I'm Regaining my Balance and Dude gets Leg Wraps

There were 2 incidents with Dude this weekend - he shied or something when I was mounting and my muscle memory put my butt in the saddle while my head was still saying, "There's the ground, you're going to FALL!!!" Second, a bee got in his face right after a jump and he hopped around a little bit, I lost a stirrup, but my butt stayed firmly in the saddle. I am starting to have a LOT more confidence that my balance is coming back!

More on what happened: When I first mounted Dude I was under a tree and his walking off got me into trouble. He caught me under a branch and it almost pulled me off. Luckily, Dude's reaction when he gets into trouble is back up. He backed me out of the tree limb and I stayed on. This was all my fault for not watching where I was going in the first place. Then, I had to get off to retrieve something (ok, my cigarettes) and when I got back on Dude did some kind of shy or freak-out. I'm still not sure what happened except I was going forward and when his head came up his neck knocked me back into the saddle. I figured this out later from the bruise on my collarbone. No harm, no foul, I guess. My daughter said "I can't believe you rode Dude after that!" I was like, what, not ride after going to all that trouble? It never occur ed to me.

I finally noticed that the raw spot on the inside of Dude's fetlock is not going away and gets worse after long rides. Duh! Sorry your mom is slow in the head, boy. I got the velcro and neoprene fetlock wraps in the mail on Saturday and tried them on on Sunday. He didn't protest my putting them on, but tried, gingerly, to shake them off. I put him in a halter and lead and walked and trotted him around the yard. He leads really well. I'm going to have to enter him in a halter class one day! He didn't freak out when trotting with the wraps on, so I left them on for the ride.

At one point on the ride, on which I took my 19 year old nephew on Matt, we started down a trail which has rapidly gotten overgrown with bad sticker bushes. It got too narrow and thorny and my nephew, behind me, couldn't get Matt to turn. My nephew has never had lessons, but he's been on a few horses. So, I got off Dude and turned him around, then turned Matt around. Dude was steadily trying to kick off his wraps then. I guess the briars had been pulling at them. Because God is gracious, my saddle didn't turn when I remounted and we got out of the briar patch almost unscathed. My heart didn't even pound after dealing with all of that.

I don't know why Dude freaked out on that jump. We had not jumped anything all day. I let him have plenty of rein. A bee was buzzing around his face right then or maybe it was because the jump brought us out of the woods onto the side of the road and he wasn't ready for that sudden change (we haven't come out from that exact direction before) or maybe he just likes to canter after he jumps. I didn't freak out, though even though we were having this little bucking episode on pavement! My balance is improving. I just got him over to the road side and then got my stirrup while my nephew caught up.

The VLC blog made me think, though, that I am a better rider now than I ever was because I am looking at myself and asking what am I doing that is causing these behaviors in Dude? I am trying to discern his stubborn moments from his real fear moments. I still feel it was very much the right thing to do for me to get Dude. My progress seems to be slow, but it is probably just the right speed for him. He is patient with my bad riding and I am patient with his quirks.