Ah, the joys of Spring
Aug. 15th, 2007 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherExcept its almost Autumn but that's just a small detail. According to my pony, its spring.
I blame Jag, the lovely new gelding my Barn Owner just purchased as her new dressage mount. Jag is big and buff and doesn't quite realize what he's missing, if you know what I mean. He is also Tisa's new neighbor and spends hours making kissy faces with her through their stall bars. So yeah, my pony is in love*. That wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for that fact that her brain completely disengages when her hormones are flowing.
Kris and I headed over to Great Brook Farm for a nice trail ride. Despite being the barn's biggest hussy**, Tisa is completely uninterested in Kris's old guy, Edison. Couldn't care less about him. They make a great trail team, since between the two of them, they are willing to face down or go through anything.
I figured going out with Edison would mean that I might actually get through a ride without needing ear plugs. Most of our ride was just slow meandering and a little bit of "canter to the next turn?" sort of thing. Riding a brainless horse wasn't really much of a safety issue when you're just following a 28 year old quarter horse's tail.
Then we found the cross country course.
I KNEW she didn't have the concentration to actually run the course(or heck, even just a line of jumps) but I figured, one little fence won't hurt anyone. I'm talking maybe 18 inches high, something she could step over. Tisa is (normally) an honest, slightly lazy jumper and will trot anything under 2 feet unless I push her.
So we come into that first jump at a nice, rocking horse canter ... until we're about 15 feet away. Then her head came up, her butt went down and even I could see her going "mom, there's a fence! Mom, there's a FENCE! MOM, FENCE!!! FEEENNCEEE!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!"
The "AAAAHHHHH!" part might have been me.
She cleared that 18 inch fence like it was 5 feet tall. She then proceeded to gallop out of the jump like hell itself was chasing her.
So, um, yeah, never done THAT before.
I got her back to a trot and did the tried and true "engage your horse's brain through leg yielding" exercises. We did shoulder-in and trotting turns on the haunches. We kept at it until I was pretty sure I had her head firmly back on her neck and attached to the ends of my reins. Then we tried trotting the fence again.
It went something like this:
"trot, trot, trot, trot, trot, MOM, FENCE! AAAAAHHHHHH!"
Okay. Re-engage brain again. Trot it again. That time, it was just a nice
"trot, trot, trot, trot, step over annoying fence, trot, trot, trot".
YAY! Progress.
We do it again and try to pick up the canter out the other side.
"trot, trot, trot, trot, step over annoying fence, canter, canter, canter".
Excellent.
Again, this time with speed.
"canter, canter, canter, pop over annoying fence, canter, canter".
Wooohoo.
One last time to make SURE we're good:
"canter, canter, canter, MOM, FENCE! FEEEENNNNCCCEEEE!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH! ITS GONNA EAT MEEEE! "
Kris, at the point, was laughing her ass off and clinging to a very confused Edison's neck. I mean, the AAAAAHHHHHH jumps would put a deer to shame. Poing, straight up, then straight back down, then full gallop out the other side.
Yeah, I should have quit while I was ahead. The rest of the ride, Kris kept pointing out the huge cross country jumps and going "come on, Jo, she's got height to spare today". Um, yeah, thanks.
After our ride, we un-tacked the horses and let them hand graze while we ate a picnic lunch. During most of the day, the only outward sign of Tisa's current physical state was the fact that she lacked a brain. She was well behaved, just a little on the silly side of spooky and falsely convinced that fences eat horses that jump them. However, once the tack came off and she was no longer working, the true nature of her condition re-asserted itself.
Nothing is quite as embarrassing as a horny mare doing the "I'm so pretty" dance and flirting with every horse-like object in sight. It was a nice day. There were lots of horses at the park. Every single one of them HAD to be flirted with, just in case they might be interested. Mare, gelding, didn't matter.
And since Tisa is a modern, open minded mare, a lot of other "might be a horse-like objects" got flirted with too. Like a couple bikers ... and a picnic table ... and a small volkswagen, much to the horror of the passengers inside ***.
I'm sure those poor people didn't plan on having that particular anatomy discussion with their young charges that day. I guess they need to learn the facts of life at some point but, sheesh ...
Once we got home, Tisa went back to playing kissy face through the stall bars with Jag. I didn't have the heart to tell him that she was ready to throw him over for a hot set of wheels on a family car.
----------------------------------------------------------
* - Love, for those of you who haven't been around horses in season, is actually screaming mad lust. And I mean the screaming part too. Full volume, body shaking. completely deafening screaming.
** - I can always tell who is riding a stallion at a show ... its the horse that Tisa just will NOT stop whickering and making eyeballs at.
*** - Mares are not known for the subtle, "less is more" style of flirting. Oh no, they go for the obvious, in your face, "this is EXACTLY what I'm offering, bub" approach. Not something you want anywhere near your windshield. Trust me on this.
I blame Jag, the lovely new gelding my Barn Owner just purchased as her new dressage mount. Jag is big and buff and doesn't quite realize what he's missing, if you know what I mean. He is also Tisa's new neighbor and spends hours making kissy faces with her through their stall bars. So yeah, my pony is in love*. That wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for that fact that her brain completely disengages when her hormones are flowing.
Kris and I headed over to Great Brook Farm for a nice trail ride. Despite being the barn's biggest hussy**, Tisa is completely uninterested in Kris's old guy, Edison. Couldn't care less about him. They make a great trail team, since between the two of them, they are willing to face down or go through anything.
I figured going out with Edison would mean that I might actually get through a ride without needing ear plugs. Most of our ride was just slow meandering and a little bit of "canter to the next turn?" sort of thing. Riding a brainless horse wasn't really much of a safety issue when you're just following a 28 year old quarter horse's tail.
Then we found the cross country course.
I KNEW she didn't have the concentration to actually run the course(or heck, even just a line of jumps) but I figured, one little fence won't hurt anyone. I'm talking maybe 18 inches high, something she could step over. Tisa is (normally) an honest, slightly lazy jumper and will trot anything under 2 feet unless I push her.
So we come into that first jump at a nice, rocking horse canter ... until we're about 15 feet away. Then her head came up, her butt went down and even I could see her going "mom, there's a fence! Mom, there's a FENCE! MOM, FENCE!!! FEEENNCEEE!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!"
The "AAAAHHHHH!" part might have been me.
She cleared that 18 inch fence like it was 5 feet tall. She then proceeded to gallop out of the jump like hell itself was chasing her.
So, um, yeah, never done THAT before.
I got her back to a trot and did the tried and true "engage your horse's brain through leg yielding" exercises. We did shoulder-in and trotting turns on the haunches. We kept at it until I was pretty sure I had her head firmly back on her neck and attached to the ends of my reins. Then we tried trotting the fence again.
It went something like this:
"trot, trot, trot, trot, trot, MOM, FENCE! AAAAAHHHHHH!"
Okay. Re-engage brain again. Trot it again. That time, it was just a nice
"trot, trot, trot, trot, step over annoying fence, trot, trot, trot".
YAY! Progress.
We do it again and try to pick up the canter out the other side.
"trot, trot, trot, trot, step over annoying fence, canter, canter, canter".
Excellent.
Again, this time with speed.
"canter, canter, canter, pop over annoying fence, canter, canter".
Wooohoo.
One last time to make SURE we're good:
"canter, canter, canter, MOM, FENCE! FEEEENNNNCCCEEEE!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH! ITS GONNA EAT MEEEE! "
Kris, at the point, was laughing her ass off and clinging to a very confused Edison's neck. I mean, the AAAAAHHHHHH jumps would put a deer to shame. Poing, straight up, then straight back down, then full gallop out the other side.
Yeah, I should have quit while I was ahead. The rest of the ride, Kris kept pointing out the huge cross country jumps and going "come on, Jo, she's got height to spare today". Um, yeah, thanks.
After our ride, we un-tacked the horses and let them hand graze while we ate a picnic lunch. During most of the day, the only outward sign of Tisa's current physical state was the fact that she lacked a brain. She was well behaved, just a little on the silly side of spooky and falsely convinced that fences eat horses that jump them. However, once the tack came off and she was no longer working, the true nature of her condition re-asserted itself.
Nothing is quite as embarrassing as a horny mare doing the "I'm so pretty" dance and flirting with every horse-like object in sight. It was a nice day. There were lots of horses at the park. Every single one of them HAD to be flirted with, just in case they might be interested. Mare, gelding, didn't matter.
And since Tisa is a modern, open minded mare, a lot of other "might be a horse-like objects" got flirted with too. Like a couple bikers ... and a picnic table ... and a small volkswagen, much to the horror of the passengers inside ***.
I'm sure those poor people didn't plan on having that particular anatomy discussion with their young charges that day. I guess they need to learn the facts of life at some point but, sheesh ...
Once we got home, Tisa went back to playing kissy face through the stall bars with Jag. I didn't have the heart to tell him that she was ready to throw him over for a hot set of wheels on a family car.
----------------------------------------------------------
* - Love, for those of you who haven't been around horses in season, is actually screaming mad lust. And I mean the screaming part too. Full volume, body shaking. completely deafening screaming.
** - I can always tell who is riding a stallion at a show ... its the horse that Tisa just will NOT stop whickering and making eyeballs at.
*** - Mares are not known for the subtle, "less is more" style of flirting. Oh no, they go for the obvious, in your face, "this is EXACTLY what I'm offering, bub" approach. Not something you want anywhere near your windshield. Trust me on this.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 09:31 pm (UTC)ohgod XD XD XD *dies*
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 10:47 pm (UTC)Gypsy doesn't even react to the barn's stallion, and he is always preening. Got me a butch mare...
no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 10:49 pm (UTC)And speaking of embarassing, I don't know if you have this issue with Tisa, but the mare-squirting thing is just always pretty gross, no matter how many times they do it.... (and with ghost, that's -a lot-)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 12:42 am (UTC)BTW Annie was already bred at the time - she was one of those who seems to have heat cycles even when she's pregnant.
The horse in my userpix is Blacki
no subject
Date: 2007-08-16 05:03 am (UTC)