Seven, Day 1...

The pony got a new name yesterday. Hanna's hubbie saw a picture of him and called him Seven. It really seems to fit his personality... 7 is the number of infinity and he seems to have infinite possibilities. The number 7 also represents the 7-headed snake in biblical mythology and I'm pretty sure I saw all 7 last night (loving, bratty, inquisitive, pushy, tentative, obedient and indifferent). Yup... definitely a good name for this guy.

So, not to be one to waste time I decided to pull Seven out of his pen last night and saddle him up and pony him off of Flash. I figured this would give me a good idea of what I'm really dealing with as far as where the training gaps are. He has the Parelli stuff down when in an environment he knows, but I needed to see what I'm up against when faced with a lot of new things (because endurance racing is nothing but a whole lot of new things over and over and over again... new places, new horses, new trails, new obstacles, etc).

I tied him to the trailer next to Flash and began my saddling ritual... groom, pick feet, saddle up and go. He did fine on the grooming part. We had to do some work on the feet part. He tried to snatch his feet away from me so we just worked through it and in no time I had all 4 feet picked out. Then I introduced him to fly spray. This did not go well... but I just kept spraying until he stood still... then I stopped. And then I repeated what I was doing. He wasn't thrilled by the end but he did get the general idea. Then it was saddle time. He had no problem with this at all... but I did take off the breast collar and the stirrups for our first trip out.

This saddle stuff is easy...

Just keep that fly spray away from me...

We did have a small problem with patience while standing tied. That lesson will come. Flash kept trying to tell him not to fret, but Seven wasn't really listening. And I just ignored him until he was standing nicely... then I gave him a ton of praise. I will say he was a tad amped up after the fly spray, but that's fine. He needs to learn to work through new things without having a melt-down. This will just be one of many lessons to come.

Then it was time to head off to the trails. Flash was a saint and put up with Seven crashing into him every time he saw something scary (which was all the time... sheesh). I finally took my foot out of the stirrup and he got a boot toe in the side every time he invaded our space. Not sure he was grasping the concept, but it was getting better towards the end. He was a very forward horse, which is good. However, his default response to scary stuff was to bolt. Not good. Need to make sure that there are very good brakes before we go venturing out on our own.

He handled the hills pretty well, picking his way carefully down. However, when it came to crossing the road we had a bit of a mishap. I wasn't really paying attention and didn't realize that he was having serious issues with the big, white, scary stripe of death on the road. Seven took one look at that and hurled himself over the line. Bonus: he jumps quite nicely. But we had to go back across the big, white, scary stripe of death several times before he would just nicely step over it. And the last time he actually even stepped on it. Good boy.

He also handled other horses running and bucking in their pasture next to the trail like a champ. He stopped and checked them out and was content to just stand. Good boy. However, he was not a fan of the dogs stopping to check stuff out on the side of the trail and then come up behind him and pass...

Why does that fluffy marshmallow feel the need to be behind me?

Seven: You'll protect me right?

Flash: Get off me dude...

Flash was pretty forgiving of Seven through most of the ride, although he did give him cranky ears a few times to tell him to get out of his bubble. And Seven is very bad at yielding to pressure while being ponied. Definitely need to do some work there. But overall, he did pretty well considering.

However, when we got back to the trailer he had another blow-up. I tied him to the back of the trailer instead of to the side where Flash was (because he can paw to his heart's content back there and I don't care). Seven decided he didn't like that and started acting like a toddler who was told that they couldn't have that piece of candy. It was quite funny actually. I remember Flash pulling those same antics. And Seven learned last night what Flash learned when he was young... asshole horses stand tied to the trailer until they aren't acting like assholes anymore. 

You could actually see the hamster running in his little noggin... he just couldn't figure out why I wasn't running to correct him, sooth him, whatever. Finally after about 15 minutes he decided to just stand there, at which point I walked up to him and began giving him some love. But he's going to get tied to the trailer by himself for a while every night. And if he's good it'll be a quick grooming session, some love and back to the pen. If he's a jerk, then he'll stay tied until he's not a jerk anymore. It only took Flash a few times to figure out that it's just not worth it. I'm pretty sure that Seven will be the same. Good horse gets love. Bad horse gets ignored. Simple as that...

I think this is going to be a fun training project. And it'll be a good reminder for when I get Goodwin going too...