Back to Normal

After an exciting weekend, Max and I had a relatively "normal" riding evening. We started by practicing some half-passes and other dressage manuevers, transitions, along with walking/trotting/cantering. After about 20 minutes or so, some friends of mine asked if I wanted to go for a small trail ride. I figured, why not?

Max was definately happy to get out on the trail, especially with my friend's horses (they're both mares and Max regards them as his "girlfriends"). It was a pretty relaxing ride and we made our way down the wash, accross the river and then along a trail on the other side. Just to mix it up, we decided to take some trails that lead through the forest that lines the river just to the east. It was interesting- I've ridden this area by day but it was a bit different riding at dusk. Fortuantely, Max knew is way and was very confient. By the time we exited the forest and were heading home, it was completely dark.

Overall it was a fun little ride and it's ceratinly a contrast to the riding in a parade. It seems that lately I've been doing a wide variety of riding activities and Max seems to be getting better and better. Granted there are those moments when he spooks or shies but these are manageable and Max easily recovered.

The Lookout Trail

A friend of mine recently introduced me to a new trail, the Lookout Trail. It's a relatively short trail but provides an excellent opportunity to work your horse because of the sharp ups and downs. Here's some pictures I took while riding the trial on Sunday:

Looking out to the East San Fernando Valley


Looking south- on the other side is the 210 Freeway. There's a fireroad that goes over the mountain that I regularly ride.


Looking east. You can barely make out the sheep pens and the high voltage transmission lines, another place I regularly ride to.

Fire road leading north. If you go far enough, you'll connect with the Audry Trail.

On the fire road, looking east.

Another view east.

Fire road leading north. If you go far enough, you'll be in Palmdale.

Max on Parade!

Today Max and I completed our first parade together in Burbank! After many doubts and some serious misgivings, I decided to take the plunge and enter Max and I in a parade with the group I normally drill with on the weekends, The Warhorse and Militaria Foundation and I suppose this was inevitable... :-)

I've been working for about four years training Max and getting him ready to travel to various events and do interesting things. After getting off to a bad start back in 2004 with a bad trailering situation, I've been struggling to get him up to ready to deal with all manner of events and to overcome the obstacle of not having a truck or trailer (while I have a ways to go on this, things appear to finally be loosening up and it looks like I'll taking him to a few places in the next month).

The parade was a small one but a good introduction. Although the parade was supposed to begin around 11 am, I was up at 5 am and at the stables by 6 am. I had to be sure all the necessary saddle and tack was loaded up the night before because I had to leave my van at my friend's house and walk over to the stables, get Max, and walk him back to my friend's house (it's easier to do this than have my friend drive over and the distance is pretty short. After loading up my saddle, tack, uniform and miscellaneous equipment, we finally left at about 7:45 and headed out to Burbank.

After some twists and turns, we finally found our starting point and proceeded to groom and saddle our horses. I'd been steadily grooming Max all week, as best as I could and didn't allow him to roll in the arena at all so things weren't too bad. I'd even combed out his main and tail (Cowboy Magic makes things a lot easier!). Naturally Max was a bit nervious and curious about all the new sights and sounds but he handled it well and was more interested in eating his hay.

Finally, we went off to be judged and Max pretty much cooperated here although he tried to back out of line (got to work on that more!). We managed to remain stationary and complete the judging process and then had to wait another 30 minutes or so to actually begin the parade.

After waiting for what seemed an eternity, we finally kicked off and began to move...sort of...in a herkey jerky way. What a pain. We did various parade manuevers to occupy the horses but it was still challenging to keep Max focused on the job at hand- I had to be alert yet relaxed and handle things as best as I could without making an issue of anything. A couple of times Max tried to squeeze out of line but I managed to get him back in again without any fireworks.

We finally started moving at a fairly normal pace and Max began to relax a bit although he seemed to be in a hurry to get through with the whole thing. He also kept tucking his head and pulling against the bit so I had to stuggle to keep him loose on the bit without deranging my seat. I managed to handle that but it wasn't fun...

As we got towards the end of the parade, Max seemed to get better and was focusing better on my aids rather than the envirnoment around him. I also noticed that hit helped that he was with horses he normally works with and that they tend to feed off each other. One of the hardest things for me is to focus on getting my aids working and actually riding rather than reacting to Max's reactions- in short, getting ahead of him and thinking for two. The toughest time for me is when I first get on the horse- eventually my brain comes "online" and I'll start working him as I always do but I need to develop a quicker reaction. All dealable.

Overall, it was a good performance and there's a few things I need to work on and tighten up but nothing major. I think things will get better and There were a few issues but nothing major and most of it had to do with other parade participants rather than the public in general (the miniature horses pulling carts didn't help, especially when they ran them directly at us as we were moving towards the finish area. It was pretty interesting and our group won a first place for the military category. I'll have some pictures soon.

Mid-Terms, Part II

Got my mid-term results back for my Animal Husbandry class and I came in with a solid 83- a B. Not bad but not the best either- need to re-work my study system for the next test. My head is swimming with facts about breeding and foaling- god I hope I never have to deal with it for real although my vet says it isn't as bad as it looks :-)! Seriously though, it's all interesting information but I need to review the whole reproductive system anatomy better.

On to Equine nutrition.

Max the Movie Horse

Here's some commentary on the pictures that I posted yesterday on the film shoot I participated in out at Corriginaville Park in Simi. Basically, a friend of mine was contacted by an aspring director (he's done a lot of legit film work on major productions so this wasn't some student film production, something I learned long ago to stay away from) about a helping with a 6-minute trailer he's producing as a promotional piece so he can show it to potential investors and hopefuly be able to fund a full production.

While I don't know what the precise title is or much about the plot due to not having signed a non-disclosure agreement (kind of stupid, in my opinion) except what I do know is that it's some sort of action/romance story set in British India in the 1820s/30s. The history is a bit suspect but since it wasn't my party, I didn't really attempt to figure it out.

My involvement was portraying British Cavalry, along with some other members of the group a regularly drill with, The Warhorse and Militaria Foundation. The choice to film this at Corriganville park was based on the fact that it's open to the public and the management had no issues with us filming so long as we weren't setting up generators or shooting (i.e. all the stuff that a conventional production brings with it). What was interesting was later I found out that this park was once part of a larger movie ranch called the Corrigan Movie Ranch and a lot of B-Westerns and the like were filmed here during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Ultimately, the ranch fell victim to changing times and real estate development (a constant theme in Southern California).

Anyway, I was at the stables at 6am and I had to walk Max over to my friend's house to load him on the trailer (it's only a block or so away and it's easier to to that than have him drive over). After some delay, I got Max loaded with no problems (yay!) and we were off to Simi (I loaded saddle and tack in my van and followed behind).

The weather was perfect, sunny but not too hot and we arrived on set about 10 am. Although I had been told that we'd mostly be doing shots that involved riding around and standing, it turned out that we were mostly going to be involved in battle scenes. Great! While I've done some sword and lance training on Max and he's pretty good about it, I was uncertain about battle scenes.

It was no surprise but Max definately did not react well to the battle scenes and it was a challenged to keep him under control. Finally for many of the scenes I had to work him towards the periphery of the battles and push him in as much as I could while making sure to avoid running over anyone on foot or mounted.

After a few takes, most of the group retired back to the parking lot to change outfits while me and one other person stayed behind to film some more scenes. As it turned out, because of Max's hesitancy, I suggested to the director that I ride Max in front of the camera with the fight in the background- Max would be far enough away from the fight but be able to do something of value.

The director agreed to this and I worked out a small trail that ran in front of the camera, went up a small hill and then sharply dropped off. I walked the route several times first, then trotted it, and finally cantered part of the way. The trick to it was that I had to get up the hill fast but then slow him down on the other side (for both our safety). One good things was that I found that Max definately likes running up hills and it gave him a "job" to do and took him mind off of everything else.

When time came to actually film the scene, Max was a bit put off by the shouting and screaming from the battle and it was a bit difficult to get him to focus on what I wanted. Usually I'd use a crop but that wasn't an option since I was supposed to be a cavalryman in battle. But I did have a rubber sword and out of desperation, I smacked Max on the rump with the flat of the sword- that got the needed effect and Max chaged off. After several takes, he seemed to be getting into it althogugh getting him to stand still between takes was a bit difficult so I'd have to spin him in circles serveral times before launching off. Fortuantely the director was patient and we were able to mostly do it right.

We then did a more involved battle scene and originally Max and I were to ride around the main action in a close circle while fighting a Sikh on horseback (one of our group members made up to look the part) while at the same time there was fight on the ground raging all around us.

Well, Max took one look at this and basically said "HELL NO!" so we had to work around it several times as best we could. I never was able to actually "fight" anyone so I waived my sword around and yelled a lot. Considering Max had never done this before, it was perfectly understandable and my goal is to help desensitize him to this sort of thing. I think we can do it but it will take some time (like all horse training).

For the last scene of the day, we did the same sort of scene as we did before on the little trail but this time, there would be fight directly around us and I would be joined by a friend of mine. We were to go single file over the hill and given Max's previous refusals in fight scenes, I got my friend to go first, figuring that Max would follow another horse more willingly than if he was in the front (plus the shot wouldn't be wasted since my friend would still be in it even if Max refused).

As things worked out, it definately made Max nervious but seeing the other horse go through with it first made him brave enough to follow my aids. We charge the hill at almost a full gallop and fle over the hill. Max was definately buzzed up and took a bit of effort to stop him at the other end but no worries.

By the time we were done, it was 6pm and we'd basically worked 8 hours in the saddle that day, with a few breaks. The one downside is that the logistics hadn't been worked out compeltely and we didnt' get any lunch until late in the afternoon and more imporatantly, there was no water for the horses. Ultimately, someone bigged up a small horse trough and at one point I went back to the trailers in the parking lot and watered Max there. He definately worked hard.

Max was more than happy to load up in the trailer- he was tired and once we got back to the stables, Max drank a lot of water and eagerly attacked him customary bucket of A&M and Omolene 200. The day had definately been a learning experience and I would definately like to be able to work on some more productions with Max so more training is in order but I think Max will work into it eventually.

P.S. It was pointed out to me that I was functioning as a stunt rider, along with everyone else. Although I'm flattered, I DO NOT consider myself any sort of stunt man. Just a guy who wants to work with his horse and get some money for it once in awhile. :-) But it's interesting to see that I'm following a tradition of sorts, filming at a former movie ranch and the like.

Max in the Movies

Here are some pictures from the movie shoot that Max and I worked out at Corriganville Park in Simi:



Me portraying British Cavalry somewhere on the Northwest Frontier of India circa 1830s. Actually the uniform is more appropriate to the 1850s...

Moving up to the "set"


Coming out of the fight- Max wasn't too sure about this...

Max's big stunt- off to the left, there's a 10-foot drop-off. Try doing this at a canter- not as easy as it looks.

One of the bandits.

The bandit swoops down on the Colonel's daughter...

Some of the Indians portraying Sikhs.

Trailer Tune-Up

Since there's a chance that I'll be traveling with Max this weekend, tonight I decided that I should review the trailer loading basics with Max. I made sure to arrive at the stables with plenty of daylight left and proceeded to lunge Max in the round pen to warm him up and work out any issues.

Afterwards, I led Max to the usual three-horse slant load trailer I practice on. Unfortunately, it seems like the stable-owner had decided to do some homebrew job of adding a new divider so the dimensions were all wrong. I couldn't get the divider open so I could use the entire trailer and there wasn't really enough room in the back to work with (Max just isn't that small!).

So next I decided to practice loading in the larger four-horse camper-trailer combo which is quite ample (which is why I normally don't use it to practice with because it's not really representative of the trailer types that Max might have to ride in).

So for the next 15-20 minutes, I practiced walking Max in the trailer and making him stand inside for about a minute or so. Then I'd make Max back up out of the trailer. Everything seemed to work out allright, only a couple of times did he balk at going in and that was quickly fixed without any drama.

Overall, it was a success so he should be good this weekend.

Time for a Tune-Up

Since I don't have class tonight, I decided that I needed to do some more work with Max, this time with the lance. I've worked with Max before with the lance but it's been awhile so I wanted to tune him up and see if there were any issues.

I started on the ground in the arena, familiarizing Max with the lance by rubbing him all over with it and tapping him in various body parts. So far, no issues.

I then mounted up and began to do some basic figures in the arena and once again, no issues. I then decided to go outside to the larger drivine dressage area and do some more work. By know, you're probably asking "so what?" Well, besides horses being afraid of sharp pointy sticks, it's dark so I wanted to see how that would go. Also, it's either that or I don't get the practice in.

Working in my normal training area, I did all the basic manuevers I normally practice with only this time, I had the lance. Overall, things worked out fine and any errors made were operator error. Max certainly didn't seem to mind charging with the lance at his side or anything so I pretty much pronounced it a success. If I'm going to do this in a reenactment environment, I might as well make sure he's OK with it BEFORE I introduce the elements of other horses, people yelling and screaming and running around, gunfire, etc.

Wheew! What a workout.

From Iraq

I normally don't get mixed up in the Iraq situation but these were too interesting not to pass up:


"I'm getting out of here!" Donkey running away from training exercise (can you blame him?).


Donkey after getting pulled out of an irrigation ditch.

This Weekend

Now that mid-terms are over, I took the opportunity to get back to some serious riding and re-connect with Max. It's a real pain going for four days at a time without riding- drives me nuts and Max gets all lazy and buzzed-up, in turns.

On Saturday Max and I went to Warhorse practice at the arena at Gabriellano Park. I made sure to lunge Max a bit before saddling him- just to blow upt the crazies. After making my preparations, I rode Max over to the arena (I was the first one there) and began to warm him up- Max presented no issues and slowly I worked him up to the canter and practices transitions. I also works some on turning on the fore-end and the haunches (turning on the haunches has been my recent area of focus).

Max got back into the swing of things very nicely and this was very evident when we cantered in line. Max kept perfect pace and presented no issues. It's too bad not everyone's horse was as practiced- it gets irritating when horses won't hold formation so I'm forces to dodge other horses and riders- it's like racing down a littered road at high speed.

After practice was complete, Max had to patiently stayed tied up in my friend's backyard while we had lunch. In the past, he's been a bit anxious and expects to immediately go home to the stables. I'm trying to train him so that he'll just have to accept that we go home when I say we go home. We still have some progress to make but it wasn't bad.

On Sunday, I took my usual lesson and one of the big areas we're working on currently is turning on the haunches. You may THINK you're turning the horse on the haunches but in reality you're moving both front and back- kind of like spinning a coke bottle. A true turn on the haunches involves the horse actually putting weight on the haunches and crossing his legs. This is not easy to achieve so we've started by doing modified roll-backs but in stead of turning completely around, we make a 90-degree turn and then walk or trot off. I still have a ways to go on this and I'll have to practice more but I know what I need to do.

After my lesson, a friend and I went up into the hills on a trail that was new for me. It has some very steep uphill and downhill portions and we took a good part of the trail at a trol. My friend was on one of his Arabina horses so Max was struggling to keep up- he was covered in sweat. Every so often we'd pause to Max could blow out.

This trail is located to the west of where I board- I normally don't go over there since it involves crossing Osborne Street, which is a narrow two-lane highway with blind spots (I'll have to take some pictures at some point and post them here). The scenary was certainly beautiful with Lupine adn Mustard in bloom. What is nice about this train is that it provides a good workout for horse and rider but it's not too long like the Doc Larsen Trail (nor as well-travelled) and it's easier to access. I'm going to have to add this one to my program. This definately was a workout for Max and I think we've gotten a good start on conditioning.

Overall, it was a busy weekend for both Max and I and hopefully the start of a good riding season.

Mid-Terms

It seems like it's been forever (well, maybe 16 years or so) since I've been in school so it was with a little trepedation that I took my mid-term for my Equine Husbandry class last night. For several weeks I've been studying when I could, which it isn't wasy with a full-time job, family life, Max and stables, et al. so I was a bit nervious. My head is swimming with facts about every aspect of breeding and foaling and I don't think I'll ever forget the Mare's estrous cycle! :-)

Well, the test was multiple-choice (aka multiple-guess) and while it wasn't a complete slaughterhouse, there were gaps in what I'd reviewed and I know I missed some key questions. On the other hand, I did actually know a lot of the answers so I wasn't completely ignorant...

We'll find out the results in two weeks since next week is Spring Break. I hope the results are decent...I'll definately have to organize and study harder for the next exam.