Horsing Around

JB

To celebrate May Day I thought I'd go for a ride, and was pleased to see that JB's put on some needed weight. Being in a new pasture with plenty of grass, and a deworm, have certainly helped. So that's good.

The Terror!

We rode down a dirt road for a couple of miles and Kyrie, what an effort. A herd of cows? Very spooky to this horse's mind. A barking dog? Incredibly frightening. Tall bamboo? Oh dear, bad threat. A butterfly? Time to stop this scary dare and head for home! In brief, a whole lot of work and dangerous with it. A balking, spooked, snaking, nervous as you like thoroughbred might just decide to throw its rider onto the top of a T post, or back into some barbed wire, or anything bad and crazy. Solution? Stay calm, ride on, reassure the horse, keep going forward and move through the resistance.

random gun

A few days later we did it all over again and JB was doing better, perhaps familiarity had dimmed the fearsome terrors of the extremely threatening dirt road. I sensed a positive forward attitude and felt some speed was in order. Canter, all it takes for JB is a whisper and a slight shift of weight and leg to the relevant lead, and off we went.

good horse

She rode very well, working herself out of the spook and being a real pleasure to ride. We went faster on the way back, then turned around and went back up the road several times, just to prove that it could be done.

Moral of the story? Riding is hugely enjoyable, especially at speed and, as always, patience and persistence pay a large dividend.

Stay on the horse,

LSP

Good Horse - Evil Liturgists.

JB

After Morning Prayer I left the Command Post for a well needed ride on JB. She hadn't been out for a while  and did pretty well. 

Tack

We practiced figure eights, circles and serpentines around thorn bushes and Mesquite Trees. Just walk and trot, which was fine. I was pleased to see she stood still while I mounted; something of a breakthrough... In other news, the Manhattan Infidel has told me that priests are, in fact, allowed to "shoot people." Namely "liturgists."

Destructive

"But why?" You ask.

Menace

I'd say that was self-evident.

Off to load m'guns.

LSP

Riding

random dog

Sometimes being a Parson can get a little intense; you see, there's a lot of driving to Waco to visit the sick in hospitals and the general business of, by the grace of God, leading two missions to growth. All that to say nothing of selecting bad prelates for the coveted Alien Head awards. Burdensome on the mind, I can tell you.

horse that mysteriously went from $500 to $3000...

So to get back down to earth, I like to shoot and ride, especially the latter and preferably in combination (albeit Dragoon style). I find it clears the mind, keeps up fitness and gives a fine sense of achievement; after all, it's no mean thing to chart the progress of training a fast horse and count the success in the increasing pleasure of the ride.

Food!!

Speaking of which, I've felt far more confident in JB -- after last year's nasty rib-cracking fall -- and have begun to canter/hand gallop her again. She's much smoother in her gaits, with far less tendency to duck, swerve and snake-out, which is a testimony to a 'back to basics' training approach. Since December all we've really done is concentrate on walk, trot and movement around obstacles and she's reacted well to this. But that makes sense, you have to walk before you can run and patient consistency is essential to building that foundation.

JB

I suppose JB has taught me a little of that, which is no bad thing, but I'll spare you the burdensome 'horse lore'. And the reward? Increasing harmony of man and beast, at increasing speed, over the hot Texan countryside. As SBW (great blog) says, Top Result. The next step? More of the same.

Head for Home

Have a blessed Sunday, even if it's hot enough to ignite magnesium in the shade.

LSP

Texas Beats South Ken

Pit Stop

Back in the olden days, I used to enjoy lounging about in South Ken with the Fact Compiler. He'd say, "But LSP, America is so provincial!" That's absurd. We have "Mojo's".

Cold Air?

We have "Valley Mills",

Dirt Road

the road to Waco,

JB

horses

tasty

and Beer Can Chicken.

+ we can own pistols without being thrown into jail.


I like all those things. A lot. The moral of the story? Texas beats South Ken.


Every blessing for Trinitytide,


LSP

Riding About

Get a haircut, LSP

A little while ago a friend remarked that he had a "creepy, edgy feeling" and that was before the nightmare news from Japan. Not wanting to compound things, I thought a brief post on horses might be in order.

After a few weeks of "back to basics" riding, concentrating on control, obedience and collection, JB was moved to a much larger pasture, shared by a small herd of mares and a couple of geldings. She seemed to enjoy that but was obviously too immature and willful to allow herself to be caught easily - so we penned her up.

This helped her attitude. Now she associates the large, enjoyable pasture, with all its interest and fun, with being ridden; the result being a much more amenable, less evasive creature. With that in mind, I've worked on two gaits, walking and trotting, because I want to be sure of that foundation before moving onto speedier things.

One of the herd

With hindsight, I'd say I took JB a little too far, too fast, charging about before I was really sure that she wouldn't do something peculiar. For example, there you are on a semi-trained young thoroughbred mare, gliding over the fields at a smooth hand gallop. Great result. Huge, uplifting enjoyment. Then a stallion calls out on some subsonic frequency from half a mile away and the mare's brain explodes. Bang! and off she goes, with or without you, at tremendous speed.

So she's being trained out of that kind of inconsistency and I'm learning patience. Well worth the effort, because she's a smart, elegant animal with, so I'm told, good athletic potential.

Coyote calling Thursday - set up at first light and see how it goes.

Stay on the horse,

LSP

Ride the Horse Shoot the Gun

Please don't misunderstand me; I like to canter and gallop and enjoy the speed of the thing, but it's a foolhardy business if the horse isn't controlled. After all, who wants to come off at some ungodly speed?

With that in mind, we took a step back with JB and rode in a small pasture around an improvised arena (buckets), concentrating on turning to the right, circles, serpentines and going over ground poles. It was mostly at a posting trot - then more of the same the next day, but in a larger pasture which is home to a small herd of mares. Used natural obstacles, thorn trees, and JB did alright, despite a tendency to duck out and attempt a bolt to the other horses.

By the end of the ride she was listening and responding well, so I rewarded her with a couple of uphill canters to the herd. She didn't seem entirely sure as to why she had been so keen to get there when she arrived, beyond taking the opportunity to try and kick one of her colleagues - but that was an afterthought.

Ride over, it was time for some target practice; reasonable shooting with iron sights at around 75 yards, though the wind was high. Seem to have developed an ironic tendency to pull to the left. Must correct that.

Cheers,

LSP