My week four with Black jack was not to exciting. It was warm here so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to give him a lesson on letting me give him a bath. He was skittish about the water touching him at first. What I did to get him use to the water was, I got him curious about what I was doing, he definitely didn’t know what I was doing. Bathing is a very interesting tool in the training process of a horse. It lets you let the horse know that you can touch and move the horse with not only with your hands and a stick and string.

When I would let the water touch him I would wait for him to look at me with both eyes or ears. This let me know that he was still on the program of him letting me give him a bath. He warmed up to it and by the end he was letting the water run over his face. After the bath was done he still just wanted to be with me so I hung out with him and sorta treated him like a puppy. Giving him love and treats.

This week Ilo and I worked on flying lead changes,trail rides,and baths.

We started off the week in lessons learning flying lead changes on a small canter course . The first couple times we went through at a trot and Ilo acted like she didn’t know what to do,but after going through a couple times she got it. Then we went to a canter. At first she didn’t get the change. But by about the 3rd time she did it really nicely  going back towards home. So we came in and I gave her a rest. On our next turn she tried but only got a half of a change in the back which is still good because it means she was trying and that she is more confident in the back.

The next time I went out we went on a group trail ride, to improve her endurance.she was great about it. She was kind of the mom of the group by making sure no one got left behind and keeping a good pace for the smaller ponies.We did a long walk/trot/canter ride and worked on keeping all the ponies calm.When we came back to the ranch she was pretty sweaty so I gave her a bath.

I started with tieing her to the fence but she got nervous about not being able to move her feet. So I held her instead and started letting her look at the hose and water,and she stuck her nose right in it. Then I started spraying the ground by her feet. She moved away but I brought her back and we worked on her being more comfortable with the water being sprayed by her feet.When she became more confident with it by her feet I started working the water up her legs unil she was standing still.Then I lossely wrapped te rope around  the fence again. She didn’t like having the tension on her face at first bt quickly got more use to it and let me spray her all over.

If was a pretty good week for the both of us. I can work on my lead changes more often until she is a pro.

Last weekend we took a field trip to Overlook Shetland Farm to work on harness training. We brought 9 kids and worked with 2 mares and 8 geldings. You can see photos and sales prices of the ponies we worked with on the breeder’s website, http://www.overlookfarm.net. Diane Zmolek was very kind to us and her farm was beautiful! This was our first time being sponsored. Farnam donated awesome prizes for the kids and wormer for all our ponies back home! We’ll post more later, but for now, here is a slideshow of beautiful Overlook farm and Diane’s future CDE pony stars.

This is my third week with the mustang Black Jack. This week I got him over his fear of his back legs being handled more. I got to the point where I was picking up his hind legs and stretching his legs forward and backwards also putting pressure on them. He surprisingly had a really good attitude about everything I did to him. I also lunged him in the rhythm collector, the rhythm collector is a basically a  nylon strap that is placed at the poll of the horse, down the cheeks threaded through the rings on halter and then down under the front legs and tied on the back of the horse. This teaches him to to trot with his head down and relax, not just trotting in general but when ever and which ever way he moves.

After I lunged him I did more with his back end and I got to the point where I was standing directly behind him and I could just hang out resting against his croup. While I was behind him I would talk to him, pet his flank and all around until he showed signs of relaxation. After I could tell that Black Jack was relax I decided to get on his back. For a while I just sat on his back and did seat work like: arm circles, kick up, touch my heels, touch my toes, pet down his neck, and twist to touch his rear.

After I did seat work I walked around on him just doing simple figure eights and walking around in random patterns. While he was walking I did more seat work on him, he wasn’t to sure about me moving around up on his back while he was walking around. He settled in after a while and was moving around fine, not as smoothly as I would like, but it is getting there. He definitely is getting close to being able to be ridden in lessons.

This week I had to turn in my first research paper, about the plight and history of the American Mustang. The research was very interesting, I have to admit some of it actually made brought tears to my eyes. When I was reading about Wild Horse Annie I could not believe what the mustang hunters would do to round up the horses and just to make a couple extra bucks. How they round them up was, they would run them across long flat stretches of land out of their hiding places until they got to makeshift corrals, most of them ran their hooves right off. Some even died of exhaustion before they make it to the corals. After they’re in the corrals the wild mustangs end up fighting and trampling over each other in panic. The ones who survive are crammed into trailers and transported to the slaughter houses. On the way to the slaughter houses the horses are crammed so tightly that some of the foals fall down and get trampled and die. The wild horses in transport don’t even get food and water.

Wild horse Annie is a law that protected the wild horses on the BLM. It prevented them from being rounded up by air craft or motorized vehicle. It made a big difference in the world of wild horses to have people like Velma Johnston the creator of the bill Wild Horse Annie, to make a change for the animals who are being mistreated.

This is my first journal as a  mustang  representive. I am working with a 8 year old Wyoming mare. She is a left brain introvert,and very sweet. I have been riding Ilo for about a year now and have learned a lot about mustangs from her. She loves to be around people,play ,and just hang out. I’ve also found that mustangs bond with you more than a domestic horse, because she will do anything with me.

This week I started getting her used to the big metal door that ratters when it’s windy and the stacks of hay in the back of the arena. I started on the ground, just lounging in the back area and I would click an treat her when she blew out or relaxed. The click an treat is a method of training called”clicker training” it is used to reward the animal when they offer the a behavior that I like.

After she relaxed alittle I  played squeeze game between me and the rail. When she would get between me ad the rail she would rush to get away  from the pressure, then I would shake the rope at her until she stopped rushing.We kept playing the squeeze game until she would stop rushing between the rail. Then I would ask her in.

When I got on we went in the back an did little figure 8′s.At first she was still rushing, but we just kept it slow,and worked on her paying more attention to me instead of the scary things in the back of the areana. When she would rush I would do little circles to get her attention back to me. By the end of our day I had her at a sitting trot slowly and listening to me.

Overall it it was a great day, Ilo learned that the areana wasn’t a scary place and now we won’t have to work so much to stay on the rail.

I acomplished a fair amount with Black Jack during week two of my Mustang heritage journey. Black Jack is very sesitive about his back end being touched and having his feet handled with. To get him desensatized around his hind legs I worked on teaching him how to sit, by backing him up to a bean bag. He was very unsure about that being behind him so it was a slow but effective process. I worked  on that for two days and by the end of the second day he was backing up straighter and calmer. I also got to the point where I was handleing his back feet. He let me clean out his back feet like it had been done to him everyday for his entire life. Now that Black Jack is letting me handle his back feet I think this will open up a whole new window of learning and understanding for him.

My research paper on the plight of the american mustang has been a very eye opening process. My main source of information has been from the book, America’s Last Wild Horses, by Hope Ryden. Some of the facts are hard to believe my self, they make me glad that I have this job on spreading the awareness of the wild Mustang. The fact the there are profiteers who sell the meat of wild horses to dog-food canneries, and to rendering factories, a nicer and more sophisticated name for a slaughterhouses. It’s sad that people go out and do this to such a beautiful and intelligent animal.

On a lighter note an interesting fact I came across was that when Lewis and Clark came to explore the west, the Wild horse helped Lewis and Clark with their expedition. So the wild horses have always been apart of our history, weather you know it or not. They not only helped Lewis and Clark but the early fur trappers, the cattle industry in early america, and numbers of untold pioneers and early ranchers. They also helped the Indians so they could hunt bigger game and feed their tribes more efficiently. The wild horses could have once helped your ancestors once before, which I think is a very interesting thought.

By Emma

This is my first week working with the Mustang heritage youth program as a Mustang trainer representative. I am working with an eight year old mustang named Black Jack. We think Black Jack is a left brain extrovert who right now acts more like a right brain introvert. He’s very spooky but everyday is getting better, I try to introduce him to different sounds and sudden movements.  He progresses each day.

I have been doing my research on the history of the American mustangs. I have been reading about Wild Horse Annie, the Spanish mustang and how early settlers used them when they first came to America. The information for my research paper is slowly coming along. Learning about the history of the animal I love so much is very interesting to me. I enjoy learning about the history and background of the American mustang.

Photo by Nicole Handley

In Bend, we have “early release” Wednesdays. Kids get out of school 1-2 hours early. Our intermediate and advanced students take group lessons on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We have been trying to do a show on Saturday for a couple weeks now, but the weather was never good enough. So, I promised the kids the first sunny Wednesday or Saturday, we would have our show. It was sunny yesterday, though a bit cold – around 45 dropping to mid 30′s by the time we left. Still, that was good enough for us!

As the kids are getting a little older, it’s been hard to know what to have them wear. Do we try to create a natural horsemanship show attire of our own? Do we dress Western or English? It’s kind of confusing when your horses are in English saddles and bosals, or in a treeless saddle and a bitless bridle. We want something that looks classy and makes the kids feel like the show is important and for the parents to take the shows seriously. I feel like wearing a hunt coat for shows helped me feel confident dressing up for job interviews as a teen and young adult, so for now, we’re going with hunt coats and breeches.

Since we only had a little over an hour and a half, we did 5 classes – Liberty/Online (where the kids were judged on their ability to warm their horses up on the ground), walk/trot pleasure, walk/trot equitation, walk/trot/canter pleasure, and walk/trot/canter equitation. This was actually our first show offering a walk/trot/canter rail class. It’s way more than people realize to ask kids and ponies to canter on the rail in a group. They have to maintain their spacing, keep the horse going at a reasonable pace without breaking gait, and reassure the horse that just because everyone is cantering doesn’t mean there is something to be scared of.

I really liked having the show be after school because it kept it short and sweet, which meant it was less tiring for us, and more like half again as hard as regular lessons rather than 4 times as hard.  I think the shorter schedule and the fact that the show fit almost right into a regular lesson slot reduced some of the kid’s anxiety. Coming from school, they came from a bustling social atmosphere, into a bustling social atmosphere, rather going from home to the show. They didn’t have much time to worry about getting ready, which meant they had less opportunity to work themselves and the horses up. All in all, I think it made a lot of sense.

We usually play music at our shows, but we didn’t have time to set up the PA system, so we went without. I missed the music. I think it is easier for the kids to stay focused with the music and helps keep the horses moving. Horse shows are all about hurry-up-and-wait and it is hard for the horses to go from standing around to riding in a class, then back to standing around, then back to riding.

For Hannah and Linnea, this was their first show doing a rail class. Last year they were still on the longe. This was Gillian’s first show ever. The kids did a good job on their spacing. That’s probably been the hardest thing to teach. I had to really ask myself, what do I look for when I try to find a new spot on the rail? How do I know how much time it is going to take me to get from where am I to where I want to go? Is the spot still going to be open by the time I get there? What if it’s not? Where do I go then? Passing is a hard thing to teach. Sometime I’d like to do a study to see if horseback riders are in few car crashes than normal drivers. I bet they are because we have to be good at judging distances and being aware of our surroundings.

Something that is kind of cool is that almost all the advanced kids have taught themselves to braid tails, and a few of the parents, also. That all came from me teaching Maddie and the other kids picking up on it seeing her do it. Braiding tails is kind of a “high barrier of entry” activity. It takes about 10-15 minutes to do, you have to stand directly where you could get kicked, and it’s easy to mess it up. Despite being challenging, it is a really good skill to have, especially if you want to french braid your daughter’s hair one day Horse tails are much easier to learn on. Plus it makes the horses look so much more put together.

This was the first show we clipped up the ponies. Emma and Morgan, who are now 14 and 15, did Thistle and Ilo. Ilo is really interesting because she’s the only horse we have who truly loves to be groomed. Most horses put up with it. Ilo likes looking clean. I had never introduced her to clippers, and she clipped perfectly for me and for Morgan. It was pretty amazing. She’s such a girly horse! Thistle used to be terrible about clipping, but clicker training was really effective for her, especially because we had her stand tied and watch Ilo get treats first. That got her motivated. She was actually great for Emma and Morgan to clip. It’s funny, but clipping is another surprisingly challenging thing for a horse to do. To clip under the chin, the horse has to stand well with the halter just around her neck. It’s pretty amazing that they can learn to stand and be clipped when they could easily just leave. Something I’ved noticed about clipping – most horses are either ok with their legs or with their face. If one doesn’t work, try the other and work your way from end to end. Usually by the time you finish with one end, they’re ready to get started on the more troublesome area. I thought it was good experience for the kids and ponies to know how to clip, plus it made us all feel a little more like spring was coming, even though we all know that in Bend it isn’t Spring until June.

Recently I was reading about Native American scouts in the army. Apparently they could pass all kinds of amazing tests. For example, they might be asked to sleep in the woods, and the scouts would somehow always wake if there was a person sneaking up. However, when they got their military hair cuts, they could no longer perform as well. I’ve found that our ponies with the most mane are the most sensitive, especially auditorily. I’ve been playing with braiding their manes and seeing how it affects them. They are more sensitive when it is loose. Clipping their muzzles seems to be good for making them calmer also. It makes sense to me. It must be hard to be pet on the muzzle all the time when someone touches your whiskers first. With our horses that need to be a little more sensitive, I’ve been leaving them Mountain and Moorland style/hippie pony style – all unclipped. Just one more tool for making our interactions with horses a little less complicated.