Grace Rides Around the Neighborhood

This morning Grace and I saddled up and put on her snaffle bit, then used the arena here at home.  Despite having several days off while I was out of town, she didn't need any lunging.  So I just climbed on from the black mounting block and off we went.  We did some walking and trotting in the arena, practiced turning using my seat, and only briefly tried to pounce on my assistant, Miles the border collie.  Grace said it was just so much fun to be out of her paddock and chasing him!

After we had ridden over all the jumps, ground poles, and shimmied around tight spots between jump standards we decided to try something new.  We practiced opening the gate to the arena, with lots of forwards and backwards until we were close enough to unfasten the latch.  Grace is so patient and such a thinker, she just keeps trying until she gets it right.  Once we had opened the gate we went for a walk around the big south pasture, then practiced opening the pasture gate.  Then we rode down the driveway, up the road, through the empty field, and out into the neighborhood.  We did have to pause to look at the neighbor's alpacas and llamas, but when Miles said it wasn't a big deal and ignored them so did Grace.  We went up and down through some ditches along the gravel road, and then turned around to head home.

When we got home I discovered Grace had been thinking really hard about the bit.  She was wagging her tongue out the left side of her mouth at me.  When I dismounted to check things I found she had put her tongue over the bit.  Normally the bit should sit in the horse's mouth on top of the tongue.  I generally start a horse with the snaffle bit so that it rests in the mouth with two wrinkles in the corner on each side of the horse's lips.  If the horse wants it to hang higher or lower in the mouth she'll tell me.  Grace has a really fuzzy face, and when I bridled her this morning I couldn't tell exactly how high the bit was hanging, and I erred on the side of too long.  Putting her tongue over the bit was Grace's way of telling me that she preferred the bit to be higher in her mouth to really be comfortable.  Wagging her tongue at me was how she got my attention that the bridle needed adjusting.  I dropped the bridle down so she could get her tongue back underneath the bit, and then I fixed it by raising the bit one hole in the leather.  Grace then kept the snaffle where it was supposed to be in her mouth and was more relaxed.  I mounted again, this time from her right side, and we walked around the arena some more to make sure she liked where the bit was this way.  She seemed just fine with it, her mouth was completely quiet.

Then we untacked and groomed some more, since Grace has turned out to be a champion of wallowing in the mud.  I washed her tail and put conditioner in it, then braided it into a bag in an attempt to keep it clean between now and the horse expo.  She didn't mind the fuss, she was only concerned about the smell of the shampoo.  Similar to the concern with the spray bottle of waterless cleaner, it's unfamiliar smells that bother her.  To overcome this, I've been using the herd to help her.  All the other horses here are used to these funny smells and human nonsense, so I've been regularly tying the other horses immediately next to Grace's stall and paddock and spraying them with waterless cleaner, hair polish, bathing them, and using the clippers.  Grace has now watched 10 different horses be cleaned and groomed repeatedly with funny smelling stuff with absolutely no concern from the other horses.  She's decided that maybe it's not a big deal after all.  I love using the horses to teach each other, they learn so much from watching and by example.