A Full Day of Fun

Bill Cameron has competed in many Extreme Cowboy Races.  (He's known for a whole lot more in Northern California - training, judging, competing.)  His ranch is about 90 minutes away and occasionally he opens the gates to the public for Obstacle Course Fun Days.  He has jumps, and obstacles spread out all over the ranch and riders are encouraged to use them all.  It's $40 a person for the day and you can add on a personal training session or a session with cows.  To top it off, there are miles of desert trails to ride.  The terrain is quite desolate.  My iPhone clocked the elevation at 2600 feet.  If you want to feel like you're riding in the old west, this is the place to do it.

We took Dusty and Scratch.  It was a big weekend of horse events around town.  There was a Cowboy Christmas event at one stable, a big barrel race at another.  As a result, we had most of the obstacles to ourselves.

We worked on our horsemanship approaching some of the scarier obstacles.  We worked on our timing going through the crossing obstacles.  Then, we played a game of Follow the Leader with each of us taking a turn at leading.  We went through cones, weave poles, up and down mounds, over bridges and dead fall.

Scratch and I worked the small herd of cows.  We used a breakaway rope and caught our first cow.  Very exciting.

After a short break from lunch, the winter day was quickly closing in, but we managed a 40 minute trail ride around the desert.  We got back to the ranch just before the desert temperatures began to drop.  All-in-all a very fun day.  And, from my last post, a excellent value!

Gaining Teaching Experience

Gaining Teaching Experience

John and Scratch leading a trail ride in San Benito.

It's been an interesting few months as I embark on my "teaching horsemanship" adventure.  A few people have seen my Real Simple Horsemanship Facebook Page and contacted me.  I've given about a dozen lessons or so, and can see the challenges ahead.

People have all kinds of expectations with their horses.  A couple of the people I'm working with want to have a "pet" relationship with their horse.  This is quite likely the most difficult challenge for me to overcome.  I want them to have that "loving" relationship with their horse THEY want, while trying to get the horse to have the RESPECTFUL relationship with the owner THEY need.  This is quite different from my past occupation where "The customer is always right" reigned as a priority.

The horses I've worked with always started with the Downunder Horsemanship Method from the basics.  It didn't matter how much the horse did or didn't know.  We started from the top.  The people I'm helping, don't want to do that.  Even though I encourage them to get the same tools I used to build my horsemanship, they want to skip that part.  My response has been to just keep hammering the safety aspects and to get them safe.  If the learning is a little slower, then that's on them.

The Trail Boss Experience

In early October, I got a call from my friends at the Bar SZ Ranch.  The Bar SZ hosts equestrian events, corporate retreats, and weddings as part of its working ranch operation.  Often, part of the wedding weekends there are escorted trail rides.  They were so busy in October that Ranae and I got to lead a few rides on the ranch.  We took our horses who did a fantastic job leading the way with mostly novice riders.  We also got to experience tacking and un-tacking a dozen horses in record time!

Lots of Riding

It's been a great couple of weeks of riding.  I've been out most every day rotating between three horses - Dusty, Jessie, and Scratch.  It's a great experience to ride three different horses.  Each has their own strengths and weaknesses.

Jessie is solid on the trail.  Nothing bothers her, except she wants to dance with the horse that brought her.  If she goes out alone, she is fine.  If she goes out with another horse and that horse leaves her, she has a bit of a problem.  She is a bit headstrong and likes to go where she wants and doesn't necessarily follow my instructions.  That's given us some things to work on while on the trail.

As far as her injury, I could not be more happy with her performance.  We rode Friday in the mountains - up and down hills - for nearly two hours and the next day she was fine.  The decision to take her to Equine Spa for treadmill conditioning so far has paid off.

Dusty wants to find the easy way out of everything.  He'll go, sometimes you've got to convince him, but he'll go.  If there is something he COULD be afraid of, he'll take that opportunity.  He doesn't make a big deal about it, but he does "worry" very well.

Scratch is Scratch.  He goes almost everywhere now.  That's great.  There was a time he wouldn't.  He's a great mountain horse.  He has a low gear that will power up and down any hillside I've encountered.  I can swing a rope off of him at a lope.  He's comfortable enough that I can build the loop while roping.

Friday we went to the ranch and I rode Jessie in one direction and back for an hour forty-five.  Then, took a break and rode Scratch for over two hours in the other direction.  By the time Saturday rolled around I was quite sore, but took Jessie out for a follow-up ride.  She did great.

The point of all this is to fine tune my training techniques.  I want the horses to all be strong.  If I can pass along Jessie's courage to Scratch or Scratch's willingness to move to Dusty, that would be awesome.  I am hopeful that by riding them all consistently I'll reach that goal.

Working Scratch On the Trail

Scratch, is a horse I have in training.  He was a wild-roaming horse for 9 years and I've been working with him for a year.  The man who owns him wants me to continue riding him and I'm happy to do it.  These wild horse come from what some believe is Morgan stock and they are very even minded.  Scratch is very teachable.

Scratch

I had an early morning breakfast schedule with an old friend and, even though it's been in the 100's here in Bakersfield, I needed to ride Scratch.  I try to take him out twice a week and our rides are usually 2 hours long.

By the time I got home and the trailer hooked up it was noon.  We got out to the river around twelve thirty.  He was already saddled so, along with Buster Brown Dog, we headed down the trail.  Now, most of you probably noticed I didn't mention anything about groundwork.  The man who owns Scratch is a rancher.  While he appreciates groundwork he told me, "John, we gotta have this horse be a ranch horse.  By that I mean, we brush off the mud where the saddle pad goes, throw a saddle on him, and go."

For the last three months that's how I've been training him.  We've done groundwork a few times, but it's after a ride.  While Scratch is a little feisty at times when I first mount, he settles right down and gets to moving.

We would be riding the river trail lone today.  Temps were in the high 90's and we crossed the river at our first opportunity.  This helped Buster cool off and Scratch, who loves water, got to grab a drink early in the ride.

We rode along a single track at a trot.  I worked on collection and he was giving "ok".  Being a wild horse he still focuses on the environment around him.  He was listening though and that's what I was looking for.

The single track goes along the river and there is quite a bit of dead fall to negotiate.  Scratch does this very well.  Very few "natural" things on the trail bother him.

When we come out of the single track, the path widens and is soft, and I encouraged him up to a lope.  He has a smooth motion and was moving along nicely without speeding up.

We crossed a bridge.  He was understandably worrisome.  The ground was different (concrete), there was graffiti painted on the surface.  I encourage him to go and he snorted several times, then stepped slowly onto the bridge.  Carefully he negotiated the crossing and relaxed when he stepped off.

We went back into a trot and for the next 20 minutes we worked on one-rein stops.  Scratch doesn't like to give in the snaffle and this is an exercise I know I have been neglecting.  It was time to but some work in and we did.  Scratch is really good at stopping when I sit, but that's not going to help me if he decides he needs to bolt.  We made a modest improvement and continued to walk, trot and lope back to our starting point.  We crossed the river a couple more times and we considered this a good workout.

I'm Not a Jumper

And, That Doesn't Keep Me from Jumping

Saddling up early Tuesday.

If you wait until you are good at something before you try it, You'll never get good at it.  On the Memorial Day Weekend adventure to the Bar SZ we were able to do a LOT of trail riding.  We arranged to stay an extra day and rode Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

The Bar SZ is 660 acres and trails run throughout the place.  We explored the foothills and along the San Benito riverbed.  Tim and Michelle the ranch managers are Downunder Horsemanship fans and they set up interesting trail challenges on just about every trail.  It's so cool.  You'll be riding along and see a mailbox or square to turn circles.  There was a tire with poles in a star wheel.

In the area they designate "The Willows"  there are jumps and tires and trees to ride around.  There are logs to backup through.  In one area there are three big tree trunks lying on their side.  I wanted to see if I could jump them.  

Jessie and I walked over them first to insure the ground, take off and landing, was safe.  Then we revved up the engines and took off.  This was our first attempt.

It looks horrible, but it FELT huge! (Except for that last one.  That just hurt).  We tried it in the other direction (no video) and it wasn't noticeably better.  

Tuesday morning before our ride, I set up some small jumps in the covered arena.  Ranae and I were in there practicing when we see Michelle Borland, one of the ranch managers, come running up to us.  Michelle is a Level IV certified CHA instructor and has loads of experience in hunter/jumper.  She gave us a few pointers and mainly helped us to not hang on our horses' mouth.

We worked on it for about 20 minutes, then headed off on our trail ride.  I would like to report that our jumping was much improved as we glided from jump to jump.  Evidently, this stuff takes a lot of practice ;)

Riding in a Group and Moving Cows

We headed up north to hang with the gang known as the Downunder Brumbies.  We had rented the entire Bar SZ Ranch for the long weekend.  The Bar SZ was once the home of famed Quarter Horse Doc Bar and is located in a remote area of San Benito County.  The ranch was almost at capacity with forty guests and maybe 30 trailered-in horses.  The group had arranged for certified Downunder Horsemanship Clinician Jeff Davis to spend the weekend with us.  Last year it was a Brumbie helping Brumbie situation which is why I volunteered to do a little clinic on using a mounting block.  It's hard to compete with Jeff.

We arrived late Friday.  The temperature dropped substantially and we opted to socialize as opposed to having a night ride.  Saturday morning Jeff gave a basic horsemanship session.  To my surprise many of the guests were not familiar with the Method.

We watched for a bit then went for an hour long trail ride around the ranch. Jessie was a bit on the muscle and really walking with purpose (not relaxed) down the trail.  I did a number of yields, bending, backing and nothing seemed to purchase an effect.

The afternoon included some Team Penning.  First order of business:  get the cows.  About 10 or 12 of us rode out (including Jeff) to bring the cows in.  All the horses and the energy was fueling a frenzy.  Jeff was riding one of the participants' horses who had no prior knowledge of the Method.  I watched and did my best to mimic Jeff.  He stayed very calm.  We had an opportunity to chat on the trail and he gave me some great pointers.   Jessie calmed a bit but started softening a whole bunch.  The one exercise I've had problems with is the bending at the walk exercise and this was the main one Jeff recommended.

We did the Buddy Sour exercise.  We had twelve horses lined up on the trail and each of us got in a little work.  We managed to get the cows in and do the sorting.  It was a whole lot of fun.  I've posted a bunch of photos on Facebook.  I don't have any on this computer, but I will write another post about my mounting block exercise and the rest of the weekend soon.

Happy New Year

California has been experiencing some very mild weather and we've been fortunate to ride not only Christmas Weekend, but New Year's Weekend as well.  The horses are doing very well.  We took some cones out to the Airpark field and worked on a number of exercises.  These cones were under ten bucks and they are easy to carry.  We can set them up in a flash and they let us do all kinds of exercises with them.   They act as our trees if we are bending.  At the trot we can two-track to weave in between them and at the lope they work well to help us keep a decent circle.

Here are a few photos from the rides:

Ranae loping at the Airpark field.

Ranae and Dusty practising their Steeplechase

Jessie the side-passing monster

Doing circles around our "tree"

Practising our lope-over skills
Hope you are getting to ride!

A December Ride

Ranae went riding with her friend on Saturday because I had the final in my photojournalism class.  I got home around two and was on Jess a little before three.  It was cool, but clear as we headed out.  As soon as we hit the canal we started to trot.  She was a little distracted, but she gave me no problems.  We had none of the struggles we had when we first started going out alone.

I was listening to my ipod most of the way.  It's not the safest thing to do because it makes it harder to hear what's going on around us, but Jessie usually lets me know if something is up.  Well, about 1/2 mile down the canal we start loping.  She's at a comfortable pace and so I ask for a little collection.  My head is down because I'm looking for the give.  Then I move her left two-track stlye, and then right and again my head is still down.  She pops her head up and I can tell she is speeding up so I look up and there across the canal is a pit bull.  He leaves us alone, but it was a bit of a sight.  I turned the ipod back up as soon as we were a safe distance.

We walk and trot a bit farther.  I stop to pick up some stones because I know there are some other dogs up ahead.  Then, we start loping again.  I'm trying to change her speed with my seat and I guess I realxed a bit too much because she hit the brakes and it threw me to the front of the saddle.  We practiced this for awhile and then I looked down and noticed my pepper spray had come off the saddle.  We loped back around to where I thought it had come off and when we didn't find it, we loped back to where we were in our ride. 

We loped and trotted through the fields working on different things and then headed back.  We found the pepper spray a little farther away then I had initially thought.  When I stopped to pick it up I noticed how sweaty Jessie had gotten.  I guess we had done more loping than I thought.  I walked her most of the rest of the way home which was about a mile.

On Sunday Ranae and I rode in the other way and did some "drill team" circles in one of the fields.  It's a good exercise because Jessie wants to go faster than Dusty.  We took turns on the inside of the cricle and both horses did a fine job.  We had the camera and I took a little video of a plastic bag on the fence that we used to practice desensitizing . 

Then we rode past the Mexican's stable and there was a man lungeing his stallion.  It was a nice looking horse. 

Ranae's always telling me how Dusty jumps tumbleweeds when she's loping, so I got her to try and do it in a nice little soft patch.  Dusty knew the camera was on and refused to fully cooperate.

Headed down the canal.

The field next to the Airpark.

Not the best video quality.