You win some, you lose some.

my favorite tree at the farm

Saturday was one of those perfect days where I would have killed for a buddy to go for a 3 hour hack with. Sadly, my riding friends were busy so I blasted through my Saturday morning chores so I could get down to business. Riley made me walk the length of his field to get him and he was NOT happy about coming out of there. Now that he's back in a program, leaving the field = work and so he has been blatantly ignoring me when I call him. The spring grass is starting to come in and the boys are thrilled to be grazing in the sun instead of standing knee deep in snow. I had to bribe him down with peppermints, cheeky boy! I do make a habit of tossing him a flake of hay or some grain when he comes in so it's not always a terrible experience (ahem, sarcasm). I thought we take advantage of the finally stable (ish) footing and at least get a productive session in with the Pessoa. Sadly, I've only been able to use it on him three times (this time included). He still fights it a little, but at least I got him to track right consistently with only ONE debate. So, minor success there.

Lunging has always been hit or miss with him, mostly because we haven't been in a consistent program, but he's getting much, much better. He listens to voice commands, whoas when I want him to and will stop and not throw his haunches out and body in... which was a major problem before. I want him to politely stop and wait for me to come to him. Period.
Some highlights:

Warm up walk, very exciting stuff.

Warm up trot.

Long and low setting engaged. Riley thinks it's more fun just to fight it.

But at least he was moving out nicely

Starting to relax a little and actually engage his back, good boy.

We got a decent amount of WTC in both directions, with and without the pessoa engaged. It's definitely hard work for him, so we keep the sessions to less than a half hour, but he's not completely unfit either. I want to push him a little further each time, but too far and he definitely gets frazzled.

The weather was so nice I just couldn't help but ride him. I haven't ridden alone at the farm yet, and we don't have a real ring, but I thought a quick cool down hack up and down the road would be a nice start for both of us. I got greedy... and he was NOT amused.

You're putting a saddle on me now? What the hell is going on?

Things started well enough, I mean... I thought the worst of it would be getting him to leave the barn (he can be slightly herd bound -- you can recall my incident of him not wanting to leave his shed when we rode through his field a few weeks ago). He marched down the driveway and up the road without a problem:

Leaving the barn, more alert than usual, but on a relatively loose rein.

nbd.

Here's where I should have made an alternate decision about our path. The new cows (50) are in the field here on the right. Way down the road they were up on the hill maybe 30 feet from the fence line. As you can see on either side, the further you go along the grass the higher the bank is down to the road. That makes for little error room as the path really narrows toward the top of the hill. We've hacked up and down this road at least 5 times so it's not a big deal, but we've only gone up the banked hill once (maybe) and it was with company. So we plugged along obviously carefree enough that I took out my phone and took photos. But just beyond the tree here on the right Riley started smelling the cows. it was really windy and we were of course downwind so he started getting nappy. Nappiness is a behavior I REALLY hate and it's gotten me in to trouble with him before. I booted him forward after a few fits of not wanting to move and instead stare at the cows (who by the way, were not moving or making any noise) but when we got to the top of the hill he had a mini-meltdown.

Meltdown to occur up by the tree on the left. Danger!

The same maneuver of stopping and backing up, but this time we were on the edge of a VERY large bank. The more I protested the more defiant he got. Before I knew it, he spun 180 degrees, bolted for a stride and I was on the ground, reins in hand. UGH. I had just enough time to realize what was happening and kicked my stirrups free before he dumped me. I don't know if that was a good thing or bad.

HAR DEE HAR HAR, you thought I was a quiet 5 year old!

I waved to the farm owners across the field, let Riley confront his demons with the cows and then debated making the loooong walk of shame back to the barn.

But, as we all know the best thing to do when you come off is to get right back on. That wasn't completely an option at the top of the hill, but I found a spot whee I could use the bank as a sort of mounting block and we had to have a little "discussion" about standing still for mounting. And by discussion, I mean when he walked away laterally 5 feet with one foot in the stirrup (twice), he got a spanking. Not cool dude, not cool. Then he stood stock still like he's been doing it his whole life. Butthead.

But, I got back on and we had a pleasant hack back to the barn. I think I can consider the whole day a good learning experience. He definitely needs more miles out on his own, but next time I won't push him so far mentally all at once. I want to set him up for positive experiences and I knew I was taking a risk by hacking up the hill RIGHT next to the cows instead of taking the safe route on the road. Ah well.

What is it that GM says? "Go to the hospital or get back on"