On the Line

On Friday my trimmer came out and poked at my dumb horse, who was no longer feeling off at all and was desperate for her adoration and cuddles because he clearly gets none of that from me. Unfortunately work exploded that day, so I couldn't longe or ride him because I had to get home to deal with that. So I hand walked him.

I use that term loosely though. It was mostly just me being dragged around the ranch and occasionally stopping so that I could be orbited by a baby horse who CAN canter on the spot when he feels like it.

He's looking so good! Let's ignore the fact that most of his topline
growth in the last few months has been winter fluff

On Saturday morning I headed out to longe. I mostly wanted to make sure that he was comfortable and sane before I got on him. He started out a bit zippy, trying to buck on the longe and doing his best Arabian impression by trying to hike his huge tail over his butt (he failed). 

After about ten minutes, he walked and then stopped and stared at me in a creepy way. Like he was looking into my soul a bit. I moved and he moved to match me. It was like he was BEGGING me to tell him what to do. He'd make a REALLY bad event horse with his incessant need for input. But he will make a good dressage horse (hopefully, or I'll sell him to a tail enthusiast, I do like brushing it out and making it all poofy).

You can see all the gray specks he has in his coat! And the fact
that he won't let me trim his bridle path with clippers so I'm leaving
it as motivation for myself to get him used to clipping his bridle path

So I gave him some things to do. We did walk-trot transitions on the longe and he was perfect. Normally he complains about having to go from trot to walk (he trots really slow as if to say "look, I'm trotting at the speed of the walk, you should be fine with this") and he sometimes hops from walk to trot. But this time he was foot perfect. Then I had him do some in-hand work, just turns on the forehand and haunches, as well as some side pass and leg yield. He did it all with the kind of precision I require from Rico. 

We worked a bit on a longer line in hand, I really want to be able to get him at least doing some basic at liberty stuff. One day I'll get a video of what we do, but it's pretty simple and boring. It's fun to play a bit with him without having to feel like I'm having to calm him down and redirect him all the time. He was ready to work with me that day. 

Now to transfer this undersaddle a bit better. He's not bad, but he definitely doesn't look to me for input in the same way he does when he's on the ground.

He was scared of this ramp so we sniffed it

Sunday it absolutely dumped rain on my house in the morning, so I lazed around the house dreading going to work this week because of what happened on Friday (Saturday I had friends to distract me, Sunday it was just me and my thoughts, a dangerous combination lol). Luckily I only have five more days including today until I get an entire week off to finish my thesis to relax.

I dragged myself to the barn in a bad mood so decided I wasn't riding. It's not worth getting on him after a week off if I'm not 100%. Nothing like a cuddly baby horse on the ground to put me in a better mood though.

He was weird to tack up, we were in his stall because of the rain and he stood in his rubber pan (which I'm now using to feed him in because I found that he was dumping his grain in the mud out of his other bucket) pawing and trying to leave the stall. I put all his longeing stuff on attached to my surcingle, which I actually hadn't used on him yet.

Pawing while standing in the bucket, wtf

Other than some hardcore spooking at a trash bag, he was pretty good walking up. But then he bolted when we got into the arena and rather than argue with him, I grabbed all the stuff off of him and turned him out, poor guy hasn't had a turnout in about two weeks. He tore around the arena like a maniac (I had to look away because it scares me to turn him out). Lots of bucking and cantering around.

Then something weird happened. He was loose in the arena and had faced me as if he was asking what he should do like he did the day before. So I told him to trot around to the left and he pawed toward me. I told him to TROT and tapped the ground with the whip, so he put his foot up to strike out toward me, first one foot, then the other, then landed in a bow and shook his head at me. I finally walked toward him with the whip like "fuck no, you're going to trot when asked" and he took off squealing. I think he was challenging me! He lost. Better luck next time little baby horse.

Once as he was done playing, we did some real at liberty work. He's super fun to play with. Reminds me of his daddy:

I put his longeing stuff back on and actually worked him once as I had his mind back. He was great! Walk, trot, and a bunch of canter. His canter is looking fabulous, I haven't seen him canter on the line for a few weeks, not since I really focused on it. It looks so much better. He actually has more than one frantic pepe-le-pew-like gait canter. I'm definitely thinking that we'll be continuing our canter boot camp once as he's back undersaddle. Hopefully after this winter, we'll have a workable canter.

I'm glad I didn't ride. I was in a mood until about 8pm last night and then I discovered the glorious wonder that is Spotify and started listening to all my favorite bands (they even have some of the slightly obscure ones that I listen to!). I know I'm late to the party. I'm that person who's like hey guys have you heard of the BEATLES?? They're pretty good and people are like what the FUCK Megan.

Nothing like music and ponies to put you in a better mood. We'll see how today goes at work. Hopefully well enough where I can ride again. His first ride back may not be so fun, so I want to be prepared to handle it mentally.