which_chick | (no subject)

I took the IRH out for a quick spin today. A longer ride would have been nice, but the ride we had wasn't bad at all. Since the horse never knows how big the ride is that we're going on, it doesn't really matter that we did less than we'd planned on. Besides, a twenty-minute ride has almost as much useful learning experience as an hour ride does, if they're both away-from-home rides.

Get caught.
Get loaded on trailer.
Get hauled somewhere.
Get unloaded.
Get tacked up.
Person gets on and rides. <-- this is the only one that varies depending on length of ride.
Person gets off.
Get untacked.
Get loaded on trailer.
Get hauled home.
Get unloaded.
Get turned loose in field.

Laur took Rojo (project horse, belongs to someone else), I took the IRH, and Cass took Chelsea. We'd planned a pretty minimal ride, which was good, because that was what we had. Rojo, who was sound getting on the trailer, started limping (not horribly, but some) as soon as she touched down on the gravel road. Rather than waste the trip, we took a twenty minute ride at the walk, on soft footing. The horses did well. Nick weathered two vehicles (a car and a pickup) on the dirt road with a reasonable amount of ability. There were high-speed circles, but that wasn't so bad. We're getting quite good at them. :) The most illuminating part of the vehicle weathering was the fact that most vehicle operators, as soon as a rider's horse starts to act like a damnfool, stop the vehicle. While it is true that this will usually stop the horse from acting like a damnfool, it only postpones the misery until the vehicle starts up again at which point the horse unwinds like a damnfool again. This is not the optimal solution, at least not for Nick.

For the IRH and for me, the optimal vehicle approach is as follows: The optimal driver drives vehicle along road at normal speed until horses are spotted. Driver slows vehicle to about twenty miles an hour, swings into the (unoccupied) opposing lane, and cruises past while totally ignoring the frantic spinning of the IRH. The optimal driver DOES NOT honk, flash headlights, gun engine, squeal tires, lean out window and shout the greetings of his people, stop the vehicle, inch along behind the IRH, or otherwise behave unusually. I KNOW it looks like I'm going to die. I know. I know that drivers want to slow down or stop so that they have a good view IN CASE the horse kills me or because they think the horse is going to jump out in front of their vehicle. (She's terrified of vehicles. If I come off, she's going to head orthogonally away from the road at one hell of a clip.) The odds are real good that most drivers want to HELP me. The very best help they can give is to slow down to about twenty miles an hour, give us a little extra room, and cruise by without doing anything unusual. I'll take care of the horse. Honest. It'll be fine.

It is very difficult to convince drivers that you MEAN for them to keep going. Even if you yell that they are to keep driving, loudly, they think they need to stop. I don't know that I can do anything to help them with this, particularly when I'm sitting on the IRH as she spins like a top, looking for all the world like she's about to explode.

Yes, I've worked with her on desensitization with cars and trucks and stuff in the driveway and on untravelled back roads. This IS the improved version, I promise. She'll get better with time. She just needs exposure, a lot of it, and it's not an undertaking I approach lightly. It's somewhat dangerous, truth be told, and I would like to survive the experience. I would also like the horse to survive the experience. I would like the horse to get better, which means that I have to win each and every one of the vehicle-weathering situations from here on out to eternity. (It'll still be possible to teach the horse to tolerate cars if I lose occasionally, but we will make faster progress if I always win. Resistance is useless, prepare to be assimilated...)