Horse Training

We have been learning to train our horses by various mediums. Books, video, and horse training clinics. We've been doing this for several years which is a comment on our slow learning curve as opposed to the horses slow learning curve. We have discovered that timing in horse training is as important as it is in dancing or maybe more so. If you get stepped on by your dancing partner it hurts less than your horse stepping on you. The other thing that counts is persistence and consistency. I am consistently inconsistent and it has been a hinderance. Kris is irritatingly consistent. We are beginning to make good progress. My horse Belle has finally stopped trying to leave me in the bushes. This is a huge improvement. I have been bucked off and stripped from her back by a thicket of jack firs. Lately she seems to have accecpted my leadership or is lulling me into complacency and waiting for a good chance to launch me.
Kris has been training them to do tricks and we both have been working on speed control and making them soft and easy to handle. Surprisingly, it appears to be working in both cases. So, we have had delightful rides and great training sessions this spring. The weather has been co-operating until a few days ago and appears to be getting better again.
We are working on side passes, hind quarter yields, forequarter yields and spins.
These are technical terms that mean we are trying to get the horses to do something other than walk in a straight line.
It is an excepted truism that good horse training is boring. Old people training horses is really boring. We could send you a video of me looking for a lead rope which would take 20 minutes and end with me using Kris's lead rope. I gather that we could include video with this blog and may try that. Now that Belle has stopped bucking, a lot of the interesting horse training is probably over. If it turns out that something good pops up we definitely will try it.

We worked on the water system today which consisted of building the rack to hold the toxic waste barrels. Just as I was getting started I knocked a 2x10 of the saw horse and the edge landed on top the arch of my foot. This would have made excellent video but we weren't filming and I refused to do it again so Kris could film it. Anyway, after looking my foot over and wiggling my toes I hobbled around and kept building. It was feeling much better by the end of the day and I'm pretty sure I didn't break anything.

I have two blog followers! Soon I will be famous.