Togey's back in training

Many of you have been sending e-mails lately. I want all of you to know I appreciate hearing from you. My computer time is fairly limited by my new lifestyle, so I apologize if I haven't gotten back to you.

Togey came back from Katie's about 3 weeks ago. We gave him a couple of weeks of down time to adjust to his new environment here at the house. I started him back into work with some gentle trail riding around the cold and rainy weather. He's now well versed in the woods and doesn't look at much including decaying animals which is a smell that bothers many horses. We need that he had 2 triggers with water and steep hills. We don't have a lot of access to hills, and even if we did it would be too wet right now to work on them. On the flip side the wet weather makes it ideal to train in the water. The warm weather the last couple of days has finally given me the opportunity.

Horse training is an interesting business. Togey is a very intelligent horse and becomes bored easily. Living in the forest gives me the opportunity to keep his training very flexible. We hack 2 or 3 times a week in the woods for conditioning. We school another couple of times per week in the woods. There's nothing we can't work on in the woods that you would do in the arena. We do lateral work down the dirt roads, we use fallen logs to jump, and being in the woods gives us the opportunity to work on things that the arena doesn't. Today we got to the point where Togey is galloping through water without any thought at all. This is a really important skill for an eventer, as all cross country is required to include a water complex.

Today we also worked over logs quite a bit. I really enjoy jumping in the woods. Togey listens much better waiting for me to tell him where we're heading too next and listening for instructions. When we've had good days in the woods I usually come back and jump stadium style fences in the yard. Here's some video of 2'6" today. We worked really well at 2'3", but missed the video of it. My position is off at 2'6" as we were struggling to wait for spots.

It's amazing what you can make jumps out of with a little creativity. The jump in the video is actually an old bunk bed. We put feet on the headboard and footboard to use them as standards. This particular bed worked out really well because there were swells already cut in the rails that make perfect jump cups. KJ added a bit more creativity and drilled holes all across the top for flowers and holes down the posts so I can use actual jump cups and use it as an oxer.

The final part of Togey's training is spending one day a week in the yard working on circles. We are in the process of putting an arena up, but for the time being I work circles in the front yard. The arena going up is quite a process. We are relocating some equipment on the farm. Then we're mowing and leveling the area before bringing in footing and putting up the fencing for it.