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Dale Moody the farrier came yesterday. We shod Magic and trimmed CeeCee, Glory, Little More and Roxie. Last time we sedated Magic and he did much better. I would have sedated him this time but I completely forgot about it and I did not have any sedative on hand when I did think about it. We have not ridden as much this month and he has had very little “hammer de-sensitizing”. I did not make the necessary preparations. However, Magic was very good anyway.  He only pulled his foot away once and none of his previous shenanigans. This is excellent progress.

Today we did a little practice trailer loading. Last time I went riding on the Buffalo, it took from 15 to 30 minutes to load him each time. So we need some more trailer training. It took about 30 minutes for him to load today. He did load.

I have taken a more assertive behavior towards Magic recently. His behavior, beginning when he pushed Peggy, has convinced me that he has been testing my resolve. Now if he pushes, I let him know it is not OK. I even whack him occasionally. It seems to be getting the right results.

My one year report to New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program:

I adopted Magical Minister in late January 2011. He was at the New Vocations Lexington Facility. Lisa Molloy was very helpful with all parts of the adoption, shipping, questions and advice. Due to the distance, I adopted him sight unseen. I inquired about several horses. Lisa reccomended Magical Minister. I took her advice. She was right! Magical Minister is the horse I needed. Magic has a lot of confidence and no spook. I live on a remote farm in the Arkansas Ozarks. On our rides we have jumped deer, elk and a bobcat. Magic is cool. He just keeps on walking. All except once when I found out he can really move fast. We were in a pasture with cows and passed a big pile of logs. A little calf was in a nook up in the logs scratching himself. We just happened to walk past his only escape route. The calf bolted and the only direction he could go was directly towards us. Magic moved out of the way, quickly. By the time I hit the ground, Magic and the calf were out of the way. Magic waited and did not run off. He is a good horse.

Magic and I rode with Don and Carol on the Buffalo National River today. We started at Steel Creek at 10 am. We went downstream to Beech Creek and followed it up to the dirt road that goes down the Steel Creek Beech Creek divide. We followed the road south until we could take the trail that goes around the Batesville sandstone bench to the Slatey place. We ate lunch at the Slatey place. Carol’s goal was to see the big landslide but we ran out of time and had to start heading back. We ran into ice storm damage about two miles before we got to the Slatey place. Most of the Buffalo country escaped the ice storm damage due to the influence of the river and the valley. There is a huge difference in the forest that escaped damage and the forest that was damaged. There was only a degree or two difference in the temperatures but that is all it takes in an ice storm. From the Slatey place we went down an old road about two miles to the river. That trial should be named “horse hell trail”. It has washed bad, all the dirt is gone and all that is left is rough, angular rocks about suitcase size. Once we got to the river, it was about 8 miles upriver to Steel Creek. We met three girls with four horses going downstream. Magic does very good on the trails. I rode in the lead for a while on the way back. A horse has to have confidence to lead and Magic can handle it. Magic finished the ride in good condition.

I must admit that there were times that I thought the ride was too long, too steep, too rough and too fast. This is not the first ride that I have thought those thoughts. There are many kind people that have led me on Buffalo trail rides. Ted Spears, Carol Chaney, Peggy Thompson and others have been very generous to share their knowledge of the trails. I am going to go on rides that start later, go slower, and have more rest stops.

Magic and I took the same ride today as we did Tuesday. We looked hard but found no sheds today. I did notice (perceive?) that we might be improving just a little bit. I hope. At least that is what I felt today. Like we might be making slow improvement. All we have to do is keep it up for a long, long time and we will be very good. We are working on bending his neck, giving me his head when I ask for it. Clinton Anderson does it a lot, too much I think sometimes. (Maybe that is because he can do it and I cannot.) Magic will give his head but is very persistent about moving his feet. I don’t like to keep trying something without improvement so I switched it up a little bit today. I asked him to bend his head, just a little, while we walked straight ahead. True to previous experiences he is more inclined to bend to the left than to the right. But he did do it, just a little.

Tomorrow we are off to ride the Buffalo. We will ride with Don and Carol Miller starting at Steel Creek.

It was cold, 21 degrees, but not windy this morning. Magic and I rode in the Oak pasture, up on Shirey and in the arena. He was well behaved but the frost put a keen edge on his attitude. Magic does test the situation occasionally. His rebellion is most often balking. I just wait and give him some time. With his good nature, his decision has always been to go ahead. He does it less now than at first so it is not a problem. It is just part of the process of becoming a good horse. We had not been up on Shirey for some time. The deer hunters have a huge very tall “blind” out in the middle of the field. It does not bother Magic but he did give it the eye. The oats we planted for the deer are thick and tall. I let Magic graze a bit. Riding around the perimeter, I spotted a shed. (A shed is an antler voluntarily relinquished by a male deer. They shed antlers every year.)  Then we went down to the arena to do some exercises. There I spotted another shed. This one was a spike, more difficult to find because it is considerably smaller. I left the shed on the ground planning to come back and pick it up after the ride. York was following along behind us and when he passed the shed, he noticed it. I jumped off Magic and encouraged York to pick up the antler and bring it to me. And he did! I like to end on a good note so we all went back to the barn. The ground was frozen and Magic’s footsteps were louder than normal. It was a good ride. The sun was shining.

Magic and I rode again today. It was very windy but Magic is level headed. One day I had parked the four wheeler in the lane so the horses had to pass it. It was windy that day also. The other horse snorted and squeezed past on the other side of the lane as far from the booger as possible. Magic walked between the booger and the fence on the close side and never gave it a second look. We are making improvement with the flexing. We rode in the Ash pasture again.

We have high hopes for improvement this year. I hope to learn a lot from Paul Roten. Magic and I have made enough progress with the basics (trail riding, loading, trust, etc.) that we are in a good situation to learn.

Magic and I rode today. Very nice weather. I have not ridden much recently because of the holidays and cold weather. Magic was very good. We just rode in the Ash pasture. Glory and the girls are in the Oak pasture which means we would have to open and close two gates and worry about Glory’s very infrequent but very powerful horse kicking. I will fix a ride around for that soon because the grazing in the pasture is valuable and I like to ride up on Shirey.

I have had some thoughts about Magic’s disrespectful pushing. Recently he nipped me when I walked past his stall. My memory of how Magic acted when he first got here last February does not include this behavior. I have noticed the past month or so Magic has started being more assertive in the herd. At first he was very passive and enjoyed Little More because Little More is even more passive than Magic. Now they both are being more assertive getting in tight spots with Newt and nipping him and trusting that it is play and they won’t get killed. It was so serious at first with Little More that he would plead with me to let him stay in the barn lot and not have to go into the pasture with the crowd. I just left him loose and he never caused any problem unless the ponies were out with him. They led him down the driveway and down the road one day. A neighbor saw them and came to tell me. I was not here but it worked out anyway because they all followed him to the house. Now some days I will leave Little More in the barn hallway and take the others to the pasture. I shut the gate and meet Little More coming to be with his buddies. It took Little More four years to get this much confidence. Little More, Magic and Newt are all Thoroughbreds off the track. TB’s have a nice childhood with their moms in a pasture but that is the end of normal horse life. They stay in a stall except when they go to the track to exercise or race. Little More ran 54 races in 6 years. He had no experience with mature horses in a social setting in a pasture. I think it takes lots of time for them to “settle in”, even years. I think Magic’s learning how to get along and not be so passive in the herd led him to try the same thing with me. I do not have a strict, follow the rules relationship with animals. My dogs go to work with me and everywhere without a leash. I do my job and they do theirs which is mostly sleeping and greeting the rare visitor. But we do not have a routine where I say “sit” and they sit down and do not move until I say so. (That’s boring, especially when somebody is showing me how obedient their dog is.)  Anyway, that is why I think this behavior showed up in Magic at this time. I do understand that it is unacceptable behavior and we will get past it.

Magic and I rode up to the spring on Pinnacle Mountain today. Nice bright, cold morning. Magic was at the top of his game and was not interested in practicing. He used up most of his patience and good will yesterday so we mostly just rode. Today he had plenty of exuberance and almost more energy than we could contain. He was very determined to show me his jog trot. He is a good boy and never did a wrong thing. It was a good ride. Invigorating.

Magic and I worked on our exercises this morning. I have been lucky to achieve success in my efforts training bird dogs. It did not come easy. It took close to 30 years. My definition of bird dog training success is that they will point and hold birds. I worked at it with plenty of good dogs for 20 years but I never was certain that they would not bust birds. And they very often did. In my last years of bird hunting Roger Harness and I had from 10 to 14 very good dogs. They all would hold birds. We usually got a pup or two each year and at the end of the first year of hunting, they would be trustworthy. And it was no trouble at all, just fun. Since success was so difficult to obtain, I reflected a lot on what made success happen. (I learned a lot from friends that were good trainers and we finally found a place with enough birds.) I never identified the key to our success but I did recognize one huge difference. We expected the dogs to point. The doubt was gone.

Magic and I have not gotten there yet but we’re on our way. Magic stood perfectly still when I mounted this morning. (!?) The bending of the neck has improved. He often would turn but stop sooner. Once or twice I was able to ask for the bend and he gave it without moving his feet. We’ll see what happens tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to it.

I worked him in a halter this morning rather than the snaffle bridle both on the ground and while riding. I was surprised that he seemed to be more responsive to the halter. It is a rope halter with two knots on the noseband. I tried to ride bareback but he is a little too tall for me to mount without stirrups even with the mounting block. I want to train him to position himself for mounting when I climb up on something. I did that with Glory just to get my foot high enough to find the stirrup.

When I rode with Paul Roten Sunday he had two suggestions that I am working on. The first was for Magic to bend his neck laterally. The second was to work on Magic’s inclination to push me around when I am on the ground, particularly when he is nervous. The suggested solution is to keep my feet still and get Magic to move his feet. Another solution to the pushing is to control his tendency to move past me by stopping him with the bit. I worked with Magic on the ground yesterday. Today we did the ground work and I rode him for a short time.

Flexing his neck laterally seems to work good on the ground either with the rope halter or with the snaffle bit. When I am mounted and we are stopped, I ask for him to bend with the rein and place my hand holding the rein solidly on my leg. His reaction is to flex his neck and move his feet in a circle in the direction of the bend. He seems to give his head enough that there is no pressure on the rein as long as his feet are moving. When he finally stops circling he puts pressure on the rein. I hold my hand solid waiting for him to give. He may give but he starts moving his feet again. The desired behavior is to give to the rein and stand still. He is supposed to do both at the same time. Instead, when he gives to the rein, his feet are moving. When he stops his feet, he puts pressure on the rein. I have to be very patient and wait for the short instance where he does both and then give the rein. It is not so much an intended action on his part but an accidental coincidence when both happen.  We are working on it. I can tell he gets impatient after this goes on for a long time but he is a good horse and does not explode.

Correcting his pushing seems to go pretty good. Of course it is very helpful that he does not do it much when we are here at home. So I am putting more effort into having him stand untied and stationary while I groom and tack up.

We are being very deliberate with these exercises. We don’t do much else and the session is short. I hopped off in the pasture and removed the saddle and bridle. Kind of like a reward. He took off and cantered into the barn. Well, maybe he did enjoy the release.