Overcoming Obstacles in Our Way
Good Verbs: Carry, Back-up, Open, Cross
Carry. Flawless. Picked up fleece quarter sheet, moved it to another part of the ring. Rodney could not have cared less. Laid it over his withers. Held it out to the side. Mox nix.
Krinkle Karry. Well, okay, if you say so. Including the time I dropped the bag & it landed against his lower leg. I asked him to move away veeeerrrrry carefully. No need. No biggie.
Back-up. Beep. Beep. Beep. Minor head tossing midway through, due to my asking for too many steps at once. Ask, wait, praise, repeat.
Open. First session we got as far as opening the latch, backing up a step, walking forward halfway thru, and then handing off the rope to the ground crew. Second session, managed entire maneuver. Technically. Lots of this way, no, this way, nevermind, I can reach the latch from here. Needs smoothing out. Rodney doesn’t want to dock alongside. He doesn’t violently resist but I can feel him leaning away. Plus, major learning curve for the pilot on how to maneuver horse through pattern.
Cross. Tarp? Pfffft. Piece of cake. Although there was an acrobatic, three-legged leap with the remaining limbs the first time he put hoof foot on plastic. Fortunately, he was in-hand. After that, whatever. We did open it to the full width, requiring several steps to cross. No problem.
For the sake of accuracy, I will mention that we had a long-line/in-hand session between the two mounted ones. We did some krinkly stuff, worked on the gate, & fiddled with pool noodles. Interesting to see how hard it is to insist with long-lines. Since the goal is to ride the obstacles, I am only documenting obstacles once we try them mounted. My blog, my rules.
Not So Good Verbs: Canter, Jump, Travel
Read the Alabama Obstacle Challenge Series paperwork. Probably should have done that earlier.
Canter. Oh well, if he can work at all, see below, he can canter. This one will simply take time.
Jump. Nope. Since it is being jumped by riders in western tack, any jump is likely to be quite low, especially in novice classes. We’ll walk over it and take the hit in scoring. If we could jump, we wouldn’t be doing this.
Travel. Went to Stepping Stone Farm. Rodney was great about the trip itself, yay. He was better about standing next to the trailer and eating hay. Under saddle, he was awful. He’d throw his head up and stare wildly at an errant manure pile. He’d ignore his rider to obsess over horses in the nearby pasture who where doing absolutely nothing. All of this at a walk. Less said about the trotting, the better. My hands were sore the next day from wrestling with him. We’ll keep going to SSF until he settles. When, if, he settles, off to the AOCS barn to find out if he can generalize about working from home or if we have to go through this all over again.
Outstanding Verb: Pose
Stood like a statue while I played photographer. Well, I missed a through-the-ears shot of the tarp because he thought I was aiming him at it, so walked over it rather than waiting in front. Can’t complain about that.
Previous Obstacle post [Because what I need in my life right now is another barn and another discipline]
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 