Forward Movement!
I rode this horse today. The one with head in the air, snorting, and spooking at everything.
It is an important distinction because although it is still Sunshine it is not the same Sunshine as usual.
Sunshine is a very good boy, quiet, willing, brave. Most of the time. He is still young, still high strung, still sensitive and spooky. Sometimes .
It rained a little bit last night. The wind wasn’t blowing yet when we got started and it wasn’t cold. Not sure what had him on edge but he was flighty and jumping from everything from the time we started. We walked in the scary direction to graze, like we have been doing. Everything to the north has been terrifying for a while now. So we go into the scary and hang out, grazing on the good lush grass there. It has been working nicely. Today it was awful again.
Not awful enough not to graze, he is after all a Morgan.
Then we went into the ‘arena’ ’round pen’ whatever you want to call it. It is neither but is kind of serving the purpose.
That was slightly less scary but by than the wind was coming up. We worked on targeting the cones again. He is having trouble finding forward and I am not going to start swinging ropes or in any way hazing him forward from his back. There’s that whole thing where my ’round pen’ has some serious issues like cement pads and sharp jutting corners. Then there’s also the thing where I don’t like to fall off.
So we’ve been practicing targeting cones. He walks forward to a cone, I reward him. It works great, from the ground. From his back he needed more time to think. Yesterday he didn’t get it at all. He had time to think, let it sink in, over night. Today I was determined that we would just sit and hang out until he got bored and wandered off. I was tired of pulling on him and he didn’t seem to be enjoying our ‘rides’. Lot of emphasis here because there are lots of words that don’t mean the things they are supposed to.
I got on and we sat. He stood stiffly with ears pricked staring intently in the scary direction. Grass that way swayed in the ever increasing wind. The dog wandered about. Cats did cat things. Sunshine walked off!
Into the tall weeds around the edges.
I was not thrilled. He was doing good though. So I clicked and rewarded him for the steps he gave. Then pointed his head back into bare dirt.
Then he walked off beautifully! We walked to the next cone. He got a cookie. I sat wondering if I should get off there before he decided to spook for real from the wind. We hung out. He took a couple more steps. I got off. Not exciting. More like riding than what we’ve been doing. Still something real colt starters would scoff at and mock. But, I still haven’t gotten hurt. We’re both getting more comfortable. Sunshine is doing great. I’m pretty happy with it for only being six rides and throwing my back out completely somewhere in there. Yes, in days gone by I would have been doing all sorts more things by now. But I’m old and broken. It doesn’t matter what young me would have done. We’re doing what’s best for me in the here and now and I’m happy with our progress.
