I aim to ...behave!?

This Serenity reference was all I could think about this morning as I got Mag ready. "I aim to misbehave."

Because I was invited to the Hawaiian Silver arena today and Mag had consistently embarrassed me there with his wild behavior and zero work ethic.

I kept thinking this is going to go one of two ways. He is gonna arrive, look around, recognize it and decide to revert back to who he was last time he was here, or he would make me proud.

He did the latter.

Whew. And I'm SO proud!

***

Last week TP, the owner, had said that we could ride our horses together, but first they'd need to get acquainted in her arena.

When Mag saw her white Arabian and her husband's bay TB in their paddocks, he wanted to say hello and I started to lead him over to get a closer look. I knew better than to let them touch, but even 10 feet apart was too close for TP, she told me to back off. OK then.

She said I could do whatever I wanted and I just had to see if I could lunge Mag there, where he put holes in my gloves last time.

TP's husband, the guy who grew up at the race track and has more horse experience than his wife, (but weird, different knowledge than either of us!) sat down on the grass outside the arena with a cup of coffee. (Remember when Mag arrived last year, as a welcome gift they brought him a sack of grain "For race horses in full training" ? *lol*) I wondered why he didn't get a chair, but he looked happy in the grass. Was he expecting to be entertained? *lol* TP sat on the mounting block to watch.

As soon as Mag entered the arena he was on his best behavior. He let me swap his bridle for the lunging cavesson (he had to carry that plus the lungeline on his saddle, in fact, the husband said, "Hm! Your horse is fully loaded down!" when he saw all the stuff on his saddle. Actually he used a word that didn't make sense to me, he said, "Bewaffnet" so if you know German please tell me what he meant).

TP saw me ask Mag to back up and he did with a light touch and she said, "Wow, that's lovely."

Then I asked Mag to jog on the lunge (it's a half hour walk to get there so he was warm) and even though I had the rump-rug of doom on him, he was fine. He even dropped his head, playing the eye contact game with me (I look away if he drops his head low as he trots).

Then I got a real trot, and 3 canter circles before switching directions, which he did expertly (sometimes I mess that up). Then the other way, same thing, a stretching down jog, a trot, and 3 circles at the canter. That was it! Good boy! He got a cookie.

I explained my agreement with Mag to her, that when he's good on the lunge, we don't do more than that. Because Mag truly hates lunging, but he had to learn it as a matter of submission to the realities of life, that sometimes he has to do things he'd rather not.

Lucky Mag, with no arena/ring available to us regularly, he won't get lunged much the rest of his life. TP is nice, but she's very picky about her arena and we are not allowed to ride on it when it's wet, which it mostly is, living in Wet Germany.

I wish I had a picture of Good Mag on the lunge, maybe next time.

I shouldn't have been surprised, should I? But don't you remember the pictures of him from last Summer there?



Dangerous! And see what lead he's on, what direction he is thinking about suddenly turning? Yikes.

I think TP was pretty impressed. I'm sure she was expecting the excitement she was accustomed to from Mag.

Then I took him to the mounting block and got on, and he stood like a rock. Unbelievably, he was 100% at ease and just stood there as we talked, and got a few treats for it. I had the feeling he would have stood there all day, and TP was overflowing with praise for him at this. To be honest he's not always this good about it, but today was a good day. And this is apparently his happy place.

I walked him around and then thought the word trot and he was trotting before I finished the thought. Wow, Mag! Then we did some steps of leg yield, and then switched directions and did the same thing. And that's it!

TP said, "He's better than some 10 year old horses!"

She also said that he was very unbalanced on the circle, but when asked to halt, he'd stop with his hind end and not the front. That's interesting, I told her I didn't know that. Perhaps it's cuz stopping is his favorite gait and he's always got it in mind *lol*.

I was beaming, "I have the feeling he's gonna be great about going to new places like horse shows, and it won't be long before Mag is the role model for other horses."

It was an odd sensation to be riding in that pure white sand again remembering how insecure I was last time, how I didn't know him, and I was soooo tense:


OK a bug had just landed on me and I was freaking out, but this photo does show the fetal position crouch perfectly. And Mag's expression: "Whaaaat?" (Let's always keep it real, bloggers, and show our lowest moments as well as the prettiest ones.)

Then I said, "What are we gonna do now? Let's do something with our horses!"

She said, "OK, I guess we can get our horses." And I fully expected them to tack up.

But no, they each haltered their own horse and carefully entered the ring, where I was purposefully on the far end walking Mag along the rail to give them space. And that's all we did.

They led their horses around, far far from Mag, and eventually got closer and closer, until the husband finally pushed it up a level (!) by crossing in front of us and leading his horse about 10 feet in front of Mag. Ah, finally I have a view of something besides sand.

We just kept walking and walking like this, and finally TP brought her not-so-white Arabian (HA! I don't have the only green horse!) to also lead Mag, from a distance. I was careful to not get close. Mag was watching them the entire time, wondering what was happening, but he's very used to sharing arenas with others. TP had told me she wanted to let me ride alone to keep Mag calm but I finally told her he's actually better with other horses.  (Or is that me, am I projecting again?)

Yawn....what are we doing here....OK, I'm fine, I'm just grateful to be here, but let's DO SOMETHING! I said nothing.

I noticed the husband was directing TP a bit, which is always interesting to me. He is in charge, it turns out, which is nice because I think she enjoys it. I wonder if he'd been at that horse show last summer where I "crewed" if he would have been a buffer between us, and kept her calmer than I could (remember I wasn't allowed to talk).

Then they were done, and they took their horses back to their pens. What?!

She returned and said, "I can take my horse to a show where everything is new, and he's fine. But if ONE thing here is different, in his home, he gets upset about it." I said, "Oh, I get it - yesterday I put the lawn mower in the wrong place and Mag noticed right away. But of course lawn mowers in neighbors' yards are never an isssue."

I said, "What's the plan? When can we ride together?" She said she'd like it if I came over again to repeat what we did today. OK. And that in the next few months she will be leading her horse on the trails, alone. OK. Which trails? Oh, the one right here at the barn. OK. I said, "Then I'll do the same as you, bring my horse to this trail and let him see it."

She said eventually we can ride out together, by Summer. (SUMMER!) OK.....and her husband would come along too. I said, "You know, we could lead our horses out together too, as an intermediate step." She said she prefers to ride because she feels she has more control. OK, I remember that with Baasha.

To include her husband, I said "Will you be riding or leading?" He said, "Riding!!"

OH boy. I can see this is gonna be a process. But that's fine, and I'm grateful and will hold my tongue, which I'm so good at, when she inevitably controls every single thing I do on Mag's back. If she's that insecure, I can be patient, as others have been with me.

No, I did not ask if she's ever ridden her horse in the woods, because I cannot think of how to say that without sounding rude. And the way she is acting, I'm pretty sure she's never done it, (and I would have noticed, I think!), so I'll keep quiet.

I look forward to riding with her....someday! And how much do ya wanna bet Mag is the one who keeps his cool out of the 6 of us? : )

Not to sound cocky, Mag was born cool, it wasn't me.

Mag didn't learn to be calm in Wuppertal, he was born that way. But he learned that work is part of life, and to submit to that idea.

I asked if I could let Mag roll because of their deep, luxurious powder-fine sand, and she said yes of course. I warned her as soon as I released him he would drop, and she cracked up laughing when that happened exactly so. He doesn't ever walk over to roll. He just drops as soon as I release him. Right there by the gate if I'm not careful! He rolled 6 times, it's so, so much softer than Wuppertal's arenas. I think he was in ecstacy.

Then he came to TP and started licking her hands and being a sweetheart. TP said I could just leave my saddle, etc, there and come get it with the car. Yah!

I said thank you and took Mag home, but I wanted to run with him because I was so happy. With his tail straight up, he's such a peacock, he was quite a sight as we ran down the road together, cars and busses passing us, enjoying the show. A motorcycle rider waved at us (!??!?).

When I got home I told this entire story to J and he stood there hugging Mag and giving him treats and I said, "He really is the best horse!"

Mag's at the pasture now with Bellis, and I don't think I've ever seen a greener horse. He has bright green stains between his ears, his mane is so green J said he looks like a punk rocker, and so on. He is really living life right now, and they're up to 6 hours on grass.

I'm so happy right now I feel euphoric. If this is Mag at 6, I can't wait to see him at 8!




A picture taken before he "Worked underneath our car lying upside down on grass" (cuz he was both brown and greasy and green today). That would be a car in America, not here, cuz here if a car drips oil, it's expelled from the road.


Just a little while longer, they can enjoy the entire pasture. About the time the rest of Germany turns its horses loose on the fields, I have to lock mine into grazing strips, sadly, to make hay in the middle.



I had purposefully locked Bellis onto the upper grazing strip the last weeks before Mag's arrival, hoping to make it into a semi-dry lot. So that I could leave him out all night on it so he could move and run, but not get sick from grass. It seems to have worked! He's not dying (I hope) and after their 6 hours on the whole pasture, they spend the afternoon, evening here. I am determined not to repeat last years hoof failures from whatever happened that so many horses' hooves failed, even in Wuppertal. I blame the grass, so I'm forcing them to eat hay as much as I can, and now I have alfalfa pellets as well as beet pulp. I'm paranoid, yes. Last year sucked, both of my animals wearing hoof bandages on different hooves at different times. The grass will not kill us this year.



Stark early Spring, but with so much hope!



Nothing better than now.

***

Tomorrow Maren and Angela from the Wuppertal barn are planning on coming over. I hope they do, because I bought a lot of food for them, and even champagne to celebrate our accomplishments and to say thank you again for the help. I'm hoping they actually do come, but it's such a long drive.