What's your angle?

The angle of the person at the barn that rides around as if trying to impress people? Yeah, he makes an impression all right, but probably not the way he intends to. He's also gotten a bit of an eye opener recently to how things can be done differently than his 'methods'.

He's very loud. As in yelling "HO!" repatedly. So much so that now his horses ignore him. So he yells it more. You can hear him from all over. There have also been times when he rides over near where I'm at and then tries to get the horse to do things, like stop, or spin and although I try not to look like I'm watching, I see what's going on and just cringe inside for the horse. He gives the horse a whole lot of mixed signals, which leads to confusion on both parts.

Since he's moved his horses into the barn, I haven't been riding my mare so he has no idea what I know or don't know. I haven't been riding because my mares right hind is all blown up for whatever reason. It started out with the swelling going all the way up her leg from her pastern to her stifle. Believe me, I've done everything I can think of to do and taking her to the vet- he told me to sweat it, (done that already) and gave her a shot of antibiotics (done that too!) and had no idea what the root of the cause is. So it's just puffy or not and sometimes bald or has fuzz as the hair grows back... It's an ongoing thing.

The other night when I worked my pony in the round pen, the guy at the barn got to see how I do things with my horses. On the advice of a good friend a while back, I started to give my horses signals as to what will come next. Stop is preceeded with a series of Whup, whup, whup's and then a quiet whooooaaaa. Turns come with cues as to whether they will be tighter turns or big sweeping turns. It's a matter of opening up the channels of communication between us.

The guy had walked up with his horse, waiting to use the round pen and stood there watching for a litle bit.  My pony was rockin it (as usual) and really working well. Katman was bent, soft, driving engaged, light and just awesome as usual as his little bad ass self is. There was no loud yelling on my part, my pony didn't ignore me and there was no running him around to wear him down. He worked like he knows how, we did some working trot, slow trot, extended trot, walking, stops, tuns and a bit of backing up. No muss, no fuss and we called it a day.

What I later found out, this guy is loud to get people to notice him so they will talk to him. That's how he meets people. He was also asking my friend if I train horses, since he realizes that what he's doing obviously isn't working. At least it sounds like he is open to new ideas.