What Can You Do At A Walk?

Being trapped at the walk sounds boring doesnt it? It is. Honestly. Usually. We have a few horses at work right now who are currently experiencing this unique brand of boredom. I feel bad for them, but do to injury/layups, they arent allowed to go play and kick up their heels as I am sure they would like to.

My current favorite is Sassy. She is on layup from a bowed tendon with an 11% tear... which doesnt mean a whole lot to me, but I know it isnt good, she may never race. Anyways! She is on stall rest.. and has been for the last.... long while. She gets bored, and has to be walked twice daily on conrete. That was all well and good when we had no snow, you could take her out around the property and go places and she was pretty happy. With our recent DUMP of snow that plan isnt viable, because having the extra cushion is exactly what she DOESNT need. The less stress on the tendon, the better - obviously !

As such, we are relagated to wandering up and down the barn aisle, luckily it is pretty long and if you do it right you can make a loop. Still, this was boring and Sassy was getting pushier and pushier and more and more rude. I have a big pet peeve about leading around pushing bullies, especially in a confined aislway, knowing we have to continue this for weeks, so I finally savvy'ed up and had a BFO. Did anyone say I couldnt play with her at a walk? NOPE!

And so we began!! We cant do much obviously, so I just make little games... can you walk this slow, can you walk this fast, can you STOP [OH BOY this one was hard for her to get!] can you BACK up [ EVEN HARDER! TB's dont have reverse....] and suddenly I had a curious inquisite, THINKING horsey on my hands. Most of all, a respectful one! I could take the chain away - without fear of death - and we could actually play. It was really fun teaching her to back up, I used my yo-yo game a little, and then because I was beside her and P4 yo-yo is the equivialnt to shanking [basically] in the normal world, which Sassy is immune to, I instead took the end of the lead and helicoptered it in front of zone one, backing it up slowly until she ran into it. She learned pretty quick to back up when P1 came around!

So now walking with Sassy is fun. We check things out, we sneak around slowly [she does a good impression of tip toeing] or we speed walk, do transitions, little baby stick to me things. For me, my big thing is I feel SAFE. Not like flying a crazy psycho kite anymore. It is one thing to handle that to and from a paddock, but to walk for 15 minutes twice a day in a confinced space, no thanks! Funny how little it took to change that... ONE WALK!  I got to start the same thing with B-sharp today. Good times!

Sometimes the answer is just so obvious, I just need to open my eyes and SEE it. Doi.

:-)
S