First home lesson with Kati - Mag creates a new Arabian horse fan

I'm so  happy with Kati and our lesson today!

(I don't have any photos from today, sorry, but below are some from our lesson in the arena in Wuppertal - we had four lessons from her there before coming home.)

I had high hopes but had no idea if she'd consent to letting me make the decision what we'd do.

She had a handful of tiny plastic cones when she got out of her car and I said, "I'd really like to take a trail ride today." So she put them away. Whew. She's huge on ground work and liberty work and I am not, so I was concerned.

Thankfully she's both flexible AND able to give me near constant instructions to challenge us both on a simple trail ride.

On the trail of doom. Let's sing the doom song, I mean, no!

I asked her about Mag's constantly trying to snatch grass as we walk, and she said he's bored. She said she rides bridleless on trail so it's critical that her horse doesn't try to graze, and she never allows it, except when she purposefully gives a signal to graze. That is exactly what I do, but I'm not having much luck. She said I need to stimulate him with lots of stopping and backing and stuff and I said, "Yes, but sometimes I need to get where I'm going!" She said the trick with horses is to have all the time in the world. I agree, I guess I need to plan in more time then when I'm meeting up with someone.

Once on the doom trail she said she felt for sure she'd been there before, on a multi-day trail ride.

She instructed me to ride slalom back and forth across the wide trail to give him something to think about, and we worked on my number 1 priority - standing still. I am so glad she agrees how important this is, and she admitted she learned the hard way by doing everything wrong with her first horse, and that is why she is so careful with her students to not let them make her mistakes. I said, "My heart horse never learned to stand still in 25 years. But my fault, I never made it a priority."

Then it got interesting because Mag did not want to stand still, he would start drifting to the side and backing up in frustration. He even bit his reins a few times. But what got to me was the difference between standing there with her, and trying to do the same with my husband. Kati was facing Mag with authority, and facing him is another signal to stand still, I told her later. Also, she would talk to me the entire time he was fussing, and I was fully focusing on what she was saying, and somehow this worked, and Mag gave up and just stood there.

I told her if she was not there, and he was dancing around like that, I'd have gotten off his back and just stood there for 5 minutes or so. She said getting off is never a sign of failure, we're just programmed to think that. I said, "Right, from the FN." Yay, another person who dislikes the FN as much as I do.

She said, "Look how much he is enjoying himself. He LOVES being out here." I remembered her saying how much fun Mag had in the arena in Wuppertal and how I doubted it then, but I told her, "I had always hoped he would have fun out here, I mean, I'd always expected it based on his personality. I think it's true, I think he really does love being out." 

She made me circle a large tree and Mag grabbed a branch in his mouth and I couldn't duck soon enough, it was wrapping around my head. Not funny.


Then she made us do a slalom up a slippery muddy slope around 5 large pine trees, which we did, but as we turned to come back to her, Mag stopped, "This is not possible, going down." I had no idea why he just stood there, and she quickly came to his head and said, "I'll help you, come with me" and that worked, we were able to do it after she got us started. She said I should have no fear of riding on pavement after he handled those slippery exposed roots on that slalom. Hm, I should have no fear, hm.

We practiced stopping even on the way home and he was fine, really relaxed, PG13 relaxed, she said.

She had told me to breathe, I noticed that even though I was talking sometimes my breath would get short. She noted that Mag does not get worried when I stop breathing. Yah, Mag's a life preserver horse, so far: )

He spooked once and I pet him and said, "It's OK" and she said, "Don't ever pet or praise him if he spooks. You need to learn to ignore spooking completely, or stop, but never reward by petting." I agree with the stopping part.





Having her there, for Mag,  was the next best thing to having a horse there, I think.

She told me I should ask him to halt at every intersection, and be very careful that I choose the way I want. Of course, that's what we did with Baasha when he was a baby, we always picked the trail he didn't want.

She said it's interesting that he was so good at stopping in the arena, and not so much in the woods. She would just exhale and he'd slam to a stop. I remember her falling forward onto his neck, surprised, she wasn't expecting such good brakes. I said, "He's so lazy I thought he'd never carry me up a hill! But out here he's fine, normal. Just, less brakes than in the arena, like any horse."


     


When we hit our street again she said, "Stop, you should make a habit of always stopping when your trail hits a road, because you don't want the horse to get excited and run home on pavement like mine did with me." She said I should always stop there and offer him a treat, so he doesn't get too excited about going home.

Except that Mag was not excited about getting home. I felt no drive in him, no pull toward home, strangely.

We stopped to let cars pass a few times, and I admitted I hate riding on pavement, but also that Mag has no problem with it, it's my problem, my dad told me never to do it.

I pointed to the little scrapes in the street at her feet, from the horse shoes of the coach horses that go trotting on this road every Sunday in good weather. How splendid they are, how surefooted. We both agree that walking on pavement is healthy for hooves. I told her 10 years ago I wouldn't have believed it.

She said, "Funny how you can adopt new paradigms based on where you live in the world, huh?"  I agreed, "In Europe, people purposefully work horses on pavement."

As we approached home Mag was walking quite slowly and she said, "He doesn't want to go home!" I said, "Home is boring Mag?"

I had to urge him onto our driveway to dismount. What a nice feeling, although I've experienced the opposite with him on longer rides with Argo - "Your quarter is up!" he said.

I put him in the paddock and let the donkey out and ran to the house to get the money to pay her and she just hung out in the paddock with them and when I returned she said, "Both your animals are so fixed on you, they both want to know what you're doing and when you're coming back!"

I rubbed Bellis' nose and said, "Am I part of your herd too Bellis?"

She said, "Your horse loves going out. And he's so good. I have decided my  next horse will be an Arabian."

I said, "Or a half Arab, cuz they're not cheap in Germany, I could not afford a trained one!"

I told her it's good to hear, because if something happens to me I know my horse will have people who want him. I told her my hoof trimmer loves him even though he kicked at her, she's always kissing and hugging him (something I don't do).

She said, "One day you will wake up and you will discover that you trust Mag."

I said, "Yes! I know, I mean, recently I discovered that I trust him riding out with other horses, I mean, not fast trotting groups, but any single horse who agrees to go slow with me, I know Mag can handle it, even if he's never seen that horse before and never does again. It's a great feeling, this little trust."

Someday! She said, "You have the rest of your life, there's no hurry."

I know.

Could it be, one day I'll realize, "I can ride Mag anywhere, and do anything with him."

So far so good.