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glenatronToday Lou went off to buy a new car. It's much like the old one, only cleaner. This left me alone at the yard this morning so I figured it was an ideal time for some quality Othello time.
There were small children using the school so I figured we might as well be brave and go out on our first unaccompanied expedition together. It transpired that pony had other ideas entirely. We had a bit of a dispute at the gate where he thought we could stop and I thought we could go out of it, but he seemed open to persuasion there and padded up to the top of the road with only a few spooks and snorts at invisible and totally made up monsters. The first fifty yards safely covered, pony stopped. I asked him to keep going. He did nothing. I asked more strongly. Still nothing. He tried to turn for home and I explained we weren't going to do that so he went back to standing still.
In the end I had to get off and we fought over every step for the first few hundred yards up the path. Then I found a different way to explain to him that he didn't want to turn round and go home ("Yes, you can turn round, but that is where the big spinning rope is and if you walk into it, it hits you on the nose, but if you go the way I want you to nothing bad happens") and we went on a bit better, only stopping every few steps instead of every single one. We made our way in tiny slow steps to the place I had decided we could turn round and I got back on. The trip home was quicker- Othello knew we were going back where he wanted to be - but eventful as we had some Motorcross riders arrive behind us (all the Motocrossers I have met while on horseback have been amazingly polite) and want to pass. I got off again and took Othello to the side but when they got closer he pretty much flipped so I had to take him down to somewhere he could be off the road and let them pass, which involved a very brisk jog on my part and Othello's amazing extended trot to a gateway a few hundred yards further down the hill. After they had gone I hopped back on and rode the last little bit home.
The outcome, then, was a mixed success. Mostly on the "not a success at all" site, in all honesty, but at least I did ride off the yard and I did ride back onto it, the latter much more willingly.
And I do have plenty to work on with Othello.
Joseph pony, different to Othello in almost every respect, is still an amazing and polite horse. Yesterday he was having a lie-down when we got to the field and after I had caught Othello, Lou went over to see if he would let her approach while he was there and not only would he, she sat down beside him and he promptely rested his head on her legs and went to sleep. Apparently, it's a heavy kind of a head.
There were small children using the school so I figured we might as well be brave and go out on our first unaccompanied expedition together. It transpired that pony had other ideas entirely. We had a bit of a dispute at the gate where he thought we could stop and I thought we could go out of it, but he seemed open to persuasion there and padded up to the top of the road with only a few spooks and snorts at invisible and totally made up monsters. The first fifty yards safely covered, pony stopped. I asked him to keep going. He did nothing. I asked more strongly. Still nothing. He tried to turn for home and I explained we weren't going to do that so he went back to standing still.
In the end I had to get off and we fought over every step for the first few hundred yards up the path. Then I found a different way to explain to him that he didn't want to turn round and go home ("Yes, you can turn round, but that is where the big spinning rope is and if you walk into it, it hits you on the nose, but if you go the way I want you to nothing bad happens") and we went on a bit better, only stopping every few steps instead of every single one. We made our way in tiny slow steps to the place I had decided we could turn round and I got back on. The trip home was quicker- Othello knew we were going back where he wanted to be - but eventful as we had some Motorcross riders arrive behind us (all the Motocrossers I have met while on horseback have been amazingly polite) and want to pass. I got off again and took Othello to the side but when they got closer he pretty much flipped so I had to take him down to somewhere he could be off the road and let them pass, which involved a very brisk jog on my part and Othello's amazing extended trot to a gateway a few hundred yards further down the hill. After they had gone I hopped back on and rode the last little bit home.
The outcome, then, was a mixed success. Mostly on the "not a success at all" site, in all honesty, but at least I did ride off the yard and I did ride back onto it, the latter much more willingly.
And I do have plenty to work on with Othello.
Joseph pony, different to Othello in almost every respect, is still an amazing and polite horse. Yesterday he was having a lie-down when we got to the field and after I had caught Othello, Lou went over to see if he would let her approach while he was there and not only would he, she sat down beside him and he promptely rested his head on her legs and went to sleep. Apparently, it's a heavy kind of a head.