Danny (but mostly Hap)

February 05, 2007 – Click on image for higher resolution version.

This detail is from Danny, a small paint-arabian cross who is my trainer’s school horse.

Today, the weather was fabulous. It was so beautiful that I threw the bareback pad on Hap and see if he was still absolutely the best bareback pony in Colorado.

Hap has been back at my trainer’s for several months. One of her junior students had been leasing my trainer’s old Thoroughbred mare Sassy. However, Sassy had injured herself, and the kid didn’t get on with any of the other horses that she might lease at my trainer’s. Right before Thanksgiving, the kid, her father, and my trainer came over to my place to see if Hap, who hadn’t been ridden in a year, might work for the kid. I got on him first, in the small round pen we have here. Just getting him to the round pen, Hap acted more like a three-year old than a 21 year old. I turned him loose in the round pen, and after he ran around for a bit, went inside and started getting him to respond to my commands from the ground. When he looked like he was paying at least some attention, I mounted him and started asking him to walk around the round pen, with lots of turns on the haunches and leg yielding to get him to focus on me rather than Rags, who was screaming from the barn. Once I thought I had about 80% of his attention, I asked him to trot, and worked on lots of transitions and reverses until he was (for Hap, at least) on the aids. We switched out saddles, and put the kid up. She is a pretty rider, but not a very assertive one. She and Hap got on very well, to the extent that when my trainer asked me if I thought she should canter, I said sure.

A few days later, I hauled Hap over to my trainer’s, where Hap slid back into the gelding field as if he had never been gone.

There has been just one little problem: Hap, who is usually the typical Thoroughbred Eveready bunny, pretty much goes to sleep with the kid, at least when she is working by herself. I constantly have to dial my energy level down when I work with hotbloods, but the kid obviously needs to learn to dial her energy levels up.

So partly I was riding Hap today to see if he would move off my leg, or whether something else might be going on. (I wasn’t really too worried since my trainer reported that the kid had been able to put him on the bit with some coaching the previous weekend.)

Hap loves being ridden in the bareback pad. The first time I gathered up my nerve and tried him with it, I was absolutely astonished: if he had been a cat, he would have been purring. There wasn’t much room to ride in the arena, what with all the snow, but there was enough that I was able to work circles and reverses at the walk and trot. And Hap moved as lightly off my leg as if I had been riding him every day for a year. We really have to figure out how to get the kid to become a little more assertive without losing her ability to relax horses.