Exciting July Weekend!

This past weekend – July 16-17 – had some wonderful Buckshot moments in them. I’ll give a few of the Saturday highlights and share a little bit more about Sunday. First, Buckshot’s rain rot has been cleared up! Hooray! I gave him a bath after our Saturday ride, with the medicated shampoo. When his hair is wet, it is silky smooth and I can feel every tiny bump on him, and his bumps have gone! It has taken two months of daily treatment, weekly shampoos and tool cleaning, but it has finally cleared up.

The other highlight to mention has to do with Buckshot’s new sense of exploration. As we did our walking warm up, we stopped in the center at one point. After a moment of standing still, he began to drift over to the open gate. I let him go, to see where he wanted to go. We walked out of the arena, he took a left turn and walked by the closest barn. As we neared the second barn, where he and I do his grooming, he turned in toward it. I could see the barn doorway was at my eye level, so I gently steered him away, and turned him around, to which he responded willingly. But I had to laugh and wonder, why did he want to ride back into the barn? We have never ridden into the barn, naturally. (Now that I think about it, at the barn we used to be at, and which he lived at for years, it wasn’t uncommon for riders to ride in the barn aisle. The aisle was very broad and very, very tall.) How funny that he wanted us to ride right into the barn!

Here is the exciting thing – we then went back to the arena and did a few more minutes of work, and then I decided we’d go exploring down the farm road! This is the road that leads to the farm’s other arena, off in a distant hay field. I haven’t been able to get Buckshot to go down the road by ourselves yet, either riding or in hand. But with his newfound confidence, I decided to try it. We headed to the road. I could sense a bit of uncertainty on Buckshot’s part – he wasn’t walking with quite as much purpose as when he was walking us to the barn. But he listened to me and we started down the road. At about one-third of the way down, he made a left turn and detoured toward a pasture gate. So without missing a beat, I led him in that direction and then turned him back toward the original arena. No argument, no discussion. If that was as far as he wanted to go, on that day, well, that was fine with me. Next weekend we’ll go farther, I’m sure. So back to the arena we went, and continued our work and our riding. We had a great ride, overall we rode for two-plus hours! Buckshot had good energy at the trot and the canter. So it was a great day for us! Good boy, Buckshot!

On Sunday we were scheduled to go to the reining clinic. When we first started going, many months ago, I would walk Buckshot by the already-in-position trailer, in route to the barn for grooming. He would snort or blow when he saw the trailer. After grooming him, he had a lot of energy. Excitement energy? Worried energy? I couldn’t tell. But I addressed it by taking him in the arena and doing a lot of little exercises in hand. Circles, backing, walking in squares, walking diagonal lines, anything and everything I could think of. And it definitely helped. It got his mind on what we were doing and off of the big trailer nearby. Then, and this was, again, in the early days of going to the trainer’s, as I walked him to the trailer, where the BOH was waiting to walk him into his partition, he would start trotting and partially prancing. He would get on the ramp and stop, and after about 1-2 minutes of just standing there (no snorting, no quivering, no resistance, just standing still), he would walk forward calmly and get into his partition.

It is so interesting to me, now that we have done this twelve to fifteen or more times, how he is different. Now, when we walk by the trailer, he doesn’t snort. He does make the tiniest blow sound, barely a normal blow sound. After we groom, we go out to the arena and he has just a bit more energy. We do our exercises and stay busy until it is time to load. He seems very calm. But as I walk him over to the loading ramp, and to the BOH, he still does the partial trotting, partial prancing thing. Then he walks onto the ramp, stops for appx 1 minute and walks in calmly. He is funny. But I really appreciate how easily he loads. Recently I saw some other horses being loaded and they were quite a handful! After that, I remembered how wonderfully easy Buckshot is to load and I so appreciate it about him! Good, good boy!

At the reining clinic, the trainer wanted all of the participants to go, one at a time, into his round pen and lope without reins. The idea was to help us feel the rhythm of our horse’s canter, without the diversion of reins, to help us with our seats. After watching the first rider do a great job at this, it was Buckshot and my turn. We walked through the many-chuted configuration of pens (Buckshot did fine going through these tight quarters), to the gate, which had a pipe frame overhead. Buckshot went a little quickly through the gate, and I bumped my head good on the pipe overhead. But, luckily, my helmet took the hit, not me. Hooray for helmets! (And as an aside, I do wear my helmet even when riding with the other western riders, none of whom wear helmets. I remember one day a few months ago, at the clinic, and I realized of all the riders there – about 8 or 10 – I was the only one wearing a helmet. For a moment, I felt conspicuous, but I shrugged it off. I am a committed helmet wearer, and plan to always be one.)

Anyway, back to the story. I’m going off on so many tangents, sorry.

Well, Buckshot and I were in what seemed like a teeny-tiny round pen. The trainer is very nice and accommodates Buckshot’s age and if needed, limited capabilities, and so he said to me to just do whatever I felt comfortable doing in the round pen. I wanted to lope, without reins! That’s what I wanted to do! But I’ve never successfully cantered Buckshot in a round pen for more than just a few strides, and sadly, we’ve never really loped, that beautiful, slow, controlled canter that these reining horses do so nicely. We just canter- strong canter. I know as I develop my skills at the canter, we may be able to do a more controlled canter, but it isn’t in my repertoire just yet. But maybe this was the day, I thought hopefully! I started Buckshot trotting and he did well, and then I kissed and tried to get the canter, and, well, it fizzled. I only got a few strides from him and they seemed to me to be so fast, and he seemed to be running right into the pen sides, and well, suffice it to say, we didn’t lope. But we did what we could, so I didn’t feel too badly about it.

We left the round pen and went to stand with the other horses and riders. A few minutes later, I guided Buckshot over to the arena (and this reining arena is very, very big), and decided to just practice our canter. We cantered quite well, one time we went all the way around it, with me keeping a good, decent seat and steering him! Wow! It was wonderful! We did a bit more cantering after a break, and I felt it was just such a great day for us. We did accomplish some good work, even if it wasn’t in the round pen.

Later in the class, we were at sort of a break, and I decided to take Buckshot back into the round pen and try the lope again. We wove our way through the pens and to the gate and again, Buckshot slid into the pen quickly. I walked him around the pen and could instantly feel his nervousness. He just didn’t seem comfortable in the round pen at all this time. I don’t understand why, but regardless of knowing why it bothered him, I rode him out and back to the arena. His nervousness immediately went away. Still, overall, it was a wonderful day and weekend for us – with some new adventures and great riding work done, and rain rot gone! I hope you had a wonderful weekend with your horses as well!

May Weekend Adventures

Saturday, May 21, 2011 was a very warm day, in the eighties, so it was time to give Buckshot a bath with shampoo! His almost-once-a-year bubble bath (don’t tell him it was a bubble bath!). But before that, we did a lot of variety. After grooming him, and finding some unusual bumps on one of his haunches, we went to the round pen to start our riding. We worked on circles and squares, and precision control. A large branch draped over one section of the round pen so we had to move around it. After several minutes working on these exercises, the BOH and helper approached with a big tractor. I turned Buckshot to look at the tractor so it wouldn’t surprise him. The BOH signaled that he wanted to take care of the branch so I dismounted and we walked over to the main arena.

We continued our phase one walking, doing cone bending with imaginary cones, and other patterns. After the warm up, we started trotting with vigor. Buckshot did great. Since we had the arena to ourselves, we tried many of our regular patterns. We did well at the canter also. Soon the BO joined us on her horse and we worked more in the arena, then headed into the woods to trail ride. As we approached the bridge, she pulled her horse over, and Buckshot and I led the way. Once on the other side of the bridge, we pulled off the trail, and let the BO take the lead. The woods were quiet and calm, marred only by a cat that accompanied us, who didn’t see anything wrong with stopping right in the middle of the trail, in front of a horse! We often had to detour around the fearless cat. What creature isn’t at least a little afraid of a creature that is seventeen times its size, made up of lots of tall, strong legs! LOL!

We arrived at the field arena and did work there. The BO worked on her reining maneuvers while Buckshot and I took advantage of the nice, big size and did trotting and cantering. We had a great time! Then we headed back up the road toward the main barn. As we approached the barn, one of the BO’s school horses, a lovely Palomino gelding, grazed calmly in front of the barn. Oh, I thought, someone is grazing Moonshine, I wonder who since there isn’t anyone else here. Oh, I thought with wide eyes, he doesn’t have a halter or lead rope on! Uh, oh, no one is grazing him! The BO was also watching him closely. We approached the barn calmly, and dismounted quietly. The BO took her horse into the barn, while I stayed near Moonshine, although I didn’t have anything to wrap around his neck. He didn’t even look up; he just kept eating grass. When the BO came out of the barn she had a halter and a handful of sweet feed and approached Moonshine softly. He nibbled from her hand as she slipped the halter over his head. Phew- no more loose horse! He is a horse with the talent of letting himself out of his stall, so a special locking mechanism is used on his stall door. However, that day he had been put into a different stall, so he was able to easily escape his boredom and find some grass to eat. LOL- what a character!

After untacking Buckshot it was time for his bubble, um, soapy bath. I used a dollop of horse shampoo in a bucket of water and rubbed him fairly well. I wasn’t really trying to remove all of his dirt, as he needs some for protection from insects. I wasn’t really up for sheath cleaning so I asked the BO if she would do it sometime this summer for me. She is more courageous about that than I am! I asked her about the bumps on Buckshot’s haunches and she examined them and said they may be rain rot. I put Eqyss spray on them. What do you use for rain rot?

On Sunday, we trailered four horses and riders to the reining barn for a reining clinic. Buckshot is getting much more used to this adventure. As I walked him from his pasture over to the barn, we walked behind the now-in-position-near-barn trailer, and Buckshot, who used to snort at this point, gave only a little half-snort. (I didn’t know horses could do partial snorts, but apparently they can!)

After grooming him, we weren’t quite ready to load so he and I walked out to the trailer area, and walked around. I gave him little exercises to do, which he readily did. He tried to walk me over to some areas he usually doesn’t go to. He also walked me right into the arena, so I used the arena to guide him in more exercises: little circles, bigger circles, spirals starting small, spirals starting big, backing, etc. He seemed eager to do these maneuvers, almost as a way to keep his mind busy while waiting. He wasn’t apprehensive or agitated, just a bit more energetic than normal, but definitely responding to me.

When it was time to load the horses, horse number one went on the trailer. Buckshot is horse number two. I walked him to the ramp. He stopped. I gave the lead line to the other rider, and she gently held it while he gave it a bit of thought. Then he took a step and then another and then walked calmly into the trailer. We loaded the other two horses, hopped in the truck and took off.

Buckshot came off of the trailer an hour later in good spirits. I walked him around a bit and then headed back to the trailer where the BO helped me tack up. I couldn’t get him to a tie up spot – there wasn’t enough room at one corner – so the BO helped me tack him up. He eagerly walked over to the mounting block, I got on and we started.

It was a good class, but not one of our best performances. We worked on several techniques – guiding, and small turns, as well as big circles followed by smaller circles. Our cantering was not the best. But one time, I led him around the entire arena at a trot and halfway through he started the most powerful, flying extended trot ever! My eyes were watering, we were going so fast! He didn’t ever break gait into the canter, but this trot was as powerful as any of his powerful canters! It felt heavenly to me!! I feel as if I could almost feel his positive emotion through it – his eagerness, or just feeling great as a horse, or something like that! It was magical!! What a wonderful, strong, responsive horse!! Good boy, Buckshot! So I can’t complain really about our cantering, since what he did well, he did very, very well!

After the clinic, I rinsed him off, gave him treats and praise, and we loaded the horses up. At our farm, he came off of the trailer calmly, and I walked him to his pasture. He looked at me, then went sniffing for a space to roll! I indulgently watched him, proud of him! Then I started getting the horses’ dinners ready. (And I sprayed him again with fly spray and Eqyss. Always the sprays and creams for him! LOL!)

I hope you had a good weekend also. And any suggestions on what has worked for you with rainrot? Thanks for listening!