Shaken up

I'm feeling a little shaken up this evening.  I rode Dee this morning – this is becoming a regular Monday morning ride.  This morning we had a lesson rather than going out for a hack.  The lesson was great.  I learned a lot and Sarian of Briwnant is a great teacher.  I understood things that I think they had tried to teach me at Pontcanna but never clearly enough – or perhaps I was just being dense.  Dee responded so well to the slightest aid it was a pleasure to experience what might be possible if I knew more about what I was doing.  I had given up on lessons because of the frustrations of trying to progress when different teachers would contradict one another, but I might have a few at Briwnant.

Unfortunately Dee clicked into riding school mode and became a mare I haven't seen for a few years.  When her ears went back, I got scared and let Dee get away with being aggressive.  I sat the bucks as she kicked out at another horse – but only just, and it left me feeling quite shaken.  The other riders kept well away from her after that and I don't blame them, but I feel sad and embarrassed that they had to.  I think I feel shaken from two perspectives – the first is that I felt unsafe, and the second is that Dee hasn't behaved like that for such a long time and I find it upsetting that it happened.  I thought we had moved past that.  Sure she is a dominant mare in the field with the herd, but I have had no trouble with her with other horses on rides for years.  It feels a bit like a failure.

It's made me think that I need to get a different saddle.  Now that Dee is getting fitter and I am riding several times a week regularly, I need a saddle that has a bit more substance to it.  I guess as Dee gets fitter her strong personality comes through more, and I need to know I am in control.  I need to know that if Dee spooks or plays up that I have the best chance possible to sit it and be in charge.  My treeless saddle is too close to riding in a bareback pad.

The rhythm beads have arrived and the new hoof boots.  It was too wet and wild today to try the hoof boots, but I wore the rhythm beads around my neck while I groomed Dee so that she could get used to the sound they make.

I've posted a picture of the Briwnant duck pond today.  Dee seems to be fascinated by the ducks, and always asks to stop and watch them for a while when I lead her past the duck pond.  She steps up onto the bank so she can get a good view.  She's such a sweet mare in so many ways.

Bareback riding

I've had a few nice rides on Dee since my last posting, and 'ö-Dzin and I rode out together with Red and Dee on Sunday.  It is ages since we rode out just the two of us on our horses, and it was great to be doing it again.  Red wasn't too keen on taking the lead at the end of the lane and took a few minutes of persuasion, but after getting past that he was fine and we had a lovely ride.

'Napping' must be a British term I think.  It means when a horse stops and refuses to go forward.  When Dee naps she starts to back up if I try to urge her to walk on, and this can be quite dangerous.  Sometimes she will back right to the edge of a ditch or bank.  She used to rear but doesn't do that with me any more.

I showed up at Briwnant this morning expecting to ride out with Nicky, but unfortunately she couldn't make it today.  All this week I've been painting the lounge in our home and I realised that I was physically really tired.  So I took Dee into the arena to play games.  We did some following me around, and circles stepping through with the hind leg, back up, and such like groundwork exercises.  I then decided that it might be nice to jump on her back after all, but didn't really want to fuss with lots of tack.  I just put on her bridle and got on her easily from the mounting block.

We did 20 minutes or so of patterns in the arena at walk and trot.  At first I felt really insecure – it is the first time I have ridden bareback since June 2008.  I know that because I blogged about it!  I soon started to feel more relaxed and confident and began doing a little trotting.  I was trying to engage in meditative riding – feeling the direction I wanted to move in from my navel, keeping myself centred, and trying to communicate through to Dee.  She is more receptive to this on one rein than on the other.  It is inspiring to ride with very little tack and simply endeavour to focus a connection through energy, intention and balance.  One day I will attempt this with just a neck rope.

In 2008 I had discovered that dismounting was a problem for my damaged knee – it cannot cope with the impact of me jumping down. Usually I slide off the saddle so there is no real jump down.  However in the arena I was able to dismount at the block so that there was no great distance for my descent, so that solved that problem.

I think Dee enjoyed being in the arena for a change.  She is quite relaxed and happy in there.  At Wyndham she was always tense and spooky in the arena, but at Briwnant she is chilled about everything.

Today's ride may not have contributed a great deal to the get-Dee-fit campaign, but it it was a good confidence boost with regard to my balance, and a good bonding experience for our relationship.

I think the inquisitive mare in the photograph is called Molly – one of Dee's Briwnant chums.

Past and present

Yesterday Dee was looking splendid and seems sound at last.  We both rode her a little in the arena and she was fine and seemed to enjoy herself.  I practised a few clover leaf patterns and transitions and she was responsive and relaxed.  This is a great relief.  The hoof that cracked is looking as good as it can until the new hoof grows through, and the hoof putty is staying in quite well now that they are in a drier pasture and the weather is also drier.

I'm a little embarrassed about her mane – or lack of it.  I always feel that cobs should be left to let their manes grow as long as they grow, but Dee's had become so uneven I decided to trim it all to the same length.  She'd had a bite or something half way down the top of her neck and had rubbed at it, so that she'd lost a chunk of mane there.  It is growing back well but it looked a mess with a long bit, then a short bit and then another long bit.  Now it looks odd rather than a mess... but it will grow again.

The second picture is somewhat historic.  My mother produced a camera that she had not touched for years but still had a film in it, so we got it developed for her.  This was one of two pictures on the film of Dee, me and my mother from 1995.  We still had Dee at Pontcanna Riding Stables at this time, but were getting rather fed up of the limitations of riding there, so we decided to take her out for the day.  This seemed reasonable at the time, but looking back it was a rather crazy idea and could have been disastrous.

We started very early on a Sunday morning so that the main road from the stables would be quiet.  The first problem was that she wouldn't cross this road.  We'd get half way across and then she wouldn't budge.  The only alternative was an underpass.  Having eventually convinced her that the white van in the supermarket car park was not a scary horse-eating monster, she surprisingly walked through the underpass as if she did it every day.  In the picture we are visiting my mother in Gabalfa Avenue where I had ridden Dee down the wide grassy bank in the centre of the road.  There were a few other scary moments during the expedition, but we got her back to her stable safely later that day.

It was an adventurous outing and perhaps we were foolish to attempt it, but it did convince us to move Dee from Pontcanna and this has been the best thing possible for Dee and for us.  If she was still liveried at Pontcanna she would have continued to be isolated in a stable for most of the time and on her own in a field for a few hours a day, whereas she now runs free with a herd of mares and geldings in 93 acres of beautiful pasture.  She would still have been spending most of her ridden time going round in circles in an arena, being agressive to the other horses and bored out of her mind, whereas now she finds occasional arena work interesting and most of her ridden work is out on the trail.  It was worth a risky ride to arrive at this point.

We are hoping to ride the Wenallt trail with Dee and Red tomorrow if I feel okay.  I have been very off balance and wobbly again today, so I hope it will be better tomorrow.

A funny horse

This photograph was taken on Sunday. We just about managed to grab a half hour in the arena between the bursts of torrential rain. 'ö-Dzin rode Red first and he was really good and willing. Then our friend—who you can see in the picture—rode him, and Red was a little naughty. You could almost see him thinking, “Who is this? Why do I have to have this person on my back that I don’t know?’ He kept doing little bucks if she asked for anything more than a walk – and even the walk was reluctant. He’s a funny lad.

Last week I took him on another slightly adventurous ride. We went the road way to Rhiwbina Hill and then back through Coed y Wenallt. This is the first time that we have ridden this route on our own and he did get a little nervous, but behaved well despite this.

This morning he was in a mood. I had to put a headcollar on him and tie him in the end, because he would not stand still to be groomed and tacked, and I was not keen on being bitten or trampled. I know he is a bit ticklish under his belly, but this morning he was being excessively silly about the mud being removed. We then rode the Coe y Wenallt circuit – through the wood and back down the road. He was less nervous about the far end of the ride this time. However we have had a lot of really strong winds here over the last week, and there was quite a lot of debris on the trail. This made him rather spooky.

He is a funny horse. I prefer to ride on quite a loose rein, but this is not always possible with Red because he is likely to suddenly head off the track into the undergrowth if I let my concentration lapse. The track is clearly visible, but he just seems to like to wander off it if he is given the chance. On one of 'ö-Dzin’s first rides on Red—before we were aware of this idiosyncracy—Red quietly walked into a hedge. It was quite tricky for them to extricate themselves from its prickliness, and the only way out was to back him. This seems like a strange thing for a horse to do. Does anyone else have a horse with this habit?

Arena game

I've been working hard on websites and things over the last two weeks, and have not been finding time to blog. I'm pleased with the results of the work, however. I have a new Spacious Passion website that looks much more how I want it to look. The old site was powered by Joomla and I could never work out how to adjust the details of it, so I was never satisfied with it. The new site is powered by 'ö-Dzin's software to my design – it is great to have so much control.

Two weeks ago, Wyndham Livery was burgled and all the tack was stolen from the tack locker. This means I also haven't been able to ride, because I haven't had a full set of tack. Consequently I have been lunging Red rather than riding him. He's not been too impressed with this. It was a premeditated break in – they knew exactly what they needed to do to get at the tack, and sawed through metal gates and the door of the metal tack locker with an angle grinder. Needless to say, our insurance doesn't cover it.

We also played a game with him in the arena, based on an idea from Carolyn Resnick's blog. After lunging, we let him free. 'ö-Dzin stood at one side of the arena, and I stood the other side – both of us equipped with a bag of carrot treats. We called Red to us. When he came he got a piece of carrot – but only one piece. The other person then called him. If he wouldn't leave after his treat, we drove him away by waving a line. It took him a long time to get the idea, and even then didn't seem too sure. I don't think Red is very bright. We stopped on a success before he started to get either bored or frustrated.

We tried the game again the following day, however, and something had sunk in, because he got it right straight away. Unfortunately we were not able to carry on with him at liberty, because another horse was brought into the arena for lunging. This horse had been on box rest for a few days, so it went slightly beserk on the lunge line – galloping round and round with its tail up and snorting. Red got a little over excited, forgot to notice where I was, and almost trampled me. We decided to take him in.

Playing this arena game brought up a sharp yearning for Dee. She is such a quick and intelligent horse – she would have got the idea really quickly. I have been missing Dee a lot recently. I think when we first moved her to her retirement home in Cornwall, it was such a relief to be free of the anxiety and work of two horses that I did not feel the loss of her. Now that it is easier and less work, I've had time to let missing her arise. Hopefully, now the weather is warming up, we shall soon be able to reschedule our visit to see her. She will probably ignore me when we visit her, but at least I shall be able to see that she is well and happy.

Red is shod

It’s been a busy week and I’ve been feeling pretty tired, so I have not done as much with the horses this week as I had hoped. I lunged Red on Tuesday. He was pretty good, except for when one of the stable hands went past the arena leading a horse for turnout. Then he completely forgot I was there. I had to walk him in circles until he stopped neighing and settled down again. He’s dangerous when I lose his attention that totally – he doesn’t notice where I am and I could easily get barged while he is so agitated.

He was also good in the stable letting me pick his feet easily, but the next day he wouldn’t let me near his feet at all. I’d taken Dee down to her field first – well it was her turn – and so he was all roused up to be turned out. He is such an impatient horse. When I take him out first, Dee just waits quietly until it is her turn. But Red paces around the stable, kicks the door and neighs continually.

This morning I rode Dee and practised the ‘work at the happy end of the arena, rest at the spooky end’ routine, which again worked like a charm. She’ also getting very good at neck reining. I hardly have to give her any cues to turn, and to halt, although she still takes a bit of coaxing to back up for me.

I feel a bit of traitor to the barefoot cause today because I’ve had Red shod on his front feet. I would have loved to have succeeded with the Boa boots, but Red isn’t the right temperament for putting something like that on his feet without intensive, committed perseverance, and unfortunately I’m not in a position to be able to give it that. The boots are great – it’s Red that’s the problem. Though to be fair to him, his feet are unusually wide, which means the boots do not slip on as easily as they would on a more usual hoof that is longer than it is wide. At least now getting Red ready can return to being a calm and easy task.

I’d like to end this post with a plug for two blogs and a website. Our sons have each started a blog. Daniel’s is about starting university and can be found at hyper-star.blogspot.com Richard’s is about all manner of things and can be found at kiml42.blogspot.com.

The website I would like to mention is that of the Peace Mala organisation. This charity was founded by a Welsh woman, Pam Evans, to promote tolerance, respect and understanding among people of all races and religions. I was invited to attend their youth awards ceremony last week as a representative of my Buddhist Lineage. It was a delightful event and I think Pam is a remarkable woman. I particularly enjoyed the Nepalese children’s dance.

Good progress

I started this post on Tuesday but then my computer crashed. Turns out it is only a problem with the power lead, so I can use my computer as long as I don’t move it until the new power lead arrives. Thank heavens blogspot autosaves.

Wyndham Livery has just changed over to their winter routine. This means that the horses are in during the night and out during the day. I have decided to change over with them, so I am now going up to the stables in the morning rather than in the afternoon. This seems to be working very well. Although it is a bit of a struggle for me getting out of the house so early, I find that once I get there I have more energy that I used to have going up in the afternoons. Consequently since we returned from our holiday, we have ridden out together (Sunday morning), I’ve lunged Red twice (Monday and today), and ridden Dee in the arena (Tuesday). The new arrangement means ’ö-Dzin will only see the horses at the weekend and I have to do everything for the horses on my own weekdays, but it was going to become increasingly difficult dealing with the horses in the evening as the nights draw in. Also there will be few evenings left now when it is still light enough to ride out in the evening at the time ’ö-Dzin could get there from work.

Red was really hard work to lunge on Monday. He wouldn’t listen to me and stopped everytime he found himself near the gate. I had to really get on his case, cracking the lunge whip behind him and and placing my body in a position to push him on. Afterwards I did some walking and stopping, and backing. Back at his stable, I picked out his feet and took him out to the field after his feed. As he is on full livery I am not obliged to pick out his feet, feed him or turn him out, but I like to have as much contact with him as possible whilst still having enough energy left to give to Dee. I've tended to avoid turning him out and have left it to the livery staff to do, but felt this was not helping our relationship improve.

Lunging Red this morning was quite different – loads better. He was listening to me more and I was keeping his attention. I had to be a lot less firm with him and was able to give a lot more praise. Leading, stopping and backing after the lunging was all easy. I was so proud of him. Back at the stable he was less pushy and didn’t try to bite me, and I felt relaxed and confident taking him out to his field. I so hope this is the turning point for us and we can start to get along well without him pushing me around and intimidating me, so I don’t have to be so tough with him.

I got on well riding Dee in the arena on Tuesday and am looking forward to riding her tomorrow. I tried a suggestion from Carolyn Resnick’s blog. This was to work her quite hard in the part of the arena in which she feels confident, and use the scary, spooky part for relaxing time. So after a little warming up time where as usual she refused to go down to the spooky end of the arena, I made her trot and trot in the upper end. After three rounds of trot at the upper end, I asked for walk as we approached the scary end and loosened the rein. She lowered her head and walked around the bottom of the arena. I did this four times, twice on each rein, and sure enough she happily went right into the bottom end of the arena without any hesitation because she knew that this meant relaxing time. Amazing and so simple! I’ll do this again with her tomorrow and hopefully this will be an end of silliness about the far end of the arena. If she does start spooking and refusing to go there again, I now have a technique to work with it. Thank you Carolyn.

Dee was also really good on our ride on Sunday. I wondered whether a bit more roadwork occasionally, when we are with bombproof Red, would build up her confidence about walking up the road, with the aim of increasing the possibility of taking her out on her own. So we rode a circular route, through the Wenallt, across the stream and out onto the road by Rhiwbina Farm, and then down the road home. This route involved going over two motorway bridges and a fairly busy road for a short distance. Dee is not bothered by traffic – it is all the odd things in people’s gardens, drain grids, roadwork cones and things like that which frighten her. She took it all in her stride with Red with her. Occasionally something made her snort and swing out a little, but that was all.

I am so delighted with my horses this week – and with myself! I hope things continue to go so well and that the wonderful September sunshine continues till the end of the month.

Hoof boots

I have taken the plunge today and bought Red a pair of hoof boots. His feet felt very hot on Monday after our long ride on Sunday, and although he did not seem uncomfortable and was not lame, I was a little concerned. It is so wet at the moment that his feet are softer than usual. His hooves are almost round and quite large, so after a long night of research on the web I chose Boa boots. I liked the look of the Old Mac boots, but they do not make them big enough for Red. The other option was an Easyboot, but they are reported as a little more tricky to put on. I’m hoping they’ll arrive tomorrow or the next day on express delivery.

The arena was unusually clear today, with all the jumps stacked away. I took advantage of this – dodging showers as well – to take Red in there for some join up and halting groundwork. I find him intimidating on the ground because he pushes me around, so I need to work with him to build up respect and a relationship. I worked with him at liberty walking around together and halting periodically. Whenever he stepped ahead of me when we halted I made him back up. Gradually he improved, stopping by me instead of pushing ahead of me. He wandered off only twice. When he did, I drove him on round the arena until he stopped and looked at me, and then I turned to allow him to join up again. It was a good session and a good start. I wish I had access to a round pen. Although it is a fairly small arena, it is still a little too large for some groundwork and not really any good at all when it has several jumps dotted around it – so I was lucky today.

There was no way I could give Dee her feed – as I went up there on my own today – without Red being aware that I had done so. So Dee had to wait for her feed until I had worked with Red. She was not impressed with this and was very moody with me even after I had fed her, and also kept sticking her head out of the stall to pull a face at Red. When Sally took him out to the field for me, Dee settled down and decided to appreciate my full attention, a groom and a chat as we wandered down to her field. I also checked her over thoroughly yesterday and today after our long ride on Sunday – especially as it was the first time she had hacked out for four weeks. Her back was fine - no sign of any return of the swelling or pain that she had experienced 18 months ago that led to the vet warning we may have to retire her. Far from harming her back, the treeeless saddle seems to have contributed to curing it.

PS The photo shows my friend on Red who came with us on the ride on Sunday. Also good news – the horse that had strangles has returned three negative swabs and will be back in his stall tomorrow.

The arena

This evening I rode Dee in the arena. This has always been a frightening place for her. There seems to be something scary on all sides as far as Dee is concerned. On one side there is a clear view of the motorway with all sorts of vehicles whizzing by, and currently long-term roadworks. On the second side it is bordered by the roofs of a row of stables, as the arena is set a little above their level, and Dee sometimes jumps at the sound of a horse moving about or a broom knocking against a wall. On the third side there is a drop down beyond the fence with more stables, and further down a bank above the level of the fence with bushes. Occasionally a cat or a rabbit emerges from these bushes, and sometimes there are horses being frisky in the field beyond. The bottom of the arena is the scariest of all, and many of the horses do not like this end. There is a row of young trees behind which is a track to a field and also a number of items of machinery are kept there. The trees are gradually growing bigger and thicker, but at the moment the machinery - painted orange and red - can still be glimpsed. Today this end was even more worrying than usual because there was a man working on the machinery. He was not making any noise in his work, but he was just there - not seen clearly but still known by Dee to be there - and this was most unsettling for her.

The sky was dark and lowering and rain expected at any moment. I took Dee in - head high, steps short and tense - and we started slowly walking round at the top end, the less scary end. I counted her walking paces as I had on our last ride, and worked with this counting every time she stopped. I rode figures of eight and clover leaf patterns at the top end of the arena, counting out loud to her and praising her when she was brave enough to walk on after napping, or go past a part she had refused on the last round. Gradually her stride lengthened and she started to stretch her neck down sometimes and make chewing movements with her mouth. We walked in this way for about 20 minutes and then I took her back to her stable for her feed.

Perhaps some might think that this was very little to achieve - we did not trot, canter, or take any jumps; we did not manage to bend at the corners or do any real schooling at all. But Dee came out of the arena a much more relaxed horse that the one who entered. She had listened to me and kept moving forward. She had stopped when asked to stop and stood quietly when asked to stand, facing each direction. It would have been unwise and unsafe to have asked more of her, and I am most content.

Formation riding

We rode in the arena together last night for the first time. My memories of the arena at Wyndham are not all happy ones - Dee could be quite crazy in there and has thrown me a few times. However I felt sure that Red would give her confidence, and she is generally a much calmer horse since she's been back in a herd.

Being careful to relax and think positively about the arena, I took Dee in and we rode them around for a while to warm them up. Dee tensed up, looking at the motorway - which is much more clearly visible from the arena - but I talked to her quietly, telling her that Red was with her and that it would all be fine, and she settled down.

This is the first time we've had access to an arena since we had two horses, and we decided to have some fun, rather than ask the horses to really work. We played some riding in formation games - sometimes having the horses beside each other, sometimes pacing each other at opposite sides of the arena, and making patterns with our path around the arena. As Dee is quite a bit smaller than Red, their paces are not the same, so it was a challenge to keep them in line with each other. We didn't succeed a lot of the time; but what did it matter - we were enjoying ourselves. Red liked having Dee there, and Dee was quite happy to ride beside him. It is extraordinary to think that this sort of riding would have been completely impossible with Dee a couple of years ago - she was just too aggressive.

We tried our formation patterns at the walk and at the trot. 'ö-Dzin is still a novice rider and not too sure of the proper leg aids to ask for direction, and bend, and things like that. He found it really good to have something other than his riding to concentrate upon. He found that in focusing on looking out in order to be in the right place at the right time and watching me and Dee, he relaxed in his riding and naturally asked Red for the correct direction without thinking about it. So often if we let go of ourselves as a central focus, we are able to relax and have a more open view. It is easy to forget that our bodies communicate continually to everyone and everything. Our intention manifests in our body language, tone of voice and the look in our eye. Horses are particularly sensitive to this - so if we think of where we want to go they will often oblige.

As this was such fun, we are going to work out some formations in advance for next time so that we have more of an idea of what we are going to do before we enter the arena. We might work out some music to ride to as well - I think they would enjoy that.

It is now two weeks since we moved the horses, and we are already discovering the benefits of the new yard. We rode together three times last week, and this should continue to be possible throughout the summer. This is what we had hoped for, and we are so delighted that it is working out. Red is starting to really feel like 'ö-Dzin's horse. This is great because it stops me feeling pressurised with the responsibility of two horses, and makes 'ö-Dzin feel much more involved. The horses are now something we share every day, rather than for one day at the weekend. We have fine tuned our stable management to an efficient operation so that we can sort out the horses in the evening within an hour, so there is regularly time to ride as well. It is so enjoyable seeing the horses everyday and spending this time with them together.

Red seems to have made a friend among the geldings. He clearly still likes to spend time with Dee, but it is good to know he has a chum. He is a friendly sort of chap.