My Future Competitive Trail Horse . . . (long post/video!)

I LOVE this picture! Sorry about the lines, but this is one of my new favorites. :)
Doesn't he look all gangly and long legged again? I'm hoping it's a growth spurt.

It was a cold, windy day so guess what I decided to do! I chose the obstacle from the Competitive Trail Ride that gave all of the horses the biggest problem and decided to see how Chrome would do with it. :) The white bags with hay that they had to put in front of the saddle while they rode around was the biggest problem. One horse even panicked and bolted away from his owner. Now, guess how Chrome did . . . sorry, you'll have to check out the video and pictures below. ;D

First I brought him up, groomed him and put his surcingle on so I'd have something to tie the bags to. I filled one white trash bag with crumpled packing paper and one with a ton of plastic grocery bags. They don't sound quite like hay, but still an interesting sound. Anyway while he was tied up he was being so impatient and bratty. Probably because of the cold breeze and all of the equipment across the road building a house.

Pawing . . .

. . . playing with his rope . . .

. . . giraffe impression . . .

. . . listening to Faran neigh . . .

. . . playing with his surcingle . . .

. . . giving me adorable looks . . .

. . . more pawing . . .

. . . and he did eventually settle down and stand still so we could go for our walk.

Still feeling frisky he trotted down the ditch . . .

. . . gathered himself for a big jump across the ditch . . .

. . . and gave a dorky, clumsy bounce across the ditch. Silly boy.

I really wish the mailbox hadn't been in the way for this one. He's so gorgeous!
Look how far forward that rear leg is just below the mailbox. :)
The boy can reach under himself.

Then we went for a couple of trots in front of the house so hubby could take pictures. He was getting some great long strides where all four feet would actually leave the ground. Normally he's too lazy to put that much effort in hehe.

Does he have chunky haunches for a two year old? And a non existent gaskin lol.

After trotting we worked on walking through puddles since we've gone all summer without any puddles. He's always been great with them, but normally I'm walking through them too but because I was wearing my sneakers I was skirting the puddle. I think he thought that meant he was supposed to as well. He did go through them though and we even played yoyo, walking forward and backward through the puddle. He tried to bite me once (brat!), but I kept calm, verbally scolded him and just kept on as if it never happened. If he'd made contact with my skin I probably would have smacked him on the shoulder with my hand or bumped him in the teeth with my fist (gently), but he didn't so I let it go. :) Here's the video.


Then we went for a short walk. He did very well listening to me even though he wanted to be a brat around the neighbor's horses. When we came back to the house we worked with the bags. Check out the video. If you don't have a fast internet connection you can look below for snapshots of the video. :)


I look horrible in the video. I dress down on my days off lol. I'm having trouble adjusting to the cold again. So please ignore me. Here are the snapshots.

Introducing the bags.

He stood with his front feet on the pedestal while I tied one bag to his surcingle. Then when I asked him to come forward he actually put his rear hooves on it for I think the second time. :)

This is the first time that he stood with both rear hooves on the pedestal.
He would have stayed there all day if I'd kept clicking lol.

In the video I joked that he was really butt high here haha.
However the pedestal isn't what we were working on so we moved on.

He repeatedly looked back at it. He didn't seem scared, just a tiny bit worried.

He doesn't look stressed to you does he? And he's only two and a half! :D I love him.

He didn't want to trot with them, so I pushed him away and waved my arms at him, so he did trot for me. I wasn't really chasing him, just using my energy to push him away. He stayed calm the whole time. :)

Then I asked him to stand next to the pedestal and I hopped up to lay across his back. This is maybe the fifth time I've done this and I never stay on for even a minute. He did so great!

A hug for all of his hard effort. :)

Standing calmly (watching the other horses eat persimmons without him awww) while I take the bags off.

So I practiced swinging it over his back from the ground and over his head.
When I went to pull the bags back over his head it hung up on his ear!

He followed me like, mom help me! He never panicked or tried to shake his head or anything. He just walked to me and let me take it off of his ear (while laughing hysterically). :D

I'm so happy with my boy. Even though he was bratty toward me in the beginning because of the sudden change in the weather he calmed down and listened well in the end. And he did so well with the trash bags. I knew he'd be good with them, but I expected at least a tiny spook. I mean those adult horses who trail ride up mountains and across huge rivers were completely panicked by those white bags. I'm impressed with my brave boy.