Tails From Provence
What happens when a horsemad Ould Wagon moves from Cork to Provence with 2 horses, 2 dogs and a Long Suffering Husband? Why, she gets a third dog, discovers Natural Horsemanship à la Française, starts writing short stories and then discovers a long-buried talent for art, of course…
November 14th
I’m usually behind the camera, so when I dragged the LSH along for a hack on Saturday, I handed him the camera and asked him to take a few pictures.
We went through the woods towards Reillanne, to meet MC, who was riding up to the farm. We have a particular spot where we usually meet, roughly halfway along the trail.
Waiting for our friends
Um, yes. I’m riding Aero in the halter. He prefers it. I’m a mug.
MC, Quieto and Doug the dog turned up a few minutes after us and we continued on our way back towards the farm. There were hunters in the woods on the other side of the road, hence the Hi-Viz vests. I really should invest in a proper ‘Hunting Orange’ vest. Frankly, it’s dangerous out there. There has already been one fatality in the area, in the department d’Isère, not far from us, when a hiker was killed by a hunter.
Quieto, Aero and Flurry are all good buddies and now expect to meet up at the halfway spot every time we go there.
It’s nice to have a couple of photos of MC and I together! MC then offered to take a photo of the LSH and I. But of course we had to clown around – “Kiss! Kiss!” she said…
The horses were very obliging…
…but a little bemused at the same time!
When we got back to the farm, I wanted to take advantage of my cameraman again. I asked him to take photos of Aero’s new tricks.
He’s been standing on the ‘pedestal’ (also known as the mounting block) for some time now, in-hand and mounted.
Standing on his pedestal – Flurry does this too
I didn’t know how to get started with Jambette or Spanish Walk, so I asked Alexandrine for advice a while back. She suggested standing him some distance from the ‘pedestal’ and ask him to step onto it, but not allow him to move forward. It only took a couple of sessions for him to get the idea of throwing out his front feet, and he will now Jambette in-hand anytime, anyplace. Sometimes unasked (not a good thing!). Now he can chain together a sequence of 4 – 8 steps while moving forward in-hand – yes! Spanish Walk! Flurry has also been learning this, but he’s not as far along as Aero. Yet.
This was my third session asking for Jambette mounted. I think I can say he’s got it.
Jambette – the beginning of Spanish walk
I have a notion of having Aero standing on the pedestal and Jambette-ing while up there, so we had a go. This was our first attempt ever, and I was very pleased when he gave me a good ‘try.’ I think he is not fully confident in the stability of the stone, so I am going to work on making a better (and moveable) pedestal.
This is the first time he’s ever done this!
I felt that the mounted Jambette he had already given me and this effort on the pedestal were enough for one session, and I rewarded him with a piece of carrot and finished up.
Yes, this was one day after the Paris attacks. Yes, we were having fun. But, yes, our thoughts were with the victims and their families throughout the day.
Life goes on. Otherwise, evil wins.
Four Years on
My friend Anne reminded me that it’s exactly four years since we took the momentous step of removing our horses’ shoes. Today I went for a three hour ride with two friends. I thought it might be interesting to share some photos with you, to show you just what sort of terrain my barefoot horse now takes in his stride.
Tacking up at the back of MC’s house. Flurry in the foreground, Shadiyah behind him and Quieto hidden at the back
There was one shod horse (Shadiya, the bay), one horse wearing front boots (Quieto) and one horse that was 100% barefoot (Flurry).
We started off on a gravelly road. It was noticeable that the two unshod horses chose to go along the grass verge where possible. In fact, gravel is the surface that Flurry likes least.
Then we went through some woods, descending steadily. The ground here was mostly damp and muddy, with a couple of steep stony stretches. I noticed Shadiyah slip a couple of times but the two boys were fine.
We came out onto a road for a short while, crossed a river and started going up a hill on the other side. This, to me, seemed like the worst ground, but Flurry took it in his stride.
Shadiyah, the shod horse, slipped really badly on the smooth rocky stretch you can see int front of the riders in the photo below. She very nearly went down completely. That’s one huge disadvantage of shoes.
We took a short break before tackling the last part of the climb towards Lincel.
Then we had a nice grassy, leaf-strewn trail. The building at the side is called a Borie. They are used for storage all over the place here.
Back onto a tarmac road, climbing up to Lincel.
We stayed on the road for at least a kilometre, then we had to climb back down into the valley. The trail was not any better… On ground like this, I leave the reins loose and let Flurry choose where he puts his feet. Within reason. He has a penchant for walking along the edge of cliffs 😦
Home again, after three hours, probably about 15 kilometres, in 20C temperatures. We had three very sweaty horses.
Despite that, Flurry was in great form when I turned him out after his shower!
Pauline Beulze Clinic Part 3
(Finally!)
The ‘body’ of my lesson with Pauline was spent working both horses together, with me riding Flurry and leading Aero. The ultimate goal is to have Aero at liberty, so once we’d done our stuff with him on the lead and identified what areas we need to work on, we decided to take ‘unhook’ him.
“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
I’ve now modified the above quote.
“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, hunt it down from the back of a horse and feed it carrots until it stays with you.”
Like I said in the video subtitles, the biggest takeaway I had from the day with Pauline was the idea of breaking a task down into tiny, tiny steps. Literally. Earlier in the day, I was watching someone else’s lesson. Stephanie has owned Rivaldo for about a year now and has been doing loads of in-hand work with him. Rivaldo has developed a huge amount of trust in his ‘mum’ (he has quite a history) and they’ve even done a few Equifeel competitions. With Pauline, they took their first steps towards working at liberty.
Rivaldo follows like a lamb when he’s on the lead, but the minute Stephanie unclipped it he knew he was free, and he wandered off to investigate grass growing under the arena fence. Once they got him back beside her, Pauline’s advice was:
“Take one step, stop, and reward him.”
This worked. Rivaldo ate his carrot and absorbed what had just happened. Staying with mum is good! Then it was two steps… then three… then a turn, on either side. And that’s the start of it.
And it’s exactly the same for me and the Boys. Ask a little; praise a lot; acknowledge every attempt. I’ve been applying this to the new stuff I’ve been teaching Aero ever since, and it’s working a charm. There will be a video soon 🙂
Pauline finished our session by showing me how to use two sticks with the horses when doing work on the ground. This is something I had already done with Aero on his own, but she pointed out that it’s the best way to work two horses together, especially when I have an enthusiastic horse and an unmotivated horse!
The whole day was great, I stayed and watched everyone’s lesson and learned a lot. Huge thanks to Pauline for her time, expertise and patience; to Alexandrine for organising it; and to our regional board for subsidising it.
Oh lordy, maybe I need to post this in French as well so that the appropriate people will read it…
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Tails From Provence 