What normal horses spook at

Things with the hubby’s potential new horse, Justin, are going well. We did another jousting practice the other day, with more armor and with Saga passing by him on the other side of the lane.  Here’s how that went:

Saga: OMFG! ARMOR! ARMOR NOISES BAD!!!!

Justin: Ooooh, look! Grass! Nomnomnom…

Me: Saga, don’t be an eediot. You’ve jousted before. Besides, *I’m* not wearing armor, the armor is on Dad, who is riding the other horse. Justin, STOP EATING. You’re fat enough already!

We ride around for a while, and Saga pretends to be a crazy racehorse, tossing his head like he’s two. Hubby has to kick Justin twice to get him to trot. I wish Saga was a little less crazy, and pick up a quintain lance that’s resting against a tree.

Saga: OMFG! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM!!! *Levitates 4 feet upward and sideways while trying to get a look at the lance that’s waving around.* 

Me, to myself: Gee, I always wondered what it was like to ride a capriole. Maybe it’s something like that? Out loud: Saga, you moron. It’s a LANCE. Remember those? 

Saga, snorting and skittering sideways: Nope, never seen one of those before! OMFG IT’S FOLLOWING MEEEEEE!!!

Justin, to hubby: Really, we have to keep trotting? Sigh.

We ride around a little more, and I start to take Saga down the lane at a walk. Or at least, *I* think we’re walking. He takes the opportunity to fling his head up and start to bolt down the lane. I stop him and convince him that walking is the way to go. He spooks sideways as Justin trots past us, hubby and armor aboard.

Me: Sigh. Really?

Saga: ARMOR IS THE DEVIL’S SPAWN AND IT EATS HORSES.

Saga and I manage to hold it together long enough to trot past Justin a couple of times, and hit the hubby’s shield with the quintain lance. Justin could care less. Saga thinks he’s going to die.

He’s right actually. It’s possible that I might kill him.

We decide to call it a day when I’ve gotten Saga to go past Justin a couple of times at the trot without shying too much. Justin was pretty sure it was time to call it a day before we started. 

We decide to go on a short trail ride to cool off, but hubby wants to take off some of his armor first. He removes his gauntlet but doesn’t have anyone on the ground to take it – normally that’s my job – so he tosses it down, waiting for Justin to spook. Justin calmly gazes at where it landed, while Saga rolls his eyes and snorts a bit. Next, Hubby removes his shield and tosses it down. Justin contemplates chewing on Saga’s bridle (he’s VERY mouthy) as the shield hits the ground. Saga contemplates running away from home to somewhere that doesn’t have any armor and he can do easy things, like jump four-foot fences.

Hubby and I walk from the jousting lane over to the front gate to head out on the trails. Saga heaves a huge sigh of relief, while Justin takes one look at the front gate and has a huge meltdown.

Justin: OMFG IT’S A GATE! A HORSE-EATING GATE! WITH PIPE AND EVERYTHING! STOP DEAD AND SNORT!

Saga: Mom? Do you see this horse? He’s crazy spooky…

 

Justin vs armor and horse-eating manhole covers

Finally got the pics and videos from Justin's rides this weekend.

First up, a delightful video of how truly terrified he is of armor.



And in case you were wondering, yes, manhole covers do eat horses.

 Radar ears spot dangerous manhole cover, twelve o'clock.

 Evasive action! EVASIVE ACTION!!!

 Whew! Manhole cover safely avoided. That was close!

Several manhole covers later (where hubby learned not to stare at the manhole cover, and to nudge Justin forward at the slightest hesitation), we have a slightly different outcome.

 Manhole cover, you say? Over there?

 Oh hm, I could dodge...

Nah, never mind, that would take to much energy. I'll just (STOMP!) walk on over it, I guess. 

Goofy, but trainable. He's growing on us... :)

I need another horse like I need a hole in my head

But my husband... now HE needs another horse.

After the big jousting tournament, Lysts on the Lake, we had a pretty serious sit-down discussion about horses. Saga is really not the greatest jousting horse - he's still nervous about the armor and the hits, and he's VERY fast (too fast) down the lane. But I didn't buy him as a jousting horse, so... we're pretty happy that he managed to joust at all.

In addition, I haven't really ridden Saga since January, because every spare moment hubby was either taking lessons on him, or working on jousting. I'm fine with riding Reddums and all, but he's pretty limited in terms of jumping (about 2'3) and dressage (that gaited thing again), which is really what I like to do. Plus, at the end of the day, Red is HUBBY's horse, and he and I just don't click like he and hubby do. Besides, I want to ride MY horse. That's why I have him after all!

So we started looking around, not very seriously. We wanted a draft cross or QH or Iberian cross, gelding, between 15.2 and 17hh (16 - 16.2 being the ideal), between 6 and 10 years old. I figured it would take us AGES to find one that fit those criteria, and then of course it would have to have the right mindset, reasonable training, and "click" with the hubby.

Naturally, the first horse we looked at seems like he might actually work out.

 Meet Justin (name to be changed if he stays with us). He's a 10 year-old Standardbred/Percheron cross, 16.1 1/2 hh. Yes, his butt really is that big.

 We have him on trial for 2 weeks to see if he'll work out. Justin is solid bay, except for about 15 white hairs on his forehead. Color-wise, we have a matched pair. ;)

 Yesterday after we brought him home, we went on a nice trail ride.

 The wildflowers were GORGEOUS! We rode past a huge field of Mexican Hats blooming, and had to stop and take a pic (neighbor on his new horse is on the left, hubby and Justin in the middle, and Fuzzypony on Taran on the right). 

When we got back from the ride, hubby decided to see how Justin would do with having a sword waved around his head... no problem. He smacked some trees, the quintain... no problem. Then he picked up a quintain lance and waved that around... no problem. Finally, he made a run at the quintain at a walk... then a trot... and then...

My favorite parts? When Justin starts to pick up the right lead and then fixes it, and the fact that hubby can ride down the lane at a nice canter on a loose rein. Yeah. I think this could work.

Bad confo shot. He's uphill and really short-coupled, and Andrea tells me he's got a nice shoulder. He's got rock-solid bare feet. His neck is rather short though, but so is Red's. It's not a deal-breaker.

Justin apparently has a lot of dressage experience, and got a 70% at a first level schooling show. The buttons are definitely there, but he takes a bit of effort to get him going, and he's not super-sensitive by any stretch of the imagination. His jumping experience is very limited. And the big booger is that he tends to look at random things. He doesn't spook, just stops and refuses to move forward. So far he's looked at a bench and a picnic table, but he really gave several manhole covers the hairy eyeball. So tonight we took him for a walk down the street, which has about 20 manhole covers on it. By the end, he was happily stomping on them with no problem. He also stopped dead when trotting toward some logs, but hubby smacked him on the butt a few times with a crop and he moved on. Hubby is doing a really good job with a "haha, very funny, now GET OVER IT" attitude, and it seems to be working. I suspect he just hasn't seen much outside of the dressage arena, and he's getting acquainted with the big wide world. So long as the random things to look at get fewer and further between, and he pays attention to his rider's demands to move past it, it seems like he might be OK.

Having said that about looking at random things, hubby put on some of his armor today and Justin didn't even bat an eyelash. He tacked up in his jousting saddle (which mostly fits), got on, and went around bashing trees for a while at the walk and trot. He then picked up a quintain lance and repeated yesterday's WTC exercise. He finished on a perfect canter run with a solid hit, and no spooking whatsoever. It took us MONTHS to get Saga to this point with the armor, and Justin's doing everything on the second ride. Very promising!

We have him for two weeks though, so we have a little while to decide if he's really a keeper.  So far it's looking good, but we're trying not to get our hopes up too much. We're planning to go to a jousting practice, as well as cross-country schooling and a couple of jumping lessons. We'll see how it goes!

Now, where the heck are we going to put another horse?!?!