> > What concerns me is that Tosca can be a little grumpy - bucked when we put > Stephanie up on her.
Hi Nancy... I haven't been following all the posts lately (having been run over by Christmas, extra ER shifts and building a new house - egads) but .... How long have these two mares been under saddle? What was their previous experience/jobs? What I have been doing with my Drifa is Parelli - and our group does 'play days' - we play all the games, but over, under, through all kinds of obstacles. We try and make the obstacles as easy to as difficult/scary as we can so that the horse can start out at "very easy" and gradually, as they gain confidence and skills, they are challenged more. So - at first they follow (rider on the ground), at a "comfortable" distance, someone pulling a bag of rattling cans, gradually learning to get closer and closer. A more advanced horse is ridden up to the bag of moving, rattling cans, bareback and bridleless; and at some point the horses start to pull the bag behind them. We have a pole with wide strips of plastic hanging down. At first we just play the games close to it - maybe some circling, yoyo (backing towards and away from it), sideways up to it; then advance and retreat through it, then the games through it, then with a rider.... There are lots of websites (and Judy has links to some) that show different obstacles to make and play with, so you don't have to come up with these on your own. It's amazing what can be done with PVC pipe and glue ;-) The key is to gradually play with new experiences without ever overwhelming the horse, or losing it's trust and confidence and to support the horse through all these new experiences so he learns to trust his human. And teaching the horse to be soft and 'follow a feel' - so, for instance, when the horse spooks and feels the halter tightening, he will have learned to 'give' to that feel, not fight it. The learning process can be helped along with a clicker (although I do not use one because my left arm/hand is funky). There is a Clicker expo in LA in January or February (google Karen Pryor clicker training). For the horse who will be the disabled rider's mount ... practice doing all of the things that a disabled rider would do - but with a physicaly more able person, and in very, very tiny increments - so that when the horse does the "right" thing (hold still when a human stumbles up against her, for instance) the horse gets a reward (or several - a treat, a release, a scratch....) For this you would start with a person stumbling at a "safe" distance, reward the horse for holding still, and gradually work the person up to the horse as the horse figured out the "game" and the appropriate response. And you would do this for as many "wierd" things as you could come up with. After awhile, the horses figure out the deal and start generalizing and things go a lot faster. At first it is usually a lot of repetition. Maybe you have done all this? But if Tosca was "grumpy" when Steph was on her - bucking - are you sure that Tosca wasn't just unused to the feel of an uncoordinated rider? and frightened/nervous about it? She may have been getting a lot of conflicting signals all at once and was overwhelmed and confused. Being spooked hard by a running cat is a rookie mistake and she can learn a new response. anyhow - I hope this makes sense. Penny
