If you are starting here, you have missed her first 4 months of training. See The Trouble With Ariel to start at the beginning.

ARIEL HAS GRADUATED from her small enclosure and joined her friends in the big paddock again!

She has progressed from a crazy, wild little horse to a compliant, manageable horse during the first 4 months of handling her. If you want to see her training from the beginning see:
The Trouble With Ariel.

Ariel has been led to all parts of the ranch and watched all types of activities. She’s learned to share an apple and take a carrot. She is becoming braver about asking for attention or her treat. She stands quietly at the grooming post alone and with horse friends. She moves toward us to accept her halter. Signs of the wild, crazy horse are disappearing. Signs of the contented pony are surfacing.

The weeks are flying by and getting confused. Ariel and Rose are working on several exercises at once.
We’ve had a week of mostly cold weather, rain, and only intermittent training. It’s good for the ponies to have a break. We’ve mostly haltered, grazed, groomed and spoiled.

As the rain has abated, we’ve started working on a couple of new exercises such as learning the lateral flex and disengaging her rear to “intention pressure”. We have not yet started exercises that require her to move away from us (such a line-lunging). We’ve worked so hard to gain her trust. We want that to be solid before we ask her to move away, but that is the next step.

Ariel learns the Lateral Flex.

She’s becoming a pro at this. It was not much of a challenge for her, and you can see in the video her signature yawn.

The exercise requires that her trainer pull her head around to her girth, releasing the pressure the moment she feels Ariel give a little nod in the direction of her midsection. At first Ariel thought she should bring her whole body around, but it took her no time at all to realize that she needed to just flex her head in the direction of the pull.

This exercise is the foundation of a light lateral turn. Our ponies don’t wear bits, so we like them to be as light as possible in the face for the kids to give them directional cues until they learn more body cues.

 

Teaching her to disengage her rear was no challenge.
She actually learned to disengage to “intention” pressure during her first two weeks of training when she was asked to trot around the round pen, then turn and face us when she stopped.

Her natural instincts were harnessed. She was fearful about having us behind her. We moved around her, looking intently at her haunches and adopting a forward body posture that honed in on her rear. She moved it away from us. We stopped and let her realize that facing us was what was required. Exercise accomplished.

 

Introducing the Surcingle was anti-climactic.
She acted like she’d worn it all her life. There’s no doubt that she has built a trusting relationship with Rose, and it is nearly impossible to alarm her.

Rose de-sensitized her to the surcingle as she would any other new object, then placed it on her back. That process took all of 3 minutes.
Then we added the cinch in stages, touching her underbody to let her know we were there. Lifting the cinch, and then tightening it slowly.
She was unrestrained throughout the procedure. She could move around if that made her comfortable.
You can see how quickly she realized that it would not hurt her.

Accepting a saddle
When it was time to see how she was going to take to the saddle, we were again amazed.

Ariel did not care about the “mountain lion” on her back wrapped around her chest. She was unrestrained and allowed to see, touch, smell the new object.
She stayed cool as a cucumber.

We know for sure she was wild and untouched when we started, but no one would believe it.

Today is a milestone. We’ve watched Ariel become a gentle and trusting little horse. We can handle all parts of her body. During this last few weeks, we have spent a lot of time with our bodies close to her body. We’ve lain across her back, handled her from both sides, even put our foot up on her rump.

Accepting a rider
We break “Backing” into two parts:
First is the use of “Fancy Britches” as your surrogate so that no one gets hurt if she gets crazy. If we’ve done our job right, there should be very little problem.

Unrestrained, she is introduced to the strange rider that will mount, dismount, and mount again from both sides of her body. She’s curious and a little bit tense when it flops its way into the saddle. The “thighs” of the Fancy Britches are stuffed with hay; the “calves” with boat bumpers. It’s surprising how naturally they move. With motion from the pony, the bumpers rock against her body just like a human.

Ariel was not sure she could trust the Britches “rider”. She got scared and began to run away from the half-human on her back. But Rose stepped in front of her drive line, and calmly asked her to stop and come in, where the pressure of the “rider” was removed. (If you use this method on a big horse, be careful that they don’t knock you down in their drive to get to the comfortable place next to you.)

Accepting a rider Part 2 – Actual human mounting
We’ve conquered wearing a saddle. We’ve conquered the half-rider. Now it’s time to see how she takes to having a human on her back.

Rose is a little heavy for Ariel to carry on a trail ride. I’m sure that these little horses carry more weight than Rose up and down the hills of Iran. But, Ariel has had no physical conditioning to speak of. We like to limit riders to 20%-25% of the weight of the pony. That’s hard. Most riders capable of keeping the pony in good training fettle are too heavy to ride consistently – especially if you add 15 lbs for a saddle.

Ariel performed this lesson like she was born to it. It’s a huge testament to how much she trusts Rose. She moves to her for approval and reinforcement twice in this sequence. And during most of the video she is standing with her back leg cocked in relaxation mode. If that isn’t impressive enough for you, be sure to start Ariel’s story from the beginning when she came to live with us as a 7-yr-old, never-been-touched horse. She had been handled only for transport.

Line-lunging Ariel is finishing her basic ground work. Usually we teach line-lunging very early in the training schedule, but we didn’t feel that Ariel was ready for that because we did not want to disturb her “close” behavior. She’s started it but is not perfect at it, and we don’t have a video yet.

The most important part is to see how Ariel changed over time and how happy her life is now. When Rose’s niece, Aurora, comes to visit, I expect her to ride her for the first time.

Well, Covid-19 certainly made a mess of our plans. Ariel has not been ridden by Aurora. We had to suspend those lessons. However, Ariel has become an amazing horse. And she now has a new baby: Kristull Supernova. She was born in late April, and was imprinted from the start. I don’t think there will be any “problems with Nova”. Ariel has even helped teach her that people are her friends by leading her to us in the pasture when we come to socialize the group. Who would have guessed?

The picture to the right is Rose with Ariel and her daughter Nova at 1 day old. Below is Nova at 4 weeks old.

It was a long road, but there will be many Happy Trails for Ariel and her little daughter.

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