Killer Birds And More Horse Balloons

Decided to continue on with Max and the work we did yesterday.  Max is not one of those horses that you can pick up and put down, it is a commitment when you bring him back in to work as you have to work him regularly.  It doesn't particularly matter how often you work him each week, although I am sure more would be better but once in work he likes the same sort of routine otherwise he gets very anxious.  It always takes a few sessions to get his head back in work mode and there is usually an improvement each time, even if it doesn't always seem like that.

Today he was laughing in the face of the pallets and we started the session really well, so well in fact that after five minutes the thought crossed my mind to finish.  I went against my instinct however as I wanted to start getting a more physical session in, rather than focussing on attention.  I should know by now that Max is a mind reader, I am not quite sure what caused it but we had one major spook on the left rein.  He settled down again pretty quickly which is good for him and we continued as if nothing had happened.  Again I thought about stopping but decided to carry on for a bit longer and change the rein.  Things were going very well on the right rein until a Kite got in to a bit of a bun fight with some other birds.  Not quite sure what was going on but suddenly there was a lot of noise and the sky overhead went a bit dark.  Well that was it as far as Max was concerned, bad enough to have things at floor level about to eat him but when things start dropping out of the sky it is too much.

I am afraid I got a little bit tough with him.  If I am going to get back on him, and if there is to be any chance that C will ever be able to ride him, and possibly compete, then he needs to know that he can wobble, but not surge.  I also had the surge but come at you with the shoulder routine so he got a bit of a flick with the rope and put in the corner.  You have to know with Max when it is and isn't appropriate to get a bit tougher, sometimes I don't always get it right but tonight we did regain our head and he was happy to carry on working in that corner of the school.  He got lots of praise and fuss.

I was happy that we had finished on a good note so turned to walk across the school to the gate.  He obviously wanted out of there fast as he attempted to water ski me across the arena.  This resulted in another 10 minutes work until we had head lower and some nice sighs.  This is another thing I need to remember with Max, only start something if you have all the time in the world to finish it.

Because of the length of time I had spent with Max I decided against working Jamie as well.  Whether the OH was inspired by me working and wanted to join in, or whether he was jealous that I was having fun I don't know but for reasons known only to himself he decided he was going to take Merlin in the school.  Merlin is a horse I bred who is no longer ridden due to kissing spines, if you try and ride him in a tree'd saddle he throws himself on the floor although he is happier in a treeless and much more comfortable since going barefoot.

They just worked on some walk, halts and turns with the OH using body language to move Merlin around the school.  He was rewarding with treats although not clicking so not true clicker training.  Merlin is very food orientated and once he realised he would get a treat if he stopped when the OH stopped he was very attentive.  He was a little tight behind (he is pushing 20) so I may see if the OH will try some of the LFS work, not sure if he will let me teach him, he is funny like that we get quite competitive when it comes to riding.

C worked Rosey and Charlie Too so we still got something done with four of them which was good.

The OH also trimmed Tommy, Tommy is our severely laminitic pony who was a rescue a few years ago.  He has a deformed hoof that we often struggle with and just recently he has not been too happy to lift it up to have it picked out.  N managed to take quite a lot off the heel and he was moving a lot better afterwards so I think we are heading in the right direction. He has not had pulses for months now, it is the residual damage to his hooves that are the problem.