Echo & Sedona 6/25/20

Decided to to ride Echo english this morning for the first time since last November! We've been working hard on just flatwork over the past few months to help her get stronger as well as more balanced. With only being 4 years old, prior to today, Echo has only played around over cross rails a handful of times last year, just to get a feel for where her legs are and to give her a change of pace. All the flatwork has most DEFINITELY paid off, because today she felt stronger than ever and was over-jumping every 18" cross rail and vertical in sight! She has become leaps and bounds more adjustable when approaching fences compared to last year. She was SO excited to be jumping again and had a blast! We will continue to have one flat day of the week on Tuesdays, and Thursdays will be our jumping day from here on out. I think continuing her flatwork will be extremely beneficial each week, so that way she will start out the week on a quiet and attentive note. Echo is the type of horse to get extremely eager and a tad bit rambunctious when she's excited, so the flatwork will be crucial to keep her focused and soft.

I've really been wanting to get Sedona (aka Soda) out to finish saddle breaking her for many months now, and today I finally was able to do so! I've been so crazy busy with three different farms, a 16 student lesson program, and a training board operation (all within an hour of each other) that I haven't gotten to work with her since November of last year (2019). For anyone that knows Soda, they know that she was essentially feral when I first started working with her last spring. Others had attempted to work with her and ended up turning her away because she was "too wild" and "would never get anywhere because she's an uphill battle". I decided to take on the challenge just to see how far I could get with her. Also in my eyes, any opportunity to get my hands on another horse is a massive learning opportunity whether i'm successful or not. There's always room to learn and grow no matter how long you've been in the industry and in the sport. In the beginning, even getting anywhere near Sedona was quite difficult. She was extremely fearful and timid. She didn't trust most people and you were lucky if you could catch her. I spent countless hours just trying to get her used to my presence out in the field, and from there I eventually worked on haltering her once she got some what used to me being near her. We then worked on grooming, another petrifying ordeal to say the least, and Soda would become so fearful just at the sight of brushes and at the feel of them on her skin. She wouldn't let you touch her legs and water/spray bottles....FORGET ABOUT IT!! It wasn't gonna happen according to Soda. After much approach, retreat and patience, she finally started to relax more and more over the next few weeks and she realized that grooming was a positive and enriching procedure. This really helped me gain more trust from her and she began to think instead of react sporadically/violently in every uncertain scary situation. She also began to look to me for guidance and emotional support when she became anxious. With some help from my boyfriend, we were able to get to the point where we could touch all of her legs and handle her feet. Next up on the list was standing tied. This was a struggle for Sedona since she's naturally impatient. She put in a few arguments and tested her lead rope and halter quite a few times, however eventually she began to realize that it's way more energy and work to fight it rather than stand quietly and relax. Now she sleeps in the cross ties lol another life altering, earth shattering event for Soda was water and spray bottles. The sound, I believe, was the most terrifying factor. It took a lot of dancing and circling around me on the lead line before she realized that the spray stopped coming when her feet stopped moving. We worked on this for several weeks and she finally got to where she could stand 95% confidently and still while being sprayed down.

We then moved onto lunge line and free lunging work. Sedona picked up verbal and visual commands like a pro, which really surprised me. She's very smart, just like her daughter, and will willingly do anything you ask of her while being worked. She's attentive and focused virtually the entire time you have her in the round pen and or ring. We moved forward with lunging without and with a saddle with ease. From there I brought her through long lining, and once she was comfortable and quiet with that, I started getting her used to wearing a bit and bridle. We practiced flexing side to side and backing up from the ground until she was soft as butter in my hands. Next up came ground driving. We did this three or four times at the walk and incorporated verbal whoa. Just like everything else, she did this with flying colors. That's when life got busy and unfortunately she was put on the back burner of my crazy schedule.

Soooo moving onto today, I figured with all this time off and with not being handled for 7 months, that we would be starting back at square one. I assumed Soda would be difficult to catch, prancy while being groomed, and running around in a panic at the sight of a spray bottle....to my surprised, she acted as if we hadn't missed a beat! She came right up to be caught, stood like a rock to be groomed (which she LOVED because the summer flies and bugs have her itchy itchy itchy!), and most surprising of all STOOD QUIETLY AND CONFIDENTLY TO BE FLY SPRAYED!!! She didn't hardly flinch a muscle! After that we revisited lunging and long lining just as a review for when we start ground driving again over the next week or so. She did give a few bucks when I first asked her to trot with the saddle on while lunging, but she quickly resettled and kept on working! I was truely surprised at how willing she was and that she was still okay with our normal routine after so many months off. I'm so excited for this mare, and here before too long it'll be time to get on her for the first time!