Boy it's tough to do blog posts in January and February when you work in accounting. Tax Season Panic is in full bloom. And the weather, which has been frighteningly beautiful (e.g.--no rain and therefore, no water), finally took a stormy turn and dumped some rainfall on us. We are grateful. Truly. But it did turn the arena into mush, so no more cantering so as to preserve the footing and the horse.
The weather finally cleared last weekend, and I did get to ride Dublin at a walk and trot. He was very good.
The arena is still not ready for cantering again, no matter how impatient I am to get back to it. So we walked and trotted and called it quits. I did do some groundwork at liberty with him--his first serious liberty session. It is so interesting to find out what happens when you introduce something new. At first, it seemed that Dublin was just blowing me off at liberty. What, no rope? I'm outta here! Lots of running around the arena, sliding into corners, changing direction, looking for an exit. Finally got him somewhat contained and working in circles. The trick seems to be to position yourself so that you are in control, both physically and mentally, of his hindquarters. Then you can direct him in one direction or another. Interestingly, he found a lot of relief in this. What appeared to be blatant disregard of the human in the arena turned out to be complete panic at the idea of not being told what to do. Once I was in a position to guide and direct him, he blew out, relaxed, and appeared completely grateful for being under the control of another being. Hmmm.....how interesting! The tough guy is really looking for a leader!
I got to process that for a bit, and then Laura and I got a chance to relax on horseback. For that, Cowboy gets brought into the picture, as he is my "steady Eddy" horse and I can hop on him bareback with a hackamore and slouch around the arena with a beer in my hand while Laura and I hash out the events of the day or the week.
Except last Sunday. Cowboy and Dexter have been having a few "words" on our last rides but we have been laughing them off and just keeping an eye on them. So we got on our ponies as usual, Ken brought us our beers and then headed over to give Dublin his carrot. We took our first sips and thanked our luck stars that our workday was done and we were on our faithful ponies. Except they weren't that faithful. Apparently there were having a "conversation" that turned ugly, and Cowboy suddenly pinned his ears and lunged at Dexter. Dexter spun and took off to get away from him. Unfortunately, Laura was atop him, bareback with hackamore reins in one hand and a beer in the other. Not conducive to balance. And she came off dramatically. I watched in horror as Dexter headed over the top of her, and then Cowboy took off. I debated whether to save myself or save the beer, and while I was debating, gravity took over and I also hit the ground. Hard. Really hard. On my backside.
Ken was witnessing all this and was in the arena by this time, heading over to Laura about the time I bit the dust. Laura and I were both writhing in pain and unable to move. Apparently we hit the dirt in almost identical fashion, landing on our left hips and following up by smacking our backs and heads (helmeted, thank goodness!). The pain was like a thousand needles being jammed in, and I just had to lay there for a bit and take inventory of the injuries. I figured out that it was painful, but all body parts seemed to operational and nothing seemed to be broken, so I managed to get to my feet.
Laura also got to her feet with Ken's help, but she was not moving well. After 15 minutes to move about 50 feet, we parked her in a chair and called 911. She got an ambulance ride and an evening in ER but thankfully, no serious injuries.
So we are humbled and pretty much inactive at this point. Laura has finally given up the crutches. I just have an enormous (did I say Enormous?) bruise in a sensitive area and sitting, laying down, and riding in cars is challenging and painful. It's been 6 days and we appear to be on the mend. So today I took Cowboy (who has admittedly been getting neglected so that I can work with Dublin) to the arena and worked him at liberty for the first time in a long long time. And he was fabulous. He did everything as though we had rehearsed it yesterday. There's a reason I call him my "Easy Button". He loved having a job to do and was completely happy.
I worked Dublin again at liberty with pretty much the same results as before. He is an interesting case. He seems belligerent and indifferent when asked to work, but take away the leadership and he goes into a panic. He is so relieved to find he has a leader! He finally figured out that, even though the rope had been released, I was still in charge if he wished for me to be so, and I got a good workout from him.
