Day 71

At the end of the day, I smelled like a wet dog, sweaty horse, and dirt.
Let me explain (all but the wet dog part...I don't know where that came from). Today is the first time Harry has been worked for two weeks since we didn't bring him to the show last weekend. I expected him to be kind of crazy.

I didn't expect him to run away.

I was in the arena trying to lunge him. He had on Brie's old jaquima, the first one that we ever had that Andre made for us. He was very excited and then I noticed a little too late that the pisador (leadline, if you will) doesn't make full contact to get his attention if I pull on it (kind of like a lasso). It doesn't tighten as far as it needs to. Also, that jaquima has a nylon pisador, not a rawhide one like Brie's or Nina's current jaquimas.
The result? Harry was getting a little out of control excited, I tried to pull him back in with the pisador, it totally didn't get his attention, he ran out on me which resulted in rope burn. I still clung to it until he ran around one of the poles in the middle of the arena where I was lunging him, knocked it over, freaked himself out even more, wanted to rear yet not trample the flowers, and headed for the door, knocking me over and pulling me behind him. I was not about to be dragged through the dirt and get even worse rope burn by that point so I let go, and yelled "HE'S LOOSE!!" (as if they couldn't already tell) to my family and the electrician as Harry ran out one of the doors.

I jumped up, wild-eyed, and barked for my brother, who was on Brie, to go after Harry one way as I ran out the other (as if I could catch him). No where in sight, I ran back down one of the aisles where my mom yelled that he was coming around the back, so I ran out again. Saw him, he saw me, and he kept running, nearly jumping over one of the landscapers on his riding mower. He ran back into the barn (after being barricaded by our Jeep and my brother) and headed for his stall when my mom caught him.
All through that, his reins, which were tied to his saddle, didn't even come loose. Thank God for Andre teaching me a knot that ACTUALLY WORKS! It's secure and can be easily pulled off! I can just see what would've happened in my mind: the double reins flying over his head as he nailed a corner, him freaking out at these ropes suddenly flying over his head, rearing, getting caught in the reins, breaking his legs....*shudder*. The pisador didn't even get caught around his legs, thank God.

After all of that, he was shaking. I brought him outside into the round pen and worked. I lunged him with the rein instead of the pisador, tying that and the bit rein to the saddle, lunging with just the barbada rein. He was pretty shaken up, what could you expect from a mini Derby? I got on him and tried to just keep him from taking off in the pen and eventually got him to walk for a good 10 minutes (which is like 2 hours in Harry-time) after about an hour. I figured with the mini-Derby combined with the intense barbada lunging and then actually training plus the fact that it was 90 degrees out just about did it for him and didn't venture into the arena today. I'll leave that for tomorrow, now that I know not to ever lunge with the pisador on that jaquima again.

As for Brie, I told her today that since she doesn't want to show, she's going to be good for something: trail riding. It's either one or the other. So I cantered her around the arena a couple times, let her catch her breath, then it was outside! OH MY GOD she might get murdered by the sunshine demons. Just saying. It's that scary for her. We swerved all the way to one tree line until she got too close to the barbed wire for my liking then took off for the next tree line. She galloped *ahem* to the fence line and practically into Gary's house for dinner. After she got that out of her system, I made her walk as calmly as possible back to the barn so she could break her habit of charging it. She did pretty well. So that's our new mission: acting civilized outside.

Worked with the bucket and Nina again today. It got caught between her legs again and she freaked a little less severely, which is progress. I also managed to do some Parelli with Harry. Here's to hoping I don't get dragged through the dirt again tomorrow.