it was muggy and hot, and Amy wasn't 100% sure where the trail was. Once you factored in the bugs, we were all happy just to mosey and pause at a nearby waterfall for a bit.
That night we went out to dinner at the Big Moose Inn where the seafood bisque was to die for, and the burgers were delicious and plentiful. I was totally stuffed, but couldn't stop eating!
After dinner, it was back to the cabin for more adult activities. We played Parcheesi and Go Fish and various other card games while country music played through the cabin. Of course, there was some rum and beer involved, which made for the most intense and hilarious game of Go Fish I've ever been involved in.
Once again, we were up for all hours, and my dogs got totally spoiled rotten. At the end of the night, none of us had the heart to lock them up, so Andrew and Amy took Herbie while Mike and I took Julio. Julio was my little spoon all night long, and didn't budge until he heard Herbie wake up in the other room the following morning.
After catching up on some more glorious sleep, we packed it up and hit the road relatively early. We opted to follow Amy and Andrew down 81 so we could all grab lunch at the combination KFC/Taco Bell (I'm serious). I had a good laugh as we passed through Brookfield along the way. We relived all our inside jokes from that trip as we went. I thought it was looking awfully familiar up there!
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| Road trip Julio |
I'm not sure who was the most tire. Mike and both dogs took turns yawning and lounging in the living room. I still felt pretty peppy (hey, I didn't have to ride 50 miles on this trip!)
It was the perfect weekend away, and I'm so glad we decided to go. Of course, we would have loved more time up there, but we have to save our days off. It was a lovely romantic adventure, and a good change of pace.
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