Soldier - 5/29/12

Worked Soldier on the ground, teaching him to move his shoulders.  He is pretty stiff and doesn't want to let me on his right side.  So I spent most of the time on his right side.  I would ask him to turn toward me and once he had move his mid point (his head) past me I would ask him to continue the move with his front end.  He was better at the end and that is all you can ask of a horse.  He is progressing nicely and is a little ahead of where most starter colts are because he is able to be ridden.

Soldier - 5/28/12

In keeping with the idea that Soldier doens't know what to do with his body, I rode him today and worked on turns into the fence.  This can teach him how to get his body out of the way.  I start by asking him to step just a little away from the fence and and as he moves away from the fence, I then turn him toward the fence.  Usually there is not enough room and he is forced to move his body to avoid bumping the fence.  As he moves away to give himself enough room to turn, I give him the cue to move away from my legs.  anything new is a slow process, but he is learning.

Soldier - 5/21/12

Worked in the round pen agian.  Soldier gets scared and just wants to just run mindless circles.  So we worked on breaking that patttern.  Did a lot of the same things I did on Sunday.  Not much more to report on that.  Hopefully he will make enough progress that I can start driving him later this week.

Soldier - 5/20/12

Worked Soldier in the round pen today.  I think you have to be careful with roundpen work, too many times it just turns into mind numbing circles to wear a horse out.  When I got him in the round pen all he wanted to do was just run circles, all of his turns were just him seeing how fast he could get going the other direction.  He was not looking for direction or contact with me, when we first started.  Even when I took the pressure off of him, he just continued to run circles.

We probaly worked at least an hour before he started looking for me and trying to see what I was asking him do do.  While he was just runnining circles, I first tried to back away to take the pressure off.  This had no effect, so I stood in the center and tried to keep my back to him.  He eventually started looking at me, trying to figure out why I wasn't putting pressure on him.  The break through was the point he stopped and turned toward me.  At that time I walked up to him and spent some time just being friendly.

He will be better tomorrow than he was today, that's all you can ask.

Soldier - 5/19/12

I think you should learn something about your horses everytime you work them.  I rode Soldier today and I learned that he had no idea what to do with his body.  He couldn't walk a straight line and just acted alot like the 2YRO's I start.  He is broke to death to ride, he just doesn't have a clue what do next.

That said, I am going to start him back at the basics.  From ground work to driving before I get on his back again.

Soldier - 5/17/12

Soldier is a new boy at the house.  He belongs to the Johnston's and I am helping them to get his full potential for their needs.  Don't really know how old he is, but I do know a couple of the kids that rode him and since they were little guys...Soldier is pretty desensitized to pressure.

I worked him on the ground today for about an hour.  We worked on three things, since he is older and the point is to ride him.  We started with just some desensitization of the stick and string.  A lot of people want to call it a whip, but I believe that leads to a mental picture that can cause problems.  Call it a stick and string or and extension of your arm.  The purpose of it is to make your arms longer.  He needs to understand that that stick/string flying around his body only means something if my body language says it means something.  If I am standing relaxed and flicking it around, he should relax.  IF I have my energy up, then my body language is different and he should be moving somewhere.  Next we worked with him yielding his hind end away from me.  It took him a little while to get the idea, but he eventually did it.  At the end was what Parelli calls the yo-yo.  He had a little trouble with this, as he did not want to back away.  He still needs work on this because he doesn't really understand about being in my space.  He thinks it is ok to be all over the top of me.

Stay tuned for more as Soldier advances....