Marley, Moomin and India - demos in Devon and Preston
October 19, 2010
Last weekend we had the Monty Roberts demonstration in devon, followed by the demo in Preston.
I hope it was because of my stimulating converstaion skills that the various drivers of vehicles seemed to draw up a bit of a rota as to who I would travel with - and not that they all needed an occasional break from the chatting!
The devon demo went really well, the private audience horse was a bay mare named Cider Maid. Her owner is a competition horse breeder who manages ther herds of broodmares and youngstock using a lot of Monty's methods and body language skills. Cider was an advert for her breeding and management program, and although she had only actually been haltered and led for a few days before coming to the demo, she took it all in her stride and accepted a roller and longlines and even 'Penelope' our dummy rider bouncing up and down onto her back. I was talking to Linda Ruffle (who selects our horses and teaches with me on the IH courses) that its so interesting with the starters (unbacked babies), two horses who are identical on paper can be so different in reality. Cider was an example of how level headed and mature and trusting a 3yo, barely handled warmblooded horse can be at the begining of their education.
The starter was Marley, a beautiful warmblood filly, and everything went very smoothly for her and she felt lovely to sit on.
The preston demo was an afternoon demo, which meant setting up most of the arena the night before. This required a fair bit of morale after the late night and long drive, but we topped up on good cheer with a quick round at a very strange pub complex, before heading back to the venue, as Han and I were camping out in the lorry.
I was woken up on demo day by super-keen and lovely helper Ali, who was already on the ball with preparations for the horses to arrive while I defrosted my face after a chilly night and ate a chocolate biscuit or two for brekkie.
Polly was a beautiful starter, coloured mare and very straight forward. My saddle felt as though it was slipping ever so slightly to the left, and after Monty unclipped Polly she kept turning to the right - making it feel worse!
I wonder if this is because the elastic girth straps are on the left, and so am going to buy a girth with elastic on both ends before the next demo.
The really interesting horse at this demo was India, who came along as a spooky horse. Before the demo, we look at each horse to check they are physically OK (at this demo the jumping problem was ruled out due to back pain - shame as I had such a good idea and was looking forward to working with him). We also want to see the problem ,without fixing it, so that Monty knows what he is working with. so with India, after trotting her up, I approached her with a plastic bag on a stick and she just stood there and didnt flinch. She walked straight over a tarp, and generally didn't seem in the least bit spooky. But her owner had stories of rearing, bucking, etc and gradually we figured out what was really going on. India was incredibly hard to handle, bolshy and 'fighty' in her approach to people and their requests. She didn not move off the leg when asked, but she jogged relentlessly. If she say other horses she reared and bucked, if anything spooked her she faught with the rider about going forwards or leapt about in the air. For India, it seemed, spooking was just another symptom of her fight with being controlled at all, she had no trust or respect for humans as leaders. In fact she was a very brave horse, but brave about fighting against her rider rather than brave in working with her rider to take on the world.
I did some preparatory backing up on the dually before the demo, just moving her about a bit on the ground. In the demo, I popped the longlines on and realised how 'backward' thinking she was, ears back, kicking out at me rather than moving forwards. Changes of direction help to get control of her feet and redirect her mind. Then I jumped on to ride, and found that there was definately a certain type of leg aid she could listen to, and other types she associated with pain, fighting and fear, or with tentativeness.
I worked with a giddyup rope to move her forwards, and she did just round her back and have a little bit of a buck, in resentment. But, as the giddyup didn't hurt, and the message was clear, simple and calm, she began to enjoy the forward movement more and move off the leg.
I also worked on backing her up (she really didn;t want to give control of her feet in any direction at all!) and got some good improvement there too.
Then we worked with the flags, I thought they would make a good demo piece for India because they are a good way to help people visualise incremental learning, breaking something down so that you can get it right. We start with the flags a long way apart and gradually bring them closer and closer until you can ride through them touching.
They worked really well as she was distracted and focussed on something other than fighting with the rider, and I was able to get some good tries from her and praise for them and so start a more possitive relationship. Even when they were pretty close and high and she was pretty worried, she did not go back to wanting to fight with me about it, but stayed relaxed and willing.
I think there is a long way for her to go with her owners though, starting from simply allowing control in leading her about during daily management. the trick is to set the situation up so that the horse and rider are both confident and not fighting to start with - and then gradually stretch the willingness of the horse in trickier asks. With India there really was no starting place established! I hope the owners get help with Paddy, who is their nearest RA, as they were really lovely people who cared an awful lot about their horse but were lost with how to enjoy her anymore.
So, today it was up early to go and see Harvey before some regular appointments with clients and now in at uni. I'm really hoping to be able to catch up on all my appointments this week before the Hartpury demo on Friday, but for now I must put horses out of my head and go and read an article on teenage pregnancy, and power relations during childbirth!!
I hope it was because of my stimulating converstaion skills that the various drivers of vehicles seemed to draw up a bit of a rota as to who I would travel with - and not that they all needed an occasional break from the chatting!
The devon demo went really well, the private audience horse was a bay mare named Cider Maid. Her owner is a competition horse breeder who manages ther herds of broodmares and youngstock using a lot of Monty's methods and body language skills. Cider was an advert for her breeding and management program, and although she had only actually been haltered and led for a few days before coming to the demo, she took it all in her stride and accepted a roller and longlines and even 'Penelope' our dummy rider bouncing up and down onto her back. I was talking to Linda Ruffle (who selects our horses and teaches with me on the IH courses) that its so interesting with the starters (unbacked babies), two horses who are identical on paper can be so different in reality. Cider was an example of how level headed and mature and trusting a 3yo, barely handled warmblooded horse can be at the begining of their education.
The starter was Marley, a beautiful warmblood filly, and everything went very smoothly for her and she felt lovely to sit on.
The preston demo was an afternoon demo, which meant setting up most of the arena the night before. This required a fair bit of morale after the late night and long drive, but we topped up on good cheer with a quick round at a very strange pub complex, before heading back to the venue, as Han and I were camping out in the lorry.
I was woken up on demo day by super-keen and lovely helper Ali, who was already on the ball with preparations for the horses to arrive while I defrosted my face after a chilly night and ate a chocolate biscuit or two for brekkie.
Polly was a beautiful starter, coloured mare and very straight forward. My saddle felt as though it was slipping ever so slightly to the left, and after Monty unclipped Polly she kept turning to the right - making it feel worse!
I wonder if this is because the elastic girth straps are on the left, and so am going to buy a girth with elastic on both ends before the next demo.
The really interesting horse at this demo was India, who came along as a spooky horse. Before the demo, we look at each horse to check they are physically OK (at this demo the jumping problem was ruled out due to back pain - shame as I had such a good idea and was looking forward to working with him). We also want to see the problem ,without fixing it, so that Monty knows what he is working with. so with India, after trotting her up, I approached her with a plastic bag on a stick and she just stood there and didnt flinch. She walked straight over a tarp, and generally didn't seem in the least bit spooky. But her owner had stories of rearing, bucking, etc and gradually we figured out what was really going on. India was incredibly hard to handle, bolshy and 'fighty' in her approach to people and their requests. She didn not move off the leg when asked, but she jogged relentlessly. If she say other horses she reared and bucked, if anything spooked her she faught with the rider about going forwards or leapt about in the air. For India, it seemed, spooking was just another symptom of her fight with being controlled at all, she had no trust or respect for humans as leaders. In fact she was a very brave horse, but brave about fighting against her rider rather than brave in working with her rider to take on the world.
I did some preparatory backing up on the dually before the demo, just moving her about a bit on the ground. In the demo, I popped the longlines on and realised how 'backward' thinking she was, ears back, kicking out at me rather than moving forwards. Changes of direction help to get control of her feet and redirect her mind. Then I jumped on to ride, and found that there was definately a certain type of leg aid she could listen to, and other types she associated with pain, fighting and fear, or with tentativeness.
I worked with a giddyup rope to move her forwards, and she did just round her back and have a little bit of a buck, in resentment. But, as the giddyup didn't hurt, and the message was clear, simple and calm, she began to enjoy the forward movement more and move off the leg.
I also worked on backing her up (she really didn;t want to give control of her feet in any direction at all!) and got some good improvement there too.
Then we worked with the flags, I thought they would make a good demo piece for India because they are a good way to help people visualise incremental learning, breaking something down so that you can get it right. We start with the flags a long way apart and gradually bring them closer and closer until you can ride through them touching.
They worked really well as she was distracted and focussed on something other than fighting with the rider, and I was able to get some good tries from her and praise for them and so start a more possitive relationship. Even when they were pretty close and high and she was pretty worried, she did not go back to wanting to fight with me about it, but stayed relaxed and willing.
I think there is a long way for her to go with her owners though, starting from simply allowing control in leading her about during daily management. the trick is to set the situation up so that the horse and rider are both confident and not fighting to start with - and then gradually stretch the willingness of the horse in trickier asks. With India there really was no starting place established! I hope the owners get help with Paddy, who is their nearest RA, as they were really lovely people who cared an awful lot about their horse but were lost with how to enjoy her anymore.
So, today it was up early to go and see Harvey before some regular appointments with clients and now in at uni. I'm really hoping to be able to catch up on all my appointments this week before the Hartpury demo on Friday, but for now I must put horses out of my head and go and read an article on teenage pregnancy, and power relations during childbirth!!
Posted by Rosie Jones.
