A little adventure with Freya, part 4

The day that Gemma had been waiting for finally dawned.  It was the final day of the clinic, and she was scheduled to be the first participant of the day. 

Gemma had worked out a minute-by-minute plan for when we would leave the hotel, when we would feed Freya, when she would brush her, and when she would tack up.  She had also decided that she wanted to work on leading (using the new technique that she had first watched me do and then practiced for two days), next on lunging, and then on asking Freya to stand still while she mounted.  I was hoping there would be enough time to address the braciness that Freya exhibited as well, but I know that sometimes horses don't follow the plan:)

I admit to being a bit nervous...What if Freya had a meltdown or was just too anxious for Gemma to work with her?  What if Mark watched Gemma for a few minutes and said that he didn't think it would be productive to keep working with her?  I have a tendency to be too much in my head sometimes, and this was probably one of those times.  Freya was definitely not as comfortable at the clinic as she is at home, but she hadn't demonstrated any difficult behavior.  And Gemma was confident and excited.  I was mentally prepared to step in to do some in-hand work with Freya for the session if things didn't work out with Gemma, but I really hoped that all would go well.

And it really did.  Mark seemed to have a good time interacting with Gemma and he kept up a witty/funny chat with her as they worked.  "I think this might be the most colorful lead rope I've ever used," he said as he picked up Gemma's rainbow ombre lead rope.  And he made a point to notice all the colors in her saddle pad and outfit, which made her very happy.

Gemma showed him how she was leading Freya, and he told her he thought she was doing a good job on it and didn't have too much feedback for her on improving.  Then she showed him how she lunges Freya.  I would have asked for more movement at the trot, but Freya was completely solid in her behavior and she did lots of perfect circles at the walk and the trot for Gemma.  So nothing to work on there.

Then it came time to work on mounting.  Freya has had an issue with that from when we got her and we've had varying degrees of success on working with her on it.  She mostly just walks off before a person gets on, and we had been handling it by either having someone hold her or getting off the mounting block and then resetting her.

What I had seen people doing at the clinic, though, was this complicated maneuver involving what looked like a figure-8 movement if the horse walked off before the rider got on.  I honestly thought that looked bizarre and overly complicated and I didn't like it.  But I was there to learn, and I hoped that we would learn more about why people were using that technique.  I wasn't disappointed...

Mark asked Gemma to switch from the halter to the bridle to prepare for working on mounting, so he could see what Freya did.  I was the assistant, so I brought Gemma the bridle and took the halter away.  One really cute thing was that while Gemma was bridling Freya, I thought, "Oh, maybe Mark could help Gemma get Freya to learn to put her head down a little bit to help with the process."  As it turned out, that was completely unnecessary.  Freya stood like a saint and dropped her head to the perfect height for Gemma to put the bridle on.  It was pretty cute.  One lady told me afterward that she actually cried a little because it looked so sweet.

Then Gemma walked Freya to the mounting block and showed Mark how Freya started to walk off before she got on.  Mark watched and then came over to ask if he could work with Freya for a bit.  He also asked to swap the bridle for the halter.  So Gemma did that and then handed Freya to Mark.

Mark led Freya toward the mounting block and asked her to stop a little short of where she would need to be for mounting.  Then he got on the block and asked her to come forward.  Initially, she would overshoot the block.  What he would do is allow her to go forward a few steps, then ask her to turn back around toward him and walk past the mounting block in the "wrong" direction.  Once she had gone a little past the block, he would ask her to turn back toward him and he would reset her facing the correct direction, but short of where she needed to be.  Then, he asked her to stop and wait before taking any more steps.  He wanted her to move just one step at a time, with a pause of several seconds or more before taking another step.  Once she was even with the block, he would act like he was going to get on.  When she moved off, he would repeat the process.  If she stayed, he would wait a few seconds and then get off the mounting block and lead her around for a minute to give her a break.

Over the next 10-15 minutes, Mark patiently repeated the process with Freya until she seemed to understand that she needed to stand at the mounting block.  He explained that getting off the mounting block to reset the horse was basically giving the horse a release for moving away and communicating that the horse did the right thing.  So it is better to stay on the mounting block.  For the person to stay on the block and move the horse back to the right place, the figure-8 technique is necessary.  It also allows the horse to move instead of constantly trying to restrict the movement.

That all made sense to me, and I understood a lot better why the technique was used.  (You can see a video of it in Mark's online classroom, which costs $10/month.  The web address is: https://markrashid.com/online-learning-with-mark/.)  The technique seemed to work well for Freya.  She stayed calm and didn't seem to get frustrated.

Once she seemed to understand what was expected, Mark turned her over to Gemma.  Gemma worked on it with Freya for a few minutes.  Mark had to help a couple of times with the turning because of Gemma's lack of height, but otherwise, she did it herself.  One of the most important parts of the technique was the slow process of asking the horse to approach the mounting block.  Mark emphasized how slowly they should go, with just one step and then waiting.  

Once it looked like Freya understood what to do with Gemma, Mark had Gemma put the bridle back on.  And within a minute, Gemma was in the saddle.

Then Mark asked Gemma to halt Freya, and that is when her braciness showed.  So Mark started working on asking Freya to yield just the smallest amount while Gemma was walking her.  Then he worked with me on doing the same thing.  Basically, I walked next to Freya on her left and had my right hand on the left rein.  If her nose went up in the air, I applied a small amount of pressure to ask her to yield through her poll just a little.  Once she yielded, I released.  The idea was to get Freya to understand what the pressure meant and then work with Gemma so she could do it on her own.

It didn't take long for Freya to understand, and Mark commented that she seemed to be comfortable with the pressure.  And then our time was up.

I was so happy that the session had gone well, and we really got a good foundation for the mounting block as well as a start on addressing Freya's bracing.  Gemma was through the moon and so excited about what they accomplished, and she couldn't stop talking about it.  We also got so much support from other participants and auditors.  It was a great introduction to the clinic process for Gemma.

After we got Freya untacked and back in her paddock, Gemma and I watched most of the clinic for the rest of the day.  It was a great experience for me to watch the other riders and how they worked on an assortment of issues.  And one was a young horse that didn't have a lot of education under saddle, so that was interesting to watch as I start thinking about preparing Donut for her work under saddle.  More than anything, it was clear to me how much on-the-ground preparation is key for success under saddle.

The next morning, we were up bright and early to clean the Freya's paddock one last time and head home, with our brains full of new information.

But I still had one lesson left to learn:  Never get into an argument with your phone's navigation system while hauling a horse trailer.  I was insistent that I wanted to go back the same way we had come, but my navigation app wasn't having it and kept trying to route me toward I-95.  I tried my usual technique of just driving the direction I wanted to go and waiting for the app to reroute and eventually get the correct route.  But I didn't really know the roads that well, and eventually I had to give up.  The app refused to reroute me.  

When I finally conceded, the app sent us on narrow backroads and through rush-hour traffic in one town and then there were some crazy get on the interstate, get off the interstate turns before I finally got on the correct interstate highway.  Thus, why Gemma needed her stash of chocolate milk and I needed a donut:)

I hadn't wanted to get on I-95 because it is notorious for back-ups and accidents and heavy traffic.  Which sucks when you are driving a normal car, but is even less exciting when you are towing a horse.  And the route we'd come down on had been almost relaxing.  In the end, though, it worked out.  Traffic wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and we made good time.  (But I am still very bitter at my navigation app...)

It did feel a bit surreal, though, to be headed back into the real world after the sheltered, focused world of the clinic.  We had spent four days away from normal life, but we got a rude reminder of the state of the world when we stopped for gas.  The price was quite a bit higher than when I'd last filled up, and in the 20 minutes we spent at the gas station, it went up 6 cents a gallon!  I wasn't sure what we were headed back to, but my heart and mind were full of good experiences.

I hadn't realized how much it helps to be around people who have the same mindset when it comes to working with horses.  None of the horses at the clinic were rearing up or having fits about general life, which I see several times a week normally.  No one was yelling at their horses, which is also something I see a lot of.  Everything was quiet and calm, even though horse and handler teams were working on some difficult processes.  It was a great way for me to reground myself, and I am beyond thankful that Gemma had a chance to experience it too.  I think we all have a tendency to emulate what we see, and kids in particular will copy the behavior of adults.  So when that behavior is less than ideal, it can lead to misconceptions and bad habits for kids.

I very much hope that we can attend the clinic again next year, and I hope that we can spend this year applying what we have learned and become better horsewomen.