Training Horse Profile: Augy

Training Goals:

• Walk, trot, and canter under saddle without bucking
• Trail experience
• Cross water 
• Traffic desensitizing

My first step in Augy's training plan was desensitizing him to the saddle and teaching him how to lunge.  He had been saddled a couple of times before, so this step wasn't a big deal for him.  I could tell right away that he was unfamiliar with lunging, but he caught on quickly.  I like to teach every horse I work with how to lunge or free lunge.  The reason for this is it allows them to move with the saddle on their back, feel the stirrups flapping against them, it gets out their extra energy before I get on, and it gives me the opportunity to teach the horse vocal cues.  My goal is to help the horse associate certain sounds (cluck, kiss) with forward movement.  This is helpful when you get first get on a green horse because they often don't respond to leg pressure with forward movement.  By teaching them that 'cluck' = 'move', they are then able to associate that leg pressure equals movement.  

Once he was fairly comfortable with the movement of the saddle on his back and the stirrups bouncing against his sides, I began to desensitize him to the action of a rider stepping up into the saddle.  The purpose of this exercise was to make sure he wasn't afraid of a rider being above him and on his back and to teach him to stand still during the mounting process.  I like to begin by jumping up and down on the ground next to the horse.  Then, I place my foot in the stirrup and bounce on my other foot.  Next, I will stand in the stirrup for a few seconds and then step back to the ground.  Finally,  I will actually swing my leg over and sit in the saddle.  I like to do theses exercises on both sides of the horse so that the rider can mount on either side if necessary.  Augy had zero issues with this process and consistently stood still.

Augy has a bit of an upside-down neck (or ewe neck).  This made it more difficult for him to get off of his forehand and round his neck.  Horses with ewe necks tend to like to stick their noses out and up (like a giraffe).

The next step for Augy was actually getting him to walk around the ring with a rider.  The first day that I asked him to walk off, it seemed to be going well.  Then, out of the blue, he exploded and we went for a couple of rough bucking laps around the round pen. He tried to go off a couple more times during the session, but now I was able to stop them pretty quickly.  I always like to end each session on a good note, so once he was able to walk calmly and respectfully around the ring a couple of times I got off and we were done for the day.  

Session 5: Today, I focused mainly on teaching him to respond to the pressure of the bit.  He is quite resistant to turning, so I asked him to flex both directions while stopped.  This helped him understand how to respond to the pressure and loosened up his neck and, as a result, his turns got much better.  The remainder of the session involved a lot of small circles and changes of direction.

Session 6 & 7: Now that Augy is behaving himself at the walk and turning by direct rein pressure, it is time to introduce the trot.  He is not responsive to leg pressure at this point and tends to freeze up if I push to much.  He responds to clucking but needs some additional encouragement to sustain the trot.  I discovered that using a crop on his side behind my leg was very effective at encouraging him forward without causing an overreaction.  In these sessions, I also worked a lot on turning and circling.  He was stiff to the left and frequently ran out his right shoulder (his head and neck would be turned to the left but he would continue to travel in the same direction as before) when he was asked to turn.  To help correct this, I applied outside leg pressure.  This blocked his right side and helped him to follow his nose in the correct direction.

Session 8 & 9:  I continued to work with him on trotting on command, sustaining the trot, turning, circling, stopping, and backing.  He is very resistant to backing and sticks his nose in the air to brace against the bit.  I hold the pressure on the reins until I get a release from the horse (dropping the nose towards the vertical or a step backwards).  With a horse like Augy, the first few releases are going to be very slight.  Eventually, I want every horse to round their neck and step backwards relatively quickly and without resistance against the bit.  To get to that point there are a lot of baby steps!  The final activity for the day was introducing the canter.  At this time, all I wanted was a couple of strides each direction without bucking.  Augy cantered off nicely and kept himself under control--a successful day!

Session 10: I started off the day in the round pen reviewing previous day's lessons.  I felt like I had enough control to take Augy on his first ride outside of the arena.  I started out in the pasture so that he would feel somewhat confined.  He didn't seem to be bothered by the open space, so I took him on a short trail ride.  He did really well and went everywhere I asked him to.  He mostly just tried to eat the grass along the sides of the trail.

Session 11:  After working in the round pen at the trot and a little bit of cantering, I unsaddled Augy to introduce him to the wooden bridge and creek on foot.  I like to cross the bridge on foot for the first time because the horse is more confident when following someone, and I am safe if the horse should decide to jump off the side.  Augy crossed the bridge with no issues.  Next, I took him to the creek to introduce him to crossing water.  He is really dislikes puddles so I thought that it would be more of a challenge than it was.  He followed me into the water after a slight hesitation and followed me up and down in the shallows.

Session 12: Back in the round pen today.  Augy did excellently with his left lead canter and was able to sustain it for several laps.  He was really struggling with the right lead and won't even try to pick up either lead when traveling counter-clockwise.

Session 13 & 14:  It was a tough beginning to the week.  Augy is displaying some new behavioral issues under saddle (biting at my leg, head tossing, generally irritated).  The arena work did not go well and Augy was definitely not into it.  I am going to switch things up tomorrow to see if that helps.

Sessions 15-17:  I switched to working Augy in the larger arena to change things up (hopefully resolve the behavioral problems) and give me more space to work on cantering.  He was much more willing to canter in the larger arena and picked up both leads correctly.  He is a little unbalanced and unsure of his feet so he struggled to maintain the canter in turns and circles.  I also changed things up by taking him out on the trails and riding him through the creek.  He really seemed to enjoy it and I it improved his overall attitude.

Sessions 18-20:  We got a ton of rain over the weekend and it has continued to rain each day this week.  The creek overflowed its banks and flooded my arena (happens each year at least once, unfortunately) and the round pen is super wet.  Even the trails are too wet to ride on.  Instead, I've been riding Augy on the road.  This is great desensitization for him because there are lots of "scary" things to see (mailboxes! garbage cans! flapping tarps!).  We live on a nice quiet road that runs to a fairly busy road.  This makes a perfect spot to desensitize horses to traffic.  I can start further away from the highway and let the horse see and hear the cars as they drive by.  As they are comfortable, I can move closer until they are standing at about the same distance that a car would pass them if they were riding along side of road.  I also did some riding along side of the road so that Augy could be passed both by coming towards him and coming up behind him.  He handled the traffic well and only got a little nervous when a loud cattle semi passed.

A happy trail pony at the end of training boot camp.

By the end of the 30 days, Augy was a pretty solid trail horse.  He responds fairly well to the bit and leg pressure.  He has plenty of fine tuning yet to be done, but he has a good start, and he and his owner will have many miles of trails ahead of them.