Second Ride

When you’re on a roll it’s best to keep going. Things fell into place perfectly for once. The youngest child sleeping, the oldest off playing with the cousins and my husband willing to take a quick break from the part he was fabricating to come help me. He is not a horse person, strongly preferring his Japanese horses, but is always great help when I need him.

I had some doubts about the wisdom of trying to day, Rusty was fidgety. Not doing anything bad really just very fidgety, looking at everything, mouth going constantly, chewing and lipping. He’s the mouthiest horse I’ve ever seen, I blame it on the swirl on his jaw personally, I think with many people biting would be a big issue. So when he’s mouthier than usual it’s difficult. He was acting like maybe another cap was coming off a tooth. But we went ahead with it anyway.

Same routine, mount from the gate then out around the “arena”.  We went longer this time, back and forth with work on whoa and turning the hind quarters again. He doesn’t seem to grasp the go cue yet, having someone leading helps a lot. Asked him to turn on his hind quarters for the first time today, he did pretty good. Not great but he seems to have a little trouble transferring cues from the ground to his back.

We clicked him and rewarded him the whole time. I love that I don’t hesitate to lean clear down over his shoulder to give him a treat and far from being worried about me squirming around on his back he’s worried about getting his treat fast enough. His lips flap and his teeth nash as he reaches desperately for his cookie. I try to aim for that toothless spot where the bit rides, hope to keep my fingers that way.

All in all it’s going nicely so far. He hasn’t offered any bad behaviors yet. I keep reminding myself that he’s a colt, hold on be careful. That’s kind of a good thing for me, I’m usually so worried about all the bad things that could happen that I don’t ride as well as I should. Hopefully we can keep going as good as we have so far.

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