Stori Lines on PNN

Exasperation

I lunged Nikki yesterday, mostly in the spooky end of the arena. He was doing o.k., and then, heaven forbid! two people and a dog walked down the street. Scary! If you're a giant grey horse, that is. Nikki's head went up, ears riveted foward, tail up, he pranced around and snorted (yep, that should get rid of those walkers!).

Geez, Nikki! Its just people walking down the street! You've seen it before! Aren't we done with this yet?

I wasn't going to put up with this behavior. I hollered. I yelled. I flicked my lunge whip. Nikki turned slightly and kicked. Just his right leg, the one closeset to me. Guess that was to make sure I understood he was kicking at me.

Was it because I gave him Wednesday off? Was it because we haven't worked in the spooky end in awhile?

Well, the weekend is here so that should mean three solid days of good works. Like I said, two steps forward, one step back.

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Back in the Saddle!

Yea! I rode Nikki on Sunday and Monday. He was good both times. They were only about five minute rides but that's ok. What's important is that, so far, I think I've been able to transfer my confidence on the ground to the saddle. On Sunday, he made a slight attempt to stop and turn around, having decided that he was done with our little ride. I sent him onwards and he didn't put up any fruther argument. Monday it was really windy but, with some encouragement from Brian, I rode anyway. I learned from lunging him that, just because Nikki throws his head way up in the air and perks his ears forward to look at something, I need to take a second before panicking and see what the rest of his body is doing. More likely than not, he's not showing any signs of tesnion which means he's not likely to take off bucking. Now, I need to continue with as much consistency as I can and slowly decrease lunging time and increase riding time.

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3 Areas to Work

This morning, as I was working Nikki, the three areas he needs work in became clear to me.

1. Physical conditioning - Nikki needs to lose some wieght and become more fit. Right now, I don't think either of us would make it through an hour lesson with Jan.

2. Mental stamina - After working for about 20 minutes or so, Nikki often decides he's done. First, he just stops doing whatever I'm asking. If that doesn't work and I ask him to continue, he spins, maybe rears or kicks a little and then heads towards the gate. So I'm trying to slowly increase the time I spend with him, even if some of that time is grooming; he's still having to pay attention to me. Nikki needs to learn that I decide when we're done, not him.

3. Quiet in the arena. He just needs to get over his spookiness and realize that the quail are not going to kill him.

This will give me a framework to help guide my time with Nikki.

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One Step Forward . . .

and two steps back. That's what I feel like with Nikki. We'll have a good work and then the next one will be full of problems. My trainer wants me to keep free lunging him to the left until we get that problem completely solved but I really want to ride. I'm worried that if I focus on the lunging problem, we'll never get to a show this season. So, I lunged him this morning with his saddle on and, next time Brian is home when I have time to ride, I'm going to hop on him.

I also need to work up his stamina and mine so we can make it through an hour lesson. Right now, if he's decided he worked long enough, he kicks at me and heads towards the gate. So, this morning I wore a watch and I'm going to keep track of how long we work. Today I lunged him for 20 minutes, with 15 of that at the trot. I had him out for about 50 minutes.

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Progress?

Nikki and I are still working on free lunging to the left. He's being really good. On Saturday, he stayed on the rail, even down at the scary end of the arena. No spooking, no stopping, no head way, way up in the air with ears fixed forward. Geez, he looked so quiet, I almost felt that I could probably get on him.

I'd call it progress but I don't want to jinx it!

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Go Left, Nikki!

I just got done free lunging Nikki, insisting that he only go to the left. To my surprise, he trotted to the left, around and around the arena quite happily. Why won't he do that on lunge line?! I'm mystified.

After a few minutes, he even settled into a nice, lunging-size circle right around me. He stopped, walked, and trotted on voice-command. You would have thought I had a lunge line on the horse. He only tried to turn around and go right a few times. But the second I got behind him and popped the whip, he turned right back around and headed off to the left again.

We'll try again tomorrow.

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Solutions

I had a long talk with my trainer, Jan, last night about Nikki's latest problems. We went through a couple of potential solutions. I was very happy about the fact that I'd thought of all these on my own but just wasn't sure which one to employ:

Stud chain: Its a light chain that goes around the horse's nose. Potential problem is that we don't know if Nikki has ever had one on or not. If not, there's the very real possibility that the first time Nikki feels it around his nose, he'll go flying backwards. Jan raised the concern that, if he backed up all the way to the arena fence and decided to keep going, he'd easily go right through the fence and may wind up tangled in the vineyard. Other possibility is that he would rear and flip himself over backwards. We decided against the stud chain.

Side reins: These go from the bit rings on the bridle to the saddle girth and can be adjusted tightly or loosely. These will certainly help Nikki's flexion and we may use them later but, they won't do anything to stop him from turning his big butt and kicking at me.

Free lunging: Basically, that's me chasing Nikki around the arena, trying to keep him going in a circle to the left, which is the way he doesn't like to go. We decided to employ this method for now in the hopes that he'll get used to going left without endangering me or him. I need to go buy a longer lunge whip today so I can stay a bit further back from him to lessen the possibility of getting run over. And, I think I'll carry my jumps back into the arena so I can hopefully keep him in about 3/4ths of it. That will allow me to keep him going better.

I just want to ride!!!

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Bad Horse, Nikki!

I lunged Nikki yesterday afternoon. He was spooky, as usual. I'm getting a little frustrated because I'd think that by now, Nikki would have had time to give everything in the arena a good look and we could be done with the spookiness. One time, he practically jumped on top of me. I have no idea what was so scary.

So, everything was going o.k. until I asked him to lunge to the left. That resulted in him immediately turning his butt towards me and kicking at me. I'd yell at him, he ran straight away from me, I eventually had to let go of the lunge line, he charged around the arena and would eventually stop. I'd go get the lunge line and the entire process would repeat.

Finally, it was time for me to go in because my Mom was leaving. I left Nikki in the arena and told him I'd be back.

A couple of hours later, Brian came home and told me he'd already seen what my horse did. I asked what he was talking about. "You haven't seen the gate?" he asked. "No." I said. He pulled me outside. Seems that Nikki was mad about being left in the arena and took his frustrations out on the gate. The top rail was bent nearly parallel to the ground and the rest of the gate had some good twists and bends in it. It took some amount of force to do that. Bad horse, Nikki!

I got the kids to bed and went back out. We repeated the steps exactly as we had earlier. Nikki lunged to the right perfectly. Ask him to turn around and go left and I immediately had hooves flying at my face. I gave up after about three times. Nikki's kicking was getting more forceful and he stopped taking those polite steps away from me before he kicked. The possibility of my getting hurt was becoming more likely so I was forced to give in, which I wasn't happy about.

I'm kind of at a loss for what to do. I called Jan 'though I didn't really want to. I figured my options are to try again, try to get his head around quicker so he can't turn his butt at me and kick. Or, I could just lunge him to the right today, lunge him tomorrow with a saddle on, and then start riding him and get back to lunging to the left later. I just don't know.

At least he's kept his shoes on.

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Back to the Showring

I've designated yesterday, April 28, as my first day on the path back to the horseshow ring. I haven't shown since college, which makes it over 10 years. I've attempted to start down this path before and have run into many obstacles along the way - having kids, poor horse choices, lacking a trainer, and my own lack of motivation.

But, now, I'm back on the path. I've taken a few good first steps: I bought Nikki last September, I've been diligent about working with him over the past few weeks and so am overcoming my fear of him when he jumps about (he's a huge 17 hands - bigger than any horse I've ridden much before). Jan, my trainer, is just waiting for me to give the word that I'm ready to start up lessons again. Its been 5 days now and Nikki has kept his shoes on (well, I haven't gone to check this afternoon).

Oh, and my dear husband put up lights in my arena so I can ride after the kids are in bed.

There's also a long way to go: I need to continue to be diligent in my training. That means getting Nikki out even though I might not feel like it 100%. I need to swallow my fears and get Nikki out even though conditions might not be perfect (windy, cold, noisy). He doesn't scare me on the ground anymore, now we need to build a trust when I'm riding him. I need to believe Jan when he tells me I'm a good, talented rider.

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