Playing The Ammy Card

My rides with Goose have been relatively uneventful lately, and unfortunately few and far between. I’ve been trying to take some time for myself and with the awful weather we’ve been plagued with down here, I’ve stayed home due to rain more than once. Traffic on I-77 is simply not worth trying to get there in the rain!

Last Thursday I got to the barn relatively early for an after-work ride. The traffic gods were on my side and I pulled in around 5:30. The wind was whipping, and fellow horse people will know what I mean when I describe the horrible vibration sound the tin roof was making on the barn. Goose has always hated noises going on above his head and has been known to break his halter and run to freedom (or grass) when it’s windy and suspicious noises are taking place. Knowing this, I put him on the outside crossties where the noise is the worst. I talked to him any time the vibrating whirring noise happened, and aside from some worried eyes, he was holding himself together very nicely. I opted for dressage tack, and after knocking most of the mud off him, had him ready to go in record time. As I walked him towards the picnic table we use for a mounting block, not far from the crossties he had just been sitting on, the wind picked up and the noise rang in full force. You know when cats get scared and jump all four feet off the ground? Well apparently Goose is part cat. Caitlin was coming around the corner of the barn with some lesson kiddos on their ponies so I took my poor, shaking horse into his barn to grab a lunge line. I was pulling out the ammy card and boy am I glad I chose to play that hand!

After securing him to the lunge line, I asked him to stand next to the barn for awhile. The goal here was just to get him to relax, even when the noise was happening. It takes a lot to spook Goose, but this is one of those things where he sees red and gives exactly zero thought to where he puts his body parts in his blind panic. I pet him and told him he was a good boy, and he quickly relaxed since, of course, the wind had died down to almost nothing. I took my time and stood there for a good ten minutes waiting for the noise and when it did happen Goose was a solid citizen and aside from a casual hairy eyeball, he was cool with it. We moseyed over to the arena, me still on the ground leading him by the lunge line, deciding to just see how he was and if he was quiet I’d hop on instead of doing a full lunge.

My 1400lb kite took flight the second I asked him to step out onto a circle. The Spanish Riding School would have been very impressed by his Lippizaner impersonation, and his capriole were stunning. I was less impressed with him snaking his head first in towards me, then flinging it in the opposite direction to get slack on the line. He got told off a few times for that and it mostly stopped though occasionally he couldn’t seem to help it. Unfortunately, his antics and pulling prevented me from capturing any of his leaps on video but I took some pictures when he had quieted down a bit. Probably for the best I have no video as there were some stern words coming out of my mouth as this giant kite tried to rip my arms off…

I worked him in both directions on a circle in the center of the dressage arena since he was reacting to the viewing platform we have next to the arena there. He’d trot fine for most of the circle, the dive in and leap, buck, and squeal past the stand. At this point, I don't believe he was actually scared of anything - he just had a blank look in his eye and was overall just manic. Caitlin walked by and was laughing at his acrobatics. I joked that no one believes me that my sloth of a horse has it in him, but this is why I choose to lunge sometimes or am constantly talking to him when he feels “up” to try to manage the impending mayhem.

Finally relaxing, but still suspicious ears...

After 30 minutes of trotting and cantering without me even holding a lunge whip, we walked around the arena and stood by the “scary” platform to think about life for a minute. He took a deep breath and sighed, and we headed back to the barn. 

End of our lunge - he looks like a giant Fjord with his mane blowing in the wind

On the walk up, I contemplated getting on for a walk ride, but when his head shot straight in the air as soon as he heard the roof rattle again I opted to call it a day. We stood next to the barn again for a few minutes, and Goose’s worried eyes confirmed my suspicion that we wouldn’t have gotten any work done that evening if I had climbed aboard. Goose was hand-raised and is not very independent when it comes to things he’s scared of. He’s a total mama’s boy and tries to climb in my lap or hide behind me when he’s scared. Because of this, I try to stand off from him when he’s worried and encourage him from a few feet away that he’s alright. At one point when I was away from him, the noise sounded and he kept nudging me with his nose like “Mom, do you hear that? MOM, it’s getting louder! Mom, PLEASE hold me I’m really scared there’s monsters on the roof!” so eventually I conceded and held his head while my big dog buried his head in my arms for comfort. I’m sure an equine behaviorist would have a lot to say about this but it melted my heart and I called it a day. Even on his nuttiest day, this horse is just my giant puppy. 

The very big puppy eyeing the platform and chairs

This weekend was a St. Patrick's day bar crawl in Charlotte so I opted for a normal person day and gave him off. Sunday he was a mostly respectable gentleman and we only had one brief discussion about moving our hind end independently from our front. Turns out, I was right! He can definitely do that. Hoping for some fun stuff coming up in the near future riding-wise, and unfortunately I don't have any update on the Oncept front. Still waiting on confirmation from a vet that she can help me, otherwise I have some amazing friends whose reach extends close to my neck of the woods, and I'm confident we'll be on the right track soon with loading doses.