Stable Boy was showing off in the weight room last week. Check this out!
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Remember Koda? The 4- or 5-year old Quarter horse gelding? He was here last fall for some training. He was performing really well when he left WVH, but the winter lay off has him feeling his oats. His owner says Koda was ignoring her cues recently and was running off when she wanted to use him. This last time, she had to chase him down with a four wheeler to catch him. Also, Koda has a history of crow-hopping on occasion and his owner didn't want to deal with riding the crow-hop out of him this spring. The upshot of it is that he gets to hang with me for a quick, 15-day tune-up. Yea for me! I like Koda!
After doing a lot of approach and retreat all last week, Koda is doing much better about not running off when I enter the pen--he now walks up to me. Over the weekend, I turned him out to pasture and didn't have any trouble with him running off when it was time to go back in the pen. I'm really pleased with his progress. I've been doing a lot of desensitizing because he seemed a little jumpy. He's responding well to my cues. We're doing a lot of circling and figure 8s. He hopped a little bit the first day I loped him, but he didn't seem too serious about it; it was more like he was checking to see what I would do if he hopped. I just ignored it and kept asking for a lope and he settled down. I've also started working on the passenger game at a lope. I feel like he's not relaxed about loping, particularly when circling to the right. Asking him to just lope without giving any other cues (i.e., no steering) gives him time to settle into the lope and relax with it. It also helps him to understand that he needs to maintain that lope (not trot and not break into a gallop). I did this last fall with him and it seemed to help eliminate his desire to crow-hop. Once he relaxes, it's much easier to find success when I begin to add in other cues. My goal is that his owner will be able to ride him this summer without any hopping going on. Keeping my fingers crossed! Yesterday I attended session two of the 4-part Eastern Idaho Gaited Horse Association Clinic. Once again, clinicians Bryce and Laurie Galbraith did a great job of coaching us to become better horsemen and women. The focus yesterday was on counting cadence--that is, recognizing when each of the horse's feet are leaving the ground. This is important so that the rider can improve his or her timing when cueing the horse for such things as lead departures and turns. Good timing for cues leads to a more sensitive and willing horse. We also worked on transitions, with Bryce calling out the speed (walk, slow walk, fast walk, gait, back, how soon can you stop, or how little pressure to stop) and sometimes even the number of steps to take.
Then we formed into 2 groups circling the arena in opposite directions and attempting to weave between each other. Ideally, it should have been a smooth and elegant exercise. Unfortunately, I think we looked a bit more like out-of-control bumper cars! I thing we need more practice. I opted to ride Honey Jo because I wanted to see how she behaved in a group environment with strange horses. I was pleased with her bahavior. I did figure out something I need to improve on when I ride her. Bryce had mentioned near the beginning of the clinic how sometimes our horses (mostly the more sensitive, energetic ones) will teach us to keep our legs off their sides. Honey Jo tends to get nervous easily and will rush forward at the slightest touch of your leg. I had worked on fixing this in the past, but as I rode, I realized I was avoiding leg contact. My legs were a little stiff and held slightly away from her sides--easy to do with her more rounded barrel. I was unconsciously developing a bad habit! I immediately went to work on desensitizing her to random leg movements, but I think it will take a bit of time to fully fix her. One of the reasons I like going to these clinics is to help me find and improve any flaws in my horsemanship. This clinic was well worth the cost and it was great fun to boot. Thank you! I just returned home after spending two weeks in Wisconsin following the loss of my dad. I've come to a realization: I don't think I'm meant to fly.
There is no direct flight from Idaho Falls to Milwaukee. You have to fly to Salt Lake City and then to either Minneapolis or Detroit and then you can get to Milwaukee. Not super convenient, but still faster than driving. Usually. I booked my flight to depart Idaho Falls at 7:30 am and arrive in Milwaukee at 5:30 pm. On my way out, we were on the plane ready to depart Idaho Falls aaannd...nothing. Turned out the plane had a bad starter. We waited a few hours for Delta to fly a mechanic up from Salt Lake City and then waited a few more hours for the guy to get it fixed. After eight hours, we were finally on our way. I made it to Minneapolis too late for the connection to Milwaukee. Delta put me up in a rather nice hotel for the night, but I only got about 4 hours sleep before I had to be up to catch the shuttle back to the airport for my final flight. I finally made it to Milwaukee at 8:30 am, the day after I was scheduled to arrive and just hours before Stable Boy and the Crew, who had caught a later flight. We had originally only planned for the Crew to stay a few days, but it was $300 cheaper to send them home the day after Valentines Day, so they ended up with a more extended vacation. Kid 3 ended up with bonus days--she woke up on the day of their scheduled departure with one of the worst cases of stomach flu I've seen. There was no way she was getting on a plane, so we changed her reservation so that she would fly home with me later in the week. She liked getting out of more school, but I'm not sure she thought the price was worth it. A week later and she is still not 100%. On Thursday, Kid 3 and I boarded the plane together to return to Rexburg. We expected to be home by 5 pm. The plane was pushed away from the gate aaaannd...nothing. The engine wouldn't start again. The delay this time was only an hour and a half, but it was long enough that we missed our connection to Salt Lake by about 10 or 15 minutes. Those 10-15 minutes cost us 7 hours; that's how long we had to wait for the next flight out to SLC. We finally made it home shortly before midnight. It was another long day. I'm sure at some point I will take to the air again, but for now I'm happy to not be at the mercy of faulty engines and overbooked flight schedules. Fun facts from class:
The length of a horse's digestive tract is about 100 feet long and has a capacity of 40-50 gallons. The small intestine is about 70 feet longs and will hold about 12 gallons. A resting horse breathes 8-16 times/minute and inhales about 250 cubic inches of air with each breath. Blood makes up about 7% of a horse's weight. A resting horse has a heart rate of 38-40 times/minute. The front legs of a horse have no skeletal attachment to to axial skeleton (trunk) of a horse, just muscular connections. They bear 60-65% of the horses weight. A horse's hoof grows about 3/8 inch per month, with the front feet often growing slower than the hind feet. Shod fee grow slower than unshod feet. and stallion feet often grow slower than mare or gelding feet. The frog of the hoof helps with blood circulation and shock absorption. A sharp object (nail, stick, or stone) an pierce a horse's hoof and take as long as a year before emerging out the other end--no wonder some horses seem to never recover from lameness! Reasons why a horse with a broken leg has a limited chance of survival: 1.The lower leg has little blood circulation or muscle, which can easily disrupt blood flow and lead to infection. 2. Recovery is difficult-not all horses will tolerate being in a sling, and some thrash so much coming out of anesthesia that they re-injure themselves. (The race horse Barbaro was suspended in a swimming pool while waking after surgery to minimize damage. Even with a successful surgery, Barbaro was only given a 50% chance of survival due to all four of these reasons). 3. Laminitis can result in the "good" legs due to overloading as the horse favors the bad one. (This was why Barbaro was ultimately euthanized.) 4. The anesthetic can cause life-threatening constipation in a horse. Taken from the Horse Production class text: Equine Science 4th edition by Rick Parker. Our first goat babies of 2015 arrived last night. Two baby girls. I'm so glad Katniss had twins instead of triplets. Typically one of the triplets ends up needing extra care and with me still being in Wisconsin, that would be difficult to manage!
These babies make a departure from our usual focus on dairy goats. Momma Katniss is a grade Nubian goat, but Daddy is a 100% registered Boer. As I understand it, that makes these doelings eligible for registration as 50% Boer. If we breed their babies to another full registered Boer buck, those babies would be eligible to be registered as 3/4 Boer, and so on, with the eventual result of us breeding into 100% Boer animals. I hadn't really planned on moving into meat goats, but Katniss is Kid 3's goat and she's excited about this project. Kid 1 is the person that does all of the goat milking in our family. She will be leaving for college in the fall and is already talking about possibly finding work in North Dakota as soon as she graduates from high school this spring (lots of money in the oil fields!) No Kid 1 to milk dairy goats + Kid 3 pushing meat goats = maybe its time to switch gears? We lost my dad this week. I will be spending some time in Wisconsin with my mom and sisters, so I won't be attending the Clinton Anderson tour. I'm a little bummed about that, but I know I need to be with my family right now. Let me know how it goes if you end up attending!
One of my students sent me a link for free tickets to Clinton Anderson's Walkabout Tour in Ogden, Utah on February 14 & 15. She got it from a friend and now I'm passing it on to you. Don't you feel special? :) I dragged the whole Crew to one of these tours about 6 years ago. It was great fun. Even Stable Boy liked it. I know this because when I told him that Clinton was coming back to Ogden, he not only said we should get tickets, he actually acted kind of excited about going. The listed price for tickets on Clinton's website is $50 each. If you follow the link, you get 2 free tickets for each name you enter. It's a pretty good deal for an entertaining and educational weekend. Let me know if you'll be attending. We'll see you there! The first meeting of the year for Ghost Riders 4-H horse club was held today. We've doubled in size since last year, but since I had told the 4-H office last season that I was only willing to be a leader for Kid 3 and Kid 4 (due to time constraints), that wasn't too hard to accomplish. The new additions this year include a former student at West View Horsemanship and her friend.
Nothing overly exciting about today's meeting. Mostly it was getting to know each other and getting organized. We did discuss horse breeds and parts of a horse. During the school year, we are just going to meet once a month with a goal of learning more about horses and getting everyone's demonstration speeches out of the way. Once summer comes we'll meet more frequently and actually use our horses. That will be the fun part. BYUI has basically decimated their horse program, but one of the few remaining gems of equine learning include Willy Twitchell's Horse Production class. I've been waiting 5 years to for the opportunity to take this class. The course always seemed to be held at the time when I had to be home to meet Kid 4 arriving home from elementary school. I was really looking forward to the longer school day when he started at the middle school this year. It's ironic that the class is now offered in the morning. Anyway, I thought that I'd share some information from the class here throughout the semester, not just because I thought people would find it interesting, but also to help me remember the things I'm learning! History of the HorseThe Fossil Record
Eohippus
--12-14 hands tall |
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