When I have these first training sessions with a new horse, I often think of the song from The King and I, "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you..." Depending on the circumstances, sometimes I go into a first session with a lot of information about the horse, sometimes not so much, sometimes conflicting information from different sources, and sometimes what the horse tells me in the first session doesn't match at all what the humans have told me.
In this case, Nova behaved exactly as I'd expect a typical five year old to behave who had been staying in a stall overnight at a horseshow, then rode in a trailer for eight hours, then stayed in a small paddock for three days. She was very full of herself and ready to PLAY!!
I'd spent a little time with her yesterday figuring out what of my tack library fits her best. Since she's got that look to her of a baby who's been growing a lot recently, I fully expect her tack preferences and fits to change over the next weeks and months, but at least I've got some gear that fits her right now. The piece that I tried the most variations was her bit. She has a warmblood sized face, but her actual mouth and tongue are quite narrow and thin. I initially tried a regular two piece snaffle bit, but the mouthpieces were straight and didn't lie nicely over her tongue and bars of her mouth. She looked at me and tried to keep her mouth shut like a well behaved creature, but I stuck my finger in the side of her lips and had her "say ah". This made it clear to her that I was looking at fit, and she proceeded to gape her mouth open, wagging her tongue at me to clarify that no, this was not the one!
Next I tried a three piece snaffle that was curved, but the side pieces were still too long. This made it so the angles of it once more didn't lie smoothly across her tongue and bars, and actually projected out the sides of her mouth. She made funny faces again.
On the third try I put a very curved three piece snaffle in her mouth, with more equal length pieces. This one laid nicely over her tongue and bars and didn't poke too far out the sides of her mouth. She was much quieter with this in her mouth and noticeably relaxed once I had everything adjusted. I'll say this for the opinionated baby horses - they sure do make it clear when you've got something right or wrong!
Once we were tacked up we headed out to the ring. It's a little bit of a walk the way I currently have pasture fencing set up, and she was eager to get going! She has such a huge stride she could out walk me without trying, but she was sure trying! We practiced a little bit of walking and stopping and being polite, which is super hard when you're full of beans.
Eventually we got to the ring, and I set her up with a rope halter over her bridle and put her on the lungeline. I had the dogs with me, and I suspect working around dogs is new to her from how she reacted. Initially she gave them the side-eye, wondering if she was supposed to be paying attention to them and what they said, or me and what I directed. Quickly she figured out they are more playmates than taskmasters, and thus began the young horse circus!
This photo of her playing with the dogs with her front legs going one way and her hind legs going the other way makes me laugh, and reminds me of a very similar photo I have of Highboy near the same age when he was playing with the dogs.
I'm hoping that it's just a fluke similarity and not a harbinger of what's to come in this mare's training - Highboy took a VERY long time to mature physically, then mentally. While he's totally solid today, he didn't get his last half inch of height until his eight year old year, and his brain didn't really kick in until he was closer to eleven! Hopefully being a Standardbred and not thoroughbred, Nova will have an easier time of it despite their photographic similarities.
Then again, this photo reminded me of one of many shots I have of Highboy doing the same maneuver. However, he had no qualms about doing it under saddle to express disdain at small jumps.
Nova had a good hard look at the ground poles while she was on the lungeline. There was certainly lots to think about in this first training session!
Once I had her walking and trotting politely on the line and mostly ignoring the dogs, I took her tack off and let her run around free in the ring. I didn't realize until later that I managed to leave the pivo recording while I put gear back in my tack room, but it produced some fun photos of her goofing around with Pascal.
I don't want anyone to be worried about the dogs, though. While Nova was expressing her jollies, my dogs remembered their early days helping as horse training dogs. They are not opposed to barking and creating some merriment, but they are quite good at staying out of the way and avoiding flying hooves.
Ultimately Nova showed some fancy trotting with Pascal along for encouragement - check out the length of her stride when she's extended!
Nova also must have figured out the ground pole thing, because I caught her actually trying to jump it on the video that recorded while I wasn't in the ring. I'm hopeful that she thinks this is a fun game if she's trying it all on her own, and that she'll enjoy jumping once I start introducing it. Her jumping training will begin relatively slowly, because she is after all only five. Horses skeletons aren't mature until at least 7, and in a horse her size quite possibly eight. So her early jump work will include lots of cavalletti and footwork to help her figure out where her feet and body are in space, and that will go a long way towards teaching her how to do bigger and faster jumps for having the time spent on the little things.
Nova did settle down once she was done with her shenanigans. What a good looking girl. I'm very excited about this new project, and I think the dogs are too!
Lynx is still here, he'll likely start his journey to his new home in Kansas on Monday. The poor guy is a little confused as to why I'm doing this with Nova instead of him. When I led her down to the ring, he followed along the entire length of the pasture on his side of the fence, watching us and occasionally whinnying. I don't think he was calling to Nova, as he hasn't seemed interested in her at all since we all go home. But he does this sometimes when I drive my truck along the property, following me from his side of the fence. He also watched our training session from the gate, and I could almost feel him rolling his eyes at her baby horse antics. He then walked the length of the fence back to the barn watching me. He's the one in the fly mask in the photo. I think he misses the job! I've given him a few days off after working so hard at Nationals, but he says he's ready to get back to it.
Highboy is in this photo talking to Nova over the fence, hopefully telling her how pleasant it is to be a well behaved grown up horse, and not giving her any additional ideas for shenanigans. Once Lynx leaves I'll gradually start introducing Nova to my herd so eventually she can live outside with them too. I don't want to create unnecessary drama by trying to incorporate her into the group while Lynx is still here, it will be simpler to do it once she only has to determine her place with my three who have been together for so many years.
