Horse Still Scared

I headed over to the barn to feed and ride this afternoon about 4:00 pm. I brought everyone in and got them fed but just as I was getting ready to get Louie out to saddle him up, the horse that is scared of Louie was brought into the arena. This horse had been doing a little better about the whole mule thing the past few weeks. Still not calm enough to ride but his owner was at least able to lead him near and by the gate to our side of the barn. Today the horse was right back to square one and having a complete meltdown. Snorting, blowing, spinning and bolting around. I feel bad for this woman and understand her frustrations. I wish there was something I could do to help with this situation.

It was close to 5:00 pm when she left the arena. I then quickly tacked Louie up and brought him into the arena to do a little bit of lunging first. There was someone in the arena taking a lesson. So, I stayed out of the way and lunged as quietly as I could. That brought about a kind of neat revelation though as I was giving my voice commands barely above a whisper and Louie was right in tune to me responding quickly and correctly every time. I didn't lunge long as he was so nice and quite.

I took Louie out of the arena so I could put his lunge line away and put his bridle on. There was a lot of activity at the barn tonight. There are some people moving into the apartment and getting ready to move  some horses in this coming weekend. Just as I was leading Louie through the gate back into the arena, someone fired up a power tool in a stall that is on the arena side wall. This spooked Louie and he squirted through the gate. I was not happy Louie spooked but I was pleased that he kept his eye on me and didn't get into my space, nor did he pull me. He just quickly turned around when he came to the end of the reins. The woman that had been riding in the arena was just leaving with her horse out the gate on the other side of the arena and Louie and I now had the arena to ourselves. But there were still a lot of distractions with people moving around up in the hayloft over our side of the barn and a couple vehicles went by the barn, tires crunching loudly on the icy snow along with the power tool still being used intermittantly. All this got Louie a bit nervous. I decided to ride anyway as he did seem to be paying attention to me despite all the worrisome distractions. Before getting on I did some lateral flexing with the bit from the ground. I was very surprised, and pleased to see he flexed quickly and easily. So, I climbed aboard. Louie stood very quiet and didn't move at all until I asked him to. Louie stayed worried throughout our ride but it was really a very good ride. He payed attention to me the whole time and did all that I asked of him. He was light to both leg and rein pressure and the one time that he did do a spook, he only scooted off a short way and stopped quickly when I asked him to. We kept it to a walk and trot. And worked on yeilding to leg pressure with some turns on the forehand in each direction. I was just so pleased that he didn't tune me out and that he kept trying so hard to do what I asked of him even though he was worried. So, I can chalk this up to another good mule day!