On Memorial Day weekend we help move cows.
I have alluded to Spur being difficult, and made a funny (or meant to be funny) post on Instagram listing some of the things he’s afraid of (people, pigs, gates, ATV’s to name a few) but I thought I would give a little more detail here about my horse and our time in the saddle last weekend.
First of all, Spur is cold-backed. I have been hesitant to say that because I’m sure people will have their opinions about it being a training hole that can be corrected and I’m not going to dispute that opinion but I am going to say that it doesn’t matter if we’ve been riding every day for the last month of if this is the first time I’ve ridden all month long… when I saddle him he will bunch all his muscles up and get humpy. Whether he decides to do anything more than that really depends on the day and his mood.
It’s a two-hour haul from our house to the starting point of this particular cattle drive and we loaded up right about 6:00am and headed out. Once we got there, I immediately started saddling because it takes me a little longer than other people since I still do groundwork before I step on my broke horse.
As expected, he was humpy and watchy from the get-go. At one point, he even walked away from me while I was trying to hike up my jeans to get my foot in the stirrup and someone approached us, not knowing that Spur is afraid of people.
The start of this ride is the scariest for me because we have to go through all the pens (with horses on one side and pigs on the other), cross a culvert, go through a gate, and fall into position among other horses and a bunch of ATV’s. We tried to hold up and wait for the rest of the riders but I made the decision that it would be more wise for us to continue on ahead and wait in a wider area so when the ATV’s went by us, we didn’t feel as trapped.
It’s a bit of a ride to get to the place where the cows had been gathered the day before, the hills in this country are steep and quite large and we did pretty good for a little while until Kelly got off his horse on top of one of the hills to adjust his saddle and Spur decided his world was ending. “Luckily” this horse has taught me to keep a good seat and when his brain scatters and his muscles bunch, I am quick to sit a bit deeper and guide his nose to one side… where his body will follow.
He did well for a time after that, once we got on the cows he enjoyed himself, pinning his ears and keeping them in line. Then we found ourselves below the main trail, following some calves with a fence on our right side and an ATV on the trail to our left. Spur felt trapped, and that was our biggest fall-out of the day. He even got a few hops in before I was able to gather the pieces of his mind back again.
Once we get the cows to our destination pasture everyone hangs out and visits and has some snacks and drinks while we wait for the calves to mother up before we begin the ride back tot he ranch where our pickups and trailers are waiting. Spur especially dislikes this part of the day because I step down (he’s much braver when I’m on his back) and expect him to handle life “on his own” for a while. He humps up and hops around anytime someone moves toward him or even looks like they might move towards him.
Our ride back to the ranch was pretty uneventful. I hung back and waited for all the ATV’s to pass us and then alternated between trotting and loping to catch back up to Kelly and the other riders. At the end of the day I was grateful that this horse has taught me so much and also grateful that I stayed in the saddle… ha!
The moral of the story is Spur does not like to feel trapped. He doesn’t like going through gates because he is blocked in on either side. I have to be careful where I place us when riding in a group because I don’t want to be a wreck nor cause a wreck.
As annoyed as I was for the first part of the day Saturday, he really is improving incrementally. It may not always be as quickly as I would like, but I don’t get to dictate the speed. He keeps trying for me and he has always let me bring his mind back around when it scatters on us.
For that, I am grateful.
