Back in the Saddle: Ride Eight, and Week Three Begins With Drama

Ragtime and I had a ragged ride today, but it was instructive (for me, and maybe for him) and we went out and came back without injury other than a bruise and a strained “something” in my left leg.    He’s been off work, mostly due to weather, since the last post.  It was chilly and windy this morning, both things that induce “spicy” behavior in many horses.  Rags expressed his belief that another day without being saddled, and cookies instead, would be quite acceptable.  I disagreed.  I knew that four full days off hadn’t done MY skills any good.  He got breakfast and time to digest it, and then I appeared and here came the brush, then the saddle pad, the riser pad, the saddle, its girth, and the bridle.  “Really?” said Rags.  “Again?  I thought we were done with that.”   “It’s a beautiful crisp day and we are certainly NOT done with that.”   I wallowed my way onto him, as usual, but it’s getting *slightly* easier and quicker, and then we started for the Near Meadow, the gate to which was open because R-‘s plan included trimming the little grove of cedar elms that’s now centering the left side of the maintenance path, when you’re headed north.  After helping me get through the gate from south to north horse lot (ensuring that Tigger didn’t escape!) he went back to pick up the saw and some other things, and Rags and I headed for the gate out.

I mentioned wind.  even a pipe and cattle-panel gate will sway a little in the wind, and so will its attached chain.  The chain makes a faint “ching….ching…” on the gate when it reacts to the wind and/or the gate moving.   Rags reacted to either the movement or the sound or both and threw a full on shy–the kind other horses do–as we were going through the gate, ending up slightly more than 180 degrees from where he had been pointed, and several feet to the side.  His intention was to go back; mine was to turn him around and go into the Near Meadow.  After not coming off at the MUCH larger than usual shy,  I spoke firmly to him, got us headed the right way and started out again.  No shy, this time, but a few yards down he stiffened, ears full-alert forward, not just happy forward.   R- had left a garden cart in the trail.  A famiiar garden cart, just like the cart we use to haul manure in.  Rags swore up and down it had to be a monster.  I said no, it wasn’t, and insisted he walk on, at an angle to the cart that took us around it, and then down to the low end of the Near Meadow, and back up and around again.  R- came back with his stuff, and I really did not want to spend the whole riding time working on “approaching a cart” but this time we passed a lot closer and Rags was a lot calmer about it.

But he didn’t want to cross the rocks at the old ditch.  We crossed them.  I turned him left,  alongside the ditch until the south fence trail meets it, and then turned him west on that.  “But those trees–those dark shadows–there could be monsters in them,” said Rags with stiffened ears, neck, and back.  “No there’s not,” I said.  “I’m here, you’re safe, steady on…just walk.’   He walked between big old Ashe junipers, several times and then we were in the open, bright sun on the mown field, and I foolishly thought “nothing to worry about here.”   Forgot that Rags is a bit of a toe-dragger and trips at times.   He’s got a downhill build (rump higher than withers), thick neck, big head, travels still mostly on the forehand. and when he trips it’s like the bank you’re standing on breaking off and falling down in the gulch.  I’d been riding him with a steadying seat, legs, and rein, but had been trying to keep my legs back in a more correct position…and a horse trying to spear himself head first into the ground calls for the safety seat…and the ability to shift your weight back and stay upright, which is another skill I’ve lost, at least temporarily.  So I went forward and didn’t help him at all until I could get straight, and then he clambered back up and we went on after a brief breather.  On a hard road, this could’ve resulted in damage to his knees, but on thick grass, no damage.   We went on, with me sitting steady in the safety seat (legs more forward, on the girth) and notixing a twinge in my right hip and thigh.  Something got stretched.    He relaxed a little, then took a good hard look at Cloud Pavilion.  He’s been there before, a little over a year ago, but he didn’t like it then.

I took him on the field side of it (rather than the side with a narrower passage between a stand of big bluestem and a big juniper tree, and planned to make a couple of small circles, each direction, just beyond Cloud, to ensure he was seeing it out of both eyes.  But then he startled (without a shy) at something off to the right.  Deer?  Daytime coyote?  Loose or feral dog?  Skunk/raccoon/ringtail/rabbit???   No.  a feral cat.   Meanwhile I’d figured out that while the things inside the pavilion didn’t bother him for the most part, the big black water tanks (which are at the barn, yes, but not in the same configuration)  and the hammock were the triggers for his non-cat tension.  The hammock was swinging back and forth in the wind, and it has fringes on one end, the end he could see.  Eeeeeep!!!  Monster!  Moving by itself!  It’s alive!   We made it back, along the same track, at a walk, no stumbles and no more shying, but I wouldn’t call it a fun ride exactly, except that being out on a horse on a gorgeous day is always some kind of fun, even if there are some training holes to plug.  My hip and lower back were starting to feel a little ouchy.  R- came in from the Near Meadow to help me with getting off, and that turned into longer and more difficult struggle than usual.  Rags did not want to stand still where I needed him to (where I could hold onto the top pipe of the portable stall, actually stand on one of the lower pipes, and get my leg over his back more easily.  In trying to reposition him, he shifted his weight suddenly and I clobbered my left leg on the corner of the stall, AND strained the same joint attachment that was already unhappy. It’s always good to be reminded that the mildest-mannered horse is still a horse, and safety depends on the rider as well as the horse’s disposition.

But I got off finally, nothing broke, and after getting Rags untacked, and cookies handed out to both horses, I walked back out to the Near Meadow with R- to see what had been accomplished in the Picnic Grove.   It’s really coming along and looking more and more as I imagined it years back.

With care for the proddiness of spring rattlers, we should be able to picnic there later this year, and in future years, when the trees have grow bigger canopies, it should be a lovely place to sit and talk or eat.  Or both.