Brief up-date on becoming less intimidated by HUGE Hugh Jackman (Huge Jackman) . While I am feeling less intimidate and have made out a training program to (hopefully) get him from 3-Day powerhouse to Mounted Archery rock star, the intimidation has been replaced by doubt that my training ability will be able to change HJ into what I want for mounted archery . . .however, HJ doesn’t have a lot of options. The wear and tear from his racing days and the 3-Day circuit have left him with a few issues that make him unsellable, so retrain we must --or at least give it a go –
Yesterday I had HJ out for an hour of w/t/c. He was strong, tried to bolt to the barn, became fractious when I wouldn’t let him and was a hot mess by the time we were done . . .most unsuccessful or enjoyable for either of us. After talking to DD and reassessing (and finding out that she hasn’t had him in regular training for “sometime,” AND he’s been living in a stall with limited turnout) --today at her encouragement, I took HJ back to square one.
We did 20 min of in-hand ground work. Then we did 10 min of lunging at a walk and trot. Next I took him to a small arena (DD suggestion since it appears that being out in a big field isn’t normal for HJ except when he goes CC) --in the small arena we worked on standing quietly at the mounting block (pretty good there already), then waiting until asked to walk off. We worked on walking along the fence on a loose rein and not breaking to a trot or wandering into the middle. Often we would do a “one rein stop” and wait for the feet to stop moving and the nose to relax to my stirrup. With a good solid 20 min of THAT, we started figure 8s --deep breath --trotting the long center lines. Every time we did our trotted center line, we did a one rein stop from a trot —when we were doing that pretty well --we went back to a quiet walk and then back to stopping at the mounting block for this old gal to dismount from the mountain.
Once back in the barn, we did not stop for long. Saddle off, chain shank on, and off we went on foot to improve leading —HJ has been planting his feet when led refusing to go forward --not on my watch! We did a bunch of the old showmanship drills the kids used for 4-H. More than anything the jingle of the chain seemed to “cure” the balking in hand. The 15 min of walking cooled down HJ and gave me some needed exercise. All together we did just over an hour.
Much more successful (and rewarding) than yesterday. 300 more days like that and we might have an archery horse.
But I miss my regular rides —William Tell, W, and Max will have to be exercised by the barn girl for awhile --they all love her --at less than 100 pounds, she must be a joy to lug around the pasture compared to me who weighs a bit more.
