Grace has become very attached to my other mare, Hannah, who is currently 10 months in foal and ready to pop! Whenever I took Hannah away from her, Grace would go absolutely bananas and scream and scream until she came back. It became worse while I was away. I think this was because her routine had changed and she did not have me to cling to in situations.
I put up with the screaming and running around for as long as I could, but then decided that ignoring her was just not working as well as I had hoped it would. I looked into various options (calmers, toys, licks) and came up with the idea of getting her a stable mirror.
The first time she saw herself she snorted at the mirror and ran to the other side of her stable, but the longer she spent with it the more she liked it. She even went to sleep next to it on the first night! With the mirror she has become much better when Hannah goes, and apart from the occasional relapse when Hannah shouts and she knows she is just around the corner, it seems to be working. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that she keeps improving because in a couple of weeks Hannah will be going out every day without Grace.
Other than the attachment issues, Grace has improved in her schooling too. She is becoming much more consistent in her canter work and it is now easier to get her trot more uphill and her into a more grown up shape. The eggbutt snaffle I put in to help her reach for the contact has now done its job and she has started setting against it when she is having a ‘silly’ moment so I am going to try her in Hannah’s Nueue Schule one (copy of the KK) to help lift her shoulders and to prevent her setting against it. It is also much kinder as it does not have the nutcracker action of the eggbutt.
Up until now I have taken her work quite slowly, but I feel we are at a stage where we need to start increasing her work load and asking a bit more of her. Because of this, I have booked a lesson with the British Dressage trainer Jo Graham, and we are going over to Warrington on Sunday morning. Hopefully she can give Grace and me something to work on over the next few weeks as I would like to get her out to some unaffiliated competitions this spring, and then affiliate her before the summer.
We have also been given a place on the Spencer Wilton clinic at the end of January which I am really looking forwards to as he has a lot of experience with the younger horse and he will know immediately whether she could make the grade I believe she can do.
Until then we will keep working on the things I feel she is weak on and Andy is coming taking some photographs tomorrow afternoon so there are some photos to follow tomorrow.
Rebecca and Grace
xxx
I put up with the screaming and running around for as long as I could, but then decided that ignoring her was just not working as well as I had hoped it would. I looked into various options (calmers, toys, licks) and came up with the idea of getting her a stable mirror.
The first time she saw herself she snorted at the mirror and ran to the other side of her stable, but the longer she spent with it the more she liked it. She even went to sleep next to it on the first night! With the mirror she has become much better when Hannah goes, and apart from the occasional relapse when Hannah shouts and she knows she is just around the corner, it seems to be working. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that she keeps improving because in a couple of weeks Hannah will be going out every day without Grace.
Other than the attachment issues, Grace has improved in her schooling too. She is becoming much more consistent in her canter work and it is now easier to get her trot more uphill and her into a more grown up shape. The eggbutt snaffle I put in to help her reach for the contact has now done its job and she has started setting against it when she is having a ‘silly’ moment so I am going to try her in Hannah’s Nueue Schule one (copy of the KK) to help lift her shoulders and to prevent her setting against it. It is also much kinder as it does not have the nutcracker action of the eggbutt.
Up until now I have taken her work quite slowly, but I feel we are at a stage where we need to start increasing her work load and asking a bit more of her. Because of this, I have booked a lesson with the British Dressage trainer Jo Graham, and we are going over to Warrington on Sunday morning. Hopefully she can give Grace and me something to work on over the next few weeks as I would like to get her out to some unaffiliated competitions this spring, and then affiliate her before the summer.
We have also been given a place on the Spencer Wilton clinic at the end of January which I am really looking forwards to as he has a lot of experience with the younger horse and he will know immediately whether she could make the grade I believe she can do.
Until then we will keep working on the things I feel she is weak on and Andy is coming taking some photographs tomorrow afternoon so there are some photos to follow tomorrow.
Rebecca and Grace
xxx
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