Foal Skool for Mylo

[Ample Prosecco]

So as Mylo is for keeps, I'd like a complete record of his training/progress from baby to, well, whatever he ends up being. Hopefully eventer. Maybe show-jumper. Ideally fab partner and well rounded citizen.

First 8 months was pretty hands off. Turned out 24/7 with Amber, apart from a lot of farriery, so he is used to being handled, having his feet done and wearing a head collar. Gelding was straightforward but weaning was a near disaster when he jumped a horrific corner over a river to scale a wall onto a road. (Eventing genes....?) but all calm since then and we are just doing basic flexions and leading and back up - so he is learning to yield to a whisper of pressure in the head collar, and to follow a feel. 4 sessions in and he has stopped just trying to chew to rope and play and has understood that the movements through the rope actually mean something. He tyelds readily laterally and vertically and backs up softly a step or 2. So he is ready for his first Joe Midgley lesson next week.

He is clever, brave, willing, curious, playful, calm. What's not to love? Being strikingly beautiful helps too! So Sox on the Beach - the road to wherever begins here. Can't wait to walk it with you.

 

[Jeni the dragon]

He's such a handsome wee guy! Really looking forward to following your progress!

 

[southerncomfort]

He really is very beautiful

Exciting journey ahead!

 

[myheartinahoofbeat]

What a beautiful boy and white socks. Does he live with other youngsters? Just asking as I have a 9 month old foal who is currently in youngstock livery and wondering if he can come home and live with my much older geldings?

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Hi at the moment he is with an old boy - who is super sweet with him and who Mylo seems to adore - but I am moving him soon so he can be with youngsters to play with. The move was meant to happen earlier but the ground where we are going was too wet, but we can use it from April. Most advice seems to be that youngsters need other youngsters but I am not very experienced with breeding and I am sure there are exceptions to that sometimes.

 

[BigRedDog]

Hi at the moment he is with an old boy - who is super sweet with him and who Mylo seems to adore - but I am moving him soon so he can be with youngsters to play with. The move was meant to happen earlier but the ground where we are going was too wet, but we can use it from April. Most advice seems to be that youngsters need other youngsters but I am not very experienced with breeding and I am sure there are exceptions to that sometimes.

I bought a six month old Connemara pony, for the first few months she lived with my older ponies - mid-teens to mid-twenties. Having read that “youngsters need other youngsters to play with” I bought a two year old Welsh C to play with. I even bought him in a matching colour! They had no interest in each other. Connie loved my 28 year old gelding and at 6 months jumped a five bar gate to get back to him. Nine years later the Connie and Welshie still despise each other and mostly refuse to acknowledge the other exists!

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Mylo meets Joe Midgley....!

Joe was happy with the lateral and vertical flexions we have worked on. Joe said these really simply skills are so easy to teach to babies, so useful for the rest of their lives, but so often absent from the skillset of older horses. And it then takes them AGES to learn to just be soft and follow a feel. Happy that he was fine with with that. Clever boy.

So next up - leading. He teaches this in a sequence - a reaching sideways step then 2 steps forward all just on a feel, not with pressure. Finishing with just a little shift or step back to stop horses pushing on you and to get them into the habit of shifting weight off the forehand after stopping as opposed to stopping and leaning forward.

If foal gets stuck then direct body language pressure towards hind end, and if no response, then swirl rope to get movement from behind, then ask the reach and forward steps again. So in the end it's reach, step, step, stop, shift weight back. Sometimes via reach, stuck, hind yield, reach, step, step, shuft weight back.

When he does the reach, step, step perfectly every time we can add in 3 steps, 4 steps etc.

No more than 1-2 sessions a week for 5-20 minutes, quitting as soon as he gives me what I ask for. If it takes longer than 20 minutes I asked for too much so take it back a step.

I am so looking forward to seeing him progress.

Reaching steps



Forward steps



Stepping hinds over if fronts get stuck



Shifting Back

 

[Hackback]

Poor Joe, he was here yesterday rejoicing in the fact that it was the first day he'd had to wear only a shirt. I've never even seen him in an Equidry!

Mylo is such a handsome chap and he looks a real sweetie too. Looking forward to watching his progress.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

The rain here has just been utterly relentless! Urgh. Mylo looks so bedraggled.

 

[Nicnac]

Ah Joe has the same Burgundy Condom coat as me.

Will be really interesting to follow this AE.

 

[SEL]

The rain here has just been utterly relentless! Urgh. Mylo looks so bedraggled.

At least you can see his white socks - Babycob's have been shades of mud all winter.

How tall is Mylo now?

 

[Red-1]

Poor Joe, he was here yesterday rejoicing in the fact that it was the first day he'd had to wear only a shirt. I've never even seen him in an Equidry!

Mylo is such a handsome chap and he looks a real sweetie too. Looking forward to watching his progress.

He gets about a bit... He was here on Thursday, teaching New Boyfriend basic horse handling, from putting on a halter onwards. I too have never seen him wearing a tent!

What a fabulous start for Mylo.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

At least you can see his white socks - Babycob's have been shades of mud all winter.

How tall is Mylo now?

I've not had a stick on him actually. So not sure. I'd be curious to know!

 

[Ample Prosecco]

So Foal Skool still going well. He’s willing and learns fast. Still just installing the basics, now doing hind end yields wanting him to step through. He moved off intent - no need to touch him.

Yesterday he moved to his new home with his 1/2 brother Cass. (Same sire). And on Sunday his other half brother, Felix (same mare) is joining them.

Cass and Mylo are fab together. Mylo is Cass’ little shadow and Cass is playful, but gentle.

 

[DressageCob]

This is really interesting reading. This is my first time having baby horses and I've just led around the field (and in and out when needed), groomed and lifted up feet. I hadn't thought about asking for more sideways and backwards movements. I'm not sure I'd know where to start but maybe I will have to have a go!

 

[Ample Prosecco]

2nd session with Joe. He did not really need a session, but Joe was working with Felix and Cass so said hi for 10 minutes and ran through all the yields and following a feel. Which are all fine. No need to drill him. That will do him till he's about 2! I'll just do a few minutes once a month or so and let him be a baby the rest of the time. PLus the usual trimming, worming, vaccs stuff. But he's pretty relaxed about all that anyway. He's so sweet. I just melt when I see him.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Joe is a genius! Poor Mylo stuck his nose in some nettles and had quite bad reaction to them. He then itched his nose on his legs till his muzzle, and chin were scabby. Called vet and we needed to put steroid cream on the area. But it was SOOOOO sore that he just found it really hard to tolerate. He also needs suncream on his nose. For a few days it was a case of 'needs must' and we just did it - sometimes even using a bit of sedation on vet advice. His nose cleared up very quickly but we still need to put suncream on. By this time he was hard to catch and quick to pull away. Nose was no longer sore but he had learned to fear hands near his muzzle and chin.

After a week, no matter how gentle, slow and patient I was, he was having none of it!

Enter Joe. To be honest I was not really sure what he could achieve. And in 10 minutes Mylo was alllowing him to stroke all over nose/muzzle/chin. His timing, his quietness, his feel, his clarity of communication are just extraordinary. Knowing EXACTLY where the boundary between 'this is ok' and 'I'm going to leave' was so that Mylo never tried to get away from him, and slowly expanded what he would tolerate.

In some ways showing how easy it was to reassure Mylo, and help him relax around being touched in an area he had learned to be fearful of, is as skillful as anything else he has done with my horses. To me it just showed what an extraordinary horseman he is. And then he showed me how to it too . Hurrah, I have my trusting happy foal back.

 

[splashgirl45]

This is so interesting AE , I bought a 15 month old filly and did everything myself , I had never owned a youngster and I did lots of sideways moving front legs and then hind legs , and she turned out to be very easy to handle all her life. In retrospect it’s nice to see that I did the right things even though I had no idea at the time

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Foal Skool update. Mylo is 13 months now. He had another allergic reaction to something in the field so I decided to move him back to Lottie’s yard, where he was born. I have no idea what he’s sensitive to, but clearly something was setting him off.

Have just maintained brief handling episodes since the last Joe lesson and decided to book another in when he was here seeing Lottie this week.

Ran through all the basics which were fine but he noticed Mylo was very keen to keep Joe in his left eye the whole time. So he patiently persisted with asking him to switch eyes. And Mylo really, really didn’t like that! Joe explained that almost all handling is done from the left - Mylo’s nose cream goes on every day from the left. As do halters and rugs. So he’s become very left sided.

He would resist switching eyes in the first place, then once he had Joe in his right eye he would try and manoeuvre himself back into his left eye….

It was really interesting to see how a totally man-made issue can arise, and if not corrected can lead to so many problems with one sidedness or handling issues, or spookiness on one rein.

In my left eye - yep that’s where I like you.



No I don’t want to change direction thank you!



I really REALLY don’t want to change direction!



Ok fine I’ll switch but I’m not looking at you.



Oh this isn’t so bad after all. Joe says good boy,Mylo - loads of praise.



After that 1 negative reaction, patiently worked through, he started switching eyes pretty smoothly allowing me to bring his shoulders across one way then the other. But if I just stood relaxed on his right he’d slowly sidle his way over to the left! :‘Oh that’s a funny looking cow in the distance, let me just have a little gander - oh look you’re in my left eye again! How’d that happen!’

Something I need to be very aware of. Homework is to get him as relaxed when I’m on his right as when I’m on his left….

 

[Cloball]

Really interesting as my adult pony is quite different in hand on the right rein or if I practise leading on the right or in traffic etc. she is quite funny turning away from me to the right. When I'm on board she's a lot more even. I wonder if it's a similar thing.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Sounds very similar. Under saddle I guess we work harder at working both reins so the differences are less marked. The strength of the objection took me by surprise but Joe said it was common for horses to really resist this if they decide keeping people in their left eye feels ‘right’.

 

[Hackback]

I went through the same when Joe started coming to train me and AJ. Another really interesting thing (I thought so anyway) is that once you start working with them from the right side, initially the 'difficult' side, it often switches and becomes the 'good' side. Apparently because they've never learned any (bad) habits on that side.

 

[Alibear]

Amber had a slightly different approach as a youngster in that she preferred to keep me on in her right eye. The thought was she had sussed that left eye equalled "work", be that saddling, leading, or, in your case, cream being applied. Whereas if I was in her right eye, she knew that wouldn't happen. She was equally smart about subtly manoeuvring me back to her right eye and side.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Amber had a slightly different approach as a youngster in that she preferred to keep me on in her right eye. The thought was she had sussed that left eye equalled "work", be that saddling, leading, or, in your case, cream being applied. Whereas if I was in her right eye, she knew that wouldn't happen. She was equally smart about subtly manoeuvring me back to her right eye and side.

That;s brilliant! Got to love an intelligent mare!

 

[Ample Prosecco]

I went through the same when Joe started coming to train me and AJ. Another really interesting thing (I thought so anyway) is that once you start working with them from the right side, initially the 'difficult' side, it often switches and becomes the 'good' side. Apparently because they've never learned any (bad) habits on that side.

Ooh that;s interesting. Joe gets about doesn;t he!

 

[BBP]

It isn’t necessarily a totally man made issue, although can certainly be exacerbated by one sided handling. My young horse came to me with zero handling at 18 months (including feet never done, only had a halter on 3 times, herded onto lorry etc) and still expressed the same strong reluctance to have me on his right side right to start with. I’m really conscious of doing everything on both sides with my horses, so found it fascinating that he already had this preference.

Apparently it can be something instilled from foaling, when they have a preference for being on one side of the dam (or the dam prefers the foal on one side). The eye near the dam brings a sense of calm and protection, the other eye is the one looking for danger. Something like that! I can’t find the study to get the details right. Apparently that can also set them off in a pattern of crookedness too, dependent on which side they are on they will start to set patterns through feeding on the dam and running beside her that starts to develop a slight right or left handedness in them.

 

[DressageCob]

Interesting! one of my yearlings can be handled and led from either side. He's super easy. I've not had any lessons or schooling with him, I just play in the field, but he's got an easy attitude. The other one...is something else. Neither side is particularly easy but definitely worse on the left. We are still having trouble getting a head collar on (once it's on it is immediately removed by field companions!) and everything is a drama. If you look like you're wanting to do anything then you can't get close. If you're just walking your dog around the field or sitting on the fence then you can stroke and scratch to your heart's content. Little menace.

 

[Titchy Reindeer]

Really interesting reaction from Mylo there.
There are some peer-reviewed studies on horse visual laterality https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938408000759 and some specifically related to looking at humans https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-009-0260-x if anyone is curious.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Very interesting @Titchy Pony thanks for sharing.

 

[Titchy Reindeer]

Very interesting @Titchy Pony thanks for sharing.

No problem, when I was at uni, one of the professors was specialised in laterality ( mostly primates, including humans) but it did mean we heard a lot about it. However, as I constantly mix up left and right, it seemed safer to find the articles that rely on my memory.