Mag's best day

Every once in a while Mag breaks a sweat and I am noticing that I smell like horse again. Finally!

Today had to be his best day at this barn because you could just look at him and see how happy he was to be a working horse.

It's Saturday and I didn't know if anyone would help me, but I put on the saddle just in case. And right after I did, Birgit and Jasmin arrived and Birgit said she'd love to help me. I was thrilled.

Mag is a little stressed while tacking up because he's keeping track of horses coming and horses going and he needs to nicker to them and keeping track is so hard. But aside from a little reluctance to let me at his most special LH hoof, he lets me tack him up like a grown up horse.

In the arena I emanated calm at him and he reflected it back at me, although looking at the gate when people and horses went by. So busy today!

We bend on tiny circles to warm up, then go over poles and then I fold him in half, disengaging his hindquarters and then immediately forward again. He swishes his tail at that folding thing but for everything else he stayed calm and didn't throw any tricks.

We even got some good canter transitions, he's finally getting it - he can take the canter without becoming too frazzled. I talk to him and encourage him and laugh at him the whole time.

Then Moritz the Haflinger entered the arena, with Jasmin  holding him by nothing but a neck ring on a string. Hm! Birgit sat on a bench and played with her phone.

Mag settled right into the idea of working in our corner with the Haflinger thundering around on his enormous hooves.

Then  Moritz started pulling away from her, and since she only had a neck ring (WHY?) he was literally dragging her through the dirt, she was skidding along on her heels, and she had no gloves on! I wanted to give her mine but too late, he kept that up and in a few minutes everything fell apart. The neck ring broke into three pieces and she lost him.

WILD HAFLINGER on the loose! He galloped the full arena, shaking the earth, and I went completely maternal and put myself between him and Mag, and snapped my whip at him when he got too close, "You stay away!"

Mag thought this was the coolest thing that has happened yet, he had his "Fascinating" face and stood behind me as we kept nearly getting run down by a very naughty horse.

I was able to back Mag into a corner and stand between him and the gold and blond blur protectively. "Don't watch, Mag." This is what I love about Mag most - in situations were many horses would get upset, he holds it together.

They finally caught him and Jasmin was near tears, and when I brought her the pieces of her neck rope and string, her mother said, "You can fix it." and Jasmin was so overwrought, she yelled at her mother, "It's garbage, it's going in the trash!" I had just told her the other day how pretty I found it...

She left with Moritz and I got on Mag with Birgit on the lead line. I told her I want to ride lots of patterns, serpentines, over poles, and I had set up two cones I wanted to do tight 8s around. She agreed, and we began. It was lovely and as I felt myself relaxing, I would melt a little into the saddle and Mag would start to stop, "Exhale means stop right?"

For the first time he wasn't quite so unbalanced under the weight of a rider. Yah, he rides like a baby still, gravity affecting his parts wrong, and it's unpleasant to feel him try to keep himself upright under a rider.  Today he started to get his legs in order, or at least, a little better.

Then Jasmin brought Moritz back into the arena! This time with a bridle on and they started doing in-hand work, lateral movements, Spanish walk, it was nice, except when he would kick out at her. He got lots of treats for his good efforts though. I was amazed, I thought for sure she'd put him up for the day. This is not even their horse - she pays to ride him as a lease. Birgit said, "I warned you about Moritz, that he has a rodeo side. Jasmin so far has not fallen off though, but the problem is, he knows his own strength."

Where have I heard/seen that before? Oh yes, another Haflinger.

Then Klaus poked his head over the door and asked if he could bring Mia in to do ground work. Excellent!!! Bring it on! When Mag sees Klaus or his wife Tanja, he thinks, "Oh, MIA..."

And sure enough, when Mia arrived in the arena, Mag was delighted to see her, but continued to listen to Birgit and I give him requests to bend left, right, circle, stop, back, circle....

Klaus and Tanja are newbies but so friendly and open....but a more experienced horse person would have asked me if it was OK if he brought out the blue plastic sheet to wave around as I rode by! Good that Mag is OK with plastic (but not that rump rug?). Mia was asked to stand on the plastic, right as we passed by, oh boy, but Mag was "Hey girl."

So between watching Klaus play with Mia with a ball, and with ground tying, and using our cones, and watching Jasmin do the Spanish walk with Moritz, I felt my anxiousness dissipate completely. Mag and I were both distracted but relaxed, and Birgit was gonna lead us around as long as we liked.

Like yesterday I had the opinion that I did not need to be led, but if someone is willing to help me, I'll take it.

Then I felt something like comfort. Like relaxation was winning over anxiety.

"Fear is common sense in disguise" - John Lyons

Level 10 relaxation is me on Baasha's back riding down the trail. Absolute trust. He was not always good, but I trusted him.

I don't know what my relaxation level was today, but I suddenly found myself with no anxiety at all. Birgit's phone rang as she led us around and she asked if she could answer it. Of course!

Mia lay down to roll in the middle of the ground work. I cracked up. Mag said, "Well that's just not fair!"

Jasmin stopped being so angry and hurt at Moritz.

Mag nipped Birgit's sleeve. Is he bored or ....does he also have underlying anxiety, does he think that riding means bad things will happen? Or is it cuz these people always have cookies on them? UGH, I cannot read him sometimes. Birgit didn't notice.  He started shaking his head repeatedly and she was trying to fix the cavesson (the last 2 days I just rode in the cavesson rather than switch to the bridle and bit). He also bites the reins, but that's not so easy in the cavesson, cuz they're not right next to his mouth.

As Moritz and Jasmin trotted around together side by side, Birgit yelled at her daughter, "You keep him away from Mag!!!!" and we all did our best to avoid collisions in a 15X30 arena.

I looked at my watch and it was 15:30, I had to go!I jumped off Mag and loosened the girth and the cavesson and Birgit said to Jasmin who was still working with Moritz, "Do you have something in your pocket that I can give Mag?" She did, so Mag got some nice snacks. 

Then we stood there letting Mag and Mia sniff noses and love on each other, and I felt completely fine about that, til Moritz came over on the other side of Mag, so he was in between them both. I said, "Now I"m worried!" and Birgit said, "Oh, Moritz would NEVER bite or kick another horse." Well, in my opinion, there is a first time for everything. I said, "Not what your horse might do, I have no idea what my horse might do!" and she felt better about it as I moved Mag away.

Anyway it was great to see Mag and Mia "kissing in a tree" again.

This was Mag's first time working the arena with two other horses.

Back at the barn, Claudia, Argo's owner, came up to me and said she would like to offer to help me ride my horse. Really!?! This is great! I am often there when no one else is (hence only 4 rides in 3 weeks!) I told her I'm there every morning next week except Tuesday. She said she'll be there a few of those mornings. She seems motivated, and I've seen her helping Tanja with ground work too. I hope we can get along...

But that makes 4 people who have offered to help me with riding Mag, and 3 of them offered without my even asking. SO nice.

As I untacked Mag who was tied to the wall, Klaus came over and said, "Can I give Mag some carrots?" "Of course! But I must ask, how was your work with Mia today, with 3 horses in the arena? Were you able to work with her well?" He said, "Oh yeah, it's fine!" It's cute that both the husband and wife will show up separately sometimes to play with their horse.

Then Birgit came over, "Can I give Mag some bread rolls (brotchen)? This is the good bread, our own bread, that I dried on our radiators, not this damp stuff the bakeries deliver here for the horses in huge sacks."  So then  Mag got some ultra crunchy brotchen. I told her  how Baasha had to learn to eat dried bread when he arrived. The reason Germans feed bread is that Germans are so picky about fresh bread, after 2 days their bread is "inedible" so they donate it to riding stables. My husband's fresh bread, every week, never gets eaten soon enough (I eat no bread) so the donkey gets this wonderful 2, 3 day old bakery bread every week.

Then I remembered Tanja had given me some sugar-free horse snacks and I wanted to say good boy to Mag too, so he got those.

Mag had an entire buffet of snacks at the end of his working day.

When I said goodbye to J this morning, he said, "Have fun riding your horse!"

I smiled and thought, Hrmph, I'm still at the point where I want to kiss the ground at each dismount.

But today I felt the change in my worry-addicted mind. It might be fun again soon.



I had to take a photo of this because there are three round bales. Left to right, it's hay, straw and haylage. I took Mag from right to left, and he said, "Not food, not food, FOOD!" *lol*



Tanja, "Why do you cut that part of his mane off?" Wow I haven't been asked this for a long time. Um, cuz I always have? It makes bridling easier? Cuz it shows off his throatlatch? Ummmm...



Finally pics of the 30+ year old Standardbred, Ducky and his owner Bettina.




A neighbor came by to see him and said, "Did he fall into the fountain of youth as a foal?": )




Holy crap I have that same shirt! I didn't notice until just now. It's my ugliest yet coziest shirt, and I bought it from the pet store she works at in 2007!  How funny, I have to wear it and show her.




This horse has it good - he gets several mashes per day, he has his own paddock and even small field in Winter to share with his friend Alexej (and no other horses here get pasture in Winter!), he gets a deeply bedded stall at night, and all the love of his owner.

Update  - I just found another Johnathan Field training video and it's so awesome! I've recently refined my lunging and circling technique but see so many people fail to do this important step, to have this type of control of the space between horse and human. So many people go to lunge or cirlce a horse and they take a step back to create distance. This guy breaks it into two steps. First the horse moves his shoulder away from me. Then he circles. Two distinct steps. So simple, but powerful. Why didn't I learn this from my Pony Club manual! Vimeo link here.