I'm Over It

I burned up the bat phone over the tree deal for a bit and then had to get back to work.

The red-head seems to have gotten over his temper tantrum and is back to his quiet, laid-back self. On a good note, his eyes have gone from a rather blank, tuned-out look to bright and inquisitive. Soft eyes are what I really look for in a colt. Doesn't mean that they still won't get a little broncy here and there, it just means that they are trying to absorb what you doing with them.
Now that he looks like he is tuned back in, I decided to take him back to mom's to live and I will just haul him to town to continue his work. After my tree rant, Megan and I hauled horses to the arena and took Smoke with us. He was a lot quieter than I thought he would be...just sorta looked around and sniffed everything...just like a dog-silly boy. We lunged some, saddled in the wide open spaces of the arena and lunged some more. He took it all in stride. I ponied him a little bit and spent some time getting on and off my horse next to him. That is one thing that still seems to bother him. Finally, I let Megan pony him a little while. Good experience for her and him. Of course Megan is never one to just do the minimum. She decided that she was going to pony him from the opposite side. Most of the time, you keep the horse being ponied on your right side, but you really should pony from both sides(just like leading).

Smoke wasn't too sure about that...

Getting the idea...

No problem now...

Getting better about being next to him...

Still not so sure about tugging on the saddle...

For safety measures, we NEVER dally the leadrope to the saddle horn. With broke horses, we may loop the leadrope around the horn, but if a horse pulls away, the rope simply slips away. With a colt, we don't even do that. The leadrope is doubled(never coiled) in our hand. If a colt pulls away, you can partially release the leadrope, allowing the colt to move away, but hopefully not GET away. If they really go bonkers-We let go!!
I learned that lesson the hard way, many, many years ago. I thought I could get a colt to lead with me by dallying to the saddle horn...ummm NOT a good idea. The colt sat down and almost pulled my saddle horse over on top of me. No more dallying horses to the saddle horn.

The gelding I rode today was Leo...

While I can appreciate that Leo is a cowboy's dream horse, he is not one of my favorites. He has the most horrible. disjointed lope...Man this horse is rough!! Of course, he is built like a brick outhouse and you just know that he can't be smooth looking at that flat, chested front end and it took a year and a half of regular trimming to get rid of most of his horrible pigeon-toes...
However, Leo is a finished Head, Heel, Barrel, Breakaway and Pole horse. My brother has won a lot of money on him in the team roping and at ranch rodeos. And brother's various cowgirl girlfriends have won a ton of money on him in the barrels. It's not hard to imagine why when you look at his huge motor...
I have never got to run barrels on the big guy, so my curiosity is piqued. I want to get him legged up and see what he can do. Today, I found out that he finds it very difficult to slow work the pattern. He is very chargy and doesn't want to enter the pocket in the correct leads. A little of it may come from being out of condition, but I can tell a lot of it has to do with the girls that were riding him. Most girls ride every barrel horse the same way. He has had several girls ride him in the past and he isn't just too sure where to go anymore. I try to ride each barrel horse the way that makes it the easiest for the horse...as long as they are in the correct leads going into their barrels and not slamming shoulders down and hitting barrels. All I can say is that Leo needs some work before I get the thrill of opening him up to see how he runs.

I gotta go hug Moon, for being such a wonderful horse. All these others really make me appreciate his mellow attitude and the ease at which he can be "fixed" when things get a little wonky.