hobbyhorse23
Well-Known Member
Yes, I'm sorry, still no pictures! Skip reading here if that annoys you.
I just wanted to share that I've had both horses back in regular work with the sudden arrival of decent weather and enough daylight and am quite pleased with the progress Turbo is making now that he's getting regular lessons. I had my fingers crossed as I truly believed after doing all this stuff at liberty and in-hand for the last year and a half that he was going to fly through training with the equipment but didn't want to be overconfident or jinx myself.
After our first ground-driving session which I wrote about here, I did another short session in the bridle walking by his side and then took him to Happ's a few days later with Kody for a schooling weekend and introduced him to the dressage arena, cones, big horses driving carriages, and the completely different feel of a CDE versus the breed shows he's been at before. I'll post pictures of that later when I get them online. Short version is he did very well for having a LOT thrown at him at one time and got in a pretty good ground-driving session despite a lot of distractions he really wasn't ready for.
Since he's been home I've started him on arena work in both long and short reins, alternating and working on different things each day. We tried moving to the double-lunge and found it confuses him terribly as he's so VERY sensitive about responding to pressure on the reins and on his body with changes of bend (as he was taught to be) but we did get the initial bucks out of the way when the outside double-lunge line first went under his tail. I was happy about that as until now he's just accepted everything and I wanted him to act up a bit so I could correct him. He objected with some annoyed double-barrel kicks, I gave him a firm but unbothered "ahhhht! Trot on" and he learned that it wasn't a big deal and the right response was to move forward calmly. It didn't take him long to get it!
He's awesome about things around his feet and legs and has learned that when he backs up without permission and steps on a dangling line he'd better step right back off it calmly or pick up the foot when I tap it with the whip and say "Foot." Mostly I just let him figure things out for himself since he's a thinking kind of horse and learns better if he puzzles it out with a little help. I've been very pleased with how well he's responded to each new "tangle" he gets into and it took him less than no time to learn to bend properly into corners and stay straight on straight lines. Heck, our biggest fight was about not trying to duck out the open gate but after he gave in the first day he hasn't tried it since!
Initially I would take off his tack as a reward when I could tell he'd had enough but now after just a week's worth of real work he's gone from glad to have it off to disappointed. Last time I did that he gave me sad puppy eyes, tried to get me to put the bridle back on and when that didn't work he lined up in front of me and tried to get me to work him without the tack!
That was the last time I used untacking as a reward.
Now he's proud to ground-drive to and from the arena and untack at the grooming station just like Kody does.
He's been all-around easy to train. He got a little hot the first time I asked him to do a prolonged trot instead of just a few strides of it but quickly came under control and shocked me by going on the bit and giving me a few strides of nice round contact on his very first time. I reviewed some of my driving books and was reminded of the importance of standing quietly before being put to the cart and went out the next day with that lesson in mind, but it's like he read my lesson plan and never put a foot wrong once whoa'd. He's still a silly kid and does silly kid stuff like deciding the southwest corner of the arena is going to kill him, but he only seems to do each thing once and if I remember to break it down and clicker-train him for the small steps he gets over it very quickly.
Still to do of course is lunging him with the full harness on (probably some more bucking there as the breeching flops), dragging the tire, learning to sit on the breeching, using the shaft trainers (he's already pulled a travois of large pine branches at liberty and couldn't have cared less) and being led in the cart with a helper. Again, we've already done a lot of the cart work at liberty and by being ponied behind Kody so I'm anticipating that to be totally anticlimactic. He mostly needs to learn how the different parts of the harness feel and what they do and then we can hitch.
Kody is very jealous and hurt watching me work the baby so I have to keep reassuring him that I don't prefer the other horse, I'm "bring along his pair partner." This is all for KODY, as far as I want him to know!
You can tell it's bad when I let them switch places and Kody starts lunging himself around me in circles wearing an invisible bitting rig. He hates lunging but feels the need to prove he can do it better than Turbo can.
I'll be taking both boys to the beach in August with friends and Turbo has his first driving trial in late September so we're going to keep on keeping on. May and June were ground-driving and basic arena skills, July will be basic cart work with "combat training" on the long-lines and other outdoor work, August more advanced stuff and some fitness work, then a light driving trial in September and time to slack off again over the winter. I'm so excited!!
Kody's doing well too with his remedial in-hand work (bringing him up to the level Turbo's at when it comes to lateral work off the bridle) and so far seems to be staying sound despite regular driving. He gets very sore very quickly if I let him overdo it but he's now getting the idea that if he LISTENS
and walks instead of running everywhere he doesn't get as sore and then Mommy will drive him again the next day.
Silly goof! He's being a champ and a half about ponying Turbo off the cart though, and T is much better about it since getting gelded.
Leia
I just wanted to share that I've had both horses back in regular work with the sudden arrival of decent weather and enough daylight and am quite pleased with the progress Turbo is making now that he's getting regular lessons. I had my fingers crossed as I truly believed after doing all this stuff at liberty and in-hand for the last year and a half that he was going to fly through training with the equipment but didn't want to be overconfident or jinx myself.
After our first ground-driving session which I wrote about here, I did another short session in the bridle walking by his side and then took him to Happ's a few days later with Kody for a schooling weekend and introduced him to the dressage arena, cones, big horses driving carriages, and the completely different feel of a CDE versus the breed shows he's been at before. I'll post pictures of that later when I get them online. Short version is he did very well for having a LOT thrown at him at one time and got in a pretty good ground-driving session despite a lot of distractions he really wasn't ready for.
Since he's been home I've started him on arena work in both long and short reins, alternating and working on different things each day. We tried moving to the double-lunge and found it confuses him terribly as he's so VERY sensitive about responding to pressure on the reins and on his body with changes of bend (as he was taught to be) but we did get the initial bucks out of the way when the outside double-lunge line first went under his tail. I was happy about that as until now he's just accepted everything and I wanted him to act up a bit so I could correct him. He objected with some annoyed double-barrel kicks, I gave him a firm but unbothered "ahhhht! Trot on" and he learned that it wasn't a big deal and the right response was to move forward calmly. It didn't take him long to get it!
He's awesome about things around his feet and legs and has learned that when he backs up without permission and steps on a dangling line he'd better step right back off it calmly or pick up the foot when I tap it with the whip and say "Foot." Mostly I just let him figure things out for himself since he's a thinking kind of horse and learns better if he puzzles it out with a little help. I've been very pleased with how well he's responded to each new "tangle" he gets into and it took him less than no time to learn to bend properly into corners and stay straight on straight lines. Heck, our biggest fight was about not trying to duck out the open gate but after he gave in the first day he hasn't tried it since!
Initially I would take off his tack as a reward when I could tell he'd had enough but now after just a week's worth of real work he's gone from glad to have it off to disappointed. Last time I did that he gave me sad puppy eyes, tried to get me to put the bridle back on and when that didn't work he lined up in front of me and tried to get me to work him without the tack!
He's been all-around easy to train. He got a little hot the first time I asked him to do a prolonged trot instead of just a few strides of it but quickly came under control and shocked me by going on the bit and giving me a few strides of nice round contact on his very first time. I reviewed some of my driving books and was reminded of the importance of standing quietly before being put to the cart and went out the next day with that lesson in mind, but it's like he read my lesson plan and never put a foot wrong once whoa'd. He's still a silly kid and does silly kid stuff like deciding the southwest corner of the arena is going to kill him, but he only seems to do each thing once and if I remember to break it down and clicker-train him for the small steps he gets over it very quickly.
Still to do of course is lunging him with the full harness on (probably some more bucking there as the breeching flops), dragging the tire, learning to sit on the breeching, using the shaft trainers (he's already pulled a travois of large pine branches at liberty and couldn't have cared less) and being led in the cart with a helper. Again, we've already done a lot of the cart work at liberty and by being ponied behind Kody so I'm anticipating that to be totally anticlimactic. He mostly needs to learn how the different parts of the harness feel and what they do and then we can hitch.
Kody is very jealous and hurt watching me work the baby so I have to keep reassuring him that I don't prefer the other horse, I'm "bring along his pair partner." This is all for KODY, as far as I want him to know!
I'll be taking both boys to the beach in August with friends and Turbo has his first driving trial in late September so we're going to keep on keeping on. May and June were ground-driving and basic arena skills, July will be basic cart work with "combat training" on the long-lines and other outdoor work, August more advanced stuff and some fitness work, then a light driving trial in September and time to slack off again over the winter. I'm so excited!!
Leia
Last edited by a moderator:
