Bootcamp

I went to Trisha's this morning to watch one of her sessions with Indy.

Cruise is coming to live at Trisha's so his owner can get a bit more riding in. She's taken the opportunity of having Indy there to let Cruise settle into life at Cassie's Farm with just one paddockmate. It will also give her ample time to introduce him to her herd of four before he goes out with them.

Despite Indy being Boss Mare everywhere else, Cruise gave her Just One Look upon arrival on Friday and she knew she was not top dog anymore.

It's funny because she beat Scarlett up when she was first at home, yet Scarlett is the boss of Cruise... What a weird triangle of power!

I bought her into the yards and gave her a good groom. She is moulting like crazy and had LOTS of very itchy spots. Trisha told me about progress so far.

The first couple of sessions went really well: she got sofer, more responsive... generally more OK with things. Caterpillar, Cheek delinations and Heart Girth improved. She was shifting her weight well from side to side.

The groundwork has helped free her up in her shoulders, under her armpits, and in her neck. Trisha is going to do an Equine Touch session with her soon, as she is very tight in her back and HQs.

Then some more holes showed up... Talking to Trisha, I've had to deal with every one of them at some stage, but didn't consider them holes because they were one-offs... Or knew they were holes but thought I'd worked through them.

Indy occasionally objects to being caught in the paddock. Baby horse "hey, human, don't you know that I just hang out, doing what I want, when I want, how I want? I don't want to do whatever's on your agenda!"
She also objects to having her halter put on, or taken off, on occasion, by throwing her head around. She knows how to lower her head but sometimes you just have to work through her insistance that she really doesn't feel like it today. It makes me wonder what sort of thing happened to her once, to make her feel insecure about the halter strap going over her ears - something as simple as pulling back and hurting herself, getting her ear pulled by a head strap being caught on it, etc.

After about half an hour of exercises in the yard, Trisha took her out into the arena. The weather was absolutely lovely: sun out in full force, no wind whatsoever.

Indy responded with some very nice work. She is more consistently lowering her head and telescoping her neck, coming through more from behind, loosening up in her stride.

She was starting to fade and take longer to come back after processing, so it was time to head back to the paddock.

Trisha will most likely continue with groundwork only for another week before starting to include ridden sessions. She has found that splitting the work into two shorter sessions means Indy can cope with it (she IS still a baby pony with very few miles under her, so finds this work quite tiring) and therefore make more progress.