Back to Work

Yesterday I went to work for a few hours and then went to the barn after my early afternoon meeting. The good news is that although I feel very out of shape and am coughing a lot still, I feel mostly normal. The bad news is that now I have a CRAZY horse to deal with. Despite having a week off here and there all year with me traveling to PA so much, the weather has made this last week off MUCH harder to deal with.

It rained a ton on Monday and quite a bit on Tuesday so that coupled with the rain we got the week before means that TC's paddock is a mud pit. TC is also pretty wet and muddy himself. Gross.

I'm not impressed with how TC's stall and paddock are holding up. His stall definitely gets a bit wet inside, though he can get out of the rain. His paddock is terrible though. He has two mats coming out of his stall (there are two entrances to his stall) and one near his water, but other than that the whole paddock is basically just... mud. TC is luckily smart enough not to run around like a maniac in the mud and hurt himself (well, so far, am not holding out hope), but that just means that he's really nuts now.

I think one of the reasons why he's been so good this winter is because while it's been a bit cold, we haven't had rain, so he can trot and canter in his paddock a bit. Now there's no way for him to self exercise. Right when I stopped exercising him.

This pathway was so much muddier the other day

When I went out on Monday, I took TC for a short walk and then did some ground work in the covered round pen. Immediately when we got in there, I regretted every time I had turned him out in there. TC thinks that this round pen is where you go crazy. It doesn't help that he's always thought this round pen was where horses came to die at the barn. It's got really tall sides and is tucked against a scary building, the bathroom, and a house, so it's not like all the other arenas/round pens where we can walk around the outside of it.

So it's really spooky. And I've already set the precedent that he goes in there and goes crazy. So now facing a winter of being stuck in either there or in the covered arena where I am not allowed to long line, if I don't want to ride, I am stuck in the round pen. Where TC is crazy. Oh good.

I for sure couldn't ride on Monday. I probably could have on Tuesday, but on Monday I was determined to change the way TC thinks about the round pen.

I headed in there on Tuesday armed with the clicker and long lines and it was basically a shit show. Looking at what worked, I probably should have done a few things in different orders. First, do not allow him to be insane in there. I thought that maybe letting him trot around a bit would cause him to settle. It did not. He did not settle (he never has, once as the hamsters are off their wheels, you have to get him stopped), he just kept getting himself worked up and would go faster and faster. Second, I should always always always be working on this horse's brakes when he gets like this. Because again, he will work himself into a frenzy and just drag me in circles. Third, how many times do I have to learn to REMOVE ALL MOUNTING BLOCKS FROM THE AREA when I want to long line.

So was this horse, much muddier

So after making those mistakes and then seeing with my own eyes him work himself up, me not be able to put pressure on the bridle quick enough, him freak out because of that and then take off.... I finally used my brain (we only had maybe 3/4 of a brain between the two of us it seems). I managed to get him stopped and first reinstalled some real good brakes. We had to do a lot of backing up in all this, but soon he figured out that when I said WHOA, he needed to get his shit together and just stop. No matter what was happening around us.

Then I tackled getting him to stay out on the rail. We worked in small circles on the one side of the round pen that he kept avoiding, then slowly spiraled out into the larger area. After that, we started to trot just in the 3/4 of the circle that he'd stay out on, and then I'd ask him to walk and then step out in the quarter he was nervous about.

Soon he was as good as he was going to get in there. It's still not good. It's very tense and tight and nervous. But at least obedient.

Still, I kept thinking to myself, is this worth all the hassle? I mean it's nice to have a place for him to get exercise when I'm not on him. I wish my barn let people longe in arenas because it'd be really convenient to just pop him on the longe real quick on days like this one, but it doesn't. But also does he really need a longe or a long line? Certainly not if it's just going to freak him out and make his back tight.

I think the answer is to mostly ride when the outdoor round pens are closed and maybe tackle the indoor round pen at the walk until he really learns to settle in there. I don't know how I feel about him trotting around and around, however obediently, with his back completely rigid and his little legs going up and down. It seems completely counter to what we've been achieving and I do think it will have a negative effect on him until I can fix it in there. I'm a big believer in not practicing things badly. It's the same thing with his changes, when he would only offer me unclean ones, we did not practice them. You do not practice bad movements. I do not want him to practice trotting around with his back tight.

Always been skeptical of this round pen... 

Either way it ended up being a good day, though I was as frustrated as I have been in a while with him. It wasn't his fault, I'm just kind of done with the stupid young horse phase. He's coming 7 this year and I don't like that he's still so emotionally immature.

At the same time, I acknowledge that if I had continued along the path that we were on when he was 4 (instead of him getting injured and me having to take 1.5 years off of doing anything with him), he'd be a lot further along by now in that department. So the answer is just to keep trucking and acknowledge that just like last year, in the spring I'll be very glad that I didn't kick him to the curb this winter. Or maybe the answer is to move to the desert where it doesn't rain ever. I think every winter will get better though, either that or he'll start getting every winter off for real!