Keeping Bruce at Bay

I never made it out to the barn yesterday like I was planning because I decided to go Christmas shopping instead.  Even though it is a month before Christmas, it was crazy around town, so by the time I got back, I decided I better work on my law papers instead.  That, and it was raining like crazy.

Since I promised to exercise Lark for M, I did that first thing when I got to the barn today.  Lunging Walker when he's hyper is like lunging a wild mustang, but lunging Lark is like lunging a tiger.  She's super strong, very fast, and wildly unpredictable.  When Walker freaks out on the lunge line, he usually pulls away from me.  Oh, he will buck and flail around, but it's pretty predictable horse behaviour.  Lark is kind of terrifying.  She bucks and rears, but she cuts in a lot on the circle.  I always have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that at any minute she is going to strike, leap out at me or trample me when she spooks at something.  Granted, it was a pretty spooky day - cold weather, flurries flying, and the wind trying to take us to Oz - but still.  I don't entirely trust her, but I'm sure that comes with time.

Hide and go seek Walker-style

Lark is the only warmblood I have ever been around.  Most of the horses around here, if not ponies, are quarter horses, and I've seen the odd standardbred or OTTB.  I'm sure that not all warmbloods are the same (especially considering all the great bloggers I follow).  I'm also sure it doesn't help that she's a fairly dominant/aggressive mare, but she hasn't given me a very good first introduction to the world of warmbloods, that's for sure!  Some quarter horses can be "hot"-ish, but as a general rule, they're pretty easy going animals.  Maybe I just need to spend more time around them to get a better feel.  Or maybe I just need to spend more time around Lark.  :S

Anyway, I hopped on Walker shortly after without lunging him, and after about 2 minutes, I decided that was a very bad idea.  I could feel a little Bruce in him, and he was curling his head up under himself at the walk as though at any minute, he was going to explode and buck me off.  I wasn't in the mood to personally test out the softness of our new indoor arena footing, so I lunged him in the outdoor arena.  He cantered/galloped for 25 minutes straight like a wild thing, and then he was back to being a little angel.  I ended up only riding for about 20 minutes, but he was sweating bullets from his crazy run.  He definitely got his exercise!

What if Money Didn't Matter

This isn't entirely horse related, but in a way it is.  Someone on Facebook posted this video and I just had to share it.  When I was in high school, I did very well in school, and the guidance counselors and teachers tried to push me to do things that I didn't want to do with my life.  I had one guidance counselor in particular who used to ask me what I wanted to be, and I always used to tell her one of either two things: I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be a farmer.  It used to drive her crazy that I wanted to be a farmer (and a writer, although the farmer thing concerned her more), and she used to pull me out of class, thinking that I was just joking around, not taking her seriously.  Anyway, it became a big thing in my graduating class, because a lot of the students were very smart that year, very motivated, and they too felt like they were being funneled towards something they didn't want.  I used to have random people come up to me in the hall and tell me that they honestly hoped that I did become a farmer.

Somewhere along the way I ended up in law school.  This probably isn't the place to talk about that decision or whether or not I actually want to be a lawyer, but I think it's easier, as we get older, to get lost from the goals that we used to think were so promising.  It's easier to fall in with the crowd, and it's easier to see why those teachers pushed us - because they had fears that we now have, about money and debt, surviving even.

I don't know if I will ever own a farm, but getting Walker was a step back in the direction of those goals I once had, those dreams that I wasn't willing to sacrifice in high school.

We all get a little lost sometimes.

Beautiful Day!

Today was a gorgeous day for a ride: 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit).  Unbelievable for the end of November!

Not thrilled to be cooped up inside on a nice day!

When I got to the barn, Walker and all the horses were inside, which was pretty disappointing considering.  But apparently my trainer was at the barn at 5 in the morning intending to leave for the States to do some Black Friday shopping right after she was done with the chores.  Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!  We have Thanksgiving in Canada in October.

Anyway, Walker seemed pretty good to go until we got to the arena and I realized he was full of energy he would have normally gotten out of his system in the field with his friends.  It was fine though because I don't mind getting into a few fights (which we did), but then two girls showed up to ride their horses with me and things started to fall apart.

First of all, there appeared to be something in the air (or more likely, something in the woods).  I was jogging Walker fine when all of sudden, he was four feet off the ground and then bolting like a maniac (like Bruce would do) straight past the other horses.  The other horses didn't freak out at that moment, but one of them was doing a bit of mini-rearing and being a brat.  When I came in and talked to all the girls who had ridden today, apparently every single one of the horses had been bad.

artsy eye shot

Second of all, I am CONVINCED that Walker hates those two horses.  I have thought this for awhile now, which is funny because Walker generally loves all horses.  He's a social butterfly.  But any of the times that Walker has been particularly weird (excluding lessons of course), these horses have been around.  One time they were riding in the arena when I walked him by, and he went crazy and it took me 15 minutes just to walk him past them again back to the barn.  Another time, they came into the arena, and he also had a meltdown.  So while I'm sure that there may very well have been something in the woods, I'm sure the fact that his companions were these two horses didn't help the situation very much.

sweaty pony - and yep, I forgot his cooler.  At least it's a nice day!

Because I was cooling him off anyway, I ended up hopping off shortly after he had his meltdown, so on the way back to the barn, I thought that maybe this was not the best way to end the ride.  After all, I didn't want him to think that he had managed to scare me off of him, so much to his chagrin, I took him in the indoor arena and cantered him for 5 minutes straight.  He was bucking and throwing a little bit of a fuss, trying to run in to corners and the like, but I just kept him going.  If he fought with me and tried to change directions, I just made him canter in the other direction.  By the end of it, he was covered in sweat, but I'm sure he got the message: bad ponies work!

The offending edible glove - not mine, by the way

Oh, and although Walker wasn't really Bruce bad (except for his one uncharacteristic bucking bronco moment in the outdoor arena), he did almost kill himself.  He likes to get into everything, and when I was tacking him up, he grabbed a hold of a pair of rubber gloves and tried to eat them.  And when I say he tried to eat them, I mean he tried to inhale them, and by the time that I noticed he was doing it, there was just one finger of the glove sticking out of his mouth!  It was part way down his throat before I pulled it out!  That would have been a nice call to the vet!

This weekend, I get to ride Lark again, although I may end up just lunging her.  M has to work all weekend and wanted to make sure that her horse got worked.  Unfortunately, Saturdays and Sundays are a bit busy at the barn, especially when you're on a high strung horse who has a hate-on for every mare that isn't her.  We will just have to play it by ear!

The Return of Walker

Today my friend M brought his niece out to the barn to see Walker.  Walker was a pretty good boy and he let her lead him around like a big puppy dog and everything.  She is 7 years old, and like all 7 year-olds, she is fearless.  She hopped on him and kept wanting to go faster, which is really difficult when you're on the ground trying to make your lazy horse run beside you.

Then I convinced her uncle to get on.  He is 26 and one of my best friends in law school.  It was hilarious.  I got a picture of him, but I have refrained from posting it since there is a minor in it - and as a law student, those kind of privacy concerns make my spidey senses tingle.

I can't decide what part is my favorite in the photo though: my guy friend in my purple helmet, his awkwardly long legs shoved into my saddle, or the fact that his 7 year old niece is leading him around.

It turned out to be a lot of fun, and the little girl definitely enjoyed herself.  We have a donkey at our barn as well as a 5 month old foal, so she was enjoying running around looking in all the stalls and petting some of the horses.

I think her mother is in for an earful though because when she was leaving the barn, she had definitely decided that she not only wanted to take lessons, but that she wanted her own pony.  Another one bites the dust!

Bruce

The good news is that my pony did not trip in the concrete-like footing of the outdoor arena and break his leg.  The bad news is that he was a very bad pony like usual in Wednesday night lessons.

My friend H in the lessons with me is convinced that it is the Curse of the Wednesday Night Lesson that I am experiencing, since she has been riding with me before and has seen the sweet horse that is Walker.  I have a different theory:

My parents have a friend named John.  John is a very nice man, and he did a lot of things for me and the other kids that lived next door to us.  He built a bridge over a huge ditch so that we could come over into his yard, and he also let us play with all the animals that he kept there.  But when John drank, he became another type of man altogether.  Not violent or aggressive - just a completely different person.  And my parents and all their friends refer to this person as Bruce.

On Wednesdays nights, I don't ride a horse named Walker.  I ride a horse named Bruce.

Tonight was not a complete waste however because we did work on a couple techniques to improve Bruce's bad behaviour.  He does a lot of things on Wednesday nights that he never does at any other times, but he also does a lot of things that he does do at other times, except that he does them more severely and dangerously on Wednesday nights.  For instance, he likes to drop his head below the bit.  He does this frequently, but on Wednesday nights, he will put his head practically to his chest, and even if I try to wrench it up (as my instructor tells me to do), he just braces against it.  He sometimes throws his head around and does what I call "the hops" - which are a precursor to a rear, but I never let it get that far.  He bolts as well of course, and for those who say that a horse follows his nose have never met Bruce.  He is perfectly capable of cantering at full speed down the arena with his head ripped to one side.  I know.  Because I do it every Wednesday.

Tonight we worked on anticipating the bolts, which we do every week of course.  But today we had a mini breakthrough.  Every time I'm going down the long end of the arena and he prepares to misbehave in that way, my instructor tells me to "open the outside rein and drive my leg/spur into his ribs to push him around".  I was opening my outside rein, but applying my inside leg.  In Walker-land, if you want to turn left, you push him over with your right leg.  Apparently, in Bruce-land, if you want to do a tight circle, you pull him with the outside rein and shove his ribcage over with the outside leg as well.  Unfortunately, the part that got lost in translation was the "drive my leg into his ribs" part.  For those of you anatomy buffs out there, horses tend to have ribs on both sides of their body so not too descriptive! Perhaps it's just common sense, but clearly not to me.

Despite another practically wasted lesson, I did get to try out my new thermal socks which are fantastic and bound to be my best friend when Winter actually arrives. :)

Bring it on, Winter!

*When We Learn How to Fly*

So I have no update today as I still didn't make it out to the barn, but my friend sent these two videos to me tonight which I thought I would share with everyone.  They're pretty sad. Be sure to watch them in order and read the description of what happened under the first one.

It's actually ironic because I told my mother last night on the phone (in one of those random conversations we have sometimes) that she should be prepared because if anything ever happened to Walker and I got saddled with a potentially unrideable horse, I wouldn't care and I would spend all the amount of money I had  to get him better.  Videos like these remind me why my horse's welfare is much more important than any discipline or sport I want to pursue with him.  I would much rather have a happy, healthy horse any day!

Busy Week and Legitimate Worries (for a change)

I've got a pretty busy week this week, which doesn't bode well for Walker.  :S  He's got today off like usual, and tomorrow off as well because I have an appointment for my back at the time that I usually go to the barn on Tuesdays.  This would be fine except that I'm concerned about the rest of the week.  Wednesday is my lesson (more on that to come), and Thursday, a friend of mine wants to bring his niece out to meet Walker.  This is fine with me of course except that my time at the barn on Thursdays is very brief (maybe 30-45 minute ride kind of brief) right before he gets fed his supper and I lose his attention indefinitely.  I know that it will be a wasted ride because she is only 7 years old.  We will spend the first while probably just grooming Walker until he shines, while I teach her some ground rules about horses (since I don't think she's been around them before).  By the time I get him tacked up and lead her around for a few minutes on his back (that will be the extent of it, if even that), I will probably only have 15 minutes to hop on him myself and get him exercised. :(

It's so hard sometimes when you bring your non-horsey friends to the barn.  They just don't understand how a 30 minute ride actually means a 2 hour process by the time you catch your horse at the back of the field, groom him, tack him, lunge him if needed, ride him, groom him, rinse and repeat.  Not to mention that they don't appreciate any of the elaborate things that you do.  To them, a trot is equal to a canter, and a 2 foot jump is a joke.  One time, I brought a friend to the barn, and Walker went berserk. I was riding him at the jog, and he took off into a canter, bucking down the rail.  My friend just thought that that's what he was supposed to be doing (bucking!) and that I was still trotting.  Oh well.  Gotta love 'em.

As for my Wednesday night lesson, I actually have a legitimate concern (not just an overall dread!).  We've been still riding outside these days, but the footing is starting to get questionable.  There's this one section of the arena that pretty much freezes to concrete, and while the rest of the arena is fine, this part of it is pretty dangerous for the horses.  My instructor, with all her good intentions, has set up a lovely pole to demarcate this section and "stop" horses from going down there.  I mean, has she not seen me and Walker?  The pole was set up on Sunday.  That was the day that Walker cantered over the bridge, leapt over the pole, and landed in the concrete-like footing.  So... needless to say, my new big concern is that he is going to bolt during the lesson and end up with a broken leg.  And I don't want to be the baby who arrives at the barn and asks to ride a different horse because I can't successfully manage my own.  Urgh.  It's one of the few times I actually wish it would just snow already and take away my misery.

Hopefully next weekend will be pony-filled and that Walker will at least get some exercise on Wednesday and Thursday.