September 3rd, First Group of Horse Sessions. HA1

Horsin Around Horse Day on Semptember 3th 2012 at 12PMish

(In between the Rein Rains Session 1)

Mom's N.Hogan Farm

Attendees include: Horse "Doc"

Mom Powell, Kendra Sulesky, Alicia Kent, Kathy Klump and

Searcy Deshler (The Master ;-).

Reluctant Zak and all the kids of the kids.

We set off out to Mom's paddock with a western saddle, a lounge line, a bridle with snaffle and eventually the hackamore headstall. Doc was haltered and brought into the far side of the round pen.

Kendra attempted to see if Doc had ever been lounged or could grasp the concept of being directed around the ring. He picked it up a little but had clearly never been lounged before and got a touch confused.

They gathered up Doc and saddled and bridled him and he didn't seem to care for the snaffle bit at all and didn't mind the saddle at all. He just didn't seem to care for it the snaffle, but Kathy, the youngest and most limber was voted first to mount. She did it, bless her heart and she and the horse did just wonderfully. We discovered that he did not neck rein nor did he back up at all. He simply has not been taught and he was showing more discomfort with the bit as Kathy rode. We decided to try the hack on him instead, (even though Mom (Pat) , the owner of the horse does not want to ride with a hack) we asked her to let us just attempt to ride him with what he was used to be ridden with per the instructions from where he came from in the spring). He calmed straight away. He was much more relaxed and responsive with the hack. From the ground, he was very much more relaxed and smooth with the hackamore head stall. Alicia, Kendra and Searcy all noticed directly that he was much much more responsive and so did Kathy, whom was on his back.

Kathy circled in both directions and tryed to get a small trot out of him and he didn't want any such thing but she was successful in getting him to trot whilst stating (he is wearing me out). Very hard to get from walk to trot with Doc though we did discover that he was kicking up the same back leg every time that you asked him to do more work. We found that we believed that a prior somewhat recent injury to both of his hind legs (perhaps a month old) was the cause of some of his kicking out. He was a tad sore in the hind ankles. Everyone agreed that he would be less likely to kick up at his belly as he healed further.

Mom mounts the (her) horse and is riding in the pen for the first time in eleven years. She really doesn't like the hack but what Kendra and Alicia learned from watching him in bit to watching him in a hack is that sometimes you have to reteach the owner rather than the horse. He just loves the hack and was very very relaxed verses the bit. We learned while mom was riding that Doc has a built in stop button. He has a whole lot of stop in him but this could be due to his hind leg injuries. Not sure until the next session at moms farm on North Hogan.

At this point I believe that Searcy got on the horse and road him around the areana and started direct reining and he was much more responsive still proving to us all that he had never learned neck reining prior to this day. What we did was to instruct mom on how to teach him how to neck rein using one direct rein and the other laid upon his neck into the direction that you wish to go.

Driving with your seat on Doc helps greatly in getting him to go forward verses kicking him with heavy heal. We also noticed that voice comands helped a little with forward as well.

True Story.

Session 1 a great success for all but mostly Mom and Doc.

Lesson Learned: Always have a young limber 20something to get up there first.

You don't have to retrain the horse if he is already dead trained in something different.

Doc Rocks~

Horsen Around 2 is at Alicia Kents on Scenic Drive on September 25th at around 10 to 11AM if you are interested in attending. Get with me for further directions. If you want to come, you can contact Alicia directly at alikent@embarqmail.com for exact address. This could be the making of something really great locally and who does not love a picnic?

This is going to be great. A great way to learn horses and each other. All welcome and all fun. Bring a covered dish because we like to eat after we work!

 

There are no pictures from our first group session.  That stinks!~