Your number one stop for information about the magical, hypoallergenic, American Bashkir Curly Horse breed, Parelli Natural Horsemanship, and how the two harmoniously converge.
About eight months ago, after we had had Sailor for a while and were starting to feel really confident around him, Evan and I thought it would be fun to play with some obstacles. Sailor was doing really well with each of the obstacles and we were having a great time.
What happened before what happened, happened. (Photo Credit: Kyley DiLugi)
This obstacle involved dragging a sled behing your horse. The sled was on a rope which was roughly 30 feet long. Things were going great until they turned the corner and the sled came into view on the right side of the horse. Sailor then bolted and threw a right-brained fit leaving Evan to try to ditch the sled, and ride out the madness. Evan stayed on until things calmed down but his saddle slipped at the end causing an unplanned dismount. A few seconds and one broken wrist later, we totally understood why prior and proper preparation is so incredibly important. We got caught up in Sailor's confidence with everything that we ignored the possibility of him having confidence issues in specific areas or situations. To make things worse, from this moment on, Salior became a lot less confident in any new situation, he started to become very reactive and explosive, and especially blew up whenever the sled was moving around him. We had accidentally created a big problem for ourselves.
While this was a cringe-worthy moment for us, it was a huge growth opportunity for our horsemanship. In adherence to Parelli Principle number 2: Make No Assumptions, we now have a pre-flight plan for Sailor every single time we even think about getting on. Because, we cannot assume our left brain horse is going to be left brain all the time in every-situation. We are working to expose him to more and more new and potentially scary situations on the ground, and have been working on getting him calm, connected, and responsive, both in and out of the saddle. We have also been re-training his brain to respond with respect and without fear to certain stimuli, including the sled.
Evan has been a phenomenal leader and partner for Sailor these past few months and I am pleased to show you the progress he has made. I wish I had a "before" video to show you exactly how fearful he used to be of this activity, but this "after" video really shows how far he has come.
