Horsemanship and Riding

My experimental subjects at the moment are the three humans that want to learn to ride and work with horses. The horses already know the tasks.

Yesterday we started out with fixing all the issues that came up when I left them alone with instructions to tie and groom. Of course we had to start out with how to put on a halter. It really makes you realize how all the little things that horse-owners do day in and day out with the animals is stuff that we learned from someone or some direct experience. We weren't born knowing any of it. Lucky for the humans, just being together with a calm and trusting animal is extremely rewarding, so the animals function as very good teachers.

As predicted, Chaco had learned to run from the flyspray so that took some retraining, but we got on a layer of repellent and took the four mustangs down to graze in the bosque meadows along the dry riverbed. Jerri had Jemez Dancing. Shawn had Sparky. Laura lead Cisco, and I had Mr. Chaco. The grass is getting very dry, but the animals enjoyed sampling from the saltgrasses, the dropseeds and the crested wheat grass. Then we came around the long way, trying to walk in pairs to prepare the animals for when we eventually ride them side by side along the dusty roads.

In the afternoon, I had them meet me and Jemez out at the back corral for riding lessons. We did three activities. The first was just riding bareback on the lunge and trying to cue the horse to stop on verbal and body language cues. This gave us the opportunity to focus on posture. The second step was to ride through some sharp turns and a few steps of a trot. Laura fell off and we had to spend a few minutes convincing Jemez that people can lie on the ground and not be dangerous. I laid down in the dirt and handed him horse cookies. Then we did another round calling out his footfalls, the front hooves, then the back. They were much better riders at the end of the session.

With Paisley out to pasture, I only have three riding animals: the two mules and Jemez. No one is ready to go ride the back country yet, so it's not time to worry, but it won't be long until we need to either get one of the other mustangs under saddle or go get the mares. Hmmm... I would love to be riding Cisco or Chaco in the next few weeks. Hmmm...