The dirty buck
| January 20, 2015 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
Apparently 16 years old is not too old to learn new tricks.
Farley has never been a dirty bucker.
My ever helpful widgets at the bottom of this post will probably point out that Farley has bucked me off before.
But this was different. Bucking is never allowed, but just like there’s a difference between a horse that occasionally needs to be reminded about the personal space rules and a horse that spins around to double barrel you, there’s a difference between a buck…and a dirty buck.
For our pre-assessment, “are we ready to trailer out and do a real 2-3 hour ride” ride yesterday she was a weird combination of very forward, spooky, and pissy for the entire ride. Never before had I been so aware that I was riding a MARE.
In exchange for good behavior, God decided that when Farley popped a few good ones, I was to be rewarded with staying firmly in the saddle.
By the time I figured out that this wasn’t just normal spookiness from not having turn out in a couple days, being in the “small” pen, and just plain ‘ole not-my-day, we were thirty minutes from home. At this point she had decided I had chosen this new route out of full spite, and not being able to anticipate either time or distance became sour. Her choice of evasion? Randomly wander from side to side of the trail…..which is so irritating. (and I’m pretty sure she’s knows it). It’s like she’s trying to pick a fight with me…she WANTS to make me micromanage her.
In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have dug my heels into her sides quite so adamantly when one of her wanderings took her to close too the downward side of the levee for my comfort.
OK fine.
Still doesn’t excuse the pissed off, I HATES YOU FOREVA bucks she did as she put herself back on the levee.
It also doesn’t excuse the series of bucks and crowhops that then followed. The message was clear. I DON’T WANT YOU ON MY BACK ANYMORE I HATES EVERYTHING.
Let me tell you. I sorta wondered whether the treeless saddle would really come through for me with the shit got real.
After yesterday’s little show….I can say with absolute certainty that I didn’t give up security when I gave in to treeless.
After getting things sorted out with Farley (rider on top, horse on bottom, horse NOT bucking, rider sympathetic to horse mad at world, horse doesn’t get to take it out on rider yada yada yada) we proceeded home.
Those of you that have seen Farley at endurance rides knows she has a trot that is HUGE. Her “working trot” at an endurance ride is 12 mph. Trotting slowly is sooooo haarrrddd for her. Very inefficient. So while part of me winces at the 45 min it took us to walk/trot/hike/school the 3.5 miles home, the other part of me knows that she worked all sorts of muscles in both her body and her brain.
Let the 2015 conditioning season begin!
What I posted…
One year ago: The Tig plan and why blogging is better than studying
Three years ago: I’m melting….!
Four years ago: Being a horse person
Five years ago: A tale of woe
Ooohhhh I hate those nasty bucks. I had this really pretty appy gelding for a while who threw surprise nasty-bucks. Probably a huge part of the reason he didn’t stay mine for long.
I don’t mind a little buck here and there, as long as they aren’t mean. What she did yesterday definitely crossed a line and if she was prone to that little habit of a mean buck, i agree with you….she wouldn’t have lasted in my possession long!
Been there. Done that. Wore out the d*mn T-shirt and wore out the replacement T-shirt. And now my horse (mostly) doesn’t do that anymore.
Fortunately for her, the immediate-prior horse was a strong and random bucker/pronger, and my form was crappy but my seat didn’t leave the saddle very often, and my (current) horse has no talent or skill at bucking, so even though it wasn’t quick, she did eventually give up without damaging me.
Angry made. There’s nothing more angry. Spaying helped some!
I think I saw a glimpse of what you meant by angry with fiddle pre spay that day. I actually was sympathetic towards farley. Ive been that sort angry and it sucks. Doesnt really matter what I do or dont do. Hoping of course isolated incident with farley.
oooh, naughty! I hope she was just having a bad day. That I allow, we all have them. Good job sticking the new saddle, I think any new saddle is tough, treeless or not! I’m not going to tempt fate and say I haven’t yet been tested in my Freeform…not saying that…
Meeoowwww, hhhhssssssss! Mares sure let us know, don’t they. Glad you stayed on board and schooled her butt!
I am also so proud of you that your rode the horse you had that day. Work with them from where they are at, not from where you think they should be….
Sounds to me like she has gotten too much time off and let you know she had taken to her lazy lifestyle a bit too much! Guess you have a reason to get that girl moving once again!
…btw- soooo don’t miss having mares!!thanks for the reminder!
I rather do think she had too much time off! (I also think a HUGE factor was that when I put her back to work this time, it has been mostly dressage and cart – two things that we have been doing in the arena that require a lot of “control” out of her. The last long trail ride was back in October. She sorta reminded me of Tess after an agility lesson – a case of the puppy zoomies if you know what I mean? It was a good reminder that I probably need to balance trail time better with the arena work that stresses her out more.
Thanks for recognizing how hard it can be to work “today’s horse” instead of “should have horse”. I’m so proud of my self. It seems like such a simple concept, but I have a really hard time with it. I’m hoping because I recognized it SO EARLY in the ride, that perhaps this is the start of me being better about this. I could have finished the ride feeling so disastified and frusterated, and instead because of riding the horse I had, I feel like I had a GREAT ride and so much GOOD happened. if I had ridden the horse I expected to had that day, I think I would look back at that ride with a much more negative view.
In fact, this concept may be a important enough to warrent another blog post. The more days out from the ride I am (I’m working in small animal ER right now and Monday was my last ride) the better I feel about it!