Advice, thoughts, suggestions.....

[KSquared]

We had a fantastic day yesterday…Myst and I went to a friends house for a house warming and fall ride or drive. Perfect weather, good friends and a nearly perfect ride. I am SO SO proud of Myst, he did a great job with so many new things.

We rode in some harvested corn fields and I was the only mounted rider, everyone else was hooked up to carts. There were a couple cute minis, a cute chestnut paint and a couple big paints that pulled the big 4 wheeler cart and the cutest dappled pony.

All of this was new to Myst. Me riding him outside of home, on our first trail ride, in a corn field with Minis and carts. He did a fantastic job, everyone did a fantastic job…

UNTIL… THE CHARGING COW with horns, goats, a hog as big as one of the minis and an Alpaca and a herd of charging horses.

Everything was going along fine, the cute dappled little pony went along, the double team with the big cart went along with no troubles. The cow with the horns just watched… then as Myst and I passed the cow CHARGED the fence. Myst reared (totally justifiable spook) and then all the farm yard animals charged the fence… Myst reared again and I got him to move forward ( I managed to stick the rears too) , the Chestnut paint was spinning in circles and the two minis behind me careened off into the corn field.

The Minis and the paint turned back and I decided that I had not yet had enough fun and decided to ride past the charging horses. Myst wanted to play with them, but he listened to me very well and we got past them. Then we got to the end of the road and turned around to go back, instead of risking our lives going back past the riled up farmyard we cut through the corn field.

Myst did so great, I was so proud of him, and of me. We did A LOT of trotting, man those carts can move fast! So Myst got a really good work out, but he wasn’t breathing hard and he hardly sweated up. He had a good wet saddle blanket though.

My husband and my oldest went with me and rode in the big cart and took some GREAT pictures. Over all I am pleased, I had a lot of fun, we had some great food and Myst did wonderful, through it all his ears were on me and he listened to me very well. He respected his new bit great and I think he enjoyed himself very much.

Now on to the thoughts… How can I prevent the rearing in the future is something charges us again…I thought maybe I would put him in with a few cows and let him get immersion therapy in cows. Is this a good idea? Bad idea? what are some other thoughts or suggestions…

(Just a note, he only has had a dozen rides)

[mountainhorse]

I would chalk his response to the charging animals up to experience, and honestly, common sense on his part!
It will just take more riding and ‘doing’ to get him to focus on you as the rider more than something distracting like a charging cow, etc. Just be sure as his rider that you are putting him in safe situations where he will gain confidence and trust in himself and you, not become fearful or setting him up for failure.
If you know of someone with cows (that are horse-savvy and are used to being moved around by horses), I would certainly use it as a training experience, and a good experience for him, to ask them if you can bring him out one day to help move cattle around,…to have the cattle respect his space, and have to focus on what you are asking (where you want him to go, etc.) during all of that, will really help his focus and gain confidence around ‘other animals’.

[KSquared]

I am super proud of him and everyone around me was very impressed with my ability to stay on.

That is a wonderful idea… I was thinking of maybe taking him to a reining show and letting him watch in the arena while the horses do the cutting and watching the cows running about. Maybe one of the cowboys would be willing to ride him or maybe I can do a walking cutting period.

I would have reared as well and I count myself VERY lucky that he had some good brains and didn’t bolt out of there. Two pop ups and he was back to listening to me. At that point my goal was to go any direction which was away from the cow and his friends. We got past the fence (Which looked like spider web by that point) and the Cow just mooed at us… Then it was on to the next challenge… The racing around herd of horses, tails flags, snorts, bucks, farts galore. He listened to me pretty well, between his calling to them and the retreating party in two different ways… The Minis and the paint turned back and I choose to continue forward after the other two carts.

We had a little bit of everything thrown at us and I am extremely pour of him. I considered going back past the cows when we had to turn around, but I didn’t trust the stability of that two strand barbed wire fence.

Here are some pictures my Hubby took…

http://gypsytendencies.smugmug.com/Myst/i-v2w2SFW/0/M/IMG_1230_edited-M.jpg

http://gypsytendencies.smugmug.com/Myst/i-HK69MvF/0/M/IMG_1219-M.jpg

And my favorite one of all…

http://gypsytendencies.smugmug.com/Myst/i-dMnHddZ/0/L/IMG_1235_edited-L.jpg