Copout

Rainy Morning

The rain was still falling this morning.

Eventually, it stopped, but it was really wet as we'd had at least 2 inches of heavy rain during the night. When the sun did come out it was still pretty hot, so while the worst of the heat has broken, it's not yet pleasant.

Hence the "copout" of the title. Since I had scheduled a session with the two young riders in the evening, I let my Boys out of their stalls and gave them another day off.

The two young riders have really nice horses. The older daughter has a Quarter horse with a good steady attitude. I just worked with her on basic position, correcting her leg, her hand position, introducing the outside rein, and getting her to think about sitting up to control her horse's speed.

The younger daughter has a solid color, chestnut paint she got recently. He really has a nice trot, but...oh, dear...an attitude about not going forward. During the lesson, one of the farm workers started doing some kind of raking near some bushes by the ring, startled Razor, the horse, he spooked and his rider fell off. Eeek. We got her back on, did some more work and then, I asked her to trot Razor over a crossrail which he apparently has trotted dozens of times. Tonight, he jumped it, bucked into the canter, and the poor girl fell off again. She was really shaken up, but her mother--a horseman herself--encouraged her to get back on so we continued with some more work. Razor, however, had decided enough was enough and started planting himself, refusing to move at all.

Well now, as a pround owner of Tucker, this looked all too familiar. I taught her nearly every trick in my bag to get him going again. My heart went out to her as by this time she was so upset, that his balking had her totally frustrated to the point of tears. I know exactly how she felt and was aching every second along with her.

I have put in a call to the ex jockey I was going to take Tucker to in order to fix his balking habit. We are already trying the ulcer medication on Razor as a precaution, but right now, he needs to learn to respect the leg. Unlike Tucker who would not move at all, this horse backs up as an evasion and, when turned will go, but he doesn't really move forward. He is totally behind the leg. Years ago, I would have dealt with it, but now he needs a rider with the nerve and determination to make him go. Since he is a kid's horse, this is far more serious a problem than Tucker's behavior was for me. I really like the horse otherwise as he is pretty and looks to have nice gaits. I just think he is too much for this girl to handle as far as fixing his training issues go.

We'll have to see how all this works out.