Now I’ve done it. My credentials are being questioned. Some one said, What makes you think that you can break in a horse? Well, actually I never really thought about it since I’d been riding horses from the age three, as far as I was concerned, there’s no breaking in required. Just a getting on.


I was galloping around the paddock at age three. Well allright maybe it wasn’t me but the horse I was on. And maybe the 19 hh Clydesdale xx police horse wasn’t quite galloping around the paddock with me on it’s back, but he sure made me look and feel competent.


He made all the right moves and taught me how to be a accomplished rider long before my feet ever reached any stirrups. Of course I’m still a work in progress and always will be but my first equine friend Alex taught me much.


Apart from the incident where he gobbled down Mum’s David Jones summer sale straw hat, all rides with Alex were flawless and cemented my friendship with all things equine.


After we moved to acreage my days were filled with building my own version of Hogsmeade and incorporating my herd of wild friends in this village. In turn my friends welcomed me into the herd as one of theirs and I didn’t realise for a long time that most people use saddles and bridles to ride their horses. We had a lot of fun.


After a few incidents (not all horse related), I decided on a sabbatical from riding which is the best thing I’ve ever done. Because enjoyable as riding a horse is, it doesn’t necessarily teach us much about horsemanship or equine behaviour. Riding a horse is all about how you control your horse’s movements. It’s hanging out with horses which teaches me every day how much I still have to learn and how little I know about equine behaviour. It is very humbling.


As a child it all came naturally and now it’s about putting into practice what came natural early on in life. I discovered a few things in the process of learning alongside Brandy and one is that I’m not as elastic as I used to be as a child. The second thing I learned is that brumbies are not all the same as domestic horses. This child which was playing with and riding unbroken horses which were bred in captivity is light years removed from the person I am today who is attempting to break in a brumby by spending a few moments with her every now and then. Even though my childhood years are only a decade and a bit in the past, my behaviour and time management doesn’t compare.


As a child I breathed horses day and night. Now between all my commitments if, apart from feeding times, I manage to spend a few moments with Brandy every few weeks it’s a lot.


Brandy is eager and willing and I’ve been just, well you know, busy. I haven’t prioritised my time with her, expecting to slot into that ‘natural mode’ of my childhood years. Which of course would happen if I were to spend the time, but a few moments here and there are never going to cut it.


As a child some of my best buddies were equine champs who were bought up by Arabs after their wins. In my teens I galloped alongside an ex cop as we scaled the hills around Belli Park area. I exercised horses for an endurance rider and a riders western competition horses and fell in love with Friesians and Gypsy Vanners. I had the good fortune to be taught by wonderful teachers on the Sunshine Coast. On the Fraser Coast I was trained as a coach for disabled riders. The beaming faces and large grins during riding lessons is the best return for all the time put in with my four legged friends.


So am I qualified to break in a horse? If you were to ask my old friends they’d probably say, Breaking, what breaking? We were just horsing around. 

With Brandy however .. I’ve let her down big time. How to redeem myself? 

Clipping Brandy on the lead-rope.

It wasn’t Brandy, it wasn’t the pen, it was the lead-rope.


The day that I couldn’t find the lead rope was a good day. Because it meant that I had to order another lead-rope. The day after the new lead-rope arrived in the mail, the old one mysteriously showed up. But I didn’t need to mention that because we all knew that this was going to happen. It was good that the old one showed up though, this meant that I didn’t need to double it up any longer as the dog lead also. Now he can have his own lead.


I clipped Brandy on the new lead-rope the day it arrived. Same colour, same feel, no probs.


Just didn’t have the smell of the dog on it.
Duh!

Priorities and prioritising ..

Riding for the Disabled started its new year this month and all the preparations have certainly kept me on my toes. I’ve also just returned from meeting with friends on my travels and the RDA State Conference where we had a ball with carriage driving, vaulting and Hippo-therapy on the menu. I had a good old yarn with the other coaches and learned STACKS. Huge thank you to the organisers, it was awesome. 


And on 21st and 22nd of March Franklin Levinson will be visiting our RDA centre for an equine facilitated learning and horsemanship workshop. If you want to find out more about this I suggest that you visit his website wayofthehorse.org. There’s a few places left for both active participants as well as fence sitters.


One of the horsey secrets I learned from Franklin is to allow the horse to show affection. I am usually so busy to show Brandy this and teach her that and desensitize or feed or brut, scrape out her hoofs and so on. Always busy doing something. Well that’s a lot of input for a horse, way more than what they usually get in the wild. In the wild they just hang out together a lot and give out (energy) as well as take in. When I thought about it, it made a lot of sense. It is very easy to overwhelm horses’ senses and never allow them to return some of the affection which we lavish upon them.


So for a little while I’ve just been sitting on my newly build fence watching the birds and the sky and the uninvited white-ants with her. And it doesn’t take long for her to be wanting to be close to me and nibble and smell a bit before she dozes off with her fluffy ears tickling my face. So now hanging out has become one of my top priorities.


It’s all about priorities and I’ve got a zillion of them to categorise and prioritise. Brandy knows she’s number One, as is Sam and Rain, oh yeah and the RDA and ..

I just stumbled a little.

If I’ve been sounding confused it is because I was puzzled for a little while and couldn’t make head nor tail of what was happening.


We were doing real good and only waiting for the right person to come along and take our brumby for a ride. Both my sister and I’ve perfected our flying lessons recently (different horses) and have come to the conclusion that we may be better suited next time around to be part of the ground crew. 


Brandy was ready, we were ready but I tell you what, this mare can also be the most ferocious unicorn. I’ve seen her grow horns/batwings in an instant, exhaling fiery furnace and all when she’s not happy. The last tantrum threw me a little. Those teeth are seriously big from very close up. But after watching our professional friends giving her a run for her money I remembered the sweet natured brumby which Terry delivered all these months ago and I felt negligent for not having coaxed more of that sweetness out of her more of the time.


I’m now more remorseful than anything. The yard is tidied up with all pruned tree branches woven into a neat little pen. With our next tidy-up-branches I’ll create us a round yard. Brandy is ready, I am ready. Many thanks to the author of The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses by P. R. Kincaid with John J. Stutzman. During one of the recent rainy spells I had a bit of a browse through this ebook. It is a free download from the web. Funnily enough I very much followed his guidelines before reading the ebook. Can’t give you a better endorsement than that. I discovered that there is many different brands of horsemanship, and gentle and easy-does-it works well for us.


We are on the right track. I just stumbled a little but she never missed a beat.


It’s all about the horse and if it isn’t working .. where am I going wrong?

My ten step program

I have been following a schedule of ten steps by John Chatterton where the first step was face-up; tick. Part of the face-up was halter training; she forgot. Step two; standing still, kinda and also pull and release; when on lead yes. Step three touching all over; beautiful. Step four backing up; tick. Step five flexing; check at liberty. Step six yielding to pressure; tick. Step seven yielding shoulder and hind quarters; can do shoulder on lead and hind quarters at liberty. Step eight, accepting spooky objects; yes and no and a loud and big NO when the professionals tested her on this. Step nine, leading in position; on the halter yes, otherwise no. Step ten lunging; well without a round yard that’s a no.


But when put to the test, none of it solid; it has to be solid.


After crying on Terry’s shoulder, I understood that leaving Brandy to her own devices for a little to let the domesticated herd (Baileys) work it’s wonders, is successful to the extent that he shows her what she should consider to be ordinary sounds, smells and happenings. But leaving her to her own devices for too long also made her challenge me once more. Because hey, she had been just fine without me and who was I to tell her what to do?


I was right about one thing and that is that we are ready for the next phase. The message coming from all directions once more was loud and clear; Round yard.


Today I’ve spent a little time building a pen, just for the purpose of clipping her on. I’ll be feeding her in the pen and fingers crossed I’ll be clipping her on within the week.


Meanwhile I’ll be building a round pen and “”WHIP””. Despite all evidence possibly to the contrary (when Brandy was put to the test by my professional horse breaking friends) I believe that a lot of groundwork has been laid and we’ll be steaming ahead once I get this baby in the round yard. Watch this space.

Forever a wannabe? Miss Moody? seven months later.

Brandy maybe a wannabe but man, she’s gotta try a little harder if she’s serious about it. I keep telling her that RDA horses are solid horses. She’s too young to realise or care that RDA horses are usually a little bit older and generally they have pretty much seen and done it all. But if she wants to join the crew and me at the centre, she really has to grow some maturity quickly.


The findings at seven months are that I’ve a nice relationship going with a belligerent tantrum throwing teenager who seriously has got to be pulled into line. I obviously don’t blame her for any of it because even though I never let her get away with anything, what the heck was I doing allowing a little stallion in with her? Who did I think was going to be the matriarch in this scenario? A no brainer really, so Expert Hand One told me, and who am I to disagree.


Brandy’s utterly charming personality certainly pulled the wool over my eyes and she had even me believe that really I was the one .. till her moods took over.


Professional help had been called in because Brandy’s fiery nature though still likeable was becoming displaced and needing containing. I had kept thinking that she had a reason for charging (the dog led around the yard on the lead by my sister, Baileys our mini stallion, etc) but have come to the conclusion that in MY yard, nobody has any reason to charge anyone and that’s the message miss Moody will be getting from me from now on.

Who is boss?

Early on Brandy and I developed an understanding where I was matriarch and she did as she was told. This worked mostly. The only hiccup in this scenario was that she had forgotten that she was halter trained. So the majority of our work has been at liberty. I managed to clip her on every now and then but way more often then than now.


It didn’t seem to matter much because the training progressed pretty good without the lead rope. I could pick up all her feet, stroke her all over, brut her (fly repellant), put saddles on her. She came whenever I called her and followed me wherever I went. We were pretty much ready for the next phase when she charged our dog a couple of times and so we decided to keep him out of the yard. Then out of the blue she charged me when I asked her to move from one paddock to another.


We had noticed that after five months Brandy still seemed to over react quite a bit to many things. Like for instance when the whirring sound of the council’s new fangled street cleaner water spouts reached Brandy’s ears, her kicks and bucks went on and on and on. Mum said, “She just doesn’t let up. All her responses seem so out of whack to whatever is going on. Especially now after five months.  Just cool it already, that dog was here well before you, he’s never even barked at you, we kept him on the lead because of you and now you’re spinning out of control because we’re walking him on the lead all the way across the yard? What the?”


All of a sudden Baileys our mini stallion who has been head over heels all the while, is kicking at Brandy. That’s new; he’s never before lashed out at her. It seems that he also has enough of her antics.


We can’t make head or tails of it. So the next day we’re on the phone for an assessment and are told that she’s greener than our grass. This is after a good solid 5 ½  months of very intermittent training. Uummpphh.


This is despite the fact that I can pretty much do whatever and she is OK with it .. most the time ..


OK, I hear you .. not solid. I knew that, I was working towards it, but trickey without being able to clip her on.


We’re not sure if this is what happened but piecing all the bits together it appears that even though Brandy was coming along nicely and doing all the right things .. most of the time. She was not behaving all the time. And the more pressure I put on, the more she baulked and eventually she must have decided that it was time to have it out with me.

It’s kind of fun to think that this is why Baileys had a go at her a number of times but truth be known he probably had reasons all of his own.


I was acutely aware that I had to get the training more solid but felt that this would come in time and felt very close to being able to naturally clip her on without a hassle.


We had considered but not executed to build a little pen to facilitate the clipping on but realistically she just goes beserko at a moments notice if she feels challenged and my pen building skills aren’t such that they would keep her in guaranteed wholly undamaged.


Yes, I know, a round yard would have been handy. Surplus panels anyone?

Green as grass after six months.

By now I had expected to be riding her and early on all indications were that this was going to happen. Instead, all of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, she’s gone pretty feral on me and I booked some ‘ol hands for advice and an assessment.


“Well, she’s pretty green this one, isn’t she? Haven’t done any work with her yet have you?”


What is going on? I am now really confused. After chasing and cornering Brandy the three of us (two expert hands and me) finally get her on the lead-rope and Expert Hand 1 is testing the desensitisation of Brandy with a carrot stick/lunge whip. 


Expert Hand One said, “Look, can you see how green she is, even my two year old foals don’t quite act like her, she’s ready to go the moment she’ll see an opening.”
Brandy’s sweat drenched quivering body was expertly being handled by trainer two who continued to run the whip softly against her body. 


Expert Hand One continued, “That’ll easy be a good two years before you’re going any place with this one.”


???


We were doing so good. Were we?