Extreme FG

Sat 7th Nov 09

A bit frustrating - I seem to be down to one day a week at the moment. Rich is now only off at weekends and at least one day we seem to be doing something all day. Hey ho, roll on January!

A lot has happened behind the scenes over the past few weeks which I haven't reported - wanted to wait until I knew what the outcome was.

Basically, I have had to take stock of where I am with D and that I'm not able to take part in the ridden section of Parelli clinics as he's nowhere near safe enough to join in with others and "doing my own thing" is not an option in case I have an accident. So, I approached James R, Parelli colt starter for help with me & D together. He said he couldn't help as, unless he knew the horse was safe, he couldn't teach me on a restart. He recommended having D restarted or, as a fall-back, getting myself to L4 on an easy horse and D to L3 on the ground before trying to restart him. This is all very good advice, echoed by T and B.

As to me getting to L4 on another horse, I don't want to abandon project D at this point to get my savvy up - although I am now realising I may not be doing D a favour by using him as my guinea pig! I do need to concentrate on the areas I know I'm not embedded enough - e.g. stopping with one rein & riding on a casual rein in times of trouble when -as a "normal" - I would usually get my leg on and ask the horse to collect and work laterally.

Getting D to level 3 on-line is definitely a good goal. I need to keep moving forward, it's easy to get stale and repeat the old favourites - although I'm dead chuffed at his bag-picking-up trick. I'm now trying to teach him to give it to me but the light-bulb hasn't gone on for him yet! I ought to try to make progress with the Spanish walk too! D really loves tricks - they make him so happy - climbing on things, pawing and biting things, touch it, anything which involves an object he can touch really.

Back to the behind the scenes....S and I have decided to seek help from Mandi Claxton, a Bruce Logan specialist experienced in colt starting. S has spoken to her and she remembers D and was very positive about him - as was Bruce when D went on the 3 day clinic with him. (Interestingly, apparently Bruce assessed D as having only tolerated being ridden, not accepted it.) I'm hoping to see Mandi teaching to see whether we're on the same page.

In the meantime, I've got so much work to do with D that I'm actually not in any hurry to get on with the riding beyond passengering at the moment. The passengering is invaluable but I now absolutely know the key is in extreme Friendly Game. I wouldn't have known that if I'd not done the passengering - although I should have done, I could have found that out by doing more EX FG. I used to do a lot of EX FG but I was overfacing D and he wasn't trusting me so I think I subconsciously gave it up as I wasn't confident doing it.

Well, now thanks to Clinton Anderson (cheers mate!), I feel very confident and I'm sure D knows it! I recorded CAs colt starting series on TV and it's been fab. To my untrained eye, it looks practically pure Parelli rebranded with the games given different names and done in a slightly different order. He really makes it look easy which, although it's obviously not, gives you the mental confidence to think "I can do that!" He always has a helper for the first 3 rides though
and these are done in the round pen. I'm trying to get his colt start DVDs as it's a step-by-step guide from start to ride 5.

So, I will finally get to what we did on Saturday:
1. Weave
2. Dragging the big white builder's bag round with D following then letting him go and bite it
3. Shaking it about a few feet from D until he a) stood still and b) relaxed (Ta again CA)

Well D has no problem with a) but I now realise just how long b) is coming and NOT TO QUIT!!!
It was really tempting a few times - it's OK to move the bag away a bit but you must keep up the rhythmic movement until relaxation comes, however small the sign. With D that is usually just a change in the expression in his eye. It's tiny but wow, what a feeling when you see it and quit.

4. Figure 8
5. Orange bag crinkling in the air around D and rubbing D with the bag interspersed with throwing the bag for D to retrieve - and trying to get him to hand it to me - not successful - will have to look up on the web.
6. Circling - kept it to walk & trot -too slippery for canter. Pretty good, I practised my "neutral"
7. White carrier bag on C/S - flapping about in the air and rubbing D with it

D was better with the carrier bag than the orange bag - he seems very sensitive to sound and the orange bag is very crackly. I was amused that the little pony in the field next door was terrified of the carrier bag exercise and trotted wildly round the field then stopping and snorting. I had to move further up the field away from him as he wouldn't eat his feed.

Anyway, at the end of all my playing I was out of time but I also didn't feel the need to get on D as I felt I'd done such a lot of good stuff towards riding. Goody goody, the future's bright, the future's an orange bag!