Finally Some Saddle Time

It seems like forever since I have ridden, and although I am sure my horses don't mind one bit, it does bother me when I have to wait as long as I did.   So today after doing some chores I finally grabbed a halter and saddled up one of my "trusty" steeds.

No I did not ride Melody.  (Mellypalouza)

I actually rode Killian today.   Melody still needed to get acclimated a little before I rode her, which I will talk more about in a bit.

Killian was his usual stoic self.  No real trouble but plenty of half-assed attempts to convince me that riding was a bad idea.  However, it took a lot less time this time for him to start acting like the broke horse that he is.   Mostly we just trot though.  My biggest concern with him right now is that he is starting to get a little sway backed.  So we trot and I ask for collection.  I have to remind myself that he is not Trax though and cannot hold it for very long yet.  If I ask for him to hold it too long, he will remind me.  He grooooaaaaanns.

We did a little bit of moving off my leg and asking to give his face to the left and the right while moving forward.  He is like Trax, easier to the right than the left.  Common denominator is the rider I suspect!

We also did a small amount of cantering, and correct lead departures, and then simple lead changes.  He did pretty well.  After his nice hose down I let him roll in the round pen. As I watched him roll I found myself admiring the horse that he is.  So big and stout.  In his youth I'll bet he was stunning!  

Recently someone told me of an older woman who is looking for a horse that she can trail ride on at just a walk.  She has an injured back and cannot ride any faster. I considered offering up Killian for sale to her, as he would be perfect for that.  Just not sure I can let him go.  He is my steady Eddie, and probably the only horse I would feel comfortable putting Tom or Simon on, for those rare occasions that they ask to ride with me.

Plus there is something else.

Something I noticed today.

I have things to learn from this horse as well.   Something I don't know if I have ever mentioned is that one of the reasons I don't post when trotting is because I suck at it.  Killian is a horse that you almost have to post on.  Which is probably one of the reasons I don't enjoy him as much.  But I am on a mission to become a better rider.  So today while trotting I did work on my posting. One of the things I seem to have trouble with is keeping my heels down.  Once I did that, it all was so much easier.  Plus I am also trying to use my thighs more and my feet less.  Did that make sense?  Feel free to throw in any tips on posting that you have.  I can use them.


So now for news on Miss Melody.

She and Trax were perfectly content while in the pasture. She followed him around, he showed her where the water was, and where the best grass was at.  I suspect she made the mistake of touching the hot wire, because she knew exactly what it was when I went to bring them in.  She was not going anywhere near it. In fact she is now a little timid about all fence lines. If another horse touches it first then she is okay, but other than that...no way! This is not a bad thing!

So I put her back in her pen which is slightly separated from the rest.  She could still see everyone but no nose touching.  When I took Trax down to his opposite end, she became highly agitated and started pacing back and forth and calling to him.

I had been planning on moving her next to him anyways so I went ahead and switched everyone around. Sassy is on special footing so she has to stay put, but I moved Trax to the middle, Melody to the end, and Killian to the top pen where Mel used to be.  I thought that being next to Trax would keep her happy.

I was wrong.

She paced and whinnied, and he would go to comfort her and she would pin her ears at him, and Trax being highly intolerant of abuse, did what he does best....leave.

He went to the far end away from her and she called and called and paced and paced until he finally came back. Then she played nice for a while, but never stopped pacing.

I went to work.

About 7 pm TC called and said she was still pacing, and not eating.  Insert worried face here.

I got home at 12:30 am and she was still pacing, although a little slower at least.  I went in and talked to her, and she stopped long enough for some scritches, and conversation. I tried to explain that she was fine and nothing was going to happen to her. Trax was standing close and she nodded her head as if she understood. (yes I know she didn't really understand- but its my story, let me make it up as I go- lol)

When I went out the gate she went back to pacing.

When I got up this morning she was still pacing.  I gave her a yummy breakfast, and filled her water, which she drank and she would take a bite of soaked pellets, and then chew while she paced.  At least she was eating and drinking.

As I drank my coffee I formulated a plan, and here is how it went.

First I took her from the pen to the round pen and we did a little work. She has pretty good round pen manners.  Whoa means stop right now.  Smooch means pick it up a little, and a stick/whip means OMG don't hit me!  Which of course I never did.  I did, however, use it as a brush at the end and rub her all over with it.

We had a small bonding moment, and then I went to go clean pens.  As soon as I left she started going crazy again.  She is a very people oriented horse.  I went to clean pens, and each time I went by her all I had to do was say her name, and tell her to relax and she would stop and take a breath. Of course she may have just been waiting to see if I was coming to the gate, but she did seem to respond to me some.

Trax was in a postition where he could see her and her him. Occasionally she would call out to him and I think he answered once. But mostly it was just her churning up a huge cloud of dust.  On the bright side, I needed my round pen worked anyways, so it was kind of a win for me.  Killian was directly across from her and I saw him watching her like she was crazy.

Once I finished her pen, I moved Trax into it, so basically moved him back to his own home.  Now she could not see him and really started going nuts.  I kept thinking, she was going to try to go through the fence and even said to her, "If you go through that fence you'd better break a leg cuz I can't afford anything but a bullet right now." Which I know is terrible, but seriously it was getting a little ridiculous!  She never did though, just lots of pacing and churning of dirt.

Once I got the middle pen cleaned then I went and got her. I had 1 tube of Quietex left from when we moved so I went ahead and dosed her with it.  She was funny about that.  No way would she let me do it from the left side, but the right was fine.  Then I took her to the middle pen, where she was between Sassy and Trax.  I walked her in, took her halter off, and she let out a big sigh.  I know it wasn't the calming agents because they had not even had time to enter her system yet.  She took a long drink, said hello to Sassy, they exchanged a couple of squeals, and then she walked to Trax's end, said hello to him. then came back to her food.  Suddenly being calm in a pen next to other horses is the greatest thing in the world.

The pacing is over with.

Here she is, actually enjoying her food, and acting like the big girl that she is.  Speaking of big...this horse is huge!  I think she might be taller than Killian. With the weight she lost from pacing and not eating she almost looks like a TB.

I am learning that she is bothered by vehicles driving buy so we make a point of driving in and out of our circle drive right by her every chance we get.

What I like about her so far (besides her push button training) is that even when she was really nervous and upset, she knows her place in relation to people.  She was always respectful of me and my boundaries and never came close to trampling me, or pulling on the lead or anything like that.

I might ride her in the arena tomorrow. I know I am riding Trax, it just depends on how much time I have as to whether or not she gets ridden as well.  I'm not even sure if I have a saddle that will fit her, although I suspect the flextree will. I doubt I will do much on her. I want to give her just a little more time to get acclimated before I ask too much of her.  That may sound silly, but I think it is the right thing to do.  The farrier comes on Friday to put some shoes on her, and then Courtney comes on Sunday to see Sassy again.

Now my lunch break is over and I must get back to work....ugh.  

New Friends

No need for words today. The pictures say it all. 

Just In A Melody

After many conversations, a lot of back and forth both internally and externally, and watching a video ten thousand times, I finally came to a decision.

I wanted that horse.

I have no qualms about her training, no qualms about her temperament, but I was a little nervous about her soundness.  I could see from the video that when she was doing her spins that she was sore in the hind, and not really wanting to reach up under herself when trotting.

The day I went and rode her, I watched meticulously for any signs of lameness, uneven hips, or things like that.  I could not see any.   She had just spent 2 hours working cows, so in my mind it stood to reason that if she was going to be sore, that would be the time.  But I just didn't see anything indicative of a crippled horse.  Older horse, who has been competed on...yes. Crippled no.

I went home that day, really thinking on it, watched the video a thousand more times, slowed it down, froze it in spots, memorized every single foot fall.

Then came the back and forth conversations, and an agreement on a price.  We talked some trades, we talked this and that, and finally worked out a deal that we were both comfortable with.

When I was at the trim clinic I showed the video as best I could on my phone to Laz.  He confirmed what I saw, and told me things to check to see if she had serious issues, or just minor stuff that could be fixed.  One thing I knew for sure is that she had a terrible shoe job on her, and that in itself clearly had a lot to do with what I was seeing. However there was no toe first landings, or anything like that.

So today we hooked up the trailer and headed south again.  It was funny when I went out to start the semi to let it air up.  Trax immediately went and hid in the corner of his pen.  Once he realized I wasn't coming to get him, he came back to the gate.  Silly old horse.

When we got there I went to her pen, she came to me, and sniffed around me. We put a halter on her and took her out. I poked and prodded, felt down her legs for heat.  There was none.  I palpated her hip joints, no reaction. I checked her back for sore spots...nothing.  I asked her to move her again and was very happy with what I saw.  She was actually reaching up under herself with her hind feet more than she was in the video.

We talked about that.  The gal has been riding her regularly since she got her 3 months ago. (keep in mind that these folks make their living buying, tuning up, and selling horses)  She has been asking for more collection and really working her on cows a lot.  Where as before, her 70 year old owner was not riding her at all and the person who was being paid to ride her was not following through with her commitment.   So with that in mind, the video that I have studied for weeks, was taken on her first day out of semi retirement.

That would be like asking me to to be physically fit for volleyball or soccer right now today.

Yeah, that would not be pretty!

We talked about food and at 15 she has just now been started on MSM.  So it is possible that is also helping with her soreness. I will also have her on MSM as well some some good quality supplements, as well as vitamins.

One thing the gal said was that if I did not buy her, then she was going to go ahead and ride her in the National Sorting Finals in Texas this June.  She spent a lot of time talking about how much she has enjoyed riding her and having her because she is so well trained you don't even have to really think about what your horse is doing. She knows her job and does it.

That is exactly what I need right now. A horse that knows its job.

So we finished the deal and switched out halters and took her to the trailer to load her up. The gal had told me that she has only been in a trailer with a rear tack once before and it was a little scary for her. She is used to loading into a trailer with a ramp.  She did load but just as she made the decision to jump in, the guys had their arms locked behind her butt. They pushed as she jumped and she ended up on her nose!  Poor thing.  When she jumped up from that she caught her shoulder on one of the dividers and scrapped it up a little bit.  Nothing serious, but clearly we are going to have to do some trailer loading exercises.  I'm sure that little incident traumatized her just a little.

We got her home without incident, when I went in to get her I expected her to be a little more nervous than she was. She turned and looked at me, rested her head on my arm for a second, and then when I untied her she waited until I asked her to turn around. She is so big she got a little bit stuck, which kind of freaked her out, but even freaked out, she did not try to run me over, she waited when I said "wait", and then we unloaded together. She vaulted her self out the door, I had to laugh my butt off.  I think we will start next time by being backed up to a hill.

We did a quick meet and greet with the rest of her new herd. There were no pinned ears or squeals, just nose touching and pricked ears.  Not even Sassy, who has a tendency to not like newcomers, was very polite.

I walked her around, took her to the pasture, we had a quick photo shoot, and then I put her in her new temporary pen.  I say temp, because I want to move her next to Trax.

Now here is the cool stuff. She has never had a pen bigger than 16x16 in her life.  Now her pen is 16x42.  Eventually she will get moved to one that is 30x30.  She has had turn out, but never had pasture that anyone knows of.  EVER

When I had her in the pasture I gave her the opportunity to nibble a little, but she wasn't very interested yet.  Too busy checking our her surroundings.  Tomorrow I will let her out with Trax to graze for a few hours.  I always start with him when it comes to newcomers. He always gets along, never acts mean or bossy, and is the perfect guy for helping her feel at home.

Now for pics:

So here is the deal in a nutshell.  She is 15, and will need some special maintenance but I don't think it is anything I am not already doing for Killian.  I am not expecting to just run out and win a bunch of ribbons on her. She is still a little out of shape and needs conditioning.  I will need to learn how to ride her.  Hopefully I won't ruin her!  We will spend the summer getting to know each other, maybe go to the next ASHA clinic in Flagstaff in June.  Actually I'd like to take both her and Trax.

My riding schedule will now just include one more horse, and as long as everyone gets ridden once or twice a week, for the heat we are about to have, I think that will work.  I probably will not ride her until I get her in some good shoes.  She has never been barefoot in her life so I'm not sure that I want to do that just yet.  I am not ruling out the possibility in the future but not yet.

So there she is, in all her glory! What do you think?

Trim Clinic

Yesterday was the low budget trim clinic, which for me right now, is perfect. I am very much on a low budget right now.  LOL

I was taking Trax, and only have one trailer to use....the big one...so we hooked up the entire rig and and I made the long drive of .75 miles to the Hoofbeats for Hearts facility, 2 streets over.   I rolled up looking like a full on show rig, and unloaded by one lonely, dirty, a little scraggly looking paint horse.  I did at least brush him first, but compared to the Lipizzaner that was there, he looked like poor white trash.  However, I did take a certain amount of internal pleasure when I realized that my scraggly little paint is in top notch shape, not an ounce of fat on him, where as the gorgeous big white horse, was a little on the soft side. It didn't make him less gorgeous though.

The facility was a regular beehive of activity with therapy rides, riding lessons, troubled youth cleaning stalls and brushing horses, not to mention A LOT of horses.  We had to walk through the breeze way of a mare motel in order to get to where we were doing our clinic.  Guess what was living in there.....A DONKEY!

Guess who froze and started blowing like crazy when he saw that?

I did ask him to come close to the donkey but he wouldn't.  The area was very closed in so I chose safety over training, and we moved on.

The clinic was very informative.  I purposely had not touched Trax's feet in a couple of weeks for this clinic. The clinician used Trax as the model for proper measuring techniques, and  good angles and bad.  He told me that I actually am doing a good job with Trax, but that I was a little high on the outside on one of his hind feet, and  then of course we addressed the  two different feet issue, where one heel is still high and the other is still so low and very under run.

Now interestingly enough, when Courtney looked at my trim job the day after I had done it, she also said I was high on the outside on that same hoof and she brought it down a bit for me.  Now 2 weeks later he is high again.  Common sense tells me that he has something going on in his hip which is causing that.  Perhaps it is time for another chiro adjustment.

I loved his measurement system and even more his measurement tool  Nothing fancy, just a 20$ digital micrometer from Harbor freight.  We used that to measure the length of the fetlock, then the length of the toe.  From that we measured the length of the apex of the frog to where the heel should be.  He says that they should all be the same.  Then we talked about dividing in 3rds, and halves, and I'll be honest I can't recall what that was about, but will be able to refer to the video he will be posting next week, so I can refresh my memory.

We moved on to the next horse, which is a horse he works on regularly.  This gal takes her horse back and forth from Oregon every year.  Every year her trimmer in Oregon ruins the angles on the horse, the horse will not perform correctly, and then when she bring him down here, Laz works on him and fixes him and he performs beautifully.   Now this is where it can get a little controversial.  Laz is a farrier.  He is not an Iron vs. Barefoot guy. He says, "I'm about the horse"

The other trimmer in Oregon tends to throw the horses heels too low, and the toes too long.  In order to bring those heels back up in a very short amount of time, he shoes the horse for 2 rounds, trimming in between rounds of course, then pulls the shoes.  The horse does not have to wear shoes from then on.  Now the horse is down here for good so should not ever need to have shoes again.

I know that some people will call that short cutting, some people are completely against shoes.  I am not. I believe it is horse specific, and rider specific as well.  Killian is shod because he does not grow hoof and cannot handle the terrain of az.  He does well in shoes, especially now that I have a farrier who is not trying to crunch the heels in.   Once we get enough hoof underneath him, I may try to transition him back to barefoot, but if he cannot handle it, he will go back to being shod. FYI, my current farrier is Laz, who put on the clinic.

Then the lady saddled up her dressage Lipizzaner and showed us how well he moved. The horse, who is a big scaredy cat, was very nervous and I could tell that she was too.  As I watched her move her horse through the area we were at, and there was all kinds of stuff going on around us, I could see she wasn't breathing.  I wanted to yell out, "Breathe!"  But I didn't.  Her horse was moving short and tight.  Then she let out a breath, her horse did too, and he started to move.  It was much nicer and he was reaching up under himself pretty nicely.

Okay, here comes the conciete.   It may have been that she never let her horse really move out because the area was not huge, or it could have been because she was so nervous...but I have seen my little scraggly pain, move out in a collected frame which was ten times nicer.  But again, she may have been holding him in. I was hoping to see some fancy dressage moves, but she didn't do any.  Bummer!  LOL

After that, we did the trim on Trax.  Now one of the things that Laz, mentioned was that we could fix Trax's mismatched heels pretty quickly if we did a little corrective shoeing for one or 2 rounds.  He offered to do that for me, and I am not totally against it, but opted to wait.  He did however go ahead and to the trim.

Before the trim Trax was doing his usual "flop" of the left front.  Afterwards he did not.  After the trim I moved him out and boy did he look nice.  At that point Laz said to me, "I may have been jumping the gun with the suggestion of temporary corrective shoeing. This was a major change off of a very slight trim. If you are diligent in your work and keep on him about once a week to keep his angles correct, I think you can fix him without the shoes.  That is what I suggest at this point."

We also discussed the problems we have with our side passing from right to left.  He told me, "Look at your horses feet.  He is not physically capable of performing the task you are asking because he is so uneven.  His shoulder is jammed up and he can't move it like you want him too."

I said, "Well he will do it after a bit if I really keep after him."

"That is because he is trying very hard to please you, but it is hard for him physically. Once you get him fixed, he will do it for you every time.  I'd bet money on it."

Then we broke for lunch had a bite of pizza and then went inside for a lecture.

We watched a slide show of some very bad feet and discussed what had been done to fix them.  Some with shoes, but most without.

One thing he kept saying that I though was cool, was that he hates when people label stuff.   In fact he jumped on me for calling my horse crazy.

People label these horses as, this, that or the other thing. Once they label the horse as bad, or broken, or unathletic, they stop there because in their minds they have identified the problem and that is it.   For everything that a horse does, there is a cause, and it is a reaction.  It is our job to find out what the cause is and the fix the negative reaction.  

I had to laugh when he was saying that. I found myself thinking of BEC, who I know thinks the same way.

His own personal system when "fixing" a horse is to start at the feet, make sure he has done his job correctly and then go up from there.

Another thing he talked about which I thought was pure crap at first, was that if you look at a horses mane and it goes all over the place, it means there is something going on with the neck, back, or hips.   I almost called bullshit- but then one of the other gals spoke up and said, "I thought you were full of it, and then I googled it, and there is a ton of research supporting that theory."

I thought of Sassy whose mane went in 3 different directions when I got her.  Now it all lays flat and I have never tried to train it to go one way or the other.  It just does.   Interesting.

Once we were done, I lead Trax back to the trailer.  But this time the donkey and a mini where in a turn out.  I took Trax over to meet them and he sniffed noses with both.  "A" got pics of it for me, but I can't seem to get them off of my email.  :-(    He handled it like a big boy though and I was quite proud.  He didn't even get upset when the mini tried to bite his nose!!!!

So that was my clinic, and the big thing I took away was the angles and the measuring system.  I haven't ridden yet today, but hopefully will later this evening to see if the trim helps any with his ability to move while under saddle.

Connection

It is no secret that most people who are close to me think that I should send Trax down the road.  The number of people who even have an inkling of what it is that binds me to this horse are few and far between.  To be honest I am not even 100% sure if I know what it is.

The one thing I know for sure though....IT IS.

When I first got Trax, I was convinced that he was the coolest horse that ever lived.  I still don't know that he isn't, but I have come to recognize that he is broken.  Perhaps that is what connects us. I know how it feels to be broken.  I know how it feels to have every one you care about completely give up on you.  I know how it is to be on a road of self destruction and wanting to stop but not knowing how.

Sometimes that is how he seems to me.  Like he is on a road of self destruction.  Of course in his mind it is probably more like a road of self preservation.  But do you suppose it is possible that he is, in his own way, addicted to the fear?  When I read the words, or hear them come out of my mouth, I know it is a stretch. I know that horses can become "addicted" to certain things...cribbing being the best example, but I wonder if horses can get addicted to that rush of adrenaline that comes from the natural fight or flight response?  Just something to ponder on I guess.

It has been said that some horses use fear tactics to get out of working.  I suppose that he could be one of those horses.  In fact it could be very likely.  He has learned how to cope with anything he doesn't like by blowing it way out of proportion and losing his rider in the process.  Unfortunately for him, he did not count on someone like me who refuses to give up. I refuse to give on him and on me.  Lately his fear responses get him more work instead of less.  Calmness gets rests, blow ups get work. I wish I could tell if he is making the connection.

I was telling BEC once that sometimes I feel like Trax and I are in an abusive relationship.  I have been in one before so I know what the cycle feels like.   There is the big blow up, where someone gets hurt. Then comes the false apologies and empty promises of change.  After that is the honeymoon phase where everyone is all lovey dovey trying to make up for the hurt. Then there is the tea kettle phase where the heat slowly rises and the tension builds until they are back in the blow up stage.

The difference is Trax doesn't know how to say he is sorry.  He only knows that "this" is what happened and it was scary.   I also don't think he is capable of making false promises.  The best he can do is promise to try to not be so afraid.  Truthfully though I don't think he would even promise that. After all, all he knows is that he was trying to stay safe.

We do have our tea kettle phase, and then the blow up comes.  I do believe that it is more my fault than his.  I get him to a point where I think he is past something, so I don't worry about it much, and then introduce it again and he isn't ready.  It has happened that way more than once.  I get complacent and bad things happen.  He does usually try to warn me before the blow up happens, but I often don't recognize what he is saying to me.

Trax is who he is, and who he is today is not the horse he was when I got him.  When I got him he always had a crabby look in his eye. Especially when work was involved.  He did not care for human contact at all.  He just wanted to be left alone.   After I had had him a year or so, I noticed a change in him.  He started following me.  I would be in the pasture doing stuff and would turn around and he would be about 20 feet behind me. As soon as he saw me look he would turn and go the other way.  Once I went back to what I was doing, he was on my tail again.  No horse has ever done that to me before.

Now he doesn't do that as much. It is different now.  If I am in the pasture and he is too, he looks up and sees me.  Sometimes he steps my direction, but usually he just stays put.  Usually I can go out to him and pet him and love on him and he just lets me.  No running away any more.  Occasionally if I am going to ride him and he is in the pasture, He will make a half assed attempt to not be caught, but all I am required to do is step in front of his eye, and he knows I'm not going to give up so he stops and waits for me.

Even in the round pen, in the beginning, he was just running away from me.  He would not even put an ear on me.  Now there is always and ear cocked my way, and even if sometimes it takes me a bit to stop him from moving his feet, the mean, crabby look in his eye is gone.  It is replaced with something that remind me more of curiosity...."What is she going to ask me to do today?"

When I trailer him up to go some place, as I tie him in, he always rests his head on my shoulder and looks me in the eye.  I guess he is asking where we are headed, so I always tell him.

The other day I rode Killian and I swear Trax stood in his pen and looked at me as if I was a traitor.  The next day when I went out to ride Trax, he saw me coming with the halter, walked to the opposite corner and turned away from me.  It wasn't a "I don't want you to catch me" look in his eye.  It was more of a, "Well if you'd rather ride that old guy, then what do you need me for." sort of look.  (he usually comes to me as soon as I go in the pen, I rarely have to go to him)

I said, "Trax, turn around."

He turned his head and looked at me.

"Come on, don't be that way, Killian needs exercise too. You are still my boy."

He let out a big sigh and turned towards me again.  I went to him with the halter and he put his nose down in it.  I gave him a big hug and whispered to him.  "You will always be my favorite, don't ever forget that."

And then we went to work.

I love this horse more than any horse I have ever known. I have known quite a few.  I think the next year will be a defining year for us in which path I choose for us. No matter if I bring Melody home or not, Trax is still my boy, and he will be with me until one of us kicks the bucket.

I still don't think I managed to explain the connection....but I guess it doesn't really matter.

Not Much to Talk About and A Super Cool Story About Real Life in the Old West

While things at my house have been quite hectic, it isn't anything blog worthy unless you include the fact that I have been cleaning out the tack shed and putting everything for sale that isn't being used. That includes my fancy Circle Y Breast collar and head stall, 3 saddles, and then the roping shoot, head and heel box which came with our property. (no those were not in the tack shed)  I have already sold the roping stuff, they will pick it up in the morning.  And then there is someone coming to look at 2 of the saddles as well. For some reason TC decided to sell his saddle and buy a different one.  His stuff, he can do what he wants. It was the first one to get asked about.

Also put one of his old flatbed pick ups for sale.  Not many bites on that yet, but I just put it up today.

I still do not have money to buy Miss Melody, although we are still working on brokering a deal, keeping my fingers crossed!

I did ride Trax yesterday, and tried hard to remember that if I can laugh at Killian I can also laugh at Trax.  Although he did pretty well, so there was no laughing needed.  He kind of lost it when I reached back and touched his butt with my hand, but we got through it, and he is okay now.

I do always laugh at him when he gets hosed down.  He used to hate it, now he loves it, and even likes to drink out of the hose.  Silly horse.  I love him most of all!  People keep asking why I keep him after all the crap we have been through.  My answer is always the same....because he is mine.

I have been in touch with a gal I know here who does endurance and ACTHA, who is willing to do some conditioning rides with me, and will keep me posted on any clinics coming up. Pretty excited about that.  Every time I ride my horse I become more and more convinced that it is his calling.  He is a long trotting fool!


In other news, completely unrelated, I'm going to urge everyone to click on the link below and go read this blog.  It is not so much about horses as it is about real life in the Superstition Mountains, back in the day.  One of my favorite AZ historians is Tom Kollenborn.  He writes about his life and experiences growing up in Apache Junction as a child. He still is the go to guy if you want to know anything about the area.  I love his blog, follow his facebook page, and used to read his newspaper column as a kid.

Here is his story.

http://superstitionmountaintomkollenborn.blogspot.com/2014/04/life-of-cowboy.html


Saturday is our Trim clinic and I am oh so excited about that as well!

Where in Killian is Forced to Get Off the Couch

As I sit here very impatiently waiting for one of my vehicles to sell, I am trying to keep focused on the ponies at hand and what needs to be done here.  It is hard some times. I find myself wanting to watch the video of Melody over and over again.

 Since I was a little under the weather, my routine of riding Trax everyday kind of fell by the way side.  I have decided that since he is pretty much at a good place mentally, I can back off of him just a little and start cycling the other two into the routine. 

Today was Killian's turn.   I always have to laugh at this horse.  There is something about his expression that just cracks me up.  I gave him a nice brushing, sprayed him with some spray, and saddled him up.  The saddle I use on him has a nylon latigo.  I hate it.  I must remember to get a new one. I'd almost rather dig out one of my old crappy leather ones, than keep using this one. 

Killian in his fat guy- lay on the couch and drink alfalfa beer attitude- made it quite clear that he had no intentions of actually working.   Through out the entire ride he threw as much crap at me as he could in an attempt to make me want to get off...with out actually resorting to bucking.  He is not a bad horse, he is just lazy as all hell. My fault, I let him get that way.  

It started with walking away while I was mounting.  So I pushed him sideways about 30 feet from each side.  I got on again, and he stood perfectly still.  Good Boy. 

He immediately tried to trot away with me after I asked him to walk. I backed him up, I turned his shoulder one way and then the other.  Then I asked him to walk, and we walked.  

Then I asked for the trot.  He trotted off just fine, head high-bone jarring- can't even post it-worst trot ever!  I asked him to collect, he fought it.  I suggested he collect, he said "just for a step". I insisted he collect, and finally he did. I did not make him hold it too long but would ask and release, ask and release.  Finally he smoothed out and we just trotted around the arena.  

He saw the goats.  "ER MY GAWWWD!"  

"Killian, you have seen goats a thousand times."

"Oh so you aren't going to get off if I act scared?"

"No I'm not."

"Okay I guess I'm not scared then."

We kept trotting.

I asked him to stop, he kept going. I made him stop and back up.   Then we trotted off some more.  I asked him to stop again. This time he stopped just like he knows he should.

Then I asked him to lope.  When I got Killian, I was totally dumb about leads, and lead changes, and such "fanciness" that horses should be able to do.  He rarely got loped anyway, as he was TC's horse and TC does not lope much.  So when I ever I loped him in an arena it never occurred to me that the reason he was so rough was because he was in the wrong lead.

Well now I know, and now I ask for the correct lead.  I even help him by starting our circles so that he almost has no choice but to choose the right one...right?

Wrong.

I can honestly say that if I didn't know better, he purposely chooses the incorrect lead so that he is so rough to ride, eventually we will just give up and put him away.  I cue for the lead departure, I turn him so he knows which way we are headed, and let him start the lope when he is in position.  He still goes for the wrong one.

Now here is the one revelation I had today that I think is odd.  If Trax pulled some of the crap that Killian did today, I'd be so pissed. But with Killian I just laugh my butt off.  I wonder why that is?

So eventually we did get some correct leads...sort of.

So we trotted some more, practiced stopping and just tooled around the arena.

Since I like to mix things up a bit with my boys, we went back to a little bit of loping.  This time he thought that perhaps he should just go ahead and make a mad dash for the gate.  I turned him once, and then he tried it again.

I laughed at him and said, "Sure lets go ahead and go to the gate."

When we got there he found himself being forced to side pass, back up, roll back, side pass again, roll back again, back up again, and then we did loping small  figure eights and guess who suddenly forgot that he "didn't know how" to do a lead change or departure.  In fact I'd be willing to bet that if we had kept it up he'd have been doing flying lead changes with out even missing a beat.  (next time for sure)

I laughed again and then we went to opposite end of the arena to rest.  That is now his new favorite spot.

He was puffing pretty hard by then so I went ahead and just let him do his Eyore walk around until he was breathing normal.

Then I saw a pretty rock laying in the dirt and all forward progress stopped because I had to get off and pick it up.   I suspect it was actually in my pocket earlier and fell out because it looked familiar.

Anyway, we called it a day, and he got a nice hose down.  He doesn't usually love baths but today he was more than happy to stand there.

I love the look of utter exhaustion and trauma in his eye here!

He was sweating all down his neck, you can almost see it here. 

"You aren't going to make a habit of this are you?"

"Oh boy, I need a nap!"

All in all it was a great ride, and yes Killian, I will be making a habit of it.