Riding and Shopping

Hello all! We had a great weekend with lots of activities... Saturday morning I went to the trailer place. The man there said if I like my horse I won't put him in that trailer anymore - too rusty on top to be trusted underneath, so I coughed up the $4,000.00 for a new trailer. Whee! My daughter said, "Wow, Mom, that cost more than both horses put together!" Yes, it did. Thus continueth the lessons in the economics of horse ownership. We hauled it home and showed it to Matt. He promptly ran away from it.

I read an article about teaching horses to "drive" with the lead rope and doing ground work for getting into the trailer. Matt did pretty well at that. Haven't tried to actually put him in the new one yet. To answer 4H&H's question, I would say Matt has always been reluctant to get in the trailer -- mostly because he knows it is separation from Dude. Its more of a herd bound, barn sour thing than a trailer fear thing. But, since he seemed to need affirmations that I am in charge of him, I worked on ground work with him.

Later Saturday, after going for a load of sand with the flat-bed trailer, we finally got to saddle up to ride! I put Dude in cross ties to brush him out. He does pretty well in cross ties, although I had to watch him that he didn't get too tight and panic himself. I let him loose to bridle him and although he tossed his head and fussed a little, he didn't try to get away. I was giving him carrots intermittently so he was in my pocket for that!! Dude was amazingly good considering that I was trying to fit him with a new bridle. Had to give up on the new bridle -- needs more holes punched - and put on the old crusty nylon one (ugh!). But, at least I got to use the new reins. Dude was pretty good for saddling. I gave him lots of carrots and "easy good boy"s and he finally stood kind of still for me reach under to get the girth from the other side. He didn't circle much while I was tightening it.

Note that later, on the trail, when I got off for something else and tightened the girth while I was down there he paid no attention to it whatsoever. During saddling, he was more worried about me going on his off side to load the gator-aid in my pack thing than he was about anything else. He is getting better and better. He was remarkably good considering that I haven't tried to saddle him in a couple of months!! On the trail, I had to get off to lead him over the first ditch as it had water running fast through it. Then, he and Matt were both reluctant to start into the tree lined trail. But once we got them going, they were great.

I noted that Dude is going strung out and heavy on the forehand and this is causing him to stumble when he starts to trot. I try to get him to collect some at the walk before he trots, but we were both rusty and out of practice and out of sync. I expect improvement for us both with more time in the saddle with Spring coming.

The thing I love about Dude is that he knows so many words in English. On the creek trail there are a lot of little ditches you have to cross that are running into the creek. At the first ditch as we approached I said "Dude, jump it" and his whole body responded and got ready and jumped. Boy, I was textbook not ready, though, holding on, pinching, behind and pulled his face. Poor fella! Good thing he's in a hackamore, although I'm sure that was not pleasant for him either. Daughter was coming behind us on Matt, of course -- she's been taking jumping lessons so she's way better than me. My form improved as we jumped about 10 times. Although I lost my stirrups a lot. Man, I was bad. Glad there were no video cameras around. It would have been a how not to jump video!

Dude was great. Of course he shook his head after I popped his face on the first jump, but he kept trying and giving me more chances to improve. Dude finds it so hard to train his human. Dude really liked having on shoes for the trail ride. At first he was avoiding the pea-gravel part of the road and then he figured out it didn't ouchy him anymore and liked trotting on it!

One last funny thing. I got my cordless clippers out to do Matt's bridle path and thought I would see if Dude was afraid of the sound of them. Surprise! He walked over to me and stuck out his chin to be clipped. He stood letting me trim under his hairy chin and almost went to sleep -- lulled by the buzz, I guess. You just never know with him!!!