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Re: [RC] Riding an Arab... - Maryanne Stroud GabbaniI'm just starting my 5 yr old on trails in Egypt. He's the fifth horse I've gone through this with, although only one other was a youngster. For the other three, they were just getting used to the admittedly bizarre sights that commonly occur here. Arabs LOOK at things, they even sort of memorise them. Mine, when confronted with a new sight, do the same sort of thing as yours. So I let them look and stand or go forward after a bit, but not to back up. After all, there's no hurry at first, is there. Some of my older horses were barn and arena horses before I started working them on trails and it took them less time to get used to the strange outside world because they were used to the rider. With the youngsters, they have to become accustomed to the rider as well as the outside world, so you have to take it slower.If your Arab isn't used to trails, her brain IS green. I've always discriminated between flat work for muscles and balance, distance work for muscles, tendons, and wind, and brain training. Brain training for my young ones is something that is done at a very slow speed, mostly walking, and often for not such long periods...you don't want to totally overwhelm them. I carry on a running commentary on what they are seeing, not because they understand, but because the description and explanation process keeps me as well as them in the right mental framework and reminds them to listen to me and not to get too caught up in what they are seeing. I get a LOT of funny looks from people here, but they've accepted me as a relatively harmless nut case. The attention part is very subtle but it makes a huge difference. Try to move her slowly closer to the offending object, but make sure that her ears are flicking back and forth to you very regularly. If they are totally ahead to the "scary thing", she isn't paying attention to you and that is a no no. Starting Nayzak on trails is just the way you describe. He has trouble walking in a straight line because his head looks like one of those dogs you see in the back of cars with the head barely balanced on a pin and swinging up and down and from side to side. He stops to question almost every object, building, fallen tree, whatever, that we see on the way out. I explain what it is and that we WILL be passing it under whatever time frame he is comfortable with....and we go on to the next. If I know that there is a particular challenge on a trail, I try to make it on the end so that he's getting tired of looking and he knows home is just after this monster....most of the time I have absolutely NO idea what we will see when we head out though. Comparing the rides on my 6 yr old Nazeer who was at Nayzak's stage last summer, Nazeer is making great progress. Most of the time he moves in a straight line (Thank heaven for small mercies), he's learning to walk on the tiny 12 inch wide paths between fields without falling into someone's corn. Last night we went out alone into the desert and he was great other than the fact that he was not at all convinced that I knew where we were going. And as we were turning the corner from the asphalt road to my dirt farm road, some kids about 10 yards behind him tossed a cherry bomb which exploded right behind us. Nazeer "took off" at a trot and settled back to a walk after about 10 strides. I was extremely proud of him. But it takes time. Maryanne Cairo, Egypt On Wednesday, Jul 16, 2003, at 07:55 Africa/Cairo, Sundaez@xxxxxxx wrote: She does something on the trail that I don't know quite what to do. She =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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