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Groomed and worked Magic today. I lunged him in the round pen. Again, the limp is not noticeable. I am happy about that. I probably will not ride again for a few days to insure this recovery. We worked with the clicker at the trailer. I am training Magic to “target”. The target is an old plastic water bottle secured on the end of a stick. I will present the target, the rest of the time I hold it behind me, and when he touches the target with his nose, I click the clicker, and then give him a treat. The click tells him quickly / immediately “this is what I want” and “you will be rewarded.” I provide some purchased horse treats but I need to remember to try animal crackers on Magic. Most animals like them, they are cheaper, and I can eat the leftovers. It seems that Magic is more interested in the 2nd treat than he is in the 8th. Six may be the optimum repetitions. When I get the targeting working like I want, I just move the target further into the trailer and he will follow.

It started to rain when Magic and I finished. I did not work Newt.

I am noticing a lot of deer in the pastures. This morning there was one in Magic’s little pasture. After I turned him out I noticed 4 deer just over the fence from him. He walked towards them and stopped about 100 feet from them. He just looked and then started grazing. I am glad he is getting this exposure to wildlife as I doubt there was much at the racetrack and he will see lots of stuff later when we are riding trails. Right now there is new grass, short and potent, showing up in the pasture and I think the deer are attracted to it. This grass is potent and horses inclined to founder usually founder on grass when it is in this stage. Mara’s ponies are confined to “dry lot” to protect them from this grass. I will let them out when the grass gets tall and tough.

Afternoon: It rained this afternoon. The horses were wet and eager to come into the barn. Magic was feeling his oats. No sign of the limp. This was the most playful I have ever seen him. He was running, jumping, bucking and rearing. To me he seems very athletic and very balanced. Lisa Molloy’s (New Vocations) only reservation about Magic was something like “he’s just not the best mover”. She explained that the flat knee, extended leg is what they all want and Magic just does not have it. So I have looked carefully at his movement both on the videos and ever since I got him. I just do not see the limitation. Magic does bend at the knee significantly. Sonny Parker, an old roper, saw the video and I mentioned Lisa’s comment. Sonny’s comment was “A horse that bends his knees is not so apt to stumble on rocks.” I always see the conflicts: like “Look before you leap.” and “He who hesitates is lost.” I respect Lisa’s experience and knowledge, after all she talked me into selecting Magic, but I just cannot see Magic’s limitation in motion. And I’ve seen lots of horses at New Vocations that I said “I don’t like the way that horse moves.” so I’m not inclined to accept a horse that does not move good. Magic looks good to me, really good. Especially when he is not limping!

Groomed and worked Magic in the round pen. The limp seems to be better. I don’t think I would notice it even at the trot except that I know he was bobbing his head Friday and I’m looking real close.

I think Magic is getting pretty keen about the target and the clicker. He was lifting a front foot at the trailer. I did not work Newt. Glory had busted out of her stall (glad she did not turn the barn over) and Newt was beside himself. So I just let him out. It was Glory and the ponies. They are about football size to her. Everybody was all right.

The posts for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were everything in the blog was lost in a crash. Always back up your data. On March 7 I restored from a back-up from March 2. So the posts for March 1, 2, 3, and 4 were lost and I am having to recall from memory. You did not miss much except reading about me whining about a limp that Magic developed. I have lost the rides on some good horses due to unsoundness. Little More, Tut, Dodger… just to name a few. So I am gun-shy. I rode Magic to and in the arena on Tuesday, if my memory is correct. This was the first ride to the arena. It is about 600 feet and holds lots of spooks for horses. But Magic watched what was going on and where he was going and walked to the arena. I was very happy about this. He showed a lot of confidence. My happiness was tempered with my concern that I detected a little limp. Wednesday it was worse and I only rode a round or two in the round pen. Thursday and Friday’s work on lunge was just to notice the progress of the limp. I thought it might be a little better Friday. The weather was bad Saturday but I did not see any limp when I turned Magic out. Sunday it was better, almost unnoticeable. I think I wrote the log on Sunday in Notepad.

I did almost exactly the same thing with Magic today as we did yesterday. He was good, just like yesterday. It was foggy which seems to make horses less comfortable than when they can see everything. Magic had a little spook just as we were leaving the barn. There were dogs around and I stopped to get a glove from the little hay trailer that I pull with the four wheeler. Magic took the opportunity to get a bite of hay. When he got the bite, a little odd looking root / stick that I had picked up fell. I don’t think it was visible until it fell and it was odd looking, snake like. Anyway he spooked a little and stepped on my foot. When a horse steps on the handler’s foot it is often interpreted as a sign of disrespect. I expect that I would be described as lenient with animals I train. I have friends that demand the best behavior and they are good trainers. My experience is that when I am very strict, it often has an adverse rather than a positive effect on the animal. So I interpreted the transgression as an accident and took the opportunity to show Magic how cool and level headed I am. I just petted him and told him everything would be OK. And we went on our way with me limping a little bit. (He never has stepped on me before and he has had lots of opportunities.)

I groomed Magic and then we did something different. I walked him out to the arena in the Oak Pasture. We lunged in the arena and he did good. There were lots of distractions. You can see a long way from the arena but there are no houses and stuff like I expect Magic has seen thus far in his life. And Magic was interested in it all. We did not see any elk, deer, bear, armadillos or coyotes but I always expect the horse smells a lot of this stuff that we humans are not aware of. We walked back to the barn and I rode in the Bull Pen. We covered all of the Bull Pen for the first time. We were walking through some tall yellow-brown sage grass. All of a sudden a large yellow-brown cat jumped up about 6 feet in front of us and ran away. This was a perfect opportunity for a big spook. Where I ride I often jump the unexpected animal underfoot. Riding a new horse always creates some level of concern as to what the new horses reaction will be in these inevitable situations. Magic gave the cat no notice whatsoever! I thought Magic has a lot of confidence, but there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. This was the test and he passed with flying colors.

There is one spook situation that seems to effect most horses and I have hit the ground several times in the past few years because of it. It is my own dogs. The horses see the dogs all the time and are used to them but there is a situation that can cause problems. If the grass is taller than the dogs and they are running towards us, when they break out of the grass, the horse often spooks bad. The horse knows something is coming, they can see the grass moving, and when the dogs (labs) break out of the grass, they keep on coming. They are “coming at ya”. Deer jump up in the grass as near or nearer and the horse may spook but not as bad. That is because the deer, rabbit or whatever is running away which is much better from the horses point of view.

Groomed, worked and rode Magic in the round pen and the Bull Pen. The round pen work was very good and he showed improvement in the Bull Pen. There was no spook or bolt at all. I am still only riding 10 minutes or less in the Bull Pen. I need to time how long I am spending at each step in his training. So far we are walk only in the Bull Pen. And I may keep it that way and only increase the gaits when we get to the arena. My arena is a 100 x 200 foot almost flat and level mowed area with no fence or rail. It is about 600 feet from the horse barn and requires going in and out of a lot of different environments and gates with lots of opportunities for spook with a green horse. I may walk Magic out there tomorrow.

Groomed, worked and rode Magic in the round pen and I rode him in the Bull Pen which is a pasture of about 3 or 4 acres. Things went good in the round pen. Magic showed some uncertainty in the Bull Pen and wanted to go back to the gate. He would “veer” towards the gate but never balked or refused to turn away from the gate. Since he was uncertain I kept him busy following imaginary paths around clumps of grass.  I expect he has seen arenas and roads but never a place where it was not obvious where we were going. No problems but this was a time where he did not know exactly what was going on. We only did it about 5 or 8 minutes. We did remember to go by the trailer. When I opened the back trailer gate, he remembered some of our past problems there. But the only thing that was required of him at the trailer today was that he accept a treat.

I groomed, worked and rode Magic today in the round pen. Everything was about the same as yesterday which is excellent. It crossed my mind that Magic is doing very good. He is getting accustomed to the surroundings. He does not spook and he is not timid. I think I will advance faster than I do with a horse that is in the stage I think Magic is in. Maybe Magic is more advanced than I think. His last race was in August 2010, he had some time off, and I think Lisa started riding him in December. I need to ask Lisa if his transition included gelding. The time frame might indicate that. Perhaps Lisa is a good teacher and Magic is a good learner and he is just further along than I thought. He seems to bend on the circle, he takes up a gait and keeps it. I do not have to plow line him when I want to turn. He is, in fact, very enjoyable ride. The only shortcoming I have noticed is that his stop is not what I want. He takes a couple mores steps than I want and he might look around once he is stopped. I would like for him to stop from the walk in one stride, stand square and straight looking straight ahead waiting for the next que. (and hell is full of people wanting ice water.)

When I was young the advice was practice, practice, practice. “Practice makes perfect.” It did not work for me. My experience is that if I cannot get a horse or dog to do what I want, if I keep on trying the same way, things get worse not better. It is not that the animal cannot do it, it is that I am not communicating what I want. Magic knows how to stop in one stride, stand still and square and be alert. I just don’t know how to get him to do it. Yet.

Magic might think “we did this same thing yesterday and now he is asking me to do it again. I must not be doing it right. I’ll try something different.”

So next time we might ride out of the round pen. Probably move to the 3 acre bull pen and ride around.

I have been so happy with our sessions the past two days that I have forgotten to visit the trailer with Magic.