The lovely Tallic turned 3 last Friday and I headed off to the Dandenong Ranges to drop Dale off at my parent's place while I went to visit and stay with my friend (and cousin by marriage) Louise. Lou had invited me to share a weekend with her fence sitting a clinic with the marvelous Harry Whitney. The clinic was one of a few organised by her instructor/trainer Ross Jacobs. I always enjoy reading Ross' articles in Chaff Chat and was keen to see their training methods in person (rather than via the phone with Lou!)
So, after a tiring but very interesting weekend sitting in the stalls watching various horse owners and Harry at work, I've come home with a new vigor, interest and confidence in training my own horse!
I have in fact been only moments away from sending Lutallic off to the horse breakers, and have even got an appointment with them tomorrow to go and have a visit and watch Bruce O'Dell working some youngsters. My good friend Christine is coming with me, and it will be very interesting to see the property and find out if Bruce's methods will complement my own ideals. I certainly hope so, and from what his wife Jane has told me in our two conversations I think they will. My farrier is the one who first put me onto Bruce and I have since talked to quite a few other people I know and all reports have been good so far!
Anyway, over to tonight's efforts:
It was getting late, for various reasons, but I figured that I didn't need to make it a marathon, so just 'do it'!!
- After getting the rug off and giving my little fat buddy a groom I began by asking him to back off the wash with a gentle lead wiggle. So far so good! I also made sure when i initially put the halter on that I had his attention and his willingness to do so. I did.
- At the clinic, I was reminded that the horse should be able to go out on the circle with just an indication of direction. I had the feeling that I usually helped the horse out too much by lifting the driving rein as well, so I made sure that I didn't do that. My little star responded beautifully.
- Another point I'd noticed at the clinic was the precision with which the rein was changed on the circle. No stepping in to the handler's space, and only very subtle cues. We did it!! Yay.
- Problems were exactly where I expected them to be: softening thru the neck, particularly backing off lead pressure from the halter (nose) AND leading off. I knew that was going to suck and it did! These are definitely our focus points for the moment. I got him moving forward a little more crisply, but no-where near well enough. The backing up from under the chin is terrible! No 'giving' and softening - yuck. I ended up backing him out of the corral (didn't bother taking him to the round yard as my intention was just to do a bit of training work at the walk). We went into one paddock, and Boo ventured into another. I suppose on the bright side, Tallic did stay quite focused on me.
- Did some backwards and forwardsing, but need to figure out how to get him to soften with the nose pressure. Will do some work in the round yard so that I can get into him a bit more without the fear of him nicking off!
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the session and where he is at.
