I have finally decided to post on this blog about my own experience with my personal horse, Harmony’s Eclipse. It is just a continuation of what my mother posted before, but detailing what I’ve learned in this experience and what I’ve done.
Eclipse was born here, on our farm, on April 17, 2001. She was a tiny little thing, and when she was born she terrified me! I swear, I thought she wasn’t breathing. But, as she is now, Eclipse was stubborn and took her first breath and was up in less than half an hour. Since then, I’ve played and worked with her though not as much as I have recently.
In the first year of her life, I was more of a pasture buddy to Eclipse than anything. There were not very firm boundaries that I set, so she literally started to walk all over me, push me, nip me, and run from me. It continued this way through the years, and it was never a realization for me until I went off to college full time in 2008. The thing is that I never worked with Eclipse on solid ground manners, and that goes a long way in every type of training you do with your horse. I’m a firm believer in making the horse behave on the ground, which makes it easier to deal with them in the saddle.
Eclipse has transformed wonderfully since I started working with Jennifer Dipple, a great trainer and instructor over at Full Circle Farm. It was close to impossible to get Eclipse to listen to me over two weeks ago, and now she is not only listening but trying to do it before I even ask her to! Something that I have discovered since I’ve started working with her consistently, and something I have been semi-aware of the entirety of her life, is that Eclipse can read my body language before I even ask with the aids.
It’s frustrating a lot of the time, because I am still learning myself and am not completely solid with my aids. So when Eclipse tries to take these “shortcuts” it doesn’t really help me to understand fully. Nonetheless, she is an incredibly smart horse with an appytude which makes a frustrating combination.
As you can see in the video posted previously, she transformed from the beginning of the lesson into the end. It is an 8 minute long video, and you can hear my instructor, Jennie, in the background but it shows the change she went through in only that hour long lesson. Incredible how quickly she learns. The video was on Friday, and on the Monday before I could not get Eclipse to listen or even pay attention! She was throwing a fit around the entire arena, trying her hardest to find anything else to look at, or just ignoring me altogether!
Consistent work with her in just a week has done wonders. It takes quite a bit of patience, which is something I am still in the process of learning. I have no patience, and I frequently get angry with Eclipse. The trick is finding a way to channel that anger and frustration instead of taking it out on your horse. Your horse doesn’t know why your angry at them. Why should they? Think of your horse as a toddler, they have the same attention span and the same way of learning. I know for a fact that Eclipse is intelligent and learns quickly, but she constantly finds way to test me. As if to ask,”Okay, are you letting me get away with this today? Are you sure you remember?” As soon as I have finished reminding her of what we worked on previously, and as soon as she has done testing me, it is an almost smooth ride. I say almost, because she is still not one hundred percent with the aids or reactions and it will be a while before she is.
I have found that working with her on Bending and Suppling has really helped her and myself. I’ve learned to work with my horse, instead of against her or trying to force her to do what I want. Before, I never really understood what I was asking or why I was asking these things. I did not understand, really understand, how to ask the horse something. Since working with Eclipse, my relationship with he has also grown. We are a lot closer than we were before and I understand her better. I’ve found that both Patience and Consistence are very important to working with a horse, and although I have always known this it is different knowing it and understanding it.