8th August, 2011 School visit

Theoden is doing well at school with his Uncle Jim. He is working much more softly and starting to go nicely in trot, instead of bucking. After our session, we worked with a little black colt that was abandoned on Jim's land. Lindy did some headcollar work with him and I started work on his legs.

7th August, 2011 Lucy in the sky?

And finally yesterday, lovely Lucy, who accepted a surcingle and did some very quiet work on a single line in preparation for wearing two. I was so glad of my breast girth because it meant that I didn't have to overtighten or even tighten the girth. The instant I started to pull the girth up - and I am always very gentle - she told me that she was very worried about it being pulled too hard or too tight. When I asked her to walk with it on she bronced three times and then stood still and assessed the situation. Having realised that it wasn't uncomfortable, she settled to her work completely. She's one of the most beautiful horses I have ever worked with but my goodness is she athletic!

7th August, 2011 Look who I bumped into...

I was delighted to see Nelly's first foal Cello yesterday. Although I have kept up with his progress, I haven't seen him for two years. I know that he has a fabulous home with Stevie who loves him to pieces. Yesterday he was being long-reined along the road and he is in great shape. Hard not to yearn for him though.

7th August, 2011 When the cat's away...

With Jenny unavailable this weekend, I had to work with Beau on my own. I decided to work on the things to which he is most likely to say 'yes' and 'maybe'. He seems to love obstacles and it took his mind off the feed shed and the other ponies. He is becoming quite a fit young man now and needs his mind and body occupied. He also objects to having water poured on him especially his legs. It's important to train a horse to accept this before it has to be done in a hurry, in a worry or in an emergency - usually by force. It really helps to start this training when the horse is either hot or it is raining. This little watering can is ideal as an incremental step towards a hose pipe and the idea is to pour a little water on and then rub him to reward him for accepting it and to change the sensation. Beau was fine.

7th August, 2011 Rome wasn't built in a day

This is Rome who has an interesting habit of pressing into people quite strongly when he is cross. This into-pressure response is automatic and instinctive in horses, especially colts, and is then doubly reinforced if it works in getting rid of a threat or an irritation. As far as he is concerned that is job done. Yesterday we started to analyse what it is that sets it off - I suspect that it is any pressure on the poll (hard to avoid when he also has a tendency to plant) - and I have suggested that he has his poll checked the next time Kate Boe is out to look at him. It's hard to guess at his history but if he has ever been owned by gypsies he could have been tied to something solid to teach him to 'respect' the halter or indeed tethered. We also needed a strategy for breaking the pattern. Needless to say, hitting him is not an option as that would then turn it into a full blown war and in my view justify his behavour. Instead we worked with the bright white wip-wop rope to establish some distance when he started to invade our space with any sort of intent. Once again, no problem with you expressing your dissatisfaction with life but please, take it over there! The other aspect of his training was to make sure that it was utterly fair - understandable, calm, consistent and that he was rewarded with a lovely touch every time he got it right. Like many cobs, he proved to be very light and intelligent which reminds me, I must get a copy of 'Cobs Can'.

Email from SB 8.8: "...today after reading through your report and looking at the photos a few times, I felt so much more confident around him. I used his normal head collar but with a rope around his nose and added an extra rope on the end for length. Not ideal but it'll do for now. Coming out of the field and going up the hill was such an improvement! 10 times over! There was probably only two moments when he thought about moving into my space, so I did the chicken thing and he backed off so I stopped him and made him step back a little. Before continuing. On the way back down the field he was a little naughtier than on the way up, and we had one spinning around me type incident, but it was pretty much over as soon as it had started."

6th August, 2011 Girls and boys go out to play

Chaos on the green at Fritham last night with animals of all shapes and sizes enjoying the refreshed grass following the rain. The colt at the top is an extraordinary colour. Brandy and Humphrey as I have nicknamed him (Because that's the sound he made when I asked him what his name was), came in for a feed but Nelly and Blue are far too fat to need anything extra. The Forest is feeding the animals well this year. The foals all look really bonny.

6th August, 2011 Milly and Molly

Another training day for Milly and Molly yesterday using a combination of gentle advance and retreat and clicker to ask them to accept head collars. Both fillies (a three year old and a two year old) have been handled since they were foals whenever they visited the house on their travels around the Forest but neither has had a head collar on before now.