Nova had her second ride here at Bit of Honey Training yesterday morning. As mentioned before she's only five, and because of her age she has different responses to things than Lynx did. She has figured out walking and trotting in the ring, and so we headed to the fields for a hack.
I groomed her and tacked up in the equipment she seemed happy with when we ended last time. She seemed happy with it again today, so I kept things the same. My dogs of course assisted with mounting, and got a cookie each for their efforts. They are remembering training from years ago, when they were much younger and would help me back horses for the first time.
Since I teach horses to be mounted from both sides, I'd lead a horse to the block, and the dog would stand in front of them and tell them to hold still. I'd stand on the block, pat the saddle, lean over, and weight the stirrup. Then I'd turn the horse around and stand at her head myself. The dog would then get on the block, pat the saddle with nose and paws, weight the stirrup with paws, do everything I'd done. This was great desensitization for the horse! If she'll stand still for the dogs to assist, they'll generally stand still for most everything.
Once I was on, we reviewed walking and trotting in the arena and a little bit of ground pole work. She was a little "up" as we headed out - after all this was exciting for her! I hadn't seen her pace at all in turnout or while under saddle yet, but I noticed her walk tends to get lateral when she's very excited and trying to walk as fast as she can. This isn't a big deal, I can correct it by putting some tone in my core and moving my seat in a more clear pattern of a four beat walk, and she's good about matching my seat and moving to a clear walk instead of borderline pace. Once she is more confident about riding out in the open and has better core strength herself from walking up and down hills I fully expect her to have a fantastic free walk. This is important for her training because I'm aiming her at eventing as a sport horse, and she'll need a clear four beat walk for her dressage tests.
One way I'm helping her to get more coordinated and to learn how to move in this big, fast growing body is with ground poles. We walked each direction over them, and we do it on a very long loose rein. I'm mostly steering with my seat and supporting those directions with the reins if I need it, but she's in charge of her footwork and how she carries her body and me. I explain this as "the human is in charge of steering, the horse is in charge of feet". She was a little loosey-goosey and wiggly through the poles the first time or two, but quickly figured out how to do it without hitting her hooves. You can see in this first photo she's kind of crooked and a little off balance, but is stepping over the pole. In the second photo she's taking a longer step with her hind leg, her back is lifted, and as a result her head came down. This is why I don't ever tie horses's heads down, if they are taught how to think and move their body correctly themselves, their head will end up where it needs to be to balance.
Once we were done in the ring we headed to the fields. She did great heading out, and then we arrived in the spot in the back field where we have to go a little bit downhill and into the shade at the same time. This is tricky for a horse for a couple reasons involving their vision. As a preview of coming attractions, an eventing horse is required to jump in and out of shadows and light, up and down hills, which is much trickier for the horse than people realize!
Horses have a huge field of vision, seeing nearly 360 degrees around themselves with only two small blind spots directly in front and behind them. This photo shows the blind spot in blue. However, they don't have great depth perception because their eyes are on the sides of their head instead of in front. Just that piece would make stepping down into an unknown drop a little intimidating.
This area near the pond also goes from bright sunlight into shade in the same place as the downhill. Horses' eyes don't adjust to changes in dark and light as quickly as humans' do, so from Nova's perspective she could have been stepping off a cliff into a dark abyss for all she knew! I asked her to walk forward into the shade and downhill, and she said "Nope, nope nope!" We had a little hopping side to side with her front legs in a rough imitation of a cutting horse as she declined to go forward. Part of this was swinging side to side so that she could aim each eye at the front facing blind spot in an effort to see better what was ahead. I asked her again to go forwards and she got a little light in her loafers, lifting her front end up a bit in refusal. I can't really blame her, she's a five year old with big feelings and she's never done any of this before!
These very circumstances are why I ride especially green horses with my border collies. When Nova made it clear that she did not have the courage to go downhill into the shade on her own, I called in the dogs. They were close by as usual, and I told them to go ahead of us to show Nova it was both safe and not a big drop. The dogs were happy to oblige, passing us carefully while wearing their bells on their collars so Nova could hear them. They walked down the little drop and into the shade. Once Nova realized they could do it safely, weren't apprehensive, and she could follow them, she happily went right behind. There was one other spot in the back field that was similar and she had a similar reaction, but as soon as Pascal went ahead of her she was instantly good with going there too.
All this is very normal for a green horse, and the added drama fits for a five year old with big feelings. She overall was very reasonable, she just has to have these experiences and figure out all these things. Thank goodness for good dogs!
The girl is learning her selfie game as well. First try was a little cheesy with her smile,
Second time with her eyes shut and sticking out her tongue,
Lastly she and I got it right for the camera!
Here's her browband bling for the day courtesy of Chameleon Browbands.
Here's the video from her ground pole work in the arena and her walk out in the fields with the dogs.
