George is surprisingly easy to train. He doesn't flap about things, he just solidly tries to work out what on earth you're on about. I can already get a soft trot for a whole circuit of the barn. His paces are as flat as a pancake - he'll be a superb horse for someone with a back problem! He looks active enough from the floor, but he stays perfectly steady under the saddle when you ride. Sitting trot's a complete doddle!
He was a silly boy this morning. He let me pick out three of his feet before leaving the barn but insisted that he was too scared to let me do the last one. He ended up staying in there while the other two were taken out. It took him no longer than it takes Zip to realise that he'd been a bit of a fool and offer me all his feet. (not all at once you understand :-)
Jazz was pretty good until he decided he was too tired to do any more when he threw the most horrific spook at the door he had happily been going past once a circuit for twenty minutes. Stupidly I whacked the top of his neck with my hand in irritation and I've really bruised my thumb!! I got a whip then, and smacked him until he stopped bucking and decided to finish our lesson properly. As soon as he realised that it was going to hurt making any more fuss about a harmless door, he knuckled down to right canter lead and we finished in a couple of minutes.
Zip's done nowt today and it won't hurt him.
I'm off out to feed them now. Interestingly, Tesco only had cheap corn oil yesterday when I have been feeding rapeseed. I gave them it this morning and Jazz wolfed it down but both the other two are making faces. It must taste quite different.
C
posted by cptrayes @ 5:40 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
So, did you learn a lesson with your poor thumb?
I thought Jazz didn't buck. Or does he just buck without the wicked twist a certain Thorougbred throws in for good measure?
I am beginning to now think that most of Jazz's spooking was all physically related after all. If you look at his "sudden" change in attitude, it has followed along with his increased fitness and physical health. The fact that he does it now when he's tired, seems to be a hint as to what the root of it all is.
What do you think?
You don't have to feel a quality gait. If George looks good, then his conformation allows the gait to work through without all that extra movement under the saddle.
Horses like that can be a real treasure.
So, Zip's getting to be odd man out, eh?
So, now Tuck is a Thorougbred....some new breed of horse, I guess...Thoroughbred. *sigh*
Sorry to use your blog Caroline but need to ask advice!!
I took Vigo xc today (our first time together).
The Good.
We started off over a little 2'3 rail, then over some tyres, then through a coffin, then over some ascending rails, then over a logpile.
He's like a little heat seeking missile - he locks on and goes but at the same time you can take a pull and he'll listen. He jumped it all and seemed to love it.
The Bad.
I told instructor (first time he's met Vigo but he used to take me xc on Robin a lot and he's started a LOT of babies - he's an ex jockey, very well respected blah blah blah) that V hadn't done ditches before but had been xc schooling once before I got him.
So after the rails (the first fence) he decided to get him jumping a trakhener It was a 'proper' ditch (deep) with big thick rail over it, he took the rail down so it was a very low slanting rail over it. He got on V (because i'm 'ditchy' as Robin was) and V followed friend's horse over it twice and then refused point blank to jump it again.
From the ground I could see he was scared of it as he was launching over it, ears back, tail tucked between his legs - and then the third time it obviously just got too much for him and there was no way he was going to do it again.
I feel so cross. I KNEW it was way too much to ask him (he'd not even got into his stride jumping full stop before the 'trakhener' incident), he'd never seen a ditch before and this was not the way to do it, I knew I should have refused to put him at it from the word go but instead I went against my gut instinct and did as instructor said.
We/he stopped presenting V at it and we went off and jumped lots of other stuff (as above) without any issue including the ditch in the middle of the coffin which he wasn't worried about at all.
My question is - is this something he'll forget? I'm planning to go xc (with someone else!) in two weeks - i'll do ditches but NO trakhener types. I'm thinking if I get him jumping ditches and other stuff without thinking and confidently then at a later date we can come back to trakheners and start from scratch. Does this sound ok? or should I now be insisting (somehow) that we do a trakhener? How do you normally introduce them, and at what stage?
God i'm angry with myself for allowing the situation, and at instructor for over facing him.
On the upside he jumped everything else absolutely brilliantly, without hesitation, not too wobbly and really game on.
I guess i'm worried i've now created an issue that is going to loom over us. It is sortable right?
Cassie (beating herself up)
(thanks Caroline - hope this is ok to post)
i reckon jean's right about jazz... makes such sense.
where's the photos of gorgeous george then?
Jazz bucks if you hit him hard enough :-)))) No twist though, easy to sit, though he wonders why I'm still there!
It's a confusing picture with his resistances. He's just coming up for 6, which is when warmbloods are supposed to grow up. But I do wonder myself how much of his silliness was due to the desperate fear of an animal who knows the one at the back gets eaten, and who knows that he can't run and will be the one at the back. It's bound to make you self-protective, isn't it? Also, though, I've had a steady improvement for fourteen months, though very, very slow!! We're never going to know for sure. The one thing that's certain is that it didn't help one bit.
Claire SH forgot his camera. I'll try for some tomorrow if we do the farm ride.
Cassie it's a sod isn't it. You pay someone to tell you what to do, so of course you do what they tell you. Then you realise they were wrong and you knew it all along.
He'll forget it, in time. Don't push it now or you'll reinforce it. Go right back to square one, with him following someone else over something absolutely tiny with a miniscule ditch (or just poles either side of a bigger pole in the middle, to suggest a ditch. Get him jumping things with a ditch in front before you add the complexity of a ditch underneath. It's great news that ordinary ditches don't worry him. And the rest of the jumping is so good that he clearly has inate confidence. The kind of horse that "locks on" to a fence will eventually be ripping the reins out of your hands to get to it.
What a shame that these people who charge money to train don't sometimes have more common sense :-( You must be so upset - don't blame yourself. I call this "expert syndrome" - doing what the expert tells you even though you know in your heart that it's wrong. People have have kids die of meningitis because some guy in a white coat tells them it's a cold and go home with some calpol, so I guess it could be worse! A publisher actually accepted a book synopsis that I sent them and asked me to start writing it, but I found it was too much hard work!!!
Vigo will be fine - he was far too confident with everything else today for this to cause a long term glitch.
C
Had a cross country trainer overface PJ when I first got him. I ended up getting dumped later on when we were just kind of standing around and the "trainer" moved the lunge whip she had in her hand to make a point. She'd so terrified PJ, he left me on the ground and took off. Stupid woman.
I've learned to tell them to stop, or to say, "This just isn't working." I even walked out of a lesson one time. (Should have done that at the Steiner clinic with Tucker too, but I didn't think the work we were doing would hurt him...as I now think it did.)
Russell R. had a "thing" about ditches and trakheners. Make sure whatever you jump has a good ground line at first to give Vigo a visual take off spot. I think one of the problems is that the pole across the ditch gives a false impression of where the jump actually starts. And yes, little easy jumps will certainly help.
Thank you both for the reassurance.
After a glass of wine (or two) last night I got things back into perspective - it was an issue that shouldn't have arisen yesterday but i'll make sure we're 110% ready for a question like that the next time we tackle one.
I was able to say "this isn't working", "you've got him scared now" etc but I wasn't brave enough to say "right, enough".
I've walked out of lessons before (with legs shaking) but for some reason yesterday I was screaming in my head and all that was coming out were pathetic murmurs and i'm not normally backward in coming forward!
It's a pity because he's a guy I had a lot of respect for and until yesterday hadn't once made me question his judgement.
Cassie
I'm glad you're back on track Cassie. That glass of wine is always a good one for a bit of sedation :-)
C
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