Today's ride was not very long-only 4.5 miles, however it was full of things that Zoe could have decided to not do so well. I spent time mentally telling my horse to "hold it together".
The first was just on our way out of the barn, on the busy road. A car went by with a dog hanging its head out the window barking furiously at us. Glad that it was on the opposite side of the road. Zoe didn't flinch. I said you can do dogs-you've had them bark at you before, you can do this-hold it together.
Then on Lomida, the smaller road, a gardener decided to go around a corner that I was standing at and park on my side of the street. Only his trailer was still in my way. So I thought I'd go around it and while Zoe was looking at the curb with her head cocked because it wasn't our "normal" way to cross the street-the trailer started moving. Zoe didn't flinch at the trailer and was actually happier because now she could cross the street in the "normal" place. She held it together.
On the trail I decided to try some stops and stand around. Lately her stops in the arena have been sloppy. However on the trail her stops were great. She didn't get nervous and worry about stopping. I also tried some loping. We loped up the sewer road. Zoe stopped 2 times. The first time I think was just laziness, the second time she heard something that I couldn't hear yet. I'm getting so I can read her about these things. So we stopped and I waited. Sure enough 2 mountain bikers were coming over the hill and down the road. They were not slowing down either. I decided to wait until they went by-wasn't sure if moving would be good at that moment. They zoomed past us. I confess that I was holding my breath-telling my horse to hold it together, they were just bikes-rude bikes, but just bikes. Zoe picked up her head but that was it, no dancing, turning and bolting, shaking, head tossing, or any of the other things that could happen. She held it together. Now me-I was wishing that I would have said something. No trail etiquette here, no yielding to the horse and rider, no regard for sharing the trail with a horse-nothing. They left down the road and I ignored them and finished loping up the road. My goal was to go to the top, turn around and go to the bottom of Beginners Hill and trot up that hill. So we turned around and headed for Beginners Hill. Half way up that hill were the same bikers-they were headed up the hill-stopping to rest. Now I got my chance. I think they knew they did wrong, but they feigned ignorance. So I gave them the "informative talk" about trail etiquette and why those rules exist. They were respectful and said they were sorry for their previous actions. I asked them if they were headed for the top. They said yes and were looking forward to the ride down. We left on good terms, but I'm not sure they are going to change their ways. When we stopped to talk, Zoe did good. She just stood there and calmly waited for me to tell her to move on.
We continued on our ride. Every once in a while I would ask her to stop to see how she would do. She did great. On one of the smaller trails we met my barn manager out on a trainee. Zoe again heard her before I could see her. She stopped to look until we could see her. We moved up to her and stopped to talk a while. I told her about the mountain bike riders, and that they should know to stop for a horse. She said that if she had run across them she would have been thrown, because the trainee was not ready for something like that. (Later at the barn I found out that she didn't run into them-phew!) We walked away from them and continued on. Zoe did good-she didn't want to follow the other horse, wasn't worried about leaving...she held it together. When she was younger we would have had a problem leaving the other horse.
We got home, got rinsed off-warm day, got a bucket of goodies. Some days are good horse days and this was one of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment