Category Archives: horse training journal

Mocha was itching to get out, and even though the ground was frozen solid, we went outdoors. She’d been quivering a little bit when I brought her out of her stall, so on went the fleece cooler to replace her heavy blanket (I was surprised as I didn’t think the trace clip was that chilling. In retrospect, I think she might have just been a bit eager to get moving).

I thought for sure that this was going to be the time she’d blow up on me. High-headed from the moment she stepped out of the stall, and the way she blew up and humped her back when I tightened the cinch–I almost rethought throwing the cooler over the saddle, as I’d planned, but shrugged the worries off, figuring that if she was going to blow, she’d blow if I asked her to lunge a little. And if I can’t sit a couple of Mocha bucks, even with a cooler over the saddle–well…Mocha’s not the most talented bucker I’ve ridden. Sparkle is the queen of bucking in my life, and Mocha isn’t the sort of horse to get into bucking like Sparkle did. And Sparkle never would signal a bucking spell, she’d just launch herself into it. I figured it was safe. I did dip her snaffle into lukewarm water to warm it up, which surprised her.

So we went outside into the big arena. Mocha stepped gingerly through the patches of dirt and sand heaved up by the frost, and she really didn’t want to leave my side when I tried to do a short lunging. Since she wasn’t humping up like a horse thinking to buck on a cold ride, I tightened the cinch a little, got the same hump, walked her some more, tightened a little, and called it good even though it wasn’t as tight as usual. Made sure the cooler was wrapped around the stirrups so that I could find my right one fast if she did decide to surprise me, and got up on her quickly and smoothly. The way she minced out told me right off she wasn’t going to buck. No, Miss Stall Princess just didn’t trust icy hard ground.

Interestingly, she relaxed and strode out when we went through the leaves. There were just as many frost heaves there, but perhaps the ground isn’t frozen as hard–in any case, it brought home that if I move this horse to a colder climate, she’s going to have to learn about icy ground, frost heaves, and all that other stuff. We spent most of this ride at a walk with some jogging. Almost got a piaffe during the first few jogging circuits because of how tight and short she was keeping her steps. But, kept the reins fairly long with a light contact, mostly just letting her know I was there but letting her balance and figure it out on her own. So 2/3s of a ring circuit were tight and tense, then the 1/3rd that was leaves was markedly bolder and bigger. The only other place she stepped out was over the railroad tie walkovers, and she relaxed over those.

We did do some schooling figures. Mocha expressed her opinion of the foolishness of this ride with regular little grunts of disapproval that got louder during the two tracking. But hey, after two-track, she relaxed her back enough to walk out nicely on the hard, icy ground on a soft rein. Never did get a fully relaxed trot but I settled nicely for the big swinging walk with a relaxed back.

Gotta laugh, though. I’ve never dealt with the mind-set of a stall-living horse until I owned Mocha. I’ve legged up on Sparkle and my ponies in much icier conditions, even in snow–and they didn’t think much of it. Sparkle never did hump her back up like a bucker as much in cold weather as Mocha did today, and she was the bucker of the two. Never thought you had to teach a stall-raised horse these things–and yet, with Mocha, it’s becoming quite clear that yep, that’s exactly what I have to do with her.

OTOH, one thing that is priceless is that Mocha’s sense of self-preservation with regard to her footing is HUGE. If she doesn’t trust it, she’ll stop dead and freeze up. While I might have to explicitly teach this mare to be a trail horse (that is, if the opportunity presents itself) outside of an arena, on the good side, I can count on her to be sensible.

That goes a long, long ways.

It’s November and clearly with the rains and mist outside, we’re back to winter riding. No more outside and dust, back to damp and cool, sweaty horse, and slick arena footing.

Mocha was eager to get out and work. We didn’t do a lot of intensive schooling, more gymnastic and flexing work. She wasn’t very aggressive at the lope, wanting to work more under herself and staying balanced and collected to manage the footing better. Smart girl. Guess she learned something from her injury in September.

Along with the slower, more elevated work, I noticed she was lighter on the rein and shifted directions quickly to avoid slick patches when I started guiding her around them. We didn’t work very hard, though, mainly to avoid getting Mocha too damp. Yep. It’s that humid phase of November when it’s just too warm to ride hard with a winter coat. I’m going to try a trace clip again this year, since unlike last year she’s only getting wet on her neck and hindquarters. I can always do a full clip if that doesn’t work (but then she gets a fitted undersheet, for those times when the Gorge wind blows strong).

A nice, quiet evening ride after work, and a prelude to many more like it this winter.

Not joking.

You can kind of see it in this picture. That was Saturday, and Sunday was even more so. I thought I’d taken pictures of the epic storm, but no, I guess I was battened down outside of Mocha’s stall, watching the typhoon remnants rage.

It was a good show. I put up detailed results on Facebook and I won’t go into those details here–except to say that Mocha did very well in Trail classes. Half of our ribbons were firsts and seconds overall, and we placed in over half of our classes, with the majority of placements coming from all three judges. Not too bad for folks who only show once a year!

Part of the excellent results came from focused training. I started prepping for this show in July, and, despite a few sidetracks from horse and human health stuff, we kept to a pretty consistent training and conditioning schedule.

In any case, the storm was in full steam when we got to the fairgrounds. In past years, it’s been a pretty fall show with decent fall weather. This year–nope. Full-blown mid-latitude cyclone. At least it wasn’t as crazy as the infamous 1962 Columbus Day storm that did significant damage and was quite powerful.

Horse and rider prep pictures:

This was the mane styling for Mocha for Saturday and Sunday. Friday night reining, we just went without braids.

Just before reining classes, putting on my chaps. I’m still wearing my wool hiking hat from REI, to be swapped out for helmet (Friday night) or expensive felt show hat (Saturday and Sunday).

Rail view during reining. She kept trying to drift out, didn’t want to steer right, I wasn’t locking into her, she wasn’t happy with her boots and the footing. But we still placed in one class and would have placed in the other if I’d not lost count of my last spin.

Thundering along. Her ears are forward, she’s looking where we’re going, at least.

And then there was Trail.

Trotting the tarp.

Pulling the drag around the cone.

We had two late nights, with the weather making things nasty and late on Saturday. 99W closed down and we had to come home by way of Forest Grove and Hillsboro.

Nonetheless, I’m proud of my little mare. We’ve worked hard and we did well at this show, all things considered. She did a good job, and, thanks to a nice bale of orchard grass hay, stayed very happy all weekend munching away on good roughage to keep her calm and her gut stable.

A good horse show. I’m happy.

As we go through the countdown to the horse show next weekend, one thing I have to focus on is the balance between overtraining and just enough work to have the horse ready for three days of focused work under saddle. Part of that includes the appropriate scheduling of the type of classes (how many reining classes the first night, how many Western Pleasure–a discipline Mocha dislikes–classes to end out on the last day. For us WP is more just practice in working in an arena around other horses and, at this show, a chance to work out body kinks from reining and trail classes. We often place but seldom higher than third, if that.). But another part is, simply, making sure that her back is used to having a saddle on it for three days in a row. Between hock injections, hoof issues and the start of school, we’ve backed off on our regular daily rides, so I’ve been trying to get on her back for multiple days in a row to get her used to it again. Not too hard, but–

That also means that this middle-aged lady needs to make sure that her back and legs are also in shape. So–many days of riding in a row.

But too much schooling on a finished horse ends up with overwound (Mocha is now aware we’re drilling for a show, just because of the pieces I’m focusing on, and she’s winding up) and overdone horse brain. Last night was, simply, play and conditioning time.

We ended up thundering around the outdoor arena with a couple of other riders. While I did a little bit of schooling focusing on bending and flexing, we also did a lot of play. One of the other riders has a young and energetic horse who viewed the canter sessions as a bit of a chase/race game–and Mocha, though mature, locked enthusiastically into galloping around. She was pretty respectable, too. I think that if we’d had a good straight stretch where I could let her go, she’d have smoked that younger mare, as she kept gaining on her during the straightaway. The younger mare, being smaller, gained on the turns.

It wasn’t all about racing, though. We rode the two horses together and played a little bit of drill team, worked on walking over railroad ties, and otherwise just plain had an unfocused, relaxed, let’s just romp and play time. Good for both of us.

Time off tonight, then two days in a row, another day off, then three days, another day off, and then the show. We’ve got the pieces down so now I just have to focus on conditioning and not overtraining or overdrilling. A delicate balance–but I’ve managed to pull it off before. Hopefully I can do it again.

Even the best-trained horses can come up with a training hole, especially if their experiences have been pretty much in the arena. While I’ve been pretty firm about Mocha being able to open gates, step over objects (or jump), and walk/trot through water, I’ve not thought much about walking her downhill. There’s a little downhill driveway section that goes past the barn and I’d not thought much about it. Mocha had been reluctant to go down it before and I laid that to barn sourness, focusing on other training things in past summers.

This summer I decided it was time to change that state of affairs. I figure every saddle horse needs a few basics, no matter if most of the time they work in an arena, and one of them is walking downhill under saddle. Not every horse is cut out to be a trail horse, but there really wasn’t a reason in my mind that an athletic horse like Mocha couldn’t do it.

Mocha had different opinions on the subject. She’d start down, then stop, fuss, and either sidepass or back up, but she would NOT go down that hill. Because we were working on blacktop, my priority was to figure this out without freaking her out and getting both of us hurt.

So I broke apart the task, much as I would do as a special education teacher. Antecedent, behavior, consequence. What was the triggering factor or factors? What behaviors was she showing in her resistance? Why was she objecting? Balance, footing, something spooking or frightening her, a combination of that, confusion, worried, or simply stubborn Idontwanna!

I rejected Idontwanna right off. When Mocha shows those moments of resistance where it is a difference of opinion in what she wants to do from what I want to do, that usually comes up in pattern or rail work. Loose rein hacking doesn’t get Idontwanna. She doesn’t balk, usually, she starts speeding up in Idontwanna. A balk during a hack is something else, and there’s a reason for it other than overruling rider judgement.

Spook or fear got ruled out because she was relaxed until we started going downhill. She might have been a bit anxious about going out of sight of the barn, but that didn’t feel like the issue. She was worried, not excessively so, but generally worry on her part is specific to one particular sight or noise that triggers the worry. Worry was a part of what was going on but it was not a frightened worry–which made me think about the other cause of worry, confusion. What was confusing Mocha?

Balance was one part of it. She resisted going downhill both on the grassy edge of the driveway and on the blacktop. Footing not an issue. She would move forward a few strides, then stop on either surface.  If I led her she’d walk right down, nice and balanced, no problem. So balance under a rider–aha.

Mocha is particularly sensitive to a rider’s weight and balance in the saddle. I am conditioned to lean back as a horse goes downhill, to help with balance. The only lean back cue Mocha really knows means slow down or stop. So my job was clear. I had to overlay that cue with programming “except when walking downhill.”

But she was stubbornly resisting going downhill under me, and I didn’t have someone around to lead her. What to do?

She would back downhill. She’d even sidepass, but that was too iffy. So backing it was. When she resisted going downhill, once she got turned around, we backed up about ten feet. I asked her to turn to the right (note this, important) and she resisted. Backed her up about twenty feet, asked her to turn to the right, and she resisted going downhill. More backing up, and then I asked for a left hand turn (note this). She walked the remaining twenty feet to a flat spot. We stopped, I praised her, we walked up partway, turned (I can’t remember right or left) and she walked back down. Rode up further, turned, walked down.

The next time we encountered the hill, she walked down, no problemo, long rein, a little fast. I kept my weight upright and only very slightly back. I didn’t like that feel but getting her down the hill was important. She was walking fast and landing hard but not sliding, not ouching. I just wanted her to get down that hill in one piece on a long rein.

Third time, she started fussing when I leaned further back and pushed my feet slightly forward. I thought we were going to have to redo the backing piece, but I turned her to the left. Aha. More to the puzzle. She’d turn and go downhill going left but not right. I thought on this, both that time and the next time, with similar issues. She was still walking a bit fast and coming down hard on her feet, but I wasn’t ready to work with that. We needed forward without resistance or at least a clue as to why the resistance first.

And then today. I leaned back but didn’t put my feet as far forward as I would for a sliding stop. She accepted that, though she did try to stop a couple of times. I paid attention to the difference between left and right and yep, girl did not want to turn right. Left, no problem. When she was that way on the flat piece I decided this wasn’t a pain issue, it was a particular Mocha brain lock. So we circled left and right on the flat until she’d go on. Then we meandered up the hill, working on circling to the right, turning left when she’d get stuck and not want to go downhill, but moving from a very slight incline to a steeper incline as she did more of it. By the time we were done, she could circle in either direction and stay balanced.

Now keep in mind through all of this that Mocha is a pretty much finished reining horse who can change leads on the rail every three strides or so (it ain’t smooth enough or collected enough to call it a tempi change). I’ve owned her for eight years now and I know her reactions and thought processes pretty well. I know she’s a balanced horse and that rider balance is important to her. Most important, we have a horse-rider bond which extends beyond superficial cues to very deep reading of each other’s mood through seat, leg and hand. With a horse I knew less well or a greener horse, I’d be doing things a bit differently (and not on blacktop).

We’re not finished. I wouldn’t call her a finished trail horse after this, but I definitely want that skill imprinted in her brain and in her muscles. To my mind, it’s a basic safety issue. One way or another, we’ll get it solved.