Not As Much Fun As He Thought It Was

I did not get this old...and relatively unbroken up...by being stooo-pid.

The last thing I felt like doing on Monday was riding...but...

Well, you guys know how it is. The ponies gotta get worked.

I saved Frosty for last, hoping my rage would simmer down. It did...

Until I went to tighten up Frosty's cinch and he wanted to blow up.

Oh Frosty....You're just digging yourself in deeper.

I told you, he knew he was in trouble after bucking me off and was acting nervous every since.

He was already untied from the trailer, so I just hocked the cinch into him and gave a big Hee-Yaw!!

Frosty went to hogging around me while I beat his butt with the end of the leadrope.

He yanked his head up so fast, he almost fell over and then spun to look at me with bugged out eyes.

That was the end of his bucking fit.

This is where the 'not stupid' part comes in...

I bought a rolled leather dog collar and strapped it through the swells. Bucking strap!!

I also put Frosty's curb bit bridle back on him, which has split reins.

Frosty wants to blow up now?

Go for it, you big yellow dink.

I didn't even walk him out, just stepped on and asked him to go. He was still bugging out and tried to blow up again. I let him. I just hung on to the bucking strap and over and undered him with the reins until he decided getting his butt whipped was not to his satisfaction.

The rest of the ride went smooth as silk. His head came together and we happily trucked through the desert for a couple of hours.

I knew Round 2 needed to be on the barrel pattern. Luckily, there is a place that has a practice session every Tuesday. I loaded Frosty and LJ up and away we went.

Frosty was plumb good about being saddled and letting me tighten his cinch. He was acting much more normal. I warmed him up and then waited for my turn on the pattern. While I was waiting, I contemplated which course of action I wanted to take...

Do a slow work pattern first or just ask him to make a run and see what he would do.

I opted for the make a run. My biggest goal at that moment was seeing what Frosty would do. If he was good, I probably would have done a couple slow patterns on him, called it a night and just chalked him bucking at the rodeo as a fluke. On the other hand...If he was going to try it again...I was definitely set to make it a VERY BAD experience for him.

And he did try again. He started hogging about 2 strides out from the first barrel, while he was still running straight. I yanked his head up and went to town on his butt with my bat.

Wow...He decided in a hurry that bucking was NOT the way to go.

Well, at least on that barrel. He tried it again heading to the 2nd barrel. He got the same treatment.

And THAT was the end of the 'I-want-to-be-a-saddle-bronc' fiasco.

After that, Frosty shaped up and you'd never know bucking had ever crossed his mind. Once I got his head back in the game, we went back to slow work. I used Ronny Clampitt's method of just loping him up toward the barrel, stopping and just letting him sit until he dropped his head and licked his lips.

We did that several times and I felt the tension draining out of Frosty's body. Once he was nice and soft, we just loped big looping circles around the barrels. We weren't 'turning' them. Just medium-sized circles. When he relaxed and just loped a nice circle, we loped out of that barrel. Broke to a walk and then picked up the other lead and loped circles around the next barrel. And that was the end of it for the night. We were both happy when we quit.  Afterward, we just hung out in the arena with a few other girls and BSed.

I will say one thing though...I actually felt a lot better after talking with one of the girls that also saw me get bucked off on Sunday and when I laughingly told her I was pretty embarrassed for getting dumped by those little jumps he gave me, her jaw dropped...She said, 'Little jumps? That sucker was busting a move. I couldn't believe you hung on for 3 jumps and then he bucked all the way back to the out gate'. I said, 'What? C told me he didn't buck very hard. She seemed surprised I came off'. The girl I was talking to just shook her head. She said, 'We was behind the roping chutes and he bucked so high, you could see daylight between the fenceline and his belly'.

Well, whew!!! Glad to know it wasn't just a couple of little jumps that made me face plant. No wonder my neck and back are still sore. LOL

We will repeat the slow work exercises every day for the rest of the week. Frosty needs to get re-relaxed on the pattern and needs to be reminded about his lead change again. There will be some speed tests thrown in just to make sure I got my point across about the whole bucking thing. But, I'm tellin ya...That bucking strap made a world of difference. Trying to hold onto the horn has a tendency to pull a person forward. With that bucking strap, I can just rear back and ride him through it. Part of me cannot believe I have gotten to the point in life where I need a cheater strap...but part of me is like, 'Sure as heck beats eating dirt!!'. Hahahahahaha