My grey mare

[breakfast]

A couple of pictures from the last few days:


Looking pretty on the yard


Grey ears on a misty ride.


Our brakes are getting good now!

[el]

Fab photos!!

[kas]

Yes, beautiful horse posing in winter sunshine, lovely.

[breakfast]

Today I took my big sweet mare over to a friend's place for a bit of schooling ( and travel practice ) which was good fun- we had our first full on canter-to-halt transition and also did a bit of work on changing leads, which she does so smoothly and easily that it feels almost imperceptible. She is such a great horse.

Also when it's time to come in for tea she stands in the mud and paws, creating more mud and making everything nearby muddy. That is slightly less adorable.

[quest]

Excellent mare and brilliant work Breakfast.

[breakfast]

First time the school was usable today, after delivering some things to Sari we went home and did some schooling. Worked on asking Iris to release her poll and after a bit of work she suddenly dropped her head and started lifting her back beautifully. We stopped and I made a big fuss of her, which seemed persuasive because she began to offer that type of carriage much more consistently from then on, in walk and trot. A very splendid mare.

[nicxf]

She's turning into a little superstar by the sounds of it!

[el]

Woohoo!

[breakfast]

On Sunday I finally managed to do something I have wanted to try for the last five years and actually rode my horse to cattle here in the UK.

There aren't many places that one has the opportunity to do that in this country - the only one I know of is Bar S in Kent who are about seventy miles away, so when I saw they had a cattle clinic there I booked myself onto it for mid January. Then it rained for the entirety of December, January and most of February and they were pretty much too wet to do anything. Last weekend was the first time that they actually had any dry enough space to ride in and as it was the going was quite muddy but workable.

We unloaded and it was nice to be around a group of friendly western riders with a common interest in trying some practical western riding rather than the showing disciplines which are most of what one sees here.

The specific event we were working with was ranch sorting, where people work in a figure 8 pen with numbered cattle and two riders. The goal is to get as many cows as possible from the pen with the herd in to the other, in numeric order. One rider typically maintains the gateway and makes sure that no previously sorted cows come back, the other rides into the herd and sorts out the numbered cows then guides them to the gate. Letting an out-of-order cow through is an instant disqualification and the game has a tight time limit.

As the most total n00b there, I was teamed up with Stuart, who owns the ranch and was consequently excellent at sorting and moving the cows. We watched from the side of the ring while everyone else had a try - Iris with her ears fixed on the cows - and very quickly ( ninety second rounds go by quickly ) it was our turn.

First time around we just worked on being able to approach cows and move through them, which Iris thought might be impossible. We were better on the gate in our second round, because that mostly required a bit of forward and backwards, which we can usually manage, although the day did make me realise our accelerator is a bit sticky. With Stuart sorting cows out and us keeping them sorted ( and moving to cut off other cows from diving through ) we got a lot through, though I don't think that speaks ever so much of my skill. On our second attempt at sorting we managed to get a single cow out and through the gate, although it took us a lot more time than the round limit, nobody minded and the whole atmosphere was very much of supporting people at improving.

The third time we went into the herd, something clicked with Iris and she realised that she was here to chase these cows and that they would move when she moved them. Everything changed in a moment- suddenly she was enthusiastically pushing the cows around and turning quickly to mark them once I made it clear to her which one we needed to beat. There was no longer any feeling of heaviness to our steering or transitions and we were able to get several cows through - in fact I think we were allowed quite a lot of extra time because Iris had so clearly cottoned on to her job and was doing so well.


Iris having figured out what I was trying to ask her to do.

After lunch we went back out and when I was tacking up Iris attention was already fixed on the arena where we were going to be working and after that our rounds got smoother and way more effective, although there were one or two moments where she got a bit over-excited and kicked a cow that was passing behind her, so we might have to explain that isn't a great strategy.

I had a really fun day and Iris seemed to enjoy it too. It certainly reinforced my view that if you have the chance to work cattle with your horse, regardless of your normal discipline, it is well worth taking.

It made me so proud of my horse and so impressed with her ability to turn herself to anything I ask of her, she really is about the best mare that a person could possibly wish for. I am already planning to go back next month for their next cattle clinic.

[el]

I adore this write up well done Ben & cow pony!!!

[breakfast]

Today Adam, who drove us over to the Steve clinic earlier in the summer, took me up on my offer and dropped by with one of his students to go for a little ride on the common. It was a really great opportunity for Iris to figure out riding in a group, which we have never done before.

She was very unsure at first because there were other horses and she didn't quite know what she should do about it but I think over the course of the ride she figured out that she didn't actually need to do anything and then she was pretty good. We lead at times and stayed at the back on the way home and she was fine wherever I asked her to be. She carried a lot of life, especially at first, but she didn't do anything about it. Very good mare.

[breakfast]

I haven't updated here for a while now and we've done a lot, no doubt, but I thought I might share a couple of videos I took on Tuesday. The first one is just a bit of liberty stuff with mare and I. It's not a thing we work on, but she was being so good on the line I thought we could take it off and see where we got to:



Then, as Iris wanted to run up and down the school grabbing as much grass as she could rather than being caught, we took some film of her cantering in slow motion and then I added music:



Pure sentimentality. I love it

[snigsby]

FAB - U - LOUS!!!!