India Starts School (Dec. 30, 2007)

It's poured rain most of the weekend. My rain gauge has close to 2" in it, but when the rain finally eased up I decided to visit India and start work on ground driving. I've got an instructional dvd called Ground Driving 101 that is very thorough. I watched it yesterday all the way through and then today I rewatched the first part on introducing the rope to the horse. As ground driving will have two ropes sliding along their sides and crossing over their hocks, you have to be sure that the horse will accept having a rope all over and around its legs. Lesson one uses one rope and you sack out the horse with coiled rope and do it on both sides of the horse.

I spent a lot of time with India when she was very young running a rope all over her and then she learned to stand quietly while I flicked it around her head. On the dvd, the instructor cautions that it can take a week or more for a flighty horse to settle in and accept the rope. As I've not worked with India but two or three times since her accident last summer, I expected her to be a bit spooky about it all, but bless her heart, she let me rub her all over with the coiled rope, loop it around her legs and pick them up with the rope (that's giving to pressure, which is what you want a horse to always do: relax and move whichever direction will cause the pressure to release, be it closer to the tie rail if tied up, or away from your leg when you're mounted and use your leg to direct the horse). I was able to stand on one side of her, pass the long rope to the other side and the have it come over her back. I then gave out more rope until it was sliding off her rump down to her hocks, so effectively the rope attached to her halter under her nose and then was on her side away from me and then passing behind her and then back around to me. Once that was done, I'd pull on the rope and she would give to the pressure by turning away from me and then would continue turning until she'd spun around in a circle and would be facing me again. This meant that she not only gave to pressure and in a nice, calm manner, but that she disengaged her hindquarters by crossing one back leg over the other in order to spin. I had her do it several times in both directions, and she did so in an almost bored way, which is wonderful. I don't want her getting all excited and spooky with this work, and when five, loose horses ran past the ring in which we were working, she didn't bolt or pay them any attention. She was paying attention to what we were doing.

The entire lesson lasted less than ten minutes and later this week I'll introduce her to longing in a circle while the rope is only attached to the halter ring under her throat. Once she longes well and will walk, trot, or canter when asked, she'll be ready for the next step. I won't use voice commands when longing, but rather the energy that I put out will control her energy. If I speed up my walk, she should speed up, and if I slow, she should. Once that's solid, on to ground driving where I'll end up walking behind her and she'll obey the pressure from the long lines to control where she goes.

She's two now and it's time to start thinking about riding. By this summer, I'd like to be riding her at a walk around the ring, practicing her one-rein stops and eventually moving to stopping using both reins, moving away from my leg, and backing up nicely. A year from now, I'd like to have her out of the ring and on quiet, slow trail rides.

Babygirl is growing up.