Opening communication lines....

What a couple of weeks for me.  I've been out with Ernie nearly every day, in one way on another.  What a happy boy am I!  And we've been everywhere it feels.  Highlight definitely being 2 and a half hours out going to the Swanley gallop with Sophie, who borrowed Marble - Ernie's new best friend by the way! Excepting yours truly of course! ;-)

I have now done some more lunging, properly this time, without losing all coordination, without feeling sick and without risking physical injury at the hooves of my pride and joy.  So what is this illusive grail, what lock do I hope will be unpicked by the subtle whip-lick from the lunge line, it is voice activation.  We've talked of that before.... its been a constant theme I think.  It is the way I have always enjoyed working, but have only every achieved it with some of the horses I've ridden down in the Pyrenees.

So after my first lesson we're making some progress I find a way of say KAAAN-TA which seems to hit the spot - walk and trot already working.  Though stopping him seems to be a little challenging, or at least I can stop the canter, stop the trot, but the walk just keeps on-going.  Weird.  I am beginning to realise voice commands need two distinct syllables.

So we take these learnings out into the woods where they have slowly taken on new life.  At first we had to be very demanding, so I rapidly became more the Horse-Bellower than Whisperer of my dreams, but....  As a hack-horse Ernie has now become almost completely voice activated, in two weeks, gentle squeeze and say the word.  To the extent that when I tried to take him for a gallop over the golf course, I forgot to ask and just kicked him so he tried to throw me off, so I kicked again this time he tried harder to unseat me - we definitely have established a clear two channel of comms and I ignore his at my peril!  Despite being a big horse I think he demands gentle handling - he's not so much dead to the leg but irritated by too much of it.

I am trying to listen more and more to him, rather than tell, tell, tell.... The fuss I make the less he does, the more heavy handed I am, the more he resists.  I try more and more to accept everything as a communication, he is honest and tends to act with purpose, so I now I always seek the intent.  We end up in a much happier place. 

I took him out on his own yesterday beyond the safe confines of Joydens, across golf course, roads and farm land.  What an experience, yes he was jumpy ... builders dropping scaffold poles, farm shop shoppers emerging a little too enthusiastic about their organic acquisitions, itinerant eastern Europeans farm workers working where they don't work at weekends but .... that's a lot to get through without the safety of fellow equine company!!

So notwithstanding the challenges of young-green-horse having to put up with a rider whose competencies are the wrong side of intermediate (in text book terms) I personally have to observe that my time with Ernie ever more rewarding, every time we work he gives more, I think the feeling is mutual.  Really it feels like we can take on the world (but i'll probably leave that bit to Sophie!!).

The dizzy dummy.

So I'm now learning to lunge.

Officially it starts mid-week.  Unofficially it started on Saturday.  My good friend Leighton offered me a first taste.  Despite a lot of man-handling sadly I could not quite stay still.  Particualrly as the drunken giddiness kicked in.  I ended up completely seasick, L taking the lungeline from me and trying to assume control whilst I was stumbling around trying to even take two steps in the same direction..... get out of the way.... yeah right!

More like, wobble telle-tubby, wobble Tinkie-Winkie.... wobble towards the hooves of that cantering horse!

He had said to keep looking at the horse, I did, but i was also determined to take in the beautiful spring morning scenery around me.  Or was I trying to check for some kind of validation from the gawping gallery.  The rest, history...

Was I pleased with my first steps into horsemanship ... well I kept my breakfast down! 

I was Laurel, to Leighton's Hardy on this morning. 

The real thing'll kick in this week.  Light breakfasts planned.