Dublin's New Adventures

Well, who knew that Dublin was going to turn out to be that horse we all want but rarely find--the horse anyone can ride, who takes everything in stride, who is nonchalant about (almost) everything!

All I heard when I started this adventure was that I was taking on a "crazy" Off Track ThoroughBred. Like "crazy" and "OTTB" were inseparable.

Dublin has turned out to be anything but crazy. Aside from the isolated turkey incident (and who wouldn't be scared of one of those things the first time they encountered one?), he has been nonplussed by everything. Well, he can still be a bit defensive of his personal space, but if you take things easy with him and prove that you are not out to harm him, he is a pussycat.

It took me almost six months to get on him because I was so worried that the "crazy" horse was going to show up, and when I finally got on, it was a non-event. It has continued to be a non-event. He is learning to respond to leg pressure, to trot on cue, and stopping is his absolute favorite thing to do! After all, there is a reason he was not a successful race horse!

Today, we upped the ante a bit and I asked him to put his front feet on a pedestal about a foot high. He wasn't crazy about it (I think he is still a bit puzzled by anything other than flat ground), but he finally put both feet up there. And the entire time, he simply tried to avoid the issue--no blowing up, no anxiety, just "no thank you, I'd rather not".

Having accomplished that, we moved on to the next challenge--spreading a large plastic tarp on the ground and asking him to walk over it. I held on to him as I dragged the tarp away from the fence. The wind was up a bit and the tarp flapped around. Dublin was wary and moved away, but was far from panicking. I finally got all four corners weighted down, holding on to the horse the entire time, and started circling him with the tarp squarely in his path. He did a couple dodges around it, and finally stopped and checked it out. In Parelli-speak, Nose, Neck, Maybe the Feet--and on the first try, he got his feet on the tarp. The first time he backed off and I let him continue the circle off the tarp. When he encountered it again, he barely hesitated and then walked confidently across it.

This horse just amazes me.

Next on the list was a ride, and he was a champ. We still need to work on getting him to accept the bit--he really dodges it. I'm pretty sure his teeth are OK so I think I need to focus on making this a more pleasurable experience for him. Once it's on, he's fine and has a nice quiet mouth. I can get on him slowly, and he stands quietly for me. We're working on his power steering but he improves with every ride. He is starting to show a penchant for the gate, so that's another thing to work on. No stopping by the gate, and no dismounting by the gate.

We went "Point-to-Point" heading from one plastic cone to the other. Dublin is a mouthy kind of guy, and at the first cone, he decided it would be fun to pick it up. Unfortunately, he also put one of his front feet on the lip at the base of the cone, effectively securing it to the ground, so he couldn't pick it up.  That had him pretty perplexed, as at each of the next cones, he nuzzled them and mouthed them, but seemed convinced that they were immovable objects. Finally he grabbed one and lifted it. Score!

After our ride, Laura's husband Ken kindly mowed all the tall grass on my property, which meant he needed to take the tractor through the horse field to get to the back of my property. I held on to Dublin as he drove the tractor through. Ken stopped to check in with me about any potential hazards lurking in the tall grass, and I led Dublin right up to the running tractor with the bucket and mower lifted and quivering. Dublin's biggest concern about this event was whether or not the hazard lights on the tractor were edible. I had to back him off to keep him from dismantling the tractor.

So the "crazy" Thoroughbred is not so crazy after all. In fact, he makes my Quarter Horse look downright neurotic. We still need to get him out on the trail but I'm confident that this will be a success as well!