In June of this year we bought a ‘project pony’ for my daughter. I’ll be honest, much of my life has been working with project ponies/ horses belonging both to clients and myself, and I have got to the point where I generally prefer our horses at home not to be projects! I like to be able to not be working when I’m not at work, if that makes sense. I’ve finally got my own little horse from unhandled, untrained and let’s face it,  cuddly but fairly feral, to the stage where we can really relax and enjoy hacking, so I was fairly reluctant to start into another project. And I want my daughter to be able to enjoy her ponies and do what she loves, which includes jumping and joining in pony club rallies with her friends. So I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted a project! But we bit the bullet and went for it, partly because my daughter fell in love with her at first sight and partly because I was worried about where she might end up if we didn’t take her.

I heard about this pony through a coach that I knew who felt she might be a good fit for us, she was being advertised as a project with a few issues, but we decided to go for it. Luckily I knew a bit about her history with the people that had owned her as a three and four year old, before the sellers, and she was only young so I felt with the right management and training she might come round nicely.

With my daughter I’ve always tried to strike a balance between teaching her about good welfare and positive training methods at the same time as allowing her to take part in ‘normal’ riding activities.

This means that we have made the decision to bit this pony. My daughter has fairly good hands and good balance and we have carefully selected a bit that she seems very comfortable with. The pony also responds beautifully to voice cues (taught very well by the people that backed her) so we can ensure that any bit pressure is light. She arrived very strong and unhappy in her mouth so this is one thing that we are delighted to see has changed dramatically since she came to us.

My daughter has had a range of ponies over the years, a couple that have been ours since youngsters and that have been trained with positive reinforcement from scratch, and a few that have been older, on loan, and come from a pretty traditional training system. So I think, even though she is a teenager and mostly doesn’t listen to me, she has actually had quite a good grounding in listening to the horse.

I was never more delighted to see this at work than yesterday, when she demonstrated such a good understanding of her pony’s feelings, making on her own the absolute right decisions.

We have moved our little herd to a different field, a short walk down the road, and this was the first evening the project pony had come in away from the others to be ridden since we had got her. One of the issues that she came with was a tendency to take off very strongly in trot when she wasn’t sure about things (as well as being quite ‘nappy’, a behaviour that I feel is often very misunderstood, more about that in another blog!). Mostly it was insecurity, a degree of separation distress, and inconsistency in handling/ management. Last night my daughter was able to lead her calmly up from the field, but she noted that she was a bit ‘busier’ in herself, just a bit more forwards in her walk and not standing quite as quietly for grooming or tacking up as normal. Nothing major, but I was pleased that she noticed it. So she decided to lead her round the arena and practice walk-halt transitions with a nice scratch and calm, soothing verbal praise each time they halted. All on her own, with no input from me. The pony responded beautifully, visibly relaxing, and my daughter commented, “Look, she’s lowered her head and slowed down a bit and she is halting much more easily”. At which point she hopped on and repeated the exercise under saddle. After just a few circuits on each rein she said that was enough, that she was really pleased with her, and we’d pop her back out.

To me, that is horse sense. The ability to recognise how the horse is feeling, to adapt expectations, to help them manage their emotions through our actions, not because we are forcing them to be obedient, but because we are making decisions that help them settle and feel safer. I am incredibly proud of my daughter for thinking before she mounted up, for building what is turning into a great relationship with a very loving pony

I’m also really pleased that,  despite rolling her eyes at me despairingly much of the time, she actually does listen and learn 😂. If I can help her, I can help anyone 🤣🤣.