Vaskur, my new project...

Well, it has been awhile. I have not added anything since the last of the clinic in 2009. That is starting to be awhile ago. Since then we have had a clinic here with Jennie Wentworth in the fall of 2010. She discovered quickly that we were a group that took things seriously... but we did like to laugh a lot. We learned a lot.. Reba realized that she needed a new horse (and got one...) Kelly was frustrated with her lack of balance and concern about loping (she has overcome both) and I realized that I needed to work on my confidence.

Since then we have done a lot of trail riding with new converts to CA. We are preparing for another clinic in late September... We have 7 ladies that would like to participate, but room for 6.. we'll see how that works out. I had hoped to ride Vaskur in the clinic, but we have a long way to go.

From this point on this blog will be mostly about my trials and tribulations with my Icelandic Horse, Vaskur. Vaskur is a 7 year old gelding who has only been gelded a year ago. He is very mellow, but very lazy. He has spent about 2 1/2 months with Fausto, who has done a good job riding him and intuitively finding his gaits. He is fun to ride. However, I got him home about 2 weeks before I went to NY and only rode once briefly. I did start groundwork with him, but he knows absolutely none of it. I stayed in NY two weeks reconnecting with family on my Dad's side then spent yesterday recovering.. . This morning I intended to hit the ground running, but I ended up sleeping in. I did get in about 45 minutes with him before it got too hot. My goal was to work through the first 4 or 5 groundwork exercises. I did this with varying success.

• Desensitizing with rope, stick and string... no problems.
• Backing up is better... however, he continues to look at me with one eye not matter how much I bump.
• Flexing - we no longer go round in circles, so that is better. He holds his head very vertical which is different than how Gray flexes..
• Yielding the HQ is better than when we started before NY. He kept wanting to go in circles. I backed up today to just asking for one step. We finally got that on both sides. He wants to step towards me crossing over his front legs as he shuffles his back feet. I tried to block that motion and finally get a crossover step with his back feet. I quit while we were ahead .. and will continue tomorrow. I have the next two weeks wide open and plan to work every day.
  
• Lunging Stage One went so much better than before NY. I had to get very assertive to get him to leave... today it was not a problem to get him to move off at all. He wants to stop and pulls on the halter, but this is the first day he got the concept at all, so I am encouraged.
  
• I started Yielding the FQ, but as you can imagine that wasn't pretty. Got a step in each direction...
  
• At that point.... I desensitized and gave him some time tied up.
  

It was just too hot to do much else. Tomorrow I will start earlier in the day.

Last night Kelly, Reba, and I went to help our neighbor Deb start working with reactive mare... fun! We go help Eska tonight....