Ryan & Pinta

Karin came over with Colin and Kyle on Saturday to visit. We had a great day visiting, the usual computer gaming, and we went to the barn to visit Pinta. Ryan announced he intended to ride and wanted to ride "fast." He has been on her one other time last summer bareback when he rode in a circle at a slow walk. I believe he has ridden a horse one other time as a small child. She is game for it though, she has come a long way in her communication skills and loves new activities. When we got there she was nickering and ready to come out and see what we had in mind. After blowing her off with the blower, which I'm storing at the barn these days because it makes such quick work of a VERY clean horse, we saddled her up with the custom saddle pad I finished last week. It has a genuine black sheepskin lining and quilted top with straps that the girth runs through to keep the whole thing in the proper place. Works great! We started with sidepass along the fence without a rider, and then did some limbering circles to make sure she didn't feel like kicking up or crow hopping before we went into the round pen for Ryan's debut.

Initially the plan was to do the same thing I do with Ally. I'm working Pinta on the same games we do solo all of the time, only she has a rider up there. Figure 8 around the barrel and the mounting block, circles where she is responsible to maintain gate and direction, stopping and coming when called. She was happy to do all of then. Then I ran out of treats, so I left the two of them in the enclosure and went back to the barn for more plus brought out the big ball. I was thinking if they had some goal in mind it would go better so the objective was for Ryan to direct her to push the ball around the rail of the arena. I stood at the half-way mark to provide incentive treats when they reached me. It was slow but effective. I made Ryan keep his feet in the stirrups under pressure and held away from her sides because she is so sensitive to requests from leg cues and he has yet to even be able to maintain an upright posture ... lol. Instead he clucked to her and used the lead rope to ask her head to move left, right or backwards until she was positioned correctly behind the ball. It was the beginnings of their communication.

We were all happy with this process thus far. Then we decided to try a little faster pace. I put the long rope back on and asked her for circles at a trot. He bounced pretty good, so she was a bit wide-eyed, but settled down and did a decent job of giving him an idea of the trot (== speed). He announced he was ready for "running" so I asked for a canter. I have to admit that I have not worked on transitions anywhere nearly enough for a quick transition from walk to canter. Instead she responds as most beginning horses do with a fast, choppy trot for three or four lengths until she breaks into the canter. This was the case and Ryan was doing OK until about the first stride into the canter. At that point he lost his inside stirrup, which then meant he was weighting his outside stirrup like crazy and with the jarring motion and him pounding into just the one stirrup, the saddle slipped to the outside until Ryan was virtually riding side-ways around the outside of the circle. She was wild-eyed but not bucking and not fussing, just not slowing down either. Her idea of a solution to everything is to put on more speed ... lol. Ryan said afterward he calculated his options and decided to bail after he was completely sideways. He hit the ground and rolled once landing flat on his back, but thankfully managed to miss the rails of the roundpen. Pinta stopped right away and was blowing but stood patiently as I loosed the saddle and breastcollar to right everything which was very tightly positioned halfway down her right side. All in all it was wonderful. Ryan has experienced his first offing, which is something every aspiring rider must accomplish in order to call themselves a horseman. He wasn't hurt, he wasn't even angry. In fact I'd say he remained excited and interested even after pulling himself up off the ground.