Today on the trail my husband and my friend sylvia got way ahead of me and another lady on her paso. we were going over these series of erosion control hills and her paso bucked. It was a really nice moment for me personally, you know how you advise people and they ignore you. Well this time I said "I don't see him as being a bad acting out horse, maybe he bucks starting down hill because of saddlefit, maybe pinching and she said "yes, actually, I have noticed it has gotten snug right at the front pommel (its a bob marshall) ;she looked at my hybrid and is thinking of trying one. that was satisfying. But anyway, he started wanting to take off to catch up to the others and acting out so she made him do circles and then said "you go on ahead, I am going to ride him the other direction to let him know I am in charge" and she left me. Then Jaspar did the sweetest thing. He just stopped like he was waiting for them to come back. So there we were, in the middle, out of eyesight from any other horses.
So my husband hollers thru the woods :is everything ok?" and I holler back "Her horse bucked, she will be back, how is stonewall?" and my husband said when stonewall heard his name he took off for us and when i saw him through the woods it scared me cause I could see he had that look in his eye where he is not in tune with the rider, where he is in the mental frame of mind where he thinks he is a horse at liberty in a herd. So I hollered "control him " to my husband and when stonewall heard my voice he looked and saw us and relaxed and stopped when my husband reined him. It was interesting to me. None of my horses ever come when you call their names but him... He is our problem child and my husband said today he noticed stonewall has to be constantly brought back into focus, like he has adhd or something. He said he whacked his leg into a tree more than once :) i thought he was exceptionally sweet. Tomorrow I am riding Teev with my friend Syvia on a real short easy ride with her mare that just had a baby. The mare needs exercise. My friend has a very very small paddock with no pasture at all and her horses get all their exercise from being ridden. My friend normally rides every day so she wants to make sure the mare gets exercise. Janice -- even good horses have bad days sometimes.
