Stunt Horses at Work

I picked this up off YouTube. This was posted as what can only interpreted as a display "reel" by a AlphaStunt, Bulgarian stunt group. Most of it is concerned with horses although towards the end they abruptly shift to a number of vehicle stunts (hint to AlphaStunt- if you are doing a "reel", it's probably a good idea to focus on one theme).

The training and use as Medieval warhorses is especially interesting and a bit hazardous (as it probably was then). The scene of the man catching a rear hoof in the face from a capriole kick is pretty amazing- hard to tell if that's a stunt or accident. In any event, I wouldn't want it to be me- no thanks!

Some of the stunts could be considered questionable from a "humane" standpoint- they look a bit rough on the horses but I'm no expert. Then again, standards tend to be a bit "relaxed" in that part of the world...the fire on the back of the horse really gives me cause for pause. At any rate, enjoy!

Let's Try This Again...

Early today, the shoer came by and worked on Max so I decided that we would get in the saddle time we missed last night ;-).

Max was a bit stiff on the front legs at the start and I was beginning to wonder if he wasn't' suffering a flare-up of arthritis but as we warmed up (or maybe it was just the new shoes?), his gait improved. We focused on canter/walk transitions and some lateral work to include leg yields and shoulder-ins. On the canter/walk transitions, I was able to hit the right level and Max picked up pretty quickly on what I was trying to do and we got in some pretty good transitions. I find that in the warm-up process for Max that it's best to do a lot of walking, some short trotting, go into the canter and then return to the trot- his trotting tends to improve after cantering for awhile.

Because he started out stiff, I didn't do any one gait for a long time and I also did some lateral work to give him some flexibility- mostly side passes and some leg yields, then moving on to shoulder-ins. I find that Max does the best shoulder-ins at the sitting trot and I even tried a few at the posting trot.

After about 45 minutes, I walked Max around to cool down and to give him a break. Finally, as part of his post-work bucket, I gave him a dose of Bute. With weather threatening to rain this weekend and possibly snow, I'll have to keep an eye on Max because of the arthritis situation- I don't need a repeat of what happened in December.

Well see how the weather goes in the next few days... :-)

The Unshod

With rain predicted for the weekend, I decided to get out to the stables tonight and get some saddle time in with Max. As I'm cleaning his hooves, I noticed that he'd thrown a show...no riding tonight! The good thing is that he's due for shoes anyway so I can get it all taken care of in one shot.

Sometimes I think Max does things to get out of work...I had the last laugh though- I turned him out and lunged him for about 20 minutes. :-)

Maybe tommorow...

USS Connecticut

To commemorate the Great White Fleet's completion of circumnavigating the world in 1909, here's a couple of pictures of the USS Connecticut, the flagship.

USS Connecticut undergoing speed trials.


USS Connecticut leading the fleet.

Roman House

Here's something you don't see everyday. This is a full-scale recreation of a Roman house (perhaps more accurately villa) located in Wroxter in Great Britain. Wroxeter, or Viroconium Cornoviorum as it was known then, was a center of Roman settlement and now there's a reconstructed house to give a sense of what might have existed there.

Click HERE for more about the reconstruction. It's part of Wroxeter Roman City, an open-air museum.

The house itself...

The house as part of the site...

Long shot of the site.

In Training

In contrast to yesterday, today we took our lesson and it was work!

Today's lesson primarily focused on the canter/walk transition and while that may sound pretty easy and fairly routine, it's not! In doing transitions, it's a lot easier to perform them when moving from gait to the next (eg. trot/walk) as opposed to going from one extreme to the other (eg. canter to walk). And strangely enough, it's very easy going from a canter to a complete halt on Max.

However, going from the canter to the walk is a much more difficult proposition because it's all too easy to come to apply too much pressure in the seat and come to a complete halt (i.e. jam on the brakes). I suppose this would be chalked up to my early training with Max which emphasized training him to halt immediately on command, which eventually transitioned to using mostly my body reinforced with a little rein.

Now the key is to apply just enough "brake" and not too much and that's going to require practice...a LOT of practice. Most of this is my issue rather than Max's since, after all, he's following my direction. We practiced this many times over and basically it requires the following:

1) Collection- You need to collect up the horse and get most of the weight shifted to the haunches. This will minimize the chance of the horse becoming heavy on the front end and having the horse "dive" into the walk (or stop- this also applies to the canter/halt).

2) Pressure- Apply enough pressure from the seat but not too much. This is mainly breath control combined with keeping good leg contact. Rein is also used but with a curb bit, very little is needed- you don't want to throw up a "wall" for the horse to crash into (i.e. rip his head off).

3) Momentum- Once you begin to feel the horse slow down, you need to almost squeeze him forward a bit (at least on a horse like Max that's used to doing complete stops when I apply a high degree of pressure).

4) Release the Reins- While you give a slight squeeze, you also need to be sure to give the horse his head. It's a weird effect but the horse's head will lower going into the walk and you need to not be so tight on the reins that he's prevented from doing so.

All of the above need to be combined and that's a pretty tall order. I managed to get a few of them "right" but most of my transitions ended up either in an abrupt halt or he would jig a few steps before settling into a walk or he'd trot out.

I'm sure each horse has a different degree of sensitivity to the aids and braking power, as much the same as braking with a small sports car is different from braking with a large truck. They both stop but have different requirements. For Max, we need to train him to understand that he's expected to relax and continue forward at a walk and that it needs to be done at an unhurried pace. This is also going to require me to be more subtle in my the use of the aids. Also, I need to be ready to quickly kick him up to keep him moving if it looks like he's just going to stop.

To a great degree, this is all a matter of timing...

We'll, looks like we have some work to do here. :-)

On the Trail Again...

Today I got lazy and decided to forgo my lesson and head out on the trail. I decided to go on an easy jaunt, up to the sheep pens and back which is about a two-hour ride. This is a favorite of mine and since this is the first time Max has been out on some serious trail since November, this would be the perfect trail course- not too long and offers a mix of up and down hills.

The rains have really rearranged things to the point where a lot of rock has been washed down from the mountains and there was some erosion. The weather was beautiful- full sun and it seemed that the vegetation and plants were in technicolor. Also, since it has been very cold the night before, there was snow on the surrounding mountains and it almost looked like we were in Montana rather than Southern California. It's a scene that rarely comes along so I intended to use it to the max. :-)

I went out with a friend of mine so Max definitely had company but my friend's horse is a mare and she was extremely lazy about moving out, so Max got the honors of being in the lead. Normally, Max is a follower rather than a leader so I had to constantly urge him forward. The green grass along the trail also didn't help- he wanted to stop and snack at every opportunity so I had to keep on him about that too.

We decided to vary our route a bit so we followed the creek along Little Tujunga Canyon farther than I normally would but it was pretty nice. I haven't been this way in at least six months and the vegetation seemed to show it- at several points I had to flatten myself against Max's neck to pass under low branches. We had to cross over some steep creek banks that had been created by erosion but Max was up to the job although at one point I didn't give him enough slack on the reins and he slammed into the bit and stopped short- I had to quickly release and kick hard to get him momentum up again. Lesson learned there- sorry Max!

We finally picked up the trail going up towards the sheep pens and we were soon there after a short, steep climb. We then made our way towards one of the canyon rims- this is an area that used to be covered in heavy brush up until the Station Fire in 2009 but had been burnt over. Now, the vegetation is just staring to come back but now the trail was much wider and the footing improved (looks like someone went over everything with a bulldozer recently, making for more of a road effect).

We the followed the path of what used to be a cross-country eventing course- that was pretty fun and Max really wanted to move out although I held him back a bit. We finally made a complete loop and proceeded to make our way downhill and finally picking up the trail home.

Overall, it was an excellent experience and Max seemed to experience no issues, especially with the legs and hooves. Hopefully I'll be able to get him up the Doc Larsen Trail in the near future. :-)

Looking north towards the sheep pens.

Looking south from the sheep pens towards the San Fernando Valley. The cell camera doesn't do justice to the scene.