Summertime is busy. I love summer, but there is just so much going on, so much garden work to do, so many kids’ activities, so many vacations….nope, I am not complaining! But here it is nearing the end of July, and I finally got my saddle out and dusted it off and discovered that my stirrups were still set long from the last time I rode it…which was back at the first of April when Penny bucked me off! We rode at the end of May in Idaho, but here a month and a half later, my own horses have not been ridden all summer. I am just now finally get back to it!
So on Saturday I rode Daisy. We pasture some yearlings down south a few miles from the farm, and keep them separate from the cow herd because our bulls don’t have low enough birth weight EPDs to use to breed yearling heifers. So it was time to gather up the heifers and trailer them to the vet to be AI’d. When we went to get them, one was missing. After a day-long search on four-wheelers and pickups, my brother in law and husband told me I should go looking on horseback. I love it when a horse is needed, after all! So I rode Daisy, and she was great. We went into a neighbor’s pasture and looked among his cattle, and had to cross creeks, climb cliff banks, wade through mud, and duck under tree branches, but it was a fun adventure. Daisy was happy to follow the cattle, but we could not see the whole herd, and there was no sign of the missing heifer. Later that day, the neighbor called and said he had found her, so we were happy that she had not been hurt or stolen.
That kicked off our summer riding. The kids have been begging to go riding, so I saddled up old Cricket for them. They didn’t ride long, because she is kind of particular about only going over by the other horses and not listening to their requests. We worked on holding the reins and using rein pressure to correct her when she went her own way, but they are just five and six years old, and their little arms really aren’t up to pulling enough for Cricket to listen. They rode around the corral for awhile while Chris and I set up the round pen.
Our son riding Cricket with Chris walking with them.
Our niece riding Cricket.
Our youngest son riding Cricket….I love the confidence on his little face! This boy loves horses.
Our round pen panels are in big demand around the farm…they’re always getting used to patch up a low space in the fence, or funnel critters into the loading chute, or being hauled down to the pasture to load up heifers into the trailer. But we finally got them all collected back at the farm, and set them up in a corner of the corral so that we could start working our young horses. Chris wants to focus on Cletus, our buckskin gelding who is three this summer and really hasn’t been worked with much to date.
He put Cletus in the round pen and worked on getting him used to being handled from the ground. Cletus is a little spooky, overly attached to his mother and the band of mares he lives with, and needs a lot of hands-on work with people. He will stand tied, allow you to trim his hooves, halter him, lead him, and load in a trailer. But that’s about the extent of his knowledge. It will take some work to overpower his instincts of wanting to be with the mares and eat, because that’s all he has ever known! So basically, that is what Chris was working on with him, and I think it was a good start to his education.
When the saddle pad was brought into the pen, you would think it was a live animal, as much as Cletus shied, jumped, and ran from it! He wasn’t as spooky of the lunge whip, but that saddle pad was scary. After watching Chris approach the colt with the saddle pad, and seeing Cletus whirl and run from it, our eight year old daughter remarked, “Too bad you couldn’t just corner him and trap him so he can’t move.” We explained that the round pen is designed to work a horse at liberty and while it might take longer than confining the horse or tying him up, the training actually accomplishes more in the long run and results in a horse that is not afraid because he has not been trapped or forced into complying. I am a firm believer in letting the horse move if he feels he needs to. Whether you’re trying to pet it, saddle it, or get on it, don’t tie it up and force it to obey. Let it be the horse’s decision to let you accomplish what you’re trying for. Work with the horse until it no longer wants to run away, and will accept what you are doing out of choice, not by constraint.
It will take time, but I think we made a good start. You can’t rush perfection; you get there eventually by daily repetition. So we’ve got a lot of goals with our horses, and not a whole lot of summer left to accomplish them in!
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New to the site… Curious as to if you train your horses?
Thanks
Welcome, and thanks for reading! Are you asking do we train our horses ourselves as opposed to sending them to a trainer? Yes, we have done most all of the training on the horses we own. Daisy, my sorrel mare, was never ridden before I got her, so I started her and have been pretty much the only person to ever ride her, except for my kids once in awhile. We bought our buckskin mare Penny from a lady who didn’t know if she was broke or not, but thought she had been ridden…after getting on her, I figured she had been trained as a youngster. Cricket was well broke when we bought her. Cletus and Bluebird haven’t been ridden yet, so there are more adventures to tell, as their training progresses.