Bye Huels, you will be missed by me

I love Huelio, he was not only a lovely boy, sweet as anything, bossy and opinionated but he was fun fun fun to ride, I felt really safe on him. He is just a real 'been there, done that' sort of horse. I think I could have come along very quickly in my riding ability if I had been able to keep him.

One huge and insurmountable problem for my Dad was that Huelio went visiting neighbours on a regular basis, then stood at the fence waiting to be let back in. He could get out but couldn't get back in. He liked visiting the young boys, one down the back of the property and one two doors along, all gained by safe paddocks but as he was creating a problem for Dad I had to make a decision. Take him back to Karleigh or get an electric fence.

Well with Dad, really and truly over it all, and Tony willing to buy an electric fence and repair the old fences, but so unwell that I really hated to add yet another day of yakka to his list, I reluctantly decided that the best thing was for Huels to go back to his 'herd'.

Rocky is missing him, he is seeking out more attention from his people. Will I seek out another horse? Maybe, I do have my eye on one little man atm, we will see how the land lays for the moment, not push my luck, but with fingers crossed I may be able to give another horse a home that will love him to pieces.

KISS Clinic at Bargo

We had a wonderful day out at Bargo with Pieta from Kalimbah standardbreds who demonstrated her methods of natural horsemanship to safely mount and ride a young standie off the track. Shadow is bound for a bright future and he was a lovely boy to work with, I had a little hands on work with him myself and was delighted at his calm response to flexing and finding a safe place with an on the ground one rein stop, for want of a better description.

Once the horse is comfortable in this on ground technique it is a safe place for him during a disturbing moment under saddle. By bringing his head around to his shoulder, calmly and gently, giving him a nice pat and telling him what a good boy he is, reinforces that under saddle this position, which is achieved in the same way with rein, allows him to de-stress and find some safety in your instruction. So faced with say a scarey motorcycle on a trail ride, a one rein stop, placing his head around into his shoulder reminds him that you have the matter in hand and all he need to is wait it out in his safe place for your next instruction, the worse they can do is circle around for a while but will be unable to take flight, buck or spook to any great extent.

I knew of this technique of course and have done some at times myself but have never had the total package explained to me so well before. It only makes perfect sense to reinforce the technique on ground first and I can not wait to start to work with Rock.

Apart from the Saturday being a total mess with the float being hired to me both unroadworthy and too small, an angle float when I had asked if it was a straight load. Rocky just doesn't fit in a standard angle load. He was squished in and I could not tow him for 1 1/2 hours like that.

I got my money back for the float cost, but forfeited the course fee. Never mind, it is all a learning curve, and I will be more careful next time.