When shit hits the fan

Do you remember the first time that you did something you knew you shouldn’t but you did it anyways?
When I was about nine years old my neighbor got a new pony, he was jet black, elegant with a beautiful little head. He was way prettier than my pony who looked like a little draft horse with feathered legs and a crested neck so I decided that this new pony would look really cool pulling a cart. My other neighbor had this flower cart with two wheels and a bar that set on the ground but when you raise it up it rolled quite nicely. The pony was the prefect height for the cart to roll without hitting the bar on the ground. No one was around and I thought this was going to be great! When they see how cool this was going to work neither one of my neighbors would be upset that I borrowed the cart or the pony.
I found an old saddle and tide the cart to the cinch rings on each side. I walked the pony around pulling the cart, it seemed to work great at a walk, when the pony would stop the cart bars would drag the ground and stop. I was so excited, I never had wheels before. I had made every kind of drag you could think but with a drag you get covered with stickers and dirt, it wasn’t as cool as something with wheels. I climbed into the flower cart and with a slap on the ass with the reins we were off and for a brief second it was really cool but as the pony started to go faster, looking behind him with his little eye getting wider and wider I tried to pulled him up but the cart hit him in the ass and he leaped forward flipping me out the back. As I got to my feet all I could do was watch this pony freak out with the cart hitting him in the ass, hitting the round and then flying back up hitting him in the ass again. The flower cart broke into pieces as the pony ran for his life leaving only the bar remaining dragging behind. The pony had cuts on his back legs and the cart was destroyed. Needless to say my neighbors were not impressed and I had to work the hole summer to make up for my miss judgment, hurting the pony and for the repayment of the flower cart. I never forgot how badly that turned out and the helpless feeling watching it happen with nothing I could do to stop it, I understood the saying, when shit hit the fan.
Through the years I have had many of these kind of moments happen, sometimes my own bad judgment sometimes not but most are, I could of, should of, would of moments, like last night.
I had been out of town for four days and one of my mares had to be in a stall the hole time cause she keeps braking through the hot wire fence. I decided to take her to my Wed. Night Clinic I teach, I was running behind and didn’t get to round pen her first. She is by Doc at Night and out of a Flinns Guy Son Of a Doc mare, this filly is the top of the line sports model to say the least, probably the most athletic horse I have ever owned and hot, but when she settles she is a ride like no other, It's like flying, an amazing feeling.
I got to my clinic and saddled her, she was jumpy snorting at everything and I new I should round pen her a few minute but I was late and my clients were waiting. I mounted and she seemed ok while we sat chatting for a while, I decided I should get warmed up and sent her out to trot a circle, within a few strides she went to bucking and I was on the ground before I even knew what happened. She never buck me off before but I knew how fresh she was and I was pushing it. I had even had a thought go through my mind a few days earlier that I was going to get bucked off, I chucked it off as silly fear to be overcome. After getting hurt it takes awhile to get back to feeling confident again and I have struggled with this in the past but as of late I’ve been feeling like my old self again. I’m not sure why I did that, I know better and I'm feeling the regret today, thankfully the arena was soft, It could have been worse. She was great the rest of the night, as usual. Hopefully lesson learned but it’s hard to tell sometimes between crippling fear or wisdom. This one was my bad, like tieing that pony to that cart when I was nine. I wanted my old self back but not that far back. lol

A horse named Bambi

This is Bambi he is a breeding stock paint or maybe pinto because his sire was an Arabian Quarter cross, anyhow this gelding is one of the most stubborn horses I have trained in years.
A few years back my childhood friend called me up and wanted me to train her horses. She had bought the mare with Bambi at her side and the sire too and let them run fee on their ranch. They had gone wild living on the ranch running in a herd and now she had needed some help. We put the horses in a small pen to halter brake. I was going to take the 8 year old stallion who had been gelded a few years back and his two year son who had never been tamed and Bambi who had been friendly as a foal but with four years of running free was not friendly anymore. As I work the horses in the pen to get halters on them. He would kick with everything he had, both back feet full on, if I got to close. The two year old was scared but never acted aggressive towards me and took longer but was easier in the end than the two who had been handled before. The old Stallion was halter broke at one point but was an ass and didn’t want me to touch him now, with some running around he finally let me get a halter on him. I had one day to halter brake the two sons and then get them in the horse trailer the next morning, this took the better part of the day. The next morning I was happy it only took another hour to get them in the trailer and off I went with the three horse.
The two year old started well and Bambi started ok ass well. The old Stallion who was now a gelding wasn’t working out. After a month I still couldn’t get him to join up with me and stay. It was winter and the ground wet so I couldn’t run him enough and we would start all over again each and every day. Very frustrating horse. I finally had some dry weather and round penned him until he would stay with me. The next day as I cleaned the stall next to his, he seemed to be curious about me for the first time and would come over to smell me. I decided I could clean his stall with him still in it instead of haltering him and taking him out. I put the wheel barrel in the door and started to clean. He was different today and would come and check out what I was doing. I was making progress I thought but out of the corner of my eye I saw him bare his teeth and come at me, out of pure reaction I whacked him up side the head with the pitchfork, he whirled around and jumped over the wheel barrel and out of the barn he went. He was free again and determined to stay that way. He ran over to the neighbors and through her garden taking out fences along the way. I finally got him back on my property braking my fences along the way as well but he was now out with my mares in a about thirty acres pasture. I had been chasing him for few hours when Ashley finally arrived I call out to her to get her mare and saddle her for me, I was going to try and rope him. After running him on horseback for another hour I finally was able to get a rope on him but he would bolt every time I tried to hold him, and pour Sophie who had never been roped off of, well she gave me all she had, running as fast as she could leaping over the rocky ground casing that fool horse around, both horse sweating and lathered with white foam on their necks and between their legs, we finally got him back in the stall.
I finally gave up on this horse when one day I tried to saddle him, he had been saddled before and someone had tried to ride him years ago. I was standing up between his head and shoulders, I through the saddle up on his back and as quick as lightening he whirled and kicked me in the chest sending me flying backwards, I had been standing so close to him that he basically lifted me up and throw me through the air like a rag doll. I had had enough of this horse and it was time to send him down the road.
Now back to Bambi the (son of the old Stallion) he was under saddle was gong along fairly well in his training until the day his sire left the ranch. He figured he was head horse now and started acting just like his sire, Wild! I’m not sure if it was me, feeling defensive from being kicked or what but from that day me and Bambi couldn’t get along. He had tried to kick me one day while I bit him up, I was done and went to undo the reins and that didn’t set well with me. I keep trying and he would buck or run off with me someday and then others days be fine. I was frustrated to say the least, it had been four months and time for them to go home, the two year old was doing good but Bami I still wouldn’t trust and had told my friend of my troubles with him.
When we were young we rode together and she was one of my closest friends. She never had her own horse and would ride whatever horse we had for her, she was brave and had no fear as a kid and we had the best times together riding bareback all day long. We were adventurous and free and would ride to distant mountains off road through the brush just to see if we could get there.
Needless to say Bambi buck her off twice and she wanted me to try again. It had been a few years sense he had been here for training and he had been running free on the ranch where he grow up and went wild again.
We started off just like we left off, unpredictable. I had all these really nice minded paint horse here and thought it would be best if we made a trade. Someone was going to have to really spend some time with Bambi if he was ever going get over his want to be wild. She wanted a horse she could ride in the summer and let run free all winter and that wasn’t Bambi, but she had raised him from a baby and so she wanted me to try again.
Frustrated with this horse I decided to come at it from a different way of thinking. Years of training performance horse I have a program that works for those kind of horses but Bambi is a different kind and more like the horses I grow up riding, actually he is more like a bratty pony just bigger. He is supper lazy and you can’t even tire him out for he will only go if you run after him whacking with the whip. You get more worn out than he does and then he will try and run off with you when you ride him.
She wanted to ride him bareback like when we were kids so I decided to stop trying to make him perform for me and just let him be lazy. I would go out and each day and spend my time with him trying to jump on him bareback instead of round penning him. He is really tall and so I would make him stand next to something so I could get on just like when I was a kid. Every time he would step to the side I would put him back and he finally figured out that if he would stand next to something I wouldn’t dig my elbows in him back try get up there. Seeing how he would never have to spin or slide to a stop, he was just a trail horse, I spent my time just hanging out with him. I would tie him at the barn and ride him bareback to the house and back throughout the day. That is it, he was my taxi and that is all I asked of him. As the days went on he seemed to like his new job and would come to greet me at the gate each morning. I would ride him to go fix my fences or whatever and leave him tied most of the day either at the house or at the barn and this new job suited him. I took him out on trail rides and even galloped him through the open planes with other horses and he was great. He didn’t turn all that great or stop on a dime like I am used to but he was a good trail horse.
It was time for Bambi to go back home. I thought I might want to work him a little in the area, maybe try to get him to guide a little better before he went home so I bit him up and ran him around, he was lazy and I had to work at it to keep him going. I rode him and worked on the normal things I work on, loping circles. The next day he did not come to the gate as before and it took me a few minute to catch him. He was sour minded again, snorting at me like before. I went back to letting him walk at his lazy pace again and he warmed up to me again.
I needed to pony a two year old mare Neata. I had started riding her and she got really freaked out about me stepping up on her so I wanted to pony her and let her get used to me above her head on another horse. Bambi was slow walking and she had grown up with him so I thought this would work out fine. Down the road we went and everything was great, she was getting used to me petting her from up above her and the pace was perfect. I turned around and headed home, Bambi picked up the pace on the way back, well Neata didn’t like this new pace and started to resist, I raped the lead rope around the horn and let Bambi do the work as Neata put her front feet in the ground, with each step she resisted more until Bambi was dragging her down the road. He didn’t mind a bit, she would even through herself around and he would just keep on dragging. I finally found something Bambi was good at. He was born to be a plow horse, slow and stead. He never got upset even when she pulled so hard he had to stop, the saddle was slipping back and off to one side he didn’t care, he would stand still while I readjusted my rope and saddle and pull again when I asked.
It is funny to me this horse is so lazy he really resents working in circle but didn‘t mind pulling a full grown horse down the road! He is a perfect example of the fact that you can teach a horse tricks like turning, stopping or whatever it may be but you can’t really change the horse, his personality. He is who he is and that is that. It’s best not to beat your head against the wall trying to make a horse be something he is not. The wiser approach is try to figure out what his strengths are work with that. This horse matched me stubborn for stubborn and made me rethink the way I train horses today. He brought me back to the place where I began my horse training career when I was a kid and new nothing about leg control or collection but I rode like the wind, back to where I was little and had to use my head. I was open minded and had fun learning back then, now I take myself to serious, worried about my reputation and all and this stubborn horse made me go back and remember why I do this in the first place, for the joy of it.
I was happy with his progress and it was time to take him home, as I unloaded him and put him in the corral he looked around snorted with that wild look in his eye again.
The next day I wanted to show my friend that she could ride him bareback now but as I went to jump on him like I had done so many times in the last few months he whirled away from me snorting like I had never done it before, it took a few minutes of lunging him before he would let me jump up on him and stand still. Bambi, Bambi I will miss that dumb horse a little.