The Good Days are Starting to Pile Up

Making Progress

A little more than a week ago we visited trainer and friend Matt Sheridan in Tehachapi.  Matt is an all around good hand and very knowledgeable in the hackamore.  I was getting frustrated with the hackamore and considering just using my snaffle.  It seemed I just could not get control of Scratch with the hackamore.

Matt walked me through some of the techniques. Bumping instead of pulling and using my legs more were great suggestions.  He told me I needed to release quicker too.

One other excellent suggestion was to ride Scratch in the halter.  "Tie the reins like you would the hackamore, don't worry if they are straight, and just see what happens.", he said.

On the first ride I put him through some basic exercises.  I was much more comfortable using the halter.  He seemed more comfortable in it too.  Then asked him to lope.  He needed a bit of encouragement, but off we went.  What a grand feeling!  We loped around the medium arena and when I asked for the whoa he set his back feet under him and stopped on a dime.

And, there was another plus since my last post.  We have access to two arenas.  Both places were very nice to let me bring Scratch in, but there were things in each one.  One was an old roping arena and had the chute and boxes.  The other had a bunch of obstacles.  Now we'll get to obstacles soon enough, but when Scratch gets going, I did not want to worry about him running into something.  I talked to Helen McKee at our local Rancho Rio Stables and she loved that I was participating in the VHTC.  She's letting me use the round pens and arenas.  The are very nice.  A variety of sizes and we get to practice with a lot of other horses around.  I shot some video today too.  I am getting ready to edit it and hope to have something posted soon.

We are Moving Along

It has been a hectic couple of weeks.  Not only with Scratch, but just around our place.  July is usually when we get our hay in for the year.  This was made more complicated by the presence of Scratch in two ways.  First, we had to secure more hay for a third hungry, hard-working horse.  Secondly, we store the hay at the back of our property and we now had a round-pen and Scratch's pen right in the middle.  But, we got the job done.


We did shoot video of Scratch's 6th ride and I finally got it edited:

 It hasn't all been peaches and creme.  I took Scratch out to an nearby arena and while he was tied there were several scary goings on.  He pulled back, jumped forward and scraped his head pretty darn good.  He'll have another Scratch to add to his collection.

Loping continues to evade us.  He trots easily enough, but no desire to lope.  We'll continue to push ahead.  The hackamore remains a challenge for me.  I am getting some instruction on its use from a local, knowledgeable trainer, Matt Sheridan, but the techniques are challenging.  Once again, we just keep pushing on.  It will come.