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She Never, He Always

/ Redheaded Endurance / 4 Comments
I’ve had quite a week and fallen a little behind in blog posts. I rode at the lake with N and Willow on Thursday, another 16 miles in just about the same time as on Tuesday, a little longer (4:30). Desire FINALLY peed on the trail, after I spent a few miles whining about how she never does.
Steed

Willow puts her head in up to her eyeballs and blows bubbles! Not productive but hilarious

Beautiful fall tralls

The girls did well together, though by the last few miles they were both grabbing mouthfuls of grass like they’d come 100 miles and eaten last Tuesday.

We were smugly talking about our Renegade booting experience when Desire took a funky step and her right front boot was suddenly off and twisted around. Turns out the cable broke at the toe strap. I have all the replacement parts and they are used boots that I have since put a few hundred miles on, so I’m not too bothered. Still it was *too* funny that after weeks without a boot issue we start talking about how flawless they are and something promptly breaks!

Sheza demanded to come out when I put Desire away, so I left in the cross ties alone for a while, and watched her through the living room window. She was Not Amused. Btw she’s not rabidly foaming at the mouth here, just ate my apple core is all

In possibly unexpected news, Joey has a possibly uncertain future here with the herd. He is so stressed out by humans and doesn’t behave consistently or predictably. I’m often gone and non-horse person husband kindly takes care of all the horses, meaning he has to handle (and has already once saved) Joey. After a particularly hard session with the trainer on Thursday afternoon, we were discussing how intensely prey-driven Joey is, and his spectacularly amped up flight instinct. My husband happened into the conversation and mentioned that he was quite uncomfortable around Joey and worried about my handling him and getting hurt trying to get him under saddle. He has a fair point in all of the above. So I am working on figuring out a better situation for Joey, but in the meantime he is here and will continue to get as much work as I can give him.

Evasion

Georgia cam, watching pony wrangling

Goat on my Heels

Joey at work

I have hopes for a great home for him with all the experienced trainers needed, everyone please cross your fingers it works out!

Horse Therapy

/ Redheaded Endurance / 2 Comments
Sometimes you just need a good ride on a good horse, with a good friend. Today was one of those days for me and fortunately my good riding buddy J and her Mustang, Sedona, could make it up to Lake Oroville and join Desire and I on the trails. We met at the trail head and rode the approx 6 mi horse camp loop first, then bypassed the trailers and went on up the ridge and climbed down the other side of the dam before turning around and heading back up for the trailers. Both horses were morally outraged at bypassing their trailers without a second glance (from their riders anyway) and both tried to crap out on us. Stop, sigh, I‘m dying, I’m lame, I can’t, I won’t. Fortunately J and I both speak mare, and weren’t buying it, and ended up putting a good 16 miles in on them despite the attempted mare strike at about 6.5 miles. I walked all the significant downhills with Desire, which may have amounted to a couple of miles. Both mares wore Renegades and did lots of moving out, hill climbing, and there were some rocky spots of footing along the way. All 6 boots performed wonderfully and completely without incident.
Beautiful fall morning on the trails

 Encountering a friend out ponying her 18 month old Arab/Mustang filly, who is just a week younger than my Sheza. A real beauty and not much smaller than Sheza, either!

 J and Sedona 

 Cruisin’

 After a few miles of trotting and a good hill climb, the girls had long drinks and took a breath

 ..or a Major snoozefest

 Of course he got behind the bush at the wrong minute but this is a nice buck with a big rack!

 Fall afternoon on the trails

 I used a new Woolback pad on loan from N, under my Eurolight today and I really liked it! It is a little thicker than my now well-worn Specialized pad and I think I’ll use it on Desire from now on.

 My go-go gal after 16 miles

Ponies Ponied and Hooves Trimmed by ME!

/ Redheaded Endurance / 4 Comments
My computer has been down for the last week or so, so here is some catching up. My barefoot expert and friend, D, has been kind enough to lend me her tools and advisory expertise on a few trims lately. In the last week and a half I hauled Blaze and then Desire down to her place and worked full trims on them myself, with her supervising. Desire’s trim last Friday took me literally 3 1/2 hours but she needed a lot of work on all four feet and there were breaks for questions, and breaks for my back! She was mostly pretty good, though very wiggly and bendy at first which was exhausting. It’s amazing what subtle shifts of their bodies can make working on their hooves totally uncomfortable!
Desire pre-trim, at D’s

After ponying Joey out the other day it was Sheza’s turn. She joined Desire and I and we did a 4 mile out-and-back with a few short, steep hills. Sheza trots nicely while ponying now and is quite game for the challenge. She had to trot to keep up to mom’s power walk and sometimes trotted when she didn’t need to but she mostly stayed in line pretty well. I did watch her carefully though, because she gives very telltale signs before she does something Naughty! Her ears kind of flop sideways, she flashes the whites of her eyes, and if you don’t stop her then, she does something totally ridiculous. Like try to bite me, or her mother, or spook sideways, or something else random. If I caught it at the eye-white rolling and gave her an “EH EH” she wouldn’t bother escalating, and Desire was just wiggly enough about ponying her that I always knew if Sheza  went even a step out of line. 

Sheza Looking and Looking and Looking!

Considering the Pond

While handling two horses out on the roads is certainly dangerous, I feel safer on a good saddle horse ponying than handling a greenie alone on the ground. Having ponied both Sheza and Joey alone in hand and off of pony horses, I am reminded again the power of a good Pony.

Joey on the Trail

/ Redheaded Endurance / 4 Comments
Yesterday around 4 I saddled up the bay boys and headed out for a little 6 mile loop with a couple of hills, which I find is about the perfect ride to exhaust greenie Joey. Having a quiet mentor like Blaze is so incredibly helpful; Mr. Joey, who is terrified by bunnyhopping or people climbing things, is just about dead quiet and relaxed out on the trail following Blaze. He investigates everything, he eats, he poops, he of course has the odd butt tucking spooky moment but Blaze is tolerant, with a few reminders from me. 

 Joey carrying the saddle up the hill for the first time, he also borrowed Desire’s breastcollar!

Quiet boys back in the yard. Georgia does some Arab training. Hold em steady, ole gal

Sheza Blaznhaat Xpres, 18 months

/ Redheaded Endurance / 6 Comments
Sheza is 18 months old  this Sunday. Time has flown and she has GROWN! She is very curious, friendly, and always wants to come out and play now. Our guests were shooting hoops early this morning and she was sending out the major “Pick me!” vibes so I haltered her and brought her up to check things out. She enjoyed Walkabout as there was lots to eat–SuperTurkey food, grass, hay, Pomegranates–and lots to spook at.
first, a sampling of rock moss
Next, the Horse Eating chair may in fact be Eaten by a Horse
 Checking out “her” trailer, she made sure to clean the hay scraps off the floor
 On to harvesting Pomegranates. 
Success! D’Oh! Dropped it 

🙂

Joey is Back in the Journey

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After a 4 week hiatus due to his injury and my lack of time, Joey finally had another session with trainer B this afternoon. But first, early in the a.m. on a picture taking whim I got up on a rock in his paddock and totally freaked him out, which earned me some lovely photos. As my trainer pointed out this afternoon, he is pretty much a wild horse, experiencing nearly all the nuances of being trained to handle and saddle for the first time. At 7 years old this is only the second place he has ever been in his life and so much that I take for granted with my other horses is not only missing for him, the building blocks are even missing, and at his age he has already formed opinions on things. He is very tense and nervous, and still kind of thinks humans are predators, or at least not always to be trusted. Even the plastic curry comb on his skin today got as many snorts and flinches as crazy humans on rocks or crazy humans bunny hopping. When I implement things I see B do with Joey with Sheza, she reacts initially but is quickly bored by my antics, or wants to participate. She knows and trusts humans, and is still impressionable, and it makes life so much easier. Joey’s will be a long road, but with patience and time he will make a nice little saddle horse.
Human on rock, WHY?! The better to make you look pretty, my dear
Autumn sunlight attracts baskers

 Joey hustling away from the weirdo on the rock

 “what are you up to down there?”

 Wilbur the Mini Doxie only wags harder if the ball is in the air. He may be getting a beautiful little chocolate dapple cousin to play with soon! 

 Training Arabs is always enhanced by the helping hand of a strutting, gobbling SuperTurkey

 Stepping out

 Predictably, Joey had lots of energy to burn. He did a lot of very fast moving in both directions initially, and B let him work it out. Still he had enough of a Whoa on him in the bit that after he came down a little B asked him to focus through his anxiety and maintain the walk in the long lines with her to the side and gradually more and more behind him. He was half passing beautifully around the round pen in both directions to keep her in his right eye where he wanted,  but by doing so he was unintentionally also putting her more and more directly behind him, something that usually scares him. B saw the value of this, and just quietly persisted until he was not only walking a normal circle, but also standing nicely with her square behind him:

 Time to play Hopping Human, and Joey is not amused

 No bath today as it was CHILLY by the time we finished up around 5:30. Instead B took him back in his paddock and got up on the rock that I was on earlier in the day. You can see he was about as thrilled with her doing it as he was with me:

When she stepped down the stomp of her feet started him spooking, and she didn’t let go as he spooked and tried to bolt around the paddock away from her. He was scared of her running stomping feet keeping up with him, but she hung with it until he figured out HE had to stop, in order to stop HER feet. I saw it click in his brain and after he stopped dead and started licking and chewing she un-haltered him. Then we stood around on the rock in his paddock chatting for a while until he was standing quietly at the fence with Blaze, just glancing at us once in a while. Like I said, a long road for Joey. But with the quiet tenacity and wisdom of my good trainer at my side, I have faith.