Progress, and then none

I was so encouraged last week when Mara seemed so calm on the 13KM loop. I only rode her 1/3 of the time, and she was pretty good. I even thought I could actually take a between the ears photo for the first time. Then I even got some video, we had a great time. Well, until that vortext of doom where evil energies align - I have no idea why, but passing by this cluster of trees caused multiple mini spooks, as it always does.


I felt great until today. Mara was so relaxed, she was actually snatching grass as I led her down the trail. I was focusing on walking very slowly, like my man had Thursday, and that went well, she was totally relaxed.

Then I got on her, and she changed completely. She was a basket case, staring and snorting and spooking constantly. I made her circle back and pass areas repeatedly that worried her, and gave her carrots and forced her to stand still until the entire carrot had been chewed, which was way longer than she wanted to stand still.

Finally I thought I had to do something with her nervous energy, rather than just ignore it and try to be calm. I decided to teach her bending and leg yielding for the first time.

Sure enough, it took a lot of thinking to get her to bend to the right. To the left, I'd just take my left arm and pull it straight back over my hip, and she'd bend nice and low no problem. To the right, I had to use the outside rein (left) to keep her actually on the trail, because she couldn't simply bend her neck or body, she could only turn. So we did that until she caught on. I used a lot of inside leg to get her into an actual leg yield too. That kept her mind busy, even if it was kind of frustrating for her. It wasn't as frustrating as standing still! I also worked on  half halts and slowing her walking pace down to almost nothing, because she was rushing so much. I also doubled back a few times to repeat trail, which really threw her for a loop. I should do that more often. Sometimes I think that I'm very forward-oriented, and that makes the horse see a trail ride as a race. To be fair to myself though, a trailride usually is about going from point A to point B, which is what makes it fun, as opposed to going in circles.

Here's a photo of one part of our misty trail ride today:

Herr H was spreading manure in one of his tiny leased pasture lots along the trail, something I'd never experienced, even though we could only hear him and not see him where we were. Then that tractor got louder and louder, and suddenly was careening toward us ---ON THE TRAIL. I jumped off Mara without bothering to ask her to stop, and pulled her off the trail just as he saw us and slammed on the brakes, sending a cloud of diesel fumes over us.

He smiled at me and said, "Get on the horse!"

I said, "I WAS!!!"

Geez. That was the first time I've ever seen a tractor or any vehicle on the trails!

Good thing Mara doesn't care about machinery. She let that thing get within 18 inches of her - at that point Herr H was being very careful in his driving - but it was no problem. It's the sunlight and the leaves and anything that lurks within that scares Mara.

All that bending, I'm sure she's gonna be sore tonight. Oh well, we have to start sometime. Actually, I had the feeling it was helping her with her concept of contact as well. We'll see.

I couldn't believe how scared she was today, when there were no other trail users at all, due to the bad weather. Every corner had her turn into a statue, rock hard, staring at what might come around the bend. Every hillside she couldn't help peering up, to see if those shroomers were still there.

On the big uphill ride toward home, I made her go excrutiatingly slow up that hill. That was a mental game, as well as being quite the phyisical challenge. I don't think people appreciate how much work it is to ask a horse to ascend a slope in a very slow walk, where inertia cannot help at all.

Almost home, I jumped off and led her thru the village. Then, suddenly, someone opened a garage or door or gate or something, I'm not sure what it was, but I heard my horse scramble on pavement behind me, I turned around, and found her on the pavement, legs flailing, trying to get up again. Yah, she spooked herself flat.

I was so glad I wasn't on her, but also kind of pissed off, and kind of worried too, when I saw an easyboot had come completely off in her fight against the pavement, and was hanging by a gaitor. This has never happened before. The other rear easyboot had a big chunk of rubber hanging off of it, and the velcro strap was cut almost in two, below a point where the front of her fetlock had made contact with the ground, and was bloody.

That was her first injury since living with us.

Then again, almost home, someone was splitting logs with an electronic thing, and it made some odd noise suddenly and she almost ran me over. At that moment I thought maybe we could sell her and start again with something less crazy.

When I got home I called my man to come help, and took her straight to our hose to cold hose her for 20 minutes. She was very good, standing perfectly still, actually, I could see her sides heaving from the stress of our ride, which certainly was not fast.

He fed her carrots and admired her wound.

She was very good, on her best behavior, that 20 minutes. She understood I just wanted her immobile, and no grass nibbling, even though she was not tied.

Afterwards, I took her personally to the pasture and watched her trotting around happily on a new section of grass. She's fine.

After all the work Eryn did with me, to get her to pass by scary houses/gardens, after seeing her fall down spooking today at someone's garden, I think it will be a while before I care to try to ride her through our village. Sorry Eryn, if you are reading this, but...she fell down!

For a happier note, here are some videos from our good day last week:

This one is great cuz it shows me being astounded by her good behavior by that lake with the swans. You can also hear me saying, "Oh no, big gravel pile!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koEiSnxRiOI

But as soon as she'd passed it, actually before, I started videotaping again, and got this great one, which  unbeknownst to me was to be a canter video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbCMkJcS4eU

Then there is this rather boring one that shows the countryside a bit, and it is right before we entered the vortext of doom and all fun was done for the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKOmAPKCOFc

Tonight my man and I were at the "Fred Meyer" (Toom) and he took me straight to the key making/engraving station. I said, "What?" He said, "Don't you want Mara to have a tag on her bridle with her name and our number on it?" I said, "Uh...well, yes, but..how did you know that?" I told him that I'd been looking at engraving companies, but they always charge over 10 euros, and in America I can get it for 5, on stainless steel, so I was gonna wait.

But if my man was gonna give me this as a gift....I wasn't gonna turn it down.

Now I have a lovely shiny tag for her new bridle when it arrives from Scotland. I'm so happy about it. She's been wearing Baasha's nametag on her bridle, with my Seattle phone number, this whole time.

I don't know how my man knew I wanted to update that. Maybe one of the times he gave her a carrot, his eye caught the name Baasha and he thought that was wrong.

I love my man.