Rehab Horse Has Fun, Baby Horse Learns

It’s so much fun to have a day when all the horses and people seem to be making good progress!

Started the morning in sauna-like humidity (for Arizona) with the hardworking pair Diane and her beloved Roy. He is just under 11 months out from colic surgery and coming back splendidly thanks to her diligence at keeping him moving and happy right from the start. She says he feels stronger and more supple than ever! And she’s riding better than ever, too, thanks in part to the horses she worked with during Roy’s convalescence. Today we did a challenging bending exercise using a simple labyrinth, plus used cavaletti and a small crossrail to help stabilize her jump position. Much sweat, big smiles and much licking and chewing!

Later, I was assistant at yet another successful young-horse backing, this time the first ride for my old friend Amy’s three-year-old Friesian-cross gelding. And, like the last time, the structure of the session was built around the simple groundwork exercises I have been teaching to this gangly-but-sweet youngster for about six weeks now. Amy had been slowly introducing saddle and bridle over the past few weeks and he was pretty much unconcerned about all of that. (He had been trained to drive by his previous owner, so no real surprise that a saddle and bridle weren’t all that strange to him.)

She had also been leading him up to a mounting block and standing on it without incident; though, today he did have a little issue with her standing up there while I led him in serpentines near it and then asked him sometimes to stop with the freakishly tall human on one side of him and me on the other side. Mild baby horse sensory overload. We solved that by making the space within easy reach of the mounting block “the scritch zone.” When he stood there, he got scratched on all his itchy spots, which were plentiful as his late summer shed is in full molt. Of course, sometimes you have to lean on the saddle to reach the scratchy spot way down on the opposite hip. At one point, while his eyes were all soft and snoozy, I just put a hand on his shoulder in case I needed to steady him and Amy climbed on.

Minor weight shifting and worried eye-crinkling, but I think his passenger’s adrenaline spiked more than the horse’s did. After he’d had a good chance to feel his rider – and gotten quite a few more scratches to his itchy withers – we went for a little groundwork walk, turning in big soft S-turns and even introducing the concept of stopping from the seat. Much petting, a little sweat and even a few nice, deep breaths with the rider astride!