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 Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:13 pm
Need to talk about whatever while you're hanging out in the GF guild? Well you've come to the right place! =D
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 3:59 pm
OH HEY CHAT THREAD, how you doin' chat thread? 8D
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 4:15 pm
I BEEN GOOD, whut up with y'all? 8D
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Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:52 pm
I figured I'll kick off the chat thread with its first RANT! =D Somehow this totally slipped my mind earlier.
So a little over a week ago, I rode Emma for the first time (I think I mentioned in the main thread that she did just fine) and then the next day a teenager who had been volunteering for camp started leasing her. They had a lesson last week with me that went OK I guess. Emma's not 100% trained yet so she needs a lot of time an patience. I think this kid is not a good match for her. >o>
The girl's been riding for a few years and came from a barn a lady I don't like runs. From what I can tell, that lady teaches her riders to ABUSE THE CRAP out of horses. >o> I think I mentioned before that this girl was way too rough with Chance.
So last week we were working on being more subtle and later on when she asked Emma to trot she's just whams her in the sides a time or two and off Emma would go. D= NOT COOL. You're always supposed to ask nicely first, never just jump right into kicking a horse like that! So I talk to her about this and she does it again later, except this time Emma bucks once in retaliation. We work past that and had a pretty decent lesson, although I've been teaching her for like 8 weeks now and I spend the whole lesson telling her to tone it down.
Today's lesson was a NIGHTMARE. First of all, I get to the barn and she tells me she has permission to canter Emma today. >o> Emma's never been cantered under saddle before. So, ok, we free-lunge her and then expand our lesson from 30 to 45 minutes in anticipation of needing that time. So she warmed up and trotted off OK and all was well. The barn owner wanted her to canter on the lunge line (like a big long rope connected to the horse, you send the horse around a circle with someone holding the line in the center) but apparently Emma has only ever been free-lunged (essentially the same as lunging, except no line, just in a round pen instead) and she was so confused. Rider wanted to try anyway, so she proceeds to fight Emma, KICKING THE s**t OUT OF HER and yanking on her face in the process! gonk I kept telling her to calm down! She was frustrated that Emma wasn't listening, and Emma was SO CONFUSED because she didn't understand what was wanted of her.
So I decide we'd go into the round pen, which is more in Emma's comfort zone. I took her off the line and I waited until horse and rider were calm again before thinking about giving cantering another shot. So we try it, and first Emma takes one step of the canter before breaking back to the trot. We shower her with "good girls" and I tell her rider to give her some pats. A few minutes later we try again, and we got about three strides before she lost it, which I thought was great. She didn't offer to buck and did as asked, good for a greenie. But her rider thought otherwise and took matters into her own hands but again whaling on Emma for breaking back to a trot. I tell her to cool it and relax for a minute. It's not cool to take your frustrations out on a horse like that. Emma has no clue what you want from her, she's trying to please you and is confused and you're responding by yanking on her face and kicking the crap out of her. So rider wants to try cantering more (WHY) and attempted to get Emma to take off from a walk, but more like she just kicked her over and over and over again so hard that the SOUND made me cringe. She didn't listen to me when I told her to STOP. Emma didn't canter, and at this point she started shutting down and just stopping and not moving. She was so scared and confused. I was FURIOUS. So now Emma stops a few times and refuses to budge, and the rider is not listening to me. She decides to handle this by, shocker, kicking the crap out of the poor horse while yanking on her mouth. First I tell her to cat that out and instead try and turn her (turning a green horse will knock them off balance a little and usually forces them to take a step). The rider apparently couldn't handle turning Emma without pulling on both reins and kicking, which was just confusing for Emma. So I tell her to loosen her reins down the the buckle at the end, stop worrying about what direction she goes in, and just ask her to walk one. SHOCKER, when you don't haul back on her mouth she's more likely to take a step forward. >O>;;; Does rider pick up on this? NOPE. As soon as she starts moving, death-grip is back on Emma's mouth and she stops again.
We're done for the day. I go take them back to the arena to cool out, and the rider tells me about how she's so tired from having to ride so aggressively. YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO RIDE LIKE THAT. I TOLD YOU NOT TO RIDE LIKE THAT. Aggressiveness has no place in training a horse like Emma. GETTING MAD AND KICKING HER isn't going to help when she DOES NOT KNOW A CUE. I told this to the rider, and she asked me how to teach Emma to canter. She obviously isn't ready to teach her! If anything, she's going to create more training problems if she continues to ride her that way! So I tell her most of this as nicely as I can and tell her that my friend is coming to train Emma in like a week and to hold off cantering until then. She tells me she's going to GET A CROP AND TRY AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. YES, a crop. Just what you need, another way to abuse this poor horse! gonk
After the lesson I talked to the girl again and she says she feels bad and wants to get better as a rider. Her old instructor yelled and told her to BE aggressive like that, which doesn't surprise me. Like I said, I met that woman before. She tried to get me to ride her horse because she was terrified of it, she worked at my first lesson barn just before I left. Like two years after working there she established her own farm even though she's an awful horseman.
Anyway, the girl "likes" Emma and has bought her grooming supplies and a new halter, and she's officially leasing her now. I'm just so concerned for Emma because I can only be there one day a week to help this girl, and I think left to her own devices she's headed for disaster. Not to mention poor Emma doesn't deserve to be ridden like that.
I'm going to try and go to the barn early tomorrow to observe and give her feedback tomorrow when she rides. If she pulls anything like she did today again, I'm going to have to speak up and recommend dropping the lease to both the barn owner and Emma's owner. This is not a good match. This kid shouldn't be on a green horse. She can stay on when a horse does stupid stuff, yeah, but she can also ruin a Emma's training if she keeps it up. Not to mention cause poor Emma a lot of unnecessary pain. I mean the force she uses is excessive even for the most dead-sided of horses. I've ridden dead-sided horses before and I never had to ride them like that. I've ridden EMMA before, and yeah, she needs leg aids. But not like that. Emma needs gentle squeezes and leg pressure in turns. Not to be kicked at like that. I'm afraid of what she'll do with a crop.
I say this a lot, but Jezebell is SUPER sensitive. If this girl were on Jeze and kicked her as hard as she kicked Emma today, I'm pretty sure Jeze would have FLIPPED OVER. Not just murdered her rider, Jeze probably would have seriously flipped over from the pain and the panic.
My plan of action is to see how her ride goes tomorrow, talk to owners if necessary, talk to the kid, and get Lauren out ASAP to train Emma. I feel like the rider's probably pretty frustrated right now and maybe she realizes that they're a bad match. I don't think any of the horses here are a good match for her right now. Maybe Wonder, because you HAVE to be gentle with her. I just don't see how this lease will work out.
If Lauren can't come out right away I might try riding Emma some more. She only bucked that one time under saddle (justifiably so) and I'm pretty sure I could handle doing some training on her.
[/end rant]
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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 3:31 pm
scream
Just readying your rant made me want to slap the crap out of that girl.... I am sure you have more knowledge then me since you are around horses and riders more then i have been but even i know better then that. I don't think you could have stopped me from yanking that girl of the poor horse. I don't care what how a horse is or any other is trained there is no reason to continue beating them like that. common sense should have told her that if her actions where not giving her the desired result she should stop and try another.
I have ridden slightly green to gentle touch horses and I don't think I have ever had to give more then a squeeze to cue a horse into motion or into the next gait... you have more patience then me. I have lost all patients for stupid people lately and if I was giving a lesson and my rider stopped listening to me I would end the lesson.
I know when I took lessons and was having trouble getting the mare into the next gait the instructor had me dis mount and she took the mare around a couple of times to get the mare to stop acting up, perhaps you could try that if it happens again. perhaps making the girl stop and see how your gentler approach gets better results she might be more likely to take it easy. Sometimes people are more willing to try something different if they see it work with their own eyes.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:53 pm
Lauren came out to work with Emma and her owner's other horse, Hot Shot today.
I noticed Hot Shot was lame again yesterday, and so we did a bit of a lameness evaluation on him today. He's got something really funking going on. His left shoulder is damaged, like I suspected. Upon closed inspection, it looks to us like he probably BROKE his left shoulder years ago and it healed funny or something. It's got a weird bump to it and I see some muscle atrophy in comparison to the other side. And his front right tendon is...WEIRD. I don't know what's wrong with it. I wouldn't call it bowed. It's like...hard-feeling? It looks puffy but isn't squishy feeling, it's like rock hard. Not at all normal. And it's really bothering him. It's not a fresh injury by any means. It's probably been months or even older. No heat in it at all. My guess is it's because he compensates with that leg to make up for his bad shoulder, and it caused a long-term injury to the tendon from the stress? Anyway, I don't think he will ever be sound, and if he does have a bucking problem under saddle, it's probably pain-related for sure. I don't think he'll ever be ridden again.
Lauren rode Emma, and...things are not good. I think the girl is going to ruin Emma if she rides her much more. Lauren was very gentle with her, and Emma was super defensive and angry-seeming. Not at all the horse I rode just a few weeks back. She was totally happy and willing for me. Lauren clucked and asked her to trot and Emma panicked, my guess is that she's afraid to be kicked.
Lauren and I think that if the leaser doesn't stop riding her, Emma's going to be permanently ruined and is on her way to developing a bucking problem. Poor mare. sad
She's not past the point of no return yet, but once those bad habits solidify, there's no going back.
I would have stopped the lesson if I could, Alue. But as a leaser even if I refused to teach her, she's going to continue to ride. I feel like the best thing for me to do is to try and help. :/ It's just so frustrating to me...
Lauren's reusing to ride Emma again until the leaser is straightened out, she doesn't want to waste time training her just to have all that training be undone.
I'm emailing Emma's owner tonight to let her know what's going on with her horses and to ask her to reconsider that lease. I know it's nice to get that girl's money, but is it really worth it in the long run if she ruins your horse for good? She might never be able to enjoy Emma again if this lease goes on.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 8:54 am
Poor hot Shot....
I understand the lesser having the right to use her whenever she wants outside of the lessons. Trying to get the lease revoked is the best you can do for now.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:24 am
That's exactly what I'm trying to do.
I feel bad because she's a nice kid. It's just her ignorance and frustration that are causing the problems with Emma, and I don't want to let that continue. It's just not a good match...
I think this kid is better off riding Wonder right now, because Wonder's sensitive and you can't get away with being too harsh with her, but at the same time, Wonder's not green and is very forgiving. She could teach her rider how to be more gentle and subtle. The rider's learning process won't screw up Wonder's training like it would for a green horse like Emma.
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:35 pm
Update in the saga!
So like two days ago, Emma's owner emails me back and says that she thinks the game plan will be to suspend the lease now and resume it once Emma's better trained and the rider can control her in a more reasonable manner.
So I get to the barn today and the barn owner (my boss) kind of confronts me asking what happened. Apparently yesterday Emma's owner came out and when the barn owner tried to give her the check from the leaser, Emma's owner refused it and said to cancel the lease and explained why. She said she'd be OK with the leaser riding Emma as a lesson horse, but not independently. But apparently nobody had been communicating with her, and this kind of blindsided the barn owner? She had been mostly responsible for establishing the lease, so I think she was offended by how it was being dropped. It makes HER and her business look bad since she was the go-between and just when it started it's being dropped. She seemed like super annoyed to me. I was really distressed by it. >o> Barn Owner was telling me how this was going to break the leaser's heart and this whole situation is crushing a little girls' dream. Barn Owner blames Lauren in the situation for "blowing things out of the water" and "kicking up drama" and insists that if Lauren continues to "stir up trouble" she will be banned from the property. gonk
I see her point, Lauren does kind of dramatize everything, but I don't think Lauren is behaving unreasonably. Emma's owner told me she wanted someone to train her horses, so I suggested Lauren. Lauren noticed a problem and told the owner that she wouldn't train Emma while the kid was riding her, which I thought was reasonable since horses in training really ought to only be ridden by experienced riders who won't damage the training before it's more solidified. Emma's owner had been open about wanting a trainer for Emma, nothing was sprung up about that. The barn owner said she thought Lauren was only there to train Hot Shot, but I thought I'd been pretty clear she was to ride both horses. I guess Emma's owner told nobody anything? Because none of this info was passed along to all the people involved.
I was under the impression Emma would be trained before the lease started, that's what her owner originally told me like a month ago. But then the barn owner helped set up the lease, and it begun before Emma received any training, which the owner apparently changed her mind at some point to agree to I guess.
I told the barn owner how poorly Emma had behaved the other day and how I think she does need some serious training, but she expressed to me that she thinks Emma's just misbehaving because she's been out of work for a while. I don't think that's the case, Emma is green as can be. I've seen both the leaser and Emma together more than anyone, I feel like MY opinion is probably the most valid.
So I get an email from Emma's owner today telling me about her spur of the moment decision to refuse the lease (by refusing payment after the date the lease already began) and apologizing in advance for "passing the buck" onto me, especially before discussing things with me further. @___@ I'm sorry, I like you, I like your horses, but the way you went about handling things put me in a really awkward situation with MY BOSS. ;O; I wish she had discussed it with me more.
So I really hope the barn owner lets all this blow over, because I really like it there. I think she feels like I came across as being meddlesome, but stirring up drama is the opposite of what I wanted to do. I don't want this drama interrupting our relationship. I don't want to have to quit my job or move Jeze or something again. So keep your fingers crossed that this won't change things between us. >o>
I think I'm going to offer to the barn owner to be the one to break the news to the leaser. I think I can present this in a less-distressing way if I just tell her that the lease is being cancelled because Emma's new trainer realized there are more problems that need to be addressed than were initially realized. After how their ride went last week, I think she would agree. I think that both her and Emma would enjoy each other more after the training anyway, and she can ride her in supervised weekly lessons in the mean time as they both learn. She could even come out and watch Emma get trained so she has a better understanding herself. Until the lease is resumed she can focus on becoming a better rider, you know? A learning experience for all involved! The situation isn't going as everyone hoped, but it doesn't have to be such a negative thing.
Right now I'm unsure if I should ask the barn owner if she wants me to break the news or if I should just try to distance myself from the situation as much as possible. >o>
So, yeah, awkward all around.
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:23 pm
Aww man, that whole situation sounds like such a mess. >o> Did the barn owner ever see the leaser girl kicking Emma? Does she know how severely excessive it was and stuff?
I don't know how mad she was at you or whatever, but it doesn't sound like that would be severe enough to fire you or something. I mean, I'm sure if she saw that girl, like, beating up Emma, she would have tried to cancel the lease herself.
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:33 pm
No, she's only seen her ride Emma once and it was a brief ride, so I'm sure it was pretty uneventful. I think that if she'd seen more of it, she'd have understood what was going on better.
I'm just worried because all horse people tend to be crazy, and I see a glimmer of crazy shining through. I don't want that! ;O; Things were going so well!
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:49 pm
Ehh, that's probably just dormant craziness that will go away or something. >o> I don't know. I mean, everyone's crazy sometimes.
I wish you had, like, secret video tape of that girl riding that you could show her. xd
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:52 pm
Next time I see her I should be like, "DON'T MIND MY CELL PHONE CAMERA. Just checking the time! Yup, it's still time for your lesson, keep riding! Oh hey, what time is it? Don't mind the camera! 8DD "
I think the barn owner just has a hard time imagining it because she's such a nice kid, but she's got some really, really bad riding habits. Like, she has the basics down but no finesse at all. All she's good at is not falling off when a horse is bad, that doesn't mean she's a good rider. >o> But then again she fell off chance bareback at a walk last day of camp. so I guess the staying on thing only applies to saddles?
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:59 pm
You should totally do that. xd Just start holding it up pointing at/following her and be like, "gosh, I can't get any reception at all in here! 8D I better keep walking around holding my cell phone out to see if it starts working!"
My brother just got home from his night class and it's like 10 PM. >o> God, I don't think I could handle having a class that late.
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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:20 pm
One of my classes didn't get out until like 9:50 once. It was a cool class, but it was so grueling. And the drive home was like 30 minutes, too. It was just all-around awful. xd
I resented that campus, because that's the one I was driving to when my first car got totaled. >o> It was actually kind of nice, just one building, but I hated having classes there. My favorite campus was in Camden city, because it was the most convenient to get to. Just one stop away on the awful train!
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