So I'll start at the beginning as I usually do. Cari had been talking to Alyssa about working Lady on straight lines mostly. The field is the obvious place to do this. So I took her out and hand walked her in the field to see how she would do. Lady and Papillon dont lead as well as they should. Leading becomes very very important outdoors and also in scary situations. Today Lady got a little reminder how it was. There were people blowing leaves and people mowing grass next door. Lady was breathing hard the whole way. She kept getting her shoulder close to me or even bumping in to me. I made it my mission to remind her who's scarier. Its me.
Every time her shoulder was behind me it got a smack with the lead rope. Every time her shoulder was next to me and too close it got elbowed. When she bumped into me I just went totally nuts. I'd turn around, lunge at her waving my hands and jerking the lead rope until she backed up. Touching me is NOT OK. I discovered that its best with Lady to keep her moving. Star and Papillon both like to stop and investigate things. Lady thinks that stopping is what you do when you cant keep moving because the thing in front of you is dangerous. Good information to have.
I put Lady away, by which time Alyssa was done with Dylan. We went in and talked to Robert and Lil a little in the new house. Dylan's owners were coming that day so Dylan was going to be taken out again. There's a show this coming weekend so Alyssa was going to ride Luca. Alyssa and I went out and got Luca, who led quite nicely for Alyssa. We tied him and after getting smacked a few times for trying to nuzzle with us he stood fairly well. While I was brushing him on either side he swung his quarters into me. This also earned him a pretty good smack. Mostly though, he stood there and I pet his neck while Alyssa was tacking him up. When Alyssa went to get on him Robert was already on the other side of Luca. I positioned myself next to his quarters and when they started to move towards me I had my glove in my hand and I smacked him with the glove. He stood still for mounting. I went to the arena and watched him be pretty good for Alyssa, except for the part where he tried to kill us. Robert scooted out of the way. I have a policy that horses get the hell out of my way. If he had had his quarters as close to me as they were to Robert I probably would have decided that discretion is the better part of valor and scooted off to.
I got bored of watching Luca after a while and I went and tacked up Star. I forgot to take a whip with me to go to the hay barn and suddenly everything was extra concerning. After smacking her with the rope didn't work, (it never does with her) I turned around and got a whip and went back. She still balked which surprised and pleased me. Pleased me because thats what I like to call a teaching moment. Sometimes shit happens and there's not much to do but deal with it. Sometimes shit happens and you have the perfect setup to teach the horse that this behavior will be punished. Usually when I have a whip she just walks right up. Today she got smacked for being an idiot.
I thought I would be done tacking up before Alyssa was done. It didn't work out that way so Star and I scurried into the aisle adjacent to the main hitching spot. Star was freaked out. This place was dark and small and scary. We stood there and she sortof calmed down. I'll have to take her back in there and tie her later. The reason she stands so well in the hay barn cross ties is that we've stood there for a long long time. We can do the same in the aisle way of the hay barn.
I didn't put the running martingale on her today, because I wanted to get out of there fairly quickly. Alyssa and Luca had the girth I normally use so I used a slightly longer one. It went up to the top hole on either side. It was still loose but tight enough for mounting. I just had to stay on my inner thigh or else! That actually went OK. It was really good practice actually, and I even managed to keep most of my muscles pretty relaxed.
We went out on the trail with minimal fussing. She didn't want to walk on the road. I'll have to deal with that. She was fine to cross the culvert and walked along nicely past the trailer. She stopped several times to stare at the blue barrel thats out in the grass. She was really pretty good until we got to the purple lupins. I thought they were very pretty. Star thought they were out to get her. We went back and forth in front of the lupins for a while. She started to walk through and then as soon as she passed the half way point, she bolted. Bolting is NOT OK. I don't mind if she stops, I don't mind if she backs up. I don't let her turn but I dont punish her much for it either. Bolting I dont tolerate. I had her go back through the lupins. She walked that time so I let her keep walking away from them for a while. I wanted to go to the stream crossing though and she wasn't going to want to walk on the partially inundated path so after a while I turned her around and we walked through the lupins again without much fuss at all, just some snorting.
When we got to the creek crossing she was less than thrilled. I have a system with her. I squeeze with my legs, I keep squeezing progressively harder and harder and harder and I keep squeezing until she takes the tiniest step forward and then I release all the pressure. She knows this game. She knows that early in the game she's even allowed to back up but she'll have to walk all that way forward again anyway without any rest. If she takes a step forward right away we rest for a little while and then take another step. We played this game all the way down to the bank, about 6 m of this. Lots of backing up, some attempts at turning and running away.
Then we sat there at the edge of the bank. At that point the game changed a little. Any backing up would escalate immediately to kicking by me. We sat there for a long time. I had a long sleeve shirt on which protected most of me from the sun. The long sleeve shirt has a hole in it where my neck sticks through. All around there I got pretty badly burned. Eventually we walked through the water.
Usually horses like to trot up the opposite bank. As a reward for going through the water I was going to give her a loose rein for a little while. I grabbed mane and waited for the rush that never came. She walked very calmly up the opposite bank and proceeded to step around the deep wheel tracks left in the dried mud. We walked on a loose rein for a while and then we stopped so I could put my bat back in my half chaps for safe keeping. I hardly ever use it with Star but I did once during the creek crossing.
We walked around behind the creek and then came to the bridge. Previously the bridge has been a big balking point for her. She used to only step on it in hand if I stepped on it first. I had taken her out there before and she stepped on the bridge before I did which was nice. Today she balked a little. We walked up to the edge of it. I let her eat some grass. She's fairly good about only eating grass when I let her. Not great but she doesn't pull on me when she encounters resistance so I call that good enough for now. So she nibbled some grass, put her front feet on the bridge and then walked across it. She did one sidestep in response to something. I dont know what it was.
We walked straight home from there. She broke into the world's smoothest trot a few times but came right back down with the application of a little seat and rein pressure. We came to the hay bales. I asked her to step over to the other side of the wheel tracks we were following. She walked past them but eyed them cautiously the whole time. We walked across the culvert and on the path, I got off while we were still on the path because I like her being on the path and because sometimes she likes to trot when we get to the grass arena so I didn't want to give her the opportunity to misbehave. I am very very pleased with how well she did yesterday, there may be hope for her as a useful animal yet.
Alyssa was getting done with Dylan by the time I got back. I untacked and Robert was leading Reno up to go for a drive. I put Star back and when Reno was on his way Alyssa suggested taking Papillon out for a hack and I'd ride Keno. Keno has been a little bit disobedient out on the trail and I think he just needs to know that he can work hard out there or he can relax. I thought Alyssa did a really good job keeping Papillon about as relaxed as she gets outside. We walked around in the grass and they looked very picturesque out there with the grass coming nearly to Alyssa's toes. We need to get all the jumps and poles out of there so that Buzz can cut hay when it gets hot enough. Alyssa put Papillon back, having done a nice excursion out of the outdoor arena.
I took Keno out to the back forty and we cantered around a little. Then we galloped down the long side of the field, or at least about 2/3 of it. I discovered that galloping down the side of the field where I feel off Colonel is really pretty terrifying. Keno thought it was great. At some point I need to take him out and run him until he's sick of it. I guess I should practice a good galloping seat, maybe the eventing saddle would be good for that. So we stopped when I got too terrified to keep going and we walked a little. When he started to jig we took a circle. He didn't like it. He expressed his displeasure by jigging some more and we took another circle. He got the picture. We walked, sometimes a very huge aggressive sortof walk but clearly a walk.
We walked almost to home and he started to trot. I turned him around and we galloped down the other side of the field away from home. He was having a great time. My stirrups were too long. I was less happy, not that it wasn't fun but it was scarier than I like. So we stopped and I shortened my stirrups. Keno was happy to walk for a while and we walked nearly to home and he was tossing his head, which irked me. So he tossed his head one more time and I turned him around and we cantered. Or at least I tried to hold him to a canter. I didn't want to just canter the long side again. I wanted to do something more tiring for him. So we did canter serpentines. He does OK lead changes but man was he pissed by all this direction changing. We circled like a barrel racer sometimes. Or at least thats what it felt like. Keno was pretty calm coming back, he did one little attempt at trotting but some rein and seat pressure brought him back and I called it good enough.
Lady had been really pissed when Alyssa took Papillon out. She was running around and bucking in her run. I figured she wanted to go out so I brought her out and I had her trot in hand. She looked sound so I saddled her and bridled her. She usually tosses her head for bridling. I had been ignoring it but today I decided that had been a bad idea. So, you guessed it, I smacked her for it. She stopped after a couple of times. Under saddle she was great. No head tossing only one proper spook. She was walking so calmly I decided we would trot. She was off at the trot but enjoying it. We only trotted down the long side of the arena. I tried it each direction, she was happy but lame on her left fore. After that she had one big spook at the end of the arena and then she was limping at the walk but still happy. Alyssa made fun of me for my "well, she's still happy so I can walk her some more" attitude and I got off her. Its easy to forget how gung ho she can be sometimes. Still it was a nice ten minute ride for her and she seemed happy. Her frogs are still pretty cracked so I put on some hoof dressing, now affectionately known as "snake oil" for its ineffectiveness and dubious usefulness in the first place.
We sat around for a while feeling good about all the horses getting worked today. Then we fed... but that is another post...
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