Red-Headed Temper Tantrum

This morning Deuce was still recovering from his big show...

But me? I had work to do. See, I have been working with Smoke and don't seem to be making much headway with him. If anything he seems to be going backwards. He has become spookier about being saddled, jumpy about me touching the saddle when he is saddled and has decided to become difficult to catch. The catching really isn't a problem-he is living in the round pen since it has cooled off. Saves me having to haul him to town everyday. Hey, diesel has dropped to $4.44, down 30 cents in the last couple weeks, but that still isn't that cheap. So a couple times a day, I go out and work with the snot. Laps around the pen, lots of rollbacks and pretty soon he is facing up and waiting to be caught. This little problem will resolve itself soon enough.

I consider leaving a horse, in a safe pen, with a dragging lead rope to be a very important part of it's training. The quickest way to get bucked off a colt is to have something touch it's legs when it's not used to it. So Smoke has spent some time wearing his halter and lead rope. That has not been a problem...until last night.

I had him saddled and had lunged him around me a bit to make sure that he was relaxed. I dropped the lead rope and walked over to pick up the bridle. He took a couple steps to follow me, the rope touched a leg and the red-headed demon BLEW UP!! The horse that has never bucked one.single.time, during any of his groundwork came uncorked!!

Actually, I am relieved. All this time, I thought I had just lost my edge, because I didn't want to climb on him. And all the while, it was my spidy senses telling me he wasn't as okay with all of this as he seemed. Whew-I guess I am not as old as I thought-LOL...And very thankful I wasn't on top of that!! So I left him to think about it for awhile. As you can see, he is not a happy camper...
Today, after riding horses at mom's, I decided that it was time to push this guy some more. He is not really a horse that you want to let stew about things. You have to keep working him and pushing information into his thick skull. So after our little round pen workout before he decided that being caught was inevitable, I saddle him up, let him drag that lead rope around for awhile and then brought Moon into the equation...




He seemed much more relaxed by the end of the session. I have known that he is scared of things above him and planned on doing this anyway. I guess I was just moving too slow with him and he decided that if I was being that careful, maybe there was something he should be scared of. I'll keep doing this, along with starting to drive him. I just want him as gentle as possible for the kid that is going to ride him.

Oh yea...Moon and Smoke are 1/2 brothers! Smoke looks like the rest of his brethern. We never have figured out how two stocky, thickly muscles horses produced long and lean Moon-LOL.

I think I will still stick to gentler greenies, like Frosty...

Bless his heart, he may not be the sharpest tack in the box, but he sure isn't gonna blow up and face plant me either. I hope-:o.

Here's a quick vid of the red-head loping laps in the round pen. He sure has a beautiful lope...and never, ever misses a lead...