Mara waits

Every Orienteering horse has to learn to stop and stand still on the trail so that the rider can use the compass. It's a hard thing to train because the horses are moving in groups at speed, and then must stand still at random spots. OK it's something all trail horses should be able to do, and I have been working a lot with Mara on this. It's hard for me, even, because I tend to see trail rides as point to point, A-B, just like the horse sees trail riding.

Yesterday J was kind enough to accompany us on a short little ride over to a geocache to check it. Since we've done this particular cache with the horse and donkey before (it's different from the last one I blogged about), Mara is getting the routine.

We stand perfectly still while J goes off into the bushes and finds it and retrieves it if it needs maintenance, which it did. She got a little impatient a few times but I put her feet back where they were and we waited.

Although the ride started off with her looking at every garden - it was garbage day, oh no!, she settled down and acted like a grown up horse. Of course, following J is pretty reassuring to her. We worked on distance this time - I wanted a horse length between us.

J got a few pics of us, they show me how much I need to shim the saddle to accomodate for her bulgy left shoulder, yikes. (Rasping the bulgy shoulder side of the saddle panel has not helped so I'm gonna try bulking up the other side and see if that works.)






The photos below are what made my day. J wanted to go up the hill on the left and check yet another cache, which is kind of far from the trail. Normally I'd just take the horse with him, but I wanted to test Mara. Can she just stand here and wait?

She did! It was probably "only" five minutes, but it felt like forever to both of us. A couple times I praised her for standing still, and she took that as a "we're done" and started moving, but I put her back where she was and then she just stood like a statue, even after J came back, she did not move a muscle. I'm so pleased!

This is the trail head right here, where she used to fight and fight me to avoid going down that hill. You can see us from the street here and a little red car went by, stopped and Sonja waved at us. Hrmph. She's the one who promised me to take me out with her Icelandic Arndis, and promises me everytime she sees me, but never does. I'm done asking her. It felt nice that she saw us there, with Mara being so very good.

If you look carefully at the next three photos you'll see that she is standing in the same spot, waiting for me to release her, reins on the buckle.



I sometimes think I could convince anyone I had bought a Morgan horse by photos such as these, and, um, her temperament. Wouldn't my horse make a great Morgan? Straight profile, naturally high neck (discouraged in these photos), rounded croup, stubborn independent thought, tiny, sturdy, willful, but tough-looking without conditioning?