Poppy was a gorgeous fell pony who came with a loading problem.

When I went to fetch Poppy from the stables (15 mins walk away – which made timing really tricky!) I noticed that she really could be pretty resistant to the halter when she was being led. On top of that her owner told me how tricky she was to load, but I don't think I appreciated quite how much of a challenge she was.

The first thing Kelly did when she started working with her in the demo was to back her up and bring her forward a few times, and work on some basic leading exercises so that she had better control of Poppy's feet and showed her how to move out of the pressure of the halter.

Then she worked with her through a funnel of round pen panels, her owner had told us she was worried about narrow spaces and so working on this before loading helped to reduce some of the worry about being in a trailer.

Next Kelly moved on to work on getting Poppy used to putting her feet on different surfaces. It turns out she has fallen down in the lorry before (I didn't realise this until Popp's owner told me during the demo!!), and so understandably she was really unsure about putting her feet anywhere she didn't trust. At first she didn't want to go over at all, then she wanted to rush over very fast, and then she returned to not wanting to go over again. We often see this tendency in some horses to refuse or rush, either in extreme, and to switch between the two. The rush is actually no better than the refuse, in terms of adrenaline, and the knack is to reduce the adrenaline as much as possible and keep repeating until the both the 'refuse' and the 'rush' become less and less extreme. On one of her rushes though, my heart jumped into my mouth as she leapt across it, and slipped, thank goodness she didn't fall right down. It's so strange that their instincts when they are worried about their feet, to slam them down and leap straight off them, rather than put them down squarely and carefully, these instincts make them infinately more likely to slip or fall – and so it can be a self fulfilling prophesy in that she was so convinced she was going to slip or fall that she made the fall more likely. Of course it's our job to make sure they are safe, and so I'm sure there will be some DIY involving that board before another horse goes on it.


Horses are so aware of their environment and their behaviour is always in the context of the space they are in – i.e. they will behave totally differently in different physical spaces. We can use this to our advantage to make a different working space with roundpen panels. Once the space behind them is smaller, the horse begins to independently consider the forward option more seriously, they stop looking resistant and stop worrying about having to fight with the handlers, and begin to look forward into the trailer (or in this case over the board) on their own. Almost immediately you see that they seem less tense, more like they are trying to work out how to go forward than trying to work out how not to.

The round pen panels helped Poppy a lot, but she was still pretty worried. Monty asked for some poles to come in to help her and she was even very scared of walking over them! At this point her owner told Linda that Poppy is very worried about poles too. I'm not sure if Kelly had been aware before the demo that things under her feet were such a big problem - I know that personally I had the impression it was mainly about the narrow spaces, and the board would be used an extra little exercise to prepare Poppy before loading rather than for overcoming a serious problem. I guess its what keeps the training so fresh and progressive - the horses are all different and need to work on different things, so you can never predict exactly which direction you will need to work in.
 At one point Monty gave her a lead over a thinly folded tarpaulin with his horse and she leapt over it, straight towards Monty's horse who kicked out. We all went silent for a second crossing our fingers that he hadn't actually made connection with Kelly or Poppy, and Kelly and Poppy's owner checked Poppy over. I don't think I have ever seen a horse hurt in a demo, Kelly is about as careful with horse safety as anyone humanly could be, so I knew she would be feeling awful if Poppy was hurt. Luckily, there was only a tiny cut on her gum, and her owner was happy for us to continue working. We have watched it back and although Poppy's owner feels that it was just one of those accidents that can happen around horses, I know that Kelly and Monty will have taken full responsibility and will be sure it can't happen again. One of the most refreshing things about working with Kelly is that she is so ready to say 'OK. What do we do differently next time?' Anyway, no real harm was done and the demo continued...

I think Kelly would have loved more time to work with Poppy over different surfaces, but she had made a big improvement and with Monty's loader still waiting to load and the clock ticking, Kelly took her to the trailer. She actually loaded pretty easily, helped I think largely by the preparatory work on the board and in the narrow shute, again she had the help of panels to alter the space behind her and put her into a forward thinking mindset. She also unloaded OK – we were worried she was going to bolt out so we had Jim ready to act as an anchor on the line and panels set up to protect the nearest audience members.

I was pretty impressed with how Kelly had worked with her, keeping calm and consistent and empathetic towards Poppy I'm sure Poppy saw Kelly as a helpful and safe oasis in the world of worrying floors, and using the round pen panels meant that Kelly could help Poppy with where she needed to go, rather than feel at all like she was fighting with her to get her forward.

However, what happened at the end of the night really was fantastic.

Kelly worked with Poppy calmly, slowly and quietly, with an audience of anyone who had wanted to stay on to watch. This is when I heard my favourite ever Kelly quote.


Member of the demo team: Kelly what shall we do about the signing line? There are people waiting for your autograph?

Kelly: Tell them they would be much better off watching me work with Poppy.

Brilliant!

Kelly's absolute priority was Poppy and her training, and so the audience who did stay to watch were privy to a very real, close up, training experience.

She used a small enclosure of round pen panels and a wooden board (modified to make it less slippery). I passed by plenty of times while I was loading (boxes and horses – incidentally, Monty's loader Boo loaded really nicely to go home, only getting a little confused by the side load box when in the demo he used a rear load). Everytime I went by Poppy looked a little more relaxed, or was able to stand with a different foot on the board. Eventually, I saw Poppy standing and chilling with all four feet on the board and walking pretty smoothly on and off. Gradually we took the panels away and Poppy continued to load on and off the board without a problem. Finally, she was ready to load into her own trailer, and she loaded beautifully. Kelly worked with her unloading her forwards and backwards, loading her with no panels behind her at all, and standing relaxed in the trailer, with all four feet flat to the ground rather than quivering as she had done earlier. She was also incredibly light on the dually halter now, backing up and coming forward very easily.

The audience members, the team and the owners friends all felt quite emotional when Poppy's owner loaded Poppy herself, easily and calmly. It had been such a huge journey for Poppy that day. If you want to see the final loading, have a look on Kellys facebook page – Kelly Marks and Intelligent Horsemanship, there is a short film clip.


I'd like to say a really big thank you to the helpers who stayed on to the end – we couldn't pack the lorry until Kelly had finished and so it was quite a late night. Not only did you keep working, but you kept jolly too and it really does make the world of difference so thanks!! Esther – I think you win the prize of being the last of the helpers still going strong at 1.30am!



As for Harvey... This blog is now far too long, so I will come back and write about him tomorrow. Sorry Harvey fans! (I like to imagine I'm not the only one :) )


Rosie

xx