Continuing with Jake

I forgot to post yesterday about Jacob so I will just include that with today's post, seeing as I did the same things. Jacob is getting real good at all the exercises. We went out both days and did the cruising and fence exercises and today he was much better, more relaxed and going in a straight line down the road. I even had him cantering. Today we did much more cantering and went farther (about 4 miles). We are almost ready to move on to the intermediate course which after looking over I already know he knows several of those exercises. I am real happy with what I am learning myself. I found there are some holes in my lessons, probably due to paying attention to Dennis Reis or Ken Mcnabb, they have different exercises as well. But combining them to some degree works well. I know we are making good progress.
If Jacob didn't know any of this stuff it would probably take a good week of hour and a half sessions to get him to start understanding the groundwork and another couple weeks to get him through the entire fundamentals course. And then it would take some time more of consistent daily work to get him real good at all the exercises.
Right now I am finding that when I try to back him up he wants to move off sideways so I have to keep his two eyes on me. Whenever he takes his eyes off me I just bump his head back. I usually ask him to move his butt first then if he still doesn't I bump his head. I also do alot of rubbing with the stick between his eyes. So today he has been much better at giving me two eyes. The other issue I have had with him is that he was kinda stiff on lateral flexion. Then I started using my thumb in front of the cinch when I asked him to flex, I would add the thumb and he would bend around. I have done that so much on both sides that he has made much improvement, to the point where I don't have to use the thumb as much. That translates to my foot when I am in he saddle with him. So on the way back I worked alot on lateral and vertical flexion and leg yields, even started getting haunches in and some sidepassing. Can't wait for the next session.

back at it

Finally, got to get back with Jake tonite. I was able to work with him for a couple hours tonite. He is really doing well on the exercises in the course. We just worked on refining things. I took him out cruising and it wasn't long he settled into a nice slow rythmic trot for 15 minutes or so and didn't waver. I let him rest then we turned around and started back and this time I bumped him up to a canter. He settled in for a while then broke gait. I bumped him back up and let him run out most of the way back. I already see lots of improvement and responsiveness to me even though I haven't worked with him since saturday. I am excited for tomorrow to see what more progress we can make. The thing I really like about this is the emphasis on not babysitting the horse by constantly kicking him up to the gait I want. The has been to let him make the mistake then correct him and let  him be responsible for keeping the gait, whether in the round pen or out on the road. It also makes the cue to go faster even more effective. It works the same with the rein. I did the fencing exercise by using the edge of the road and whenever he drifted where I didn't want him to go I just picked up a rein and added my leg to move him over. It wasn't long before he moving straight instead of staggering like a drunk.
Another good session. This was day four.

Day 3 of Jacob's refresher

Had a good time with him today. I have just been going through all the exercises of the foundations course. He is doing well. I have seen some things I need tweaked in me: eg. the way I ask for turns in round pen, circling better with him and leading better. I use the counting 1-2-3-4 and then increasing pressure, just to name a few of the things I am doing a little different. I also did something he calls 'cruising' with Jacob which gets him to rate his own gait, no nagging by me. Oh, I also am getting better at letting him make the mistake and then correcting him rather than nagging him. He is responsible to keep trotting until I tell him to slow or speed up. So I let him drop to a walk before I correct him. Today we went 3 miles after all the ground exercises almost all at the trot. I will tell you he settled right down and stayed primarily in the middle of the road. That is also combining the 'fence' exercise. He is responsible to go in a straight line and not wander all over. But again, I let him make the mistake and then correct him back to the middle. Clinton uses a fence, but since I don't have one long enough I used the center of the road. I guarantee by the time we got back, he was relaxed. Oh, by the way, that cruising is done on a loose rein (at the buckle/center of the rein). I just free handed him, no hands unless he needed correcting. I wouldn't do that with every horse though. It was a good workout for both of us.
Lisa, there is a leading exercise I will show you next time that I want you to do with Ceasar, after saddling, but before you do the sending or lunge for respect exercises with him. This might help prevent his humpiness.

No worries

yea I did it. I invested in Downunderhorsemanship series to see where I am at in my own horsemanship journey and to see where my horses are at. For the last two days I have been taking Jacob through the Fundamental series. There are 2-3 gaps, but we are well past that stage of the game. However, I have went back to square one and progressed through it to the end of the ground work. There was only one exercise I had not done, and that was circle driving where you lead the horse beside you, place your stick on his whithers and have him trot a circle around you until he relaxes. We did that and will continue to do that. It helps with flexion and softness. He also needs more work on flexing. As far as the riding exercises he does 12 of the 14 exercises and the two we have not worked on Cruising (riding a trot/canter on a loose rein expecting him to maintain gait) and then follow the fence(where he follows the perimeter of the fence on a loose rein so I don't have to use a rein). Those will be easy to work with him on. So, needless to say, I am pleased that he is so far along. My plan is to implement this with Raven too, but she is farther than Jake so I don't have to think about her that much with this. I will work on the fundamentals for five days and then move to the intermediate to see where we are at in that level. I wanted to start there but it pays (and already has) to go back to the beginning so that you don't miss anything or wonder what he is talking about later on down the line. He might mention something in the later lessons that if I did not have the beginning of the course I might not know what he is talking about. But anyway, It is fun and going good. Jacob is a good student.

Riding again

It has been a busy week. Sharon & I were at Beaver Island for 2 days, got home on Wednesday night. Then I had to get caught up on things on Thursday and Friday. Friday I had a lesson at Cheerios with 11 yr old Elly. She did real good on Buddy. I got a chance to drive a mini in a mini surrey. I want one of each. But today, I got a chance to ride, even if it was for only an hour. I had to try out Mike's repairs on my saddle. Thank You Mike. It all went well. Raven and I know a lot so I have been just trying to refine and better what we have. But I want to learn a sliding stop so I watched a video about it and went to work. I have to have a good stop and back up at the walk with just my seat, if possible. So I worked on that quite a bit today. I did it at the walk. I still want to do it more. She has to be real collected and round and then I sit deep in the saddle, take my legs off her sides and exhale. She stops n backs up. When I have this real good then I move to the trot. We still have to go to that level. I got bored and needed to check my back woods so we went for a trail ride. Flies were real bad though. We got back after about 1/2 an hour and then practiced kneeling a few times. Then I finished her and put her up. It was a good ride. It gets no better except to do more exercises with precision and lightness. I also want to learn the flying lead change.
So I have some things to work on.
I could use another horse to train too. If anyone knows of one.

horses

the last two days I had the opportunity to mess around with my horses. I rode Raven yesterday and had her doing real well. I am working on her kneeling so I can get on her from there. Not that she is tall or anything, but it is kinda fun. I worked on that today too. I also wanted to work on her leg yielding toward me and she is getting real good at that. Then when I got on her I wanted to just refine the things she already knows and get them better. It is alot fun to ride her when she is so responsive to my feel.
Jake is getting like that too. I rode him today for just a bit. I worked mostly on ground school stuff, refining those things he knows. I also started to work on leg yield toward me. He is gonna take some work.
I had a lesson with Buddy at cheerios today too. So I really had some good time with horses today. gotta go the honey is home.

Raven

I had a chance to ride Raven today. I have a different saddle, cause mine is in the shop for repairs. :{ Anyway, I got her saddled, a dream as always. She is just so soft with it all. I went through my exercises with her on the ground. I do the usual, disengaging, moving shoulders, back up and lunging. I also have her leg yielding toward me and away from me. She does real good at this because I have worked so much with her. I got on her and moved her around a bit in the pen, doing leg yields, side passes and haunches in kinda stuff. She is a dream to ride for me. Then we went for a ride down the road. I had a great time cantering her for about a mile. It was a real rocking chair soft, rythmic kind of canter. It is fun when she is balanced in a collected state. Then we just trotted and walked the rest of the 3 miles we went. I worked on keeping my upper body relaxed and soft as I was using my seat bones to move with her movements. I practiced speeding her up and slowing her down with my seat. She does better at speeding up than slowing down, especially if we are heading in the direction of home. It was just a real good ride. I got her back, unsaddled her, brushed her and then she went and rolled in the dirt. Ah, yeah! Thank you Lord for letting me have the time to ride.