Kara had to cancel, so Jean and I hacked out (after her husband and neighbors came out to meet Daniel) and she had lots of great trips for me. First of all, Jean is a yoga instructor and reminded me that my breathing communicates messages to Daniel that I may not realize. (Dolt! Forgot that from dog training lessons with Karen Privitello, 18 years ago...).
We walked around the perimeter of the gelding's field and got to the blasted stream where Daniel had his hissy-fit last week. Cayuga walked right across it, and again, Daniel had a hissy-fit. So, I looked and saw a place where the stream wasn't as steep, and again he refused. I thought back to Leeandra telling me to point him and kick when he got silly about something like that on the trail. At the same time, Jean told me to just envision us crossing it and not to anticipate him refusing...and he stepped across!!! YAY DANIEL!!! I hugged him, patted him, and gave him a flax cookie!!! I gave Cayuga one too!!
We walked along the trails on that side of the creek and then crossed back and continued on to the wide creek. This one is about knee high on Daniel and about 15 feet across. Jean told me to give him his head so he could pick his way, which I did. I kept his nose on Cayuga's tail and we went straight across! Yay Daniel!
Then we crossed the road and got to a really nice, wide open, freshly mowed field. Jean asked if we wanted to trot and I didn't have to ask Daniel twice! He even threw in a few strides of canter to keep up with Cayuga, a TB. At the end of the field, there was another creek, and this one had me nervous! It was almost to Cayuga's belly, and the banks were STEEP! Could my old draft horse handle this?? He went right in after Cayuga, and we let the stop in the middle and get a drink. Good boys!! It was a real trust exercise because I had to give him his head, while leaning back due to the banks. But my buddy took good care of me as always!
We went up the steep bank and onto a nice, shady trail. We rode for about 15 minutes until we hit part of the trail with several No Trespassing signs, so we headed back. Again, I Daniel followed Cayuga right into the creek and went up the very steep bank in two big jumps (thank god I was in two point!)
We trotted back through the big field. My legs were getting like jello at this point, but Daniel was all full of himself and wanted to GO!
We saw nothing in the road, so we crossed and heading for the last creek. Just as we were about to go down the bank, this idiot on a Harley slowed to watch us and revved his bike. ASSHOLE!!! Daniel spooked, just his typical jump forward and swung his haunches to the right, so I rode it out just fine, but still! It could have been disastrous if we weren't riding such calm horses!
We let them get another drink in the creek, and headed back to the onsite trail. We let them do some trotting along the back fence, and slowed them to a walk on the uphill. This whole thing earned Daniel a new nickname, compliments of Jean, "the Cowardly Lion." How fitting :-)
My legs were jello by the time I got off!!! I figured Daniel's must have been too, so I took him out and hosed him off with cool water, used the sweat scraper to get the excess water off of him, then picked his hooves to make sure he didn't pick up any stones and turned him back out with the boys.
Then the work... Sweeping up, cleaning tack, checking supplements and putting my tack away and headed home to cut the grass!!!
