Sunday's Doin's

It was COLD this weekend!!!!
Usually our horses know that cold equals day off.....but not today. Even though most of the people from last week were not available (it WAS Mother's Day after all), two couples did come out. And four horses got worked.

We hitched Queen and Star again, this time putting Star on the off side (right side), since she has this habit of "freezing" as she comes up to the wagon tongue. Star is the first horse I've ever seen Freeze when she gets overwhelmed. Most of the others just go bonkers or throw tantrums. While "freezing" is less dangerous to your body, it's almost as hard to get past as a bonkers horse; it's hard to get their attention back on you! She didn't freeze coming up to the right side and we thought this would work out great. Unfortunately, she has an injury to her fight hind leg. Although we don't know EXACTLY what happened (we've been told she got caught in a fence), the tongue just touching it sent her off. She'd buck, fling her tail and basically act like Jill. Only Star settles down much quicker when it's over. Queen doesn't care which side she's on, so we'll work with the comfort factor for Star.

We also hitched the two grays, Athena and Missy. Poor Missy is 2 months pregnant and not feeling up to par, but we needed to see what they can do together. But Athena was so wound up from waiting that I had to get the bugs out of her first, so we hooked her to the cart (which took 4 people, where normally just 2 of us can do it). She was so much like my TB Rusty.....she wanted to just run, but I don't want her to get that idea while she's in the cart (she's still young yet), so I kept her at a trot, although I let her go as fast as she wanted. At times she'd fall into the canter, but came back easily into the trot (at least she's broke enough to respond to me!). When she finally did a flat-footed walk (most of our show horses only walk out in the pasture; whenever they're hitched, they do a kind of jig where the foot pattern is a walk, but it sure looks like they're trotting), I knew it was "safe" to put her into a team. I just had to laugh.....Rusty used to need a 1-2 mile "blow", where I'd let her run as fast as she wanted to, before she was able to settle down and begin working over fences or on transitions or whatever; Athena felt exactly the same way. Apparently Athena is connecting with me on that same level.

I really thought that as a team they would not look quite right, but I am glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was their height close enough to not be distracting, but they moved somewhat the same. Once Missy gets over her PG ickyness (in a few months) we'll really be able to see what they can do.

I almost always learn something when I work with horses, no matter HOW many times I've worked with them. This time I became even more aware of the effect of "presence". We see it in humans all the time.....there are people who can walk into the room and no one even notices, and those who come in and everyone notices. Well, it was the same with these teams. When you stand next to Star and Athena, they seem larger than life. It is only when you put them next to another horse that you realize that they are NOT the huge horses that they appear to be on their own. Missy and Queen, although strong personalities in their own right, don't have that same presence, and seem smaller than their teammates. Yet when you put them in the teams, you realize how close they really are, at least in size, to each other.
Charlie, our first stallion, was like that. All of 16.1 hh, he looked like he was 18.0 hh+, and he carried himself like a big boy. As did Mac, who was 17.2, but looked so much bigger.

So, other than being exceptionally cold, and having snow or ice pellets hitting us while driving, it was a good day.

I may need to take up riding Athena. The "Rusty" feel was so strong, that I really do believe Athena would make the most awesome 3-day horse. She was doing her "floating trot" while I was drivng her, and the other three got to see the different between her "ordinaty floating trot" and her extended trot. Either trot is very impressive.