Horse Play
Some days have a better feel than others. Today was a so-so day. My energy level was low and I had difficulty focusing on what I was doing. Not particularly the best mood for working with a green horse. But I did. And it was good.
Abe (pronounced a be', the Spanish way) is a green seven year old Paso Fino. I've had him under saddle, away from the barn three times. Today being the third. He has much to learn from standing still when being saddled to taking the bit to not throwing me off when he's frustrated. We covered all of those lessons today and more.
Working with a green horse, or for that matter, any horse, is like working with an 8 year old child. The horse wants to be good, but he doesn't know how yet. He loves it when he does something right and gets frustrated when he gets it wrong. He gets praise when he's right and he gets to try again when he's wrong. No punishment, just another attempt to get it right. One problem is he doesn't always know what he did right when he got it right. So the next attempt may be wrong and he doesn't know why. After a few attempts, he will get it right again. Then after a few right attempts he will understand what he did right (mostly). Working with a green horse produces many wrongs with a few rights in the beginning. However, he gets more rights as time goes on. After a while, with more rights under his belt (er..cinch!) he becomes more confident and more consistent and less green.
That's what we did today. And we were mostly successful. With green horses, mostly successful is good. It's that 8 year old child thing again. They don't mean to misbehave. They just need more practice behaving.
And that's what we're going to do the next time.
Abe (pronounced a be', the Spanish way) is a green seven year old Paso Fino. I've had him under saddle, away from the barn three times. Today being the third. He has much to learn from standing still when being saddled to taking the bit to not throwing me off when he's frustrated. We covered all of those lessons today and more.
Working with a green horse, or for that matter, any horse, is like working with an 8 year old child. The horse wants to be good, but he doesn't know how yet. He loves it when he does something right and gets frustrated when he gets it wrong. He gets praise when he's right and he gets to try again when he's wrong. No punishment, just another attempt to get it right. One problem is he doesn't always know what he did right when he got it right. So the next attempt may be wrong and he doesn't know why. After a few attempts, he will get it right again. Then after a few right attempts he will understand what he did right (mostly). Working with a green horse produces many wrongs with a few rights in the beginning. However, he gets more rights as time goes on. After a while, with more rights under his belt (er..cinch!) he becomes more confident and more consistent and less green.
That's what we did today. And we were mostly successful. With green horses, mostly successful is good. It's that 8 year old child thing again. They don't mean to misbehave. They just need more practice behaving.
And that's what we're going to do the next time.
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