I took my RACEHORSE on a FIELD TRIP!

I feel like this perspective has a little anxiety attached to it from the ponion that he had on the track. We actually found the video of his race, but I'll let you guys watch the clip here. See for yourselves. Alright, so we got a ton of rain yesterday, and my arena is pretty wet. So we're going to haul over to a friend's house that's got a covered arena, which means Nelson's got to practice loading again. And I've only ridden him the one time last week, then we gave him a little break to let his bite from Marley heal up a little more, so we're going to see how he does. If everything goes according to plan, I'm going to ride him over there at the new place. If he's a little too amped up and it's not really going to be a positive experience, then we will abandon that plan. So yeah, let's see how well he loads up. So I have not practiced loading him since the day we brought him. He hauled well, but he didn't load well. But he's had some practice picking up his feet. Look at that. What a champ. So I went to continue in, and then he started to lean back. Now, I probably could keep pulling on the halter, and he would probably think about stepping up, but what I'm going to do is I'd rather retreat, and then when I ask him for another forward step, I want to be guaranteed I have a step. So by having some room between me and the trailer, I'm guaranteed a step. So I'm going to put a feel on the halter, follow that up with a little swing with a stick and string, and we'll try it again. He says no thank you, and so we're going to retreat back. So again, we're guaranteed steps forward. It's not about making it work out here. It's about releasing him to the trailer. So if I back him out, and then I put a feel, and then add pressure, then the pressure is behind him and not in front of him. And over a few attempts at this. Now here he hasn't tried, so I'm going to keep the feel on it until we get a try at least. And we hit another block. And again, he's been hauled many times, so sure he could probably be a little more comfortable with the trailer, but he's probably used to people coming up behind him and shushing him in. And so it's more of like a little bit of a habit that he's gotten into. There we go. Good boy, Nelson. Good boy. So that's what I call letting the pattern do the work. So you see, I didn't have to do anything big or crazy out there, just kind of let the pattern do the work, and that little technique for trail loading works very well. And then I always tie the horse in the next stall over so that I can untie him before I open up the divider. And we'll load up Lambo. So we'll load up Jake's horse, and we'll be on our way. All right, we're ready to hit the road. So I'll just go walk the two of them around in there, and I'll get on Lambo and pony Nelson a little bit, so I can get the two of them warmed up together. So here we're in a new place, and I needed to warm Lambo up, and I needed to get Nelson to settle in, so I figured I'd pony him around a little bit. And he was kind of off to the races when we first started, but he's starting to settle in. All right, guys, it's time to announce the winner of the two Road to the Horse tickets. So if you guys don't know, I'm going to be competing there coming up the third weekend of March. So I hope you guys can join us. Even if you didn't win the tickets, it's going to be a really spectacular event. I've been working my whole life to go compete there, and it's a great time. There's so much education, inspiration, and just following along with the competition is super exciting. I think it's one of the best equine events you can do all year, so you guys aren't going to want to miss it. But without further ado, the winner of the two Road to the Horse tickets is Debra E. Davis, 89.42. Congratulations, Debra. You won two tickets to Road to the Horse. So Debra, if you could send an email to info at rosehorsemanship.com, and we'll get you hooked up with your tickets. Make sure you stop by my booth and say hi, and I'll hook you up with also some Rose Horsemanship merch while you're there. So congratulations, and to the rest of you, get your tickets. You don't want to miss this event. We'll see you there. Hey, do you have an off-the-track thoroughbred that you're wanting help with? Frequently, they can be kind of impulsive, emotional, can't stand still, tossing their head, sometimes raring to go. But if you guys want to know how I would go about restarting an off-the-track thoroughbred, we're going to have a full series with this horse, Nelson, on my Patreon page. You can start your free trial by clicking the link below. Hope to see you on there. The main focus is for him to just have a good experience in a new place and get used to this idea of getting hauled around and worked with. And luckily, our friend Kathy Buis was nice enough to let us come use her beautiful facility here. I think this is a little different style of ponying than Nelson's used to. So basically, I'm just trying to get to his mind and just do a few yields from Lambo. Also, he has trouble following a feel up off the halter anyways, and so there's going to be a couple of opportunities for me to just get him to trot up off the feel. But I try to balance him. I don't like him to get out ahead of me too much. But I'm going to see if he can... See there, he got with Lambo. That was really good. When I brought my life down, he came down with me. And now I'll get over here on this side, do some hindquarter yields. So it's all the same stuff you'd do when you're not on a horse, but just doing it from horseback. Hindquarter yield, now forequarter yield, and now that his mind's kind of getting back with me, he's coming through here a little bit more. But I would say one of the most important parts of this is having a good pony horse that neck reins and is kind of where you need him to be when you need him to be there. Now see there, he tried to bite Lambo because he got a little anxious, and that's something he probably learned while he was at the track. So we're going to correct him and step him off there. I feel like this perspective has a little anxiety attached to it from the ponying that he had on the track. So, on one hand, this might be good to do with him a bit, but on the other hand, it's going to be a little harder. If a horse has never been ponied before, it usually goes pretty easy. It's pretty natural for them to want to follow the other horses around. He just didn't know that he could yield. Usually on the track, they're just kind of controlling him. But it's also pretty cold this morning. It's only about 45 degrees here, a little fresh. Is there a strategy for lowering these ties? Can you tie a horse to these or no? I think he'll stand tied pretty good. He's like, wait a minute. I love that you got high ties there. It's a great way to do it. He can move around and not learn to paw. All right, let's do this, Nelson. All right, so we got Lambo ridden, and now we're going to see what Nelson feels like in this new place. He's settling in pretty good. It took him a little bit. I think he's kind of acting to be expected. He got a little worked up at first, and I think he has some previous history with ponying. Attaboy. So, he's starting to let down. All right, we're cooking. So I would say he's about 80% of what I have at home, which is enough for me to say I think we could put a little soft ride on him. But he's pretty green, so we're not going to have very high expectations, but just putzing around a little bit. Shouldn't hurt anybody. Hopefully, that's not famous last words. I'm really happy with how well he bridles. For some reason, I expected him to have a harder bridling thing. So if anybody's wondering, I'm using a Mylar comfort snaffle that's got a five and a half inch mouthpiece. And then when I'm riding green horses, I prefer to have rope reins, these loop reins here. I just like the idea that if I drop a rein or do something funny that they're not going to fall on the ground. So now I'm just going to do a little bit of yields with the bit, make sure that's working out for us, which went great last time. So I'll be ready to mount up. So luckily with him, he's fairly expressive, and so it's like if he's really uncomfortable about something, a couple of the giveaways that I'll look for is him kind of chewing on his cheek or kind of having some of that displaced behavior. But it seems to only come out when he's uncomfortable. And so I think as we help him get more relaxed and everything, that's going to disappear. You can see him doing it a little bit there. And it's going to happen sometimes randomly because it's a habit of something that he learned to do. And that's pretty normal with off the track thoroughbreds that they just have a few kind of displaced behaviors because they essentially get controlled quite a bit without a lot of understanding. And horses aren't anxious because of pressure. Horses are anxious when they don't understand pressure. So that's one of the biggest things to keep in mind. Let's take him for a little spin here. Last time I got on him, he walked off pretty good. So hopefully he's, we're going to kind of just chip away at that. I'm not going to make a huge deal about it because I think they kind of mount up on the run, not literally, but usually they're moving and they kind of pop up there. So I just want to make sure he's good and settled. One of the little steps you can do is you can kind of pull them off balance here and get them to just kind of have their feet underneath themselves to kind of prepare for it. And essentially there's like a point of no return. Like I'll pretend to mount here a little bit. And then like here, once I get to here, I'm going to commit to getting my leg over. On a colt, I wouldn't do that because that means they're probably about to take off, but he just is in a habit of doing it. And so I'll just redirect him. We'll just see if he'll let me just kind of guide him around here a bit. And then occasionally we'll just pepper in the relaxed rein and some hind quarter yields. But it's really interesting to me of how they can go forward so fast, but then when you get on them and you don't give them a ton of like that same pattern, they feel so green and wiggly. And so again, when he's kind of soft and when I don't need to bend them around, that's when I'm going to try to proactively just practice my recovery strategy so that if I ever need it, it's already kind of familiar to him. And that's exactly what I was doing on the ground is just kind of getting him to bend and walk a little circle and just recover and then we'll let him out of it. And I want that to be a sweet spot for him. So if you only use it when things are going bad, it won't be a sweet spot for him. But if you kind of pepper it in along the way, it can be a place where it's familiar to him and he's like, okay, we're just going to, we're just going to settle and relax. And then you hear him blowing out because by manipulating his body in that way of bending him here and walking this little circle, and I'm kind of pulling and releasing on the rain, asking him to keep his head bent on the circle. It's a bending the rib cage, which helps them to release tension and blow out. And so that's going to be just one of our go-to strategies if we need to recover. Now see there, he's kind of rubber necking and so I'm going to wait till I get that hindquarters to step away and he redirects and the pressure goes away. And again, you want to chip away at that as much as you can when things are going well. Because if things escalate and we're going fast, that's when I'll end up teaching him a bad habit. So again, we'll try it again here. And again, this is just basic steering and direct rain. I just want his feet to follow his nose there. So right here, they're not following the nose and then right there, that front foot took a step to the inside. And again, we're just peppering all this stuff in. This is just green horse training. But all this to me comes well before starting to ride with contact with two reins. Like I could try to control him a lot more with two hands. See there's the rubber necking that I was talking about. So we'll just kind of make that uncomfortable until right there when he commits to the new direction. But sometimes a little forward will help with this. The trot is a really great teaching gate because it just goes a little bit deeper than doing it at the walk. But things for the rider, like right here, there's kind of the rubber necking. So just tip his nose until the hindquarters give. Right there. Good. And as long as he's not wrong for too long, he'll end up getting better and better. But it's a balance between challenging those things, but not over doing it. This is super. But I like that he's not real impulsive on a loose rein. I mean, he's going a little faster than he needs to, but not much. So here I'll show you one of the yields that I was talking about. So proactively, I'll bring him all the way down here, and I'm going to ask for a forecourt of yield. And so I got my neck rein to help impede forward movement. I got his nose tipped with my right rein, and I'm looking for those front feet to just take a step over like they just did. And then I'll just keep setting that up, and I'll set it up off a circle. So right here I'm just asking him to bend on the circle. Now I'm going to add in the neck rein and my outside leg, and I'm asking him to take a step over with his front end right there. And that's where you just start building in that forecourt of yield. And that's steering. And so you can see, he doesn't know that yield very well. I have to use all my aids to get him to do that. But as that little yield gets better, that's when you start having power steering on your horse where they can turn on a dime, in addition to this part where you're trotting around and guiding him around as you go. But he's got a relatively smooth trot. Feels pretty good. But boy, he's feeling good. I think we've got a winner here. Maybe not a winning race horse. We actually found the video of his race, and I think they made the right choice in pulling him off the track. Let's just say that. But I'll let you guys watch the clip here, see for yourselves if he should have stayed there. The race is off. David H. from the inside away well. Authentic honors is close up. He's toward the outside of my pal Ian Ford. Back to Venezuelan hope. Nelson gave his second last at Grand Liam. David H. toward the inside, and now getting closer is Authentic Honor. And Authentic Honors is close up. Authentic Honor pokes a nose into third. He's drawn within a length and a half to lead. 12 Treasures is getting closer. He's fifth right now. Blue colors toward the outside and gaining some nice momentum as they come around to the top of the stretch. My pal Max still just in front. On the outside, surprise package. Three deep here for Authentic Honor. Four wide, 12 Treasures. Venezuelan hope going to go out five or six wide to the center of the course. An eighth of a mile left to go. Here comes 12 Treasures coming up after the lead. My pal Max on the wrong lead. He's still battling away. Authentic Honor right between them. It's 12 Treasures and Authentic Honor. These are the two that go on to contest it for the final 50 yards. 12 Treasures. Authentic Honor on the inside. They hit the wire. 12 Treasures. I thought there was a wicked head bop. I'm hoping he wants to be a cow horse, so we're going to introduce him to cattle eventually, and maybe he'll make a decent Western thoroughbred, although he did have a pretty cute little tuck for his jump. I sent him over a little jump, and he kind of brought his little legs in pretty good, and I think that's what they're going for. Boy, this is feeling really good. I think if we quit here, I think we could say that we're finishing on a good note. We got him in a good frame of mind. We've got a little more done than the last ride, including being in a new place, so I'm just going to finish on a couple of yields, so I've got a little hind quarter yield. I'll get a little fore quarter yield right there. Try it the other way, and then we'll do a little backup, and we'll call it a ride. Here I'm going for a hind quarter yield, so my weight's tipped forward. My left leg is back. There's the hip. I'll switch it to a fore quarter yield right there. Super, and then what you wouldn't want to do is take a horse like him that's walking off going forward and turn it into a backup. I'm going to get him to do a hind quarter yield and then go into the backup when he's not thinking about forward, so right there, he quit thinking about forward. That's when I'll ask for the backup, but everything in him says forward is the answer from his previous training experience, but then again, he walks out of that, so we'll take him around, do the hind quarter yield before we go to the backup again. If I just try to pull on him when he's already trying to walk off, it'll be much harder, and it's kind of already hard enough. All right, I think we need a bit of a workaround. Could I get your assistance, Kat? So okay, right there's perfect, so I'm going to sit and ask for the backup, and you're going to reinforce my cue, so now you wave the stick. Perfect, and we'll quit. You see how that was much easier because he is more familiar with that, so with these racehorses, I really think this workaround is a great way to do it because otherwise, I'd just be out here pulling on him with his head up in the air, and even if he backed up, it wouldn't be the kind of backup I'm looking for, so let's try that again. So I'm asking, you can go ahead and wave the stick, and then I like how Kat's not moving towards him. That's perfect because we can grow this distance, and when eventually I can do it with the person far away, then it's like I can kind of do it any time, or if he backs up off of me asking and beats her to the punch. Okay, here we go again. Oh, that was a better one. Yeah. I think we'll quit him on that one. That was really good. All right, thank you, Kat. All right, thank you guys for tuning in, and we'll see you guys on the next Adventures in Nelson video. Oh, we got the dressage arena set up. How did you know I wanted to do dressage today? Come in the light, or? I've always wanted to walk in the light. Hey, he trots up now. He was kind of like leading a stolen dog there for a while, and we're going. Oh my God.