Horse Breaking Update: 3 More Successes In The Last 2 Days! Watch Nayyerah Playing On Her 1st Trip To The Beach!

Introduction

Hey Steemit! The last two days have seen some incredible steps forward in our current project. We're working towards breaking in our young mare who's a large and inquisitive lady. So far our soft approach has rewarded us with cooperation and excitement and we've really started pushing the envelope this weekend.

Friday

You'll likely recall if you've read past posts in this breaking in series that I've managed to so far sit on her bareback on about two occasions in the past, each for only a few seconds until she asked me for pressure release and I responded by sliding off and giving her praise and rubs. On Friday afternoon, we decided to take her down to our sand arena (it's often good to vary locations to keep activities interesting) and try another mount.

She required more ground work before the mount attempt this time around and this could have been for any number of reasons. Maybe she wasn't in the mood, maybe the fact that the wind was up was unnerving or the fact that the afternoon getting long in the tooth and dusk if a typically high risk time in terms of predators; something that horses are well in tune with being flight animals.

Regardless, she was able to focus enough attention on me for me to be happy to try with her again. This time I managed to stay on her probably for a good 30 seconds or so which is a significant amount of time given her two short prior experiences. She took a step sideways after this time and happened to clip the mounting crate which got her unnerved. As a result I dismounted "disgracefully" but we were all friends afterwards! These things happen and sometimes having a somewhat less than perfect experience builds relationships in a way more fundamental than that achieved through fair weather only.

I'm very pleased that she showed no anger or animosity to me. She came up to me and even hung around us when we'd finished the training session and had removed her halter. Already a good start to the weekend.

Saturday

Then on Saturday it was time to try out something even bigger! We loaded up our two horses in the float and traveled with them to a beach we know that provides for great mud flat riding at low tide. It was about an hour away which was an unknown for us as Nayyerah has only ever had short trips (less than 15 minutes) in the float and we weren't sure how she'd managed with a longer trip.

We use mineral based calming paste that's just administered orally before longer trips just to take the edge off the stress for the horses and I always drive slowly and corner very carefully. The paste is expensive but it's worth it for the calmer experience it provides.

When we opened up the float at the beach we were elated to discover that both horses were still fairly calm; exemplified by the fact that they dismounted from the float very calmly and in a controlled manner. They got straight into eating the grass there too which is a good sign that they weren't stressed.

Then it was time for the big test! Nayyerah has never seen the beach and has never seen such open expanse of space. It was a risk that she'd not be able to contain her excitement and curiosity and just break free from our grasp and gallop off into the horizon! Risks need to be taken however in life and we were confident that we'd done all the required work to build up to this experience... and what an experience it was! You could see her excitement in her eyes and she dealt with the new experience with such control, it was a pleasure to observe!

She stood proudly with her head high and breathed in the ocean air for the first time in her life. She sunk her hoofs deeper into water than she'd ever done before and, like any five year old, started to play! Check out the video!

She had a complete blast. We were joined in 20 minutes or so with some friends who had brought their 4 horses and other horse friends of theirs. There would have been close to 10 horses all up (and two dogs) I wasn't really counting.

I managed to have a bit of a ride on our gelding who really enjoys the open space. Nayyerah socialized very well with the other horses but did engage in a kick or two which is normal in a strange herd. She doesn't mind asserting herself when circumstances require.

And what horse outing is complete without a minor injury?

What an amazing set of new experiences for her and all over two days. She managed to deal with the return trip very well too. I could tell they weren't traumatized by the trip to the beach by the fact that they were willing to enter the float again for the trip home. We are very happy with her progress and we received some nice comments and feedback on our training technique given the fact that it's apparently very rare to have an as yet unbroken, young horse behave in such a controlled and playful manner when exposed to new things.