Chasing the Road Grader

I took Paisley out for a ride through the bosque. She got a bit nervous when we got on the game trail to the pond. The deer and bears have been forced to drink there as the canyon has dried out from last summer's rains and the smell of the trail must be frightening for a horse. I have Paisley in a thick snaffle that needs some kind of adjustment to keep it from pulling through her mouth. My headstall doesn't have a browband and I don't have any kind of curb strap.... but still, I don't want to be pulling hard enough that it gets pulled through her mouth. I like the idea of riding with less equipment when things go wrong, rather than trying to just use stronger gear to solve the problem. Between the fear and the gear, I was not a happy rider at that point.

I'm going to come back to the trail ride, but let's fast forward to the next day, when I took Paisley into the training pen to work on minimalist directional control. I just got on her tackless and started pointing in the direction I wanted her to turn. She drives tackless very well, so it wasn't that big of a challenge for her, but I had to stop and retrain her because of the way she was reaching around for her treats like a crocodile. We spent 20 minutes learning how to take a treat with the lips barely open, then we went back to work on directional management. She knows it, but she is not sharp on it. A few days of drillwork should fix her up.

Since I was thinking about minimalist direction management, I brought JD in the training pen later and he goes where you point, no questions asked. I love that horse!

Anyway, back to the trailride... on our way back to the yard a road grader came down the lane, it's chains clanking and giant wheels spinning. My green-broke filly never flinched when the grader operator stopped and opened his door to chat for a moment. As he left, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to test out Mary Twelveponies method of gentling a horse to road traffic... we started chasing the grader down the lane. Paisley wanted to catch up so she broke into a slow lope. It was her first lope under saddle. How sweet it was! She pulled up smooth at the stop sign. I love that horse too!