August has been a very busy month. Last weekend I went up to a dressage horse show to see my friend show her horse. They did really well, and I got to use her camera to take pictures of her. Oh, now THAT was a CAMERA! If I had the money, swear to god I would've gone out and bought that same exact one after the show. My mom estimates that that camera probably cost around $900, so you can see why I couldn't buy it. :( But at least now I know what it feels like to take really good pictures, almost effortlessly.
On another note, in an older post I mentioned that I was going to play with another lady's horses, because she didn't have time to herself. Well, I got to play with an RBE named Star, and she told me that I have a lot to learn about RB horses. I mean, I just realized how nicely I've got it with a bunch of LB guys to play with on a daily basis. No exaggeration: Star wouldn't even let me move the carrot stick. So, forget about throwing it over her back! My starting point was to try to move it without her taking off. And in retrospect, I realized that I got my strategy wrong. I started out with doing as little as I could with the carrot stick and working up to moving it a little more, but she would still move no matter how little I moved it. So, I abandoned the idea of retreating even more (like starting out with picking it up), and upped the anty instead. I threw it over her back. She ran out of there, of course, and then I kept throwing it over until she calmed down even a little, or I stopped her with yo-yo and stopped the CS. I was treating her issue with the CS as a RBE thing, because she was being RBE, but her problem was that she didn't trust the Carrot Stick (Trust me, trust my tools). So, if I could've done it over again, I would've gone a lot slower. But otherwise, she still did alright. After I gave up playing a broken Friendly game, I had her circle for a while, because of the consistency. This taught me that I don't know the strategies for RBE's very well at all. Circling was the only thing I could think of doing! But she responded well: she tried walking on their teeter-totter (I'll take a picture, it's SOO industrial) with little prompting from me, and even walked right over the tarp 2 or 3x. That's a big deal, because she was forced over it the other day by a normal at their facility. Next time I go out, I'll take some pictures. It's a pretty cool place!
And on Saturday, my mom and I went to a speed show they were holding. It was a very good demonstration of what NOT to do. Many people were being direct-line. And there was 1 quite ironic incident. There was a litle boy doing poles on this 21 year old pony that looked a lot older than 21. My mom asked the owner: "So, how old's the pony?" "21" the guys said. "He looks really gentle." "Yeah, he is. He's not our horse, he's my friends and all of their horses are real laid-back." Just as he said that, the pony took off and the kid ended up flying off of him. Luckily the kid wasn't hurt (he was wearing a helmet and chest protector), just a little shocked. But that just made me think of a phrase I heard recently: "Most people get hurt on gentle horses." And it makes a lot of sense, too. People think that their lack of savvy can be made up for by buying an old, experienced horse, but that horse can still go Right Brain as easily as the next.
And Moosey and I are doing alright. Had a discussion with him yesterday about walking over two tires right next to each other filled with dirt. I sent him to squeeze over it, and he said "I can't do that." So, I had to say "try, at least try," because his mind was totally closed to the idea. So, he's still not real confident with it, because he'll only jump it from one side, but I had to end early because the mosquitos were eating me alive last night.
And the horse's hooves need to be done really bad. Moose's are starting to chip off. We accidentally waited until 8 weeks to call the farrier, and then we couldn't get a hold of her, so she's coming tomorrow. Unfortunately, that'll be 10 weeks since their last trim (there goes Moose's halfway-nice-looking hooves), but oh well.
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