Preparing for Take Off: the week before

My nerves for the externship are settling down more and more. I know I want the best result I can get but I also know that what will be will be and I’d be crazy not to make the most of enjoying y time here. It’s so easy to become goal orientated but now that I’m here with Boaz I really feel like I don’t need to prove anything. Maybe I will come home a 2** PP, maybe I won’t make it as a PP at all, who knows. What I do know is that Boaz and I are going to have a lot of fun, learn a lot, do new things we never thought we’d do, and come home calmer, smarter, braver and more athletic!

I’ve mainly been trail riding Boaz through the mountains and he really will do anything. He is calm and confident and responsive, a perfect trail partner, and he really enjoys being out. He comes to me when I visit him and gives me a buzz when we play liberty stick to me in the yard. He is just such a lovely fellow, it’s hard to imagine I’ll have anything but fun on the externship. I know if I get emotional or frustrated it will only be my ego that’s to fault because this is the most honest horse I could have hoped for! He’s been a little more challenging to connect with the last couple of days so I decided to give him today off of the long rides and just build more of a relationship with him. He is still young, only 4, and I want to make sure he has as positive an experience as possible. Shirley has been helping me learn to vault onto him, I still need some help but I did far better than I'd expected. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to get on from the ground by the time I finish the externship!

I played with Dag the other day, he was fascinating. Dag has had a terrible past and Lynette took him on with a lot of baggage. She as come a long way in healing him physically, mentally and emotionally but yesterday I discovered that he gets most of his confidence from the herd and Lynette. When he gets insecure he gets cranky rather than flighty and he only really bites when he is worried, he’s more lippy when he’s left brained. I spent time doing quiet zone 3 driving with my arm across his back and staying in as low phases as possible doing figure 8 patterns and touch it. I was surprised to see him so quiet and subdued when he’s usually such a punk but that’s when I realised the punkiness is a defence. He actually wants to do the right thing but he is expecting the human to prove they are stupid or dangerous. When I did not push him past his thresholds and just waited with him he was very surprised and after a lot of processing and licking and chewing he began to yawn and yawn. I saddled him and took time using disengagements to help him start using the left side of his brain more. When I would offer him my hand he would touch it and start licking it rather than try to eat it. At one point he went introverted and suddenly he started biting in my direction and I suddenly had the image of someone woken from a deep sleep and they start punching out in the shock, like post traumatic stress. It was really a fight response to a mental process and not a personal attack because he kind of shook his head and started blinking and stopped without me doing anything. He could have bitten me loads of times because I did not prevent him, but instead by being calm, quiet, and 110% with him, he didn’t need to go there. I took some time to do the friendly game in motion and found that he was actually just plain less confident away from me and needed to crowd me for his security. After a while he discovered he could find comfort about 5 or 6 metres from me and he could relax a little but he still has some way to go. So it is not a surprise that when I started to do some circling game his cranky face came back. When I treated it as a lack of confidence and just repeated the question without getting louder in my phases he found he could settle into it and his attitude changed. Finally we were ready to mount and when I did he still did not try to bite me, which is something Lynette had said he would do. However when we started riding off he had his ears back and, whilst he went through the motions of doing what I asked, he was mentally resistant. By keeping the exact same energy as I had done and being polite and persistent in the proper position he realised I was not going to be pulling him in the mouth or doing something to make him uncomfortable and he could put his ears forward and enjoy our short little ride around the paddocks. 

The next day Dag had a pleasant soft attitude and was exceptionally well behaved.

I have been continuing to play with Princess Jasmine too. She is now really starting to understand the driving game and the use of energy and neutral as part of our conversation. Whilst she can still be reactive when surprised, she is making a massive effort to think her way through situations that she was unsure about. We have played with each of the seven games now and whilst they can all be improved she is showing a desire to please and learn. She loves to get attention and cuddles... and cookies!  I found her in the field sleeping and she allowed me to approach her and give her a treat whilst she was laying down, which is a big deal as Lynette tells me a year ago she would have been striking out in defence and was terrible to catch. She has started to whinny when she sees or hears me and has even trotted up to me, which Lynette said was the best catching game she had ever seen Jazzy do. I am totally smitten about her and I could not resist looking up how much it would be to transport her home. I will definitely not forget about her and I will see what I can do once I get home because she really is something special.  Her biggest challenge has been her confidence with the ropes, especially around her back end. I had been doing lots of friendly game with the carrot stick  and savvy string and throwing the rope over her but when I sent the rope around her to have her do a full disengagement from it she really freaked, fortunately she span in the right direction and stopped, looking at me like “what was that?!” So I have been playing with breaking it down and going slower to build her confidence and understanding in the ropes. I really want her to yield to pressure because she is so fast and reactive she could kill herself if she got caught in a fence or something, and because life will be so much more comfortable with her. We have reached where she can sometimes respond to the rope around her, rather than react, but it’s not as solid or consistent as I would like. She is now reading my energy better and I can jump around her and she watches me a bit but relaxes quickly and is not going introverted. I have been leaning over her a little and she is not worried about my weight over her, or me standing tall on things, but she still needs to have some more confidence with things touching her flanks and legs before I would want to sit on her. I think she would actually be ok at the halt but if she gets scared she is so fast. She doesn’t stay freaked out for too long but it does take a long time for her to relax. She has learned to lead by just a few hairs of her tail, is doing the circling game and touch it, she can do a few steps of sideways and has a great squeeze game. This filly just keeps on impressing me and more than anything I love how interested she is in doing things with me. Yesterday I stood in front of zone one and was throwing the rope over her neck. It’s quite easy for a horse to feel like you are attacking them when your bellybutton is pointed at them and you need energy to get the rope to swing, but I kept the energy rhythmic and neutral and after a bit of trying to move back away, then standing and throwing her head, she soon settled and I could walk backwards with her walking toward me as the rope swung over her head one way then the next. Considering that as a foal she was traumatised by roping this is such an achievement for her, and testament to how much try she has.  Tonight we have guests for dinner, I am cooking them all a shepherd’s pie and then I will play with Jazzy so they can see how much progress she has made. 

Tomorrow will be packing day, getting all the horse stuff and my bags sorted for the journey to Colorado. We are leaving early on Sunday morning and will arrive in Pagosa sometime after midnight. Lynette has organised a place for us to sleep and rest the horses for a few hours before we join the queue for checking in. Checking in is between 8 and 10 and then induction begins at 11am.

It’s really happening! I’m on my way to the Parelli University Campus in Colorado and I am going to spend 3 months with some of the world’s greatest horsemen, learning all I can!