Today's ride challenged each of the 3 riders. Zoe went on the canal trail with Sky and Dune. The trip down to the canal was uneventful. It was on the canal that each horse and rider got a chance to work on some issues.
History...Sky and Dune have been riding together alot lately and sometimes things go well and sometimes those 2 horses can egg each other on to do things with more energy than their respective riders would like. Sometimes Sky can bolt, sometimes Dune tries to buck. I just think they get excited around each other and aren't paying attention to their riders. Then there are things each of the horses have issues with that the riders get to work on-like Sky doesn't like to cross water, especially running water, Zoe loves to eat every chance she gets, Zoe doesn't like to be in front down on the canal-I think the rocks bother her. Dune does pretty good with everything-until he tries to buck.
Today's ride-
Zoe is in the lead-I'm making her work on her "I'm scared of the rocks" thoughts. She is doing pretty good. Over the years she has gotten better on the canal trail. I remember times that she would stop and refuse to go forward-even hitting her with the reins or a riding crop wouldn't work. But...there is always sideways or backwards. After traveling that way for a while suddenly forwards wasn't so bad after all. But today forward it was all the time. Yay! We took the Pioneer Express Trail to the canal trail going up the Lake. We got to the part where you had to cross a small creek. Zoe hesitated mostly because it wasn't an easy crossing. There were alot of rocks, not real good footing but it was doable. The water was flowing but wasn't high. Zoe found her way over and leapt towards the end, was calm on the other side as we waited for Dune to go next. Dune just walks over, no problem. He's a bigger horse, has a bigger reach with his legs, calmly walks over-he isn't bothered by the creek. We wait for Sky. Sky walks down to the creek, turns around and heads back up the trail on the other side-even tho all of his friends are on the other side of the creek. Rider continues to try but he won't cross. Rider off leading horse. I caution her to watch out because he might jump the creek and she will not like it if he jumps on top of her. He launches himself over, rider steps out of the way. She takes him back over he jumps again. She takes him back over and he walks over, did scramble a little bit. She takes him back over, walks and scrambles. She gets on to cross over and join us and he turns around to go home. Sigh. A few more times back and forth, rider gets a calmer crossing while hand leading him and calls it good. All this time Dune stood nicely waiting. Zoe decided eating would be good, she startled a bit when Sky scrambles over the rocks, otherwise she is good. On we go.
Next we decide to trot. Zoe in front, Sky second and Dune last. Zoe's trot is not that fast, I guess the others figured that Zoe being slow would calm the excitability that can happen with the other 2. For some reason Sky fell behind (imagine that-with a Zoe trot!) Anyway he loped to catch up. Then Dune decided bucking would be good. Dune is now stopped and circling with rider mad at him. She asked what to do. I got a chance to say what I would do...ride the horse thru it, don't stop. Ask him to keep going and do it with good manners, pull his head up if necessary-get mad enough to expect better things from him. I have another horse, Skippy, that can get excited loping and she can do naughty things while loping. I ride her thru it, and she gets it-naughtiness doesn't help her out. Everytime Dune bucks, rider stops and circles, Dune doesn't have to work as hard or pay attention to her. Situation over. But the situation never improves...so she needs to ride the horse thru it. It does mean that you have to be able to ride him thru it. I think she is a good enough rider to do it. Sky's rider chimes in with the same thought process.
So Dune's rider says she wants to try it, yay! Dune's rider wanted to lope with Dune in front at first saying it would help him-but he never does the bucking while in front. (She realizes that she has to change positions but wants to try this first) Anyway while doing this I was concerned because they wanted me to be the second horse. Now I'm in between Dune-who is going to lope-and Sky who might bolt off after him-and run right thru me. (remember the history at the beginning) Hmmmm. I ask if Dune starts loping gently or jumps into it. Dune's rider says "don't worry the second horse always does fine" I think she forgot the history. Anyway I tell her to get going-I don't want to stand around and worry about it- and it all works out fine. Sky doesn't run me over, phew. Then we change places. Zoe in front, Dune second, Sky last. We pick up a trot and lope in the straight places. I usually don't lope with more than 1 other horse down on the canal. So it was a push for me, but I expected the best and I got the best. Zoe did fine. She loped calmly. Dune tried to be naughty, and I heard voices behind me correcting the horse and I also heard "keep going". So I would break it down to a trot-it was Zoe's fast trot- but we never stopped. Then we picked up a lope again. We did that many times and towards the end Dune did alot better. He was loping in the second position with no bucking! By the time we got that result it was time to get off the canal and head for home. In all this work Sky did great in the back. He never did try to bolt. Good job for all the horses.
On the way home we came to the tree down on the Lake Forest Trail. It had rained the night before so where the root ball was-it was full of water. There is a wire fence on the left, the hole where the tree roots were, and the tree. No other way around. I got off and pushed a stick into the water. The stick went down to the mud and kept going about 10 inches. Too deep to go thru. Sides too slick to expect the horses to walk on-so we had to turn around and go up to Sterling Pt to go home. While down there we met Donna W. She is a great crusader for keeping the horse trails open and passable. She was taking pictures and wondering why the trail hadn't been cleared yet. It was supposed to be cleared a few days prior. We are all glad for Donna and her hard work for the horse trails.
On the way back we put Sky in the lead, Dune second and Zoe last. All the horses did good in these positions. We did run into the barking dog on the way out to the street. Zoe gets a little jumpy around him. But she did okay. It did help that the owner was at his gate and he was talking to Donna W (she does get around) and he called off his dog. He never calls off his dog-probably did it because Donna was there.
So it ended up being a good ride all around. We all know we have things to work on, no horse is perfect all the time. And we got a chance to work on some of those things, we made improvements on them.
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