If you're gonna freeze 💨, at least do it with people you like! Today's posse: Sarah and "Sundance", Nancy and "Dani", Molly and "Krishna", me and "Nickle".
Trailrides are nice, but every horse needs arena time! Especially Nickle, who had some time off when I was busy with outside horses and then for hock injections. We're back on track, with a focus on fitness level, not so much skill. Once Nickle learns something HE NEVER FORGETS!
"Nickle" at the BLM today, with invited guests "Krishna" and "Oneida". Human guests Kathy and Tony from out-of-state hiking along with us!
Molly has been working on becoming a softer rider; less hands, more seat. She is riding with much more trust (loose rein) and no longer needs any rein to stop Krishna, which is amazing...if you know Krishna!
Mis amigas y yo, hiding from the wind in an arroyo down the road. Me on Nickle, Molly on Krisha and Sarah on Sundance!
Riding the big arroyo at the Nambe's Badlands today. No wind and a very different feeling being closed in, versus out in the open on the hills! Nickle LOVES Zuli and was a little competitive with Krishna. But in the end, Zuli pinned her ears at both boys, so neither came out a winner in romance 😆
It's Christmas and old St. Nic(kle) is spreading holiday joy!
He's also searching for cookies and doesn't care if they come from me or someone else!
I'm pretty happy with Nickle today! You may have noticed that he's not had any saddle time in the past several weeks, well that's because I take Nickle's care very seriously!
If you've followed him a while, you know that he arrived with some issues. Over the past 15 months many of those have healed, but we've dug deeper into what works best to keep his joints working well and keep him comfortable. Can he handle walking trailrides with no intervention? Yes. But I am a firm believer that if you commit to a horse, you should provide the best care you can! For Nickle that means yearly hock injections, and the results are great! But it did mean a few weeks off after being injected. I know horse people don't openly talk about "maintenance" required for some horses, BUT WE SHOULD! A nice horse that requires maintenance is far better than an awful horse who doesn't!
It's important to me that Nickle doesn't have pain and enjoys his work.
Today was the first day in the saddle and it was pretty obvious that Nickle was happy to be in the arena with me and on the trail course. In fact, when he is not "part of the action" he's sad and behaves badly....trying to get attention. He didn't take a bad step today and I had zero plans to do any climbing or trail course work.....this was all his idea!
He walked right off the teeter-totter after showing his "teetering" skills and crawled up on the mounting block on his own. The little mouth wiggle (his smile) while perched on the block is all about him feeling good and being proud of his work. Of course that means the silly pony in the elf hat gets cookies!
Nickle has more "try" than any horse I've ever ridden. He never gives up!
By the way, Molly and I are "upping" our game on these obstacles. I didn't take video of the gate work today, it was pretty amazing too!
Part 3: The tire obstacle. Both ponies have competed and placed in the top three of the 4-Corners Mustang Challenge, so obstacles are nothing new for these two. But the ease of navigating this new obstacle by both Oneida and Sundown amazed all of us! Sundown worked the tires at-liberty after Dana's introduction, and Oneida decided that she could not only walk across the tires, she could take them on in a lope!
Part 2: Gun training! This is not the first exposure for the ponies, and Nickle is still present as he is non-reactive to gun fire!
Sundown had very little reaction to the noise, but Oneida definitely had a visceral reaction; shaking a little at first, but then deciding that she was just mad, stomping her feet!
This training needs to continue to be effective. Same principals as the bike training; make a positive association with the "obstacle" by using treats. But in the BIG PICTURE, it's really trust in the handler/rider that is constantly growing stronger in these exercises!
Gavi's owner is working on gaining better control of Gavi's very busy body! Today she worked on moving him on and off the rail, a no-rein stop (just seat and voice), simple patterns and then of course OBSTACLES! Gavi has an "up" cue and he had no problem being the first horse to fully climb up and over the new tire obstacle when asked. Pretty sure he liked it!
You and your best friend should be Partners. Find the right Partner and invest in training!
