I rode my horse.

After who knows how long, I actually rode my horse on Sunday. And Monday.

What is this witchcraft?

Sunday started off with lots and lots of neighbor noises. Chainsaws and leaf blowers and other “fun” sounds. But clickers and cookies and groundwork and Nay quickly focused in on work. Anyway, I tacked him up before groundwork, thinking that if he was quiet, I’d get on, and if not, no worries.

And he was good! I’ve ben working on lunging to the right. The right in general has been a struggle. He isn’t bad. But he falls in. So, lately I’ve just been pushing him out on our circle. Nothing crazy, just respecting space while also forcing him to use muscles he doesn’t want to use. Each time, it gets better. (we’re sort of/kind of lunging but also not? Not working on a huge circle or worrying about speed, just following commands).

Anyway, I got on. Which earned someone a click and cookie. And walked. And explored. He was VERY good. It appears Nay really likes walking over logs. A lot.

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I also trotted. I short half loop in each direction. It went fine. Nothing exciting, but fine. Regardless, he was the best boy ever.

I had some time on Monday so we headed out to repeat our exercises.

A brief lunge. Exercises over our 4 poles (spaced out like a clock) at the walk and trot both ways — he’s getting so much better! And ignoring the neighbors and their weird music and whistling. Following all this? I got on. It went well. Again. Easy walking and exploring and weed eating. We walked our logs and explored and listened to Jiminy call when we left his view. And then. Then. THEN. We trotted.

Spicy.

I mean, not at first. We trotted. At little in and on the edge of control but it was fine. And then someone stupidly trotted a log. You see, Nay was hyper focused on his log. Like stupid hyper focused. So I agreed. We had a slow and in control trot at that point so why not? You know why not? Because the entire wooded area is not flat. So we trotted and got super enthusiastic. There was squealing. And head tossing. But it was fine. So we trotted to the right. The right was quieter. Except we trotted the top area. And there was another log (I completely forgot about this log), but this log is smaller so I figured we’d be fine.

HAHAHAHAHA.

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It was a log you could post over, but someone decided he needed to jump over it and try to buck on the landing. Going slightly downhill because that’s what you do. Right? So we got regrouped without walking and continued trotting without breaking to the walk. And it was fine. And being stupid, after a while, we reattempted the bigger log a few times, landing, halting, backing. So after a few spicy logs with a spicy, happy horse (JUMP — an 18 inch log at that), I figured I’d trot a circle and call it a day.

HAHAHAHAHA.

Nope.

SAY SPICY SPICY came out.

You see, trotting isn’t fun. Backing isn’t fun, and not jumping isn’t fun. But what’s especially not fun? Being told what to do.

Someone got angry spicy.

Yep.

He started grunting and swinging his head and squealing (we had to spin a few times). Then, I yelled “grrrr” back at him ever time he did anything and we trotted for 15 minutes until we looked like a horse instead of a spicy rolling meatball. I’m not sure it was ever pretty or perfect, but it was better than the ugliness he tried to roll out. He did try to toss out his best “I’m trying to scare you” tricks, but instead got my “grrrrrrr trot spicy meatball” response. He was thoroughly confused.

FYI, at no point did I growl. I literally just said “grrrr.” It seemed to work.

(yes, the log was a bad idea, but it uncovered the holes that needed to be uncovered, plus he was entirely too happy about it).