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Re: Pony prices and training



Horse monsters on the road can be scary. One day Star got me when we were
attempting our first 10 mile ride (we've come a long way since then) all on
the road. He had been an angel for about 6 miles, then we rode past an oil
well that was squeaking. He'd seen other oil wells, but not heard them. He
was really eyballing that, when at the same time, my dogs jumped up out of
a roadside ditch.

That sent him over the edge. He did a hellofa sideways hop and landed with
all four feet smack on the ground, stiff-legged. I went flying off and
landed butt first on a gravel road. Now gravel in Kansas is more like 2"
rocks, not little pea gravel.

Star looked quite apologetic, didn't run away or anything, and we got back
on. The only way to get home was past MORE oil wells, a whole field of
them! This time he kept a good eye on those horse-eating monsters, but
didn't bolt or jump. We had 4 miles to go with my very sore tush.

Someday I'll go back there to see how he reacts, now that I've got my
Aussie saddle and I won't go flying out, right, but since that time I've
discovered many much more scenic places to ride...Getting a trailer really
was nice...it's ugly, but safe.

chris paus & star

At 08:54 AM 1/11/98 EST, Naztari wrote:
>Because of horse transportation problems, I am having to ride my horse on
>roads also. He can be pretty spooky but seems to trust me when it comes to
>individual monsters. My problem is that when we get to 2 monsters I have a
>problem. He is not afraid of alot of things that he should have more respect
>for. Cars and dogs don't bother him. Yesterday on our ride we had 2
situations
>that got a little hairy in my mind. First, a backhoe was coming up the road
>toward us. I moved him to the opposite side of the road. He started getting
>antsy because of this large, funny looking, noisy machine. Then on our
side of
>the road came a pit bull. I knew the backhoe wasn't going to get us but
wasn't
>so sure about the pit bull. He looked serious as we started to violate his
>territory. Well, Sawyer could care less about any barking and growling
dog, so
>he continued to move further into the dogs territory. Yuk. We ended up
without
>attack from either monster but it sure did make me nervous. The other thing
>that Sawyer does is he'll take a wide sweep around some inanimate monsters.
>Even if that means getting in the way of cars (which he could care less
>about). That happened as we were coming off a bridge and the end railing had
>all his attention and a car coming towards the bridge gave him no concern
>whatsoever and he moved out into the middle of the road and no amount of
>prodding would get him back towards the rail. There was no real danger as the
>car had slowed down enough to stop if necessary but it is still not the place
>to be. Anyway, we have work to do.
>
>Ed and Sawyer who wishes we had the truck and trailer back to get outta these
>scary places.
>
>
>



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