Traveling Hippo

This weekend marks the fourth time TC has been off the property in the last five weeks. I'm really throwing everything I've got into fixing this horse's issue with working off the property. He's not bad (anymore) about new places, he's just tense and doesn't know what to do about himself. So this weekend we headed back to my parents' ranch to ride there.

I love riding at the ranch. First, I never have to share the arena with anyone so I can focus completely on him. Second, I can drag the arena myself so the footing is always perfect. Third, it's FREE to haul into, and often people are there so that I can get video. It was rainy so I got no video.

I really want him to be good there. Mostly because my barn doesn't allow trainers to come in, so I'll have to figure out how to ride with someone else. I have someone in mind who comes to the area, but she comes to busy barns where I know he'll be extra nutty. My horse already has a bad reputation, I don't want to make it worse by bringing him over to ride with a trainer for the first time in a place where I know he'll be a nut. So I figured if I can get him good at the ranch, maybe she'll come over there and see him go normally and then we can try him at the busy barns. I do want to get over to that barn.

Afterwards, I walked him down the road a bit,
would love to trail ride him before/after he works

So Sunday morning we hauled over before the rain started. Ugh why is it still raining? Anyway, TC unloads better every place I take him, though he's always screaming. In comparison to the last time he was at the ranch and at the bombproofing clinic, he handled himself quite well. I threw him in the cross ties and quickly tacked him up so that we could ride before the rain started, it was getting windy and the clouds were darkening. I realized for a second that I didn't have my longing stuff or the rope halter I usually use for ground work. Oops. Oh well, I guess that speaks to my confidence?

He walked quietly down to the arena, I mean he stared at everything, but he stayed with me mentally. In the arena we did a bit of ground work while he tried to escalate. He gets insecure and tries to take over the direction of the work. I can calm him down pretty easily with ground work and lateral work undersaddle. So once as I had him relaxed on the ground, I hopped on.

He immediately squealed and boinged a bit, but man does a good leg yield calm this horse right down. And from then on, he just got more and more relaxed!

The background stays the same but the ears
change, I do miss my big bay ears

We didn't work on anything too exciting, we mostly worked on me. I need to get in the habit of riding him for relaxation rather than for energy. At home he's pretty quiet these days, so I can ride him the way I normally ride. I'm an "up" rider/have a hot seat, which automatically adds energy to the horse. It's something I developed riding VERY lazy horses for most of my life (and ugh at the upper levels it's always MORE MORE MORE, you don't want a relaxed GP horse, even if it feels like it's going to kill you). I was one of those riders that could get any horse to run away with me. So that's my default. At home, this works well with TC because we're beyond the relaxation phase and working toward adding more energy into his now relaxed topline to get him to engage and carry himself better.

Then we get to a new place and we're firmly back in the relaxation place, but all week I've been letting myself sit light and get him all revved up. So Sunday we really worked on relaxation and it totally paid off. He got quieter and quieter, even breaking from the trot sometimes. He stayed relaxed even when the horses next door came over to watch him, he stayed relaxed even though someone was using some sort of weed wacker, he just got more and more rideable.

I wouldn't say that we got exactly to the place where he is at home, but we CERTAINLY got to a better place than we did at the horse show, and in the end he was going much better than he's ever gone in a new place. So that's really good progress.

Everything felt super good too, aside from the relaxation. The leg yields are getting easier to ride (not that they weren't before), he maintained throughness in most canter transitions (I, er, broke those a few rides ago), he stayed through on the left side more often (I broke that too), and we played with some fun exercises, like serpentines and spiraling in and out on a circle, as well as LOTS of canter circles since we have problems going from cantering around the outside of the ring to circling. I think TC was a racehorse in another life with how much he loves cantering around the outside of the ring.

He was so curious

Overall I was SUPER pleased, especially because it started raining right as we got back to untack. I'm glad I didn't dawdle too much in the morning.

I'm so glad that hauling out so much is both a) a possibility and b) working. My goal is to have this horse beyond solid at new places and in new situations by the end of the year, providing everything stays on the right track. One of my caveats for keeping him is that he needs to be the horse I want to own- something super chill, easy to handle, and capable of doing some fun stuff on in addition to showing and all that.  And with every trip off the property, we're one step closer to that.