Mag takes the lead

Our third trailride went great, one of those "nothing to report" rides.

But I will now talk at length about nothing. *snicker*

Mag was fully tacked up and fully warmed up, with a folded cooler over his rump as we waited for Gabi to arrive for our first ride with her (she's the barn owner/riding instructor). I sat there eating my hard boiled eggs and drinking tea.

Finally she AND JANA arrived with two spotted school horses. Oh, OH, she invited someone else without running it by me. OK then, she's the boss. Jana is doing her 10th grade 2-week internship at the barn, how nice to be her, part of her internship is to go trail riding. I wish she was in my husband's class, then I'd get to read the 10 page paper she has to write about what she learned. Unfortunately my husband is not her teacher this year, but next. I asked her what she learned in her 2 week internship about horses that she didn't know already. She said, "Hm, nothing, really." I said, "No, I taught you that in America we measure horses in hands. That's something." OK nothing important I guess.

As they tacked up Mag was staring at the spotted horses intently and staring at me too, "What is going on here? Is it....something involving ME?" He would gaze from the horses to me repeatedly, questioning. I said, "It's OK Mag, it's all good."

Gabi had her lead mare Antara, whose hatred of all other horses is second only to that of her daughter Menina's hatred. Mag knows their hatred well, cuz they live in a paddock beside him and whenever we walk by they glare and turn their backsides to him, "You are not welcome!" Also, we've done on two neighborhood walks with Antara and Menina and Gabi and Mag stays way way away.

The other one was new to Mag, a little spotted blue eyed pony named Flora. I helped Jana groom her. Mag's never seen me groom another horse. He couldn't tear his gaze away.

Gabi asked me if I had a preference where we ride and I said, "Preferably not on pavement, or as little as possible." She got exasperated. "This is not America, this is Germany, and you simply have to deal with road riding." I said, "I can, I just feel better off pavement. Since I was little and my dad told me to NEVER ride a horse on pavement." (My dad had a horse in Texas where he grew up and had an accident where the horse slipped and fell on him on the street.)

Off we went for Mag's 3rd "real" trail ride and we immediately took a trail he's never seen before. It was muddy and had a drainage rut down the middle of it.

I purposefully did not steer Mag on this challenging rocky lumpy trail, he has to figure out his footing without my help (and how could I help, anyway). He swayed off balance a few times like the first few times I rode him. He tripped a couple times in the ruts. He started tailgating Flora so I did my first "back off" lesson, where I half halt and then ask him to pause and wait to create space. For some reason Flora was inviting to him, in contrast to Argo and the Leitstute which he gave a ton of space to. So we worked on that. Memories of riding tailgating horses most of my life.....

As we descended for-e-ver, I felt Mag *understand* carrying a rider downhill for the first time. He felt the saddle come forward a touch, and hesitated, and then I could feel him think, "OH yes, that again. I did this before, I can do it again." And no more hesitation, even when it got steep. Nice!

It felt like the center of the earth but finally at the bottom, we took a paved road with wide muddy shoulders and I let Mag choose where he went. He kept wandering into the mud but I wanted him to choose. At one point we passed a field and he started to wander directly into the field, leaving the mares. Silly.

I advanced and Mag passed Flora, walking alongside Antara, but I had him on the opposite side of the road, so basically the street was between Mag and the others, so we could talk a little. Gabi isn't much of a talker, but I really wanted conversation. Then she finally said something, "What are the trails like where you're from?" I said, "The thing is, they are both created and maintained by the users, not the government, so we often carry saws and loppers to keep the trails usable. It's nice here in Germany that the government takes care of the trails, because back home if a tree falls on the trail, it just lies there til a user clears it. Clearing trail from horse back is something we all do." I'm not sure they grasped that. I said, "But we don't have to pay for rider's licenses to ride, where here the riders do, but not the bicyclists do not, which is unfair."

Anyway, a little talking always helps with relaxation, it just wasn't as much talking as with Nina and Claudia. I said that we sometimes wear bells on our saddles to warn wild animals of our approach. That I'd run into black bears 4 times, but thankfully only once with cubs. And that was the only truly tense time!

Several groups of retired people passed us and we all said Guten Tag every time. So many people for a Thursday morning!

Suddenly a car appeared in front of us from around a hidden corner and both Mag and Flora spooked. Spooked and then said, "OH, car" so that was good. I was annoyed that the car did not drive a polite speed by us, but kind of whipped around us and kept going.

Gabi asked if I wanted to see if I could get Mag to cross a creek and of course I said yes! Mag hesitated but I let him touch it with his nose and he drank and drank, and then stood in it. It wasn't much of a creek, nothing he could play in properly. But I was so pleased that he thinks of DRINKING when he sees a creek, and not leaving.

After a while I realized I didn't need that lead rope in my hand so I asked if we could stop and I could tie it up. As we stood there I said, "I also wanted to see if my horse could stand still in the woods, it's very important to me that he can do that." Gabi complained to me that my lead rope snap, hanging from the halter/bridle, would swing back and forth as he moved, and bother him. I thought how very strange, that people would worry about a lead rope snap swinging from a halter! What a strange world I live in now. (My thought is there are much much worse things than snaps hanging down, and most of them are important for my horse to accept safely, so ....deal!)

Then we turned for home and I asked if I could lead up the "mountain" on Mag. He's ready to lead, and I need to see how he is up front.

Well, he's lazier than I like. But then I'd glance over my back to apologize at how slowly he was walking and realized the school horses were dropping behind us, they were slower yet. And their slowness, I'm convinced, was dragging on him like an anchor behind us.

I was really, really enjoying myself by then. We'd been on this trail 3 times now and I felt so secure. A herd of deer sprinted by and Gabi's dog struggled on her line but Gabi's yelling upset Mag more than the deer. Yah, people in Germany ride horses with dogs on leashes. Weird huh?

Mag, funny Mag, would wander off the trail (there's no thick underbrush like in the PNW). I would laugh and say, "OK but the law is you stay on trail, so I must insist."

I asked if everyone was OK with our pace and they were. My reins were so loose, I was just relaxing, feeling the hot tea in my stomach and feeling like nothing could possibly ruin this day.

Nothing did. I started pretending we were alone in the woods, visualizing it. They were just far enough behind us that it was easy to imagine.

I realized that Mag was more alert than he is on-line with me. He was in the lead, with a rider, and he was responsible for the group's safety. He was much more looky that I've ever seen him, but he wasn't overly reactive, and he certainly wasn't like Mara in the woods, which was always, "We will certainly die." Remember when Mara saw a deer in the woods on one of our walks, and she trembled in fear for several minutes, and was unable to calm down after that? Horses don't fake trembling, she really thought her life was in danger out there. I hope she's having many happy times going in circles in an arena now, or riding out in groups that make her safe. Safer. Oh, that mare. She really messed me up.





At the top, near home, there were a bunch of tractors and trailers with tarps parked next to the trail and suddenly Mag and Flora spooked again, and I asked Jana, "What was it? but she just shrugged. It's good to experience spooking on Mag that isn't the whirl and ditch your rider type. I'm actually happy about the spooks today. He walked as far as possible from those scary tarps but I never felt in danger.

As soon as the trail turned to pavement, near the barn, I threw up my left arm and pulled off the trail, jumping off. I said a quick GOOD BOY but it was back at the barn when Mag got his super reward, a face massage, neck massage, butt massage, and loads of treats that I'd had filling my pockets with. The spotted horses got buckets of grain as rewards. Mag had already eaten his bucket (I feed it before I work him, on principle). So I just kept rubbing on him and praising him and giving him snacks.

I had no time, I had to go to Opa's, but I went to them and said, "Ich danke euch." I thank you both. They smiled at me. Gabi said, "What do you think? He was good, wasn't he?" I said, "Better does not exist."