Botanizing on Horseback

5/12/2010
I had a pony (13.2 hands, cost 175 bucks) named Indy from 1998-2001 (she died or I would stillhave her) and I rode her all over the place.   I collected over 160 plants (and pressed them and identified them to species and put them in 3 books, and made a list....ok, so I'm a biologist by training and my mom put me up to it).  I still recognize most of the plants but I cannot tell you their scientific names anymore....but recently D. moved in and she likes plants (and birds and horses) so my interest has been rekindled!

So, today, we botanized on horseback.  I rode Risa and she rode Duncan.  We took the rocky trail and checked out the plants.  That  penstemon I mentioned the other day is now blooming (there are 3 or 4 species locally and I don't recall this being the first usually....) This one is a bit more delicate looking than the others and has a purple/ pink flower that is kind of irridescent. I just looked and yep I have it pressed...maybe I should now start taking pictures and add those to the book. ....Maybe I am a touch obsessive compulsive?  I think the scientific name is: Penstemon inflatus. (Note the italics and the capitalization of the first name--the Genus-- and lower case for the species name? Your scientific nomenclature lesson of the day. Try not to throw up.)

Red with a strong dollop of orange is the shade of the barrel cactus flowers I usually see, but today, we spied a tiny cactus with a yellow bloom bigger than the plant itself.  I don't recall ever seeing that one before and we saw two! D. took home a sprig of a vetch (Astragalus missouriensis???-related to loco weed!) to ID but I forgot that you often need the seed pods to tell the vetch or vetch-like things apart.  I was out on S 14 and saw Astragalus spectabalis??? I am making that name up ...but it is a big white one.... AND we saw a small white flowered 5- petalled delicate plant related to carnations (Family: Caryophyllaceae).

Horsewise, Risa led and Duncan (the lipizanner, white!  big brown eyes! 19!) came along behind, a bit slowly.  He was trying really hard to do everything just right...because yesterday he got in trouble for hand galloping.....away! Now granted, every time I see Duncan he looks amazing and soft and correct, but apparenlty he does have his moments.

Prior to hitting the trail, Risa did a little arena work and her lope was actually pretty relaxed, but when we got back, she was much more in a hurry.  She is still trying to figure out how to work her whole body with me on top, and we are working a number of exercises to help her (like I mentioned last time, briefly).  But,  I will say this for her: She can bury her butt in the dirt when her timing is right, she can back fast and she has the makings of a nice reining spin.  And yeah I train and I get paid, but I never want to stop learning, so I plan to get down to Dolly Wallace next week (I hope) and pick her brain on spinning exercises.  Sometimes it is so helpful to get an outside opinion and I tell you what, every time I go to Dolly I get some shining gem of information.  Add all those gems up, and you can put together a pretty nice horse if you work at it. 

Pretty Penny was next and she had some nice moments and some ok moments.  I really need to work on her english trot and her western lope.  Oh that's a nice combo--longer and faster (the trot) and slower and slower (the lope).  The long trot does help her use her body better.  The slow lope feels a bit too short-strided to me, and while her neck is positioned ok, a lot of the time, but I feel overall she is too stiff.  So we have to keep working lateral bending (neck and poll relaxation) while moving, sideways, shoulder freedom, haunches in, until all her parts are relaxed, under control and in synchrony. Not happening over night.

All around. I am not one to produce the 30 day wonder horse. Penny at 3 is doing english and western and trail, but by 5 or 6 I hope she can do virtually all events reasonably well. So, taking the long view, I am not going to have a perfect western pleasure horse at 3 because of our all around goal later in life and besides I want her to stay fresh (oh and she will go out in the back country, too...)

Simple, safe and fun. That's what I want for my horses and riders....note I didn't say "easy".  Today, if you were to ask Penny, "fun" might have been lacking.  Nothing was terrible, but maybe a bit too much drill and not enough reward.

I gave a lesson later in the day and it was amazing to see how the upward hand position (very French says my friend) is so amazing.  Yeah, I just said amazing twice in one sentence.  I am not fixing it. Go Donati and Kathleen!


What about May?? 5/11/2010. Ride 20
May is aMAYzing.  I could not resist. I saddled up (no fidgetting, no pawing) got on and rode off over the ridge. She was balky in a few spots but if I kept her straight with my reins and legs and urged her forward with my legs and voice, she listened, decided I would not steer her into trouble, and went. We just had a blast trail riding at nice forward walk. 

The twisted culvert, laying on the side of the road, has its large black mouth facing north, and on the way home, May needed a moment to analyze that.  Once she had a look, she was able to go on by with out a fuss.

Trust. One of the things I find the most rewarding about starting horses is when the horse starts to trust me.  Then, even when they aren't sure, they fall back to the trust thing and try to do what I ask!  It was like that with May this ride.

Tabooli.
Ride 7.  Trailer loading went really well!  He stepped in and can easily get out backwards now, so, in he went,  and out he went,  and in he went until he figured out it was easier to stay in.  Since he goes in nicely, it was easy.

The wind was the worst in a long time, so that's saying something. Used my spurs and my rope on him today and got more out of him, without scaring him. He is still heavy off my leg, so working against the fence to get him to move laterally--not fully sidways, but some cross over with the shoulder and the hind end, is helping. He is ready to lope but I didn't push him too hard due to the hideous wind, and just got a nice fast trot. I wanted to ride him out today but I was on him for over an hour and I hadn't realized how long it had been. So, we did the bridge (set him up, let him look and he did it) and almost had the gate. He totally gets that the gate = end of the day. Two more tries and the gate will be ours!