Had one of those mornings at the yard yesterday where every bloody thing I rode decided to be an idiot. You can tell winter is coming and the weather is changing - even the lazy horses are up on their toes, pissing about and generally being stupid.
Hector was the first 'IDIOT'. I took him hacking on Monday and he was being pretty stupid then, leaping about and throwing his head around and generally imagining hedge monsters. My theory was that he was cold and this was upsetting him as he's cold backed anyway... so he'd been kept in overnight. I took him up the school and he proceeded begin the session by pretending to be terrified of the school door, rearing and leaping away when I slid it shut.
the trouble with Hector is that for a 10yr old, he is green as grass and about as balanced as a 3 legged chair. this means when he does decide to be silly, he ends up scaring himself because he can't keep his feet where he wants them. This makes him extremely uncomfortable to ride as you never quite know where he is going to be at the end of each stride. He is also afraid of his mouth and has a dirty buck. Bleugh - sometimes I wonder why i do this job, in particular when I am leaping around the school on 16.3's worth of unschooled TB with its head between its knees.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I rode Pepper next. Pepper is 12hh and knows that he is usually ridden by children. consequently he tends to rodeo if thwarted in anyway. although I am light, I am still 5'7... i hate riding these tiny rodeo ponies cos I can't get my leg on them so if they do buck, I just end up hanging onto the neckstrap with my feet stuck forward round their ears. Hillarious for my boss and any onlookers - extremely uncomfortable for me. Fortunately Pepper is *fat* at the moment so he only bucked once and puffed his way round a couple of 20m circle before I took pity on him and took him back in.
Finished off riding Sovereign who has been lame for the last month. Not having been sat on for 4 weeks hasn't done Sovereign any favours at all. He appears to have forgotten all the training Claire and I put into him and reverted to behaving like a half broken three year old. It was all I could do to hold him in the trot - his eyes were out on stalks, his head went one way, his body anouther and goodness only knows what his back end was doing but it wasn't comfortable... or pretty. Everytime I asked him to go nicely he grabbed the bit and shot off. TBH, it wasn't very fun so I gave him 20mins and got off him, hopefully he will improve again with a bit of work but it is very frustrating because he can go BEAUTIFULL when he wants - he was just in idiot mode.
Left the yard to go to my other job and returned later but couldn't face riding Polly (my own horse) as I thought, knowing my luck, she'll be an idiot as well and she's been a superstar later and I don't want to ruin it :) Another joyful aspect of working with horses - your own always seems to come last in the pecking order. Sometimes I really love my job and I DO still enjoy the challenge of working with the schooling projects but yesterday was just one idiot after another and its only going to get worse when winter arrives properly and everything is in all the time. Oh well, if I do get chucked off and broken, at least that means a few weeks off the mountain of mucking out :-)
