Never gets silly

Never shared his lesson yesterday with Indy, a 3 yr old grey Arabian, and everybody involved learned something.

Working with Indy is like flying a kite on a windy day: he goes right to the end of the rope, screaming and calling and bouncing around. You ask him to do something, and if he's paying attention he'll do it then lose focus and bounce and call. Never takes his lessons seriously. He'll get distracted by horses outside of the arena, but when you ask him do something or pay attention, for the most part he will.

Yesterday, they switched.

The trainer decided to work them both in the arena at the same time, off lead, as neither one had done anything like that before. We thought that after some running and goofing off, Never would decide to relax and learn, and Indy would keep doing laps around the arena. What actually happened was that Never started herding Indy around, and when Indy decided he had had enough and wanted to go to his handler, Never would cut him off and drive him away. He would move him around the arena, back and forth along the wall, even causing him to side pass!

Finally,after 45 minutes of this, Indy said enough and went to is handler and stood quiet. He was quiet and paid attention for the rest of his lesson. Never did laps for about 10 more minutes, and finally agreed that it was time for a lesson. Because of the incident last week, we worked on being near things that were dragging and making noise and desensitizing his hindquarters more. We didn't do any under saddle work, but the trainer has him going at a trot now.

He seems to be doing fine, his top-line looks good and his hindquarters are muscling up well. He's not really black anymore, more of a sunburned dark bay, but overall he's looking good and more mature.

Never's lesson in pictures

I took some pics of Never during his lesson last week. Not with my good camera like I should have, but with my cell phone, so the picture quality is truly awful. But they clearly show (okay, maybe not clearly) that his training is coming along very nicely.

Here we go...

Never picks up his feet, especially his hind feet, without kicking or shying




I tried to capture Never's reaction to the splint boots and bell boots, but the lag time on my phone is horrible. Suffice it to say that he could compete with Saddlebred for knee action!




I know, it's a ball. But it's on his back and he doesn't care!


The saddle went on without a problem, and she tightened the girth and he didn't seem bothered.


"Hey, you're on both sides at the same time!"


And she's up!

The trainer sat there for a couple of minutes, until he relaxed a bit, then she hopped down and did some ground driving. After a few rounds she hopped on again, worked on backing up, and then got back down for some more driving. At one point he pulled the rope from her grasp and started to run around the arena like a goofball. She caught him, but he spooked at the rope and took off, hit the gate at the other end of the arena, and nearly took it off the hinges. Then he took off down the path to the other barn.

The trainer seemed a little worried that he'd take off down the road, but I was pretty sure he'd just go to the gate and talk to the other horses. And that's where we found him, blowing and sweating and talking to the other horses.

The trainer caught him and calmed him down, then took him back to the arena. I tried to fix the gate, while she worked on getting Never's mind back in the game. I gave up and shut the door, and by the time I had finished and walked around the barn to the other entrance, Never was calm and paying attention.

The trainer did a little more work with him, ended the lesson on a good note, and handed him off to me to cool off and graze a little. It was nice to hang out with my boy, and especially nice that he had better manners than before. We grazed until he was dry, and then walked down the the pasture. His goofball buddies were waiting by the gate, but he let me open the gate, walk in, and then he politely walked in when I asked him to. It was a good end to a fun filled day.

Never's Training Progress

Never has gone through some big changes in the past few weeks. The first week, the trainer could hardly get near him. He would hide behind other horses or just run off. When I came for my first 'lesson' (mostly just watching her train), we corralled him in a smaller paddock so she could work with him up close and personal. By the end of the lesson, he was following her around and would allow her to touch his face.

During his stay in the corral, the trainer would spend her spare time sitting with him, or would send her working students out with a book, just so he would get used to new and different people

The second lesson was so nice. He came up to the trainer after a few minutes and let himself be haltered. He was somewhat distracted, but he eventually let her pick up his feet without too much fuss. Yay!

Just a few days before the third lesson this past Wednesday, he relaxed enough to pick on the ponies he was in with, so back out with the herd he went. When we went to get him, he played hard to get for about five minutes. He went to show his dominance to a new horse to the herd, and when the new horse pinned his ears at him, he jumped straight in the air and ran to hide by the trainer. She was laughing so hard she could hardly fasten the halter!

We walked up to the arena, where they worked on different things: yielding front and hindquarters, desensitizing to different objects (he loved the big ball!), and finally, the saddle. He had had the saddle and pad on before, but never cinched up. She tossed the saddle and pad on him a few times, and he really didn't care. She attached the girth, and he flinched a little when the girth brushed his leg, but he stood still. She led him around a little then reached under, grabbed the girth, and carefully cinched him up. He didn't seem to care. The trainer walked him around a bit, then fully tightened the girth. She kept waiting for him to blow up, and he didn't. He did plod around like a zombie plow horse, though!

After some more walking, the trainer tried a couple of steps of trot, saying that he will most probably blow up when he feels the saddle bounce. She asked for a trot, he trotted for about three strides, then did his zombie walk again. Twice more they trotted, and twice more he just plodded along.

It was getting close to the end of the lesson, but the trainer decided to try one more thing because he was being so good. She stood at his side and bounced up and down. No real reaction. She did it again, and still nothing. So she stood on the mounting block, and then jumped up and down again. He looked at her, but didn't move.

Eventually she got to the point where she draped herself over his back. He seemed a little surprised that she was on both sides of him, but still didn't move. He did try and eat her shoes, so she called him to his other side and gave him a treat. He then went back to play with her shoes again! Once again she got his attention to his other side and gave him the last treat. I'm on the other side so I couldn't see, but I guess after the last treat he was so thankful that he gave her a big kiss!