It’s not often I get to ride three different horses in one day—much less, ride new colts and just-started horses, which is one of my favorite things. I’m in Idaho, visiting my parents and sister, and besides enjoying family time over the Memorial Day weekend and following week, our goal was to put some rides on their colts. They have twenty head in their horse and mule herd, and they are so busy with irrigating their alfalfa fields, putting up hay, and caring for their cattle that training horses gets put off. So I am always anxious to get some horses started or do more riding when we visit.
My husband and the kids and I traveled out over the weekend, arriving Saturday night and spending Sunday at church and resting up over our long journey. It is 1800 miles from Iowa to their ranch, and we usually stay overnight in Cheyenne or Laramie, Wyoming on our way. It makes the trip easier on the kids, and they get a chance to swim at the motel and have more fun along the way.
So Monday morning my sister Karmen and I started out after breakfast to begin our horse adventures. The fillies we wanted to work with were in a pasture a quarter mile north, along with the older broodmares. We wanted to bring 3 of them down to the corrals for the week. So we saddled up a couple horses and rode up there. Karmen rode her seven year old buckskin mare Chicory, and I rode a three year old buckskin filly named Donegal. 
The two horses make an almost identical pair, both a dark golden butterscotch color, with dark legs and manes, and both are short and heavily muscled. Karmen trained Chicory to ride when she was two or three, and the mare has been one of their best riding horses ever since, having a very calm disposition and willing to do any kind of ranch work or haul little kids or visitors around the ranch. Donegal was one I had worked with as a yearling, just on being caught and letting me pick up and trim her feet. Then last summer she was sent to a local trainer for a month of riding, and he rode her in the mountains, on cattle work, and even roped off of her. Since that time, Dad has been riding her off and on, and seems to get along well with her.
Karmen and I rode up to the mare bunch and tied our horses while we caught and haltered the ones we wanted to lead home. I took a bunch of photos of the mares while they stood with the mountains as a backdrop behind them. I am always updating my folks’ website, LewisHorses.com, with current photos and information on horses that they are wanting to sell. So I try to keep my camera with me at all times, since there always seems to be something beautiful to photograph while in Idaho.
We rode back home, leading Stormy and Sage. Stormy is a five year old black mare that I rode for the first time last spring. She had one been ridden once since then, by my brother Kris when he came to visit. Stormy is super gentle, low-headed, and calm, and I was really looking forward to putting several rides on her through the week, and then riding her on the all-day cattle drive planned for Friday.
Sage is a seven year old black and white overo paint mare that was given to my Mom last fall. She had been trained and ridden previously, but did not have a really good “handle” when my mom rode her for the first time. Karmen had ridden her a time or two, but was unable to put a lot of work into her. She said that Sage’s worst fault was being very buddy sour and whinnying constantly for the other horses when you’re trying to ride her. She said that Mom is used to neck-reining a horse, and that Sage is still in the direct-reining stage, so she and Mom didn’t get along really well. The mare definitely needed some work.
So when we got back, I traded my saddle off of Donegal and put it on Sage. She is a tall mare, probably 15.2 at least, and long legged with long pasterns. I didn’t like her legs and feet for mountain terrain, but I did figure she would be smooth to ride, with those long pasterns. I rode Sage out through an alfalfa and barley field alone, since I knew she needed work on not being buddy sour. She whinnied constantly and was high-strung and prancey, but otherwise behaved like a trained horse. On the way back home, I attempted to achieve a walk….which Sage failed at miserably. She squalled like a weanling just removed from its mother, and travelled along in a high-headed jog. I was riding in a broken mouth snaffle gag bit, and was trying to stay “off” her mouth as much as possible, riding with a soft feel and spongeing the reins in an attempt to slow her. But she would push to trot faster, and any backwards pull would be met with head tossing and a fear-inducing tendency to go up with the front end…NOT a desirable response! I do not like a horse that shows a tendency to rear.
So we rode home, Sage prancing, me saying “walk” and spongeing the reins one at a time to slow her. She pranced and whinnied until we reached the rock-covered driveway to the barn, where she miraculously walked! I dropped the reins, breathed a sigh of relief and wondered why…..then realized that Sage was walking because she is tender-footed, does not have shoes on, and the rocks weren’t good for prancing on. So she walked.
My third ride of the day was Stormy. I saddled her, put long-reins on a snaffle bit for her, and walked her around the round pen, all with good results. She is laid back, solid built, low-headed, sweet to handle. The long reins were new to her, and I thought might make her spook, with all the tangling and slapping against her hips as we walked, but she accepted them very well and wore the snaffle bit without a fuss. So then I rode her in the round pen. At a walk, she was like any old horse, lazy and calm. Dad had cautioned me that she might be “hot” because of the good feed the horses have been eating up at the north pasture (it is fresh spring wheat grass, and keeps the mares very fat and frisky). He said she should have been brought down to the corrals a week ago and just fed barley straw to maintain weight but not give her too much energy.
Anyway, I got off Stormy and tied up her reins loosely to the saddle so she couldn’t step on them. I asked her to trot around the round pen, and clapped my hands to get her going in a fast circle. She bogged her head and bucked, a series of stiff-front-legged hops, with her head low to the ground. I kept pushing her in a circle until she would trot nicely without bucking, then I let her stop to be petted. Repeated the other direction, and she bucked again! She needed to be worked at a lope for awhile, but their round pen is inside the barn and the floor is pretty hard-packed, and it is too small for her to get into a full lope comfortably (probably only 40 foot in diameter) so I didn’t push her. I got on her again and asked for a trot, and she bucked just a little, jumping straight ahead and coming down stiff legged, but nothing real fancy. So I made her trot one nice smooth circle, and then just walked, figuring I’d asked enough of her.
I rode her outside in the driveway, out around the farm machinery and other whinnying horses, and she was pretty calm and responsive to my reins. We worked on stopping when asked, backing up, and turning with light rein pressure, and she did really well, considering this was only the third ride of her life, and it had been so long since the first ride (a year ago). I think she will make a great horse, and I love her easy-going manner–she’s great to catch, lead, tie up, saddle, climb on, walk off…everything but the trotting is in good order.
So we’ll keep riding and see what the next day brings.
