Horse Training in New Zealand PT. 3
From Wild Stallion to Mild Gelding
At the end of the month of February I spent two months training a bush bred, rising three year old stallion. I’m going to condense our time together into several small posts, 60 days of training is a lot of repetition and tedium, what follows is his story.
Part III
One of Romans consistent problems at this point was taking the bit out of his mouth, he would put it in easy enough but he didn’t like having to take it out. The bit would hit his teeth when he jerked his head up fast and reinforced his negative association with un-bridling. So I had started working on a method of slowly piece by piece pulling it down his face so the whole process took about a full minute to complete and he had time to slowly adjust.
I took him back into the small paddock and drove him for about 10 minutes, I wanted him to get a win so I took him up and into the bush track for a short out side drive, hoping that it would lower his stress and get him comfortable again. Once we came back to the small paddock, I hand walked him through the scary gate a couple times, he did a small spook the first time, but after about 5 times back and forth, he stopped caring. For the last time, I walked him out and drove him back into the small pen, then I ended our day with lots of scratches and rubbing.
One morning, after Roman had been driving for about 5 days, I decided to long line him down to the ocean. We had to go through a gate and as he walked past the post where the electric fence was hooked up he spooked. He jumped to the right and twisted, as he did his back hind leg stepped on the long line and the bridle he was wearing broke. It snapped halfway up the cheek piece and the bit came out of his mouth, it then swung around as he continued to turn and started “chasing” him. I had already dropped the lines way before and as the bit kept following his face he bolted. He ran the length of the paddock then turned around and galloped back up the drive. I followed at a slower jog and found him not far from the house, in a little clearing with his head down eating. “Must not have hurt himself if he is still eating” I thought to myself. After I checked him for injury and took the remaining parts of the bridle off, we walked to the house, he was very hesitant about leaving the clearing and it took me 10-15 minutes to convince him that it was a good idea and I found a better quality bridle to wear, hoping this one would not also break.
The next day we made it past the fence with only a tiny bit of a shyness from him and continued on our way to the beach, it was a calm day and we walked along but not in the water for the first time and into the sand dunes for a bit of a difference. We did this for a few days before I took him into the ocean. At first it was going well; we walked in the shallows where the waves were smaller and less terrifying, and I slightly angled his body and head towards the waves when they came towards us. It was all going very well until a bigger wave managed to sneak up on us.
I only saw it at the last moment and when I attempted to turn him it was too late, it slammed into the back of his legs and he spooked. Unfortunately, he followed the same pattern as last time, spinning around and tangling himself, making him panic even more. He bolted off towards the bush and I started to panic a little bit, He was still a stallion and I was worried that he would run right into Tippy’s herd and get destroyed by him. He was also still dragging his ropes and I hoped he wouldn’t get himself tangled in anything. I ran pretty hard back up the beach, about a half mile to the house next to the fence where Roman had parked himself, then the long trek back to the ocean and more sea walking. We did this only for a few more minutes.
I was also at this time starting to sit on his back, I like to do this for at least a two to three week before I even think about mounting. So when he was settled again, I would walk him up to the fence and slide on, then jump off. Remount and repeat, turn him around and repeat again from the offside, I like my horses to be comfortable with everything on both sides in case injury or problems.
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At this point my trip was coming to an end and I still had not ridden him, but I was getting some pressure from my host to do so, I didn’t think that Roman was ready just yet so I held true to myself and continued with the groundwork. He was due to get gelding in the next few days and I still did not think he was ready.
As fate would have it, near the end of March and the start of the really rough patch of COVID-19 things got a little spicy. Sandrine and I were due to leave in one week, when flights started getting canceled and the New Zealand government announced that they would be locking the country down, one day before we were to take our bus to Auckland. The NZ government was allowing no one to travel once the lock down was put into effect. In the span of a week I had to apply for a new visa and hope it was accepted (it was) and change so many plans, it was stressful, exhausting and extremely frustrating, I was dealing with a family loss at the news of my Grandmother passing away. Extending my stay for another month allowed me to continue Romans training after he had healed from his gelding, and allow Sandrine to train a young stallion (soon to be gelding) we named Spartcus
