Most of the time it’s “Hello! Do you have cookies?”

Sometimes it’s “I’m tired. You aren’t really going to make me work are you?”

More often than not, it’s “Hey mom! Good to see you! Do you have cookies?”

When Dave his trimmer comes, it’s “Oh no, YOU again?”

When I hose him off in the wash stall, it’s “I feel claustrophobic AND I’m getting wet! One wrong move and I’m outta here!”

When he was getting measured for the custom saddle coming our way, it was a combination of”I’m not sure what you are doing and I’m still deciding whether or not I’m OK with it” as the rubber bendy thingy was shaped to his back, to “What are doing? That sure looks interesting. Is that ME?” as he watched the fitter drawing the shape of his back on a large pad of paper. Then as the fitter moved around him, it was “Mmm. Those mints you gave me sure were good. May I have another?”

At least most of the time he’s polite in what he saying.

And yes, we were getting measured for a custom-made saddle that will accommodate his high withers and my long legs. I felt vindicated when the first thing the fitter said to me was, “you weren’t kidding about those withers!”. Really, I’m not exaggerating when I say they are the highest I’ve ever seen. And the fitter, who has obviously seen lots of horse backs, said he’d never seen any that high either! On a good note, he did say that Ace didn’t have any points in his back where my saddle had pinched. So while it didn’t have the clearance for his withers, at least it fit well everywhere else.

Oh, it started all right. Walk warm up, stepping over poles with nary a bump. Trot warm up, some figure eights, some trot poles without any touches. We weren’t overly energetic, but the bending lesson had stuck and we were navigating corners beautifully and going nice and straight down the long sides.

Then we trotted over some poles, and Ace caught his back foot. He didn’t even hit it hard enough to knock the pole out of position.

And then we were stuck.

For the next half hour, we were stuck in the middle of the ring, never going more than a step or two forward. I tried everything I could think of, from outhinking him to making it as uncomfortable as possible, to coercion. I tried just sitting there for at least ten minutes, hoping his brain would reboot and start functioning normally.

And he just stood there.

He wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t upset. No matter what I did, he stood there with his head down, his ears up, refusing to move.

It’s like he didnt like something (hitting the pole), and so he suddenly refused to do anything.

Eventually I got off and led him out of the middle to the far end of the ring. I remounted (from the ground, which I haven’t tried in ages and was glad to discover I could still manage it), and it was like nothing had happened. I got in the saddle, took up the reins, gave the slightest squeeze with my legs, and we were off.

Until we had to turn early in one end to pass another horse and got close to the middle. Then we were stuck again.

I dismounted, led him away from the vortex of the ring center, and off we went again.

Now I’m stuck.

I don’t really know what to do about this. And past experience with Ace tells me that he will be stuck from now until I find a way to unstick him. He doesn’t usually magically forget and go on again as normal the next day. I can always hope though!

I just mostly hope we won’t be starting from scratch again when we do resolve this issue.

1. Under Saddle Training

Ace  has grown very sensitive to my legs and takes very little pressure to respond appropriately. We are now doing walk, trot, canter regularly and have even gotten some transitions straight to canter from a walk. He is very energetic and forward at the trot especially. He’s starting to pick up his energy and pace at the walk too.

I also discovered the other day that Ace will turn with just leg cues. I still have a lot of trouble with bending him properly in the arena. He goes through the corners with his head to the inside and throwing his shoulders to the outside. I’ve been working hard to correct this by using my legs to adjust the position of his shoulders and hindquarters and the reins to keep his head straight. Last week I popped on bareback for a little bit, and discovered that he would turn beautifully around my legs. With my inside leg at the girth and outside leg back (still have to exaggerate the cues) and the reins sitting on his neck, we walked three perfectly round circles.

We’ve worked out in one of the pastures several times since it hasn’t rained much and the ground has hardened. It’s nice for my big boy to not be constantly turning in the smallish arena. There’s also a slight slope on the long side, so we’re working up and a down a hill. Ace likes working out there much better and we have been able to do some good canter work, and have even started establishing some flexion. We’ve gotten used to traffic buzzing by on the road, the neighbor dog running up to the fence line and barking her head off, and birds flying out of bushes. The first time I asked for canter in the pasture, Ace gave me a little buck. He must have thought it was fun working out there, because he came to a dead halt outside the arena and refused to go back in when we were finished.

2. The Health Department

Finally having green grass to eat has done wonders for Ace’s weight. He’s a big boy and it’s been tough getting his ribs covered and his butt to fill out. After a month of grass, he’s sleek, shiny, and not showing any more ribs. I can always tell when he’s gaining weight because he gets thicker through his withers and across his back. It’s a beautiful sight!

He’s still looking a little ridiculous as he finishes shedding out. I’ve learned that horses must have a thick, short undercoat during the winter, like ducks have down. I was never really aware of this before. But Ace made it really obvious, because his “down” is nearly black. When he started shedding out his light bay winter coat, he was very dark underneath. He was light with all these dark patches. I thought it was just his summer coat.

Then he started getting light patches under the dark, because he was shedding the dark hairs too.

So, his summer coat is a lighter, redder bay than I originally thought. And he still has a few goofy looking dark patches that need to shed out.

I got him at the tail end of summer, so the dark hair I thought was his summer coat was apparently his winter liner starting to grow in.

Who knew.

Oh, and all of those old cuts have healed up pretty nicely. He has a nice jagged scar under his chin. I tell him it makes him look like a pirate.

On one backwards note, my tack started to rub the top of his gigantic withers yesterday. We’ve never had a problem before, but yesterday I found a spot the size of the dime where the hair had rubbed off. That’s going to be fun to deal with, considering he’s very high-withered even compared to high-withered horses. My saddle does sit several inches above his withers, and I’m using a wither relief pad with a regular square pad underneath. I think part of the problem was that the saddle slid back some as we rode. Any suggestions you might have will be very welcome.

3. House Stuff

We have a contract on a house we love, and are just waiting for the sellers’ signatures. Securing our mortgage and scheduling inspections is next. I’ve got some pictures of the house posted on Flickr.

And because I get this question a lot, no, we are not looking for a house with room for Ace. First, I dont’ want to have my horse at my house. I like to board. I like the freedom it offers, I like that Ace has buddies, and I like that I have buddies. A big part of the fun of being around horses is being around other horse people. Second, a farmette isn’t in the house budget this time around. Third, Tracie might just kill me if I took Ace away. She’s kind of attached to us.

Last Friday, I showed up in the barn dark-and-early at 6 am to do chores. Typically my horse is happy to see me and trots up to me with ears pricked and looking for treats (he has learn to do that with manners, by the way). But this time he blinked his bleary eyes a few times, and stood on the other side of the arena staring at me. I could almost see him cocking his head. He was very obviously saying, “What in the world are you doing here, mom? You NEVER come here this early.” I had to walk up to him for his greeting forehead rubs. And he kept kinda looking at me like I was crazy. But then I stuck him in his stall and gave him his breakfast and he decided he liked seeing me first thing in the morning.

The next few days I was quite sick, but Dave and Tracie were gone, so I took care of all the animals. By the next day, Ace had gotten over the shock of seeing me in the early hours of the day. Then it was back to insistent whickering … “Feed me, woman!”

With my being quite under the weather, Ace got a whole week off from doing any work. Typically he gets rusty after just 2-3 days off, so I was worried we’d have to go back to the drawing board when we rode last night.

I got to the barn around 6 (pm) and started doing chores. Like normal, Ace walked up to me to say hi as soon as I arrived.

But he’s smart, and he knew that me showing up in boots and breeches meant that I wasn’t there just to feed him this time. He kept his ears at half mast and wrinkled his eye lids in his worried/annoyed look. I wasn’t thrilled to see that look, because it usually means he’s going to misbehave and be a pain in my butt.

After finishing up the barn chores, I tied him up in his stall for grooming. He relaxed and happily took a nap while I scratched him and unearthed an avalanche of dust from his coat (and even a few loose hairs! He’s ever so slightly starting to shed!).

I tacked him up, and he took his usual moment to sniff the saddle and pads before I set them on his back. He kicked his back leg a few times to show his annoyance at his brushing boots (he seemed to have the tiniest big of swelling above his pastern, but was sound). And he followed me willingly out of his stall.

Ace still had his wrinkled eye-lid look as I lunged him a few times around both directions. But he was listening to me and his ears were up.

So I tightened his girth, stuck on his bridle, and swung up. He moved right off, easily responding to my leg cues for forward and even sideways when he was bulging and running me into the wall. I asked for trot and he moved right off at the first squeeze, and kept going.

It was like he hadn’t had any time off at all.

I only managed to ride for about 15 minutes before the dust and my cough forced me to uncermoniously hop out of the saddle.

Through my coughing, I rubbed Ace all over to let him know he was a good boy. It was exciting to discover that his lessons are starting to cement themselves in his brain, so that even after time off he continued to respond and go just like he had been.

We’re on track to start a little under saddle cantering very soon! In the meantime, I’m going to take some of Jane Savoie’s advice about sensitizing Ace to my leg. I just found out she had a blog, and you can imagine how thrilled I was when the first new post to show up in my feed reader had to do with getting your horse in front of your leg! This is definitely a blog worth subscribing to if you haven’t already.

Now I just need to kick this cough so that I can actually manage to ride for more than a few minutes…

Ace is starting to get fit, and I’m starting to see a new horse emerge.

The wooly, pokey, grumpy faced horse is turning into an energetic, interested, flashy mover.

When we started doing lunging working a few weeks ago to start building up some fitness, Ace was seriously grumpy with me. He did it, but definitely not with a good attitude, and definitely not with a lot of personal motivation. But I’ve kept at it, gradually asking for more and more trot work on the lunge or under saddle.

Last night I didn’t feel like riding. And since it had finally thawed enough to get the 22 foot line out of the frozen-shut trailer, I decided to ask for just a little bit of canter on the lunge.

Imagine my surprise when my resistant-to-forward horse jumped into a trot when I started him on a circle and had only asked for a walk. (I wasn’t about to stop him for going faster than what I asked when he usually requires a lot of pushing!). I let him trot around once or twice and then asked him to come to back to a walk. He was moving out nicely, tracking up and looking energetic without any encouragement. That was a first!

After a little walk warm up, I raised my arm and told Ace to tee-rot. Imagine my surprise when I did that and promptly discovered a brand new horse at the end of the rope.

He stepped right into an energetic trot. He was tracking up. His stride was long and sweeping. His back was swinging. His ears were up. He was reaching under nicely with his hind end.

I just watched him with my jaw hanging open. There was a little spark in him that I’d never seen before. I saw a little bit of star power getting ready to come out.

It occurred to me then that of course he’s been lazy and making me work for every step. He’s out of shape. It’s uncomfortable. I would feel the same way. But now he’s starting to get fit and he’s feeling better and starting to decide that this is actually kind of fun.

After some walk and trot work both directions, I decided it was time to ask for a little canter and see if he would give it to me.

I just expected him to stay on the circle, pick it up, and go. I didn’t expect him to stop, face me, back up, get confused (despite the high likelihood of this reaction).

From a nice trot, I raised my arm, said “cannnn -teeer!” firmly, gave a swing of the whip in his direction.

And he stepped right into it!

Not only is my horse getting fit, he’s also pretty athletic. And he has beautiful canter transitions and stride. He went right into it like we’ve been doing this for years.

And if I thought his trot was nice last night, his canter was nothing short of beautiful.

On top of that, Ace is very responsive to verbal cues on the lunge. Down transitions are immediate, and he’s getting better and better about up transitions.

I didn’t much feel like doing anything last night, but I made myself go out and do something with him and boy did it pay off!

To make the spark and the canter and the response even better, Ace seemed to thoroughly enjoy every minute he had with me. It’s so much fun to see that love, respect, and trust developing.

One of the lessons Ace taught me back in the fall when we were starting under saddle is that he doesn’t like to feel pressured. I was asking too much at first, go forward, be energetic, stay straight, bend on the turns. And it was just too much for my horse who had been standing in a pasture for two years. He taught me that I needed to just focus on one thing at a time. And when I did, everything else started falling into place, too.

When we finally started back post abscess and Christmas, he shut down under saddle. Planting his front legs and refusing to move.

So I went back to ground work.

We started honing the fundamentals; pressure and release, moving different parts of his body, getting forward and back. We got up to circling, which has typically been a problem area for us. (He stops whenever he wants and goes backwards when I try to send him around again). But we’ve had some breakthroughs with that, and I’ve been gradually adding more trot work for my out of shape boy. He’s circling around me no problem. When I’ve sent him backwards, he comes forward to me at my first request. We’ve seen a lot of improvement in our “forward” on the ground.

Now I want to transfer that success to under saddle, but without any major battles.

So, I decided to hop on him bareback and just sit there for awhile. No asking for anything. Just letting him relax and feel like I wasn’t always going to be asking for something every time I’m on him. Undemanding time.

As soon as I swung up, he tensed. He picked his head up, and kinda sorta pinned his ears. Definitely not my normal, happy, playful, interested horse that he is on the ground.

And I just sat there.

I rubbed his neck, played with his mane, laid my chest on his withers.

Every once in a while he’d let out a bit breath, chew the bit, or put his head down a fraction of an inch. And still I just sat there.

After a few minutes, he took one halting step, and then another, and walked across the arena to the gate. And scratched his head on the gate.

I let him.

I rubbed on him some more. And then I just laid on his neck.

He let out a few more big breaths. Chewed the bit some. Rubbed his head some more.

And then he let out a huge sigh, relaxed his head down to his kness, and started licking and chewing.

I got off.

I want to do this for the next few days until he is obviously relaxed when I’m on him, not wondering what I’m going to do next. I want him to see that I can be up there without constantly pressuring him. I don’t know if it will work. But I’m hoping that it will be a useful step for curing our resistance problems.

I finished with the game we’ve been playing for the last two weeks: I turn him loose in the arena, grab a handful of cookies, and get him to chase me. He’s starting to like this game. (Really, he just likes the cookies). He’ll follow me everywhere I go at a leisurely walk. Across the arena, in little circles, big circles, and backing up. He’s got his ears up watches me the whole time. I’ll run from side to side, trying to get him to move his front end like a cutting horse. And he plays along. He’s typically laid back about it.

Last night, I grabbed the cookies and bolted to the other end of the arena. To my surprise, Ace jumped into a trot and ran after me …. nickering the whole way. Yeah, he got a cookie right away for the one.

We played some of our other games, running in circles, backing up. Cookie.

I ran in front of him, changing directions every time he moved his shoulders. And boy did my thoroughbred put his head down, changing direction and crossing his front legs like a cutting Quarter Horse. Cookie.

I had one left, and wanted to see if I could get him to trot after me again. I left him at the far end of the arena and took off running as fast as I could toward his stall. I heard this funny sound behind me, and looked back to see Ace take a little crowhop, jump into a high stepping trot, shake his head, and come after me.

Nickering the whole way.

I noticed that he was just a hair off in his left hind the day before Thanksgiving. It was a minor hitch, so I wasn’t too worried. Three days later, he had a cut above his heel. On closer examination, it was apparent that he had an abscess that burst. It was clean, nothing was seeping, and he was sound. I kept it wrapped for a few days with a drawing agent (for any remaing pus) that the vet had given Dave and Tracie when Marahute had an abscess.

Then it came time to remove the vet wrap and duct tape boot. Saying that Ace was a bad patient is a little bit of an understatement. I was holding him while Dave tried to remove it. It was ok for a few seconds, and then Ace’s foot started flying. Hard and fast is also an understatement. He was relaxed and looked like he was practically asleep on the front half while the back half was kicking wickedly. It took a good half hour, some arena time picking up his feet with ropes, and eventually we got it off. But after that he wouldn’t let us get anywhere near that foot without kicking.

There wasn’t a lot we could do to take care of him when he was trying to kick our heads off. Fortunately, the foot was cool, the cut looked good, and he was sound.

For a few days I fought with him enough to at least keep the cut clean and sprayed. And he started letting me handle it better. Dave and I also discovered during this time that a little smack on the butt was enough to stop that foot from flying. I hardly give him more than a love tap, but he thinks I’ve just taken a huge chunk out of his flesh and immediately behaves himself. I guess it’s a little like a mare who nips her foal to keep him in line. Ace just needs to be reminded that I’m the boss of him and he needs to behave himself. So, since that discovery we’ve had a much better time of taking care of him.

I kept his foot wrapped for a few days with some furazone ointment to encourage the cut to heal to heal. And it was looking really good.

Then Saturday I went to check on him and there was a lot of heat in the foot and he was a little bit off again. Not taking any chances, Ace has been on a five day soaking and wrapping regime, to be followed by an every other day soaking for the rest of the week.

Surprisingly, Ace seems to enjoy having his foot soaked. Once I get his hoof in the tub and the water poured in, he doesn’t budge it for at least twenty minutes. He likes to be groomed, so that’s been a good way to keep us both occupied and to keep him from moving. Last night he even turned himself into a pretzel so that he could get a drink of water without moving his foot. I was soaking his hoof in his stall and the water bucket was hanging back by his shoulder. He shifted his front feet just enough and then bent his head laterally all the way back until he could just reach. And he never moved the soaking foot. And then he did it 3-4 more times. It was funny. And impressive.

Tonight is day 4 of the soaking and wrapping. His foot looks pretty good at this point. I’m really hoping that we are just about out of the water (pun intended) with this and that Ace and I can get back to regular work and health soon.

Hopefully I will soon have survived my first health challenge as a horse owner. It’s awfully nervewracking!

It’s been a crazy month here. Family emergency and several days out of town with a grandparent in the hospital, Thanksgiving travels, planning and attending a surprise [50th] birthday party for my mom (she reads this and all of my comments, so feel free to leave your best wishes ), work stuff, and other life stuff, I’ve been out of the loop. Also, with losing Classic last week and Ace having that abscess, I’ve been all out of sorts. He’s finally on the mend, and I’ve got some of my free time back, so I’m off for a good horsey session tonight. We haven’t gotten to do any real training work in 3-4 weeks. I wasn’t able to get to the barn for the last three days, so I really miss my horse and am ready to get back in a groove. Can’t wait for some barn time.

Besides being behind in our training, I’ve been behind on a few tags and awards here. Here they are finally …

6 Things About Me Tag

From my good blogger buddy On The Bit, who you definitely should be reading if you aren’t already. (By the way, On The Bit, I left you several comments this week and none of them are showing up on your blog. I don’t know what’s up with that.)

The rules are as follows:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Write six random things about yourself. (I’m making mine all horse related!)
• Tag six people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know your entry is up.

So here goes:

1. I’m married! I discovered a lot of my regular readers didn’t know that. To make it horse-related, my hubby Ben isn’t much of a horse person. Meaning he’s not that interested, although he does have a fair amount of natural riding talent. I’ve put him up on Marahute and with just a little instruction he was getting her to listen, and even bend in the turns (which she doesn’t do unless you make her). Of course, he knows how to clean stalls, stack hay, feed, and fill up water buckets. Like my dad (also a horse husband), he knows about diagonal, leads, and heels down. He’s also super supportive of my horse habit. I reward that by making sure I don’t completely ignore him for the horse.
2. I used to HATE trail riding. We didn’t have a lot of trails around my barn, and it’s not something we did often. As a result, the horses weren’t all that good about it. I was a royal wimp when I was just starting out, so I couldn’t mentally handle it when my horse refused to cross the creek or spooked or got nervous. I’m learning to lose my old ways, though, thanks to Dave and Tracie. They love trail riding, and make it look and sound so fun. I’ve been out a bit with them, but I can’t yet handle a ride over an hour and half long. I get bored and my butt hurts. If I could trot and canter the whole thing (think Man From Snowy River) it would be a lot more fun.
3. My favorite place to be during a bad storm is in the barn. We’ve had a few doozies, and I was always at the barn for it. We’d run around like crazy trying to get all the horses in out of the elements and closing and blocking all of the doors so the wind wouldn’t blow them in. Then we’d put helmets on and hide out in the tack room underneath the saddles. Weirdos.
4. I’ve discovered that it’s a whole new world when I actually own the horse I’m working with. I’ve always had projects and worked hard and enjoyed them, but it’s a whole new level of investment when he’s mine. I’ve discovered I’m more patient, more attentive, more motivated, and more concerned. Hopefully I don’t become too neurotic and can learn to balance a healthy concern with not being over the top.
5. I hope my horse lives forever (wishful thinking doesn’t hurt, right?) but if he doesn’t, I want to be with him when he goes. Planned or not, I want to be by his side so that he has a familiar face and someone who cares. Also, it’s better closure for me to be present. I couldn’t do what Tracie did. I will never forget that final moment, as she turned at the door to look at Classic one last time, and Classic looked back at her with ears pricked. It was incredibly poignant and beautiful and sad all at the same time, and something that is burned into my memory. It’s also something I couldn’t do.
6. I think it would be hilarious to take my cat to the barn and let Ace chase him around. Ace likes to follow the cats and check them out. My cat Rooney (who I love to death) is kinda dumb and clumsy, but very friendly. I just think it would be really really funny. I think the two of them would make a great pair. Rotten, I know.

I like reading everybody’s six things, so I’m definitely going to tag my six people. Do specifically horsey things if you can. Here goes …

• Smells Horsey – one of the first horse blogs I read and one of my favorites. But she hasn’t been writing lately, and I’m hoping this encourages her to do so. I miss her!
• A Horse Crazy American In Germany – I just started reading her blog, but am really enjoying it. It’s so interesting to learn about the differences between American and German horse cultures and practices.
• Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch – who is incredibly knowledgable and whom I’m encouraging to keep blogging about horses even though she doesn’t have one any more.
• Grey Horse Matters – just because I like her and she always leaves such encouraging and thoughtful comments.
• The Horsey Set Net – who I “met” virtually recently and whose blog posts and comments I really enjoy.
• Holy Racehorse – who is also new to the scene and brings an insider view to training racehorses, with a more a natural philosophy to boot.

The Butterfly Award

GreyHorseMatters was right when she said I could use this award last week. It did help to cheer me up a little during a hard horse week. I have a lot of respect for GreyHorseMatters and always appreciate her encouragement and well wishes.

The Butterfly Award is for some of the “coolest horse blogs you know.” The idea is that you pass it on to several other blogs and say something nice about why you like them. So here goes …

• To Behind The Bit – who does a ton of research and is very informative without pretending like she knows everything. I love that she covers all kinds of horsey topics; ones she subscribes to as well as ones she doesn’t. I’ve learned tons from her blog posts and hope this encourages her to keep it up. Hers is one of my most favorite horse blogs.
• To On The Bit – even though I know she’s already gotten this, I would be remiss if I didn’t give it to what I would consider my best horse blogging buddy. We and our horses have so much in common. It’s been great getting to know you, even if I don’t know your first name! She’s a great girl I never would have met without blogging.
• To Pony Girl Rides Again – whose pictures of her boy are always gorgeous and always make me laugh. I wish I could get such good pictures of my boy to illustrate my posts. It’s been fun to connect with other new-ish horse owners.

• he doesn’t like to feel pressured
• he doesn’t like it when my upper body gets too forward. He stops if I get in front of the vertical.
• I can’t ask him too many different things at once yet. One step, one aid at a time.
• he is very forward without any convincing when it’s cold out
• an active seat drives him forward more effectively than nagging legs
• he likes to walk on the rail and hug the corners
• encouragement rather than pushing him forward is more effective

I had a lot to think about for our weekend rides after the lessons I was learning about Ace’s personality last week. And it paid off! We had two very good, albeit not perfect, rides. Ace was more responsive to my legs and moved forward more energetically. While I still have an issue with him deciding to break gait, he would move forward again  when asked instead of planting himself or going backwards. And that is definitely a step in the right direction. He continues to move his hindquarters very easily for me.

I still need to work on getting him to move his shoulders, but at this point keeping our forward movement is more important.

I spent some time letting Ace go whereever he wanted as long as he kept walking. And wouldn’t yah know it, but the silly horse just stayed right on the rail. He walked the same direction, right by the wall, hugging the corner, for at least 10 minutes. Guess I don’t need to worry about him getting bored just going in circles.

I was also excited to discover him acting very thoroughbred-y on Sunday. He was very attuned to his environment and was much more energetic and tightly strung than normal. And it was kind of fun. That kind of behavior doesn’t bother me in the least; we did some groundwork to calm him down and get him focused and otherwise we had a nice, energetic ride.

Tomorrow my mom and sister are coming to visit for a specifically horse night. Mom and I will probably both get on Ace while Shawna plods around bareback on Marahute. I’m looking forward to making mom play photographer so I can finally get some pictures of me actually riding Ace!

I still love him to death, and he’s still a great horse. But I am starting to see some recurring issues, which really just means that I am getting to know my horse better and he’s slowly teaching me how to work with him. GreyHorseMatters left this comment yesterday on working with the horse I have:

I can see Ace is teaching you too, how he wants to be trained. It’s good that you’re a good horsewoman and can recognize the signals he’s giving you. You are smart enough to know you have to take it slowly day by day and work with the horse that comes out on that particular day. Good for you, I see you and Ace are going to be an unbeatable team sooner than later. Keep up the great work, sounds like you really have it under control with your ability to be flexible in your training plans.

She left that just after I was starting to realize I needed to adjust my thinking and my communication with Ace. After last night, it’s even more clear that Ace is teaching me how to train him … but also how and why. I also greatly appreciate her encouragement because it gives me hope. With Ace’s training pretty much completely on my shoulders, I’m honestly a little bit scared! What if he has some issue that we will never work through? What if I screw something up and then can’t fix it? What if we never get over it? These are the thoughts that keep running through my head. Ace is mine now, and no matter what comes up we have to work through it because I made a commitment to be his person and take care of him. I can’t just trade him in if it doesn’t seem to be working out. At the same time, I remind myself that training takes time. And these aren’t such serious issues that we will never be able to work through them. Just because we can’t step into a show ring tomorrow doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to in 1, 3, 5 years. And I have to remind myself just how much Ace has learned in just 2 months, which ultimately isn’t all that long.

So, back to the getting to know each other part. Ace is very smart and very willing, and wants to please me. He’s always looking at me for direction. Always has his ears up. Never explodes. A lot of the time he does exactly what I ask with very little prompting. But some of the time, there’s a switch in his brain that turns to off and it’s like he completely forgets what my signals mean.

The other night, after moving forward lightly off my leg and seat at both the walk and trot, he suddenly stopped dead in the end of the arena. I couldn’t get him to go forward. He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t upset, he just wouldn’t go. At my slightest cue, no matter what it was, he’d back up. I could get him to disengaged his hindquarters both ways. He’d flex laterally. But he just wouldn’t go forward. I tried being more forceful. I tried letting him relax for a minute or two and gently asking again. Wouldn’t budge, unless it was backwards. I ended up getting off and driving him from the ground. When that was successful, I got back and we were fine.

Last night we started with some ground work to work on the Driving Game and the Circling Game. I didn’t ask for any backwards whatsoever; only forwards or moving his shoulders. Driving was no problem. He’d threaten to slow or stop, and I’d gently wave the carrotstick at him and he’d keep going.

Then I went to circle him around me. We’d start by facing each other, and I’d raise my arm parallel to the ground and point in the direction I wanted him to circle. He’d prick his ears, blink, lean, and head off in that direction. I can usually get this 2-3 times in either direction, without using the stick to remind him.

Then suddenly, he’ll decide to stop circling before I’ve asked him to stop. And he looks at me. And the second I begin to raise my arm, he puts his head up and goes backwards. And no matter how calm I stay, or how I ask, all I get is backwards. I pushed it for a little while, while he just got worse and worse. We even almost had a little explosion (almost, but not quite).

Then I took a step back and just started rubbing him all over the with the stick; doing some desensitizing with the rope. After a minute or two, I stepped back a few feet, lifted my arm and pointed the left, and off he went like nothing had happened.

While we didn’t necessarily have a breakthrough in Ace’s behavior, I feel like I had a breakthrough in understanding his personality. And here’s what I think I discovered last night:

1. There’s a switch in Ace’s brain. When it’s up, he remembers what my cues mean. When it’s down, he forgets. He’ll be fine the first few times I ask, and then suddenly it’s like that switch goes off and he’s completely confused. He gets anxious when he’s unsure and when he’s unsure he goes backwards.
2. I wonder if he thinks he’s doing something wrong when I ask him to do the same thing more than a time or two. It’s like because I keep asking, he thinks maybe he didn’t do it right the first time. This applies to me reminding him that I haven’t asked him to stop trotting yet. Or that raising my arm and pointing still means go that way.
3. And maybe most important: Ace doesn’t like to feel pressured. He’s not the kind of horse you can just “get after” when you are having a battle of wills. I think the more I ask, the more he shuts down. On the ground, I figured out this means rubbing and loving on him and doing some Friendly Game. He relaxes, and then does what I ask. In the saddle, I need to figure out what exactly take the pressure off and flips the switch back to the on position. I’m fairly certain this means that I can’t push him through issues, but that I need to take a step back, encourage him, and then ask again.

I’m not feeling the overall excitement this week about “Ace is so smart, so friendly, has such a great trot, etc” that I have for the past few months. While I may be feeling a little apprehensive, I’m also feeling like our relationship is deepening and that I’m really starting to dig deep and learn more about him. I’m starting to understand how his brain works, and now I just need to figure out how to work with that.

I’m feeling hopeful.