Teaching The Young Guy

Another beautiful day to go riding. Keith was working overtime again and had the car, so Sam came to pick up me and V so that I could go ride Dollar and V could spend some time with Poppa.

The Old Man showing off his 'hawk.

Got to the house, dropped V off inside and then went to go ride the Old Man. I realized that I had forgotten my saddle pad at home so I just grabbed one of the Western pads for today. Brushed Dollar up as best I could, but he’s starting to shed like a mad man. Which is a good thing, but he’s got a lot of hair! Got him tacked up while Sam was tacking up Buster, Natalie’s new horse. He’s quite good looking, just needs a lot of ground work done and today would be his first day out on the road to see how he does. Sam had a couple issues with getting him ready because he wasn’t trained to stand tied, but once he got over that, we mounted up and went on our way down the road. Luckily this time there were no kids asking to pet the horses, so we didn’t have to stop and go.

Buster hadn’t been near cars at all, so we stopped when the first couple passed us just in case he freaked out. But as our ride progressed, he got better with each passing car. Except for one truck that zoomed past us and made Buster jump to the side, but otherwise he was well behaved. We even got both of them jogging for a ½ mile. Dollar thought I was trying to kill him. He was wheezing again, but he had an energetic trot, so I know he has energy and it was just the damn heaves acting up. We ended up doing a lot of walking, but it was good for both horses.

Proof I rode :)

Sam on Buster.

Once we were back home, I worked Dollar for a couple minutes in the coral before untacking him and putting him away.

Getting Into Boot Camp

Seeing as it’s totally GORGEOUS outside, I decided that Dollar (and myself) would benefit from going on a good ride. I had talked to my Dad earlier in the week to make sure that someone was home to watch V while I was out riding and he said that he’d watch her. Yeah!

I got there around 4 so that I could feed V and get Dollar ready to ride. Well once V was fed and sleeping (hopefully), I made my way outside to get Dollar groomed and tacked up so that when my Dad got home, I’d be able to go ride right away. Dollar was more than happy to see me and managed to get him out of the holding pen without letting Mars loose. And boy, was my horse a mess! And he’s pretty good at deceiving me as to how dirty her is. His left side was pretty clean, except for the odd mud patch, but his entire right side was covered in mud. Agh! Horse! I cleaned him up and then noticed that he had torn a huge chunk of mane out, and so I decided that his entire mane was coming off. So I grabbed my scissors and proceeded to chop it all off. And yes, I was giggling the entire time. And the thing is, it actually looks good on him. Yeah! Then I proceeded to clean up his tail (which wasn’t too bad) and trim the bottom off. And was excited to find out that his tail had grown out!

Mane here....

Mane gone....

Once he was all cleaned up, I tacked him up and then went inside to check on V (who was still sleeping) and kill some time until Sam and my Dad showed up. Dad had Brody with him, so he was going to watch both kids while me and Sam took a 2-mile ride. Sam got Mars ready while I put Dollar’s bridle on and then we went on the road. And had to laugh at Mars for freaking out at the For Sale sign, while Dollar totally ignored it. Lol.

The only thing I have about riding on the road is the amount of kids that come up to us (sometimes yelling), going “Horse! Horse!” And then the asking to pet them and ask a million questions. I don’t mind the timid kids because they’re usually unsure about the horses and Dollar’s good for kids like that. But it’s the ones who are extremely loud and don’t even ask before petting him. Those ones irk me. And we ran into the second group. Oh grr me. I was nice and let them pet Dollar, but after a while Mars was getting impatient, so we told the kids goodbye and went on our way. But of course, kids have to be kids and ride their bikes right behind and beside the horse, Sam got after them for that and then they left. Sheesh. 

Once the bikes were cleared, we got both the Old Guys trotting (more like prancing for Mars) for a mile. I was quite impressed with Dollar as he wasn’t wheezing much and had some get up and go. While we were trotting, I had Dollar working on his collection and stretching out his head. Of course he was more than willing to and stretched his head as far down as possible and just kept going. Silly horse. We ended up walking that last half mile home so that Mars could calm down and Dollar could get his breath back.

When we got back home, I untacked Dollar and Sam kicked Dollar and Mars back into the holding pen while I went inside to check on V. She was crying a bit when I walked in, but Dad said she just started that, otherwise she was fine.

Hoping for nice weather to keep on coming so that I can ride!!