Good Ride

Wayne and Cricket have been working together daily, and he's discovered that by battling Cricket to stand still for mounting seems to have the effect of establishing the hierarchy on the ground and he's a better-behaved horse under saddle.  Yesterday, we wanted to go riding with our good friends, Paul and Laurie, at Eagle Island SP.  Wayne went out early to get in a good session of W/T/C with Cricket in the arena before leaving, and it did seem to take the edge off.  Cricket's always better-behaved when riding in larger groups, although Wayne is really more of a passenger in those situations.  Ah, well.  

Considering all horses involved yesterday thought it was the first ride of spring and behaved as such, we had a pretty good ride.  Jasper got fed up with the slower pace of the leading horses early-on and we took the lead, which of course meant he spooked at everything he could find.  He only had one really big spook at a irrigation spout that was tumbling out water and appeared out of nowhere, and I thought that was a fairly legitimate spook considering he's never seen anything like it.  Riding him in front makes me happy I've got a good seat.  I foresee a few complications, however, when I start to get fatigued during a ride.  I came off on the first day of Pink Flamingo because Strike and I were leading and he spooked big at a white rock around the bend on the trail.  I only came off because I was really, really tired (he'd been doing smaller spooks all day 'cause he was bored).  We'll need to work on that.  Keeping his head down helps significantly, though, as he's not allowed to look very long at anything.  I also think it makes him focus a bit more on his job rather than all the lurking cougars and bears in the grass.

The ride was really good because we encountered all sorts of scary things, including another horse on trail.  Jasper got about as vertical as he could when he spotted the other horse.  We also accidentally chased a cow and calf down the trail for a bit and separated them, but got to watch as the clumsy calf waded thrashing through a creek and slithered through a barb wire fence to join Mum again.  Jasper wasn't too sure about Momma Cow trotting along the fence with us, but handled it very well.  There were lots of people out with their dogs, which is always a good thing, along with a couple playing frisbee golf.  We got in lots of trotting, although I did forget my GPS and so have no idea how far we actually went.  

We leave tomorrow to return to Pullman.  I have mixed feelings about it all.  On one hand, I'm excited that this is the last semester of classes I'll ever have, but on the other, I'd much rather stay here in Boise in my house with my husband and just ride all the time.  I am happy that I'll be back for six weeks in May-June for the Fandango ride, and I think it will provide a nice transition into fourth year.