Wednesday October 5, 2011

This morning I decided to deal with some of Star's issues. She has gotten to the point that she doesn't like to stand still while I mount her. She wants to dance away from the mounting block, side of the trailer, or whatever I am using to get on her. Since it was a nice morning I figured now was the time to deal with it. There was also the fact that I am planning on riding Star Saturday on NAGBRAI.

I got my tack all ready in front of my South barn then coiled the lead rope over my shoulder stuck a rope halter in my back pocket headed through the gate to catch up Star. As I turned from fastening the gate I see Star trying to sneak through the other horses towards the other gate. It is pretty hard to miss a 15 hand yellow horse in a bunch of 14 - 14.2 hand sorrels and roans. I never said this was the smartest horse in the world. We went out that gate and around the barn then back through the original lot and into the stallion pen. I kept her moving until she was sweating well and my blood pressure was slightly elevated but I was finally able to walk up to her and halter her. Then she wanted to dance around while I saddled her. We had a short sermon on this little issue and I was finally able to get her to stand still for saddling.

Since we were dressed for the dance I figured we might as well get down to business. I lead sweet old dependable Star over to the trailer and just as I suspected as soon as I put a foot on the trailer she backed away. Since she wanted to back away, I encouraged her to back up some more. I backed her a good twenty feet then pulled her back up to the trailer. Once again she backed away and got the opportunity to back another twenty, twenty five feet. Now would be a good time to say that Star doesn't like to back up especially when someone is shouting BACK, BACK at her. She got plenty of practice backing today before the light came on and she figured out I wanted her to stand still for me to get on. She finally stood and I put a leg over her then I sat down. She started circling like a buzzard circling day old road kill but we finally got lined out and I figured we needed to burn off some excess energy. Star definitely was not in the mood to stand still when I stopped her but after a little over a mile, some of that at a lope up a steep hill, she could see the advantage of standing still when I asked her to stop. We only put in about 5 mile or so but she was sweating really well and I was right. When we practiced mounting and dismounting she stood a lot better after our little session.

In Star's defense she is fresh, hasn't been ridden in a little over a month. She is running with my young stock and a very timid mare so she has the mistaken idea that she is a dominate horse and doesn't have to respect anything or anybody. I think she has started to reevaluate that position at least when she is tired. She will do fine this Saturday.