Lily has what my trainer and I suspect is a slight stone bruise so I didn’t ride her today. In a day or so it should either clear up on its own or get bad enough that we can tell which foot it is in.
So I rode little Cody today. Cody isn’t really that little, just an inch or so shorter than Lily, but I have been in the habit of thinking poor little Cody, and it sort of stuck.
Unlike most of the horses at my trainer’s boarding barn, Cody came in fairly recently: late last summer. His owner had not been pleased with his former boarding situation, and he was about a hundred pounds underweight. He seemed a pleasant enough gelding: very much the Quarter Horse type, and the same bright sorrel as Lily. He doesn’t have papers, and was supposedly about 13 or 14. (For geldings, I think the main benefit of papers is you know how old they are.)
The day after Cody moved to the barn, his owner was in an automobile accident which left her with serious neurological problems. Not long after that Cody suffered colic caused by a torsion, which fortunately untwisted before he had to be put down.
Without his owner coming out and see him, Cody has had a very boring life. He is in his own paddock, and although he can visit over the fence with his neighbors, he doesn’t really have the sort of social life a horse needs to stay healthy. Although it is a good size paddock, he doesn’t move around on his own like some horses will. He was becoming more and more stiff until the farrier could barely get him to hold up his legs while she worked on him. He had regained the proper amount of weight, but it was fat, not muscle. I would watch him stand in the same spot every day and wonder if horses could be clinically depressed.
My trainer talked to the owner and asked if we should try to start exercising him. We knew his owner mainly trail-rode him and used a western saddle, but that was about all we knew about his training.
Since then, my trainer has been longing him and free longing him. I’ve helped free longe him several times myself in the arena. This horse takes several people to do so, because he is an energy convervationist who just wants to stand and gaze longingly back at his paddock. When he moves, he is actually rather cute: not too heavy on the forehand like some Quarter Horse types and fairly athletic as well for a horse that hasn’t been moving for six months.
I suggested to my trainer that she try Lily’s bridle when longing him because they are close in size and both have the tiny little Quarter Horse mouth. She had been attempting to longe him in a halter and he tended to want to take off at a gallop in a straight line which made it hard to hold on to him. I can longe Lily in a halter, but by the time I could longe Hap in anything but a bridle he didn’t need to be longed anymore.
Cody was being very civil on the longe line so I asked my trainer if she wanted me to bring my saddle out. Ever since my trainer had a spinal cord injury several years ago, I volunteer for the “hop on and see what the new horse knows” first rides. He took a fair amount of grooming to get the saddle area clean and seemed to enjoy the process immensely.
I used Lily’s western saddle and found that the girth was too short to use the buckle that works on Lily. I had to fasten the girth with the traditional knot, which I can only do because it is the same as one of the standard macrame knots. Cody is a little wider than Lily, and even deeper through the heartline.
We did our stardard protocol. Walk the horse around so he gets use to the feel of the saddle and how it is girthed. Lead the horse to the mounting block and move the mounting block around and thump on it for a few times. Lay across the saddle and see if he accepts the weight. Step up in the stirrup and then step down. Step up and stand in the stirrup. Cody seemed to find all of these things perfectly normal and reasonable so I finally mounted. There is always that first five seconds when I wait to see if the horse is going to get a bump in his back. No bump, good Cody.
My trainer led him for a few steps and then I started walking him around her in a circle. Big scary truck goes by: not even a flinch. His walk is a little slow, but with a little encouragement he picks it up a bit. I am pleased because he moves away from the leg applying pressure. He seems to have had some training, probably some form of Western Pleasure. I squeeze both legs and he moves into a little jog. I am even more pleased when I apply a little pressure and he moves into something closer to a working trot instead of a lope. His jog is very comfortable and it feels as though his trot will be comfortable also. He goes in a lower frame than I prefer to but is not heavy in my hand.
Finally we ended up doing a little leg yield at the walk, and my trainer tells me that he is crossing correctly front and back. Someone spent some time training this horse at some point in his life.
The coolest thing about Cody was his happy, self-confident attitude. Even when he didn’t understand exactly what I was asking, it didn’t seem to worry him.