Rode outside today again. Everyone was getting ready to go to the show next weekend which we are not going to.
Harry was significantly better today. When we started off he didn't want to throw me off first thing. We were pretty relaxed the entire time. The only thing that might have bothered him was the large gusts of wind that happened every so often, but we were good.
I'm assuming Nina worked well too. I was too busy at that point trying to stay on Brie. I supposed everyone has their off days. We've only ridden outside about a bazillion times but she's still uncomfortable riding like this. Any suggestions? She kept hopping like she wanted to rear. How do you make a horse comfortable riding outside?
We hit up a fun show at a stable down the street. It was cute! I wish we could've put Brie in it. It would've been good experience for her.
We also "ran into" Chris there, another trainer, and the owners he works for who own the other Paso stable in that same general area. We were arranging some training (grr), but I liked him the most so far in his philosophy. It was similar to Andre's except he seems like he knows better ways, and has more time, to implement it. One thing that I really loved that came out of his mouth: "I want to train the horse, teach the client how to handle the horse, and then let them go. I'm not afraid of losing clients because having amateur owners being able to handle their horses, even babies riding the stallions I train, speaks volumes for my reputation". Not a bad choice of words, Chris.
As of this moment, the owner is supposed to be getting back to us within a few days about pricing and accommodating us because his board is about double what we pay at the stable we're at now. Still being significantly more expensive, we would only train one horse at a time. I believe we would finish up Nina first since she has such a small window of opportunity since she's already been in training. She's been dropped for months once already and we're all not sure what would happen if she was out of training for that long again. She has amazing potential and we don't want that to go to waste.
I think we can handle the basics with Harry for a while.
Looking forward to my last day of riding this weekend. Hope it's a good birthday ride!
I think the key to teaching a horse how to deal with difficult situations has to do with going forward. As long as they understand that cue and it's used to push them through whatever happens, the horse will learn to submit and listen when stressed. It takes time, lots of repitition but it works.
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