Today was another beautiful day in Capitan. Thank you La Nina. Next year will probably be cold and wet with lots of snow, but this year we are enjoying a mild dry winter. Yes, I know it’s not good since we depend on the winter snows for water, and in the high desert water is all precious, still I will enjoy all the riding I can get while the weather holds. We really need an indoor arena, but like we can afford that? I can dream, but it will be a long time before that is more than a pipe dream let alone a possibility.
Today I decided to set up some small (very small) jumps. I brushed and combed Ibn with high expectations. Silly me. I warmed him up and walked over to the first jump. I let him sniff it, after all it was something new, and it might be dangerous. Then I walked him over to the other jump and he proceeded to knock it down, like it’s not hard to walk over a jump that is only 10” off the ground. All he has to do is to pick up his feet.
Ok my brilliant stallion isn’t quite so smart after all, or maybe he is. We’ll do this on the ground. Leading him, we both walked over both jumps, see that wasn’t so hard after all. Then I led him at a trot over the jumps. Good he actually jumped. Mind you I haven’t jumped in over ten years and if I remember correctly, the last time Moraddinn dumped me. I have considerable trepidation concerning the whole affair. The purpose of this exercise however, is not to turn Ibn into a jumper, but to hone his sense of balance, give him some confidence with something new, and to exercise muscles that will not be used in walking in the hills. It won’t hurt my confidence either.
I get back on Ibn, and we walk over the jumps a couple of times. He seems fairly ok with that, it’s not too much work. Then I ask the unforgivable. I cue him to trot and he of course stops. It’s a favorite thing of his. If he doesn’t want to do something he stops, out comes the quip. Ok I guess she’s serious. We trot around, and yes, he actually jumps over the jump. This is progress. After a couple of times he figures that’s enough and tries to skinny around without success. Life is so hard. We keep at it and he actually goes into a canter, maybe this isn’t so bad after all. I of course am not ready to canter him over the jumps, and besides I’m supposed to be the one making the calls not him, so we canter around and when we line up I take him into a trot and over we both go without incident.
He’s done a good job with something new so we quit on a good note. We still have about an hour to roam the hills. We leave the arena and he pumps himself up for Marina who is no longer in season but in her “kill” mood. Still he prances, always the showoff. I try to tell him you really don’t want to go anywhere near her, but he pays no heed. I take a different route today, and sadly remember I forgot the camera. Oh well too late now.
We go across the road to the east. There’s a valley below that at places is a bit rough. We come to the first crevice and he baulks. Somehow my macho stallion has been replaced by a whoose. It’s a little crevice with a few loose rocks. You’d think I was asking him to go down a steep gorge. My great stallion has become a prissy city slicker. I keep telling him he’s an Arabian. He goes anywhere, does anything, he is fearless in the face of unbeatable odds. But that’s scary, hey at least he went into the woods without baulking. We are making progress. We get past the gully and I see a buck with a medium size rack. Ibn thankfully doesn’t see him, and I turn him in the opposite direction. Does are fine but bucks can be nasty if they think they are being threatened. There are huge sinkholes, and gullies, and we continue north and east as far as we can. Finally we get to Brewer’s fence line, which is pretty much down. We continue north until the terrain gets to thick and rough for us to go through so we turn around and follow the deer track we’ve been following back to the rode.
At this point Ibn thinks, great back home to the girls. He has become such a homebody. After some convincing I head him back to the direction we were going the other day, only this time we go beyond the gate. This part of the rode is not maintained. The land to the east is owned by an electrician in town, and our neighbor keeps an eye on it for him. In exchange he keeps his horses there. I can see the tracks he has made taking down rolls of hay. Again Ibn says no way am I going down there. I give in to him for the moment and we go up the ridge to the west. I’ve not been in this area in years. We climbed up to the power lines and then headed back. We saw numerous deer, and every time Ibn saw, smelled, or heard one, he stopped. The thing of it is every night the elk and the deer are in our arena or somewhere around the horses. We’ve actually caught them visiting with the horses. He knows they’re there. He knows what they are, and he knows it’s no biggie. I should have started taking him out a lot longer ago, and I would have if I had only had the time.
I loop around and we are headed down that really scary road again. This time, with some encouragement we make it down. As I said our neighbor keeps two of his horses there and once down the hill, he perks right up and starts prancing. He even neighs at them, several times. Ibn has always ignored other horses that weren’t part of his herd. Now because he hasn’t seen other horses in a long time, he has to announce his presence.
Time to go back. One last sight was our little falcon. Evidently he ventured too close to the ravens (they might have found a kill, maybe even his), and they were chasing him. We continues up the hill back towards home, down to the “Y”, and back to the house. It’s a steep climb and perfect for conditioning. Ibn was poopered until he came in sight of Marina at which point he puffed himself up to look good.
If the storm stays north of us tomorrow Marina and I will go out. That should be fun. At lest she enjoys going out on the trail.
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