'Tis a Sad State of Affairs....

Sun Jan 9, 2005

When the ARABIAN is the best-behaved horse in the arena!

O, what an interesting afternoon at the barn! Quzqo was pre-exhausted because, since I didn't go out there yesterday to bring him in, they left him out all night (it was "mild" though, around 30), so he never gets much sleep, Mr. Spoiled Boy that he is. We had a very good time today, using the new Wintec saddle. He is getting SO good at backing!! (well, compared to what I started with in June...). He does it willingly now, THAT is a big thing. Heck, he backs better than Tezlu ever did (but then, I didn't know what I was doing with Tezlu...if only they had RFD-TV in 1989 it'd have been a different story).

We walked, we trotted, we sitting-trotted, we cantered, we halted, we backed, we flexed, we just did SO nice!!

Everybody else though...LOL! The owner's daughter was giving lessons this afternoon, and her first pair was a husband and wife team of boarders, the wife is "experienced" with a crazy off-the-track TB named Mr. Ducks (?), the husband less so, but at least his horse only spun and balked and threw his head constantly. Mr. Ducks went into a full-blown all-four-feet-off-the-ground bucking fit and dumped his mom flat on her back (OUCH!), but she isn't one to be trifled with (if you ever heard how she speaks to her husband, you'll know who wears the pants in THAT family), and she held tight to the reins in a death grip...the horse backed up about 30 feet, dragging her with him until he held still (for the record, both horses had side-pulls on, by the time he stopped the noseband of his WAS sitting on his nostrils).

She did get back on, and rode Mr. Ducks some more...although Jenn, the daughter, didn't say anything, I could see a couple of errors right away. The sidepull was still way too low on the nose, on the soft bits, she had her hands waaay too high, making the horse high-headed and hollow-backed, and I think she should have spent time doing small, calming circles until
the both of them relaxed. But they made it through the rest of the lesson intact.

I was working Quzqo in the safety of the round pen when all those fireworks happened, and he got VERY upset, stopped in his tracks and looked at me with wide eyes...like..."Whaaaaa?????"

We had a blissful half hour or so of the arena all to ourself, where we did the afore-mentioned good things, then it started filling up again...teenage girls with horses, the family with the ponies showed up (they own 4 ponies & all 4 kids ride them all at once), and some guy who I don't know on a horse that really needed lunging. But being a Manly Man, of course, he just got on the mare and started cantering her around. Well now, that girl didn't WANT to be cantered, so she was spinning, rearing, smashing into the fences, then would behave, then would start to rear, and got into a BIG bucking fit in the narrow area between the round pen fence and the arena rail (it's about 9 feet wide)...again, full-blown airs above the ground WITH the bonus of a spin in there...Mr. Manly Man flew off her back like a sack of shit and met the ground nice and hard (GOOD!). But, he got back on, and began riding the mare, more cantering and cantering...the owner's daughter was lunging a crazy young mare in the round pen, so SHE was ripping around and bucking and snorting, all the other horses started fussing and acting nuts (herd thing),

Quzqo started pinning his ears and veering to and fro...when Mr. Manly Man's mare started bucking again in a corner, full-blown midair antics (he stayed on, durn)...I called it quits. I've got no real death wish, and all I need is that jerk and his mare to go bucking into me !

FWIW, Quzqo was puffing and sweating from our little workout. He's gotten to be such a tub, he needs the exercise, LOL! Maybe a session with Mr. Manly Man!