Armani's 1st trail ride (long)

["Kendall, Jennifer" <Jennifer_Kendall@adc.com>]

Hi All,

I thought I would let everyone know about my (not so adventurous) adventure this past weekend!

(Saturday) I decided to take Armani out and longe him 1st, just to make sure he was not going to be a turkey!  He was a good boy.  He kicked a bit, but probably due to the glorious (and unusually warm in the 70's!) weather we seem to be having here in Oregon!  

I decided to walk him down the trail  with me on the ground.  He seems to feel safer with me beside him than on him (we are working on that one!).  We wondered down the trail with him snorting and blowing at everything that moved, smelled funny or glittered in the sunlight.  He never spooked at a thing until we came to the big, monstrous, horse eating drain and creek (less than 2 feet wide).  Armani planted his feet and said "NO WAY AM I GOING ACROSS THAT THING MOM!!!!"    I don't think I have ever seen him look more like an Arabian with that arched neck flaring nostrils, and large eyes... I had to smile  :o)   I talked to him softly and we approached it again.  This time he just arched his neck trying to peer over it, we stood there for a few minutes til I could get him to munch some grass ( which was not very hard... he is a little piggy disguised as a horse! ) as soon as he relaxed, I asked him to walk forward, a little choppy at first then we just walked right over it with!
out a glitch.  I continued walking for a few minutes before we came to the scary pond with a large (blow up) alligator floating in it (you people down south ought to be use to that ).  Armani stared at it and then my dog jumped in and started playing with it.. I thought Armani was going to tear my arm off (only briefly) and then he just stopped and looked at me like "I am not scared of that....REALLY!   Move on now MOM...quickly!"  We walked on....  then we came to a boat turned upside down... he was much better this time.  He just looked at it cautiously and snorted a little bit then walked on.  The only other thing that startled him was a bunch of logs stacked up with the sun shining on them.  I decided to ride him home.  he was doing really good until we came back to the creek.  He stopped and would not go forward ( he did not have to walk through the water, just over the drain style bridge),  So I got off and walked him across a few times to show him there was nothing to f!
ear.  I got back up and rode him across a few times..now it was a piece of cake.  We went home and he got a bath and a good boy apple.

(Sunday) I decided to give it another go.     I,  being the airheaded brunette that I am, forgot Ellen's ( who so graciously volunteered her time, horse and trailer! Thanks again Ellen!)  phone number at work, so I could not call her and have her come help me out with the scarier things and give Armani a trail buddy for the day.  

I decided just to jump on and go this time.  He did quite well.  He was a lot more jittery and tense than on Saturday.  I might have added to that with my being nervous.  We did a small loop, maybe a mile, and I had a tough time getting him to go past the scary things!  He spooked at things that did not bother him the day before, but he did not jump out from under me, he just stopped and looked at things, which in my book is a good thing.  I am trying to go slow with him, and this being his second day, I did not want to scare him or make him think he should go fast past things.  He did want to trot past the things that startled him, and I just made a circle (where I could ) and had him go past it in both directions at a walk.  

I was quite happy with how he did.  I have never trained a horse for trail before, so I hope I am doing the right things with him.  Had I not been such a ding bat, I could have had Ellen's help, but there is always next time!  No major blowups though and all in all I had a good time with him.  I will make an Endurance horse out of him yet...he is on his way!  ;o)

I will keep you posted on how he does with his first REAL outing away from home!

Have a Great Day!

Jenni  & Armani "the Brave"   ;-P      Oregon

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