The wonderful weather continues here, it was 25 Celcius (77*F) so after work I saddled up Gussie and went for a putt out to the pasture, as I wanted to get a count on the panels I'm moving so I can reconfigure Beamer's pen. (There are over 20, should be enough!) The ride out was nice and relaxing, Gussie was content to stroll along without jigging or breaking out of a walk.
HOWEVER! when we got close to the mares on the way back, and they started galloping around their pasture, Gus got all wound up , shaking her neck and feeling like a stick of dynamite on a short fuse! I did my standard safety maneuver; take a short rein on one side, and tip her head towards my knee and circle. I feel that standing still on a horse like that is a recipe for disaster, and moving straight forward can really put them in flight mode; circling defuses the dynamite- they don't want to work, they'd rather go play with the horses galloping around. So then, to get her refocused, we did a lot of work on 60 ft. circles; I asked for softness at the walk, then the trot, correct leads at the canter, and then circles with 360* loops (spins) thrown in every quarter circle. The neighbor took a video of the start of our work; if he lets me download it I may show it. We finished up with nice softness at both the walk and trot, so it was a good session.
She was a tad bit sweaty, so she got a bath- first one of the season! and then about 20 minutes of hand grazing while she dried off. Of course, she rolled as soon as I turned her back out on pasture!
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| The shadows were really cool tonight |
The neighbors were hosting a boy scout fireworks party this evening, and the horses were quite intrigued by all the ruckus.
Beamer kinda took it in stride, he looked, but didn't let it interrupt his most important task of chowing down on hay.
Of course, we can't just have one photo of Mr. Handsome! Hope you all had a good day today, I sure did.
4 comments:
Sounds like a good ride that ended well with a calm and focussed horse - I use that same turning in circles technique.
I know how you feel about short fuse. Indigo does the same thing when something excites her. Letting her go forward just gets her more riled up but work, boy work sorts her out and sometimes a good firm WOAH and standing until she sighs and licks her lips sorts her out.
Yeah, my Scout is easily distracted over things like that. Glad it turned out okay for you.
Beamer is...beautiful! i LOVE the second photo especially.
Sounds like the ride went well overall. Gsh Beamer is still such a gorgeous fellow
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