An early and a little depressing start to the day today. Hopped up around 6am to get Phil packed and off to his roping clinic at Grafton this weekend. 3 days of ranch roping with experts in the field from the states - I’m jealous, but I would rope myself before i roped a cow so not for me!
A little depressing because I am taking my old dog to the vet today. 14 years old, and the time has come to find out when the right time is to let him go :(.
So, once Phil was on the road, i really didn't feel like doing anything, so I went and fed the juniors, Cooper and the old horses and jumped on the lounge to feel sorry for myself and watch crap TV. An hour and a bit later I was inspired to get off my butt and headed down to the junior paddock.
As usual the juniors always put a smile on my face, but i must admit today it is fading in and out. 1 minute I’m up and happy with them, the next I think about TJ and the tears arrive.
So, the goal today was to have another positive ride on squizzy. I put the macate (rope halter bridle) on her, saddled her and headed down to the flat part of the big paddock. I knew that my communication with her would be a little off because my head wasn't in the game.
So there were some of the neighbours cattle in our paddock, and I've noticed that squizzy really keeps her eye on cattle. I've seen her chase cattle in the paddock before, just off her own bat for no reason at all, and I've never even pointed her at a cow. When I looked up her breeding I found out that her grandfather is the great Bogan King (By Hills King Pistol) who was the winner of the NEQHA cutting maturity and through the AQHA was awarded ROMs for Halter, Pleasure, Cutting and Performance. He was also awarded a certificate of Ability through the NCHA.* This information from the book Australian Legends - our history of outstanding Quarter Horses - which is an awesome book by the way.
So, She definitely has cow in her blood and she really likes to keep an eye on them. The cows went back through the opening in the fence, and I started just moving her around a bit. Backup, draw towards me, and circles. Not alot of play in the circles today, she was pretty happy to just go around me at the gait that i chose. When i asked for canter, there was a bit of mucking about, but not like yesterday. I called her in, and did the test to see if she was ready to ride - she was smooth in all 4 feet moving independently, but the tail was a little bit stuck. I did some more hindquarter yields, and I felt she was ready to have me on her back.
I mounted, and stood for a minute, got my feet in the stirrups (yep kept the stirrups today - first time ever!), asked her to bend laterally so i could rub her eye on both sides, and asked her to move forward. Like yesterday, today she was really happy to go forward, but today she went straight off at the trot. My first instinct was to get her to slow down, but i suppressed that and let her go at the trot. I was just controlling her direction and aiming to get some long lines at the trot, with a half circle at each end. So like a really skinny oval shape. She got a little naughty and wanted to go her own way (she wanted to go through the gap and into the neighbours paddock) so i kept asking her to maintain the line. She argued with me a few times - she would stop, or pull her head down, and start to back up, she would go from the trot and just prop, but I just kept my cool and asked her to keep going at the gait and in the direction that I was asking.
As we were trotting in the line, we heard some cattle running behind us (in the neighbours paddock) so i turned her around so she could watch. The steers proceeded to stop and look at us, as we were looking at them. Squizzy really wanted to get to those cows! She kept going to walk towards them, and for the moment she forgot that she wanted to argue with me :) so I used it to my advantage. If the cattle took a step towards us, then I asked her to go towards them (which she was more than happy to do - she really wanted to go right for them, I don’t know much about working cattle, but now I do know what people mean when they say a horse has cow in them). So this was great, I was teaching her to stand still and wait for my instructions, even though she wanted to go for them, and from a safe distance I was giving her, her first taste of working cattle.
Finally the cows moved on, and squiz was a little more receptive to my aids. I just asked her to trot and walk a couple of lines, then I trotted her up the hill to the dam, another favourite place of hers. I hopped off her, and let her get in the dam for a drink, led her back down the hill and re-mounted. I walked to where my stuff was, and hopped off her.
Wow, another awesome day with the girl! She is such a star :) I had the other juniors tied up ready to be worked, but I now needed to get the old dog to the vet, so I fed them all and headed up to the house.
TJ is with us for a little longer - the vet has given us some high strength anti inflammatory for his arthritis - if there is a marked improvement then he has a few weeks, if not, we will have given him some relief in his final days.
Have fun with your horses :)
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