Still on Hobbling and Ride 6

4/20/2010- Technical difficulties--see photos in previous post. Risa and May are tied in the arroyo just north of the arena, prior to hobbling.

Hobbled! I got the leather hobbles from a client that was over 80 years old and he was getting out of horses.  They are just a loop of folded soft leather with a hole and a leather knot.  To use them, you have to open them, put around one leg, twist them, and put the knot in the hole.

Before I hobbled her, I put a rope around her her front legs one at a time and asked her to give to the pressure.  She is pretty low key, so since she had little problem with that, I put on the hobbles. They cannot be put on loosely due to their design.  Not enough twist and the horse pulls her feet out.  Oops.  That happened.

Tried again with one more twist. May fussed with them and got both feet off the ground, tried to pull a foot out again (it worked before!) and then decided to eat.  She has a club foot and always eats with that foot way back. Can't do that with hobbles!  That did not make her happy! 

More arguing with the hobbles, but they would NOT come off, so she decided to kneel down to eat!  She did this several times and it was funny to see! I have a picture but it just looks awkward and you can't tell she is actually eating!

Meanwhile Penny was loose and decided she needed to run.  She ran all over, not actually near us.  May got pretty excited and elected to try out running in her hobbles.  She was frighteningly good at it! Might have to add a rope from the halter to the hobbles to slow her down in the back country. Over all she was moderate to low in her reaction to hobbles.  They made her mad, but she didn't panic, nor did she freeze up

Riding in the arena! After the excitement of hobbling, I put Penny in the pens, tied May back in the trees and rode Risa.  Ol swishy tail!  She has a lot of opinions and is not afraid to share them. 

I switched the saddle to May, and left Risa at the tree ties.  Penny was busy crying because she was left out. I lunged May on a 10 foot line at the walk and trot. Backed, sideways, moved her hip and took my time mounting as it was her first time out of the round pen.  The arena has 2 sides of pipe fence, one side is an embankment and the other side is open.  It is about 70 feet wide and 100 feet long + another 100 feet that is not as wide.  It has a crusher fine and sand base which is great in wet and snowy weather!

I got on and off until she felt quiet under me and then started walking and turning.  She is not really stopping with 2 rein pressure, but if I bend her gently, either way, and quit riding by softening my brain and my body, she stops and stands.  If I up the tension in my body, she will walk off.  Main key is keeping her relaxed and responsive.

We did trotting and and turning around the barrels, walked over logs and into a turn-around box where she paused did 90 and 180 turns.  She will rush the trot, so we circled a lot to control her speed and energy without pulling on her face.  She will quit trotting if I quit riding.  I use voice commands: walk, trot, canter, whoa, back.  Her trot will take some time to gain rythym while she gets used to packing a person.

To end, we lined up by the rope gate.  With in a few days we will end by opening and closing this gate.  Ending with the gate provides a lot of incentive to master it and most of my horses take very little time to figure that out (after they get over sniffing the rope, investigating the gate "posts", worrying about the embankment and the wood pile and who is tied up in the arroyo!)

More of the same tomorrow!