Lucky Star and I are coming along great.\u00a0 We’ve had some great rides in the arena after our months of exile ground work and liberty work.<\/p>\n
We generally ride in the arena about an hour. This coming up winter, dark and cold stuff going on.\u00a0 I take him over to Pine Dell Farm and we have ground work, online and liberty and then we ride.<\/p>\n
Fine!<\/p>\n
Last weekend we had a two day Cow Clinic. The first morning during our non-cow simulation exercises, Tony was trying to get Lucky to make quick turns. Tony was helping Lucky get the idea to move out.\u00a0 Lucky decided to protest.\u00a0 It felt a little different in the saddle, the saddle was moving in unexplained directions.\u00a0 When Tony yells the words, “Bend his nose so you won’t get bucked off!” Alarm bells go off!\u00a0 Lucky’s head was down and we were sort of bobbing around.\u00a0 It’s Lucky’s imitation bucking.\u00a0 He puts his head down, stiffens up his body and pretends to be a bronco.\u00a0 I’ve seen this bronco imitation from the ground before.\u00a0 I had to puzzle it out.\u00a0 He looks the picture of a bronco, but there’s no buck.\u00a0 His back feet might raise off the ground 6 to 12 inches at the most.<\/p>\n
Come to find out, Lucky Star is giving me an hour to an hour and a half and then has the nerve to think he’s done.\u00a0 He’s done, but I’m on his back trying to get him to move faster than a senior snail.<\/p>\n
Lucky and I were doing a pattern – circling on the corners of the arena, stopping and turning.\u00a0 I expected him to move out smartly after we stopped and turned.\u00a0 Lucky got fed up with that concept and we spiralled down into an argument.\u00a0 Luckily Tony was there and coached me thru it.\u00a0 My job was to do whatever it took to get Lucky’s hindquarters to move and then ask him if he would like to go in a straight line.\u00a0 “No,” Lucky didn’t want to move his hindquarters or go into a straight line.\u00a0 About 10 minutes of arguing went by with Tony there coaching and finally Lucky decided that going forward on a straight line was a lot less work that arguing.<\/p>\n
We went around the arena a little wasys going straight with some impumulsion and then it was lunch time. Cows were coming in the afernoon and surely, Lucky would get engaged, forget about balking and become a cow pony.<\/p>\n
It was not to be.<\/p>\n
The riders\u00a0followed the cow herd\u00a0aroung the arena and our goal was to “go slow”.\u00a0 Lucky had no problem with this at all.\u00a0 Riders and horses followed the herd around the arena, getting them used to us and the arena.<\/p>\n
Then the cutting started.\u00a0 When it was our turn, Lucky went right into the herd.\u00a0 He certainly was not afraid of a herd of cows.\u00a0 We got a cow cut out and Tony announced, this cow was a “dud”.\u00a0 This was the cow that refused to move and my horse, Powder, picked him up by the neck.\u00a0 Tony said his name is Dudley. Dudley was a perfect cow for Lucky.\u00a0 We guided Dudley all over the arena.\u00a0 One time Dudley decided to get back in the herd.\u00a0 Lucky and I were saved by my teammates.\u00a0 Dudley was not allowed into the herd.\u00a0 Dudley waited for Lucky and I to fox trot up to get him out to the rail again.<\/p>\n
Lucky and I were very successful at getting Dudley to go where ever we wanted. We let him back into the herd and I beamed with pride at my cow horse “in the making”.\u00a0 We helped out with the herd after that, occasionally getting up enough speed to keep the cows in or the cow out.\u00a0 The argument between Lucky and I continued, we hid it well and everyone knew Lucky wasn’t going to move fast.\u00a0 His slowness and non-responsiveness was expected.<\/p>\n
The day was done and life was good.<\/p>\n
The next day started out about the same.\u00a0 Lucky moved and then he didn’t.\u00a0 We argued.\u00a0 he moved…slowly.\u00a0 Cows came.\u00a0 Lucky argued.\u00a0 We took out a cow other than Dudley and failed …\u00a0 and then failed again.<\/p>\n
Note about my personality.\u00a0 I’m normally a laid-back individual outside and inside.\u00a0 But, when I get frustrated and I don’t get to move fast, my left-brain impatient, order-giving, wanna move personhood emerges.<\/p>\n
Sunday afternoon, I was starting to smolder inside.\u00a0 I had not to go fast on Lucky and we were fairly useless with the cows.\u00a0 We had\u00a0failed at driving a cow because Lucky would not move.\u00a0 Immediately\u00a0I erupted and forced Lucky out to the rail.\u00a0 We zipped down to the end and cantered around the end.\u00a0 I was pounding on him enough so that he decided the thing from hell on his back should be obeyed. Tony yelled at me to come on back and get my cow.\u00a0 I yelled that I was DONE!\u00a0 I’m so done with this horse that I can’t come back! DONE!\u00a0 I screamed.\u00a0 Tony yelled some more and suggested that I make a try at returing to herd a cow.\u00a0 “OH OK!\u00a0 You want me back with this horse, we’ll just come busting in there and move some cows!”Lucky and I fox trotted over to the herd, he slowed down, went into the herd and cut a cow out.\u00a0 Tony said, “Now Lucky can feel good at accomplishing something, rub him.”<\/p>\n
My riding friends were all shocked.\u00a0 No one there that day has ever seen me loose my temper.\u00a0 It felt like I was letting a caged tiger out of his cage.<\/p>\n
Here’s how Tony described my behavior later.
\n“Susan became emotionally violent and physically effective”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lucky Star and I are coming along great.\u00a0 We’ve had some great rides in the arena after our months of exile ground work and liberty work. We generally ride in the arena about an hour. This coming up winter, dark and cold stuff going on.\u00a0 I take him over to Pine Dell Farm and we have ground work, online and liberty and then we ride. Fine! Last weekend we had a two day Cow Clinic. The first morning during our non-cow simulation exercises, Tony was trying to get Lucky to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country-franks-lucky-star","category-missouri-fox-trotter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2362"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2366,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}