The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

When I was younger I rode quite a few horses. I’d get bored with them by the time they were 3 or 4, sell them and move on to “fresher” horses. One thing I noticed was that “most” of them were fine their 2 yr. old year (yes I started two year olds) but when they were 3 it was like they’d hit the “terrible twos” of a child. They’d test you more just to see what they could get away with.

Since LLL has been here she’s been an angel (in her own witchy angle way) when it’s come to riding outside of the arena. Last night MIL and I decided to ride down the road because every where else was too muddy. LLL was being a stinker and I was reminded of the “terrible twos”. It’s not as fun as I remembered it to be.

We started off down the road, LLL in front and moving out. She decided she wanted to trot (yes I said she decided) so I let her. She’s not a very “forward” moving horse so I don’t discourage forward movement from her at all. All was going well. I was talking to MIL about Lucy spooking. So far she hasn’t spooked with me but there hasn’t been anything to spook her (deer up close, pheasants flying out of the bush, etc.). Not more than two seconds later she spooked.

It wasn’t a huge spook by any means but a spook none the less. I looked at MIL and she looked at me, both of us questioning what in the heck she spooked at. The only thing we could figure was the little sparrow that flew out of the ditch.

Of course LLL’s confidence wasn’t quite as high now so she settled in behind Sis. We went a little further and another “killer” bird flew out from the ditch. This time when she spooked Sis decided to join her. They were both being weird. Sis is usually very good so the only thing we can think of is that the storms we’ve had have made them a little more “sensitive” than normal.

We rode down to the big hill (we call it roller coaster hill) and LLL started stomping her feet, swishing her tail, shaking (which I hate) sideways (like when they shake off dust after rolling). I asked MIL if she had a horse fly on her. Nope – just a regular old house fly was all she could see. I had sprayed her but obviously not enough for her liking. She was not a happy camper. I finally got tired of it and whacked her with the mecate to get her to move on. From there she turned into the drunken sailor and didn’t want to go in a straight line, still pissy about the flies, on an adrenaline rush and spooky at tiny birds.

I stated zig zagging her across the road trying to get her attention back on me. When we hit the bottom of the hill I decided to lope her. We loped to the top of the hill, shying at a few things on the way but when I said “whoa” she was more than willing to stop. Sis was coughing so MIL didn’t want to go too much further so we turned around and headed back.

Going back home wasn’t too bad. We trotted quite a ways. LLL’s head up in the air and her ears perked forward. When we got to the cross road MIL and I started talking about vertical flexion so I’d show her on LLL and she’d try it on Sis. LLL wasn’t the best but she was starting to understand the concept. We’d trot off, squeeze with out legs and ask for softness in the face. Lu was not happy about that! She doesn’t want to be “trained” she wants to be “ridden” and her “tude” shows back up whenever you try to “train”.

I ignored it and we continued. She finally did what I asked and we moved on. We got back home and rode around a few “scary” obstacles and then I laid her down in the back yard for the kids. They thought it was pretty cool. She needs to quit going down like a tree falling. I want to yell “TIMBER” when she goes down.

She seems to be a bit aggressive when she’s down which completely throws me for a loop. She’ll try to strike, bite, etc. but mainly when you are up by her head. She hates her head being touched when she is down (so can you guess what I do). Any other horse I’ve done this with is very “humbled” once they are down. What is weird is that when she’s standing up she could care less what I do to her head.

So I let her get up, took her to the barn & tied her up. I jumped on Sissy because we need to start getting her back into WP mode. She is so stiff! I spent 5 minutes flexing her before we walked off. After that we worked on the bending exercise. This really gets her to soften, drop her head and slow down. MIL was amazed with the results at a trot. We still need to work on her lope but she needs to be a lot softer in her rib cage before I push that too much. At the end of the night she was staying in the circle with her head bent a little and when I’d let her move straight she was moving well.

It was almost 10:00 and I’d lost my sun so it was time to head in for the night. The weather here has been so off and on. It rained all day yesterday but was nice enough for us to sneak in a ride once we got home. I hope we can do the same today. T-storms are expected all week.