Susan's Viewpoint

Wed night lesson night is always wild. Lucky Star is learning how to slow down his fox trot. He’s learning how to rate the gait.
The game at the end was trying to have a team of riders take turns pushing a big ball thru a two barrel goal. The gaited team lost one and tied one. I even tried to block the other team’s ball and they still ties us!

When you ride out in a huge park full of deer food late in the afternoon, you might expect to see a deer.
Deer stand on the side of the horse trail. They wait until the horse appears. We have a state contest. Then the deer explodes and hops away
Lucky Star and I were engaged in the stare down. We won. When the deer exploded into the run away mode, Lucky Star did too. Both my shoulders and that is the left shoulder and the right shoulder ended up on the right side of Lucky Star down next to the saddle horn. This is not a balanced position. I was headed for the ground!

Salvation from the brave Lucky Star as he stopped. This stop threw my upper body right back into “rider position”! I was sitting straight up in the saddle again.
Whew!

Awesome Time

You build a relationship with your horse and it’s just fun to watch the two of you forging ahead.

Lucky and I have lots of little arguments. We argue about staying next to the wall, going too fast or slow, backing and sidepassing. When Lucky does something that I want, I have to immediately praise him, give him release, rub him, get off…whatever fits. I’ve noticed that the better I get at this, the less Lucky argues with me.

Lucky Star is a lot of fun to bring along. I think we are both enjoying our journey!

Who is that little horse galloping at liberty with his tail in the wind? The galloping horse looked exactly like Lucky Star, the horse of no impulsion.

Teresa played with Belle tonight. I thought I had Lucky Star. Teresa wanted Belle to be free to run at liberty. Belle had been in a stall all day. Belle was running around letting all that stored energy out.

I took off Lucky Star’s bridle and told him to run off. By golly, Lucky Star took off! His tail tight, streaming in the wind, he took off after Belle!

I could barely believe his surging forward at top speed. Then, gasp, he passed Belle and led the galloping around the arena. One lap he led the way with his tail straight up like the mystical Arabian galloping across the desert.

Boy Howdy!

After a bunch of laps around the arena, Lucky Star decided he was tired and galloped to me. He stayed right with me while Belle kept going. When Belle decided she had enough, two horse liberty was done

I got back on Lucky Star, rode him to far end of arena and cantered just a short distance back.
Wowsa! This was probably my 4th time at a canter on him. He can only manage to stay at the canter a short distance before his feet get confused! We cantered both ways of the arena

We did an ultra smooth fox trot and some dandy flat foot walk. Oh man

We rested a bit and then sidepassed over a barrel both ways. Done!

I leaped off and was chatting with Teresa when suddenly Lucky told me that it was time for me to teach him to lay down. Quick as a wink, I managed to barely get the saddle off before teaching him to lay down. Saddle off and a few moments later, he laid down and dug his head, neck body and tail into that sandy arena!
After about 10 full body rolls, he layed his body flat on the sand and pretended to be a dead horse (except he kept the one eye open). I petted his pretty sand-caked head.
He rolled a couple more times and got up. Instead of a liver chestnut horse, I had a desert sand horse!

This evening play time with Lucky Star had been full of surprises!

A third party at Teresa’s house was excited to take his first ride on a horse. Lucky Star made the offer and Jackson went for it!

http://www.ssstables.com/

S&S Stables is a wondrous place to go trail riding. You can park there for daily rides or camp overnight. They even have Missouri Fox Trotters for you to ride on guided trail rides. It doesn’t get much better than this. When Sue or Steve takes you out for a ride, you get a multiple entertainment experience. Sue and Steve are fun and sparkling entertainers. They make the ride so much more than nature at it’s most awesome in the beautiful forests, babbling brooks and hills to climb in the 52 acres that are available at Hillsdale Lake State Park.

That’s where Lucky Star and I spent Easter afternoon with great friends. Give them a call. Reserve your campspace and enjoy a weekend…or all week!

Lucky Star is at his owner’s farm. There is magic pixie dust in their large arena.
This pixie dust will help set Lucky’s flat foot walk and fox trot. Magic Pixie Dust and some coaching from Lucky’s learned owner, Teresa Osborn, will help us find true the groove.

Lucky got to return to his pasture with his horse herd. You know Lucky has a low impulsion drive (that I love). He can be indifferent to requests to move his body. When a dominant mate named Sassy asks you to move, you should immediately comply. I have started carrying a healing ointment for Lucky. He’s got a big bite mark on his neck.  And she is his full sister too!  It’s very evident that Sassy is in charge of the pasture.

Tonight was a big night in our relationship. Lucky Star did not argue with me! He had been lifting his head and pushing out his nose in a teenager kind of  “talk-back” , “I’m doing what you want,but I’m sneering at you.”

The sneering stopped. Was it the Saturday wonderful Groundskills Clinic and coaching from Tony Vaught? What you do on the ground translates up!  We had really improved the quality of my requests to ask Lucky Star to move.

Lucky Star is DEVELOPING!!
It’s a wonderful experience to bring a brave little horse along a path to realizing all his great potential!

Yee Haw

PS:  Pixie dust looks a lot like sand!

Missouri Fox Trotter club sponsored ride was attended by Lucky Star. We got to park at the wonderful S&S Campground Extraordinary. Steve was there to make certain all was well and when I missed my turn off, he guided me safely to the campground where Hope was anxiously awaiting our arrival so she could eat lunch.

Note: It’s wonderful to trail ride with people who make egg salad sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches and dessert. Thank you Hope for feeding me!

Carol came to join us and off we went. Carol rides a million trail ride miles every year.

Note: It’s wonderful to have experienced trail horses to lead the way up and down the muddy ravines and cross the streams. Thank you Carol.

This is a not extreme difficult and not extreme easy ride. There are short steep 4″ muddy hills strewn with rocks and narrow muddy hills to clamor up and down. Every now and then you get a glimpse of a beautiful lake. We saw some rock formations that were wonderful.

Our first challenge was a tree that had fallen on the trail. It was about two feet off the ground and wide. Carol’s mare hopped over it. Lucky reared up with his front legs to get over it and then hopped over with his back legs. I’ve never jumped obstacles with him during our short time to ride. His confidence was extreme.

I’ve forgotten how inexperienced horses react out on the trail. My memory has been reinstated. Our first muddy down hill was upon us. Chip was leading this time and made a successful trip down and over the stream. Lucky thinks his job is to be right at Chip’s rear end. He impatiently waited my signal to start the down hill descent. His first muddy, rock strew hill and he trotted down it while I screamed silently. We argued while going down the hill which slowed him down somewhat. We arrived alive at the stream and walked through the mud and water. Whew!

That’s when I remembered about inexperienced trail horses.

A good trail horse is supposed to have the head down and watch where they are stepping. Lucky Star did pick that skill up about half way out. His thought was just to plow thru ditches, mud and rocks like they didn’t exist. Lucky Star is very sure-footed, thank goodness.

There were pleasant times where Lucky Star was self piloted and slowed down when the horse in front of him slowed down instead of wanting to run into their rear. He really did well at that.

Lucky Star waded through all the mud water crossings without leaping. That was really really nice.

Then the muddy uphill ravine was upon us. It’s a narrow trail much deeper than the landscape. The trail is muddy. It’s muddy on the trail and the on the sides. The landscape is brushy. You can’t avoid going thru the muddy ravine. By this time Lucky Star had learned to dislike the sucking mud. So we went up the ravine’s side. Lucky Star was trying to get out of the ravine onto the high ground, even though there was no room for a horse. So we ended up climbing the muddy wall of the ravine. That made me a little bit emotional as I pictured us falling sideways. Thank the Lord on Easter Day to get through that patch.

Oh yes, the tree. We were standing on the trail. I went next to Carol to hand her my GPS. We went between her and a big branchy cedar tree. It was not my idea to ride into the thick branches of the tree. I handed Carol my GPS and then Lucky Star and I disappeared into a tree. That was fun too.

We went 4 muddy miles today. Lucky Star did fantastic on his first hilly and muddy trail. He’s a horse of anyone’s dreams.

Next week is arena riding to work on perfecting his gaits and getting a canter going. Yee Haw

My groundskills Goal for Lucky: Move out immediately when asked. All I want is a snappy 2 or 3 foot depart (Lucky footsteps) .

Lucky Star’s goal in an arena: Nap or stare around at interesting things. Lucky Star could be a great teacher of how to stay ground tied.

If convinced that he should move, Lucky Star’s favorite speed would match that of a tortoise.

My goal is “snappy”.

I think it was about 3:00 this afternoon when I finally realized how to ask and get snappy.
If you see me around, ask me to demonstrate the “make my self get big” move.
Lucky Star is moving out snappy now.
He even jumped over barrels late this afternoon
If course he was mentally exhausted at the end of the clinic and needed a nap before going home. He whined about his neck being cold, so I let him wear my vest. That is the picture that ended the clinic.

Lucky Star First Trail Ride

Lucky Star is a one in a million horse! He handled his first real Trailride like a been there done that Horse