Trail Drama

I went to the barn without having any real plans. I figured I'd go on a trail if others were or work on something else...no pressure. Well, turns out that a few ladies were going to go on trail so I joined them.

OH my was Calvin hyper! He kept wanting to trot and kept spooking at things that normally don't scare him. My halter and reins were basically useless and I kept having to one-rein stop most of the time, which isn't easy on a narrow trail! Now I learned the one-rein stop because no bit is strong enough to force a horse to stop if pulled on two reins equally, Calvin also can easily ignore the pressure from the halter when pulling with both reins. Calvin knows how to flex both ways (like in the one-rein stop picture above) so it isn't cruel and isn't as bad as it looks. So anyway, when he decides to ignore me he gets his head turned to the side. Horses can't take off, buck, or rear when they are bent to the side going in a circle. Therefore, when his feet stop moving, he gets his head back! Simple. 

Luckily we only had to do that a short ways before we were working on trail and his mind was focused enough. He was absolutely amazing on trail again, the Quarter Horse mares in front of him were kind of sassy, pinning their ears and threatening him. He's so good a reading other horses' body language, he would scoot out of their way before I even saw the horse was mad. Just another benefit of having a Mustang who grew up with other horses. 

The trail was nice until we rode up to a huge red rattlesnake (it was not this one, but looked almost identical). Well normally you can scare a rattler off the trail, but since we had dogs with us we decided it would be best to turn around. Thanks to our warm weather and non-existent winter, it's starting to be rattlesnake/tick season early! Now Calvin and I were in the back and we had to turn around on this narrow path, I wasn't sure he could do it! But sure enough, he turned around and we were leading the pack. He's a great leader as it turns out! He just has a very fast walk (especially today since he was feeling his oats apparently) so we had to stop and wait for the others a lot. Another thing we need to practice is walking slowly downhill, he thinks trotting downhill is a more efficient way to travel. It likely is, but it's so hard to sit and then he doesn't focus on his footing, silly baby. 

By the end of the trail he had worked himself enough to be calmer. But I don't have any pictures from the trail because I was preoccupied with keeping wild-man focused. Here are some pictures though from after the ride:

 Eating some grass! Heidi tries to copy him sometimes but doesn't quite see the same appeal as he does in the green stuff. She used to be afraid of Calvin, but she's getting along better. Now she actually follows right behind us on trail, Calvin doesn't seem to mind having multiple dogs trailing his back legs either thankfully. 

I caught Heidi mid-shake! Calvin is trying to stuff his mouth with as much grass as possible as he knows I'll be pulling him away from this and putting him away.