Witness To A Runaway
She was showing off.
Her favorite, greatest in the whole world, cousin was there. With my daughter on her horse her cousin was riding Coyote. The favorite cousin had had a horrid naughty pony her very irresponsible father got her as a young child. One of those nasty little bucking things that give ponies a bad name and teach children not to like horses. Since then though she had ridden with us a few times, but not nearly enough, and wanted to start riding for real. I was thrilled to have her riding with us and we hope to haul her, and her brother, along with us if we take the kids to any rodeos or shows next summer.
Coyote was being an excellent lesson pony, giving me hope that he will work out as my sons first horse. He was plodding very slowly around our “arena” ears flicked back, paying close attention to everything his young rider was trying to ask of him. Princess Onna on the other hand was doing the opposite. Not that SHE was being bad. She to was doing everything her young rider asked of her. Which was zipping around the “arena”, cutting off slow, patient Coyote, and generally making a nuisance of herself. Finally Onna couldn’t handle it anymore. She zoomed towards me and the pickup, and safety.
But.
This is where clicker training and habit pay off. She couldn’t have gone anywhere in the direction she was going anyway, it’s a closed lane that ends in a gate, but she didn’t try to anyway. She came to me and stopped. She wasn’t trying to do anything wrong. Her person wanted her to go but wasn’t offering clear signals. Onna went where she wanted. They rode around a little more that I got on.
She had been switched into go mode. I did my best to turn that switch off. She would take off and I would one rein stop, wash, rinse, repeat. Not the first time we’ve done this and wont be the last. The next day we tried again, but I’ll save that story for a different day 😉
She is getting pretty good at riding