Some Ride Time!

Harold face! 

Whoo hoo!!

Monday was ride day! Normally I would be at work bored out of my mind trying to keep my nearly one year old happy in a greasy mechanic shop. But she had been sick that weekend with a high fever and had been running one still the night before. Therefore I called the boss (aka my dad) and told him I would be staying home with her that day.

Long story short I took her to the pediatrician that morning and then she fell asleep and took a nearly three hour nap in the car on the way home so I got to play with my horsey! (Shes fine BTW, just a virus on its way out) I had to jump a few hoops to get it done but it worked!

First I parked the girls by the round pen and then ran across the pasture back to the house to grab the kids wagon. See, the saddle and my bridle were in the hubbys shop and I couldn't pick it up with my vehicle without risking waking the bebe.

The sight of me running across the pasture trailing a huge western saddle in a child's wagon had to be hilarious! Sadly I didn't have my phone to document as my oldest was burning up youtube with it ;) It fell out once too, which was pretty funny, haha.

Oh, you wanted me??

I threw the saddle up on the round pen panel and headed out with Chloe to get Harold. I knew they were out towards the back of the front pasture, so I figured if I shook the grooming bucket that had some horse treats in it they would be enticed to come up. Uh, NO. I shook and called and shook and called. I even went and got a real grain bucket with real grain in it and that still didn't do it! Finally I threw some in the grain feeder and smacked it a few times and Chatterbox decided that he might come see what was going on. And finally 5 minutes later Mr. Harold decided to grace us with his presence! It was easy peasy grabbing him again. I did have to have a discussion with him outside the pasture when Chatterbox decided to high tail it back to his girlfriend, Stormy (who I never saw hide nor hair of, brat!). I finally made a break through with his back up at this point.

Apparently I have been being too soft on him. Previous times I thought  I had been whacking him pretty hard with the stick to get some energy out of his back, but I really laid into him this time when he started bouncing about a bit and he said Yes Ma'am pretty quick after that! And was a jewel afterwards. It's hard on a lot of horses to leave their friends and go off from them and behave themselves alones. And he did great the entire time after our 'discussion'.

After we got to the round pen we went through our ground work exercises briefly. I love how he can be out to pasture for 2 or 3 weeks and come back and act like it was 2 or 3 days. That is exactly what this busy mama needs!

So we went into our lunging for respect exercise and that went ok, then he started to get a little cheeky and throw a few leaps in when we changed direction. I think it's his way of being goofy. Once he gets some of the zoomies out he gets pretty lazy.

After that I did his lateral flexion both sides. Left was good so I focused mostly on the right. He was pretty stiff and even pawed a few times to let me know he wasn't thrilled with it. But I finally got some decent yields and called it quits. It's just something we have to chip away at each session.

Lookin snazzy in his pretty saddle blanket

I threw the pad and saddle on him and the new saddle surprisingly went on easy. I grabbed the brother in laws saddle and pad and am going to use it from now on. He isn't riding at all anymore. I think it is a tad wide for Harold though. He isn't as bulky a QH as Daisy was. The breastcollar was wider then I liked on him too so will probably swap that out. Although I could just leave it off, not like we really need one.

He tacked up great, I even had him tote his saddle blanket from the shed to the round pen and he didn't mind, haha. Climbed on and away we go! The saddle was awesome, if fits me a lot better then the FIL's Billy Cook. It has kind of clunky stirrups that I thought I wouldn't like, but I didn't notice a problem with them at all while I was riding.

We did some lateral flexion while I was on him which went ok, he definitely needs a lot more of it though because when he doesn't want to go the way I want him to go he is pretty stiff. And his ABSOLUTE FAVORITEST WAY is back to the round pen gate, lol. Or pretty much anywhere over near that side.

About this time I had asked him to halt and flexed few times again. Then he shook his head and CLANK. His bridle hit the ground. BIT AND ALL. What the?! I was so stunned I just sat there a minute and then started laughing, Stinking one ear bridles! I mean, it wasn't even a bad shake, just a, there is a fly on my head/ear, shake. So I guess I need to put a throatlatch or something on it before I ventured from the round pen. I don't have a curb strap on it either, so maybe it would at least stay in his mouth if that happened again? Lol, anyway, it was definitely a funny moment. And of course he just stood there while I jumped off and re bridled him acting like, is it nap time yet?

So his trot was pretty zoomy that day for some reason. I tried to rate him a bit but that didn't help so I decided to do some figure 8's and work on being soft and flexed in the turns. He did pretty good! By this time I figured the end of my little stinker's nap was coming and Chloe was wanting to ride. She wanted to ride with me so I jumped down, hoisted her up and then climbed up behind her. There was just enough room for me to squeeze in there, although I was kind of sitting on the cantle, lol. She had a ball. I let her have the reins and tell him when to turn and woah etc.

We rode for about 10 minutes then untacked him and checked on sissy, she was awake and not happy about missing the fun so I grabbed her out and we walked Harold back to his pasture and let him loose. He ran off like a silly thing neighing for his buddies.

Here we are doing our LFR! (lunging for respect) And I left music off so you could hear my hilarious daughter. "He sure does like shoes!" LOL



Harold LFR from Britnieann on Vimeo.

And here is a funny and really shaky video my 4 year old took for me. You will see the ground more then us ;).


Harold Nov. from Britnieann on Vimeo.

This was all LAST Monday, although the date on the post will be right, it is now the 18th at the time I am finally getting this posted.

We had some FRIGID air come in so I put Harold a blanket on last night. He did GREAT. I bet he's never had a blanket on before but you would never have been able to tell. I think his friends were a tad jealous ;).

The father in laws horse sure can do a good giraffe impression!

Stormy says, cookies??

I'm really hoping his blanket is still in once piece when I see him today. The other horses were quite interested in it and he is the low man on the totem pole so he will let them eat it if they want, I'm sure!

That's all for now, have a great day everyone!