first ride in germany with baasha

Baasha looks so cool in his old endurance tack. I'd forgotten. New skito pad, oh so sweet. Black biothane everywhere, I reminisced about central Washington, whizzing up and down rock canyons. But Baasha likes Germany. The trails are soooo soft and wide and well groomed - it's like Bridle Trails State Park, everywhere. Small gravel, no problem, I was happily surprised, his barefeet are tougher than I thought. He only slowed down for the big rocks.

What does one do on a first workout after a year of being a pasture potato? I said "I'm taking you for a walk!" I led him down the village roads like a big well-behaved dog. Well, almost. He kept trying to walk me faster than I wanted, and kept sneaking forward, but one of our new Respect Training ideas is that he must be *behind* me, or his nose at my arm. He has bad separation anxiety, and it helps if the horse has a strong human leader. So I flipped the end of my reins at his nose everytime he tried to walk ahead. It's gonna be a while before I get in the habit of enforcing this 100% - I've always let him walk with his shoulder at my side, as illustrated in the Pony Club Manual.

Finally I mounted, where it was nice and level. I was surprised - he started this weird jigging walk. What's that? Why the hurry? I think it may have been anxiety about the new place (a new country!!) or maybe he's just conditioned that riding means fast. I was like, OK, when I point him up a hill, he'll quit this nervous speed walk. That worked, but when the hill was over, he started again. What's the rush? I tried taking up the reins, thinking at first that's the wrong thing to do, but we'll see what happens. With nothing but a french link snaffle and no cavesson, he actually relaxed. He collected and his footfalls became cadenced and normal. My goodness what a surprise. I let him out slowly, he stretched down and then started to go fast again. I took him up again. After a while, it began to dawn on him that we really were only gonna walk, no use hoping for anything faster. Then it became fun.

I jumped off and let him graze for long periods of time. Then this cute dappled Haflinger started showing up. Somehow this lady passed us three times. That Haflinger just made Baasha's day. He just lit up. A HORSIE FRIEND! I was so tempted to strike up a conversation with the lady, but my shyness won out: (

Then I did the very best thing - I took him to all the horse fields and let him study the horsie residents. Some very friendly ones came over and gawked at his obvious american-ness. He dropped his head into the long green grass and I let him stay as long as he wanted. Good for his "go go go" personality, to stop whenever possible and just do nothing, or graze.

It's obvious to me now that I cannot ride with other people for a long time. Even at a walk, he'll get so competitive, he'll start racing or fretting and before we go through that phase, he needs to be at least a little bit fit.

We were out a total of 3 hours, but obviously I walked about half of the time, and we stood around grazing a lot too. I think it was a good first day.

It was odd to ride him in a place so unfamiliar that I could feel his hesitation at every intersection. He honestly had no idea which way to go. I wonder if he was surprised everytime I made the decision with confidence.

Omygosh, I almost forgot, the look on his face when he saw the Ronsdorf Talsperre. It's a big dam that people can walk across. Yes, the first time I saw it, I gaped too. He's never seen a dam before, I don't think. He froze, his muscles became rock hard, and he threatened to whirl away. But there were children playing *on* it, and around it, and people and dogs talking amicably, and he could see that they were not in danger, especially the little boy on a tricycle that kept yelling at his dad, "Papa, Fia! Papa, Fia!" which was his way of saying "Pferd." I thought, "I'm sorry, kid, but your german tricycle looks like it might over-stimulate my horsie, and I cannot stick around to say hello!" So I let Baasha move on by. If only I had a photo of the moment Baasha saw that dam. *lol*

I'll try to get pictures of our trailride soon, for now all I have are scenes from "Baasha At Home". I love how Baasha and Galim, cousins, have taken to one another.