Trail Ride Challenges

Yesterday morning Rick, Anne-Marie, and I headed out for a trail ride in the morning once Anne was done with barn chores.  It was a ride full of challenges and some interesting (to me) observations.

First, the horses wanted nothing to do with crossing the road.  Peanut was going to head down first, and he was not having it.  He would hop up in the front, swivel on his rears, and spin away.  I would have to spin him back, and thus the dance began.  This time, I had witnesses.  At no time did I feel anything but secure in the saddle (even though at one point I was shifted enough by his rearing that I ended up with my lower legs horizontal and it took some mental effort to put them back down), so it was just a test of wills.

I won.

Peanut crossed the street, shaking like a leaf the entire time, with Gene close behind.  Rick later said that Gene was on edge as well, and if Peanut hadn't taken the lead and thrown the fit first, Gene most certainly would have.

After a few yards on the trail I looked back and noticed that Mona was still on the berm on the opposite side of the road.  Since Peanut had such a hard time crossing, I stopped him, stroked his neck, played in his mane, gave him some carrots, and waited.

As nothing was improving, Rick turned Gene around and went back to try to lead Mona over by example.  I stayed on trail, wondering if Peanut would freak to see Gene leave like last time we split up on trail.  He turned his head slightly and watched him go, but nothing more.  I continued petting him and talking to him, and by that time he had calmed down completely.

After a while, both horses were on the road at the very edge of the berm, but still had a bridge to cross before reaching the trail head.  They were standing perfectly still.  I figured, why not, and turned Peanut around to take up the rear and make a Friesian sandwich.

As I reached the road, a car approached and I stopped.  The horses in the road stayed where they were, which left plenty of room for a car to go by.  Instead, the car stopped, waved me across, and I went over and lined up behind Mona with Anne's blessing.  The car turned on its hazards and waited as Gene began to cross and Peanut started nosing at Mona's dock like he was pushing her.  He is obsessed with her tail, and always plays with it when we follow her.  She started moving, we made our way onto trail, and the car continued on.

While on the leader trail, Peanut was acting like we were out alone.  He was distracted by this, looked at that, rubbed his head on this tree, and even deviated from their path by a bit.  In fact, he wasn't paying any attention to them whatsoever and I rather liked it.  At the end of the first meadow from the leader trail, we ended up in front.

As we entered the woods, a bicyclist was reading a sign posted at the side of the trail explaining the observations being made in the area.  I told everyone there was a bike, and walked by and said hi.  He moved his bike over and Peanut was a trifle nervous.  I told the Nut to come on, he had seen a thousand bikes and we went past.  Rick and I turned down a trail to the first stream crossing and realized that Mona wasn't with us.  We turned around and saw her making stink eyes at the bike and refusing to move.

So, just as with the road, we went back up, placed Gene in front, Peanut behind, and moved her through.  When she got beside the bike she acted like she wanted to touch it, the biker gave permission, and so she did.  We then moved on.

At the stream, Peanut and I were still last.  Gene and Mona entered the water (well, Mona took a bit to actually get in the water) and stopped.  Gene was playing, getting his face wet, pawing at the water, and being a general silly.  Mona gingerly touched the water with her upper lip and didn't want to move on.  Peanut, for his part, didn't care because he was busy eating dirt.  Yep, he found a particularly tasty bit of the bank and didn't give a fig about what was going on in the water because he was eating dirt.

Silly.

Eventually everyone got through.

As we continued on, Peanut became less and less like his solo-ride self, and more and more dependent on having the other horses in sight.  When we turned around I could feel the nerves growing in him, and he would try to panic if we got a little left behind.  At one point, he started cantering across a field to catch up.  Fine with me, however he dropped his head down when he started to canter.  I gave that neck (his head was out of sight) the hairy eyeballs, just daring him to start bucking.  He never did, even though he cantered once more with his nose to the ground and shortened strides so that he wouldn't kick himself in the jaw.  He never calmed down and I saw him nip at whatever horse was in front of him more than once.  That would get him a yank on the reins and then he'd have to stop and stand for a bit.

Once we got back to the farm I pulled away from everyone else and took him for a little walk around it.  He calmed down and I rode back and dismounted.

I'm starting to think he's happier on solo rides.  Weird.

Testing his back after I took off the saddle, I found some sore spots.  I've seen him worse where he will drop his entire back, but this was mainly just a twitch as I reached a certain spot near his withers.  I rubbed the muscle that reacted, much to his apparent delight.  I think that I need to go back to the wool pad.