Horses will be...

The rain finally stopped and it cooled off as well. Everyone is happy for the break.

I spent some time yesterday morning being a side walker for a couple of lessons at the barn. It was a good lesson in the sometimes odd behaviors of horses. The horses were all a little more alert, probably because of the sudden change in temperature from very hot to fairly cool and damp and having been kept inside most of the day during the last rounds of rain. But no one had any problems until the second lesson near the end.

The second rider I walked with was a young boy on one of the Welsh ponies. He needed to be taken to the bathroom just before the last planned exercise, so his father lifted him off the saddle and left carrying him. When he returned, still carrying his son, the pony caught one look at him from the corner of her eye and decided that this was scary. She hunkered her hind end down in readiness to run. We tried walking her around to calm her down for a second attempt, but the little mare had quite made up her mind. The boy and his father were scarey, and no one was going to ride her with that weighing on her nerves.

There was no sure way to tell what had her so concerned. The father was a big guy, so the visual impact of him carrying his son may have been too much for the little mare. He was a fair distance off but still came up from behind her. It's not the direction from which horses like to be approached.

The session ended with the pony standing in front of the trainer and the father and son, seated, sniffing the boy and being petted. There isn't a bite in her, so that was quite safe. She was acting more like a big dog than a horse, and it seemed everyone enjoyed it. But her spooky response was quite an education for the father on the sometimes erratic behavior of horses.