Last Saturday a friend and I decided to head up the Doc Larsen trail for what should have been a relaxing ride...
Well, it sort of went downhill...first, we wound up leaving at the same time with some other people from the stable so it was a group of 6. Worse, two of the people (they're teenage girls) wanted to go fast so they went on ahead of us which in turn managed to get everyone else's horses buzzed up, including Max. This was wise because the girls have a bad habit of riding too close and it really bugs me.
Next, the invididual who owns a stretch of the trail we had to pass over decided that he was going to do some trail mantainance and this involved a large bulldozer. Great idea- do the trail maintainenance on a Saturday when everyone and their dog is out on the tail. Makes perfect sense...and many horses just love the noise of a clanky, noisy bulldozer. Christ!
Naturally we come up on this and several of the horses start getting upset. Max was OK but the other horse's actions were upsetting him and there was no way to get around the problem. There's a reason I hate group rides...
To further compound the problems, the bulldozing stirred up every insect in the neighborhood so we were getting bombarded by gnats and flies- more than I've ever encountered on this trail before.
We finally worked around all of these issues and then proceeded to head up the Doc Larsen Trail itself. By this time, Max was pretty energized and he wanted to closely follow the other horses (we were last in line). He even bucked a couple of times, which required some strong corrections. Great...
We finally made it to the bathtub and rested up. My friend and I separated and rode on to the fire roads. Things seemed to be going well until we encountered a mountain biker. The biker was cool and stopped so Max could snif him. Max is usually fine around bikes but not today and it caught me off-guard. Max shied, and managed to back up to the point where his hid legs were handing off the road, which in turn made him more upset. I managed to quickly crank his reins to the left to put him back on the road and in the process lost my balance and fell off of Max. The last thing I remembered was thinking "I hope my left foot doesn't get caught in the stirrup iron".
I managed to kick my legs free and wound up landing on my left arm (fortunately the ground was soft with no rocks) but still managed to hold on to the reins. I managed to pull Max onto the road while sitting down and managed to get up and get a better hold on Max. He was snorting and agitated but I managed to calm him down.
After checking eveything, I managed to get back on Max and we proceeded. Naturally, as we headed on the trail leading back to the barn, Max really started get agitated and acting barnsour. We managed to make it back with no further incident but this was definately not fun.
Looks like it's time to train more and take further measures to address Max's herd behavior. Also, I should never assume, the whole bike incident took me by surprise because I assumed that Max wouldn't have any issues. Bad move.
When I got home, I poured myself a stiff drink and took it easy.
The next day, we did out usual lesson and Max was a complete prince- it just goes to show that horse behavior can greatly vary. Max is usually good when he's by himself or with another horse. But in a larger group, things can get a bit dicey. I'll have to work on this some more.
Well, it sort of went downhill...first, we wound up leaving at the same time with some other people from the stable so it was a group of 6. Worse, two of the people (they're teenage girls) wanted to go fast so they went on ahead of us which in turn managed to get everyone else's horses buzzed up, including Max. This was wise because the girls have a bad habit of riding too close and it really bugs me.
Next, the invididual who owns a stretch of the trail we had to pass over decided that he was going to do some trail mantainance and this involved a large bulldozer. Great idea- do the trail maintainenance on a Saturday when everyone and their dog is out on the tail. Makes perfect sense...and many horses just love the noise of a clanky, noisy bulldozer. Christ!
Naturally we come up on this and several of the horses start getting upset. Max was OK but the other horse's actions were upsetting him and there was no way to get around the problem. There's a reason I hate group rides...
To further compound the problems, the bulldozing stirred up every insect in the neighborhood so we were getting bombarded by gnats and flies- more than I've ever encountered on this trail before.
We finally worked around all of these issues and then proceeded to head up the Doc Larsen Trail itself. By this time, Max was pretty energized and he wanted to closely follow the other horses (we were last in line). He even bucked a couple of times, which required some strong corrections. Great...
We finally made it to the bathtub and rested up. My friend and I separated and rode on to the fire roads. Things seemed to be going well until we encountered a mountain biker. The biker was cool and stopped so Max could snif him. Max is usually fine around bikes but not today and it caught me off-guard. Max shied, and managed to back up to the point where his hid legs were handing off the road, which in turn made him more upset. I managed to quickly crank his reins to the left to put him back on the road and in the process lost my balance and fell off of Max. The last thing I remembered was thinking "I hope my left foot doesn't get caught in the stirrup iron".
I managed to kick my legs free and wound up landing on my left arm (fortunately the ground was soft with no rocks) but still managed to hold on to the reins. I managed to pull Max onto the road while sitting down and managed to get up and get a better hold on Max. He was snorting and agitated but I managed to calm him down.
After checking eveything, I managed to get back on Max and we proceeded. Naturally, as we headed on the trail leading back to the barn, Max really started get agitated and acting barnsour. We managed to make it back with no further incident but this was definately not fun.
Looks like it's time to train more and take further measures to address Max's herd behavior. Also, I should never assume, the whole bike incident took me by surprise because I assumed that Max wouldn't have any issues. Bad move.
When I got home, I poured myself a stiff drink and took it easy.
The next day, we did out usual lesson and Max was a complete prince- it just goes to show that horse behavior can greatly vary. Max is usually good when he's by himself or with another horse. But in a larger group, things can get a bit dicey. I'll have to work on this some more.
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