Chavhorse
Well-Known Member
I have now owned Vardi since he was a backed three and a half year old, he will be six on Wednesday.
I bought him after a nasty crash from a loan horse as I never wanted to deal with anyone elses mistakes again.
We have had some real ups and downs, the light backing turned out to have been not done well at all and resulted in him being very panicy about being mounted and having not got one iota of self carriage. Great as long as you held him up in a tight frame as soon as you gave him a loose rein he wobbled. All became clear when I was sent some photo's of him being ridden as a three year old in draw reins...head desk.
After I had owned him 3 months I noticed he was becomming increasingly headshy, to the point of rearing up when you tried to put on a headcollar, again the day I arrived down at the yard just in time to see the YO belting him across the face with his headcollar explained that one away. I called the transporter and moved him that afternoon.
He went for a total re-start with a lovely lady who was in the process of doing a great job, when he got himself cast and badly injured, I was told at one point to just have him PTS.
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=377554
So after this catalogue of disasters (where I was starting to think I would give up horses and take up something less worrying like hamster wrangling) I found quite by accident Jan who is a Western trainer but in a previous live used to produce Dutch Showjumping horses.
I moved Vardi to his yard and for the first time it all felt totally right, all the horses on the yard are totally relaxed, there are only 4 liveries and everyone is taught how the yard likes to have the horses handled so we have totaly consistancy from anyone handling any of the horses on the yard (I know this may not work for everyone but it does for all of us).
Vardi has been in daily training with Jan since last March last year and has come on so well, he is a different horse confidence wise and all his training has been done slowly and consistantly, he worked for 3 months on ensuring that he was totally self balanced on the lunge and in double lines before even thinking of getting on board "how will adding another 75 kilos help"
To be honest I have since I have owned Vardi worked silly silly hours to enable me to pay other people to bring him on and have got into a stupid situation of wanting to do things with him but being afraid that as I am obviously not as good at them as my trainer (how could I be its his job lol) I have held back in case ai ruin things....crazy!
So after a long and honest chat with him and him saying "for gods sake woman I do this day in day out and have been doing so for 40 years of course I am going to be better at it than you or else why pay me" "oh and how dare you be so egotistical to think that one session of you not being 100% can possibly ruin all my work" LOL he got me there!
So his way forward is to say OK from now on we book his training into our schedules you come to each one, watch some bits, I will teach you what I am doing then I will drop down to 3 days a week and you take two days a week. Then by the end of summer we end up with you having one lesson a week, I will give you homework and a work plan for the week and I will ride him one day a week to iron out any gliches and keep him in top form. At the same time when I have new training horses in you can long rein them to warm up and watch me working with them as well.
Our plan with Vardi is to get him hacking out alone and able to go to the beach and forest in a group by the end of the summer and to make him as solid as possible mentally that is it . As for me the plan is that I will become totally confident in my skills.
He is away on vacation for the next 3 weeks and has left me with some stretching excercises for Vardi and some excercises to do with the double lines (simple transitions up and down and small circles for bending, whoa from all gaits and back up) with the following advice "you will make mistakes, he will make mistakes, as long as you work through them together you will be fine"
So does anyone else who has a horse in training ever feel that they are simply going to screw up everything that has been done or is it just my insecurity?
I bought him after a nasty crash from a loan horse as I never wanted to deal with anyone elses mistakes again.
We have had some real ups and downs, the light backing turned out to have been not done well at all and resulted in him being very panicy about being mounted and having not got one iota of self carriage. Great as long as you held him up in a tight frame as soon as you gave him a loose rein he wobbled. All became clear when I was sent some photo's of him being ridden as a three year old in draw reins...head desk.
After I had owned him 3 months I noticed he was becomming increasingly headshy, to the point of rearing up when you tried to put on a headcollar, again the day I arrived down at the yard just in time to see the YO belting him across the face with his headcollar explained that one away. I called the transporter and moved him that afternoon.
He went for a total re-start with a lovely lady who was in the process of doing a great job, when he got himself cast and badly injured, I was told at one point to just have him PTS.
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=377554
So after this catalogue of disasters (where I was starting to think I would give up horses and take up something less worrying like hamster wrangling) I found quite by accident Jan who is a Western trainer but in a previous live used to produce Dutch Showjumping horses.
I moved Vardi to his yard and for the first time it all felt totally right, all the horses on the yard are totally relaxed, there are only 4 liveries and everyone is taught how the yard likes to have the horses handled so we have totaly consistancy from anyone handling any of the horses on the yard (I know this may not work for everyone but it does for all of us).
Vardi has been in daily training with Jan since last March last year and has come on so well, he is a different horse confidence wise and all his training has been done slowly and consistantly, he worked for 3 months on ensuring that he was totally self balanced on the lunge and in double lines before even thinking of getting on board "how will adding another 75 kilos help"
To be honest I have since I have owned Vardi worked silly silly hours to enable me to pay other people to bring him on and have got into a stupid situation of wanting to do things with him but being afraid that as I am obviously not as good at them as my trainer (how could I be its his job lol) I have held back in case ai ruin things....crazy!
So after a long and honest chat with him and him saying "for gods sake woman I do this day in day out and have been doing so for 40 years of course I am going to be better at it than you or else why pay me" "oh and how dare you be so egotistical to think that one session of you not being 100% can possibly ruin all my work" LOL he got me there!
So his way forward is to say OK from now on we book his training into our schedules you come to each one, watch some bits, I will teach you what I am doing then I will drop down to 3 days a week and you take two days a week. Then by the end of summer we end up with you having one lesson a week, I will give you homework and a work plan for the week and I will ride him one day a week to iron out any gliches and keep him in top form. At the same time when I have new training horses in you can long rein them to warm up and watch me working with them as well.
Our plan with Vardi is to get him hacking out alone and able to go to the beach and forest in a group by the end of the summer and to make him as solid as possible mentally that is it . As for me the plan is that I will become totally confident in my skills.
He is away on vacation for the next 3 weeks and has left me with some stretching excercises for Vardi and some excercises to do with the double lines (simple transitions up and down and small circles for bending, whoa from all gaits and back up) with the following advice "you will make mistakes, he will make mistakes, as long as you work through them together you will be fine"
So does anyone else who has a horse in training ever feel that they are simply going to screw up everything that has been done or is it just my insecurity?
