# Late post - Ami's original start...



## paintponylvr (Jun 28, 2014)

I wanted to go ahead and do this post as it ties into some things I'm posting now (pair driving - Ami & Cupid) and also with Safety and starting minis in driving in general.

It's taken forever to get these pics cropped and put up - did a bunch today rather than "playing" out in our high humidity right now. Wasn't going to do a lot of these pics - they are "ugly". BUT THEN i got to thinking about it...

This show Ami's 1st hitch to my cart. She is at Vicki's place and I wasn't there this day. Ami had had previous work with hitching to a single tree and pulling branches logs. Not sure if she was hitched to/pulled a tire. She has been introduced to the cart - beside her, in front of her, behind her while ground driving (no pictures)... and was fine with all of that while both in an open bridle and in blinders. So this caught Vicki completely "flat footed" and by surprise. From the pics her grand daughter got, there is only 12 minutes between the flipped cart pic and the last pic where Ami is relaxed (LOTS OF PICS! I loaded 55 to Ami's album - didn't do all of them).

Ami had been giving both laterally and vertically very well before this work - though I see that we don't really have any good shots of that.

So here is the first pic of the flipped cart -







a shot of her stepping up and getting straightened out






everything upright again
















Goes to show that things can go wrong when you aren't expecting it, and also that it doesn't take long to do a "fix" if you've been working with your horse. While Ami stayed tense for a while after the first explosion (and if you look at the pics - you'll see a few where Vicki is correcting her BEFORE she explodes again), once she relaxed and looked like she was going well, the work was stopped just a couple minutes after the last shot above.

Pics were taken by Vicki's granddaughter, Jasmin, with Vicki's camera.


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## paintponylvr (Jun 28, 2014)

Here's a link to the full photo album

Ami - 2010 Shetland mare


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## paintponylvr (Jun 29, 2014)

and checked back with Vicki - while I hadn't done any single tire work with Ami, Vicki did... and even took her over gravel and down the road (not on pavement). She did this with a wooden single tree.

Yesterday when I hooked Ami and Cupid together and had them pull a "log" to the burn pile - they did ok. UNTIL I unhooked the tree and the steel double tree was dragging on the ground (very noisy). Ami went into prance and flip her head around mode. Very upset. Then she exploded! Similar to the wreck above, except that she was twisted/caught in Cupid's harness. Undid them, reattached them together and hooked back to the steel double tree. and worked them for a while.

Had two more explosions from her - both of which required them to be untangled. She was always quiet while being un-done (as was her partner)... Julie had been taking pictures and she caught one of Ami, rearing and spinning left into her hitched partner and facing me. I haven't "fixed" it yet - when I do, I'll come back and post it. By the time we were done driving it was Cupid who was standing quiet and steady and acting quite mad - not about driving but at his partner. AT one point I was constantly correcting him for biting at her.

This pairs "stuff" is so darned interesting!!


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## shorthorsemom (Jun 30, 2014)

She must have a decent background of training to stand calmly with a flipped cart and a leg over the shaft while you took those photos. Many driving horses would have never stopped and paused if they had had a wreck like that, they would have exploded until humans and carts were reduced to injury and breakage. I looked at your whole album and you are quite lucky. I hope you find out what is upsetting her...I would go way back in her training and go forward again very slowly. I would also check teeth and for any other medical reasons first. ,

not trying to fry you, kind of you to reach out and share and educate.

.


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## MiniNHF (Jul 1, 2014)

How is she with suppleness and bending? Almost looks like she may be a little stiff necked from the pictures where it says she is resisting to the lines. I was having a hard time with my boy bending on the long lines to one direction and had some explosions from him being frustrated in not being able to do what I was asking bend wise. I actually had a chiro look at him and said he was stiff in the neck to the one side and even in his poll to that one direction. She set him straight and gave us some bending exercises to do with him before working him to help prevent that stiffness from returning.


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## paintponylvr (Jul 2, 2014)

Hi shorthorsemom~!





I've decided to split and answer some of your points separately, rather than try to do it via paragraph... I see you've edited it since I first saw it but didn't have time to respond (should be outside again now, but... resting the sunburn from this morning).



shorthorsemom said:


> She must have a decent background of training to stand calmly with a flipped cart and a leg over the shaft while you took those photos.
> 
> I would like to say yes, she did have LOTS of work - not just in driving, but in all manner of ground manners as she didn't seem to have any when she arrived. I know who foaled her out, I know what they did with her and I know what was done with her with the woman whom I got her from. I was shocked by her "lack of manners" when I picked her up. She was not quite 2 yrs old. She was a complete .... ummm.... *BUTTHEAD*. I've owned ponies and horses for almost 40 years now and i have never been stepped on or run into as much as she did. She was actually very difficult to work with - took forever to get her to stay out of our space. I know she seemed to like running into and knocking Vicki down at first! I worked with her in 2012 a lot. Sometimes daily with very concentrated works, then she'd have time off - yes, I knew she was a baby. I wish now that I had taken her with us when we went driving off our property! She'd have learned a lot - if my driving ponies could have put up with her (debatable!). She was also worked by my daughters a handful of times - I wasn't real happy with our youngest and my SIL (other daughter's hubby) putting the two granddaughters on her when they did... I wasn't there then...
> 
> ...



Your original post also commented about the picture taking or that the person taking the pics should be helping with the pony... I can't remember how you worded it exactly .

Vicki and I used to work our ponies together *several times a week* - *EVERY WEEK* - in 2010 and 2011. Things changed for both of us in 2012 - I spent some time on the road with both ponies (had 3 Foundation Classic ponies and 1 Mini/ASPC w/ trainers and being shown - 1 made it to Congress and the other went to Nationals - as did I) and family and she was just starting to have to do some care-taking for her father. When we did get together - one or the other of us would stop sometimes and take pictures while the other working AND THEN we'd swap ponies and take more - fun and educational! We've got TONS of pictures - most never get "fixed" (cropped/resized for being able to post) - don't like what we are wearing (I had one pic where my shirt and bra had issues - hubby appreciated it - I deleted it from EVERYTHING - LOL), decided that that just didn't show us at anything "good", the horse is just "not showing right", could have been a good pic - but anywhere from a little to a lot blurred, or we've cut off legs, heads, tails, cart - etc... Our most recent pics definitely show my weight gain and also that vicki is having issues with her back (though she's lost a GREAT amount of weight!!). Both of us are a little "touchy" about sharing some...





BUT Vicki's granddaughter's have gotten a little older (imagine that) and now aren't as interested in really riding or caring for the ponies or full size horses, but they do like taking pictures. They have caught some "doozies" - both at some of the events we've been at and with our own ponies. Neither of these young ladies has enough experience with the ponies themselves and no safe knowledge/understanding of things that can go wrong with the ponies while driving. The best place for Jasmin WAS outside the roundpen, behind the camera. I sure appreciated the 100s of photos she's taken and shared with me!! I forgot to put the copyright info on those photos like I normally do. I need to go back and do that... I was not at Vicki's the day these photos were taken. There are others yet, that I have to get from Vicki/her granddaughters.

If folks look at the *dates*, these pics were taken - you will see that they were taken some 9 months ago. Ami was worked thru this problem at that time for a number of works and never did have another problem like that (at that time) and seemed to be coming along well. However, there were things going on then and I felt that she needed time at that point to mature and that is a lot of the reason when she came home that she didn't get much work and I didn't hitch her to a cart (plus in the nasty weather, my cart stayed over at Vicki's...



). I did, however, pull her out and start working her again earlier this spring some - first single pulling a tire. Then she was paired up with Cupid - and he was the one at that time having a problem. He was VERY put out that we were asking him to work with another pony. He did work with his sire (no longer with us and NO pictures of them as a pair,



) and with another pony last fall - KoKo. After dealing with some things with Ami, he has worked the best with her. He was awesome this past week while working her with him...

Some of our 3 yr olds have done really, really well working. Some have obviously needed time to "grow up" and become mature. All receive a certain amount of work and even when going well - they get breaks or time off or whatever you want to call it... Simply to be "baby horses". Plus I have had some health issues, currently have a lot of ponies and have a different job - all meaning that some of that time off is ... "forced"



My hubby and I currently own 26 head of equine - and I am the only one taking care of them. 2 are full sized horses, one a shet/arab x that is 13 hh, the rest are "my shetlands"... Yes, this year, I'm finding out that I simply have way too many. I haven't bred any mares since 2012... Part of me misses the babies, but I need to be able to do things with the ones I've got and I now fully understand that, LOL. Of those numbers, most are under 5 yrs of age!

Thank you for pointing some things out to us - both vicki and I. We are continuing to learn. I was able to take some more lessons in late 2012 - but it's been a while and I want to go back. Eventually, I want to take some specific lessons with specific ponies - Ami as a single is one of them. I would eventually like to show her in driving - aspc/amhr and ??CDE??... And maybe as a pair with Cupid (however, he's not double registered AMHR like she is). Time, more training, time, conditioning, time...





Neither Ami nor Cupid is the laid back pony like Cupid's dam or like some of our much larger Shetlands. I expect they will always be a "spicy" pair. Cupid's full brother is maturing and I'm very excited by him.



BUT he looks to be similar to Cupid in personality, so I fully expect to see some of the same things when we start him in harness.



Right now, he's just learning basic handling and is a year old. He's not had any of the concentrated handling that Cupid had by this same age, so things could get real interesting.


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## paintponylvr (Jul 2, 2014)

Thank you, miniNHF.

I was more than a little surprised when I, too, went thru pics and saw less bending/giving than I thought I was getting when/while working with her. It's something I'd already picked up on. Funny thing is, I mentioned it to Vicki & Julie just the other day - when Julie came out and took some pics of me working Ami and Cupid together.

We have scheduled an appointment for a different vet to look at her teeth and also to do some chiro work on her at the end of July. I'm very excited to see what happens after this appointment...

Have to run - have chores to do!!


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## MiniNHF (Jul 7, 2014)

paintponylvr said:


> Thank you, miniNHF.
> 
> I was more than a little surprised when I, too, went thru pics and saw less bending/giving than I thought I was getting when/while working with her. It's something I'd already picked up on. Funny thing is, I mentioned it to Vicki & Julie just the other day - when Julie came out and took some pics of me working Ami and Cupid together.
> 
> ...


Interesting what you can find out from a chiro doing a little adjustment


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## paintponylvr (Jul 26, 2014)

Ami was seen yesterday by my previous vet. She had her teeth floated (she had some bad, sharp points; but previous vet pointed out that yes, she could have been ok in Feb when last checked.) No baby teeth caps were found. Power tools were used and it didn't take long at all!

We didn't check her chiropractic before she was drugged - so she couldn't get adjusted. BUT Doc said that she appeared to be "out" on both the right side of her neck and back in her pelvis area. We've scheduled her for a separate chiro appointment in 3 weeks, when I plan on bringing several more down to this vet hospital to get floats, coggins and rabies vax.

We'll see if first the teeth make a difference and then the adjustment...

Cupid also had his teeth floated. He wasn't bad, but was due. His spine appears to be OK at this time. She used to work on his dam and one of her clients had a daughter that spent a lot of time riding her. Doc really liked Cupid!

Everyone else was just ..... "OOOOOOOO, how cute.... ponies!!!! ......what do you do with them??...." and then I laid out my two working pony photo albums with ponies being ridden, driven single to carts, pair to wagon, pair to forecart, pair to disk, pair to riding disk, pulling logs and a 3 abreast and 4 abreast hitch(s) being ground driven. The folks that were interested - thought it was great.

This was both Ami's and Cupid's first time to have their teeth floated. Neither had wolf teeth yet.


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## poniesrule (Jul 30, 2014)

I (newbie!!!) appreciate the educational posts & the comments from everyone else! I wish I could convince my daughter to sit and take pictures, because I believe that going back and looking at what you're doing helps teach you just as much, if not more, than having someone else watch you & offer advice.


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## BSharpRanch (Jul 30, 2014)

Poniesrule, if you have a phone that takes videos, you can set it up so you can capture 80-90% of your workout or drive. There are apps that allow you to grab frames from your videos too so you can have photos. I do this almost every time I work with my dog attack survivor so IF he has a "moment" I can deal with it then go back and see what lead up to his "moment". I also have a helmet cam that I use a lot when driving teams to help see later what we are doing and where I need to improve.


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