Back in the Saddle Again

"Let's get this over with then"

Finally made it to the barn today after my three (horrible) days off.  I got out there plenty early in the afternoon after passing in my paper and doing a few other chores so that I was able to have as long of a ride as I wanted.  Grabbed the pony from the paddock and gave him a nice relaxing brush.  He wasn't as dirty as I figured he would be.  However, I had a bad oops moment while grooming him.  Lately I've noticed that one of his back legs around the fetlock has got a lot of mud/dirt dried into the hair.  It's been driving me crazy, and I've been slowly and carefully cutting some of it off the way that you might cut a dog's matted fur.  Well, today I ended up cutting part of his "ergot" - the chestnut-like thing on his fetlock.  I only know this term because I freaked out when I realized what I had done, and went online to make sure that I wasn't going to kill him.  Apparently people actually do trim them (chestnuts too), so it's not as big of a deal as it could have been.  Next time I'll be a little more conscious about whether or not I'm cutting mud off my horse's leg or part of my horse's leg!

Today was mild enough so that I could ride in the outdoor arena, but I rode in the indoor anyway.  The foal was turned out in the outdoor, and I know that he has been cooped up for awhile because of the weather and because he was just recently gelded.  I knew that if I brought him in, he'd be in for the rest of the day since my trainer has started arriving around 3PM to do supper (yeah, early, I know).  There was a horse turned out in the indoor as well, but he has a huge stall and he's also like 30 years old - he doesn't do too much running!

His favorite part of the day: supper time.  We have that in common.

I was pretty happy with Walker today.  He had three days off and he was a little angel.  I didn't have to lunge him or get into any big arguments.  I even loped him with one hand for pretty much the first time successfully.  I rode him one-handed when I showed Western at the walk/jog, but I was also in novice (no lope).  I neck reined a couple of times in the outdoor arena when we were having issues and I thought he might enjoy it better, but it was never really that successful or controlled (mainly because those were the days when we got into massive arguments at the lope).  Today was the first time that I loped him with one hand that he actually paid attention, and it was very nice.  It's obvious that he prefers neck reining to two hands on the rein, and he definitely prefers as little contact as possible.  I've often noticed that using two hands and trying to wrench his head around is much less successful.  I suppose that's all in his training though.  I'm sure that I'm very entertaining to watch as I ride around in my English saddle on my Western pony while I post and neck rein.

Speaking of training, I'm proud to say that I taught Walker a trick.  Well, its not so much a trick, but I taught him how to do it all on my own.  I have taught him how to back up with me in the saddle and no hands on the reins by simply saying "back".  Yes, my horse now speaks English.  I always say "back" every time I'm on the ground backing him up or if I'm in the saddle using the reins, but a month or so ago, I was riding around the arena, no hands on the reins, practicing moving him around with just my legs when I halted him and asked him to back up.  He backed up at this point with no added aids, but I thought that he may have just associated the phrase with the action because we had done a lot of backing up that day (so he would have heard me say "back" a lot).  I left it and haven't really done much with it since (although I still say "back" every time I back him).  Today, at the end of my ride after not having backed him up once today (and not having seen him in three days), I just decided to try it out.  And back he went.  It's cool because he takes one step per every time I say "back".  So if I say "back back back", he backs up three steps.

I have to say, having a smart pony can be both a blessing and a curse!