An Issue of Trust

One thing that I have oft lamented is that I had no reason to believe that Peanut trusted me when under saddle.  I knew that he trusted me (or perhaps trusted he could outrun me when the lions appeared) while on the ground, but in the saddle?  Nah.

At the same time, I didn't trust him to have sane reactions to things and I didn't trust myself to be able to deal with them.  I knew he was often very brave with things that would freak out an average horse, but at the same time a complete chickenshit with the oddest, silliest things.

Gene's ride taught me that Peanut and I communicated with each other far better than I imagined.  It was worth my injury waking up.

Over time, I have been able to stay calm when Peanut gets silly, because I know that I can ride a spook.  I can deal with it and get back to business when it's over.

Today we went on a solo 1.5 hour ride.  Peanut was nervous during the entire time, but he listened to me and still did what I asked.  At one point, we were at a fork.  He kept staring (the here-be-dragons stare) down one of the paths, so that's where I steered him.  He went without a fuss even though he was still nervous and staring out into the woods.

I intentionally steered him to areas where he's panicked before, and we rode through them.  Nervous, but he listened.

I steered him out into open areas where we've never been before.  We tend to stick to wooded trails.  Nervous, but listened.

I do believe he is starting to trust me.  Either that or I haven't been tuned in enough to really notice before.  There have been incredible moments of him really trying to do as I asked, but today was continuous.  This is an incredible revelation.

I don't know if he was nervous about the fact that leaves were showering down the whole time, the clattering down and crashing of acorns and various other means of tree reproduction, or something else.  I reminded him that things fall at this time of year, thus it is called Fall.

As we were heading back and I was going on and on about how wonderful he is (yeah, I pretty much talk to him constantly), I realized there was an enormous hay turner in the field between us and the barn.  I tried to time it just so to catch the huge piece of clunking, clashing, dust-raising machinery in the next field, but I still felt his nerves turn to panic and I dismounted.  By the time I basically dragged him through the field the thing was back.

I tried to get him out of harms way in order to watch the hay turner as it went through the field, but he kept staring behind him, into the Terror Woods (he was not too thrilled with them on the way in, either).  So, he would react to the clanks, clunks, and screeches from the field but stare into the woods.  I gave up, walked him in, and remounted.  Nervous, but stood for me and listened to me.

I ended up flinging myself off later as he shot backwards towards the drop-off as we neared the ruins, but I got him calmed down, walked him forward a little, and got back on.  Even as nervous as he was, when we got to the road a truck and horse trailer passed by right in front of us (clackety clack) and he didn't move a muscle.

Also, I realized he cut out two bits of BS: trying to turn back around on trails (we got in a battle over this last weekend) and refusing or fighting turns that would take us deeper into the park (this has been steadily dying).  The former was tried once, half-heartedly, but he immediately gave it up with a light rein correction.  The latter was so odd, because I am so used to corralling a dropped shoulder followed by a sideways bolt that I didn't know what to do with myself.

In the "I wish I had a picture" category, we came across a 10 point buck in an open area.  Peanut looked to the right, I glanced to see what he was looking at, and there he was looking at us.  We stopped, he was stopped.  We studied each other for a while, then he began to slowly move forward without another glance in our direction, eventually regally crossing the trail in front of us then disappearing into the woods to our left.  For a while Peanut and I just listened to him in the woods, then we got on with things.

Here is Peanut after the ride.  In real life he was almost glowing in the sun - a golden entity as he got his post-ride grazin'.  In the picture he just looks blah and horrifically obese.  Peanut should have the same aversion to photography that I do.  He just looks so terrible in them!