AhD and I took a walk down the road over the weekend. I know he looks grouchy, but he wasn't.
He was a really, really good boy. I tweaked the harness in a few places and ended up really happy with the fit. My easy entry cart needs to be taller, though, because the shafts are not parallel to the ground. I am looking into getting bigger tires, which will solve the problem.
He was great about traffic passing him and doing gees and haws on the road. |
| Practicing our figure 8's around the cones, first leading. Please note the RAC t-shirt! (and helmet) |
Conveniently, there are cones set up in the church parking lot. We practiced our figure eights here with lots of turns. The other end of the figure eight is a fairly sharp turn because it is close to a building - PERFECT set up for training. I talked to him a lot, and he listened. We practiced both ways of the figure 8, first me leading, then me ground driving, and then....ta da!!!! ME DRIVING!!! YEP THAT'S RIGHT, BABY, WE DID IT! On one of the first corners when I was in the cart and he had to turn around the cone in a slight uphill away from home, he got frustrated, so I soothed him with my voice, exited the cart and patted his neck. Then, I led him around the corner, ground drove him a bit again, and stepped back into the cart. Voila ~ frustration relieved. We then practiced on an uneven very short dirt, quite washed out road, stopped and the tar politely, and then proceeded up the road to my house about a half mile. SO PSYCHED!
My neighbor Larry was welding in his driveway, and I could tell Ah-D did not like it one bit (ironic...as I work at a fabrication shop!) so I exited the cart and led him the rest of the way home, telling him what a very, very good boy he was.
That's fantastic you're teaching him to cart! You're getting ready for old age; right? No, seriously, you're broadening your horizons and there's nothing wrong with that!
ReplyDeleteYep, a nice well-rounded horse. :) And fun, to boot!
DeleteYeah !!!! congrats on your first drive !!! I know you have driving experience in your past, it will pay off now. yeah, yeah, drive and be safe ;-0
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. I am so thrilled to be back into driving again. It gives me another way to bond with AhD and have a blast! Some day I hope to drive him on the Rockefeller Carriage Roads in Acadia, maybe as soon as next year.
DeleteWouw! i am very jalous!!!
ReplyDeletecongratulations of your ride, i still want to learn how to ride with bucky.....i think we start training about that next year!
have a nice ride!!!
I think it would be great to have Bucky be your driving pony. It would give him something to do and you would have a ton of fun!
DeleteThat might be just the thing to give Bucky something new to think about!
ReplyDeleteWoohoo!!! Love seeing AhD hitched!! So awesome that you were able to get in and drive too. Sounds like he's doing awesome with all the turns and figure 8's. You know you're going to have to pick up where Nimue left off - I miss her stories!! : )
Susan, I would say I was proud of you 2 but it is a little short on how great you two are together, what a fantastic job you have done,,, also I really liked the previous pictures with your friends,,, again fantastic job...
ReplyDelete