Gina’s new Fluffy Fluff arrived today! She is about 20″ tall and 8 months old. Gina is going to train her to be a guide pony for the blind! Fluffly Fluff is the perfect size and age for the job. Plus, she is going to be a confidence-builder for new students and a buddy for an elderly mare at the ranch named Sienna.

Les and I took turns working with Sundae. I worked with him on tracking through so that his hind feet land in the track of his forefeet properly. He tends to swing wide. We also did the Flexions and lots of shoulder-in, transitioning to changing direction on the circle. Les worked with Sundae on sidepssing a pole, the Balancera, and jumping the barrels. Sideways over the pole and the balancera create ownership of the 4 quadrants of the horse. The barrel jump gives it a purpose and helps the horse see a reason to focus on his balance.

Later Les, Chloe, and I went on a trail ride. Les and I took Koa and Ilo and Chloe rode Celeb. Celeb was perfect, despite loud motorcycles next door (grr).

When we got back, Chloe worked on jumping Celeb over barrels on the ground and built up to jumping a single barrel off the rail. Hopefully it will lead to her being confident enough to jump him over them undersaddle in the not-too-distant future. Ilo was amazing for demonstrating barrel jumps for Chloe. She is not a big fan of jumping because she is a stocky, introverted Mustang, but she really does a nice job of it when you ask her to.

Les’ work yesterday with Koa clearly paid off. She was gaiting beautifully at the trot, which she only does when she is truly relaxed. Les doesn’t ask for it – Koa just falls into it. It’s nice because the gait is really smooth to ride.

I played with Cinnamon and he was beyond cute. Talk about smart. He was not the least bit scared of the tarp. Took a nibble at it, got a click, and then started picking it up and shaking it around. So, I put it on his back and led him around with it. We did “accidental dismount preparation.” I clicked him for stopping and waiting for a cue when it fell off his back. When it fell off, he got to turn around and pick it up for a click. He despooked himself with little help on my part. At the end of the session, I took his lead rope off and he laid down to roll. I got to treat him 3 times while he was sitting up. He has such a cool temperament.

Today was a busy day! Conner (12) rode KC, and Emma (12) rode Thistle and Celebrity. Les worked with Sundae and rode Koa, I rode Ilo, and worked with Sam. Gina worked with Blue Man and got things prepared for her new mini!

Blue Man was laying down when we went to go get him. He showed a lot of trust and didn’t hurry to get up. He looked very handsome and we were able to snap a few pictures. He’s such a site with his mane standing on end!

Blue Man is just about ready to start so I have been having Gina watch colt starting dvds by Lesley Neuman, Ray Hunt, and Parelli. She recently watched the Parelli Savvy Club dvd where Pat helps Jake start the blue roan QH gelding. Pat demonstrates ways to desensitize the horse and Jake rides the colt bareback, then later with a saddle. It’s a fascinating dvd because you get to see it all. We use some of the same techniques in starting our colts.

Blue Man is working on synchrony. He is very distractable and, while he likes humans, he thinks they are senseless and only require about 1% of his total brain power. We are working to convince him that we are interesting, useful, and worthy of his attention.

First we did Travel Together with Blue Man. He’s naturally balanced and relatively relaxed on the longe. Then we worked on Hippity Hop. He was not too keen on on standing quietly to have Gina lay on him so we went on to The Whippings. Blue Man became quite calm and attentive in no time at all. We then worked on balancing the for quadrants of the horse doing a pattern that involves sidepassing a pole, the balancera on the rail, and jumping a barrel at a walk.

Blue Man had never sidepassed a pole before, so Gina had to work up to it, starting with one step of sideways without a pole, all the way up to sidepassing the whole 12′ pole. As with everything, Blue learned quickly. Blue had very little trouble with the balancera. He was light and moved forward and back attentively with ease. He’s naturally nimble. When invited out of the squeeze, Blude did a good job not rushing through Gina’s hand in anticipation of the barrels. He was quite beautiful over the barrels, jumping calmly and efficiently, with good form.

During Emma’s lesson, I tagged her for the same thing I had Chloe working on the other day – a good release over the jumps. Emma progressed very quickly. It was Thistle’s first time trotting a gymnastic. We were working on migrating through the gymnastic, focusing on a fluid, no-brainer ride for horse and human. The jumps are treated as non-events, just an obstacle on the trail.

Thistle is the wonder pony, as Emma is the wonder rider. Thistle has been under saddle for just 1 month and Emma has only been riding for 3 months. Emma started Thistle herself with our supervision and has done all but 3 or 4 of her rides. The gymnastic was a trot-in cross rail, bigger vertical, then a smaller vertical, one stride in between, though Thistle trotted the whole gymnastic rather than cantering at all. We did two 15 minute jumping sessions with clicker play for Thistle in between. Thistle was quite quiet and content to just hang with Emma. She seemed to enjoy snuggling with Emma as much as pushing the ball or playing other games.

At the end of the lesson, we did a little liberty play, as Thistle usually likes it and is naturally quite fancy. Thistle jumped the obstacle on her own several times, even though we were guiding her away from it. She is a beautiful, brave jumper. She did the canter strides in between the jumps, making good distances 90% of the time.

Next Emma rode Celebrity. Isn’t she lucky to go straight from school to lessons where she gets to play with as many horses as she can in 3 hours? Celebrity was awesome. Emma trotted the same gymnastic on him as she did on Thistle Conner rode at the same time and worked with KC on a big X and on the gymnastic. Both girls were working on synchrony, building the range of what they could do together with their mounts. KC, traditionally a bit lazy and a head-shaker, was doing quite well. It was fun to see Emma on 12’1h Cebs and Conner on 15’1h KC jumping the same jumps.

Lastly I worked with Ilo on migration at the trot. She tends to worry quite a bit about sounds and any little extra movement I make on her back. We’re working on keeping trotting. Ilo has such a little shuffle of a trot that, as I’m encouraging her to keep trotting, makes me think of Dory singing, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,” from Finding Nemo.

Les worked with Koa on synchronization while trotting bareback. He used a cone as a target for the circle. Koa progressed very well, building up to being able but connected to Les. Les felt discouraged at the end of the lesson, though, because Koa didn’t have much play drive, probably because they were working on a task that challenges her emotional fitness. During their play sessions, Les has been working with Koa using Mediterranean horsemanship principles to teach piaffe. While she was a little unexcited yesterday, Koa is doing quite well working towards piaffe. He cues her forefeet with a touch near the elbow and her hind feet with a touch near the flank. It it is quite imperceptible and graceful.