You Lost the Herd, “No”

Some people look for a horse that won’t go. A young horse that won’t go is worth an easy million. Lucky Star is nearly a million dollar horse. Here’s a story about a horse that wouldn’t go. Http://mofoxtrot.com/viewpoint/2001/12/a-christmas-miracle-story.
That horse’s sire is Lucky Star’s grandfather! Lucky and Dasher are million dollar horses for the right person!

Lucky Star is being converted from show prospect to trail horse. This was our third 2015 trailride. This was the third time he has failed to keep up with his fellow trail horse companions. We are gaiting along at a wonderful flat foot walk watching our trail buddies pull further and further ahead.

This is against the trail horse rule. Trail horses want to keep up with their buddies. It’s a herd thing. Its a very solid horse rule. The horse that doesn’t keep up with the herd, gets eaten by the lion. All horses know this. It is a survival rule.

We are in first gear. We have several more gears to go, but Lucky Star remains in first gear and the other horses get further ahead. A turn comes up for the herd and as they make the turn, the trees hide them from our view. The herd is out of sight. I ask Lucky to go faster. Not only does he refuse to go faster, but he stops!

The other horses are out of sight. It’s a big horse rule to get somewhat anxious when your trail buddies go out of sight. Horses are supposed to get anxious, panic and think about bolting. Riders think about death.

Nope. The million dollar horse gets agitated in his stop. He paws the ground. It’s is hard to describe, but he sort of pranced around while at a dead stop, pawing the ground. I had to yell at the trail riders to come back and get us. As soon as they came into view, Lucky stopped pawing and was able to move forward and join them.(What is this about Lucky Star? Is his dominate bossy inner self is stronger than the horse rules of survival? )

Upon joining the herd, We led for a few moments, but Lucky slowed down to a gait called “the snail pace”. He was passed and the herd went back up to speed.

We managed to keep up with the herd after that, but Lucky was an angry arguing horse. He was forced to be a go horse. He wanted to eat another gelding riding with us. He threw little fits of snaking his head madness. An angry Lucky Star gaited horse goes through a list of all the possible gaits, even the most hated pace. I groaned outloud when he hit the pace gait at a good speed. Whah. Whah. Whah!

All in all, his arguing is much more fun out on the trail. At least he moved forward most of the time and quite nicely on the last half. This is a lot more fun than dealing with his arguing in the arena!

Finally at about the halfway point, we managed to smooth out into our flat foot walk and fox trot. We even cantered a bit. We had a nice smooth non argumentative ride back to the trailer.