When I arrived at the barn on Tuesday, it was windy, cold, and rainy. It was the type of day that Gambler uses as an excuse to be afraid of everything. Keeping this in mind, I set up the arena as usual with ground poles, a jump, and the saddle. Gambler needs to face scary experiences with the saddle on his back, because that is when he is most likely to buck and rear and bolt. The more situations he learns to carry the saddle through, the safer it will be for me to ride him through those same scary situations.
Before I brought Gambler into the arena or saddled him up, I had to walk out to the far pasture to catch him. Actually, he caught me. He trotted up to me with energy, and stopped a reasonable distance away without crowding my space. That is a good sign! I gave him a massage and picked all of those nasty ticks off of his chin and then haltered him.
As I tried to walk him back to the barn, however, he reared, tried to bolt, and nipped my hand - all unacceptable behavior. At first I jerked on the halter, bopped him in the nose, and spoke tersely to him in effort to make him behave. This, of course, didn't work. Then I thought about what I was doing and tried a different approach. Using the yo-yo game, I backed him across the pasture. Every time he spooked or wasn't paying attention to me or misbehaved in some other way, I asked him to back up faster. If he backed quickly, lowered his head, perked his ears toward me, or showed any signs of relaxation I released the pressure and let him rest. I backed him halfway back to the barn before he calmed down enough for me to lead him normally.
I led him the rest of the way on a loose line. He licked and chewed and yawned, even when Kezi realized he was leaving and came thundering past us to the barn.
When Gambler and I were in the arena, I saddled him up and then headed straight for the horse-eating-trees. We played one of his favorite games, half-circles at the trot or canter. It took him a while to get into it because he was still pretty right-brained - spooking and bucking. He doesn't mind the saddle until you add other stimuli. Wind is okay. The saddle is okay. But wind and the saddle? That's something else entirely!
Bringing Gambler in a little to switch direction.
I'm not sure if he is bucking here or just jumping into the canter - probably a little bit of both.
Asking Gambler to walk on.
Here he is settling down and thinking instead of reacting.
Grumpy face much?
Snuggles.
Once he was acting like a partner instead of a prey animal, we played the circling game over ground poles.
Gambler and I had a break through with the sideways game! I've been trying to play it from to close to him apparently. When I stepped back and gave him some room, he started to understand.
I wasn't sure how clear these pictures would be, but you can definitely see the sideways here!
I promise I did it on the other side too, I just don't have pictures of it.
A few hours ago I published a post about how I had lost track of my purpose. I got so focused on riding and training that I lost the relationship and the trust. So today I determined not to worry about getting on his back, but not to put it off either. I just wanted to develop our relationship, because that would naturally lead to riding. I had high hopes for the evening but I had no idea just how awesome it would be.
I walked out and tried to catch Gambler, who was way out in the South pasture. He looked up at me, nickered, and started trotting. I thought "awwww, how sweet." And then he trotted right past me and chased Kezi all the way back to the barn, leaving me to eat dust behind them. Thanks Gamby. Much appreciated. At least they had the decency to run around me instead of over the top of me.
I look so cheerful wandering through the pasture. :P
After we fed the horses, I took Gambler out into the arena. I've never really played the Parelli games in order with him. He did surprisingly well! I didn't need to use very much pressure at all to get him to lower his head, back up, yield his forequarters and hindquarters from either side, or come forward to me. I introduced him to the game of circling as the Parelli's do it, which is slightly different from how I've done it so far. I normally face him as he circles me, but they stand facing one direction and expect the horse to keep going around them. At first Gambler was really confused, but now he will go two to three full circles at the walk without checking in with me.
The barn owner brought Kezi into the arena for a while to see how she would react to a tarp I had set up under some trot poles. It was the first time we've ever tried working with Kezi and Gambler at the same time. Gambley was a little anxious when Kezi was walking through the barn and he couldn't see her, but as soon as she was in the arena he was fine.
Kezi photobombing ;)
Since my goal for the day was to play with Gambler and rekindle the bond between us, I set up a few fun obstacles to play with. Gambler's favorite! My goal was to do some liberty work with him because I haven't in such a long time, but I started by leading him on the 12' line. He didn't have any problem whatsoever.
Then came the moment of truth: I took the lead rope off. Since we haven't done anything like this in so long, I really didn't know what to expect. Gambley surprised me! Here is a video of him going over the tarp/trot poles.
There were definitely times that Gambler just walked (or trotted) away from me, but he always came back.
A couple of times he dodged around the tarp, but he loved the jump. He even trotted over it a couple times.
licking and chewing
Somebody had an itchy chin.
Signs of relaxation: lowered head and licking and chewing motions.
I asked him to walk onto the tarp, stop . . .
back up a few steps . . .
and walk on.
I was tempted to only show pictures of Gambler being good and edit all the "oops moments" out of my videos, but I decided against it. I want to show anyone who would ever want to try liberty that it isn't going to be perfect in the beginning and that is okay. Your horse is going to walk away from you. He's going to walk around the obstacles or awkwardly stand looking at you. There were a few times Gambler stood looking at me and I knew if I walked after him he would walk away. So I waited. It took patience, but every time I waited, he walked over to me.
He's thinking about coming to me.
Still waiting.
And he comes over to see what I'm up (or down) to.
Snuggles
Gambler trotting over the jump at liberty.
I let him check out the mounting block too.
But wait . . .there's more! The best part is that I got all the way on my horse today! I didn't "ride" him because he was holding still and I was just laying over his back. But I jumped over him sideways many times on both sides and stayed on there quite a while. There was a point when he saw my boot out of the corner of his eye and spooked, but he never bucked or anything like that. I fell off a ton (landing on my feet) while he was standing still. It is way harder to balance while laying sideways over a horse than you would think! I think it's ironic and amazing that the one day I didn't put all my effort into getting on his back was the day I finally mounted my horse.
Do you remember the highlight of my summer? I mentioned it in my very first post and then uploaded video proof a few days later. I was so excited. I could hardly believe that after only a few months my horse would circle at liberty.
After that I started playing games with him, making our time together fun and challenging so that we both enjoyed ourselves. Do you remember that? Do you remember the stick-to-me game that Gambler would play with me at liberty?
If you remember then you're ahead of me. Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me. I know that owning a horse is all about the relationship and that if I ever want to do amazing things with Gambler I have to form that bond of trust with him. But time and time again I get so caught up in deadlines and comparing myself to everyone else that I miss what is right in front of me: my horse. My dream-come-true.
Today, when I go out to see Gambler, my goal isn't to work on getting him ready to be ridden, or to set the whole riding thing aside to goof off, but to play the games that horses play with each other and remind us both of the bond of trust that we once had.
I'm really sorry to say that my brother got many, many more videos, but somewhere between his camera and my computer they were destroyed so that you can only hear the audio, without visual. I made the rookie mistake of deleting the originals. I'm really, really bummed about it. The quality was way better on them thanks to my brother who took all my photos and videos. Gambler and I had a very eventful day and thankfully my bro was there to catch every minute of it. Of course, now I don't have much to show for it. At least the two videos taken on a different camera will work.
In the first video that was destroyed, I let Gambler off of the line to go play with the ball. In the clip it is pretty easy to see why I prefer to do that offline. Gambler was even more enthusiastic than usual. It was like watching a little boy play soldier. My little gelding was pretending to be a big bad stallion. I was very proud of him in the end. He cantered away from the "big bad enemy stallion" and then trotted back to the ball to reengage. However, when I asked him to stop and pay attention to me instead, he promptly went from "wild stallion" to loyal friend in a matter of seconds.
We played a lot with tarps and going through tight spaces, but those videos were lost as well.
Gambler and I played two of the same games we played yesterday: stick to me and catching me.
Stick to me is the game where I ask Gambler to walk beside me and trot, turn, stop, and back up when I say so. Today I really emphasized yielding the forequarters and the hindquarters.
Catching me is the game where I let Gambler loose and play the stay with me game with him until he wanders off. When his butt is to me I add pressure, but when he turns to face me I back off. In the end I found that disengaging his hindquarters work really well to bring him to me.
These are the only two videos I have. I'm really, really disappointed. Not so much because I can't show you, but because now those moments are lost. That and my brother put a lot of effort into them. Oh well, I've learned my lesson!
