I think
I’ve been waiting to use that as a blog title for quite some time. Ol’ Silver is finally broke. We took delivery on him shortly after the
last entry. He was pretty green, but the
guy did a good job on him. He didn’t neck
rein all that well, and he was hard to motivate to move, but he’s safe. That’s when he’s being ridden. He has never gotten over the trauma of being
stuck with needles and tied to posts and castrated. He is still very squeamish during the whole saddling
process. At first, I was very good about
riding him 3-5 times a week, but bad weather, trips, and working late has cut
that back. If I don’t saddle him every
other day, he tends to forget that it’s okay.
Here’s
the process. I feed him, lunge him for
about 5-10 minutes. He is getting really
good at responding to verbal commands.
Then, I throw a surcingle over his back a couple of times and tighten it
up. He shies away from this at
first. At least, part of it is shying
away; part of it is just not wanting to be messed with. I am doing all of this, while holding
him. He had such trauma when tied that I
want to get him desensitized first, then start tying him again. So, I put the surcingle on and usually I can
cinch him up with that without issue.
After that, I throw the blanket on a couple of times. Again, if I’ve messed with him recently, he
takes the blanket easily. Then, comes
the saddle dance. Sometimes, I have to
chase him around a couple of times holding this heavy thing in the air with
enough lead line slack that I can get the saddle to his back. Of course, that is also enough slack that he
can just move away from me. However, he
frequently stands still once I get close enough and have the saddle lifted as
high as his back. Once he stands, he’s
good about letting me get the skirts turned down and it in place. By this point, his ears are glued to the
rear. Not angry, just keenly interested
in anything that goes on around his back.
I talk to him, pet him, touch him a lot around the belly. Then, I switch hands with the lead. By the way, I always carry my Air Force Pilot
Survival knife on my belt. I figure that
if he takes off and I get tangled in 25 feet of lead line, I can draw that
knife and cut myself free pretty quick.
I used to carry one just like it on my body armor in Iraq to cut myself
or someone else out of a seatbelt if necessary.
Now, I switch hands, move around to the other side and ease the girths
and stirrup off the seat. I ease back
around and grab the saddle, wiggling it and talking to him. Up to now, there’s no huge risk. Obviously, we don’t want him to get spooked,
but if he does, he just drops the saddle on the ground. That’s only happened once. The sniptious part is where I have one girth
strapped on, but not the back, or even worse, the girth in the process of
cinching down, but not tight. If he
jumped and that saddle rolled, but couldn’t come off, that’ll hurt the horse
(and the saddle). So, I rub him real
good where the girth goes, then reach under and grab the girth and pull it up
to his belly, then relax it. Then I make
a couple of loops through the D-ring, enough to where I could pull it up quick
and have a hope of holding it on.
Finally, I pull it up and cinch it.
Not too tight, but good enough to hold it in place for at least a couple
of jumps. Then, I hastily buckle the
back girth. Whew. Now, he’s secure. After all of that foolderah you might think
that he would know the saddle’s back there, but nonetheless, if it’s been a
couple of days, he’ll jump and even pitch a time or two when he steps off. So, I lead him around at arm’s length. I walk him about 30 yards, then tighten him
up. I reach back to touch him on his
belly. Sometimes he’ll shy at
first. After about 10 minutes of walking
him around, I bridle him and mount with no issues.
Obviously,
he needs a lot of work still. Summer
will provide the opportunity for a lot of wet saddle blankets. That is the solution, of course. Tuesday, he fidgeted, he jumped, he shied during
this process. Wednesday, I had him
lunged and saddled in 25 minutes with no issues. I had to skip last night, but will work him
again first thing when I get home today.
I have
no idea about the rest of the ranch. I
think we have some cows still. Anna says
we do. Maybe I’ll visit them this
weekend. We have had trouble finding the
tags we need. Once we do, we’ll begin a
concentrated effort to get our calves all tagged so we can match them up
well. Who knows, maybe by the end of the
summer, I’ll have a cow horse.
