Dark corners

[glenatron]

Today I took Zorro out for a bit of a hack and we decided to go down the valley by the boys field ( a very steep hill at the top that I used to be too scared to ride down ) and then up the other side, where the trail is a steep rocky staircase. I hopped off for that and let Zorro find his own path as best he could while I gave him as much lead as he needed. By the top he was walking in front of me and I was pretty glad that he was polite about stopping because the path was too narrow for me to go around him.

So at the top of the hill I got back on and we went off around the permissive bridleway there, just around one big field. Unfortunately there were two ponies in the field and one of them had discovered the game of "go up to a horse who is being brave but a little lacking in confidence walking along outside the field then put in an enormous spook and peg it off across the field." Clearly hilarious for grey ponies, pretty stressful for Zorro. To facilitate not getting bolted with I hopped off and lead a little way until we had passed them and then got back on and rode back to the top of the hill. Having got to the start of the really rocky stuff I then dismounted again so as to be out of the way while Zorro descended the tricky parts of the path, which he did with such aplomb I would be quite happy to ride him down there next time. At the bottom of the valley in the mud and gloaming Zorro decided he didn't want me to get back on and he was going home.

I felt pretty bad because I had clearly overfaced him a little, but I needed to get things back in the right direction so we had quite a conversation down at the bottom of the valley where I had to call on more or less everything I had to get us to a place where I had nice Zorro again instead of "going to piss off at top speed and maybe lamp you in passing" Zorro. After trying to run past me, charge off up almost sheer banks and a whole lot of stomping we managed to calm down and get nice Zorro back. I seized the moment to get back on, sat a couple of grumpy bucks and carefully pointed him up the trail home. We rode back with him absolutely pounding with energy but not putting any tension in the rein or breaking walk except where I allowed him to pick his own speed up the steep part. By the time we got back to the yard, which was only really a few hundred metres, we were reasonably calm.

I set us up to fail a little bit there and it could easily have been a disaster but Zorro and I managed to pull through and I think on the whole it was a positive experience, albeit in a "thank goodness we survived" kind of way. I'll be interested to see how he is next time we pass that way. I certainly felt tested, but I also felt that I passed adequately if not with flying colours.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Well done.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm cautiously pleased with the outcome.

[allezbleu.livejournal.com]

you should be!!

[harnessphoto.livejournal.com]

Your horse sounds like he's so considerate. Aww.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Usually he's considering inventive ways of murderising me...

[makoiyi.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, I guess, we have to show them that it really is all right. As we were going up and down pretty steep hills Dave and I were discussing the best way to really explain to non horsey folk how horses think. He said that it's almost like the ripple effect. Everything they see is a predator unless proved otherwise, so that rock over there is really hiding a bear right behind it, and that is how they think, in simple terms. Knowing and understanding that, if we are brave for them we give them more confidence. Which isn't always easy. Merlin tackles down hills without a thought as such but he's very particular about 'where' he puts his feet, so you have to let him take his own sweet time. No doubt that annoys the faster riders who might come behind us but I am not about to mess with how he handles that. I just balance myself to help him as much as possible up and down. And I always blamed well forget a western saddle has a dang great horn on it when I go up steep hills.

Well done both of you, and you have a wonderful way of describing things like this.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Zorro seems to be a real believer in survival of the fittest as well. If I'm going to be in charge of where our feet go I'm going to have to damn well prove that I am fit to make those decisions and he's more than ready to take me on if there is any doubt in his mind. I think he felt I'd made enough bad decisions yesterday that my leadership was seriously in question.

[oifonly.livejournal.com]

whee! Well done. Sounds like you got through some hairy moments there.