Watching Horses Isn't Half as Fun as Riding Them

So on Sunday I sat in my parents' house for 3 hours watching our 5 geldings stuff their faces with hay for my "social behaviour during feeding ethogram" for my animal behaviour course. I love my horse and I enjoy watching him, but after about 20 minutes I started to get stir crazy. There's only so long you can sit on chair, staring out the window and occasionally writing notes such as "4 approaches 5, 5 moves away" or "5 walks past 1, 1 pins ears" without starting to wonder how people can possibly do this for a living. I just had to keep remembering the people going even more boring things, like resting behaviour in dairy cattle.

On the bright side, after watching the horses eat all morning, my dad and I then trailered over to our neighbour's indoor arena to go for a ride. Scarface was fairly good, but he is out of shape from all the time off. He was pretty good while we worked on serpentines and figure 8s. The biggest problem we had was that he was being very dead-sided when I was asking for sidepasses or turns on the forehand. I think next time I will put on my spurs so that he can understand the aid better. I used to always ride with spurs, but since last summer I've been trying to stop using them, since they cause me to bring my heels up quite a bit, but I think he will recognize the aids more clearly with them, so we can establish what I want before going back to asking without spurs.

Once again, Scarfie was pretty good about being in the indoor arena, although we did have one little incident. I was too hot, so I was trying to go to the end of the arena near the viewing area to hang my coat on the fence. Scarface was being scared of the manure tub, so I was letting him have a look at it before asking him to go closer to the fence. While he was looking at the tub trying to decide if a goblin lived in it or not, the arena owner's wife walked into the viewing area and let the door slam closed behind her. This was too much for poor Scarfie and he did one of the fastest 180s of his life! I think he tries to be a reiner when he is scared, either doing a fast spin or backing up halfway across the arena. The arena owner then proceeded to call him "Scare-face" for the rest of the afternoon.

A Little Spook that Worried Everyone Else Way More Than Me

First of all, everyone should check of Equine Guelph's Lameness Lab! It's very cool.

I've had Scarface since he was three, making it a total of about 8.5 years (he is officially 12 now) and in that time we've definitely gotten to know each other fairly well. He still surprises me sometimes (like how much he loves being my niece's walk-trot horse or when he is abnormally calm), but all-in-all, I usually know what to expect.

My dad and I trailered over to the neighbour's arena the night before New Year's to go for a little ride (Friday night). Another family was riding as well, so altogether there were 4 riders and 1 man lunging a young horse (I think it was a 2009 baby). The arena owner was sitting in the viewing area at the end of the arena watching. I was warming Scarface up and just working on getting him back into shape after his time off. I didn't notice, but while I was at the far end of the arena, the owner let in a dog and was playing with it quietly in the viewing area. Apparently Scarface didn't notice either because when as we came cantering down the long wall toward the viewing area, he saw the dog that wasn't there before and came to a dead stop. He stared at it for a minute and then I thought he was fine and asked him forward again. Instead, he started motoring backwards at high speed, convinced that there was some kind of monster in the viewing area. I let him look for another moment, then asked him forward again, but he was having no part of it. By this time, everyone was watching us and the man lunging (also one of the dog's owners) was asking if everything was ok and called the dog over so Scarface could see it and see that it was in fact a dog and not a monster. That helped and a bit later Scarface didn't mind going to that end of the arena.

But the moral of the story is that everyone made a bit of a big deal about it and I was kind of embarrassed. Everyone at home and at and barns I've boarded at have known Scarface well enough to not be the least surprised when he spooks, but I don't know the people around this arena that well, so they aren't used to it yet, even though I'm sure I've told everyone how big of a chicken Scarface is.

Do your horses have any weird quirks that other people don't quite know how to react to?

Riding!! (Finally)

First of all, merry Christmas! I hope everyone had an excellent holiday!! I got a few horsie presents. First of all, I got new western boots that I love and wore all around my parents house on Christmas. Also, I got a new pair of bell boots for Scarface I'm excited to try!

As I mentioned, I was stuck in the city for a long time, between work and school and then final exams. But I finally was able to go out and visit Scarface last week. I was so happy to see him! He is definitely a big fuzzyball, since he lives outside full time and is naked. But he is happy and possibly a bit warm with the warm winter we've been having this year.

On the 22nd, my dad and I trailered over to a neighbour's who has an indoor arena. I was expecting Scarface to be a bit of a nutcase, since he had the past few months off (since his foot was a bit sore in August and I was very busy with school and work). Plus he is normally very spooky with new places, so I was expecting the worst.

However, he impressed me a ton! He was so quiet in the indoor arena! He was a little wary of the far end which had a blue tarp, especially when one of the other people riding was turning their horse quickly back and forth in that end (I think he was practicing boxing for a cow horse class). Scarface had been there once before a year or two ago, so either he remembered, or he is mellowing out in his middle age (he turns 12 this year)!!

The arena used to be used for roping and while they took out the return alley, I'm pretty sure I'm still the only person to have ridden in it english. I think it's cute because he has dressage letters up too, just for fun (they're in the right order and everything).

There were a few girl there for a lesson and, since my dad is kind of a regular there, he ended up giving part of the lesson. The girls were all pretty green. My dad helped them with stopping and backing and then made them trot a square since they weren't using the corners. He even had them trotting loops! I bet they didn't even realize they were doing a training level dressage movement!

Scarfie was a good boy. He is pretty out of shape from his time off, so we didn't canter much. We working a bunch of transitions within the trot. He was trying pretty hard, but he was a bit lazy with his shoulders. Overall I was super happy with him!

I'm planing to go again on the 30th and hopefully this time my mom will be able to come too!

I'll be out at my parents off-and-on until January 9th and their internet is kind of slow, so no promises with posting. I'll try to schedule a few in case I am busy or can't upload pictures.

I hope everyone had a good holiday season and best wishes for 2012!!

Long Weekend Fun!

This past weekend was a long one thanks to Heritage Day today. I spent the weekend at my parents' house and rode all three days, which was awesome. It was nice to go out and visit Scarface and my parents both rode with me as well, which is nicer than riding alone.

I'm planning to take Scarface to a dressage schooling show in the early September. Neither of us have ever done dressage before, but we've done a lot of equitation and horsemanship patterns and low level dressage is basically just a really long equitation pattern. The hardest part so far has been trying to learn the patterns! I think I've got Training test 1 straight in my head. Now I have to learn the rest of them!

I think the biggest things we need to work on are our free walk (which usually involves Scarface gawking all over, or plodding along like he's been galloping all day) and our stretched forward and down trot circle.

My mom wanted some pictures taken of us riding, so here are a couple shots my dad took of us working on our pattern (while dodging the trail obstacles). I got heat stroke yesterday because I didn't wear sunscreen or a hat, so I was all decked out today!

In my next post, I'll introduce you all to my two-year-old filly, Lily! I hope everyone had a great weekend!