I had a quiet day at home today. I had morning chores at the barn but had a few errands to run so didn't ride. But, this evening, Fred headed out with his brother to do..... guy things.....looking at guns and such. They did invite me to go along with them. I almost did as I knew they would be going out to eat somewhere and I LOVE going out to eat. It was a hard choice, food, ride my mule, food, ride my mule....In the end I decided to go to the barn and ride Louie. I arrived at the barn around 6:00 pm. MaryJo was there and was getting ready to ride Tanguary. I went into the arena and set up some ground poles and a cross rail jump. MaryJo got out a big tarp and spread that out. I groomed and tacked up and took Louie into the arena to lunge him first. He spotted the tarp the minute he went through the gate and gave it the hairy eyeball. But, he's seen plenty of tarps before. The only difference is this one is black and the ones I have are blue.
Louie was very quiet on the lunge line. He did the cross rail jump in a big way making me think maybe we would leave that for another day after more practicing on the lunge line. When I got on him, he stood like a very good boy. But, once we got riding he was a bit silly. But then it was about this time that the horse that is afraid of the mules started doing deep belly snorts from his stall. Louie was not bad, but not focused and not keeping a steady pace. His steering was ok. He did very well over the ground poles and was good about walking over the tarp. Though, every time MaryJo rode over it, the sound would startle him a little. But, he didn't do anything but flinch. At one point Marie started pitching such a huge fit in her stall about Louie being out of sight that I started to worry about her. She carried on LOUDLY for quite a while, even kicking the stall walls. Then she suddenly got so quiet that I was worried she had coliced and died! Stupid horse.
At one point as Louie and I were trotting along the arena wall, we got down to the corner by where the storage closet is and suddenly Louie did a BIG spook. No, I can't call it a spook, what he did was way to fast for the average spook. What he did was suddenly teleport about 30 feet to the side. He dropped his shoulder a little when he did this and suddenly I found myself hanging off the side of my mule. I had that moment when I just knew for sure that I was going to do a face plant on the ground, then suddenly realized that I was hanging off but not sliding any further and Louie was not moving, THANKFULLY! I then realized that the back of my foot had hooked onto the cantle of my saddle. So, I threw my arm up over Louie's neck, managed to get a grip on his breast collar and pull myself back into the saddle. Phew!!! So, while I was not pleased that Louie decided to try out his teleportation skills, I was very pleased that he stopped and stood quietly after and did not freak out over my ..... fancy trick riding. Silly mule!!! Once I sorted myself out and was all back in place, we proceeded with our ride. He did keep snorting when we approached this corner for some unknown reason and I had to use a lot of leg pressure to keep him moving here, but he behaved himself.
So, it was a good ride in that he is no longer focusing on me so hard with worry. He is much more relaxed about me. But, not that he's not so worried about me, he's starting to goof off and be silly. That's ok though, gives us something to work on. All in all it was another good ride. We MaryJo and I were done riding, we turned Louie and her gelding, Arthur out in the arena together while we picked up and put away all our props. Louie and Arthur have never been together before. It was fun watching them. They were very good with each other. Arthur pushed Louie around a little then Louie finally stood his ground. Then Arthur didn't know quite what to do with Louie. They did play and run and so a lot of sniffing at each other. Arthur would squeal and paw the air with a front leg. Watching them together made me notice how much Louie has filled out since I got him. Louie and Arthur are about the same height. But, Arthur is a Mustang and only 4, Louie is 7. Louie looked pretty beefy beside Arthur. Louie is not at all "drafty" but he has matured into a pretty solid little guy.
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