First Sunday at a big barn

Oops, I forgot to post about Sunday. I'm catching up, really!

What a great day! At the end of it Mag was standing tied, head down, immobile as an old school horse. “My brain is full.”

It was a Sunday afternoon and it all went exactly as I'd hoped – lots of activity and even for the first time, someone shared the indoor with me. It blew his mind but we just worked through it, and then ANOTHER horse came and re-blew his mind and we worked through it. Mag, you must continue to jog a circle around me on the lungeline despite the fact there are distractions. And the more distracted you are, the longer we'll be at this. Thankfully it wasn't too bad. He should know that from his past, but I understand this is a new place and his brain is gonna cut out at times.

I was in that arena a full hour and a half but Mag never broke a sweat, it was mostly mental stuff today so working on getting that canter didn't have to happen today.

See, yesterday I found this horse training website called Happy Horse Training and I read this great article about correct lunging. I didn't quite agree with everything in the article, but most of it, I did. And why didn't I learn this 20 years ago? They are proponents of Mark Rashid, as well.

I remember at the Legerete clinic they tried to teach me some of this in-hand gymnastic stuff and I was uncomfortable with it because it involves you being right there at your horse's shoulder and I never wanted to be that close to Mara.

But the article explained that if your horse is not bending its body properly on the lunge, your lunging is counterproductive, actually damaging to the horse, because horses will naturally lean and bend to the outside to balance around the circle.

The article said,

The only way to get a correct bend is through the use of a lunging cavesson.

(or Micklem bridle's nose ring), and, equally important, you must have expert whip handling skills. Really, can't I use a bridle and the traditional “through the inside bit ring, over the poll attached to the other bit ring” configuration? That's all I've got at this point (but later Gabi said I can try out two of her cavessons).

As I cleaned his paddock, he positioned himself, as usual, beside me, following me around, and when I bent down to scoop, he'd put his nose in my hair and keep it there, breathing my scent. Then he started chewing on the wheelbarrow handles, as usual, but this time knocked the entire thing over and spilled poop. He scared himself but I had to laugh.

He's bored in his private paddock. He seems to be saying, “Let's go do something!” I love it.

I chose the Parelli carrot stick to do the in-hand gymnastic work, what I call “The banana exercise” where the horse bananas its body around you, with you keeping a solid connection with the horse's mouth, bending it in, and keeping the stick at the shoulder, keeping the horse from falling in.

It worked! Mag took a moment but then caught on. I apologized that I was such an amateur. Then we moved to the jog and he kept the bend and even began dropping his head to the ground as I vibrated the line.

The article said that a slack lunge line is completely ineffective, you must maintain contact and conversation. I partly agree, partly disagree. I think for this bending exercise you need that connection. But for other types of lunging, like full-arena work over cavaletti, I think it's OK if the line is slack.

So in my mind today, lunging split into two types. 1: Full arena work over poles and obstacles, where the horse can straighten on the long sides, and 2: Bending and crossing hind legs over at a very slow speed.

The article said you absolutely cannot achieve this bending and throughness if the horse is being free-lunged, but I've seen expertly trained horses doing just that – lifting off the ground from the hind end, bent toward the center the entire time. Not that Mag is ready to go off line....

I'm mostly happy today that I was able to do this exercise, walk and jog both directions, and that Mag is really getting the requests to drop his head to the ground as he goes around, because each time he does, I give the line and praise him and let him make the circle bigger as a reward, and even take a break.

Then Birgit and her daughter Jasmin (another teenaged girl) arrived with Moritz the Haflinger and asked if they could also use the arena and well, that was just perfect! I thought I was almost done, but this was too great an opportunity to waste. I asked Birgit if she'd be so kind to hold Mag as I scooped up our poop before their horse trampled it, and then I asked if she'd continue to hold him while I set up an artificial horse trailer. Well, I tried.....

I set up jump standards a meter from the wall, and put the horsie pool in the middle, with wool blankets on either side of the pool, to make it more interesting to cross through. Then I thanked her and pointed to Mag, “Go through” and he took a long look but then passed through the chute and didn't mind anything. OK then. I said to Birgit, “That was obviously not nearly enough like a horse trailer!”

Then the other way, I pointed, Mag went through. I said, “OK smartie, if you think this is such a piece of cake, let's do it backwards!” And I lined him up and said “Back.” He said, “I cannot!” but eventually he did, step by step with me praising him and in the end it was nothing at all.

Then this other lady wanted to bring her horse in to let it roll and Mag lost his mind, so we started lunging again (at a slow jog). I had planned to be done long ago but these opportunities cannot be missed.

Then she left and I told Birgit there was one more thing I had planned to do today, to try to back Mag over a ground pole. Again she held him while I set it up and then I led him over it, and backwards, and he really, really needs to learn this cuz he has no idea where his hind legs are in the universe. I laughed to J tonight, “Mag knows exactly where his forelegs are, cuz he can see them with his eyes. His back legs...a mystery to him.”

As I chatted with Birgit, I asked him to repeatedly come over and then back over the pole and he started to get annoyed at the repetitiveness of the exercise. He started to toss his head. Then he NIPPED me! I threw the lunge line at his face and yelled at him and backed him up and told him that there is never an excuse to nip or bite a person. He was sorry, and I understand he was just trying out that form of communication but that's never OK so we went back to lunging a jog a while longer. Someone led their horse by the door and he flipped out a bit so we lunged a bit more. Wow this was getting to be a lot of Sunday afternoon at a busy barn!

But Birgit kept saying what a good boy he is, and I kept thinking, “Well, I'd hoped he'd get a 100% on today's test but it turns out to only a 95 and thank God I don't have kids.....”

Then she offered more help and I said, “Honestly since you are offering, I'd love it if you'd help me get on him next week, because I am actually here in this barn to restart this horse, with the help of others.”

She was very enthusiastic to help me. I'm not sure if Birgit is the right person to help me, but so far she is the most willing, verbally.

I should mention that as we worked together in the indoor, I saw Jasmin push that Haflinger into more work than he wanted, and do lots of cute circus moves too. Moritz does the Spanish walk, and turns circles when she gestures. He's as big as a house, I think, two of my horse could fit in his skin. But I appreciated that she has very well fitting, very nice tack, and was lunging him in a big Back on Track rug. She said he has back problems and it helps. I said, “I've heard of people camping with their horses, who actually sleep in their Back on Track blankets for warmth!” Bettina also has the same blanket for her young Warmblood. When I asked, she told me the Back on Track products made a huge difference. I personally am not convinced they're superior to a wool pad and a fleece lined rump rug, that should be plenty warm.

As Mag stood there like an exhausted school horse (although he never broke a sweat today), a  married (?) couple groomed their big paint horses next to us. The man (a man rides at this barn?) approached me and said his name was Michael (pronounced differently than you think). I shook his hand and said, “Like Michael Ende? Author of The Neverending Story and Jim Knopf, what I'm reading now to improve my German?” “Yes,” he said, “And we can speak English if you like. I have to cuz of my job.” I said, “Why?” And he explained he works at Vodafone, and I told him how Vodafone was my company's client back in 2001, and we made software for Vodafone.

And then his wife came over to shake my hand and since my hands were buried in the shampoo in Mag's tail, she just grabbed my finger, and said she is Marin, and she asked me what my mare's name is. I said, “HE is Mag, from Poland” “And you?” I said my name and as always in Germany, they have no idea about my name and so she said, “So you're from Poland too?” I've never had anyone think my name is Polish!

They asked me about myself and I said “If you go into the Reiterstube, you'll see on the board a newspaper clipping from 2008 when I was married here in Wuppertal and Gabi showed up with her horses at the church, and they did a little story on me, “The girl from Seattle, the Capitol of Washington state, who left her horse behind to live in Germany.”

I told him I did not abandon him, I actually got to fly on a plane with him.

They seemed curious about the flight on the 747 to Germany, and then I realized that I had an audience behind me too, people had stopped what they were doing to listen.

And my social anxiety didn't check me back because I had no idea, I was just telling my favorite story.

And Mag just stood there, “My brain....so full.” Then I stuffed a tube of Oxibendazole in his mouth, poor thing.

I never dreamed I could enjoy boarding again. I know it's not gonna be perfect, but so far this is way better than I expected.

Oh, and Mag nickered at me as I arrived today, that felt good. He might not tomorrow though, based on his mental exhaustion, so I put a couple crab apples in my barn bag. Yah, I've got a barn bag. Haven't had one of those in a while.