Buckaroo Texan Blog

 Last spring I aquiredt a 2 year old quarter horse mare with a couple months of riding.   She is considered to be green broke.  She can stand to be saddled, mounted, walks, trots, lopes both ways and will back a straight line.   Bubbles has a good start riding, but I feel like I am stealing rides, due to she is not halter broke.

 What do I mean by halter broke?  She should lead without dragging behind or running off in front of me, stand tied and be able to move around mostly with her hind end and never tighten the rope.   She should operate off a feel from my hand through the halter rope to her mind to move her feet any direction I direct.  Although you could get her to bend her head softly to either side it had no meaning to her feet or rear quarters.

The first  session I worked with her I introduced her to going around me.  This was all new to her.  She showed a lot of concern, not knowing what I was asking.  I gave her lots of time to take a step or indicate with her eyes or leaning of her weight that she was trying.  It did not take her long to figure out to move around me.  I needed to get her to lead by me so she could pick me up off the fence.   I have a bad knee so I mount all my horses from a fence, block, bumper, log or lead the horse by me to a lower spot than me.  This keeps me from pulling the saddle too much, which I feel is unfair to the horse. Yes, I could insist that they stand for me to climb on sloppy, but I do not.  We got this working for us pretty quick for our first ride together.   

After another couple of sessions I brought out my flag.  This was a big eye opener for her and for me to know she could be pretty scared of things flapping around.   She felt scared enough to bring out some bucking.   It took awhile to work through and let her know she was ok.  Getting her sure about it took repeating the flag work at every session.  She would settle down faster each time I picked it up.  I carried it everywhere we went so she could see that it could be anywhere, anytime.   I really didn’t want to have a plastic sack blow up around her legs and me getting a look at it while sitting on the ground.

She also had a lot of trouble changing eyes smoothly.   She was good about it on one side but when it changed to the other side in front of her face, it would make her throw her head  and jump away from it.   This brace made it hard to get her to take her hind away from me and then cross in front of me and go the other way without being troubled.   She would take off bolting around me hoping that was what I wanted.  I broke it down into bending her neck both directions, taking her hind, one step at a time. We worked on this in the barn, in her pen, just anytime I caught her up.  As this got better and better our work under saddle was smoother and softer.  I worked her from my saddle horse to also get her to take her hind and then her front. She was not able to bolt off around me.  This brace was on her left side only, going counter clockwise, changing back to clockwise.  I also, worked on this against the round pen fence to block her from running from the flag. Since she couldn’t bolt around me and she would stop at the fence, until she felt free to bend her hind and then bring her front, she even tried pawing the ground to see if that worked.  I gently waved the flag and let her figure out where to go.  I worked her in the alley of the barn, going in and out of a stall also, with and without a flag.  This work gave her boundaries and a reason to bend and change eyes.  Now that she has some bend, is confident about the rein meaning to bend and move her feet she has very little brace on either side when we ride.

She is a smart little horse who works at new things at her own pace.  She is one that is very graphic on how she feels about something.  It is great fun to watch the cogs turning and her mind accepting and figuring things out.  She will be bolting, pawing the ground one minute and then licking and chewing with bright eyes the next.   When she licks and chews and her eyes get bright,  you really know  that she is on the right track.

I am looking forward to riding her in the Foundation Class at the Buck Brannaman Clinic in March.  We will get lots more groundwork with a group and Buck can help me refine our movements and work on the braces that are still there at times.