Rescuing Rusty

I got Sunshine worked every day for a week!

That means I’m on a roll and going to stick to this. Right?

Or not. One day of proceeded a weekend off. Which lead to a week of bad weather and busy days and here I am back to his usual schedule of getting worked a few times then being left sit in the field. Luckily he has a good mind on him and can take the sitting. I really want to get him worked though!

Oh well. Going to enjoy the cool weather and rain while I can. Although it has thwarted my plans to pick up kids from the bus with the horses too. That and being so busy. That’s just how life goes though isn’t it.

After a week of working and ‘riding’ Sunshine every day the weekend came. It came a bit early. My son had the day off school Thursday because why not. The school thought it would be fun. We have a four day school week. Work week too since my husband works at the school. So everyone was home today and we have been running all day.

No Sunshine time. Oh well, he deserved a break after the grueling week he put in.

So, instead of a daily training update, which I’ve been a bit too busy to get to anyway, here is a compilation of a few of his rides. All six or so of them that he’s had.

I should edit video with the sound on. In one of these, if you make it past the whole minute of walking slowly in circles of the first ride, my son had a timer set and orders to come see if I was still alive. He did, I was, I asked him to reset the timer and come back again later. I would have edited that bit out had I listened 😆

Looking back I also should have made the first ride bit shorter. No one needs to see a horse calmly walk in circles for a whole minute. If you are watching you might want to skip the first bit 😉

The second piece was his second ride. My first solo sit. Was a lot accomplished? No. What was accomplished was a huge leap in confidence. A small sit without incident is really a big leap forward.

Then my back went out. So there was a day of so off riding and a back brace once riding was resumed. I kind of like it. It’s like a corset, gives me a bit of a waist 🤣

This isn’t every ride. The first two and the last two actually. But I think there is a difference from beginning to end. We got forward all by ourselves. I am now very comfortable on his back. That comfort is important for me to begin making actual progress. Can’t wait to see what our next ride brings!

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.