WELCOME!! This is the first post from FjordNewbies, our newest Guest Writer/Ghost Rider. She and her hubby Mark have recently gone from owning zero horses to owning three and one-half Norwegian Fjords, which they basically rescued from a prior owner who could no longer support them. FjordNewbies’ posts will follow her exciting newbie experiences learning to manage and train unbroke horses and anticipating an upcoming foaling! More about FjordNewbies on our Guest Writer’s page…
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During a Labor Day Weekend canoe/camping trip, we found out from
friends of ours that they knew of a family looking for a new home for
their three Fjord horses. Within the week, we stopped by to look at
them and fell in love! We researched the Fjord breed and felt that
they would be perfect for us to have as first horses. The next week
was spent getting the yard ready for their arrival. We fenced in an
area next to our garage and a large potting shed. The area had
formerly been lawn. Mark expanded the potting shed to house 3 stalls
with removable walls. We cleared out one of the bays in the garage
to store hay, feed, bedding, tack, etc. Then we went shopping! We
have only been buying the things we need for what we are working on
at the time. Our first shopping trip was for bare necessities -
halters, leads, water buckets, rakes, shovels, hay racks, etc. Oh,
and hay!
Never having looked around for hay before, we asked everyone we saw
if they knew a good place to get hay. That late in the season, most
of the leads we got were sold out of horse hay, or only had small
quantities. Plus, we had no place to store it. Plus we had NO idea
how much hay to buy! Thankfully, one of our neighbors heard of our
dilemma and offered to not only sell us hay, but also store it for
us. We only have to go there every month or so and pick up what we
need. We have an enclosed 24′ trailer, so we make a few trips up the
road with the pick-up, and once the trailer is full, we drop a check
off for what we took. This had been a life-saver for us, not only
for space reasons, but also for the budget. Instead of having to
come up with a lump sum for a whole winter’s worth of hay, we have
been able to “ease” into it this year.
By October, within 3 weeks of meeting the horses, they were in their
new home.
Sive - 12 year old mare, 795 pounds, half sister to Kirsti and Bjorn
Kirsti - 5 year old mare, 720 pounds, full sister to Bjorn
Bjorn - 4 year old stallion, 685 pounds, full brother to Kirsti
Kirsti and Bjorn in October, after a month of eating a bale a day apiece! Even so their ribs are still visible…
We began feeding them 3 bales of hay a day to increase their weight
(probably the only Fjord horse owners trying to do so!). [ED.NOTE: That's
for sure, all the fjords I've ever seen were plenty plump!] We started
feeding them all together in the same place, but it became apparent
the first day that Sive was a food hog and pushed Kirsti and Bjorn
away. So Mark put up the stall dividers and the hay racks, and for
October and November we fed them their own hay in their own stall to
ensure that everyone was getting their fair share.
The grassy paddock area worked well for about the first 3 weeks. We
had stopped mowing the lawn when we knew the horses were coming, so
they had quite a treat when they arrived. All went south, though,
the weekend we had a few days of rain in a row. The mud was
unbelievable! So our next project was to figure out what to do about
it. After a few days of research and stopping to talk to other horse
owners about what they use for footing, we decided to get crushed
stone dust. We put down 3 inches of sand, and then 3 inches of the
stone dust on top. We love it! So much easier to pick up manure -
the stone dust just falls through the rake. It took about 2 weeks
for the footing to settle and now they have a level footing that
keeps their hooves dry!
Kirsti, Sive, and Bjorn in December
The stone dust footing also makes it much easier to blow the leaves.
Of course our paddock area is surrounded by red maples and oak
trees. We did not have an opportunity to take the trees down before
the leaves started falling, so each morning and evening we would
spend a few minutes blowing the leaves out of the paddock. Removal
of those trees is our first priority this spring! [ED.NOTE: Wilted red maple
leaves can be toxic to horses-- we're glad FjordNewbies realized that!]
October was spent getting the horses settled. And getting to know
them. Friends of ours have a teenage daughter, Katie, that has
always wanted horses, so she would come over every day after school
and help groom. Typically, Fjords’ manes are trimmed quite short, to
enhance the shape of the neck and show the stripe of black going
through the white mane. All three of them had natural manes, and I
enjoy combing their manes so much, we will probably keep them like
that, unless we ever decide to show them. Mark, Katie and I would
take all three of them on halter/lead for long walks on the trails
behind our house. We learned a lot during those afternoons.
Closeup of Bjorn
Kirsti and Bjorn had not had a lot of grooming experience, cleaning hooves
was a nightmare at first. Kirsti insisted she would fall over if she
were made to stand on 3 legs. Bjorn was fine with his front hooves,
but wanted nothing to do with his back hooves being cleaned. He
would kick. So, we worked slowly with the two of them, did what we
could each day, and by the time the farrier came in November, both of
them would at least tolerate hoof handling. I am proud to announce
that now, in December, both of them willingly give us their
hooves. Mission accomplished!
Kirsti the younger mare, Bjorn’s sister
During our walks we also learned a lot about their personalities.
Kirsti can’t stand to be behind. If Sive and Bjorn get ahead of her,
she freaks out. She is also the biggest bully of the three. She
hasn’t quite learned about “space” issues yet.
Bjorn is low man on the totem pole. Sive, as alpha mare, has
definitely taught him what’s what. He’s the last one allowed at the
salt lick, the last one at the water bucket, and if he gets out of
line, he gets a swift kick.
Sive, the 12 year old mare!
Sive is very mellow. She’s was obviously handled much more than
Kirsti and Bjorn. She does anything you ask her and is a great role
model for the youngsters. The one thing on the back of our minds
though, is a comment that was made when the horses were dropped off.
We were told, “By the way, Sive may be pregnant.”
Coming up… Vet and Farrier visits (November/December 2008)
FjordNewbies says:
As new horse owners, Mark and I are experiencing everything
for the first time. We are trying to filter all the wonderful
information we find regarding raising horses, and we hope our posts
on Connie’s blog can be a help for any other newbies out there. Hope
you enjoy our adventure as much as we do, and feel free to pass along
any suggestions to dragonmctt@mac.com .
These Friesians were in the Novice Rider Open Pleasure Championship class at Deerfield Fair Horse Show in September, and the judge liked them pretty well. One Friesian ridden hunter seat took the Championship and another Friesian placed fourth.
Friesian showing at the trot in Novice Rider Open Pleasure Championship class, in the rain.
The 3 black Friesians are easy to spot among the other horses in the ring. This video shows clearly the difference in gait action and self-carriage between the Friesians and the other horses. All 3 are ridden hunt seat.
Two of the Friesians in the lineup awaiting placings.
Victory pass for the Reserve Champion (placed second) and then the Champion, a Friesian horse in Open Pleasure at Deerfield Fair, NH.
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I must say something about this class placing however… traditional “Hunter Pleasure” showing emphasizes a long-strided and lower-headed way of moving for the horse, which is NOT a Friesian’s natural way to move and is not the way this Friesian moves. I DO have to question the judge’s choice for first place, given what I believe are the criteria for a hunter!
That being said however, since this is a “Novice Rider Open Pleasure” class (open to all breeds and disciplines), perhaps the horse having a pleasurable way of going carries more weight with the judge than discipline-related criteria. And also perhaps the rider’s performance is being judged, in a Novice Rider class…
Emmie did many hunter pleasure classes with our Arabian mare Willy, who also naturally moves with her head held a bit high and with some elevation in her gait. Emmie often placed well in “Open Pleasure” classes but did not generally place well in “Open Hunter” classes, where she competed against thoroughbreds or TB-type quarter horses, who can easily achieve a classic hunter frame because of the way they are naturally built and move. But Em did very well with the mare in “Breed” classes showing hunter (pleasure and equitation) against other Arabians and half-Arabians, where the playing field was more level for that breed.
I was intrigued with this lady performing with her Andalusian stallion at liberty (Equine Affaire, MA. in November). Her demonstration was more like a dance than anything else, a little reminiscent of Cavalia which I had the great good fortune to see in 2005. Apparently she came from a circus background. The horse is trained to visual body-language and verbal cues. She explained many of the concepts behind her training techniques.
The “dance” with her horse… who is “allowed” to be cooperative– or not sometimes– as his personality and desires of the moment are taken into account. This horse could be described as an over-achiever!
Moving away from psychological pressure– using release of pressure as a reward– is explained as a horse training method.
Cute cats, nice mix! The Christmas Cat Diaries from thecatdiaries on Youtube… (you can X out the ad along the bottom to make it go away– google’s been busy.)
[See previous post Trail riding 3 horses... for more pix and another perspective on this same trail ride, in the Blackwater River area of Salisbury, NH.-- Thanks to HorseGal for these pix! It's nice to have me and Hubby in some pix together!]
Connie and hubby were so kind to invite me along on a trail ride in September. I must say, that it was the BEST trail ride I have ever been on. Not that I’ve been on loads of them due to the fact that I’m such a late bloomer with my horse life, but I’ve been on many, and for me this was by far the best. The weather, the company, the location, and the length of the trail ride were nothing short of perfect.
Connie on Glendale ready to start out
I rode Emmie’s beloved Willy mare. I know I say this all the time, but she is really the best mannered, most wonderful mare EVER. She has her issues with separation anxiety, but honestly, you will not find a more perfect horse… except maybe her young boys!! Because I was so fortunate to have spent a lot of time with Willy this Spring and Summer, I really want to believe that she has gotten to know me, my touch, and the sound of my voice. Is that crazy? They say horses have wonderful memories, so I’m hoping that I’m part of Willy’s memory! I really can’t express in words how much I love her. However, I’m digressing– back to my original subject, the trail ride!
Gilford saddled up while HorseGal readies Willy mare
I rode Willy in an English saddle on that trail ride, which takes me out of my comfort zone. Couple that with the fact that she was VERY antsy at the start of the ride, I felt a little discombobulated right at the outset! At the beginning, we were posing for some pix, and Momma was getting quite bored. She kept pawing at the ground as if to say “enough of this picture nonsense… let’s GO!” [Actually HorseGal, that's her way of wanting to eat grass!]
Hubby set to go on Gilford
Well, we did go, with Hubby on Gilford and Connie riding Glen– but just “going” wasn’t enough for my momma… she has a need to ALWAYS be first in line, so I had to try to get her under control. She kept insisting on being first in our line of three! That was Willy’s goal on this ride!! Now, this is nothing new to me and I should have been better at getting her to listen to me. But I was no help to her or myself because my instinct was to keep pulling back on the reins and arguing with her, even though I know better than to do that. The more I pulled and fought with her, the faster she trotted and jigged ahead of everyone else.
In addition, the more we kept arguing, the more unsettled I became. I knew that I had to try and get her to work and to get her brain thinking and focused on ME and what I wanted; I also knew the more I could make her work, the more she’d decide it would be a lot easier for her to just listen to me and stay in line where I wanted her to be. However, because I was getting frustrated (NOT with the mare, but with myself) nothing was working.
Well, Connie came to my rescue. From way behind us, I could hear Connie saying “make her work!! Do serpentines or circles”!!! So, I did try that, but I didn’t do it very well. Willy was still insisting on racing ahead of her two boys with me in that English saddle getting more and more unsure of myself and my confidence rapidly evaporating. So, Connie– who knows her horses so well– said to put her right behind oldest son Gilford and keep her there. So I did. And within a few minutes, Momma mare had calmed down and did not try, for the rest of the entire ride, to be first in line unless I asked her to be first. It really blew me away. She became so much calmer. It was as if she had resigned herself to being second in line. And that, boys and girls, is why Connie is someone I admire and respect so much. And why she’s my mentor.
Connie and Hubby on the trail
The rest of the ride was wonderful. There was an incident with baby Glendale [age 3] spooking at the sound and feel of Connie’s jacket. We were riding along when all of a sudden I could hear the unmistakable sounds of thundering hoofs coming up behind us and not stopping. I had no idea it was Connie; even when she flew by Willy and I. I actually didn’t know who it was until she finally came to a stop a few feet ahead of me!
Once again, here is another reason Connie, in my eyes, is just an amazing horsewoman. I know she chides herself for letting go of the reins, but really, she was so calm and in control when she and Glen finally came to a stop; and she had even managed to stay on him!! [I did something careless by taking my jacket off a little too fast while on his back, and it spooked him when a sleeve flapped around into his field of vision.] She knew what to do to get him to stop, even with him in that frenzied state. Seriously, folks, Connie knows her “stuff” when it comes to horses. Anyways, we continued on our leisurely ride without any more incidents!
After the ride, horses chow down at the trailer. Next door neighbor flaps a sheet on her horse’s back and Glendale barely even notices, although he has never even seen a horse blanket before.
The trail ride was followed by an awesome lunch in a beautiful huge field with other horse lovers. After lunch, I asked Connie if I could go hand graze her lady mare, and she said that was fine. The day ended with me and that sweet mare just hanging out together in the beautiful lush grass while Momma munched away with her boys close by. Thank you Connie and hubby for including me in that ride. I’d love to go back there again (hint, hint!!).
During Equine Affaire in Mass. in November, we took in Clinton Anderson’s demo in the Coliseum. Clinton trains using natural-horsemanship techniques, and these 2 videos are good examples of his competence…
Explaining how a horse communicates relaxation and acceptance, and demonstrating DE-sensitizing techniques. In DE-sensitizing, he stops the pressure only when the horse relaxes and ignores it.
Anderson uses sensitizing and moving the horse away from pressure to teach sidepassing on the ground. At start of video he is simply asking horse to pass between his body and the wall. The horse shows he is sensitive to pressure applied by the trainer when he moves away from the pressure; as soon as he responds correctly to the pressure cue, the trainer immediately stops the pressure.
After a long drive back from Vermont, trailering the boys home from Shelburne last August, I happened to be driving as we got close to home. I noticed the truck smoking pretty good as we climbed the last long hill. We thought it was a sporadic problem we had experienced before caused by transmission fluid, when overfilled, dripping onto the catalytic converter underneath (we had been told it was an overflow issue and it had happened once before after an oil change, when the oil boys had topped off the tranny fluid as well.)
To my surprise, just as I was backing the horse trailer into our driveway at the barn, a passing driver called out to me that our truck was on fire. Hubby jumped out and ran into the barn for a fire extinguisher, I popped open the hood, and he squirted out the flames carefully, mostly from underneath where the flames were, trying not to douse the engine any more than necessary. Sure enough, the transmission fluid had dripped onto the really hot catalytic converter and had actually flared up.
Gilford firemen check out our already-extinguished truck fire.
About three minutes later the Gilford fire truck arrived! The fire dept. had apparently been alerted by a passing driver, and the firemen reassured themselves that the fire was indeed out. They advised us to rinse the extinguisher residue off the engine pretty soon. By then we weren’t concerned, although we did review what we might have done if the fire had been significant, how we would have off-loaded the horses from the trailer firstly, and beyond that what actions we might have taken.
Oddly, calling 911 was not the first thing we thought of doing, so it’s good that helpful passers-by did that for us… It would be a very good idea for people transporting horses to make an advance plan for an emergency like this, as well as for other types of emergencies. AND to remember that 911 is for fire and other emergencies and not just for summoning the police!
We did have truck repair work done shortly after that; it turned out to be worse than just an overflow/drip issue, but now it’s all fixed!
As always loving to see Friesian horses, I took these videos at Equine Affaire in W. Springfield, Mass. in November. Lovely horses with fancy, naturally-high-stepping gaits, Friesians are a wonder to behold!
This one’s my favorite– Friesian single driving and Friesian pair pulling carriages! (Horse Gal is with me and she’s all excited!)
2 PIX
The rest you can see by clicking below. (Return here by using your browser’s back button.)
As part of our ongoing singles driving training (which must be continued even while the boys are driven as a pair), we took Gilford out in the training cart in mid-October. Our young friend Bailey was visiting, also her sister Logan. Thanks to Emmie (visiting us for the weekend), there are pix with me in them too!
Bailey (gray jacket) and her sister Logan stand by while Hubby and I hitch Gilford up to the training cart.
“Heading up” the horse (holding his reins at the bridle) while another person hitches him to the cart is a highly-recommended safety practice!
Best safety practice is for the “groom” (driver’s assistant) to keep control of the horse’s head until the “whip” (carriage driver) enters the cart and has complete control of the horse’s reins in his hands. The driver then signals the groom to step away when he is ready to roll.
When driving a horse singly, you can practice things which that horse needs to improve on (it’s harder to do when there are two of them hitched together). In Gilford’s case, becoming more “forward” (eager to move) and being more “responsive” (quicker to react to cues or commands from the driver) are his areas needing practice. Gil also can benefit from “bending” exercises (curving his body while circling), as most any horse given proper training can become more athletic and build muscles in the right places, just like a person!
Using joint compound plastic buckets for “cones,” Hubby does exercises which help both him and Gilford hone their steering and turning skills. In judged driving competitions, real cones are used on a course, and penalties are incurred if a cone is knocked over. In fact, tennis balls might be placed atop the cones and points taken off if a tennis ball is dislodged by the cart wheel brushing a cone!
In this video you can see Gilford trotting a bit lazily, then he slows to a walk whereupon Hubby promptly makes him “trot up” again. Gil actually slowed down by himself, which is a symptom of him being a bit lazy and not “forward” at that moment. (When Gilford next slows to a walk it is because Hubby asked him to.)
In the video above, Gilford trots at a brisker pace after Dad got after him; watch him “track up,” which is where the hind foot steps into the track of the forefoot after the forefoot leaves the ground, indicating more “impulsion.” (At the start of the video, Gilford is NOT “tracking up.”) Part of the driver/trainer’s job is to be alert enough to the horse’s tempo to catch him BEFORE he downshifts and goose him along a little, either with voice or with a whip cue. The driving horse’s job, or any horse, is to maintain the gait you have asked him to be doing until you ask him to change it, and not to slow down or speed up of his own volition.
Bailey loves tooling along while Hubby exercises Gilford!
“Bending” the horse is accomplished the same way as from the saddle, by “half-halting” (alternately squeezing and releasing the rein) into the inside of the turn while keeping a steady “supporting” rein (holding even pressure) on the outside rein. The goal is to get the horse’s corresponding front and hind feet on the same “track” (path), sort of like train wheels on a railroad track.
Believe it or not, this is like asking the horse to turn to one side (with the half-halts) while asking him not to lean that direction, ie. not to “fall into” the turn. So he learns to curve his body (”bend”) which is how he moves in balance. Some horses are well-balanced naturally and find this fairly easy to do, while others have to be coached along and taught how to do it!
Working on “extended” (longer-strided) trot in a straight line.
Another thing driving horses are taught is to step their front legs to the side by crossing one in front of the other in really tight turns; we call it “stepping over.” This is like “shoulders in” (or “shoulders out”) or “two-tracking” in dressage, but dressage horses usually perform it moving forward in a straight line. It is also similar to a pivot on the haunches when not moving forward.
A carriage horse is trained to cross one front leg in front of the other in order to pivot the cart within a small space, trained by telling him to go forward while turning him sharply, and urging him to move sideways by touching his outside hip or haunches with the whip, asking him to move that outside hind leg away from the whip cue. The hind leg can step across also, to a lesser extent.
In my observation, this “stepping across” is fairly easy for a driving horse to get the hang of because his body is held in a straight line by the “shafts” on either side of him; our boys learned it early on in their singles training. However, this maneuver becomes much more difficult for them to do as a pair, where there is not a shaft on each side of their bodies to keep them straight with each other, but only the one “pole” in the middle between them. That is why they still need to practice it when driven singly!
As Horse Gal would say, Happy trails to you too, horselovers!
