The Two Minute Catch

Yesterday when I went to feed the rescue ponies, it took me a longer time than usual to catch the saddlebred. I had not caught her the day before because of time constraints and now I was having to make up the lost time. I finally resorted to playing the old trick i had learned as a kid with a horse that was so hard to catch it made me inventive and patient at the same time. I tied a long rope to a section of the round corral and eased her up to the triangular corner made by the rope and fence. She will let me rub her butt here, but not get close enough to actually catch her. With two in the round pen, playing the run around a look at me until “join up” or whatever you want to call it happens, is beyond my talents. Once she is eased up with the rope against her neck, I let her walk forward and take the rope through my hands and with her. She is making her own rope loop this way and I just have to close it around. Technique is everything and has to be learned, I guess, since the horse can bog their head down and back up and slip the loop. You just have to handle the horse and the rope in a way that does not happen. Then you can just stop the “getting away.” This does not work with a frightened horse that is running through the ropes in a panic, just the ones not quite ready to give in and be caught.

While I had her last night, she got her oat toasties, got rubbed and brushed and then we spent the next hour or better getting caught. I would walk away and come back, throw the rope over her, take it off, walk away come back - until she was bored. I then did some flooding, which is a nicer way of doing the old “sacking out.” Rubbing all over with exaggerated movements (with just hands) until she could stand still. She is touchy about her head, so I really concentrated on that and flipped the rope up and over her muzzle and head until she was anticipating it and catching it so it would rub her better.

Tonight it paid off. I went into the corral and just started to walk up to her like we had done the night before. At the last moment, she decided to walk off. I walked up again. She walked off again. I tied the rope to the corral panel and walked her into the triangle. She walked right in, pulled the rope forward, turned just right to make a loop on her own and was caught. Less than two minutes. We will keep going back to where she is comfortable until she doesn’t need the entire routine to be caught. Since she did so well, it was time to just sit with her while she ate and not ask anything more. For the first time, the last two days, she has offered to sniff me and be curious. The fear is subsiding. I hope to have new photos tomorrow.

~ by bethanycaskey on April 25, 2008.