In Which We Find The Spunk

Finally got out to ride again today! Seeing as Keith was at work in the evening, I packed up V around 4 and headed down to my parents place so that my Mom could watch her while I rode.

Once I made sure that V was content with Grandma, I grabbed my bridle and new saddle pad from the car and headed to the back. Dollar's all by himself in the holding pen now as Dad's new horse Jack is at a barn for training, Sam's horses are at her new place and Natalie's horse is at a different barn for training. So needless to say Dollar was pretty happy to see me as you can see in the video..




Once I got him out of the holding pen, I brought him up to the barn and got him quickly tacked up. I threw away my old saddle pad (the one that mice had gotten into) and put my new saddle pad on him. Yup, purple still looks good.

The old saddle pad that mice had gotten into

Dollar showing off his new saddle pad

Once we were all ready to go, I had to climb the fence in order to hop on to him. I still hurt if I stretch too much and I don't have a mounting block, so the fence comes in handy. He behaved like the perfect gentleman he is and stood completely still while I mounted. Whew.

We went to the far end of the arena again, set our circle and got to work. My goal was to work his walking and jogging as cantering is out of the question because of all the snow and I don't want to risk slipping on ice hiding under the snow. Oh, and I also remembered to grab my crop this time. It came in handy.

As we worked the walking and trotting, he did pretty good. He did realize that I had my crop, so he was a little more energetic in his movements, which is good for him. But then we ran into an issue. I had asked him to move into a trot again from a walk and he was being lazy about it. So I asked him again, a little more firmer. Nothing. So I swatted him with my crop. Next thing I know, his head goes down, and his butt goes up, snorting while doing so, and then moves into a trot, not looking very pleased.

And this is my brain: C'mon, move Old Man *swat*......HEY, YOU BUCKED ON ME!!!

Luckily it wasn't anything big, and he just kept moseying on afterwards. And nothing happened to me (lucky). I had barely became unseated, so I just hunkered my butt down, gave him a scolding (and laughing in my head) and went about our business. Guess he just wanted to show me that he still had spunk left.

After that little incident, I set him to work, doing quite a bit of trotting and working our halts, reverse and turns. This is where he was just showing off for me, probably just sucking up. Lol.

I ended the ride after about 30 minutes of working and he wasn't even sweating yet. But then again, it's been really beautiful here right now. Barely any snow for middle of February in Central Canada. But it does work well for riding right now.

And I'm still surprised as to what my Old Man can pull off. He'll be 20 this summer and still manages to act like he's 5 some days. Oh well, that's why I love him.

When 19 Is The New 2......

Well I managed to hitch a ride with my Dad out to the barn today to play with Dollar. Seeing as i can't ride and the barn has the round pen up, I decided to free-lunge him today just to get him working a bit. So once we got to the barn, I went outside to grab Dollar. Well it turned out that he didn't like me for clipping him last time and decided to start walking away from me. He was by the pen when I saw him and by the time I caught him, we were almost by the feeding spot at the other end of the pasture! Old Man....

Once I had him caught and haltered, I brought him into the indoor arena, put him in the round pen and got to work. He was moving around pretty good at the trot, but was being pretty lazy. Sam came over to take some video of us and when I asked him to lope, well, he let out a huge buck and kept acting like he's 2!!



So yeah, I was laughing at him, but also slightly not impressed because he knows better. At least he doesn't do that while I'm riding him. I kept him going around for a while and just switching up directions on him. Near the end, I could tell that he was getting tired. So I took him out of the round pen, tied the lead rope to both sides on his halter and took a walk over to where Sam was sitting while she was watching Dad ride Sue.

We stood there for a bit, talking with Sam and then I decided to put him away. At this time Dad was done his workout with Sue, so I kicked Dollar back outside and waited for Dad to finish bathing and putting Sue away.

I swear, Dollar thinks somedays that he's 2 and can geta way with it. Sigh. I do love my Old Man. At least he knows how to make me laugh, even if it's bucking when he shouldn't.

Riding and Tricks!

After work today (which was around 3:30), I headed down to the barn to go play with Dollar, seeing as I haven't ridden or played with him for almost a week. Once I got to the house, I went inside to see where Sam was and to show her the halter that I got as Dollar's Christmas gift. She just looked at me and said, "Well that's good. He needs a new halter anyway." WTF? It's a show halter, not a pasture halter. I told her that he has his halter in the barn on my bridle hook. Her response: "You don't have a bridle hook." Umm...yes I do. It has both my western bridle and my english bridle on there. Seriously...wtf?She basically just told me that nothing in the barn is mine. Fxck. Uumm...yeah, all the Enlgish stuff is mine and my bridles are mine as well as I bought and paid for them. Sheesh.

After our little argument, I garbbed my stuff, put on my winter gear and headed outside to see PonyFace. I let allt he horses out and took some pictures of Dollar in the snow. And then proceeded to have some fun with him. I garbbed my lead rope and hooked him up to lunge a bit, but he didn't want to move. No matter how much clucking, swinging the rope or anything did, he didn't want to move. So I went and grabbed the whip. Well, that got his attention and all of a suddenly, we were moving! Sam was riding pretty at this time, so I moved Dollar more into the middle of the arena and where there is some more deep snow so that he could get a work out. I was keeping an eye on his back legs because of our last ride, but he looked alright to me. He was even trying to do some extended trots and even got to extending his legs a bit. Yeah!

Once I saw that he wasn't having any problems moving or being stiff, I tied the lead rope to both sides of his halter, brought him over to the fence and hopped on. He seemed a bit hyper, but I was OK with that. I'd rather him hyper than lazy. Then it makes for some interesting rides. I rode with Sam and Pretty for a bit, just letting Dollar trot all over the arena and then Sam switched horses and hopped on Spawn of Satan aka: Mars. I had already stopped Dollar in the middle of the ring because I could see Mars breathing fire while Sam tried to hop on him. It took her 2 tries to get onto Mars and he was just raring to go. Once she got on, I continued Dollar with our trotting work-out. Of course, while we were trotting around, we came up behind Mars, and all of a suddenly, I could see his back rounding, prepping for a buck. Luckily, Sam felt it and managed to get him stopped and keep his head up. Then of course, Mars was shaking his head "no" in protest. Dollar just kept on going and wasn't bothered by it in one bit.

Once we did quite a bit of trotting around the arena, I got off of Dollar and brought him into the barn so that I could try teaching him some tricks! Sam was putting Mars away and asked that I grab Sue and put him in a stall. Well, that horse was higher than a high kite. I tried just walking up to him to grab his halter, and he spooked on me. Wtf? So I just stood there, with my hand held out and slowly moved towards him until I got my hand on his halter. I got him inside the barn, but Pretty and Mars decided to follow as well. We kicked the other 2 out and then warmed up the bit for Sue. He's the only one ridden in a bit in winter because he is so unpredictable.

Once his bit was warmed up, we took him outside so that Sam could hop on him to ride. Ummm....that wasn't happening. Sam was going to use the rails to climb up onto him, but he wasn't having any of that. I think he was starting to have mini-anxiety attacks, he was that crazy! So I told Sam to grab the chair and we'd put Sue up against the railing and let Sam get on by using the chair. Again...wasn't happening. I was holding his bridle right underneath his chin and he was just snorting and do half-rears and jsut plain out panicing. Sam actaully managed to get up on the chair and then lean over him to put some weight on his back. Then she jumped a little bit to get up onto him, but because of her winter gear, she couldn't stretch her leg that far and came off. So I walked Sue around to calm him down and tried again. Only this time, he was a bit wilder and crazier. Sam did managed to get on him, but she had barely got her leg over him when he exploded. She went off (luckily not into the fence or the water tub) and I was running backward with Sue in one hand and the chair in the other. I had actually grabbed the chair when he exploded so that he wouldn't knock it over and hurt himself. Crazy! I looked at Sam and told her to grab her saddle because she was not going to be riding him bareback if he was acting like this. But he was also now spooking at the chair and snorting like crazy. So Sam took him and stood on the chair and let him lunge aroud her while I grabbed her saddle for her.

Once I had her saddle outside, I decided to try teaching Dollar how to say "no." So I tied him in the alley way, grabbed some apples that I had (it was the only treats I had), and proceeded to follow the instructions taht Kelly had sent me. So I worked with him for a bit on that and actaully started to get the hang of it near the end. He was more interested in the apples though. Silly boy. Once he started getting the hang of it, I put on his new halter and tried to get some pictures. Well, he wasn't co-operating at all. He was still looking for the dang apples and didn't want to stand still for any photos. Sigh Maybe next time.

I grabbed the rest of the apples that were left over and brought them to the other horses outside, leaving about 2 for Sue once he was done his work-out. Then I kicked Dollar outside and headed home for supper.