Onyx, the Mountain, and the Trailer

Last Sunday (10/18), I planned to take Onyx to the Mountain for his first pony ride. The morning of, I hooked up the trailer and spent about an hour working with him on loading. Eventually, he hopped on with no rearing, no balking, no nothing. Great, we were ready to go. I thought.

That afternoon, he loaded again in less time. We were making progress, and so I latched the trailer and off we went for our adventure. We tacked up and I admit I had butterflies in my stomach--it's been a while since I've done something for the first time with my horses! While PJ finished with his horse, we made a few small circles around and I had to chuckle at Jasper's attitude--his little brother was already getting on his nerves!

We set out and I discovered keeping a fresh horse and youngster in check was a lot of work, and soon found the tangle of lead rope and reins to be a logistical nightmare. PJ borrowed Onyx and showed me how to pony more correctly, and Onyx made a quick study. We were soon off down the trail, and Onyx spent the first hundred yards or so looking and balking at bushes, trees, rocks and stumps. It seemed he learned quickly that the "big boys" weren't concerned with such things and put on a brave face to be one of the crowd. We exposed him to all kinds of new things--downed logs, turkeys, bushwhacking, and mud. He did wonderfully, and Jasper surprised me by minding his P's and Q's most of the time, and only kicked out at Onyx once. He did, however, have a nasty snarling face the entire time just to make sure I knew how good he REALLY was.

When we got back, I was a little anxious about loading him in the trailer since he didn't really have it completely down yet. Of course, he refused to get in the trailer. I won't get into the nitty gritty, but 2.5 hours later PJ and I gave up and called it a night. We put a corral around PJ's trailer and dumped Onyx's food in there for the night and I went home with only Jasper.

The next day, Onyx hadn't gone in the trailer at all during the night and refused to go in all day. PJ called a buddy of his that has a lot of experience with green horses and trailers, and his friend said to lunge Onyx away from the trailer and let him rest near the trailer. I've tried this theory before with horses, but unfortunately, they were typically very well conditioned endurance horses and so I don't think I stuck with it long enough for it to be successful. Either way, PJ said after about an hour, he could get Onyx to load every which way. He refreshed him the next day and then let me know he was ready to be picked up. I was very impressed with his skills, and it took a huge load off my mind to know this first big hurdle was relatively easily met and passed. PJ said he had really enjoyed working with Onyx and kept commenting on how reasonable and nice he was about everything. Thank Goodness!

In other news, this recent Sunday (10/25) was Jasper and my one year anniversary of being together! When I think back over this past year, I'm amazed at what the two of us have accomplished. A year ago--heck, six months ago--I would have never imagined Jasper being able to pony another horse through Moscow Mountain terrain. He and I have really developed as a team this past 12 months, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what we accomplish together over the next year. I'm constantly grateful he came into my life.