Ellie May's a keeper!

Some of you may know my young horse Ellie. Ellie is the "princess" horse - doesn't she look just like Barbie's horse? She has issues. Geez does she have issues. First of all when she was 2 days old her momma stepped on her, breaking her left hind ankle. The vet had never dealt with a broken limb in a baby before so despite his best efforts the foot healed crooked. She walks just fine, just has a little extra "hitch" in her step, plus the foot grows kind of sideways tucked under and requires frequent corrective trimming. So I bought her for a very good price, thinking I would train and sell her as per usual. Then... she tries to freaking KILL you if you give her a shot. Trust me. Even sedated she will come after you with hooves and teeth. Next... she had HORRIBLE teeth. Equine dentist said he'd never seen a young horse with such bad teeth. Plus at the second visit he found out that she is MISSING a tooth. Since horse's teeth grow all their lives, that can spell disaster if not dealt with twice yearly. Have to basically grind her opposing tooth down as it will not wear properly and also throw her bite off, which can cause weight loss.. etc etc. etc. AND... she has some intestinal issues that make her have the "runs" all the time. I feed her yogurt and supplements to help combat it.. but usually means she has black icky poo stuck in her tail most of the time. She's also the most "horse-like" horse I've had.. meaning that she is very easily spooked and even a dirty look from me will send her running in panic. I really have to pay attention to my body language around her. So much different than the "dog-like" horses I've always had. So... this spring I was about ready to ship Little Miss Priss down the road just because I could deal with one or maybe even two of these issues.. but all of them? That's asking for punishment, in my opinion.

She matured rather slowly so I just started riding her this summer. I am discovering that somehow as I get older I am getting more out of my horses with less and less work. Or is is just that my expectations are higher? Anyway.. the TOTAL extent of her training has been:

May 08 Got on her back for the first time. Sat there for 10 min and got off.
sSummer 08 a little round pen work with a saddle on (not riding). Ponied one time around the block.
January 09 Took to indoor arena with 15 other horses doing obstacle work. Rode for 10 min (literally) went over tarps, past bucking horses, no issues. I was too nervous to continue but we stopped on a good note.
May 09 Got on her in the round pen, worked on going forward. She couldn't figure out why I was thumping her sides and kept biting my foot LOL.
Late June 09 Took to friend's house - went 1/2 mile down the paved road and 1/2 mile down a dirt road. No spook, she went out front and even nosed the scary garbage bins that "got" the other horse.
Early July 09 Rode 1/2 mile down the paved road (with another horse) and back home again. Saw some cars, barking dogs and 2 bicycles.

So overall in her entire career I think she had literally about an hour under my butt.

So a few weekends ago - I tell you it was the bomb! Went to Gabby's house and traveled to Fort Custer. which means we rode about 1/2 mile down the paved road. During that cars went by (mostly slow) and one came up from behind us with a very squeaky fan belt and I swear if Ellie had turned her nose she would have taken his mirror off. (Minor side rant - DUH... like the moron could have given us a little ROOM since there were no other cars and it was a quiet country road!) but anyway... no big deal. Heck I'm still working on getting her to go forward, let alone in a straight line! If someone had marked our tracks it would look like a drunken sailor..!

Anyway got into the Fort and went down paved roads, dirt 2 tracks and trails to get to the boat launch area. She had never seen water before but Gabby led her in for me, we went about up to the knees and it was not bad! We had another lady with us also on a young horse so this was excellent training.

Went out on the trails and I swear... this horse was born to trail ride! Got her into a gait and off we went. She led part of the time and followed most of the time. did not have to be up anyone's butt although she did kick one time at the gelding who got up hers. Got after her for that and no repeats.

Had to go over/through a bunch of streams - Had to be led through the first one after much urging we got through it. And at about the 4th one I actually got her to go through the water first with the others behind us!!! Although I was thumping repeatedly... I'm surprised I can walk today.

The highlight of my day was when we came to our first bridge. Maybe not the actual first one but it was the only one that had sides - just wide enough for 2 people to walk side by side. I asked everyone to wait because I just wanted to see if I could get her up to it to look it over. So with a lot of side thumping she want up to it and I'll be danged if she didn't decide to go over it! I was sweating and literally shaking in my boots... doing Lamaze breathing and all! I broke out in a literal sweat once we got across the bridge and said, "Geez, I need a cigarette!"

Then after THAT we went down probably the worst trails in the Fort (took a wrong turn) once you realized you were on the bad trail there was no turning back. I'm talking straight up, straight down the side of a mountain (but hairpin turns half way) and these had lots of cement blocks and rocks in them to keep from eroding but made it super slippery for horse feet. She did bang me pretty darn good into a tree (of course on my bad knee) but I am SO DANG PROUD of my Ellie... we rode for a total of about 3.5 hours that day!

She had so many opportunities to be a total flake or spook city... and I was ready for it, she would have been SO justified and there was NO way I expected her to be 10% as good as she was... I was just stunned.

We also ran into a LOT of mountain bikes but nearly all of them were super polite. Ellie had no issues with them running up on us, going by us or us going by them! Never even gave them a sideways look. at one point we rounded a curve and there was a huge German Shepherd dog on the trail. Owner called it back and we proceeded to pass. Stupid owner had another dog on a leash (the GSD was very well behaved) but leashed dog was jumping all over and stuff, we figured no biggie and went on. Dumbass dog owner let dog get so close to our horses and it turned from excited to super aggressive and at one point we thought it might have bitten Apache, but it didn't. Anyway the point is that Ellie never even gave dog the stink-eye. Saw it, walked on past like it wasn't even there. It almost bit the horse behind us and she didn't care. (side note... yes had I had the Zygster I probably would have stomped on both the dog and the owner just to get my point across.... but we used it as a training exercise and just kept on going).

I guess Ellie earned her new saddle - but wait, there's MORE!

A few weeks later we went camping in a place over by Chelsea, called Waterloo. Actually there is a horseman's campground there and trails leading to the equestrian sites. The campground was awesome... even though it was in the middle of a field, there were some trees, each site had water and electric hookup and for a small fee we could even get portable stalls for our horses. Ellie acted like she'd been camping a hundred times.

And if I thought the trails at Fort Custer were challenging, I had seen NOTHING yet! We got lost several times as this was our first venture to Waterloo (although it is quickly becoming one of our favorite places). We went up mountains of rock, down steep slippery slopes, through bogs, up, up, up and then down, down down again. Since we got lost we were out about five hours the first ride. Had I known that the trails were that challenging I would not have brought Ellie, these were nothing a very green horse with a bum foot should EVER have to experience (or so I thought!).

My good girl took everything in stride. We stopped and rested a couple times, even swapped saddle pads at one time. Ell just stood quietly while I dismounted and unsaddled. She stood quietly when I left her standing alone to swap pads with Abby. She stood quietly while I grunted and heaved my fat butt back into the saddle. Away we went. I simply cannot believe what a good girl she is. And most important, she's honest. The difference between an honest horse and dishonest one (to me) is.. an honest horse will try to do what you want simply to please you and may even try to save your life rather than run away. A dishonest one will try to get out of doing what you want if it takes less work, is scary or he just plain doesn't want to do it. Zyg ain't honest. He ain't gonna go out of his way to save my ass. But I know that and he knows that I know.... we just deal with it.

At one point we saw some large rocks on the trail. (Now for some reason rocks and objects of this nature are super-magnified in a horses' vision so they must be super-scary. Serious... try walking your horse past a milk crate and then walk him past a rock the same size as the crate. Totally different reaction!) I thumped and thumped her sides with my feet and since we were in the lead on the trail I was determined that we would walk by them. Friend Beth got worried because she said Ellie was scared and that I should not force her. But just as she got that out of her mouth Ellie gave in and walked over by the rocks, head up and alert but on a loose rein. She did give them "the eye" but was not spooky and most of all did not try to shy or run out (sideways). For those of you who don't do much with horses, this is pretty much amazing in such an untrained animal.

I just love my Ellie!