Back to It After the Fires

“Summer always overstays its welcome by about a month. After the Fourth of July, which has its charms, nothing but a stretch of relentless heat lies ahead, reaching toward Labor Day, and I begin to yearn for fall.”  Elizabeth Bruenig, “If Only This Could Last Forever,”

Wildfire. Smoke. Extreme heat. The triple whammy. No saddle time. 

Until, finally, today. 

Tumbleweed did great on the obstacles and on the trails, too, especially for having a month off and getting way out of shape. 

But we have some ground to make up. 

We had three blips in our trail ride:

1. He didn’t want to lead out, and away, and I allowed him to follow. Big mistake. I should have got right on that and told him to lead. It set me up for more “refusals.”

2. Going down the steep hill he wanted to speed up and get sloppy. It wasn’t as bad as last year, but something I tried to nip in the bud by doing more hills today. 

3. He tried to canter up a hill that led back to the trailer. Most of that was exacerbated by him being out of shape and wanting to avoid powering from behind. But I can’t help but think that first refusal contributed, too. 

He took the lead going home, so leading wasn’t a problem, leading out was.  It was like he sent a message to the other horse, fall back, I’m taking over, and she did and he did. He just plowed forward confidently setting a faster walking pace than the other horse. 

The three things he did weren’t that big or bad, and my friend didn’t even notice them. They were subtle and, I think easily fixable. 

My trainer Katie was down there riding a horse for another client and I told her I’ll need her help getting him back in trail shape starting Tuesday. 

At any rate, it felt so good to be with him again. When he tried to get into that canter up the hill, I decided to go up, but then take another trail away from the trailer and continue our ride. 

It was my gentle way of teaching him a lesson, and he got the memo.  Don’t rush back home or you get more work. 

That last leg of our ride was our best. He softened up and I tuned into him more and patted him, talked to him. It was like we got on the same page again. (One of the issues with riding with a partner is that we can get distracted from our horses when they need more support, and I think that happened today.)

When we got back to the trailhead we did some more obstacles and he was trying so hard for me by then. I jumped off after the last one and made a big deal over him. Really loved him up and then walked him back to the trailer. 

It was a good start towards getting back to normal. 

The forecast is decent this week, 70’s and 80’s and even a few days of rain. It has been so long since we had rain. 

We need it. 

Bring on fall!